Manifesting His Name Through Preaching - Paul Zehr

Greetings to each one this morning. The story that brother Dan shared, I

remember that story when I was quite little. Actually, we had a story

book and that story was in that in that book, and so I remembered

that that story, and uh, I brought another something else that was sad.

In the account there talked about the meaning of a minister. What is

a minister? And well, that of service, that's the kind of what

is part of the meaning of minister. I thought about how we use those

words interchangeably. The the the program has it has been known this weekend as

a time to ordain a minister. But you know, oftentimes we use the

word preacher, and so they're used somewhat interchange and I don't think there's any

conflict in the meaning of the two words really. But this morning, the

title, as you know, has to do with preaching, manifesting his name

through preaching, So we want to be talking about preaching this morning. We

o the story of Jesus when he began his ministry there in a synagogue in

the town of Nazareth. We find that account in Luke four, verse eighteen.

There had been a I guess you'd say, a service. He went

to the synagogue. He was given the Book of Isaiahs. He read out

of that book and then when it was finished, he I'll read it like

this in verse eighteen. And the spirit of the Lord is upon me.

This is Jesus speaking. The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because

he annointed me to preach the Gospel and heal the broken hearted, to preach

deliverance to the captive, and the recovering of sight to the blind. And

he said, at liberty those that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year

of the Lord. Three times in those two verses we have the word preach.

So this morning we are we're talking about preaching, manifesting His word,

his name through preaching. And you know, in today's world, a preaching

or a preacher, at least to a lot of people, has somewhat of

a negative connotation. There's a lot of preacher jokes, there's a lot of

things that are said about preachers. And you know, a preacher with that

negative connotation a lot of times, well, he needs he needs, like

some of us said, a thick skin, because he gets a lot of

a lot of criticism. For many people, the shorter the preaching, the

better. There's there's other ways to worship. And I thought too of sometimes

people if you if you're talking to someone about a certain situation, they might

say, uh, don't preach to me, don't get preachy with me.

Uh. So there's sort of that that reaction we find in our world about

against preaching. A lot of people would fall into that category where they don't

want to be preached to, they want to be reached, or if they

want to be reached, it all some other way. The scripture that has

been given with this subject is family, is in the book of Titus.

Maybe you could turn with me to that if you care to. This,

of course, was a letter, a letter Paul had written to Titus.

Titus a also a preacher. We can say I believe he was held the

office of bishop, as we would understand it. I'd like to I'd like

to read just this short passage of first, I guess the first five verses

here of Titus Chapter one. Paul and Paul a servant of God and apostle

of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect and the acknowledge of

the truth which is after godliness and hope of eternal life, which God that

cannot lie promised before the world begin. But hath in due times manifest his

word through preaching, which is committed unto me according to the commandment of God

our Savior, to Titus, my own son, after the common faith,

grace, mercy and peace from God to Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,

our Savior. For this cause left I the increte. Thus should have sent

in order the things that are wanting, and ordain elders in every city,

as I had appointed thee So we see Paul here was writing, of course

to Titus, and he was giving him some counsel. He was giving them

a blessing. But he gave him a commission that he was to He needed

to gained leaders, other leaders in other cities. And these these leaders,

these men are being appointed, needed to be reminded, needed to be told,

needed to be brought to their attention that their responsibility was to manifest His

the name of Jesus through preaching. I had to think of the scripture.

It is also in Titus Titus two Titus two, verse ten or it says,

not purloining, but showing all good fidelity, that they may adorn the

doctrine of God, our Savior in all things? And what does that mean?

To adorn? What does that mean? What's he talking about here?

To adorn the doctrine of God? I think it's we could say adorn the

preaching, the preaching of God. We only find that word twice in the

Bible, the word adorn, once in the on Timothy and once here in

Titus, and it's one of those. One of those. The context of

one of those is forbidding it, and that it has to do with talking

about the women that adorn themselves, particularly women. The men sometimes get into

that too, but that was that was told not to do that, that

was forbidden. But now here in Titus. It also gives it in a

positive way that the scripture the doctrine of God. And I think we can

say the scripture or the teaching of God needs to be adorned. And so

what does adorn mean? What does it mean to adorn something? Well,

I think it's simple meaning would be to make it appealing, to make it

understandable, to make it attractive. Now, it does not mean we're not

free to add to or take away. The Bible prohibits that. So we're

not talking about saying things that that God didn't intend to be said, but

I think there is a way, and I think we're called to do that

in the way. Since the focus is more on preaching here, the preacher,

the minister, as he ministers word is, has a responsibility to do

it in a way that would end the correct way, adorn it, make

it, make it understandable. So then we come to the word of manifest.

