About a year ago, I began a course taught by my Pastor called “Communicating For Change” where the students learned to write devotional materials, study the Bible more effectively, and eventually learn to write and speak an entire sermon.
For the last 5 weeks, our church held a sermon series called ‘The God Ladder’ where we explored our relationships, and each student preached on one area. We covered our relationship with the world, our friends, our spouses and our children.
Then, came my turn to close the sermon series off with our relationship with Jesus, which I preached last Sunday (November 26th, 2017.)
This was my second sermon, and it was an adventure! I had pages and pages of notes. I wanted to address so many things, and suddenly I realized the verses from John 15:1-15 covered them all.
I wanted to touch on God’s love, Jesus’s character, being non-Crusty-Christians both to our brothers and sisters in Christ and the whole as a whole. I wanted to talk about the glory of heaven, the pitfalls of religion, and the acceptance of Christ.
As I wrote, and rewrote, I realized I could not get in as much as I wanted. Each of those topics alone could be an entire sermon! So, thankfully, spirit-lead I found a verse that allowed me to touch briefly on all of those things.
John 15:1-15, The branches, the gardener, and the grapevine. Instructions for love. It was the perfect verse for this sermon.
Check it out:
I was relieved when I was finished, and received some great feedback. I’m thankful for those awesome friends and family members who came to listen, and cheer me on. I’m thankful for a church who praises and encourages its own. Of course, I am also grateful for a Pastor who leads us, cheers us on, forces us out of our comfort zone (seriously, I once told that same man I wouldn’t even pray in front of others!) I have some amazing prayer warriors in my life who prayed for me through this, and I just cant help but consider how blessed I am for my support network.
Thanks to all who have helped get me to this point! 🙂
Guarded Hearts Ministries 