practice, practice, practice

I've finally gotten to the final draft of my sermon for tomorrow, entitled "Unveiling the Judgment," and I must say, it's probably one of the best sermons I've written in a long while. I'll post it on here tomorrow or next week, but I'll just give the rundown right now. It begins talking about modern preconceptions regarding the future judgment, which we often call The Great Judgment or The White Throne Judgment (based off a passage in Revelation). Essentially, as I make clear in the next section, the judgment is a Jewish idea concerning The Day of YHWH that has been reworked around Messiah Jesus. In the sermon I look at the Jewish view of the coming judgment, using Malachi 4.1-3 as an example (though examples abound, both in the Old Testament and in Intertestamental Period Jewish apocalyptic literature): when judgment comes, God will do three things. First, he will overthrow the oppressive pagan empires. Second, he will vindicate his people. Third, he will flood the earth with peace and justice (i.e. he will deal with sin and evil once-and-for-all). The Christian doctrine of the final judgment is built upon this but reworked around Jesus, and at the heart of this reworking is Daniel 7 and the identity of the "son of man" who is the one who executes God's judgment. The early Christian view of the future judgment is not just when God deals with all the "bad people"; it is when he overthrows those who have oppressed his people, it is when he vindicates his people, and it is when he does what he has always promised to do since he made his covenant with Abraham: deal with the evil in the world once-and-for-all. I look at all this more in-depth and then reach into application (application is most definitely not my strong suit; I am better with abstract and conceptual things than with the pragmatic). In light of the coming judgment, Christians can find hope; second, the knowledge of the coming judgment is a call to put one's loyalty and allegiance in Messiah Jesus; and third, the reality of the coming judgment gives shape to the Christian vocation of proclaiming the gospel (and I make it clear that this is not about pointing fingers at all the people we don't like and saying, "You're going to hell!"; in fact, I only mention hell once in the sermon, and it's in a humorous little tidbit about our preconceptions of the subject).

That's the basic outline of the sermon. Now I'm going to practice, practice, practice. Amanda says that I pick up an accent when I preach. "You sound like the younger brother off Boondock Saints, it's so cool!" I don't know if she's reliable about the comparison, but I do know I pick up an accent. Maybe it's just me who does this, but I don't do it on purpose. It just sort of happens. At least it's not an awkward accent. Anyways. Now I'm going to set out practicing this thing, pulling it together and getting into rhythm. Tomorrow at approximately 11:00 I'll be standing in front of the church speaking this message. I think this is a message that should be heard, and I am not ashamed to preach it. Right now I'm not really concerned about getting the job (but more on that later).