Michigan Camp Meeting 2024: As For Me and My House

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Preach the Word

Cody Francis

01 Giving the Message

02 Preparing the Message

03 Preparing the Message

04 Building the Message

05 Delivering the Message

You are about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2024 Michigan Conference Camp Meeting held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

We pray that the Lord will bless you as you listen.

Father in heaven, we're grateful for the privilege to be able to come and grow together.

We pray that you, we thank you for the talents you have given to us and we pray that you will help us to grow in our talents and efficiency in serving you.

So we are looking today at preparing the message.

Now I would say that the hardest part, at least when you're more comfortable with preaching, the hardest part of preparing a message is actually figuring out what you're gonna preach about.

And so once you have that idea, it becomes easier.

And so as I mentioned yesterday, ideas, concepts, inspiration coming from your devotions is a great thing because then you have some fresh manna, so to speak, that you can share with others.

I did a series at a church, or churches, when I was, before I was in the conference office, and we went through, actually another pastor gave me the idea, and we went through the entire Bible in a year.

We covered, and I think It was a little bit more than a year.

I think I started in December and ended in December.

So I knew what I was preaching out for the whole year, but I was preaching on an entire book.

So that's obviously a little bit different type of preparation than if you're preaching on a verse or a passage.

But I would also say that, and you may not have this opportunity, but if you can preach a series, it's going to help you know what to preach.

Because you're going to have a built-in calendar already.

So if you're studying, I mentioned I just came off a series and if you preach once a month, it's fine.

I'm helping out at a little tiny church in our area.

Normally, I'm traveling all over, but I'm helping out at this little church, and so I've committed to preaching there once a month.

And so I'm only there once a month, but I'm preaching there once a month, and I did a four-part series, even though it was separated by a month each time.

It still works to do a series even if you're not back to back.

As I mentioned it yesterday, it was like the 3 parables of Matthew 25 and then the last parable of Matthew 24.

But there's all sorts of things that you can do.

If you're going to do an exegetical series on a book or something, then you have to make sure you review if you're going to do that.

But if you're doing something that's more standalone, as in parables or stories or things like that, You can do a series.

I did a series 1 time on examples for today, and I looked at Enoch and Moses and Elijah.

So 3 individuals that all have connection and representation for us today, templates for today was actually the title of the series.

But anyway, figuring out what you're going to present can be the hardest.

Now, if you are preaching every week, which probably most of us here are not preaching every week.

But if you are, I would recommend that you try to know what you're going to be preaching about at least by Sunday.

Because you need a week for the thoughts to marinate in your mind.

Now, if you are doing a series, then actually you can be marinating much longer than that, because you know where you're going.

But if you know that you're on the preaching calendar at your church once a month or something like that, give yourself, try to figure out, even if it changes at some point, it's okay.

But give yourself as much advance notice as you can because a lot of sermon preparation can be done while you're driving in the car, while you're in the shower, and things like that.

In fact, I know a pastor and his wife got him a white, not a whiteboard, but a board you could write on in the shower.

That's where a lot of his ideas came on and he would write on his he would jot down notes in the shower as they came to him.

But the point is that you can be preparing in a way when you're weeding the garden or when you're doing any number of different things.

So the more time like that that you can get, then the better it's going to be.

Because you're going to be able to just be soaking in it.

And so, as you're as you are just kind of immersed in it yourself, you're going to have more to share.

But preparing the message, I want to look at 3, if we have time, 3 different types of messages that you can prepare and how you would deal with each 1.

So the first, and this would be my least recommended 1, but it's normally what we begin with.

And there are advantages to it, but there's a lot of disadvantages, and we'll talk about that.

So a topical sermon is when you take a particular topic or subject and you are presenting on that.

And so you're not studying a passage, you're studying a subject or a topic.

What do you think some advantages might be?

Okay, so you can gain a lot of understanding of that topic.

When I first became an Adventist, 1 of the things I did was I went through and I studied every, I went using a concordance because we didn't have computer programs then, and concordance and looked up where it says Sabbath, where it says first day.

And so I could say, I've looked up every place in the Bible where it says Sabbath and where it says first day and where it says commandments.

So there's a benefit to being able to do that.

And so there is a place for topical sermons.

Your best usages, though, are in evangelistic meetings.

Most of our evangelistic meetings or Bible studies are topical type sermons.

We do not, now, I will say, I have preached an evangelistic series where we went through Daniel and Revelation chapter by chapter.

But normally what we do is we're going to be studying about voices from the dead and what happens at death.

And so we're looking through the Bible to understand the subject of death.

So you're going here and there and different places.

Now non-Adventists will, or at least some, will kind of reproach us for using that method.

And they'll say that your key texting, come on in, and so or proof texting.

And that's 1 of the disadvantages, is you can make it say what you want it to say by just going through some key texts.

So while I would not recommend it as the best method of topical sermon, although you can certainly do it, Jesus did it, the apostles did it, there's nothing wrong with it, as long as you're biblically faithful as you are preparing it.

But I will use this method inside a sermon frequently.

So for example, we're studying a passage and we're studying, well let me go back to the example I used yesterday.

And where I was thinking we were going, which we did not go, was love among fellow workers.

Well, to build that, I would have had my passage and I would have brought it out from the passage, but filling out some of the points, I would have expanded it to say, okay, what does the Bible say about loving his brethren?

And I would have actually used topical sermon method as a way to build the sub points in the sermon.

And so it's very valuable for doing things like that.

And it's also a good way to begin the study.

Is that you're going to be studying something and there's a key word or key something in the text, getting the big idea of what the rest of the Bible says about that subject can be very helpful.

So it is looked down upon more today in homiletical circles, but there's a definite place for it, and there's nothing wrong with it.

Like I said, Jesus used topical method, topical sermon methods, if you will.

When it says he went through Moses and the law and the prophets explaining to them the things concerning himself, that was a topical sermon.

He was going through the entire Old Testament looking at what the Old Testament said about the Messiah.

And so you just have to be careful that you're being biblically faithful while you do that.

Student 2 The comment, as I came into the church, out of the Baptist church, I've seen that that complaint, not just in Adventists, but in other circles.

Student 2 But if you keep the text in context and not just pick 1 verse, it goes a long way toward the meaning.

So there is, you have to be more careful with it, but there's a place for it too.

You could, if I understand correctly, you could have a scripture, but because of it covering a topic, you could kind of hybrid it, hybrid it into a topical, basically talking about this, but using.

Series

Preach the Word

02 Preparing the Message

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

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