On Preaching

Books galore have been written on preaching.  Some of them should be read.

There is only one thing you need to know about preaching:  it should be a message from Jesus about Jesus.

Pretty simple.

Simple, not easy.  Preaching and, even more so, the preparation for preaching is the hardest thing a pastor does all week.  You should be prepared weekly to do battle with Satan as you plunge into the Word of God for the good of the people of God.  Dress yourself with the panoply of God.

It should be a message.  Not a lecture.  Not a paper.  Not an oratorical wonder.  People need to have a word from their God to help their life and to strengthen their faith, hope and love.

It should be from Jesus.  Jesus is the Word.  Preach the Word.  Jesus is the Word.  The best illustrations for sermons will be found in the Bible itself—there are plenty of characters for years of sermons!  Use other passages to support your point.  Having a pattern of reading through the Bible annually and a habit of memorizing Bible passages will buttress your preaching like nothing else.

It should be about Jesus.  Make sure your message is really proclaiming the Savior.  Remember what Jesus said?  “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have life.  And it is they that testify about me.”  So too our sermons should always testify to Jesus:  his love, forgiveness, peace and power.

That means your sermons should not be about you.   Humanly speaking, for preachers to be preachers we must have a little ham bone in us.  At a conference somewhere the speaker said, “All preachers are a little narcissistic.  They must be to be to get up in front of people on a Sunday morning.”  So our nature needs to be on notice.  We need to be on guard against us getting in the way of Jesus:  our experiences, our insights, our learnedness and our wit.  Sure, we should be “real” and “authentic.”  But in this area of ministry more than any other we need spirit of John the Baptist.  Remember?  “He must increase; I must decrease.”

And please, please, leave your family out of it!  The people don’t need to hear about how wonderful or quirky or interesting or accomplished your family is.  They have family of their own.  And your own family doesn’t need to have to worry about what slip up at the dinner table or trouble at school might become the next sermon illustration.

One more thing:  Don’t lie or deceive.  Remember when we are preaching we are proclaiming the Author of Truth.  There should be no falsehoods in our preaching.  So, if you are recounting an event that did not happen to you, don’t make it sound like it did.  If you are saying something witty or insightful that you got from someone else, acknowledge that it’s not yours.  If you have borrowed someone’s story or have made one up, make sure people know it.

The path toward significant preaching is pretty simple:  share messages from Jesus about Jesus.

Not easy.