Preaching Thoughts

One of the amazing about preaching is what people get out of it.  Most preachers have a plan when they get in the pulpit on Sunday.  The sermon is not just a random thing.  Oh, for sure there are some who stand without any preparation figuring the Spirit will bail them out.  Maybe it happens that way for some, but I was always grateful for the Spirit working on the sermon while I was preaching it and also when I was preparing it through the days of the week.  Unlike some preachers who seemed to preach with three points, I came to a place of preaching one point sermons as if my hammer only had one nail to drive in place.    

Sometimes a sermon worked and sometimes it obviously did not.  I never blamed the Spirit for the failures figuring they were mine and was always amazed when He took something we worked on during the week for holy purposes.  What was always interesting was what people took home with them.  Often times when someone told me how much the sermon meant to them and why it did, I was surprised because I had not ever figured on anyone going in the direction the sermon carried them.  And while I might have preached for a half hour, the takeaway for them was one sentence, or maybe just one phrase.  Perhaps, that is a reason to preach shorter sermons, or maybe it means that a preacher like me needed more time to preach so one of the many sentences would come home to roost.   

Of course, the one thing the good preachers never forget is that preaching is mostly about what God wants to do at the moment of the sermon.  It is not a time for showing off Biblical knowledge, or for impressing folks with linguistic eloquence. It is instead a time for God to speak through the preacher what can be heard as the Word of the Lord.  And it is also a time of trusting Him to say what He wants to say and to speak to whom He wants to speak either through the preacher, or despite the preacher.