So what does manifest mean? Well, that's probably don't use that word

an awful lot in our everyday language, but it is used. It simply

means to be revealed or to be exposed, to make clear. And when

when in the in the world of business, in the world of commerce,

when a when a vessel and an ocean liner takes a shipment across the ocean,

that that that shipment is accompanied by a manifest. And I think it's

also used in other modes of transportation to air freight and things like that.

But that manifest basically declares makes a declaration of what the product is, maybe

how many of a certain kind of product, and in some cases the value.

It's a document that that reveals the content and that in in a understan

that's a way to understand what is men here by God's word being made manifest.

It means to be revealed. It means in an understandable way that people

can benefit from it. And when so when God Paul talked about here God

commanding his word that it would be manifest through preaching or his the name of

Jesus, what did he mean, Well, he meant that it would be

made clear, it would be made understandable, practical, in a practical way

that people could benefit from it. We have that scripture that I think it's

in the Book of Isaiah, but then it was repeat he was referred to

in the Book of Romans. How shall they how shall they call on him?

Of whom they have not believed? How shall they believe in him?

And whoman they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?

Now, you know, there's a there's a number of ways. There's

quite a few ways that we can be blessed that we can receive the word.

I'll say it that way, that we can receive the blessing of the

scripture, the truth of the Scripture. That can be done in many ways.

We can sing songs. We sung songs this morning, and you know

the songs we sing can be a worshipful experience. Even though I'm not a

musician, you know, I bless sometimes when I'm alone, I think of

a certain song. Bible talks about that, speaking to yourselves and psalms and

hymns and spiritual songs, making melody in your heart to the Lord. Certainly,

prayers another one we know that's a very necessary part of the Christian life

is praying, and James James talked about that. He said, the effectual,

fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. He's talking about Elias and

Bible reading, reading the scripture, that's another way to worship God, another

way to receive his word. For a Psalm one hundred nineteen, verse eleven,

my word have I hid in my heart that I sin against these?

So these are all maybe we could go into other aspects of that, but

these are all scriptural methods in which we can be blessed, in which we

can receive God's word and apply it to our hearts. And yeah, I

believe it is also clear in reading the scripture, as we understand the scripture,

that there was something here that God intended, He he planned, he

made preaching somewhat central to a way to make his word to be revealed and

to be understood. And I think it's I want to be fair about this,

but I think in as church has become more and more maybe we'd just

say worldly, more and more removed from the truth of the Scripture, preaching

diminishes in value. But you know, down through time, even preaching is

not a New Testament a New Testament doctrine by itself is we find it in

the Old Testament. I've been doing a I've been doing a series at home

on the Book of Ecclesiastes. Kind of a different book, interesting book for

me, but there's a number of phrases, there's a number of words,

the number of things that are repeated over and over again in the Book of

Ecclesiastes. And just the other day I realized that he it talks about preaching

or a preacher more Ecclesiastes and anywhere else in the Old Testament, a number

five, six, seven times it talks about the preacher. The preacher.

Anyway, the point is that down through time God has in one way or

another. Sometimes they were called prophets, but but they preached the word.

And that is something that we want to take seriously. And I thought of

that again. You know, as I made mentioned already, the you know,

we we emphasize the aspect of a minister being he ministers, he's a

servant, he's a he's a the heart of a servant. We emphasize that

rightly so, And it's not a conflict with the idea of preaching. But

there is there is that aspect we would expect you would I'm sure you would

expect as a congregation here the man that is chosen for that preaching will be

an important part of his responsibilities. It please God through the foolishness of preaching

to save those that believe powerful verse. I think in that same context it

talks about the preaching of the Cross is to them that perish foolishness. And

so how do we feel about preaching that. I'd be interesting to see what

your what your thoughts would be, how you know your inner thoughts about preaching?

