Messy: Loving Others Isn’t Easy

4 Weeks

Big Idea of the Series

This four-week series examines the command to “Love your neighbor as yourself” and its uses throughout the Bible. Loving others isn’t easy. It requires selflessness and intentionality. Starting in the Old Testament, and moving through the Gospels and Paul’s letters, this series looks at how God expects us to fulfill this command today. Each week’s discussion considers the different aspects of love as depicted in that particular text. The topics include: justice, forgiveness, mercy, salvation, and self-sacrifice. “Messy” culminates in an appeal to receive Christ’s love ourselves and to share it with those around us. This is a great talking set to help your people step into a season of personal and church-wide evangelism. All four weeks in this series come with a passage, topic, and “big idea” of the sermon. Also included under each week is a list of ideas, illustrations, and talking points to help you prepare for your message. Our aim is for this guide to spark your imagination, assist you in planning your sermon, as well as offer a boost to your study time.

What is the Series Guide?

Included in each guide is:

A sermon series outline that breaks up the teaching set into a specific number of weeks.
A "big idea" of the series.
A passage, "big idea" of the sermon, topic list, and a number of illustrations and talking point ideas are included in each weekly section. The "Sermon Ideas and Talking Points" area is filled with observations about the text, relevant applications, creative ideas, and illustrations.
A small group discussion (located in a separate document in this bundle).

What is the Series Guide Not?

This guide isn't a set of sermon manuscripts. While sermon manuscripts can be both useful and a powerful training tool, our sermon series guides are different. Rather than tell you what to say, our aim is for this material to spark your imagination, assist you in planning your sermon, and offer a boost to your study time.
This guide isn't ironclad. While we hope you use our material, the pieces of this document are designed to be moved, tweaked, and altered. As you study the suggested passages, and pray through your message, this guide will hopefully be a launching pad, rather than a landing net.

How Do I Use this Series Guide?

Plan ahead. Our guides are best utilized in advance versus the day or night before. Read over the ideas and illustrations provided, thinking through how you can possibly utilize them in your message. We've purposely kept our guides simple so as to give you the best opportunity to create your own, unique message.
While we give you a passage and "big idea" of the message, take time to study the text.
Utilize the media contained in this bundle to promote and communicate your series message.