Saturday, 11 August 2012

Diary of a sermon prep: Day Three (Saturday afternoon)

It is finished
It is Saturday afternoon and I’m done! (Well, almost) I slept in till 10am (which is the whole point of Saturday mornings), got working till noon, had lunch, watched the Olympics BMX event on TV, then spent another hour on the conclusion before posting up the text on my blog. You can read it here. What I have at this point is a first draft. It has the main points I wanted to cover, but perhaps, without the refinement I would have liked.

Sabbath
Putting up the text on my blog is my way of committing to the text. It means I have something for Sunday. It means the job is done and I can lay down my tools. It means I won’t be up all night tweaking my sermon but will be able to sleep like a Calvinist (and I do) without worrying about what I will have say the next day in church, trusting that I have put in the time, prayer and work responsibly needed to preach faithfully from God's word. I want to be able to rest, to spend time with my family and friends, and to Sabbath. There is a big farewell dinner for a fantastic brother and friend tonight and I want to 100% there, not a million miles away in my head thinking about my sermon.

Preaching to my soul
But what I will continue to do from now till tomorrow is pray. I want to preach the sermon to my own soul, to apply God's word to my own walk in Jesus. In particular, in relation to this week’s text on Isaiah Chapter 2, I am asking myself, “Do I see Jesus in his splendour? Am I allowing him to expose the idols in my heart?”

Tomorrow, I’ll do a post-mortem on the day that went by at the Chinese Church, but better yet, come by, join us and let me know what you thought about the message. Was it clear enough? Was it faithful to the text? Did it need more illustrations? We meet 2pm Sunday afternoon at St Columba’s Church, next to Revolution Bar. Hope to see you there!

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