recommended resources on sermon topics
February 28th, 2006 by Scott Andreas
Resources on life when God is your treasure (1.08.06)
- Confessions, by St. Augustine. Clearly this is a spiritual classic and well worth your reading.
- Pleasures Evermore , by Sam Storms. Sam Storm has quickly become one of my favorite authors. I would highly recommend this book.
- God is the Gospel, by John Piper. I just finished this book up a few weeks ago. It is God centered and beautiful.
- Seeing and Savoring Christ, by John Piper. This is a good book about the joys, and responsponsibility of savoring and delighting in Christ.
Resources on friendship/community (1.15.06)
- Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This has become a classic. I read several quotes from the opening chapters.
- Pilgrims Progress, John Bunyan. This is a long standing classic. At one point, it was second only to the Bible in sales and had been translated into more languages than any other book except the Bible. It is a gem that I have read several times over.
- The Safest Place, Larry Crabb. Crabb is a counselor and this book casts a vision for community and what it could/should be.
- Created for Community, Stanley Grenz. I haven’t read much of this, though what I have read was excellent.
Resources on dating/dtr (1.22.06)
- Decision Making and the Will of God, Garry Friesen. This is a massive book that gets redundant. However, the main point of the book is invaluable and in the later chapters he applies meticulously this principle to real decisions.
- Sex and the Supremacy of God, Piper and Taylor. This is a great book; however, I was very disappointed with the section on singleness and dating/courting.
- Boy Meets Girl, Joshua Harris. I think this book is far more balanced than I Kissed Dating Goodbye. I appreciate his contribution, though I don’t necessarily agree with him on everything.
- Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, Piper and Grudem. This is a huge collection of essays on everything from homosexuality to women’s roles in the church to gender issues, etc. It’s a great resource to have in your library.
Resources on sex/good sex (1.29.06 & 2.04.06)
- Real Sex, Lauren Winner. This is a great book that I would like to make required reading for Christian men and women. Check it out.
- Sex and the Supremacy of Christ, John Piper. Already mentioned above. Most of the chapters are absolutely fantastic.
- Sex, Romance and the Glory of God, CJ Mahaney. Great, short, but mostly for married people.
- Strategies for Fighting Sexual Sin, John Piper on Desiring God website http://www.desiringgod.org. Since it’s a webarticle and everyone can get it for free, I think everyone should!
Resources on the church (2.12.06)
- Bob Whitaker’s Brain. Go ahead, pick it!
- Stop Dating the Church and Fall in Love with the Family of God, by Joshua Harris. This is a great remedy to our current church-shop-till-you-drop culture.
Resources on Worship (2.19.06)
- Whatever Happened to Worship, AW Tozer. This is a great book which is actually a compilation of Tozer sermons on worship. Ask Paul Helms, he’s read it!
- The End for Which God Created the World, Edwards/Piper. This is a very difficult book to get through, especially the Edwards sections (language and theology are difficult). That being said, it was an immensely rewarding book. Don’t shy away from difficult stuff.
- Worship by the Book, DA Carson. A book edited by my advisor in seminary. It’s a look at the theology of worship and how four churches apply this theology in their denominational and cultural contexts.
- Unceasing Worship, Harold Best. I haven’t read to much of this yet. I started it for this message and haven’t gone to far with it, though it is on my ‘must-read-within-a-month’ list.
- Worship God Series, John Piper on http://www.desiringgod.org. Any of these sermons are excellent to read or listen to.
Resources on Prayer (2.26.06)
- Face to Face, Ken Boa. This is a wonderful prayer guide that will aide you in learning how to pray with Scripture.
- Spirit of the Disciplines, Dallas Willard. This book, I think, is better than Foster’s book on the Disciplines.
- Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, Donald Whitney. This is a great general book on the disciplines (He spoke at the Piper conference on Edwards a couple of years ago).
- The Prayer of Jesus, Hank Hanegraaff. This is a short book on the Lord’s Prayer written in response to the unbalance book the Prayer of Jabez.
Resources on Fasting (3.05.06)
- A Hunger for God, by John Piper (suprise!). Buy it or read it for free on the Desiring God website.
- Prayer, Fasting and the Course of History. A sermon series by Piper.
- Why are You Fasting, David Legge. This is a short sermon/article (just so you don’t think Piper’s the only one I read!).
Resources on Evangelism (3.19.06)
- Tell the Truth, Will Metzger. This is a great, God centered, reformed book on the nitty gritty practical aspects of evangelism.
- Telling the Truth, DA Carson. This is a collection of essays/lectures about evangelism in the postmodern age. There are some very practical essays, but also some very technical and philosophical ones as well.
- Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, JI Packer. This has become a classic. If these two things are incompatible in your mind, pick this one up.
- How to Give Away Your Faith, Paul Little. Another short classic. Good, brief, practical.
- Quest for Joy (tract), John Piper, available at http://www.desiringgod.org. I like this one and the one below as very good tools for personal evangelism. It think both of these tracts are much better, much more fully orbed, than is the Four Spiritual Laws.
- Two Ways to Live (tract), available at http://www.matthiasmedia.com. Good resource that emphasizes Christ’s lordship as well as his role as Savior.
Resources on Simplicity (3.26.06)
Resources on Thinking Christianly (4.23.06)
- The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, by Mark Noll. This is a fantastic book that is available in the church library (after I return in).
- Fit Bodies, Fat Minds, by Os Guinness. This short book does a lot to explore the cultural pressures that have led us to our anti-intellectualism, as well as exploring presurres from within the church itself.
- Amusing Ourselves To Death, by Neil Postman. This is a must read for everyone. It is a blistering critic of our ‘idiot’ culture.
- How Then Shall We Live, Francis Schaeffer. This book has become a classic, for very good reason.
