Anybody who knows me knows I love to preach. To be candid, though, preaching scares me. Here’s why:
- I will answer to God for what I say. I know God will hold me accountable for every word I say, and He will not ignore any carelessness from my lips (Matt. 12:36-37). Recklessness in preaching is an invitation to judgment.
- What I do affects eternity. Here, I am not suggesting that my preaching somehow trumps the sovereignty of God. I am simply aware that God uses proclamation of His Word to save souls (Rom. 10:9-15) and to grow believers.
- I may have only one opportunity to speak truth to a hearer. In the midst of a busy life, a listener may offer alert ears for only a few minutes. I will miss that one-time open door if my preaching wanders from the Word.
- It’s easier to talk about “stuff” than it is to teach the Word. It’s just easier to use a few Bible verses as a launching pad to preach about “stuff” than to do the hard work of Bible exposition – and that reality scares me.
- At least for a few minutes, everybody is focused on me. I want my preaching to direct others to Jesus, but I must be honest with myself: preaching frightens me because it can instead become a means to build my ego.
- I can preach in my own strength. What frightens me is that I can rely on my training, my knowledge, and my experience when I preach – and completely lack the power and blessing of God.
- Preaching puts my life under the microscope. Those who listen to my sermons presume my life will validate my words. In fact, the very Word I preach gives them the lens through which to view my life. That’s humbling . . . and a bit disconcerting.
- The devil attacks preachers. The gospel is “God’s power for salvation” (Rom. 1:16, HCSB). Thus, it’s not surprising the enemy aims his arrows at preachers to hinder us from preaching and living out the Word.
- Somebody probably won’t like something about the message. It’s too long. Or too short. Not enough Bible. Too much Bible. For those of us who can wrongly be perfectionistic and people-pleasing at times, preaching is a risky endeavor.
- Somebody will listen. Somebody who hears will take the message to heart and follow it. If somebody is going to listen, I need to approach the Word with seriousness and humility.
- It’s easy to forget these truths. I’m well aware that a healthy respect for the preaching task today can become only routine tomorrow. Please pray that God will give me grace to keep that slide from happening.
My prayer is that these posts this week will challenge you as you preach.
Remember, Chuck, that God was present with you when you prepared your sermon. His grace enabled you to prepare the sermon, to write it if you preach from a manuscript. His Holy Spirit was guiding you. As important as your choice of words may be, it is the Holy Spirit who opens hearts and minds to hear your words and who uses your words to convict the unbelieving, to strengthen and encourage the faithful, to urge those who claim Jesus as their Lord to live more closely according to his teaching and example, to nudge them to walk in the good works that God has prepared for them to walk in and to cheer them on when they do.. When you step into the pulpit, God is there with you. You are not alone. The Holy Spirit indwells your innermost being. Jesus promised to be with his disciples until the end of the age and the Holy Spirit unites us to Jesus. As God tells us in the Book of Isaiah, his word goes forth from his mouth and returns not to him empty but accomplishes that which he purposes. When I preach, I often first pray that the words which I speak will be God’s words and the words that congregation hears will not be mine but God’s. The seventeenth century Anglican poet-priest George Herbert offered this advice to preachers in The Country Parson: take the words of your sermon, dip them in the prayer of your heart, and then preach them. Herbert would also pause in his sermons to offer brief prayers for his congregation, praying aloud that they would take to heart what he was preaching, sending these short prayers winging like swift arrows to the throne of grace. Think about that for a moment. A pastor praying for his congregation during his sermon. It not only conveys that the pastor considers the sermon important for the congregation to hear but he cares about the members of his congregation hearing and acting on what he is saying, enough to stop and pray for them.