Skip to main content

What shall I preach about this Sunday?

"I would never preach a sermon - the Lord forgive me if I do - which is not full to overflowing with my Master. I know one who said I was always on the old string, and he would come and hear me no more; but he said if I preached a sermon without Christ in it, he would come. Ah, he will never come while this tongue moves—for a sermon without Christ in it—a Christless sermon? A brook without water? A cloud without rain? A well which mocks the traveller? A tree twice dead, plucked up by the roots? A sky without a sun? A night without a star? It would be a realm of death—a place of mourning for angels, and laughter for devils! O Christian, we must have Christ!"  (C H Spurgeon, Sermon: A Bundle of Myrrh, 8 March 1864)
"It is to feed sheep on Christ that men are called to churches and congregations, whatever they may think they are called to do. If you think that you are called to keep a largely worldly organisation (miscalled a church) going with... sub-Christian drugs or stimulants, then the only hope I can give you is to advise you to give up the hope of the ministry... [rather] than cluttering the church with a lot of worldly claptrap in the delusion you are doing a job for God."  (William Still, The Work of the Pastor)
"To the evangelical preacher, then, I would address one simple but pointed question, a question every one of us should ask ourselves as we prepare to preach: How does this passage of Scripture, and consequently my sermon, testify to Christ?"  (Graeme Goldsworthy, Preaching the whole Bible as Christian Scripture)
"We never 'arrive' or 'have cracked it' when it comes to preaching Christ. But as we come to know the Scriptures more intimately, as we see patterns deeply embedded in the Bible and - just as crucially - as we come to know Christ himself more intimately and to love him better, we shall surely develop the instinct to reason, explain and prove from all the Scriptures the riches of grace which are proclaimed in Jesus, the Christ, the Saviour of the world." (Sinclair Ferguson, Preaching Christ from the Old Testament)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

10 things servant leadership is

Having cleared away 10 things servant leadership is not , here are 10 that it is. [Credit to Harrison Mungai for his help in observing many of these features and helping us to think through this really important area.] I used to think that all that was necessary in gospel ministry was faithful Bible handling. Preach the Word carefully and surely everything else should follow? But I was wrong. Sadly it is possible to have high quality expository preaching and ungodly leadership. It shouldn’t be possible but it is. And it’s a very ugly thing. Peter Mead has written  on the danger that can be done to a church or ministry when appointment of leaders values ability over character. So here are ten aspects of biblical servant leadership, specifically in relation to gospel ministry leadership, from 1 Thessalonians, especially chapters 2 and 3: Servant leadership is, wherever possible, Plural . A lot of articles and books on leadership assume that it is a personal project. Search G...

Utumishi wa Neno taster

It's finally starting! We had our first taster day for the church-based Utumishi wa Neno preaching course on Saturday. It was great to spend a few hours with 14 or so brothers and sisters and just spend soak in the Word. One of the crazy things we did was to read through the whole of Philippians out loud. How long did it take us? 15 minutes. And all of us enjoyed the experience and heard things we'd never noticed before. More thoughts on the day here . And for those who asked for the notes, they're available to download here . If you're in Kenya and want to get involved in the on-going Utumishi training see more info on the iServe Africa website .

Too short a text?

I was a bit concerned recently when I found that a church I hugely respect had been going through the letter of 1 Peter for the last 7 months and were only just beginning chapter 5. It's wonderful to preach through the books and letters of the Bible. All that was said was true and helpful. But is there a danger in only taking three verses at a time? I think there is. You're likely to lose the flow of the letter. 1 Peter only takes 16 minutes (max) to read out loud. That is how the first readers would have heard it. That's how it's meant to be experienced. Certainly there's a place for more detailed study but there is a great danger we lose the flow, the themes, the life of this living letter. If you preach for 45 minutes on 3 verses you're likely to be bringing in all sorts of cross-references, lots of systematic theology. In fact the verses of 1 Peter itself are probably going to be only a small proportion of your content. So the great danger is that I...