Tag: Shawn Reinsel

Updated: 11/4/2024

Sermon Prep

Life as always kept changing in 2023. My wife Glory sold her Dad’s car to make ends meet, but we enjoyed our new family car for if and when we have kids. Little did we know we would have a kid just over a year from this sermon, but we’ll get there.

At this point in life, we were celebrating others and their mountaintop moments. For instance, our friends Taylor and Emma who took this photo of us right before Taylor proposed to Emma in the mountains of Breckinridge. It was beautiful and an honor to be apart of their special moment.

This next new job was still incredibly stressful. Wasn’t hitting quota and wasn’t getting any commissions. I was applying for roles, but had no bites. It was just a tough year of dealing with the consequences of my impatience and pride. Instead of waiting for God’s timing, I rushed the process.

In regards to this message, it’s actually an adaptation of a chapter from Pastor Shawn Reinsel’s book, Simple Grace. Our church has made it a tradition to go through his book on Sundays at least once every other year, if not more often. It’s just one of those foundational teaching series for us.

For me when it comes to adapting a sermon versus an original message, I usually just prefer original messages produced by me. I don’t like being too reliant on just one person’s message. Adaptation can often feel like copying and not adding anything new to the conversation.

With Shawn’s book it’s actually great! I honestly don’t mind preaching from it at all and look forward to it when the series comes around again. With that, here’s the notes for this adapted sermon:

Sermon Notes

Opening Line

• Watching Mean Streets at Colorado Film School.
  • Learn the rules of film, then break them.
• Kobe Bryant studied referee book, then fouled and got away with it.

Intro

• It’s the same for the law of God and his grace.

Transition To Main Point

• You need to know the message of the law before you know the message of grace.

Main Point

• The law’s message is perfect performance.
  • Be holy.
    • Leviticus 19:1-2
  • Be loving.
    • Leviticus 19:18, Deuteronomy 6:5
  • Be perfect.
    • Matthew 5:48
• The law is God’s standard of perfect obedience. It measures shortcomings, not success.
• What is the law unable to do?
  • Makes nothing perfect.
    • Hebrews 7:18-19
  • Makes nothing justified.
    • Galatians 2:16
  • Makes nothing sanctified.
    • Galatians 3:2-3
• The law damns you, but is unable to save you.
• What is the law able to do?
  • Romans 3:19-20
    • Able to silence speech.
    • Able to cause guilt.
    • Able to understand sin.

Why This Matters

• The law teaches that you are depraved and need to be saved.
  • Galatians 3:24
• Only by humility and faith in Jesus can someone depraved like you be saved.
  • Ephesians 2:8-9

Final Thoughts

To mix things up and garner more audience participation, I intentionally planned 2 different stories to start my message. There were some kids in the front row and they chose the Kobe Bryant story, so I rolled with that one. I don’t think I’ve tried this again, but I do like to test new ways to communicate to our congregation and improve what we do.

The one problem and feedback I received here was that I read too many different passages of Scripture aloud. For the audience, it was extremely hard to track where I was and register what was being communicated. Also, I stayed too conservative and relied strictly on the book whereas on the next one I truly made that my own. With that, Godspeed and Jesus bless.