John 16:12-22 "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me." So some of his disciples said to one another, "What is this that he says to us, 'A little while, and you will not see me, and again a little while, and you will see me'; and, 'because I am going to the Father'?" So they were saying, "What does he mean by 'a little while'? We do not know what he is talking about." Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, "Is this what you are asking yourselves, what I meant by saying, 'A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me'? Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.
In the interest of full disclosure, I am reviewing my own pastor's sermon. He is the pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Middleville, MI. He has promised not to go into a rage if I give him a poor review and the criteria are pretty objective so I shouldn't have too much trouble giving an honest review. My method is not infallible and I am open to critique but I do believe that my results are accurate based on the criteria I have laid out.
1. Does the pastor explain the text correctly? Yes. The pastor focused on verses 21-22. He stayed very close to the text and gave an illustration from his wife's pregnancy. (+1)
2. Is the law preached lawfully? Yes. The law was never preached as doable but we were called to repentance for taking our eyes off of Jesus. Because only Jesus can bring us true joy. (+1)
3. Is Jesus mentioned? Yes and everything that was said about Him is true. (+1)
4. Is the sermon about what Jesus has done for us? Yes. The sermon applied what Jesus did for us through His death on the cross in a personal way. (+1)
5. Does the creation of a wordle show a Christian focus in the sermon? I don't have the text and so I am unable to create a wordle but based on the words that were used I am confident that a wordle would show a Christian focus. (+1)
The final score is +10 or 100%.
James Roemke (Lutheran Church Missouri Synod) 100% A
William Cwirla (Lutheran Church Missouri Synod) 100% A
Don Fortner (Calvinistic Baptist) 57.5% F
John Piper (Calvinistic Baptist) 35% F
Raniero Cantalamessa (Roman Catholic) 20% F
4 comments:
Thanks for the review. I am humbled and grateful to be your pastor and I expect you to always keep me faithful to Christ and Him crucified. You would be a coward not to review my sermons.
Cool! Nice brownie points with your pastor!
Does your pastor use clutch words like ah, you know, etc. as we monitor at Toastmasters? How did you do with your speech at Toastmasters?
NewKid:
He does pretty good job of avoiding the ahs and ums. I've done a pretty good job avoiding them myself. I had teacher in high school that seemed like every other word he used was umm and I found it so irritating that I made a real effort to avoid doing it myself. I watched c-span briefly a few months ago and I was surprised at how many ahs and umms I heard. I'm doing my speech this Wednesday.
RNC speaker Pastor Jim Remke
Post a Comment