Sermon Insights Report

Calvary Church — Ecclesiastes 5:1-7 | "How We Come Into the Presence of God"

A Note to the Pastor

Before diving in, I want you to know that what you delivered in this message reflects a pastor who has done the hard work of sitting with a difficult text and emerging with something genuinely useful for your congregation. Ecclesiastes is not easy preaching territory. It takes courage and skill to walk a congregation through one of the Bible's most disorienting books and help them find not just meaning, but transformation. You did that. This report is written with deep respect for your calling and genuine excitement about what God is doing through your voice.

Section 1: Pastoral Strengths and Unique Voice

1. You Are a Master of the Disarming Illustration

One of your most remarkable gifts is your ability to open a message with a story that feels completely unrelated to your text — and then land it with precision. The Queen Elizabeth elevator story is a masterclass in this technique. You built it slowly, let the humor breathe, and then pivoted with elegance:

"Most of us aren't likely to be in the presence of earthly royalty. But we have all come today because we desire to be in the presence of the King of Kings and the ruler of the universe."

That transition is genuinely excellent preaching. You created a felt need — the instinctive human response to unexpected proximity to greatness — and then redirected that feeling toward the sermon's central question. This is a technique associated with preachers like Tim Keller, who famously used cultural stories and observations to create a "felt gap" before introducing the gospel. You do this naturally and effectively.

2. Your Theological Depth Is Anchored in Pastoral Warmth

What sets you apart from many expositors is that your theological observations never feel cold or academic. When you moved from Ecclesiastes 5 into 1 Corinthians 11 and the sobering warning about taking communion in an unworthy manner, you could have left the congregation feeling condemned. Instead, you handled it with pastoral care:

"He says, 'Let a man examine.' Who do we need to examine when we come to worship? God, examine me."

You turned a potentially heavy text into an invitation rather than an indictment. That is a pastoral instinct that cannot be taught in seminary — it comes from a genuine love for the people in front of you. This quality is reminiscent of Charles Spurgeon, who was known for holding doctrinal weight and pastoral tenderness in the same hand simultaneously.

3. Your Use of Literary Resources Is Exceptional

The extended use of C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters was one of the most sophisticated and effective moves in this sermon. Rather than simply quoting Lewis as an authority, you let the demonic dialogue do the theological heavy lifting — which is exactly how Lewis intended the book to function. The three excerpts you chose were perfectly sequenced:

• First, the demon encouraging the Christian to critique fellow worshipers
• Second, the demon redirecting attention from God to self ("Did I feel it instead of is God here?")
• Third, the demon turning the Christian into a church consumer

"The search for a suitable church makes the man a critic when the enemy wants him to be a pupil."

This three-part progression built beautifully and gave your congregation a framework they will likely remember long after this Sunday. Very few preachers use secondary sources with this level of intentionality and structural precision. It is a genuine strength.

4. Your Sermon Structure Is Clear, Memorable, and Livable

The three-part framework you established — how we come, what we do when we're there, how we leave — is not just a preaching outline. It is a life framework. You named it with memorable language:

• Come with a humble heart
• Listen with a listening ear
• Leave with an obedient resolve

This kind of alliterative, action-oriented structure gives congregants something they can carry into Monday morning. It is the mark of a pastor who thinks not just about what people hear in the room, but about what they take home. This structural instinct is similar to the approach of Andy Stanley, who consistently builds messages around frameworks people can apply without a notes page.

5. Your Humor Is Genuinely Funny and Spiritually Purposeful

There is a specific kind of pastoral humor that is rare — humor that makes people laugh and then immediately makes them think. You demonstrated this repeatedly. The food critic illustration was particularly well-executed:

"There's a difference between a food critic and a hungry man... I took a bunch of teenage boys one time when we had youth groups... I think the place went bankrupt afterwards."

This landed the laugh, but it was immediately followed by a pointed application: the difference between people who come to worship hungry and people who come to critique. The humor was not decorative. It was structural. It carried theological weight. That is a sophisticated preaching skill.

6. Your Integration of Stewardship, Commitment, and Church Life Is Organic and Pastoral

One of the most challenging moments in any sermon is the transition from biblical teaching to congregational application — especially when that application involves giving, serving, or committing to church life. You navigated this with genuine grace. Rather than making it feel like an interruption or a sales pitch, you wove it directly into the sermon's conclusion as a natural extension of the text:

"You should make a commitment to a church body, a congregation, and say, 'I want to be in covenant with these people. I want to serve here. I want to give here. I want to plant my life here... You keep it next Sunday. You keep it in being a part of a group. You commit it. Keep it in giving and in serving. You make a vow and you keep the vow.'"

