Sermon Help!

Hello I'm not a pastor, but I'm a pastor's kid and I am involved very heavily in all aspects of my church and even a small group. My youth pastor has given me the opportunity to preach this next Wednesday at youth group. So I've prepared a sermon, and I though it would be great if I could have some people who are more experienced in the field of preaching to look over it and give suggestions and thoughts

Death to self sermon


Sermon layout,
Participation > attention-getting new life
Galatians 2:20 death to self > Christ thriving in us = us thriving
Galatians 5,6 spirit and flesh> crucifying of the flesh
How? > renewing your mind
Romans 12:1-2 renewing of the mind > how?
Actions are caused by thought
Philippians 4:8-9 what to think > what not to think







Start with group participation:
Raise your hand if you enjoy it when life is good
Raise your hand if you enjoy it when life is bad
Wow that’s kind of what I expected, I think the group consensus is that life is better when it’s good, right? But what if I told you that I know a guy that can fill you with so much Joy and love and peace and goodness that life is always better? But this comes at a very high cost but it’s every bit as worth it as it seems

(Prepare Galatians 2)

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
‭‭Galatians‬ ‭2‬:‭20‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Christ was crucified and gave his life for us so that He could live in us, but for Him to live in us we first need to die to ourselves so that Christ can live in us.
Okay so what does it look like for us to die to ourselves, now I’m not saying that you need to die, it’s more of a figurative death, but before we delve into death to self we need to understand what Christ living in us looks like.

Tons and tons of Christians have Christ living in them but are not experiencing the life of Christ and here’s why. For Christ to live in you he needs to have the right environment, Christ simply cannot thrive in someone if He is not living in the right environment. Okay, then how do make ourselves the proper environment for Christ, to understand that we need to look at the words of the apostle Paul in Galatians 5

“So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.”
‭‭Galatians‬ ‭5‬:‭16‬-‭17‬ ‭NIV‬‬

The spirit which is Christ in us cannot live with the flesh, for Christ to thrive in us we must remove all desires and acts of the flesh. Death to self requires the death of the flesh. So what is the flesh and what is the spirit

“The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
‭‭Galatians‬ ‭5‬:‭19‬-‭21‬ ‭NIV‬‬

The flesh is anything wrong that we desire to do, It’s our nature to sin controlling the desire of our hearts and minds. But if evil and sin can take captivate our hearts and minds so can goodness

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”
‭‭Galatians‬ ‭5‬:‭22‬-‭25‬ ‭NIV‬‬

The spirit is all that is right and walking by the spirit means to live by the ways of the spirit. Walking with the spirit gives Christ the environment he needs to live and thrive in us giving us new life. If we belong to Christ and Christ lives in us then we must crucify the flesh and its passions and desires and we must live by the fruits of the spirits. If we live by the fruits of the spirit then we live in the fruits of the spirit. We will be full of love Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-control.

Now, this would be a pretty terrible sermon if I just told you what to do without actually telling you how to crucify the Flesh and live by the Spirit. SO? How does one crucify the flesh? First, you need to know what the flesh is, and we already looked into this so we know that flesh is your desire to sin. Desire means to want to do something, desire is something that starts in your mind and captivates your heart. So to crucify the flesh we must have a pure mind and a pure heart.

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭12‬:‭2‬ ‭NIV‬‬

This verse tells us to not conform to the pattern of this world. This is another way of telling us to not sin. But to be transformed by the renewing of our mind, but what does it look like to be renewed? Psalms 51:10 says 'Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.’ It’s about having a pure heart, your heart could be considered the core of your being. Having a pure heart means being cleansed of all sin and evil. And we do this by having a pure mind, whatever enters your mind enters your heart. So we need to control our thoughts

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.”
‭‭Philippians‬ ‭4‬:‭8‬-‭9‬ ‭NIV‬‬

This verse tells us what to think about, but I think there’s a way to look at this more simply.

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is NOT true, whatever is NOT noble, whatever is NOT right, whatever is NOT pure, whatever is NOT lovely, whatever is NOT admirable—if anything is NOT excellent or NOT praiseworthy—DO NOT think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.”

If we want to have Christ truly come into us and truly change us, then our hearts and minds need to be pure. This means we need to crucify ourselves along with the flesh, and we do this by controlling our thoughts. And we control our thoughts and keep our minds pure by removing all evil thoughts. But this isn’t something we do once, this is a lifestyle that we need to live every day. If you’ve been coming here for a while you’ve probably heard our theme verse Luke 9:23

'Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. '

Living for Christ requires that we take up our cross daily. Crucifying ourselves and the Flesh isn’t something we do once. God is calling you to experience something greater, you were made for greater things! You can experience a greater purpose and have a greater passion for the kingdom of God. Christianity is not a religion it’s a relationship, a relationship with God that created you! And when God created you he said that you are just good but that you are very good! God wants to know you and He wants you to know Him. Accepting Christ, Living for Him, and following Him has a very heavy cost but the cost of not following Christ is infinitely more costly than the cost of following Him.
So I have a question for you. What is your next step? How are you going to take what you’ve heard today and what are you going to do with it? If you’ve never accepted Christ before then your next step could be to talk to Pastor Zach or Pastor Aaron or one of the adult leaders about accepting Christ.
Or maybe it's to begin reading God’s Word every day or praying every day or maybe even joining a bible study, Present our bible study LSM MORE.

Good day, Ryan .. How did your other sermon (that you asked for help with) go?

