Preaching Report: Matthew 1:18-21
Background.: December in Namibia is strange. The capital city more or less gradually shuts down to the point where, by Christmas, it's abandoned. Church attendance drops because most people simply aren't here. We stop all current preaching series' and do something else for the month. My pastor/mentor gave me a 'training exercise' to submit a draft plan for preaching for the month of December this year.I assumed that the elders would still preach when they were in town so I drafted a plan that assigned everyone different prophecies of Jesus' birth from Matthew chapters 1 & 2. I only planned on taking Matthew 1:22-23.
After our long planning meeting in which we also roughly looked at all of 2009, I ended up with four sermons in December, including Christmas day.
Message.: On December 7th I started my Christmas series with Matthew 1:18-21 about what Jesus' name actually means. Jesus means "The LORD Saves." The angel Gabriel told Joseph He would save His people "From" their sins. I took the opportunity to talk about how Jesus frees us from our sins. Salvation includes both forgivness of sin and freedom from the power of sin.
The context of this salvation was the wrath of God. We tend to think of the wrath of God as something that awaits the unrepentant / unforgiven at final judgment. I showed from Romans 1:18, 24, 26, and 28 that the wrath of God is not just coming, it is active now. Sin is not just something needing to be erased. It is a tyranny we need to be freed from.
I could have applied freedom from the power of sin to any number of sins but I chose fear and shame. I chose those two because they were right there in the text. When Mary became pregnant, Joseph was immediately affected by fear--what has happened, what will people think, what has she done? and shame/disgrace--how can I keep her as my wife, even if she's innocent? how can I say the child is mine, even if I love it?
Fear & Shame would have obviously hindered the mission God gave Joseph to be an earthly father to the Lord Jesus. Jesus' work of freeing His people from their sins was active right there in the story of His birth.
I applied this to my audience's fear & shame, two things that often hold people back from fulfilling God's mission, that He is actively taking away so that His mission will be fulfilled.
Critique.: I have a tendency if I'm not careful to sound [overly or unnecessarily] angry when I talk about sin. I think I came off sounding that way in this message on some parts about the wrath of God. Overall in the message I felt very stiff. I don't know if it was the change in setting--I had only been preaching in evening services for the past several months. I only preached one morning service this year which was Palm Sunday. The shirt & tie just weren't going well for me either. I tried to start off with a "that's my middle name" joke that just didn't go well at all. I didn't get a lot of feedback and, also, I learned early on to not just go by your own feelings/reactions. The people seemed rapt. There was no movement, almost no perceivable movement whatsoever in the audience. That could be a good thing or a bad thing. It gave me a sense that I was preaching in an empty room.
I resolved that the next week I would relax more, like I usually am on the evenings, watch my voice more, and consciously try to not preach but have the Holy Spirit speak through me. Sounds strange but it's a part of preaching you can't really control. The more you try to control it, the more you'll probably fail.
posted by T L @ 19:41
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