Is it something that something that is to be endured for forty five minutes

every Sunday, kind of itchy waiting till the preaching is over with. And

you know a lot of that depends a lot of that depends that you know,

there's people that have a shallow understanding of people that are a shallow spiritually

and don't appreciate preaching. But then a lot of it also comes back to

the preacher of how he presents the message. He doesn't adorn it the way

the Bible says he should. M I remember years ago a discussion in church

in our congregation. I was quite young, and the discussion was around people

that went to sleep in church and that shouldn't be And there was some talk

about that. And there's one brother that you know how those discussions go,

they can get a little bit, a little bit of temperature, a little

strong feelings. This one brother, I think he was trying to kind of

smooth things. He says, well, maybe maybe part of the problem lies

on the part of the preacher. Maybe if the preacher would put a little

more effort into it, maybe they'd make a difference to these people that have

a problem with sleeping. I remember this one brother spoke up and he said

he ain't a kid that would. I just that was childhood memory. It

ain't a kid it would. So, you know, preaching, there's a

lot of books written about preaching, how to preach, how to start a

message, how to end it, when to end it, how to stand,

how to appear, how to use your hands, your gestures, how

to the tone of your words, all that stuff. There's so many,

there's so much, and then there's a you get into this thing about the

different kinds of preaching and expository preaching and preaching and topical preaching and textual preaching,

and there's more evangelistic preaching, allegorical preaching, a lot of information about

preaching. So this evening or today, this weekend, we've been focusing on

a preacher. We call it a minister, but a preacher. We use

those words interchangeably. What does that preaching actually mean? When we talk about

a preacher get up and he preaches, what's what's he mean? Well,

that's kind of self explanatory. It Actually one definition is called a religious discourse

to an assembled group of people, typically in a church. That was one

definition, and I found that a little bit wanting, a little bit weak.

There's another definition, which I think maybe better defines it. It's simply

to proclaim or or publish divine truth. Publish, proclaim divine truth. And

again, I think the appreciation for preaching in many circles is on the decline.

Churches are more inclined or interested or want to emphasize dialogue, get together

and have a dialogue, have a discussion groups, and then where social issues,

restorative justice, all those kinds of things are replacing preaching equality and diversity.

That's something that we're just here so much today. But as preaching diminishes,

as preaching is less appreciated, I think worldliness, just worldliness takes moves

in and takes its place. We need to cultivate and it's it's it's on

the part of the preacher, it's in a part of the audience a congregation

to instill and have an appreciation for the matter of preaching. I just have.

I don't know. I think there's about seven points here I want to

go over quickly, hopefully thoroughly. What do we preach while we preach the

word? Scripture says, preach the word be instant out a season in season,

odysses and reprover brute correct. I think that's in firs Timothy, that's

we need to always remember that. Maybe we think that's from ground. What

else would we preach? Well, one scripture there says we preach not ourselves.

Is that easy to preach ourselves? I was reading here recently in the

account of Jonah Ninevah, the story of Ninevah and Jonah and the whale and

all that account there. How God told Jonah to go to ninev and of

course we know the story. He refused, and that experience with the whale

the second time. Then after he was delivered from the whale, then God

came to him again and he said, Jonah, you go to Ninevah.

And he said something interest He said, preach unto it, the preaching that

I bid thee. And that's something we need to remember. We need to

preach the preaching that is bid to us, the preaching that we're the preaching

of the Word. He wasn't supposed to preach other things. We take that's

elementary. What else would you preach? Oh, we preach not ourselves.

I don't know how Satan thinks. I don't particularly want to know how he

thinks, but I would imagine that Satan would probably prefer there's no preaching at

all. He'd prefer the doors were closed and people had nothing to do with

religion. That would probably be. But if he couldn't do that, which

he can't. He would be glad to have preaching that preaches ourselves that have

other ideas, good ideas, eli eloquent ideas, anything but the word.

Paul toward Timothy a young man, A young I would will just say,

a young newly ordained man. I don't know how ackerate that would be.

But he was a young man. He said, preach the word be incidents.

He's not out of season. Reproved, rebuke, reprove, rebuke,

exhort with all long suffering and doctrine. I know I already mentioned that scripture

preaching the word. There's a commitment there. Word. What is word?

What does that word mean? We use words all the time. A word

is synonymous with Christ. The word has made flesh and dwelt among us.

That's not just talking about some word in a book somewhere. It's talking about

Jesus. Christ says we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten

Father. And then in John first John, chapter one, it talks about

that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have

seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon in our hands of handle.

