Two Kinds of Relevance
So, guys, for example, I recently heard a sermon on David's great Psalm, "Lord, who may dwell in Your sanctuary" (Psalm 15). Everything in the sermon was true. In some ways it was a feast of truth. The preacher exhorted us to do good, speak well, keep our word, do business justly, not slander, etc. Everything he said was faithful to the text.
Now, how could that sermon have been made even more relevant?
One way would have been to update examples, or make the more edgy and catchy, to use some video clips. All of this would have been done to make the application even more powerfully evident to everyone present.
A second way of making the sermon more relevant would have been to have spent more time showing us that none of us HAVE been good enough, spoken well enough, kept our word enough, etc. AND then to have shown us that Christ did all of this FOR US.
There's not just the relevance of more effectively showing us how to live. There's also the relevance of showing us how we're not good enough, and how Christ has been good for us. Does the Law teach Christians how to live? Yes. Does it also teach us how we haven't lived, and does it honor Christ by teaching us about the fullness of His obedience? Yes it does.
More of us need to spend more time in our sermons working on this second kind of relevance.
