Sermon Redux? – Simple Thoughts on Preaching

I of course have not been preaching this month as I have a substitute.  Heck, I haven’t even darkened the door of a church except to deal with the things concerning my son’s wedding which amounted to a couple of hours and that was that.  I was too busy enjoying the ceremony to really think church.  That said, the only thing I have truly missed since day one of this sabbatical is preaching.  There is something about it that is truly the icing on the cake of ministry.  Not preaching though has allowed me to think about it a little and come to some observations.

1. The feeling one gets about effectiveness is immaterial compared to actual effectiveness.  I have lost track of the times I thought a sermon was flat but people would tell me it really touched them and the other way around.  This leads to:
2. The level of effectiveness of a sermon greatly depends not on the skill of the preacher but on 1) The fact that the Word of God has its own power 2) The Holy Spirit’s power to change hearts and 3) the response of the hearers to the first two.
3. That last one is ultimately the trump card of whether a person will be changed by the Word and the Spirit.  If the Word and the Holy Spirit are there, the atmosphere can change a person, it is all a question of the hearer being willing to truly listen and change.

Yeah, that’s it.  I know people have written books on preaching but when it really comes down to it a preacher who humbles himself, preaches the Word and lets the Holy Spirit do His job is in the right place and all that remains is the humility and willingness to change of the hearer. The rest is just details that can improve things but in the end I have seen the simplest messages do more work than the most homoletically correct ones.

Blessings and Cheers!!!