And then what does he say, the word of life so that's what

he's talking about preaching Christ. And we can talk about, you know,

things we ought to be careful about hobby horse preaching. You know, there's

certain subjects that you know, we always gravitate to. I like that thought

in season and out of season. And we know what hunting season is,

you know, it's hunting season. It's time we go week Now we can

go deer hunting. Yesterday we couldn't. Today we can, or duck honting,

whatever kind of honey we we. And then there's, of course there's

the seasons of the year. There's now it's summer. Now it's fall,

Now it's winter. Those are the seasons. And uh, but Paul says

here to preach the word, you can do it out of season, even

when when it's not convenient, even when there's some danger you you preach the

word. It's not there's never a time when preaching the word is out of

season. Sometimes opposition comes. We live in a land of freedom, really,

you know, we don't know much about persecution. We act like we

do in some sense. We do. We think about people that are being

persecuted. But you know, opposition can come different ways. Sometimes it comes

from within. Often it comes from within things that hinder our preaching. I

thought of what Paul said there, and I think in Acts twenty, I

believe he was talking to the Ephesian elders and he had some admonition for them.

He counseled them. He said, there's gonna be someone that you're gonna

experience. These were leaders he was talking to. There's gonna be times when

you're gonna face opposition. And you know, as young men coming into the

ministry, I know they're aware of that. I know they're well aware of

that they need to be prepared for that. But in what Paul is saying

here to the Ephesian elders, he said, of your own selves, shall

men arise? It's this this opposition, oftentimes will come from your own selves,

within your own people, and it still happens. It's happened then,

it's happened down through time, it's happens today. There is the nature of

man that there's there's within within the nature of man. You know, within

the nature of a woman, there's the desire to be beautiful, to be

attractive within the man. Maybe it's more influence to have a following that that

we we have to deal with that in the spirit of Absalom. We know

the story of Abslom. Oh that I were king, Oh that I can

be minister? Then everything, all right, that's a very carnal thing.

It's a very that's a wicked thing. And if we think we're free of

that, just remember something the Bible says, the heart is deceitful above all

things, and desperately wicked. Not just sort of wicked, not kind of

that naughty, but desperately wicked. That's the nature every one of us has.

And we have to deal with that. Now, preaching the Word,

I'll expand in that a little bit. Preaching Jesus Christ, Now that's kind

of redundant, but I'll just think about that a little bit. And John

twelve, we have the story there that says certain Greeks, these were these

were gentile people, and how much they knew about the Jehovah God we don't

know. Probably possibly very little. But these these Greeks came to fill up

one of the disciples, and I don't know they setting there, but they

had a simple request. They said, sir, we would see Jesus.

We want to see Jesus. These men that come from a totally different background,

and probably yeah, we can only imagine what their background was like.

But they had this desire. They were looking for something that they wanted to

see Jesus and are preaching needs to be of Jesus. Now, does that

mean every message we talk about the Crucifixion, every message we talk about the

sermum, something like that. But I think that actually means every subject we

preach. I don't care. It could be child training, it could be

business ethics, it could be doctrinal, it could there's a there's a host

of things we can preach about, but they need to align with the Word

of God. They need to align with the teachings of Jesus. They need

to adorn those teachings. If they adorn that, then then we're preaching Jesus.

If we're preaching about consistent child training, we're preaching Jesus. I think

that's a way to understand that on the day of Pentecost, Peter was preaching

to these people things that happened. There was strange events, there was there

was just a lot of things going on that people didn't understand, and and

and and Peter took the opportunity to preach to them, and he said,

let all the house of Israel do assuredly with it. Surely means means without

question. You need to know this, that God hath made this same Jesus,

the one who just a few days back you crucified Lord in Christ and

says they were pricked in their hearts, and they said, in men and

brethren, what shall we do. The preaching of Jesus does that to people.

The pulpit is not for for environmental discourse and all the things that go

on today behind the pulpit. One Corinthians too too. Paul said, I

determined. I like that word determined. We need, we need, we

need, We need preachers to be determined not to know anything among you save

Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I think again, there we see the

focus. Paul was a knowledgeable man. Paul knew a lot of things beside

Jesus Christ. That's not the point here. He knew about the pagan poets,

he knew about Roman law, he knew those things. But you know

there was a focus there. He used those things in a way that would

enhance and adorn the doctor of Jesus Christ. We need to preach in the

fear of God. That's the point number three. What does that mean,

preaching in the fear of God. I don't think it means that a preacher

or we should be careful a preacher. We're not here to go out of

our way to make enemies. We're not We're not here to do that.

