The "application" part of the sermon works by making people anxious about whether they're living the way "we as Christians are supposed to: faithful, loving, caring, experiencing the fullness of the Holy Spirit, and so on. It's a trap. Either you believe that stuff about yourself, which makes you self-righteous, or you don't, which makes you anxious. Either way you're stuck. You can try to convince yourself you're oh-so-loving (so much more loving than your neighbors -- now isn't that nice!) or you can worry about how shabby your Christian life is (haunted by that feeling, "what's wrong with me?"). There's no escaping the trap unless you believe that Christ came to save sinners and that includes you. As the apostle Paul wonderfully put it: "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost" (1 Tim. 1:15). For each one of us, the foremost sinner is the one we're talking about when we say the word "I."
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