2 Timothy 3:1-4:4
Preaching Matters
Woodlawn Baptist Church
September 2, 2007
(Have a stack of sermons on the stage. Pick them up and flip through them in a reminiscing sort of way and think out loud about them.) Though I’ve only been preaching a little over six years, this is a lot of sermons. Sometimes I flip through them and wonder…does preaching really matter? For all the studying, translating, diagramming, outlining, stressing over relevance, praying, rehearsing, late nights, and sleepless nights, does preaching really matter?
You may or may not have ever asked that question, but it’s a question worth asking today. Four Sundays spent making the case for joyful, expressive worship and silent, solemn faces are still going to be offered in response. Has preaching slowed the divorce rate any? Has it kept believers out of debt? Has it resulted in parents raising their children to live for the glory of God? Does preaching matter?
Every Sunday morning in thousands of pulpits across our nation pews are being filled, Bibles are being opened and sermons are being preached from every book of the Bible on every subject imaginable. But does it really matter? Are God’s people today more forgiving, more loving, less worrisome, less anxious, more committed, more concerned for our families? More concerned for the lost? For all the preaching, are we less caught up in consumerism? Are we less worried about our image? More concerned for holiness, purity and biblical morality than we were last year?
Those are all questions we might debate, but they really are the wrong questions when it comes to answering the question of whether preaching matters. Here is the more correct question we have to ask: Does God have something to say to us? And if so, how has He chosen to communicate it to us? The answer of course is Yes, God does have a message for us, and preaching is that instrument. The apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1,
“For Christ sent me…to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.”
God has chosen the instrument of preaching, foolish as it may seem in this day of information overload where voices are crying out from every corner for your attention, to speak His message to our hearts. I was reminded of this this week as I was reading the Scriptures.
Turn with me to Romans 1. In Romans 1:15-16, Paul said,
“So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”
Paul was excited about getting to preach the gospel. Why? Because his preaching was the power of God? No! The gospel is the power of God! The gospel brings salvation! And it was that gospel Paul wanted to preach.
In Romans 10, Paul said, “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.” Why? Because without salvation man is condemned to hell! We don’t have time to study the whole book of Romans this morning, but Paul’s made the case that we need salvation because we’re sinners, and the wages of our sin is death! Eternal separation from God! Man is corrupt in every way, rotten to the core, in bondage and enslaved to our sin, the enemies of God!
But Romans 5:8 says that…
“God commended his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.”
“The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord,” the Scripture says. It says that…
“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with the mouth that you are saved.”
Its as simple as this: until a person knows they’re a sinner, that Jesus Christ died for their sin, that they must believe and put their faith in the death of Jesus Christ for their sin, they cannot be saved. That’s why Romans 10:13 says, “Whosoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” But it begs the question Paul asked in Romans 10:14,
“How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?”
Does preaching matter? The answer is yes! God has a message for man! “It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” That’s why preaching matters.
But preaching is more than just sharing the gospel with those who are lost. God has a message for man that involves more than just getting saved. God cares how we live. God cares about His glory. God cares about our sanctification. God cares that our lives are set apart for Him, honoring to Him, reflecting a love and adoration of Him! He could have just written it all in a book and left it lying around. He could have inspired men to record it all with the hopes that we’d love it so much we’d just read it and do it. But God has a message for us and He’s not going to be passive about getting it to us! He chose the instrument of preaching to call His people to lives of holiness and love for Him!
Turn with me first to 2 Timothy 4. Look at verse 1. “I charge you therefore…preach the Word.”
What does he mean, “therefore?” Go back to chapter 3:1. God knew long before we ever came around that people in our day and time were going to be living the way they do. He knew that people would love themselves and their money. He knew that believers wouldn’t be in the word. He knew that His own people would be casual about their faith. He knew that a time was coming when people wouldn’t listen to sound doctrine. He knew that the day would come when believers and unbelievers alike would shake their heads and wonder about the relevance and need for preaching. And it was into that world He inspired Paul to charge the young preacher Timothy to “preach the word!”
On the next page he told Titus the same thing. Titus 1:15-16 tell us that folk profess to know God, but their lives tell us something different. What’s the answer for this preacher? “Speak the things that reflect sound doctrine!” In other words, “Preach the word!”
Listen, God has a message for us. He loves us too much not to share it, and while there’s much that goes on in pulpits today that makes for some mighty poor preaching, it is still preaching that God has chosen to share that message. Look with me to one last passage in 1 Corinthians 1. Paul said that…
“God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.” He said, “My speech and my preaching were not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.” Why? So that your faith wouldn’t stand in man’s wisdom, but in the power of God.” Then he said “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God has revealed them to us…”
We have no idea what wonderful things God has for us. But until we come to the place in our lives where we recognize that preaching is more than just part of our religious heritage and it is more than what we pay the preacher to do, and it is more than a glorified Bible lesson, but it is in fact the instrument God has chosen to share His message with us, we’re going to miss those wonderful things.
So let’s assume for a moment that all of us understand that God has a message to share with us and that preaching, not just my preaching, but preaching matters, then how should we respond? What should we do?
• Pray: pray for one another, for prepared hearts, for a clear mind, for something significant, for your preacher, for few distractions, for understanding, for the lost to be saved, for the saved to be changed…We could go on – pray!
• Make it important in your life:
o Used to people joked about Baptists staying home sick all the time and missing the preaching. Its not that way any more. Now we miss preaching because we went shopping, because we had to mow the yard, because we’re going here and there, and all the while we’ve deceived ourselves into thinking that we’re just missing church.
o It’s a lie! In the Old Testament when the prophets had a message from God they would call everyone together, no matter what day or time it was and they came. If the preacher showed up with a message from God people dropped what they were doing.
o Now when God has a message for us we ought to demonstrate that we believe God has a message for us by doing the same, only now we’ve scheduled those times, be it right or wrong, and you can plan to hear the message.
o We need to change our attitudes about what goes on in this room during the preaching.
• Do something with what God tells you. In other words, don’t just be hearers, but doers of the Word. Be obedient. Be surrendered.
What are the results of that going to be? We have no idea! There have been times when I’ve had something important I wanted to share. We all have. So you know the disappointment I have felt when people acted like they didn’t care about what I had to say. God is no different. Instead of disappointing Him with our casual attitudes about what He’s trying to say to us through the preaching, I pray we’ll be a people who give preaching the place in our hearts it deserves, not for me, but to please God!
Can you imagine what great things God could do through us if we began praying for His message each week? What might happen if hearing God became the event we planned our weekends around each week? How happy might God be if we determined in our hearts to do something with His message every time we encountered Him in it? We have no idea. But I’d sure like to see. Wouldn’t you?