We're not here to be crude and confrontational in our preaching. Effect he preaching

is a result of love of caring about people, concerned for people, and

that's that is different than the fear of man. We hear about that sometimes,

a fear of man, and maybe we're afflicted by that. You know,

we want to bake our message, so it's acceptable. Scriptures talks about

the fear of man. Bringeth a snare. There's a trap. There's a

snare there when when a person is inclined tempted to do that, he has

sort of a popularity gauge in his mind. He wants he wants to be

like you know, sometimes we say things and I hear people say things,

and I've said it myself maybe in some issue. I don't care what people

think, don't care what people think. I'm gonna stick with the truth.

You know what I believe. I believe I don't care what people think.

Well, that's really not true. We do care what people think. We

just as well be honest about it. But there comes a time when that

fear of what people think needs to be overridden by the truth. To pretend

like we just don't care what people think. If we are that kind of

a person, there's something wrong because we do care. But that care dare

not sway. The message of the truth says here, the fear of man

bring of the snare. Whosoever put his trust in his Lord shall be safe.

You know, someone has said we what we Seeah, make sure I

get this right. What we fear, we serve. If we really fear

God, we will serve God. If we fear man, will end up

fearing fearing man. Thought of the story of the three Hebrew children. You

know how that was a statue was there? The king said a bow down,

and they wouldn't do it. They were brought before the king. The

king seemed to be inclined to give him another chance. Maybe they could negotiate

this matter a little bit. And and the way it is translated there he

said, we're not careful to answer you. Now. I don't think they

did that in a disrespectful way. I think they just at that point in

time, they said, look, we're not negotiating this matter. We're not

gonna figure out a way that maybe we could bow a little bit and make

you happy and still not make God too angry. They didn't go that route.

Preaching what is practiced, or we could turn it around and say practicing

what is preached, that's an important part of effective preaching. I have not

found in my experience preaching to be particularly easy for me, and probably it's

true of everyone. And sometimes we find people see people know people and it

seems like it comes quite naturally and it seems like, wow, they can

just preach. For me, it's been difficult. But I would say this

that I find practicing what is preached harder than preaching. That's where it's really

difficult. As hard as preaching is to really practice what is preached. And

unless we get that figured out, unless we're doing that, unless we're our

practicing what we preach, our preaching is pretty ineffectual. Because people are not

dumb. People can see through a person that does not practice what they preach.

You know, a preacher can talk about integrity and yet there's people are

aware that there's some discrepancies in his life. Or he could talk about modesty

and you know a lot of those issues. If it's not practice, it

becomes very ineffective. It becomes it becomes ineffective. We need to practice what

we preach, and that's difficult, that's hard to do. Sometimes there's a

word for that. It's called hypocrisy. And almost everyone, even the sinners,

even the atheists, even the people that are the down and outers,

as we use that expression, they don't like hypocrisy. They want to see

something genuine and they have respectful person that even though they might not agree with

him, they don't want to see hypocrisy. It renders preaching of none effect.

Jesus said an interesting thing, and I honestly I don't know quite how

to understand it totally. But he talked about the Pharisees. He says,

or do you say that whatever they bid you to do, do it.

You observe what they say and you do it, but don't do after their

works, for they say and do not. That's a pretty high standard,

isn't it. That's pretty hard to do. If the preacher gets up here

and you know, well, I'm not sure what to use for an example,

but if there's a hypocritical preacher, or pretty hard for us to listen

to him, So I guess you can maybe you have a better understanding of

that scripture than I do. This matter of practicing what we preach, you

know, it can cut both ways. A preacher can get up and preach

in a hypocritical way or whatever word you want to use. He can say

this is the way it should be, and yet he's not living up to

it. That's part of it. But you know, sometimes a people can

expect a standard that the preacher keeps and require things of him and make judgments

about him that they're not willing to keep. So it works both ways.

It's either way is not health. Either way will not produce sincere Christianity.

