Prepare your heart for the Sermon by looking through these suggestions that will assist you in making the most of our time together hearing God's Word.

You will find suggestions for thinking more critically through the passage, meditating more intently on the text, and prayerfully seeking wisdom to deepen your understanding of the passage to be preached this Sunday.

Carefully Think

• This Sunday Pastor Bret will begin the year, as he normally does, by preaching on the necessity of preaching. His main text for the morning will be 2 Tim 4:1-5, but it would be helpful to read 2 Tim 3:10-4:5 to prepare.
• This passage begins with a solemn charge for young Timothy. What does it mean to charge someone? What force do Paul’s words in v. 1 add to this charge? How many commands in Scripture are preceded by this kind of charge?
• What is Paul's command for Timothy that begins v. 2? What does the word "preach" convey in English? What is it that Timothy is supposed to preach? Would it be ok if Timothy were to preach his own opinions? Why or why not? How does the rest of v. 2 fill out an understanding of what this preaching is supposed to do and how it’s supposed to be done?
• What is the reason given in vv. 3-4 for the command of v. 2? What time period are these verses talking about? Is the modern response to biblical preaching a new phenomenon or something Timothy was dealing with? How should Timothy personally respond and behave in this kind of world according to v. 5? Why does this matter?
• The Sermon Study equipping class notes are available online for anyone wanting to dig deeper. Please review this week's notes to help study this passage. Click here for the notes.

Prayerfully Meditate

• How important is this passage in your life and the life of the local church? Is preaching something that you value? Consider the weight that Paul places on this passage in the opening verse.
• How does Paul’s command to "preach the word" impact you? What is your responsibility in obeying this passage? Think on specific ways you can apply this command. How does this command impact your understanding of what preaching is? Would you say that most preachers today are being obedient to the command in this passage?
• Does Paul's description of preaching as reproving, rebuking, and exhorting sound all "positive and encouraging?" What is your heart’s response to thinking about preaching as reproving, rebuking and exhorting?
• How do vv. 3-4 portray the natural, sinful bent of the human heart to biblical preaching? In what ways do these verses reveal the temptation to abandon a biblical approach to preaching? It’s easy to see this in evangelicalism at large, but where do you see this temptation in your own heart and what are you doing to fight it?