This is exactly where the sermon's central theme — the danger of making vows to God and not keeping them — connected powerfully to congregational life. You were not changing the subject. You were applying the text. That is good preaching and good pastoral leadership working together. The call to gather, grow, and go in your closing moments gave the congregation a three-word framework for what committed worship actually looks like in practice.

7. Your Altar Call and Evangelistic Invitation Are Tender and Clear

The closing evangelistic invitation was warm without being manipulative, clear without being transactional. The model prayer you offered was simple and honest:

"Living God, I admit that I have sinned. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Lord of all. And right now, as best I know how, I ask you to forgive me of my sin, I ask you to come into my heart and reconcile me to yourself."

The phrase "as best I know how" is a particularly grace-filled addition. It removes the barrier of theological perfectionism from the moment of conversion and makes the invitation genuinely accessible. You clearly have a heart for the lost, and it shows in how you construct these moments.

Section 2: Growth Opportunities

1. Amplifying the Proverbs Section Through Curation

Your extended walk through the Proverbs passages on speech and silence was theologically rich, but the sheer number of verses created a slight pacing challenge. You quoted from Proverbs 10, 13, 17, 18, and 29 in relatively rapid succession. Each verse individually is powerful, but together they created a moment where the congregation's ability to absorb each one was likely diminished.

An opportunity to amplify your natural strength here would be to select two or three of the most resonant Proverbs, quote them fully, and then pause to let one of them breathe with a brief illustration or personal moment. For example, the verse "Even a fool is considered wise when he keeps silent" generated a wonderful spontaneous response from you — the observation about the person who says nothing and everyone assumes is brilliant. That moment was genuinely funny and insightful. If you had paused there and let that land more fully before moving to the next verse, the congregation would have carried that specific verse out the door.

This is not a criticism of your biblical depth — it is an invitation to trust the weight of individual verses more fully.

2. Creating a Stronger Bridge Between the Lewis Section and Personal Application

The C.S. Lewis material was exceptional, but after the third Lewis quote, the transition back to personal pastoral application was slightly abrupt:

"Now look, I know where you go to church matters. I'm glad you're here today."

This moment felt like you were slightly defensive about the Lewis material — as if you worried the congregation might have heard it as a critique of church shopping rather than an invitation to deeper worship. The Lewis section actually warranted a fuller landing before you moved on. A brief personal moment — perhaps sharing a time when you yourself came to worship as a critic rather than a pupil — would have given the congregation permission to identify with the problem before receiving the solution. Your personal stories are consistently engaging, and inserting one here would have deepened the impact of what was already a strong section.

3. Strengthening the Vow-Keeping Section With a Narrative Anchor

The third movement of the sermon — leaving with an obedient resolve — is theologically the most demanding section, as it deals with the seriousness of vows and the danger of empty religious performance. The content is excellent, but this section moved more quickly than the first two and had fewer illustrative anchors. The Queen Elizabeth story opened the sermon beautifully. The food critic and teenage boys stories carried the middle. But the final section relied more heavily on propositional statements.

A brief story — perhaps a personal testimony about a vow you made to God that cost you something, or a story about someone whose obedient resolve changed the trajectory of their life — would have given this section the same narrative weight as the first two movements. The congregation was ready to be moved in this moment. A well-placed story would have sealed it.

Section 3: Strategic Action Steps

1. Develop a "Sermon Spine" Document for Each Message

Your three-part framework — humble heart, listening ear, obedient resolve — is genuinely excellent. Before you preach, write down your framework in one sentence and then ask: does every illustration, every scripture, every application point connect back to this spine? In this sermon, the spine was clear and consistent. Making this a deliberate discipline will help you identify moments where the Proverbs section, for instance, could be trimmed without losing theological depth.

2. Use the "One Verse, One Story" Rule in Extended Scripture Sections

When you walk through multiple verses from the same book (as you did with Proverbs), consider anchoring every other verse to a brief story, image, or personal moment. This rhythm — verse, story, verse, story — keeps the congregation emotionally engaged while still honoring the biblical text. Your instinct to do this is already present (the "even a fool is thought wise" moment showed it naturally). Making it intentional will strengthen these sections significantly.

3. Lean Into the Communion Moment as a Preaching Climax

The communion moment in this service was a natural landing place for everything the sermon had built toward — the humble heart, the listening ear, the obedient resolve. You made this connection explicitly:

"If you are a believer who has confessed Christ as your savior, I invite you to take those communion elements right now in your hand... confessing sin, telling God, 'Do you need him?'"