We need to preach in fairness. I'm not sure. Maybe there'd be a

better way to say that, but the Bible talks this was Moses. I

think this was a time when Moses appointed I think when he appointed other men

too, because he couldn't handle everything. So he pointed other judges under him,

and he said, you shall not respect persons in judgment. You shall

hear the small as well as a great. You shall not be afraid of

the face of man, for the judgment is God's. And then he went

on and talked about some other things there. But the point here is that

we need as preachers, as ministers, as leaders, we need to be

we need to be fair. We need to hear everyone as small as well

as a great. We need to we need to hear them. Sometimes the

accusation comes, well, I'm not heard, I'm not being heard. Well,

okay, whatever. But sometimes in school, in a school setting,

there's certain students that are seen as teacher's pets. I'd say probably a good

share of the time that's just a perception, probably not true, but it

happens. It happens teacher's pets. And the idea is that this particular student

he can he or she can just get by with things, or others cannot.

Others try to do it, and they're in trouble, and we need

to be careful about about that. Scripture says he that answerth the matter before

he hears it to it to him, it is shame and folly, I

think, is how it says. Answering the matter before we hear it.

And you know I've been guilty of that. I've been guilty of that.

A certain situation comes up, and I have my preconceived idea. I pretty

well know, I pretty well in my mind, I pretty well know who's

at fault. I pretty well know what the problem is, and you know

I have these preconceived ideas well. The Bible says here, if you answer

a matter before you hear it, your preaching will be very ineffective. It's

it's it becomes shameful. It leads to unfairness in church life. We need

to be fair. The pulpit is not a place for for lashing out.

There's probably, you know, sometimes you're you need to address certain issues,

maybe that everybody knows what you're talking about. Uh, I'm not saying that's

there might there's probably a place for that. But just to use the pulpit

to lash out or hit certain people, Uh, there's there's a better way

to do that. We need to be fair in our preaching. We need

to preach with confidence. There's something about a a confident person, our confident

message that inspires confidence. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the Gospel of

Christ. For it is the power of God into salvation to everyone that believes

the jew first and also to the Greek. You see there that that spirit

of confidence. He wasn't ashamed of it. He was gonna proclaim it.

It might mean his head, and eventually did, but he We don't be

apologetic. We can sometimes say, well, look, I'm sorry, but

this is what the God's words said. I think that's something different. Speaking

of apologizing, we as as preachers, we shouldn't be afraid to apologize.

Apology is one of those things that it's hard to do, but there's times

it's necessary we need to. Maybe we did say something that we shouldn't have

said, or should have been said in a different way, maybe at a

different time, but that's that's not We don't apologize for the truth of the

Gospel. We don't apologize for the gospel message. It's there, it's truth,

and we should proclaim it. We think of the example of the apostle

Paul. Paul was a great man of God. But there came a day

when when he was there before the high priest, and the high priest told

his officer he slapped him, smote him, and the old Paul seemed to

kind of come out there for a little bit. He called him. He

said, God's gonna smite you. Yeah, now, whited Wall in the

words you hypocrite you. You told me to be smitten and that's contrary to

the law. And you're sitting there and acting like you're somebody. But then

he realized that he had he had spoken in a way with a spirit that

he shouldn't have spoken, and he apologized. He said, I shouldn't have

done I shouldn't have said that. We shouldn't be afraid to do that.

I know it's hard, but we should not be ashamed of the Gospel.

Jesus said some very very sobering words, powerful words in Matthew Aide and the

Sermon of the Mount. Whosoever shall be ashamed of Me and my words in

this adulterous and sinful generation of him, shall also the son of Man be

ashamed when he shall come in the glory of his Father with the Holy Angels.

Now, when we are proclaiming the message, making it clear, let's

adorn it that. Don't don't think the cruder and the more confrontational you can

be is is somehow a mark of glory that you're you're you're attaining favor with

God. We need to preach with clarity. Uh Paul head there and one

Corinthians fourteen. He said, in the church, I'd rather speak five words

with understanding that my voice might teach others also than ten thousand words in an

unknown ton. Somebody had said it this way when I thought was interesting.

You know, sometimes we maybe we read something, or maybe we hear another

preacher preach something that's a good thought, and so we want to take that

and use it. But we should not. We should be careful to try

not to be somebody we're not. God made us all in different in a

different way. I try as I might. I can't preach like Jason.

I can't preach like any one other preacher. That's not me. I'm different.

