When a person is called to “trial preach”, he has a dilemma. How can he go into a church that he doesn't know in a community that he doesn't know and preach a sermon that is relevant to people he doesn't know? I'm at an advantage here because I live in this community and I'm active in it. I've been in this church and know it's history and I know many of you. But, I've been a pastoral candidate in churches I didn't know. A few years ago I was a candidate at a church just outside Waco, Texas. It had been a while since I preached, so I prepared what I thought was a great sermon. Well, I preached that sermon and it went a little longer than I expected, which concerned me a little. I was standing at the doors of the church after the service to shake hands with the congregants when one of the members of the pulpit committee came up and exulted, “Well preacher, that was an exhilarating and refreshing sermon!” That eased my concerns and I was about to thank him when he added, “Why I felt like a new man when I woke up.” Because the pastor's preaching is the most important factor in the health and growth of a church, you are right in asking your prospective pastor to “trial preach”. But, I ask you, “How do you judge preaching?” I'd like to quote a couple of famous preachers in my own answer to that question.
C.H. Spurgeon “Prince of Preachers”
Paul writes, “Jews demand miraculous signs.” They said, “Moses performed miracles; let us see miracles performed, and then we will believe,” forgetting that all the miracles that Moses did were completely eclipsed by those which Jesus did. Then there were certain Judaizing teachers who, in order to win the Jews, preached circumcision, exalted the Passover, and endeavored to prove that Judaism might still exist side by side with Christianity, and that the old rites might still be practiced by the followers of Christ. So Paul, who was “all things to all men so that by all possible means he might save some,” put his foot down, and said, in effect, “Whatever others may do, we preach Christ crucified; we dare not, we cannot, and we will not alter the great subject matter of our preaching, Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
Then he added, “and Greeks look for wisdom.” Corinth was the very eye of Greece, and the Corinthian Greeks sought after what they regarded as wisdom; that is to say, the wisdom of this world, not the wisdom of God, which Paul preached. The Greeks also treasured the memory of the eloquence of Demosthenes and other famous public speakers, and they seemed to think that true wisdom must be proclaimed with the graces of skillful elocution; but Paul writes to these Corinthian Greeks, “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but with the demonstration of the Spirit and of power; that your faith would not be based in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”
Now, today, there are some who would be glad, if we would preach anything except Christ crucified. Perhaps the most dangerous among them are those who are continually crying out for intellectual preaching, by which they mean preaching which neither the heavens nor the preachers themselves can comprehend, the kind of preaching which has little or nothing to do with the scriptures, and which requires a dictionary rather than a Bible to explain it. These are the people who are continually running around, and asking, “Have you heard our minister? He gave us a wonderful sermon last Sunday morning; he quoted Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin, and he gave us some charming pieces of poetry, in fact, it was overall an intellectual treat.” Yes, and I have usually found that such intellectual treats lead to the ruination of souls; that is not the kind of preaching that God generally blesses to the salvation of souls, and therefore, even though others may preach the philosophy of Plato or adopt the arguments of Aristotle, we preach Christ crucified,” the Christ who died for sinners, the people’s Christ, and “we preach Christ crucified” in simple language, in plain speech such which the common people can understand.
Henry Ward Beecher congregationalist preacher who achieved celebrity status as America's greatest preacher in the 1860's
There is a great scale of motives which influence men, and which may, in their own rank and place, be addressed to men for the production of right conduct. We may attempt to dissuade men from evil by the intrinsic hatefulness of evil. We may attempt to persuade men to a course of holiness on account of the beauty of holiness. We may teach men to leave off things that are wrong, and to revolt from them because they are wrong. We may teach men to follow that which is good because goodness is attractive to every right-minded and noble nature. In this intrinsic hatefulness of evil and attractiveness of good there is a power which we may properly employ.
We may appeal to the self-interest of men, and teach that "godliness is profitable in all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come" (1 Tim. 4:8). There is a degree of power in that presentation to many minds.
