One main concern to preachers after every Sunday service is what to preach next. Some who run in series tend not to be worried about the issue. I appreciate the benefits of preaching in series given by Nathan Hardesty in 4 Powerful Benefits of Preaching in a Series and Eric Geiger in his writing on 4 Advantages of Advanced Planning for Sermons and Teaching Series. While it has its advantages, there is the other opposing side when it is stretched beyond its welcome; in turn, the determined the level of impact the message on the hearers’ lives will be dropped.
A Preaching Based on God’s Word
In the discussion on how to preach a message that will leave a lasting effect on the hearers, one Biblical text that comes to mind is contained in Paul’s first letter to the people of Thessalonica in chapter 2:1-13. Paul first gave some reasons why and ways some persons preach. They do so with deceit or impure motives or trickery; to please men instead of God; to win others with flattery; pretending to be friendly to get others money; seeking human praise. Paul calls preaching in the wrong motive as people who “heap up their sins to the limit.” He continues to state the difference between his preaching and those of the false preaching in verse 13, that:
For this reason, we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe.
In search for what to preach, preachers are usually open to draw messages from various sources ranging from his experiences, exposures, background, culture, vision/dreams, and lots more. Preachers are easily prone to base their sermons on happenings around them, especially; either on what they have noticed within their faith community or remote community. Observably, despite being propelled to preach from many sources, a message that will leave a lasting effect in the hearers’ lives is that which God Himself preaches, not what human wisdom drives. It is not a makeup of what the preacher wants to say or what the hearers wish their itching ears to hear. Instead, God needs to speak through His medium (the preacher) to the people.
The personality of the preacher is once here revealed as one whom God speaks through. A preacher does not have a word of his own; he never has anything to say unless given to him. Paul says it is not the word of men rather the word of God spoken through men and heard by men. A preacher is therefore one authorized to deliver a message on behalf of another, such that the words he says, none belongs to him; they are borrowed words. Also, before a preached delivers a given message, it is first internalized and understood by him, before he can communicate it to others. The level of a preacher’s understanding of a message will in a long way determined the hearers’ receptivity.
One principal element in Christian preaching is the Preached-preacher relationship. God is the one preached – the centre of the message – and when a preacher does not have a good relationship with the Preached, he does not have any news to deliver.
The notion here does not entirely remove the human influence to a God-given message but that in whatever way the message is delivered through the embellishment of illustrations, the centrality of the message remains in the object – “the word of God.” It is this object of preaching that makes preaching efficacious in not in the human presentation. Runia maintained that the efficacy of preaching “is not due to the talents of the preacher, but the secret lies in the genitive: it is the word of God.” Thus, the hearers do not hear the preacher, rather God himself speaking through the preaching. In preaching, when man’s voice is heard more than the voice of God, it produces a counter result.
In a mathematical representation, the efficacy (e) of preaching can be given by the equation below where ‘W’ represents God’s Word and ‘w’ as the preacher’s word.:
e=W-w
Preaching effectiveness as given by the equation does not need a combination of God’s Word and the preacher’s word; instead, God speaking His Words through the preacher. A mix-up of the two will water down the Word of God and render it ineffective. A preacher that will affect his generation and deliver messages that will last beyond its first time of hearing should endeavour to preach the Word of God.
Some effects of preaching the Word inspired by God can be summarized as follows:
- The preacher’s word is God own very Word. Being God’s word implies that God is committed to working out what the preacher says. The working of God’s Word is generally a supernatural activity, that which only God Himself can perform.
- The Word of God can stand on its own. It is active and productive when put to work. It has operative and powerful effects to accomplish why it is spoken.
- As powerful as the Word of God, it produces effects only when it is released to the lives of others. Again, failure of preaching the Word of God or mincing its originality makes it lose its actual effect.
- The effect of the Word of God is produced in those who hear and believes in it. Outside hearing and believing the word of God will be ineffective. The Word of God works for/in those who walks in obedience to it.
- The Word of God has a continuous effect on the lives of the hearers. When God speaks, it is not only for the immediate; it also affects them subsequently.