Following on from last Sunday’s message on The Foundation of the Word of God, this video from Augustus Nicodemus Lopes is really challenging for all pastors and preachers.
To cultivate a love for God’s word in the congregation, the pastor must demonstrate that love for God’s word through his preaching. We must preach the word and not stories and experiences. Yes, we can illustrate through experiences but only to bring out the meaning and application of the scriptures more clearly.
We must also preach with passion. Do we believe what we are preaching? Has it gripped our hearts and minds? Are we submitting to the word that we are preaching?
So, pastors let’s cultivate love of the word in ourselves first, by our own reading, study and meditation on the word of God. Let’s confess our weakness and our lack of passion for the word.
Let’s give ourselves to prayer and the word of God. Sermons can so easily end up padded out with stories because we haven’t had time to apply ourselves to study.
Let’s pray for passion and preach with passion. How will the people believe and love the word if it looks like we don’t believe it or love it?
Let’s preach the text. After we have preached, the congregation should be able to see the sermon in the text as they read it. Let’s constantly refer people to the text, show them where the meaning, doctrine and application are coming from.
Let’s pray before, during and after our preaching.
Finally, all Christians, pray for those who preach and pray for yourselves that you would be eager to hear God’s voice in His word and, having heard, to obey.
The best is yet to come 