There are motives that may in some measure touch every faculty of the soul. But in its nature the soul responds most, not to those collateral motives which are drawn from the things which exist about us, but to those which bring upon us the influence of God's own personal presence. The sense of his being, of his eternity, and of the immortality in which he dwells - this is that to which the soul most responds. It is true that men are so shut out from these views that they are, as a matter of fact, more powerfully influenced by worldly considerations; but the nature of the mind is such that when you can fairly bring to bear upon it these higher motives, they are capable of producing greater changes in it than can any secular, sordid motives whatsoever.
But when divine and infinite things are brought before the mind, some things are more apt to stimulate men than others. Those views which impress the mind with its own weakness, and want, and imperfection, and guilt, and dreadful danger, are very apt to be influential. The impression of these things upon the mind is the result of preaching Christ crucified; of calling attention to the stupendousness of the offering that he made when he gave himself for the world; of pointing out all the steps accompanying his mission on earth, that were afterward declared to be necessary on account of the sinfulness of every human creature, from which sinfulness, without the atonement, men could never have been saved.
The Christian who preaches and promotes the gospel must keep first things first – he must keep his eye on the ball. Arnold Palmer recounts his mistake on the final hole of the 1961 Masters Golf tournament. “I had a one-stroke lead and had just hit a very satisfying tee shot. I felt I was in pretty good shape. As I approached my ball, I saw an old friend standing at the edge of the gallery. He motioned me over, stuck out his hand and said, Congratulations." I took his hand and shook it, but as soon as I did, I knew I had lost my focus. On my next two shots, I hit the ball into a sand trap, and then put it over the edge of the green. I missed a putt and lost the Masters. You don’t forget a mistake like that; you just learn from it and become determined that you will never do that again. I haven’t in the thirty years since.” You and I have more at stake here than a green jacket. You see, we can miss the big picture as we scour this incomparable library of 800,000 words in sixty-six books. As devoted Bible students plumbing the depths of Holy Writ, diagramming sentences, dissecting grammar and delving into the precise meaning of Hebrew and Greek words, we must be sure to step back periodically from our microscopic examination to dwell on the main character and His climactic role in our Salvation.
God is not a mortician. God's business isn't prettying up the dead. Outside Christ, we're all dead for the wages of sin is death and anyone who says they are without sin is a liar. If you want to pretty up your dead lives, go to Tony Robbins, Oprah or Dr. Phil, or Joel Osteen, T.D. Jakes, Joyce Meyer, Robert Schuller, or Norman Vincent Peal or any preacher who teaches a Positive/Possibility, Self-Improvement or Success message. If you want to pretty up your dead lives, go to any church where the preacher teaches you rules or principles for pretty living. If you want to pretty up your dead lives go to any church where following the rules is taught more than following the ruler. God's business is giving new life. And you and I can't experience new life without Christ and Him crucified. If you want new life, as an individual and as a church, you must go to Christ and Him crucified. Smith Wigglesworth was a revival preacher in the 1930's and 40's. Numerous accounts have it that Smith Wigglesworth raised the dead, and did other wondrous miracles in the Name of Jesus. This is why he was called The Apostle of Faith. One example of the dead being raised was about a man who died before Smith Wigglesworth made it to his house. Smith Wigglesworth was supposed to pray for him, but was greeted at the door with the words “You are too late… He died…” With the bold faith that he was known for he replied “God never sent me anywhere too late…” He asked to be left alone with the corpse.
The account has it that Smith Wigglesworth commanded the dead man to rise. Nothing happened. He commanded him to rise again, and again nothing happened. Wigglesworth then stood the man up on his feet, commanded him to rise, and let him go. The man collapsed to the floor. He did this over and over again several times, with the same result. Finally, the man opened his eyes. Not only did he come back to life, but he also was healed of his disease! Which would you have rather come to your house if you were that dead man or his family – the mortician or Smith Wigglesworth? As for me and my house, I will serve the Lord who gives new life.
Six major reasons why we must preach Christ.
WE PREACH CHRIST BECAUSE HE IS OUR MAKER. The apostle Paul, in extolling the privilege of preaching Christ, links this blessing with Christ as Creator in Ephesians 3:8-11, “To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord…” Once again Paul emphasizes this truth in Colossians 1:16, “For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.”