Somebody said that, don't go behind the pulpit and try to use Saul's

armor. You know what that means. David out there in the battlefield,

Saul said, well, here here's my armor. Take my armor, and

David, he put it on and it just didn't feel right. It wasn't

gonna work right. He said, I don't want that. We shouldn't try

to use Saul's armor, try to be somebody where not Oftentimes maybe the way

we talk we try to mimic someone or they can't happen, and that that'll

undermine the message. People will pick up on that we need to preach clarity.

It should be no I've heard different ideas on this, but remember I

think I read somewhere before, not too long ago, that the preacher,

if if what he's preaching is not generally understood by a ten year old,

you've got a problem. You shouldn't you should make it understandable. Someone else

has said, you don't need a whole bathtub full of words to explain a

teaspoon of truth. Okay, I understand that there should be in the clarity,

and you know, I'm probably I miss this so much I really wonder

how. But it should be somewhat of a system. Somebody talked about another

preacher. This was in a book, so it's no idea who he's talking

to. But he said he had a system. He took a text and

then he departed from it, and then he never came back. That was

his system. Not a very effective system. Paul said, my speech and

my preaching was not with enticing words of men's wisdom. We shouldn't try to

impress people with enticing words of wisdom. It's not going to work. It

doesn't work that way. We're not going to press people with fancy concepts.

But he said in demonstration of the spirit, the spirit of God, we

need to preach with humility. Our preaching needs to be seasoned with assault of

humility, lofty words, elegance. We're not looking I don't believe you're congregation

needs. I don't believe they're looking for I don't believe they'd be blessed by

just focusing on eloquence, on you know, somebody that really could handle themselves

in speaking eloquent words, lofty ideas. Bible knowledge will never compensate for a

lack of humility. I have something written in my Bible. I don't know

I wrote it many many years ago, but it says God can do nothing

with pride, but anything with humility. We often talk about the preacher's life

how there's discouragement, and there is. Trust me, there is times of

discouragement. There's also we also need to understand that excessive discouragement can be I'm

not saying always, but can be an indication of pride. If we're the

type of person it's just just devastated when somebody says something against us, somebody

is critical of what we said, something we said over the pulpit maybe,

and they don't agree with it, and they let you know, Oh,

we just were just devastating. I remember a young man years ago. Actually

it was at the end of the message, and I made some comment.

I don't know just how it was, but it was referring to dust.

Now art to dust, shalt return. I made a comment about we're creatures

of dust. And I don't know if this young man, I'm not sure

where he was coming from, but I remember the closing prayer was said,

and he started walking up the aisle towards me, and I noticed he was

just coming right towards me. He got up right beside me and he says,

we are not I didn't know what he was talking about. Well,

he didn't agree with that statement there were creatures of dust. Anyway, we

were able to work through it. But let's not just be devastated. When

we get some opposition, we get some disagreement, handle it with humility.

And then along with that the close the last one I have here. And

this is this is connected with some of the others UH preach with power.

Bible says Bacts eight one eight. This is this is when Jesus was just

ready to ascend into heaven, he was out there in the Mount of Ascension

with the disciples there around there, and he was having some last words with

them, and he told him, you shall receive power after that. The

Holy Ghost has come upon you, and he shall be witnessing to me both

in Jerusalem and Algida, and in Samaria and under the outermost part of the

earth. They didn't have power then, but they were going to receive power.

Jesus knew about the Holy Spirit. He would instill them, and so

he as he ascended into heaven, he gave this promise of power. They

would have power. And that power is not of us. That the power

is not a man. If we try to study and try to figure out

all the nuances of preaching so we can preach with power, we're not gonna

have it. It's not the way it works. It's not based on that

power is not demonstrated by shouting and pounding the pulpit and doing all kinds of

gymnastics behind the pulpit, that that's not a demonstration of power. You might

have the attention, but it's not the power that changes lives. Power comes

from consistency. Power comes from surrender, from fairness, from with clarity,

and in closing, you know, I think of the story they're in Acts

four or these people. It says they saw the boldness of Peter and John,

and they perceived, they understood that these were not These were unlearned,

ignorant men. Would you like to be called that you're you're unlearned and ignorant.

He knew these were not trained men, they didn't have a seminary background,

and yet they marveled and took knowledge of them that they had been with

Jesus. That's the kind of preaching that is power. God bless you.