Trial with Sermon prep

I'm preaching this Sunday and thought I'd do something new with sermon prep. I'm going to share some of my prep here on the blog. You can have a chance to be involved. I will read comments that are left and may use some of your ideas in my sermon.

Here's the rough idea. I've been faced with death alot lately. So I'm going to share two big ideas. By the way, I'm not the normal preacher. I avoid alliteration and the three point rules and all that stuff that I actually find very boring. I try to have 1 big idea and I try to present it in a way that will make you think about it again in the coming week. This week I'm having two big ideas.

First big idea is that we don't have to fear death. I will focus here on Ecclesiastes 3. Sing it with me, "To every season, turn turn turn...". Verse 2 says that there is "a time to be born and a time to die". Then verse 11 says "He has made everything beautiful in its time". Death, when in its time, is beautiful. I don't want to argue about the sovereignty of God and the in its time business. I want to focus on the beauty of death. Verse 11 goes on to say "He has also set eternity in the hearts of men;". This leads into point 2.

Second is that when death happens around us it makes us look at our own lives. Does your life have meaning? Does it have eternal meaning? We look to lots of things for meaning in life. I have 1 trophy in my house. I have won a fantasy basketball league once in my life. Do I get my meaning in life from fantasy basketball? People like to talk about leaving a legacy. People look to many things for meaning in life. Some have buildings named after them. Some get as much money as possible or as many things as possible. Some try to help as many people as they can. But I want to look past having earthly meaning and look to eternal meaning. Verse 11 of Ecclesiastes 3 says God has "set eternity in the hearts of men". He has caused us to want meaning in our lives.

So what must we do to have eternal meaning?

First we must be pure. Matthew 5:8 says "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God." How many of us are pure? Ugh. I John 1 says that God is all the way pure and cannot have any impurity around him. "God is light; in him there is no darkness at all." Verse 8 says "If we claim to be without sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." We are not pure. We are all sinners. The good news comes in verse 9. "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." We can be purified. We can "see God". But there is more to it than this. (I realize I just scared the pants off the good conservative Baptists that will read this. "more to it than this") Hebrews tells us that we aren't just purified to be with God. We aren't purified to just wait for Him to come and let us spend eternity with Him. Being purified isn't about heaven. Being purified is about getting eternal meaning. And that starts now. Hebrews 9:14, "How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse" (that purifying thing again) "our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God." Why are we cleansed? So that we can serve. We get eternal meaning by serving the living God.

Ok so there is some rough ideas. I'm going to go read some commentaries and think about this some more and will edit it more later. I wanted to get some rough ideas out there though so you can get thinking about it too. Please feel free to leave comments.