In part because we know Jesus as the Son of God and in part because the image of baby Jesus in a manger is so prominent today, some lose sight of the fact that Jesus existed throughout eternity and created every being ever brought into existence. We learn in John 11-3 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.” Because He is our Creator from the beginning of time and because at the end of time He will be our Judge (John 5:21-22), He appropriately says of Himself at the end of the book, in Revelation 21:6, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.” Alpha and Omega, of course, are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. How could we not preach Christ when He is the focus of the beginning and end of the book and the beginning and end of time?
WE PREACH CHRIST BECAUSE HE IS THE MESSIAH. You see, Jesus is the start and finish both of the book and of the world, but more than that, Jesus is the Christ, the Anointed One in whom all the prophecies of the Old Testament converge. This truth is emphasized repeatedly in the gospels. Jesus said in John 5:39, "Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they, which testify of me." Beaming with excitement, Philip tells Nathaniel in John 1:45, "We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." Andrew made a similar declaration to Peter in verse 42. While, to a certain extent, Christians can appreciate this, it is hard for us to imagine the thrill of this discovery for a first century Jew. The Talmud – essentially, the official Jewish commentary on the Hebrew Scriptures – reports, “All the prophets prophesied [all the good things] only in respect of the Messianic Era.” It also says, “The world was created only…for the sake of the Messiah.” Everything good culminated in the Messiah and the Jews waited many years for His coming.
This helps us understand Jesus’ frustration with the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Everything was riding on the Messiah, but when He came and fulfilled all the prophecies these men could not connect the dots. Jesus rebuked them in Luke 24:25-27 "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?" And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.” No wonder we preach Christ! He is worthy!! Jesus preached himself in this sermon after his resurrection. If Jesus did, shouldn't we?
No passage makes that more clear than Revelation 5:11-13 “Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures, and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice: "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain To receive power and riches and wisdom, And strength and honor and glory and blessing!" And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, I heard saying: "Blessing and honor and glory and power Be to Him who sits on the throne, And to the Lamb, forever and ever!"
WE PREACH CHRIST BECAUSE HE IS OUR MEDIATOR. The apostle Paul writes in I Timothy 2:5, “For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus…” and, again in Hebrews 12:24, “Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant. When Jesus came to the earth, according to 1 Timothy 3:16, He came as “God manifest in the flesh.” He was God, but yet He was a man. This uniquely qualified Him to be our mediator. A mediator is a go-between. He came (Ephesians 2:16) “that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross…” As the Word who was “with God and was God” Jesus was connected to the Father and as we learn from Hebrews 4:15 our sinless High Priest Jesus could “sympathize with our weakness…in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin” and reach down His hand to man and so....
WE PREACH CHRIST BECAUSE HE IS OUR MODEL. Jesus is our model, our mentor. Malachi speaks prophetically of Jesus as the Sun of righteousness and so it is no surprise that Jesus spoke of Himself as the “light of the world.” And, that’s true. But because Jesus is our model He tells us that we are to be a reflection of that great light in Matthew 514-16: "You are the light of the world…Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”
In the same vein, we find in Acts 10:26 that “the disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.” The word “disciple” points to one who follows the teaching and example of another. The word Christian, in fact, means “a follower of Christ.” The apostle Paul says in I Corinthians 11:1, “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.” Peter echoes Paul’s words in I Peter 2:21, “For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps.” It’s rather difficult to follow someone, though, when we cannot see them or know so little about them. We need to preach Christ so we can see His life, His attitude, His spiritual image and strive to duplicate it. We can see this as the Lord’s plan in Romans 8:29: “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.” The same idea is attached to preaching Christ in Colossians 1:27-28: “To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.”
