Getting Sermons Perfect

On Saturday night past the All Blacks, for around 75% of their game against the Sringboks played as near a perfect game of rugby as can be imagined, and overall achieved the perfect result of a four try to nil tries, bonus point win in the Tri-Nations Series.

Perfection is possible.

I would like to preach perfect sermons. At the very least 'perfect' would mean 'I thought the sermon was perfect in every way: content, style, length, application, engagement with Scripture and life, centred on God in Christ, flowing with the Spirit, convicting, convincing, and coherent.'

Last Sunday my sermon was less than perfect. Preaching it twice on Sunday morning meant I was able to make some (impromptu) improvements between the first delivery and the second delivery.

What could have been better?

Here are some things:

- the whole sermon more tightly wound around the central idea of the sermon

- shorter sentences

- better connection between the biblical character I focused on (the lawyer asking the question at the beginning of Luke 10:25-37) and humanity today.

Well, it turns out that I have been asked to preach this coming Sunday as well, with the opportunity to continue the Lukan sequence, 10:38-end.

Another opportunity to improve.

The All Blacks, incidentally, play the Springboks again this Saturday evening. They may need to play a perfect game for 100% of the time in order to repeat their victory!