Preaching blues

I'm getting up this Sunday and preaching. Yep I'm giving a sermon. Its not the first time, but apart from God giving me a no brainer sermon that I know already I'm having to scratch this one out.

I do prefer it when God taps me on the shoulder and says Hey have this pot of gold and give it to everyone on Sunday. I love that. It's only happened once. The other time I've been up there I had an idea that I didn't research well enough and it didn't really fit in with the flow of worship before hand and I was feeling a bit out of place. I went and presented my findings on the armor of God (Ephesians chapter 6:10 and a bit further) but I felt it was a flop. Even after all the encouragement of the rest of the Church I still felt I was at a loss that time.

This time I want to get it right. This time I want to be prepared. So I prayed about what I should be doing, I'm sure about it. James 4:1-11. Thats a pretty hard piece. James calls the believers, murderers and adulterers. He doesn't mince words at all. He tells it as God sees it.

So I'm sitting here at my computer thinking about all of this and wondering if I'm right. Have I found what I'm supposed to be giving? This is hard stuff. Do I want to give this message?

There's a whole load of other things I could do, but God keeps on calling me back here. I can't escape it. There is no other passage of scripture that I can think about other than this one.

I think about my style up there which sort of like rabbit in the headlights at times. My hands shake cause I'm nervous and then I loose my place in my notes and I have to pause for a while and collect myself. I try and rehearse a few bit of it on my walks with the dog and that seems to work a bit. So I'm getting more comfortable with it. Yet I don't want to be copying someone else. I want to be me relating what God has shown me about this piece of very hard scripture.

There are things to explain here and I know I can't get technical. I need for everyone there in Sunday to understand it all. The words need to be simple and if they can't be simple then they need to be explained. I need to make it so that both believers and unbelievers can accept this message. It needs to be a call to those within the Church who are holding back parts of their lives from God and also to those who need to heed his call and come to Him for the first time.

Time passed between this paragraph and the previous on and God's given me a starting point as well as a structure. Praise God.

I should probably start here with the structure and then take it away and fill it out.

• Start with the passage. James 4:1-10 or 11 depends on how its going.
• Begin by explaining the journey this will take and how its supposed to come together
• Where we are now as believers and unbelievers in relation to God
• How we are adulterers
• That God's way out through the death of Christ and His grace is able to cleanse us of our sin and bring us into a new relationship with Him

That all sounds about right. Now all I have to do is write it up including all the side points.

Lean not on your own understanding in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.

Gotta hold on to that don't I.