WE PREACH CHRIST BECAUSE HE IS OUR MASTER. Approaching God on one’s own terms is nothing new. Have you ever noticed our tendency to rally around the idea of Jesus as Healer, Teacher and Savior while resisting Jesus as Master? In the Sermon on the Mount and in the Sermon on the Plain, Jesus confronted this unacceptable approach to following Him. In Luke 6:46 “But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,' and not do the things which I say?” They were willing to go so far as to call Jesus, Lord, but were unwilling to submit to Him. Jesus explained the consequences of this approach in Matthew 7:21-23: "Not everyone who says to Me, "Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, "Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, "I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'” Jesus insists on being Lord and Master to those who would have Him also be Savior. Not only must He be our Master, but this allegiance must be undivided. He later explained in Luke 16:13 "No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon." The reason that Jesus must be Lord and Master is a practical one. The apostle Paul writes in 2 Timothy 2:21, “Therefore if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work.” And so, if He is to be our Master, we must preach Christ..
Finally, WE PREACH CHRIST BECAUSE HE IS OUR MOTIVATION. It is somewhat troubling to read that some of the apostle Paul’s Christian contemporaries where doing the right thing for the wrong reason. He makes it clear that there is a right and a wrong motivation for preaching Christ in Philippians 1:15-17, “Some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife, and some also from goodwill: The former preach Christ from selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my chains; but the latter out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel.” B. W. Johnson writes, “The motives of all preachers are not pure. Some still preach Christ, full of envy for other preachers, and some from a love of strife…The one preach Christ from contention. Not from sincere love of the gospel, but from a factious spirit.”
Not so with Paul. Christ motivated him. On the one hand, what John the Revelator calls the “wrath of the Lamb” motivated Paul. Though this type of motivation has become unpopular even in pulpits in our world of political correctness, God expects it to give us a push. The apostle writes in 2 Corinthians 5:11, “Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men...”
Gratitude was Paul’s greater motivation. You can almost hear the emotion in his voice when he writes in I Corinthians 15:9-11, “For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. Therefore, whether it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.” While it is likely that none of us have had anything to do with persecuting Christians, when we truly experience the forgiveness of sins it should give us every bit as much reason for gratitude as it did this great worker. Paul verbalized this again in Romans 1:14-15, “I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to wise and to unwise. So, as much as is in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also.” It appears that his untiring work for the Lord may have been related to the extent of his awareness of his sinfulness. No Scripture sums up our point better than 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 “For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.” We need to preach Christ for our mutual motivation.
What will this preacher preach? How will you initiate a conversation with a friend about Christianity? How will you motivate your children to commit themselves for life to being a Christian? Jesus said in John 6:44 that “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him…” He picked up on this idea again in John 12:32, “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me.” The gospel is powerful precisely because Christ on the cross is at the core. Take Christ off the cross and you rob the gospel of its power. Christ and Him Crucified. That's what I'll preach. That's how you initiate a conversation with a friend about your faith. Christ and Him Crucified is the motivation for committing their lives to being Christian that your children need. Christ on a cross is ground zero. The cross is the fulcrum of history, the intersection of human cruelty and Divine compassion. Christ on a cross crushed the head of the serpent, tore down the wall separating Jew and Gentile and crowned Jesus King of Kings. Christ on a cross is to the Christian what rain is to a garden. You can have rich soil, good seed and plenty of sunshine, but without rain you will have no crop. Christ on the cross is the inspiration for Christian preaching and Christian living. Christ on the Cross brings new life to you, to your church, and to your community. That is why that ancient old preacher, Paul, said, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God…22For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God… 2:1 And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”
In my junior year of high school, my English teacher had 3 historical speeches which she assigned 3 of her students to give. Why she picked me to give the sermon “In the Hands of an Angry God”, I'll never know. She gave each of us a week to practice our speech and prepare to give it before the class. I practiced giving that sermon like a hell and brimstone preaching preacher, but when it came to giving the speech before the class, I actually made a significantly subdued presentation. I received an “A” for my presentation and learned much later after graduating high school, that Jonathan Edwards wrote that sermon and presented it to his congregation by reading it in a monotone voice because, like Paul, he wanted God to receive glory if anything came of his preaching. Well, something did come from Jonathan Edwards preaching that sermon. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God was the sermon that sparked the Great Awakening.
My prayer for each of you, and for your families, and for your church, and my prayer for this community is that Christ and Him crucified will be known and preached more clearly in all our lives. AMEN
