It's not easy writing a sermon. It would be easy to write something that related to a passage of scripture but the fact is a sermon should be a message from God to the people of God. It has to be His message for the particular people you are speaking to. It doesn't require you to know the people particularly well but it does require you to listen to God. Most of my best sermons start coming to me when I am in bed. I have put aside the cares of the day and begun to relax. Often after about an hour of rehearsing my sermon in bed I will get up and write some of it down. If I don't do it then I can lose it. Losing a little sleep does me no harm as I am retired and can catch up in the day if necessary. I am currently preparing a sermon for next week. It is proving quite difficult. I am having to tease out the meaning little by little. I am almost there. It is on John 17 which is a very special chapter where Jesus is praying to the Father. In it Jesus prays for the ones who will believe because of the witness of the disciples ; that means for you and me. Isn't that just fantastic, just before the crucifixion Jesus prayed for you and me.
I have written in previous posts about disasters. In the case of Concorde, decisions by people, plus other factors were directly to blame for the event. In the case of the Penlee disaster it may have been avoided if someone had made a better choice in the time beforehand and as a consequence brave men and the ship's crew and the captain and his family died. 9/11 was certainly the result of wicked men committing a terrorist act, but even in this there was heroism notably by another Cornish man, Rick Rescorla who helped many to safety and left it too late to help himself. In situations like this we see what the human spirit is capable of both good and evil. What of disasters that come on people because of the earth restless movement of tectonic plates. Often people live near volcanoes because the land is rich and fertile and they have the chance of a better life there when the volcano is resting. We cannot blame them for that but sometimes people become complacent...
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