This was well done. An opportunity to deepen this further would be to spend thirty seconds before the elements are taken connecting each of the three sermon movements to the act of communion itself. "We take this bread with a humble heart... we drink this cup with a listening ear... we leave this table with obedient resolve." That kind of liturgical echo would create a powerful sense of completion and make the sermon's framework unforgettable.

4. Initiative Focus: Deepening the Call to Committed Church Life

Of the three primary church initiatives — generous giving, small group participation, and volunteer service — this sermon was most naturally suited to encouraging committed church membership and community connection, and you addressed this directly. Your application of Ecclesiastes 5:4-7 to the keeping of vows was a theologically sound foundation for calling people to deeper commitment to the body.

What you did well: You made the connection between vow-keeping and church commitment explicit and natural:

"You should make a commitment to a church body, a congregation... I want to serve here. I want to give here. I want to plant my life here."

How to strengthen this further:

• Add a specific next step for small group connection. You called people to "grow" and "get connected with other believers," but a specific invitation — "If you don't have a small group, this week is the week to take that step" — would give the obedient resolve a concrete action point. The sermon's theme of moving from intention to follow-through makes this a natural fit.

• Personalize the giving invitation. You mentioned giving in the context of vow-keeping, which was theologically appropriate. Adding a brief personal testimony — "When my wife and I committed to tithing, it was a vow we made to God and to each other, and keeping it has shaped everything about how we trust him" — would make the giving application feel less like a category and more like a testimony.

• Connect the Fall Festival volunteer opportunity to the sermon's theme. The fall festival was mentioned in a separate context, but your sermon's call to "go on mission to serve others and share the gospel" was a perfect theological foundation for it. A brief bridge — "One of the most concrete ways you can leave today with obedient resolve is to sign up to serve at our fall festival" — would have made that initiative feel like a sermon application rather than an announcement.

5. Develop Your Personal Story Inventory

You have a natural gift for storytelling, and your personal stories — the teenage boys at the buffet, the CS Lewis church seat, the trip to England — are consistently engaging. Consider keeping a running document of personal stories organized by theme (humility, listening, commitment, worship, community). When you are building a sermon, you can draw from this inventory to ensure each major section has a narrative anchor. Your instinct for story is already strong. Making it systematic will make it even more powerful.

6. Practice the "Slow Landing"

Several of your best moments in this sermon deserved more time to breathe. The Queen Elizabeth transition, the "even a fool is thought wise" observation, and the tax collector prayer were all moments where a pause — five to ten seconds of silence — would have dramatically increased their impact. Silence in preaching communicates that what was just said is important enough to sit with. Your content consistently earns that silence. Trusting it will be one of the most powerful adjustments you can make.

7. Write Out Your Closing Three Minutes

Your closing was warm and pastoral, but it moved through several distinct elements — the evangelistic invitation, the communion call, the gather-grow-go framework, and the connection hub invitation — in a relatively compressed space. Consider writing out your final three minutes word-for-word before you preach, not to read it, but to ensure that each element lands with the weight it deserves. Your openings are clearly prepared with care. Giving the same preparation to your closings will ensure the sermon ends at its highest point rather than tapering.

A Vision for Your Ministry

Pastor, what comes through unmistakably in this sermon is a man who genuinely loves both the Word of God and the people in front of him. You handled a challenging Old Testament text with confidence and creativity. You trusted your congregation with difficult ideas — the danger of unworthy worship, the seriousness of vows, the demonic strategy to make us critics instead of pupils — and you did it without condemnation, only invitation.

The C.S. Lewis material alone signals that you are a pastor who reads widely, thinks carefully, and brings the best of the Christian intellectual tradition into the room for ordinary people. That is a rare gift. The Queen Elizabeth story signals that you understand how to meet people where they are before leading them somewhere they have never been. That is a pastoral gift.

The congregation at Calvary has a preacher who is growing, who is serious about the text, who is funny without being shallow, and who genuinely wants people to encounter God — not just attend a service. That combination is more uncommon than you may realize.

The adjustments suggested here are small. They are the kind of refinements that take a good sermon and make it unforgettable. You already have the foundation. You already have the voice. You already have the heart. The work ahead is simply learning to trust what God has already placed in you — and to give it a little more room to breathe.

Keep preaching. Keep studying. Keep showing up with that humble heart you described so beautifully on Sunday. The congregation in front of you is being shaped by a faithful shepherd, and that matters more than any technique or framework. Well done.