I wrote this awhile back when I was super busy with sermon preparation for a church camp that I was pastoring:
I am super busy with camp and trying to prepare the “perfect” sermons to proclaim that Jesus is Enough.
I have four sermons to preach (as well as write short devotions, team-time devotions, and put a little together for the morning worship services). I have spent a good deal of time on sermon number one. It keeps going through revision. I get it all together and then decide to cut something. Then I add something else. Then I cut something else. The process keeps continuing. I have even considered scrapping the whole thing and starting over.
My problem is that I am trying to come up with the perfect sermon. I want to be biblically faithful, doctrinally pure, and Christ-exalting. All of those are noble. The problem is you cannot preach a good sermon about the sufficiency of Christ while denying it in your sermon prep. I can put together a sermon that is biblically faithful, doctrinally pure, and Christ-exalting but if it is not accompanied by the power of the Holy Spirit then my “perfect sermon” is a “perfect” speech and not a sermon.
I must remember what Spurgeon said:
“The gospel is preached in the ears of all; it only comes with power to some. The power that is in the gospel does not lie in the eloquence of the preacher; otherwise men would be converters of souls. Nor does it lie in the preacher’s learning; otherwise it would consist in the wisdom of men. We might preach till our tongues rotted, till we should exhaust our lungs and die, but never a soul would be converted unless there were mysterious power going with it—the Holy Ghost changing the will of man. O Sirs! we might well preach to stone walls as to preach to humanity unless the Holy Ghost be with the word, to give it power to convert the soul.” (Quoted from Arturo Azurdia, Spirit Empowered Preaching, p128)
The power of the Spirit and the work of Christ is sufficient to take this jar of clay and house glory therein. Jesus preached the perfect sermon with every breath he took. What can I learn from the life of Christ in my preaching.
- He was radically God-centered
- He poured into others
- He spilled his blood for others
- He was disturbingly real
- He touched broken people in their brokenness
- He comforted the broken and broke the comfortable
- He passionately preached against “religion”
- He relied upon the Spirit
- He was Christ-centered
- He was biblically-saturated
- He was engaging
- He was never afraid to stoop
- He preached among the people
- He lived with those he taught
- He preached with authority
- He was Jesus and I’m not
Jesus is sufficient for preachers too. May I never forget this.
The article is good, but the title is one of the best I’ve ever seen.
It makes me think this as well – I cannot judge the success of my message by the response of the people. The best sermon ever? They hung him on a cross.
The best sermon may not be the best-received sermon. Somehow, I have to learn to live for the amen of heaven.
Dave, that’s difficult to do in the Western part of the world; and with the mentality of people like Frank, it’s hard not to base your success on the response of your hearers. When you “must” have _______ many people respond publicly to your sermons, or your’re a failure in ministry, it’s easy to succumb to the unholy idea that response=success. If this is true however, Jesus was less successful in His ministry than his disciples were. Who is prepared to argue this?
Jared, I certainly respect your right to disagree with me–as you do on many topics. I respect your thoughtful contributions to discussions even when I disagree.
However, would you please point out in any post where I suggested anything like the “mentality” you attribute to me.
In defense, I will say, that doing all you can to make sure your message is poorly received and nobody responds to Christ in faith, is in my very humble opinion, not particularly godly.
On the other hand, large crowds alone do not indicate the success of a messenger of God.
Again, please show me where I suggested the “mentality” you attribute to me.
Frank, you have pointed to people responding to you moreso than me (which you assumed) as proof for why you are more valuable in the ministry than I am. You’ve said concerning ministry, “Those who can do, and those who can’t blog.”
Please tell me exactly what you mean when you point to more response from sinners to you than me… what are you trying to prove? If you’re not trying to prove that you’re more successful in ministry, then what are you trying to prove?
I’m sorry you are so angry. Put my comment into context. Address what I just posted and I think you might be able to contribute something helpful.
First of all, I never said anything about how many sinners respond to you. Frankly, I don’t have a clue.
I did write in my journal this morning that I was disappointed that no one made a first-time decision to follow Christ in church yesterday. So, I certainly have no reason to “boast about any response to my message.”
Also, I though in my post that I clearly affirmed your value in ministry so I’m not sure what that statement you again attribute to me: “I am more valuable in the ministry than you are.” I certainly don’t believe that, I certainly didn’t say that.
Do I believe that some people are much better at “blogging about ministry than actually doing ministry?” I’d have to confess, I do believe that “talking the talk is much different than walking the walk.”
Hopefully, this has cleared up some of your misconceptions about what I do or do not believe.
The building of the Kingdom is such a massive (cosmic, universal, global) undertaking, I am thrilled there are others, like yourself, that are engaged in that battle. I wish you well — even if I don’t always agree with you.
Frank, I too am glad there are other laborers out there. What impresses me is the guys that labor for years and years without much tangible fruit to speak of. It’s easy to labor when the fruit is evident; however, planting and watering are difficult when the fruit is not evident.
Labor on brother; for the sake that others may know Him.
I think a good preacher uses the law to convict of sin and then then hands the gospel over free of charge to the hearer.
No strings attached. No appeals for a decision (that is just the law again-something which we MUST do).
Put it out there, in one of a myriad of different ways, and then let the Holy Spirit create faith when and where He wills.
I might point out that “He” was . . .
“the one Who said ‘Greater works” you will do.”
Sometimes it seems like people use the perfection of Christ and the sufficiency of His life to justify imperfections in our lives and the lack of sufficiency in our messages. That sounds holy, but is it true?
Frank, who gets to decide the definition of sufficiency in ministry?
This is my point exactly, you’re assuming that people don’t respond to sermons because of “imperfections” in the preacher. I however believe God gives the increase; sometimes there’s much fruit, and sometimes there’s not.
No, Jared. I don’t “assume” that is the ONLY reason someone does not respond to a message. What I purport is that we, as preachers, should do everything in our power (knowing we are only human) to make sure it is not the reason people do not respond to our message.
I could turn your assumption around and say: “You assume that the preacher is NEVER a reason someone does not respond to the gospel.” Here we would probably descend into the well worn Calvinist/non-Calvinist debate.
Since God has — in my not-so-Calvinist view — chosen to use men (and women, and even children) as His instrument in the delivery of His message which leads to the apportionment of His grace, we should make the instrument as sharp and pure as possible.
I see this as the great value of this post if the point is not lost in other matters.
Frank, I agree that we should preach with excellence; and that we shouldn’t disqualify the gospel in the lives of others by being hypocrites. However, even if we preach and live as excellent as possible, God alone still gives the increase. There will be seasons of much fruit, and seasons of little fruit. We should plant and water with excellence, but God alone gives the increase. There can be no boasting in ourselves. A pastor that hasn’t lead anyone to the Lord in 10 years may be just as faithful of a pastor as you or me, since God alone gives the increase. We need to encourage faithfulness to what God has revealed in His Word, instead of judging pastors based on numbers. The response of people does not qualify or disqualify our ministries, but faithful does… at least in God’s eyes.
Let us comment on the post.
Dave,
Please enlighten me how my post is not directly related to people responding to the preaching of the Word. Or, did I miss the point of the post?
One issue with this post it seems to me was that Jesus was the embodiment of His message.
I believe that preachers should also be the embodiment of our message — howbeit we will obviously not be perfect as Christ was. We still have the responsibility to seek such an embodiment of the message to whatever degree that is humanly possible.
Sure we are clay . . . but can we not seek to be the best clay we can possibly be? I thought that was the point of the post, though coming from it from a different angle, perhaps.