MONDAY MORNING PREACHER’S PACKAGE
Monday Morning, May 25, 2009
Sermon Outlines by Eddie Lawrence
SermonSeedbed.com
Contents:
~Five Sermon Outlines
1. How to Have A Clean Heart (Plus 4 more optional titles)
2. Believe and Be Blessed (Plus 4 more optional titles)
3. If You Were Granted One Wish… (Plus 4 more optional titles)
4. Getting Ready for Revival (Plus 4 more optional titles)
5. Spiritual Warfare 101 (Plus 4 more optional titles)
~Two Captivating Introductions
~Two Compelling Illustrations
~Three Tidbits of Advice for Pastors
~Surprise of the Week (10 Great Quotes About God)
~Money Saver Recommendation
~25 Bonus Titles with Bible References
~PDF ebook – Freeze Frame Living
Sermon Outline One
HOW TO HAVE A CLEAN HEART
Optional Titles
Confess and Be Blessed!
Help me! I’m Dirty!
The Power to Cleanse A Dirty Heart
What Jesus Does with An Unclean Heart
Text-- 1 John 1:3-10
Introduction
· Dad coming home from the coal mines
· A Lady who confessed her sin said Sin makes me feel dirty. I take several baths a day to try to feel clean on the inside.”
· A man who was about to go to prison was in turmoil in his soul, he finally confessed what he had done to a minister, he said, “I just have to confess this to someone.
We are wired internally so that we cannot rest if our conscience is stained by sin. Confession is a wonderful privilege when you understand what happens when we truly confess our sin and turn in repentance from it.
John writes and shares the evidence of a clear conscience
1 John 1:3 Fellowship with the Father
4 Fullness of Joy
5 Not walking in darkness
I want to have a clear conscience and a clean heart, don’t you? It is important to have a clean heart. I want to share with you from the Word of God three observations about having a clean heart which will help us to understand the joy of having a clean heart.
I. THE BLOOD OF THE SAVIOR
The reason that we can have a clean heart is because of the blood of Jesus Christ.
Notice verse 7.
Matthew 26:28
Acts 20:28
Col. 1:14
Rev. 12:11
Satan cannot stand the blood, but the saint treasures the blood.
Some have voted to exclude the mention of the blood from their hymnals, but I still like to sing:
There is power, power, wonder working power......
What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus....
There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel’s veins.....
You will never experience a clean heart apart from the blood of the Savior.
II. THE BARRIER OF SIN
Notice verses 8,10
There are three truths about sin that all of us need to know:
A. The Depravity of Sin--”If we say we have no sin...” vs Rom. 3:23
Illus—Michael Phelps and you race across the pacific.....don’t categorize sin!
He may swim farther and faster than you, but both of you will still drown because the distance is too great.
B. The Deception of Sin--”We decieve ourselves”
Illus--Eskimoes way of killing wolves with frozen blades. They would coat a knife blade with blood and stick it upside down in the frozen snow. The wolves will begin to lick the blood. The sharp blade slices their tongues. They end up dying drinking their own blood and don’t even realize it. This is what sin does. It deceives us until we are destroyed by our own actions.
C. The Destruction of Sin--It will eventually get your body, but it doesn’t have to get your
soul.
Illus--Story of the Scorpion and the Turtle in Aesops fable. The Turtle gives the Scorpion a ride across a creek. Half away across the Scorpion stings the Turtle in the back of the neck. The Turtle says, Why did you do that knowing we would both drown. The Scorpion says, It’s my nature. It is the nature of sin to destroy!!
III. THE BLESSING OF SURRENDER
Notice v 9.
Our part--Confess
Give up the struggle.!
Get honest with God
God’s Part--Forgive and Cleanse
These are two powerful words.
God wants us to see sin as He sees sin.
Illus--The rattlesnake in the crib. If you saw a rattlesnake in your baby’s crib and realize it had bitten your child, what would you want to do to that snake? Kill it right? When God sees sin in our life, He sees the thing that killed his Son.
Options--Continue in guilt feeling dirty and shameful or enter into the blessing of joy of having a clean heart.
Sermon Outline Two
BELIEVE AND BE BLESSED
Optional Titles
How to Deal With Famine in Your Life
Faith that Finds A Way
A Little Lady with A Big God
What Happens When A Faith and Famine Collide
1 Kings 17:1 And Elijah the Tishbite, of the inhabitants of Gilead, said to Ahab, "[As] the Lord God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, except at my word." 2 Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, 3 "Get away from here and turn eastward, and hide by the Brook Cherith, which flows into the Jordan. 4 "And it will be [that] you shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there." 5 So he went and did according to the word of the Lord, for he went and stayed by the Brook Cherith, which flows into the Jordan. 6 The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening; and he drank from the brook. 7 And it happened after a while that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land. 8 Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, 9 "Arise, go to Zarephath , which [belongs] to Sidon, and dwell there. See, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you." 10 So he arose and went to Zarephath . And when he came to the gate of the city, indeed a widow [was] there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, "Please bring me a little water in a cup, that I may drink." 11 And as she was going to get [it], he called to her and said, "Please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand." 12 So she said, "As the Lord your God lives, I do not have bread, only a handful of flour in a bin, and a little oil in a jar; and see, I [am] gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die." 13 And Elijah said to her, "Do not fear; go [and] do as you have said, but make me a small cake from it first, and bring [it] to me; and afterward make [some] for yourself and your son. 14 "For thus says the Lord God of Israel: `The bin of flour shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run dry, until the day the Lord sends rain on the earth.' " 15 So she went away and did according to the word of Elijah; and she and he and her household ate for [many] days. 16 The bin of flour was not used up, nor did the jar of oil run dry, according to the word of the Lord which He spoke by Elijah.
