Preparing The Preacher

A friend of mine was preparing to preach his first sermon at a new church, and he was (as anyone might understand) nervous. He had all sorts of concerns: Is this the right word for this congregation? Will my thoughts make sense to them? Have I prepared enough for this message?

It was that last question that jogged my memory of a quote I had read from Oswald Chambers in his book Approved Unto God. The title of that book comes from a passage a Scripture in which preachers are told to correctly handle the Word of God as a worker that is approved unto God (2 Timothy 2:15).

Check out this pearl of wisdom:

“Keep yourself full to the brim in reading; but remember that the first great Resource is the Holy Spirit Who lays at your disposal the Word of God. The thing to prepare is not the sermon, but the preacher.” —Oswald Chambers (my emphasis)

God doesn’t need His Word prepared—it’s already perfect. But He does need to prepare me to deliver the message. He needs to remove my opinions, my preconceived ideas, my hang-ups with that particular passage, my hesitation to share it.

The Holy Spirit of God needs to prepare me. And I need to let Him do it.

It’s a heavy, awesome responsibility to be “the one” sharing God’s Word to a group of precious people. I dare not even attempt it unless I have let the Spirit prepare me first.

God Wants Deeper Growth

“After a soul has been converted by God, that soul is nurtured and caressed by the Spirit. Like a loving mother, God cares for and comforts the infant soul by feeding it spiritual milk. Such souls will find great delight in this stage. They will begin praying with great urgency and perseverance; they will engage in all kinds of religious activities because of the joy they experience in them. But there will come a time when God will bid them to grow deeper. He will remove the previous consolation from the soul in order to teach it virtue and prevent it from developing vice.” —John of the Cross

Not Playing It Safe

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Sometimes I like to think about counterfactual history. That means thinking about the “What ifs” of historical events. What if George Washington had been killed in battle? What if a congressman had voted a different way? And so on.

Here’s one I was thinking about as I read the Book of Acts: What if Paul had prayed, “God, keep me safe”?

Over the last few chapters of Acts, Paul has the opportunity to share the gospel with…

  • the Jewish Sanhedrin
  • Claudius Lysias, a Roman garrison commander
  • two Roman governors (Felix and Festus)
  • Ananias, the high priest in Israel
  • Tertullus, a noted attorney
  • King Agrippa and his wife Bernice
  • a Roman centurion named Julius
  • Publius, the chief Roman official on Malta
  • the leading Jews in Rome
  • and the Roman Caesar

That’s quite an impressive list! But here’s the deal: Paul only got to speak to these high-ranking and influential people because he was a prisoner.

Paul could have prayed for a “safe life.” He could have run away. He could have disobeyed. Instead, he was willing to let God use him anytime, anyplace, anyway.

Isn’t that really the opening line of the Lord’s Prayer? Your Kingdom come, Your will be done.

Is that what I really want?

Or do I want to play it safe?

Phillips Brooks had another thought about how we should pray:

“Do not pray for easy lives; pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle; but you shall be a miracle.”

I don’t want to play it safe. I want to be strong enough, obedient enough, and willing enough to let God use me anytime, anyplace, anyway. I hope you will join me in that prayer.

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The Perfection Of The Universe

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on AppleSpotify, or Audible.

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. (Psalm 19:1)

I find it somewhat ironic that the scientists who study our universe, and constantly tell us how perfectly everything works, are the same men and women who claim that God is non-existent!

To look at the absolute intricacy of the universe … to ponder how everything works together just so … to study how the massive and the microscopic coordinate activities to create perfect balance … these things all seem to show the glory of God and the work of His hands.

How absolutely ludicrous to think that something so perfectly formed came about by accident. In fact, C.S. Lewis wrote this:

If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents—the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else’s. But if their thoughts—i.e., of Materialism and Astronomy—are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It’s like expecting that the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milk jug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset.

I have already written about God’s Big Hands, but also consider God’s amazing and perfect Creation:

  • Gravity: if the force or pull of gravity were to change by one quadrillionth of a percentage (that’s 0.00000000000001), the universe would cease to function the way it does now.
  • Electromagnetism: neutrons are 1.001 times the mass of the proton. If this weren’t so, all protons would decay into neutrons. Positive electromagnetism would be gone, leaving only negative. Again the universe would cease to function as it does now.

