Wednesday, 3 October 2018

Opening sermon illustration; 2 Chronicles 12

I’m keen for feedback. Please offer your thoughts. 

Does this text work as a sermon introduction? Is the illustration and the transition from illustration to exegesis sound? 

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TITLE: Discipline as necessary as grace
DATE: 18 October 2018

I am in the process of taking my child through 120 hours of driving instruction while on L plates. It is a long process. My child has reached the 80 hour mark. Now, the 80 hour mark is a very dangerous one. With it, there is a certain confident attitude. My child knows enough to be road safe; enough to steer, change lines, contemplate what other drivers are doing, but she does not have depth of experience. Being confident of your abilities before time can be a very dangerous thing. At worse, it can cut you off from further learning.


[Slide #X; Extract of child’s Learner logbook depicting 80 hour total]



Now, King Rehoboam, was a bit like my child at the 80 hour mark. Chapter 12 of 2 Chronicles opens after three years of very good kingship. Rehoboam had walked with God and had prospered. During those three years, Rehoboam had fortified cities, built the priesthood of the kingdom and placed his sons into the cities that surrounded Jerusalem. But, Rehoboam had became too confident with himself and with his own abilities. He neglected the dependency that he and his kingdom had on God. He had not reached the 120 hour mark. Rehoboam would never reach it. He cut himself off.

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This is in preparation of a third sermon in a series of twelve on sin. The sermon is due to be presented in October 2018.



{Previous in series on sin}
{Next in series on sin}



Shalom,
Ozhamada



[213 words] 
#Bible #heisrisen #jesus #Christ #messiah #preaching #sermon #homiletic
#2CHRONICLES 



1 comment:

  1. Hi David, I think this opening illustration is a good start. It provides a good link between contemporary society and the time period in the passage.
    Something for consideration, I think in these early stages it is good to set up the platform for where the message is going to go. If the message is going to be: don't get too confident too quickly, then you're on the right track although maybe you could add a line to help people think it's easy to get too confident too quickly (e.g. "It's easy for each of us to get this way, just try to think back to when you learnt a skill, maybe cooking a certain dish, or learning a language and you made a mess of it due to overconfidence"). But given your title is "Discipline as necessary for grace", I'm guessing your message is going to be based on spiritual disciplines, so perhaps you could help the audience to start to think down the line of not being disciplined enough. This could be worked into your intro by highlighting that to get driving right, you need to be disciplined in practising your techniques.
    Of course, you can choose to ignore this advice as I think what you have is actually a good start.
    Anthony

    ReplyDelete

Comments are most welcome. It would be most arrogant of me to think that my opinion, or my research, is 100% sound. Your comments shape and build this work.

I have made edits (and whole post deletions) based on feedback of others. I will continue to do so.

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