Please excuse me for asking, but I did not see any update about that on the thread you created...

That old sermon idea was the one I was gonna preach this next Wednesday. But I was struggling to write it and I felt like God was leading me in the direction of this sermon. And this sermon came together very well and I feel a lot happier with this sermon than I did the other one

Good day Ryan, I hope a lot of folks are blessed/helped by the message! A bit short on time, I read your sermon rather fast, but will mention the major points I noticed.

First off, if you didn't pray that the Lord would point out anything He wants you to change, I'd recommend doing that first.

Second, if you only refer to Jesus as "Christ" (which is a title, rather than His name), you come across as being scared to say His name. Some of the times you said "Christ", I would recommend replacing with "Jesus", and maybe a few with "The Lord", or something similar. It sounds better, but more importantly, it reminds them of Who they are following, and gives honor to Jesus.

I would change the first bit to "For Christ to be able to make the deepest changes in you" or similar phrasing, since Jesus said that He would never leave us. I think you agree, since you mentioned thriving in the next sentence, so I assume it was more of a typo.

One last thing: many folks find it easier to focus on good thoughts after praying for a deeper indwelling of the Holy Spirit (after they have received Jesus as their Savior and committed themselves to following Him). Luke 11:13 and the second chapter of Acts, among others.

Hope that wasn't too much info all at once, but the day's work awaits me, my brother. Godspeed, and I have already prayed for the youth meeting tomorrow!

Hey! I didn’t see this til after I preached, I did pretty good and a lot of the students paid attention. I didn’t even realize that I said Christ so much, I will definitely make sure to not do that in future sermons. And I did pray and ask God what needs to change in my sermon many times and I think that’s why it turned out so well. Thanks for all the help

Hi there RyanSundstrom -----I am not a Pastor of any Church either and don't know if I should be posting on this sight ----but I do know that All Born Again People are Ministers so I though I would post my view on your Post here -----

This is just my 2 cents worth on your OP

I would always start by praying asking the Holy spirit to guide you in your Sermon and to open the minds and hearts of your group so they might have understanding as to His word ------and I always would ask that enemy be kept at bay ---

I don't know how advanced or schooled in God's word your youth group is ---but what I see in your OP is that you have laid no foundation for your telling them all that you have in your OP

If we preach Having Christ in you -----without first building a foundation as to how to get that to happen ---then your sermon is fruitless -----

So your Youth Group might already have a good foundation of Faith and Trust and Agape in and for God and if they do then that is good ---but if they don't have God's Faith and have just Human Faith then your telling them all that you have in your OP is futile ------

There are 3 types of faith -----do they know that and understand that 2 do not Produce and only one Faith Does produce -----and that Faith only comes by Hearing and Believing in the Word -----who is Jesus

see Hebrew 11 --it gives a list of Faithful Servants ----who were made Righteous by God because they truly Believed in Him and His Word -----

God says Without Faith in Him your cannot even Please Him -----the foundation is the Proper Faith and the Proper Faith needs Action ----Faith always requires a Positive response -----Noah had Faith and Trust in God and Built the Ark even when there was no rain for years -----Noah by Faith and Trust in what God said would Come to pass prompted His Faith into action -------

All that you have in your OP relies on the unseen ----Saving Faith --Trust and Agape for God is the foundation ---for having God in you -----

May God Bless your Sermon and your Youth Group ------you are doing a great service by speaking to them about God and His Word ---so good on you -----

Many blessings

Hi everyone, I'm relatively new here Just my experience, I would read off my sermons the first few weeks I became a preacher. Eventually, I met a friend who helped me better develop. And the development of confidence really made preaching 100x easier. Comfort in standing in front of people led to confidence in preaching what I believe... which led to more confidence standing in front of people. It was a helpful cycle

i think just my own opinion that any sermon that leads to Jesus lessons taught in the gospel in his sermons is a good sermon


If a woodchuck could learn from Jesus to chuck wood the would chuck wood for the lord

it’s a wonderful thing that your open and asking others opinions that’s a great quality in a potential pastor

i don’t belong in this forum but I just read your post and wanted to comment God bless your efforts in him. And may he bless your continuing message

Very good Ryan, What I am about to say is just for you to consider about the young people of today. It seems most of the young people of today are fearful, anxious. and worst of all seem to lack common sense in communication skills. They speak without thinking, then use there feeling instead of using the brain God gave them to think twice before speaking once.

My motto after the Lord got a hold of my life!! What they need is both feeling secure in the faith and confident in their faith! You seem pretty wise in the Lord and like very few, look to the Word of God giving scripture that they can cling on for support.

And last but sure not least, it takes a great amount of discipline!! because the temptation is to go with feeling rather than trust in God's Word to see them through. Just a thought brother. May the Lord continue to bring his wisdom in your mind to life in walking him out. ( Col 1:10!!) Blessing brother!

I guess your sermon is long over. I would have mentioned 3 main points. Start with your thesis. Build & support it. Repetition is vital when preaching. Use real life examples. For your life, other people's lives, (get their permission) or illustrations you have read. Don't add too many verses. That's great for reading, but the ear needs only a few important points, hammered home!

It's a good basic outline. I wish we could have worked on it together. Feel free to write me if another chance comes along, and we can look at it together!

Great job!

Your genuine kindness and thoughtfulness shine through in every interaction, and it's truly inspiring. Your positive energy and uplifting spirit have a way of brightening even the toughest days. Thank you for being such an amazing person, and for all the positivity you bring to those lucky enough to know you.