17 Now it happened after these things [that] the son of the woman who owned the house became sick. And his sickness was so serious that there was no breath left in him. 18 So she said to Elijah, "What have I to do with you, O man of God? Have you come to me to bring my sin to remembrance, and to kill my son?" 19 And he said to her, "Give me your son." So he took him out of her arms and carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his own bed. 20 Then he cried out to the Lord and said, "O Lord my God, have You also brought tragedy on the widow with whom I lodge, by killing her son?" 21 And he stretched himself out on the child three times, and cried out to the Lord and said, "O Lord my God, I pray, let this child's soul come back to him." 22 Then the Lord heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came back to him, and he revived. 23 And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper room into the house, and gave him to his mother. And Elijah said, "See, your son lives!" 24 Then the woman said to Elijah, "Now by this I know that you [are] a man of God, [and] that the word of the Lord in your mouth [is] the truth."
In this passage of Scripture we see that God will meet you in the trenches of life and touch you where you hurt the most.
In this passage we see that she was blessed by believing. When someone will believe God to do great things, He will use that to draw lost people to Himself.
Illus-- In Franklin Graham’s autobiography he tells of his struggles as the son of world renown evangelist, Billy Graham. I was intrigued at how God opened up his heart to receive Christ into his life. One of the incidences that made an impact on him occurred when he was 19. He had taken a semester out of college in the fall of 1971 to do some mission work in Mathrov, Jordan. He enjoyed the adventure of being in a foreign country, but he really had no interest in the Lord’s work. He said that he would spend the evenings on the roof of one the buildings in the desert, smoking his ceigarettes, drinking from a bottle of scotch, and listening to his brand of music on the voice of America radio. Every Friday the missionaries and workers would gather together to pray for the needs of the mission. He was amazed at how specifically that they would pray. Aileen and Eleanor were two of the missionaries that worked in the mission hospital. One Friday they prayed telling the Lord that in order to keep operating they needed exactly $1355.00. As they prayed they also reminded the Lord that it was His work and His name that was on the line. It was also their particular practice never to tell people of the outside world about their needs. They simply prayed and trusted God to do the rest. Franklin was amazed the next week when Aileen and Eleanor received a letter from a person stating that they felt led to support the work of the hospital in Mathrov in the great work they were doing. Enclosed was a check written out in the amount of $1355.00. God had provided. Franklin stated that he witnessed God time and time again answer the specific prayers of the missionaries.
SHE WAS:
I. SURROUNDED BY PRESSING CIRCUMSTANCES
The whole region was in a famine. People were on the verge of starvation.
Why? Ahab had:
A. Rejected the Man of God
B. Rejected the Word of God
C. Rejected the Power of God
Illus--A nation whose leadership rejects God’s men, God’s Word, God’s power will suffer judgement for it. In America what does it mean when same sex marriages are considered being legalized, marijuana is considered being legalized, killing unborn babies is legal, pedaling pornography is legal and a debate is raging about being able to assist people to commit suicide. I believe it means that somewhere along the way we have rejected the men of God, the Word of God, and the Power of God. We are seeing the fulfillment of the O.T. prophesy that there would come a time when men will call evil good and good evil.
II. IN THE MIDST OF A PERSONAL CRISIS
Some people can be in an area that is going through tough times and remain unaffected by it. This widow was feeling the pinch.
This woman was scraping the bottom of the barrel. Have you ever been there?
This woman was staring death in the face.
III. FACED WITH A PROPHETIC CHALLENGE
She was challenged to receive the man of God, the Word of God, and the Power of God. God is always looking for people to believe Him.
A. It Was A Costly Challenge
A widow such as this was primarily dependent on charity, and yet this is who God chooses to take care of His prophet. It has been said that
“God tries our faith that we might try His faithfulness.” (quote)
An old preacher once offered this prayer in a meeting: “Lord, help us to trust Thee with our souls.” Many voices responded with a hearty, old fashioned “Amen!” “Lord, help us to trust Thee with our bodies,” he continued. Again the repsonse was a vociferous “Amen!” Then with still more warmth he said, “And Lord, help us to trust Thee with our money.” Not an “Amen” was heard in the house, except that of an impoverished little old lady.
She was called upon to put God before her own needs and the needs of her own family.
“About two of our little ones we have no anxiety. They rest in Jesus’ bosom. And now, dear brother, though the tears will not be stayed, I do thank God for permitting one so unworthy to take part in this great work, and do not regret having engaged in it. It is His work, not mine or yours; and yet it is ours--not because we are engaged in it, but because we are His, and one with Him whose work it is.” J. Hudson Taylor
Illus-There is a story of two men, one o fwhom asked the other for a contribution for his church. The reply was that the church was always wanting money. The other friend said, “When my lad was a boy he was costly; he always wanted boots, shoes, socks, and clothes, and wore them out fast, and the older and stronger he grew the more money had to spent on him. My son died and now does not cost me anyhting.”
A faith that does not move in action is a dead faith.
B. It Was A Courageous Challenge
This was a non-Jewish widow who honored a prophet (Note the Luke 4 reference). Luke 4: 24 Then He said, "Assuredly, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own country. 25 "But I tell you truly, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a great famine throughout all the land; 26 "but to none of them was Elijah sent except to Zarephath , [in] [the] [region] of Sidon, to a woman [who] [was] a widow.