Preach?

[LordDuncanBurneWilke]

Hello all.

Anyone here a preacher? Curious how you go about preparing your sermons if you wouldn't mind sharing.

Thanks for your time.

 

[JM]

@twin1954

 

[twin1954]

Hello all.

Anyone here a preacher? Curious how you go about preparing your sermons if you wouldn't mind sharing.

Thanks for your time.

I seek a message from God's heart to my heart. If it doesn't reach me it is not likely to reach others.

There far too many man made preachers who can speak well and hold your interest.

Anyone can be taught how to parse the Greek and get the literal meaning of the words and sentences in a passage according to its context. But it takes the Spirit opening it up so that you find Christ and His Gospel in it.

God's men do not preach on money, marriage, doctrine or all the other "things" of religion. God's preachers preach Christ in all of the Scriptures and a practical and living faith in Him. As did Paul, we teach a life lived in the context of Christ and His Gospel.

I will now get off of my soapbox.

 

[LordDuncanBurneWilke]

I seek a message from God's heart to my heart. If it doesn't reach me it is not likely to reach others.

There far too many man made preachers who can speak well and hold your interest.

Anyone can be taught how to parse the Greek and get the literal meaning of the words and sentences in a passage according to its context. But it takes the Spirit opening it up so that you find Christ and His Gospel in it.

God's men do not preach on money, marriage, doctrine or all the other "things" of religion. God's preachers preach Christ in all of the Scriptures and a practical and living faith in Him. As did Paul, we teach a life lived in the context of Christ and His Gospel.

I will now get off of my soapbox.

Thank you. I appreciate your reply.

 

[stenerson]

I seek a message from God's heart to my heart. If it doesn't reach me it is not likely to reach others.
God's men do not preach on money, marriage, doctrine or all the other "things" of religion. God's preachers preach Christ in all of the Scriptures and a practical and living faith in Him. As did Paul, we teach a life lived in the context of Christ and His Gospel.

I will now get off of my soapbox.

Why shouldn't preachers preach the whole counsel of God including marrage? And doctrine? Of course you preach on doctrine.

 

[twin1954]

Why shouldn't preachers preach the whole counsel of God including marrage? And doctrine? Of course you preach on doctrine.

I preach doctrinal truths but they are never the point or focus of my message. Preachers who preach on marriage, money and doctrine do so thinking that is the message. They think the message of the Scriptures is to show us how to live. It is preaching on things not preaching Christ. Religion preaches things, that is how you can tell it is just religion. God's men preach Christ Jesus the Lord. When a passage speaks of marriage or money or other practical lessons it always does so in the context of Christ and His Gospel. Paul taught about marriage by using Christ not by giving a set of rules or recommendations to follow. While those "things" are mentioned and even taught on in the Scriptures they are never the message of a chapter, book or the Bible. The message is always Christ and His Gospel. It applies to marriage, money and doctrine but to preach a whole message on marriage, much less a series of messages, is to lose the focus of preaching. Men preach on things because they can't find Christ in the Bible and usually aren't looking for Him.

 

[twin1954]

I neglected to speak to your comment on the whole council of God. The Lord Jesus Christ is the whole council of God. I can't tell you how often I have heard preachers speak almost the exact same words as though preaching on things is preaching the whole council of God. I used to think the same thing so I preached doctrine and not much else. I spoke of Christ and I talked of Him in a theological way in order to show how my doctrine was true and ought to be believed because of how it fit with what I knew the Scriptures tell us about Him. The problem was that all my doctrine, though it was based in a theological knowledge of Christ, was not about Christ. My focus was on the things of theology not on how theology ought to be focused on Christ. My theology had no "shoe leather" because I thought I was preaching the whole council of God.

I didn't have the message of the Scriptures. I made good Calvinists out of folks but I did their souls no real good. Folks would slap me on the back for my theology in my preaching but they went away without knowing how it was nothing apart from Christ. It was a useless intellectual exercise and I will have to answer to God for not caring for the souls of men enough to tell them how my true doctrine was without use unless it was founded in Christ, revealed Christ and pointed folks to Him alone as all their hope and life.

All of those things men call the whole council of God, to use an illustration stolen from Don Fortner, is like a dress hanging in a closet that my wife sometimes wears. I do not take the dress out and fondle it and love it as it hangs on the hanger or lays on the bed. No the dress by itself is just a dress. My wife wearing it is what makes the dress beautiful.

Things divorced from Christ are just that, things. They may be nice to look at and to even think on but they have no real value to the soul unless they are founded in, surrounded by and filled with Christ Jesus the Lord.