A church was looking for a pastor, so they invited several candidates to come and preach for them. One minister spoke on the text, “The wicked shall be turned into hell.” The head elder was not in favor of him. A few weeks later, another preacher came and used the same Scripture for his sermon. This time the head elder said, “He’s good! Let’s call him.” The other board members were surprised, and one of them asked, “Why did you like him? He used the same text as the other minister.” “True,” replied the head elder, “but when the second man emphasized that the lost will be turned into hell, he said it with tears in his yees and with concern in his voice. The first preacher almost seemed to gloat over it.”
One of the temptations when we preach is having the audience first in mind rather than the One who called us. As a result, we find ourselves preaching on issues that will not offend nor bring discomfort to our listeners. As a result, we avoid topics such as hell and our accountability before a holy God.
Yet, I believe that another temptation is to preach with the desire of obtaining a reputation of preaching hard regardless of what anyone else will think — and this, too, can become a source of pride as well. This first preacher mentioned in the above illustration gloated over preaching hard on a hard text.
I am all for expository preaching, where the preacher exposes (the root word of expository) what the text is saying as opposed to preaching that imposes the preacher’s meaning and desires on the text. And as we do preach verse-by-verse, texts will come up that are difficult not only to preach but will be difficult for our congregants to hear.
I plead with you (and I speak to myself as well) to keep Ephesians 4:15 in mind: “Speak the truth in love.” When we neglect love in preaching the truth, we come across as cold, calculated, and calloused to the hearts of our hearers. When we speak all love but neglect the truth, the compromise can creep in.
There is nothing more loving that speaking the truth! But when you preach the truth, ask God during your sermon preparation and even while you are preaching to give you a love and an empathy for your people so that you may see them truly as God sees them — in desperate need of connecting with the Sovereign God of the universe. To them, while you are preaching, you represent and speak the Word of God! So speak, feel, and love as God would!
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