Today, though, I knew that there was going to be a problem. Even as I had done my preliminary on this sermon, it never really felt right. In doing this for almost 20 years, when I have to go hunting for scriptures to back up my premise, the sermon becomes something that is probably not worth preaching. This was one of those sermons. While I think that the premise was probably good and needs to be said, I had a hard time justifying the sermon. I came to realize while looking over my previous notes that it was more like a rant than a sermon.
Rant sermons are all too common by preachers. We get fired up about something that is happened to us, or something makes us mad, and we want the congregation to know what's on our mind. Or we get really invested in some particular doctrinal point and we think that the congregation isn't right until they agree with us. So we rant and rave, and in the end we haven't preached the gospel of Jesus Christ. Yes, it's frustrating to have wasted all that time on a sermon that won't (and should not) be preached...but it's better to have destroyed a sermon before it can do any harm.
If there is one blessing about having preached for almost 20 years, it's that there are plenty of sermons stuck away in the file cabinets. Not all of them are good, of course, or are worthy of repeating. But at least I have one that can be preached so that the church will be blessed rather than cursed.
