Dear Sermon-Coach Member, September 1, 2010
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YOUR SERMON-COACH PREACHING TIP
Not Overly Critical, But Honest
This past weekend I was away traveling on business. On Sunday night my wife picked me up at Midway Airport and we got home somewhere between 11:30 and midnight. She had taken a non-Christian friend to church with her. I had made it a point to attend church in the city where I was visiting.
In the car she asked about the sermon I heard and I had to confess that I couldn’t remember it all that well. So the next day I looked up the Psalm on which it was based and reread the text. The response it called for was one of praise, and I do recall the preacher saying that this was how the passage started and ended. He also explained the difference between the Hebrew word for bowing your knee as contrasted to the one that meant raising your hands in praise. But how those actions should mark my life wasn’t explained, and I found the message to be more academic than it was practical and motivational.
To be fair, I certainly got the impression that this pastor not only appreciated nature, but almost relished it. But I wouldn’t say that his mood was all that contagious, because the sermon never got to the place where God was enthusiastically praised for his creation as he is in the psalm.
“You have been going hard” my gracious wife told me. “Maybe you were tired?”
“Not really” I responded. I had a good night’s sleep on Saturday, I had time for prayer on Sunday morning, and, as usual, I went to church open to what the Lord might say to me. And he did touch me through the music. But this given Sunday the sermon just didn’t connect with where I was.
I believe it’s best to be honest about our evaluation of messages. Not overly critical, but honest. Too often we mouth nice things because we think it’s Christian to do so. But if my wife had taken her non-Christian friend to the service I attended, I’m sure she would have come away with feelings similar to and probably stronger than mine.
For a listing of my most recent preaching tips, please click here to view my Blog.
New Sermon Starter From Micah 7
Sermon in a Sentence: True believers must learn to live in the reality of a God much greater than 8th century B.C. Judah’s … or 21st century A.D. America’s.
Text: Micah 7:8-20.
Excerpt: If I gave a test where the names of gods in one list were to be matched with the proper countries in another, I’m sure most everyone would draw a line from Jehovah to Old Testament Israel. But from our studies in Micah, an 8th century B.C. prophet, it appears the Lord might not have been as quick to make such a connection.
Yes, in one sense God was uniquely wed to both the northern kingdom called Israel and also southern Judah. But as we conclude our studies this visit in Micah, let me remind you that Israel was no more. Its capital, Samaria, had fallen to the Assyrians, and the northern nation would never rise again. In chapter one Micah had predicted this would happen because of Israel’s many sins.
You’d think this example would have had an impact on Jerusalem in southern Judah, where again the prophet’s words offered little comfort. Not only did Micah forecast eventual defeat and exile in Babylon, when we studied chapters 2 and 3 of Micah, it almost sounded as though God had it also with Judah and her leaders. And remembering the evils that characterized the southern kingdom, you can understand why.
THIS WEEK'S SUNDAY SOUNDBYTES
SOUNDBYTES are simple ways ministers can use current news items to let parishioners know they live in the same world their people do. Here's two you can use in your bulletin or your pulpit this week:
Immediate Rescue
The good news is that when a lost sinner comes to the Lord in repentance, there’s not a long wait in terms of God’s response of forgiveness. His divine rescue isn’t delayed until Christmas, or later, the way rescue is for the unfortunate lost miners trapped 2,200 feet underground in Chile. God’s help is immediate. You can be born again of his Spirit this very day.
Announcement
Rather than moving forward on a lucrative 18 game National Football League schedule to replace the current 16 game season, the team owners tabled the idea. What they said was that they needed additional input, and especially from the players.
Good idea!
Sometimes church leaders can get all pumped up about new ideas that seem wonderful to them. Because the leaders like the plans, they figure they must be from the Lord. So they push ahead, never having asked how their thinking might affect the congregation.
Hopefully that’s not the case with our present plans. We are at the point where we need your input. That’s the reason for the business meeting we’re encouraging you to attend, etc.—
PREVIOUS WEEKS' MESSAGES
New Sermon Starter From Micah 6
Sermon in a Sentence: When a society begins to fall apart, it is the better part of wisdom to look to God.
Text: Micah 6:9-7:7.
Excerpt: Men know what it’s like when a baseball breaks at the seam and the cover starts to slowly work its way off. Women are only too familiar with clothing that runs or rips or reveals weaknesses. Unfortunately, even people sometimes come unglued. Their personalities fragment, and that’s always pitiful to watch. But what do you do when an entire society shows definite signs of falling apart?
That’s the unpleasant picture the Old Testament writer Micah describes in this our 7th look at his prophecies. Chapter 6 verse 9 through chapter 7 verse 7 is today’s text, and our concluding study in this series will be next weekend.
Probably the best known verse from Micah is the one we ended with last Sunday. He (God) has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
New Sermon Starter From Micah 6
Sermon in a Sentence: The good required of us by God is that we do justice, love kindness and walk humbly before Him.
Text: Micah 6:1-8.
Excerpt: I remember my wife’s mother, when she was still with us, laughingly telling about attempting as a little girl to please her parents by cleaning up the kitchen. The only problem was that she put the dishes back in the cupboard and the silver in the drawers without first washing them!
Probably you recall a similar experience of trying to satisfy someone only to discover that what you did was contrary to what was wanted. That was the embarrassment of the southern kingdom of Judah back in the 8th century B.C. Unfortunately, in their case the “one they were attempting to please but didn’t”, was God!
Living in Jerusalem around 730 B.C., how does one please Jehovah? “Why anybody knows the answer to that,” the population probably would have said. “You make sacrifices at the temple the way the law prescribes. You also see to it that the traditional forms are adhered to. That’s elementary!”
New Sermon Starter From Micah 5
Sermon in a Sentence: Wise men worship God’s great ruler.
Text: Micah 5:1-15.
Excerpt: Tabloids thrive on the predictions of psychics. Never mind that last year’s forecasts proved fallible. Who’s saying what this year is apparently still very interesting to their reading public.
Well this visit I want to share an incredible prophecy—not one of my own though. The man whose words I’ll read lived in the 8th century B.C. To give you a feel of how far back that was—we’re talking of the time of Homer, the Celts moving into England, Apollo being worshipped at Delphi, and the earliest written music, a hymn on a tablet in Sumaria written in cuneiform. This is the century of the first iron utensils. 776 B.C. was when we have the beginning record of Olympic Games being held (incidentally women were not admitted, even as spectators). The traditional date for the founding of Rome is 753 B.C. And about 20 years later, in the tiny kingdom of Judah, the prophet Micah was preaching about the sins of his nation.
The book of the Bible that bears Micah’s name contains seven chapters that divide into three parts. Currently we’re in the middle section, which includes chapters 4 and 5. Chapter 4 was a definite shift from the earlier preaching against the evils of Judah and its leaders. Now Micah writes of a peaceful day in the future when his scattered people will again return to Jerusalem and “walk in the way of the Lord for ever and ever.”
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Until next week,
Dr. David R. Mains
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