"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."

Kinda makes you think.

edit: I recently read on Paul's xanga an example of how this kind of relevance can be put into practice in our everyday life. Paul is in med-school and this is what he says he's been learning on his missions trip in Mexico:

"...Another thing that I have experienced so far is the emphasis on Scripture and theology as the foundation of the way to practice medicine.  For example, in one session we talked about the doctrine of justification by faith alone and how it affects the way we practice medicine for about three hours.  As an example, we agreed that this doctrine enables us to persevere in what is an extremely difficult field.  One thing about medicine is that anyone involved in the field needs to get very used to failure.  We are never prepared enough for our exams.  We never know enough to impress those above us in the hierarchy, and we will never know enough to treat all diseases.  We will always feel like we could have done more for a patient and can easily bring ourselves to discouragement and dissatisfaction and perpetual sense of guilt for not meeting the standards that we’ve set for ourselves or set by those around us.  However, when we believe that God has forgiven us completely for all our sins, past, present, and future, and that He is pleased us because Jesus’ righteousness is now considered our righteousness, we can overcome the feeling of guilt and with renewed strength attempt to serve God again by taking care of patients.  What was really exciting to me was to see several medical students being exposed to these great doctrines of grace for the first time.  The common refrain from them was ‘why didn’t our churches ever teach us these things before?’"