The more I study our universe, the more praise I give to our Creator! 

His wisdom created this amazing world in which we live, and all of His creation is joining together in contant praise. I don’t know about you, but I choose to join creation in its praise of our Creator.

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Prayer… Is The Act Of Dying

“We want to move closer to God, the source and goal of our existence, but at the same time we realize that the closer we come to God the stronger will be His demand to let go of the many ‘safe’ structures we have built around ourselves. Prayer is such a radical act because it requires us to criticize our world’s way of being in the world, to lay down our old selves and accept our new self, which is Christ. … Prayer therefore is the act of dying to all that we consider to be our own and of being born to a new existence which is not of this world.” —Henri Nouwen

All That I Am, All That I Have

Wow, what a prayer by Charles Spurgeon. I hope you will join me in making this our prayer too.

“Lord, help me to glorify You; I am poor, help me to glorify You by contentment; I am sick, help me to give You honor by patience; I have talents, help me to extol You by spending them for You; I have time, Lord, help me to redeem it, that I may serve You; I have a heart to feel, Lord, let that heart feel no love but Yours, and glow with no flame but affection for You; I have a head to think, Lord, help me to think of You and for You; You have put me in this world for something, Lord, show me what that is, and help me to work out my life-purpose: I cannot do much, but as the widow put in her two mites, which were all her living, so, Lord, I cast my time and eternity too into Your treasury; I am all Yours; take me, and enable me to glorify You now, in all that I say, in all that I do, and with all that I have.”

Present Tense

Listen to the podcast of this post by clicking on the player below, and you can also subscribe on AppleSpotify, or Audible.

I never want my best days to be in my past.

I don’t want things I’ve learned to become old.

I don’t want nostalgia for God’s moving and provision in my life to be greater than my current joy in His moving and provision.

I don’t want to live in the past tense, but always in the present tense.

For Christians there is a danger in reflecting more on the past than on the present. God says He is the I AM, not the I WAS. He wants to do something new in you and I today—present tense.

I love what Smith Wigglesworth said:

“Beloved, don’t forget that every day must be a day of advancement. If you have not made any advancement since yesterday, in a measure you are a backslider. There is only one way for you between Calvary and the glory, and it is forward. It is every day forward. It is no day back. It is advancement with God. It is cooperation with Him in the Spirit. … If we live on the same plane day after day, the vision is stale; the principles lose their earnestness. But we must be like those who are catching the vision of the Master day by day.”

This is my prayer: Jesus, let me catch the vision of You again today. Let my vision always be present tense.

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God’s Word Is…

“Never compare this Book with other books. Comparisons are dangerous. Never think or say that this Book contains the Word of God. It is the Word of God. It is supernatural in origin, eternal in duration, inexpressible in value, infinite in scope, regenerative in power, infallible in authority, universal in application, inspired in totality. Read it through. Write it down. Pray it in. Work it out. And then pass it on.” —Smith Wigglesworth

Let Yourself Go!

Pastors, this is good counsel for all of us…

“Think yourself empty, read yourself full, write yourself clear, pray yourself keen—then enter the pulpit and let yourself go!” W.H. Griffith Thomas

Whose Plans?

Sometimes what needs to go on my To Do list seems logical. But logical to whom? If I’m not careful I can get so focused on doing the next logical thing, that I miss out on the Holy Spirit’s guidance.

Bruce Wilkinson said it this way—

“If we aren’t passionately and deliberately focused on carrying out God’s agenda with God’s heart, we’ll end up putting our own agenda first. We’ll increasingly look for the kind of missions we enjoy most. We’ll tend to ask God to bless our busyness for Him instead of asking Him to send us on the miracle mission of His choice.”

Ouch!

I don’t think the Bible is against To Do lists, but I need to make my lists the right way.

Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” (James 4:15)

Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:10)

With those verses in mind, this is what I’m praying:

Dear God, I want to decided right here and now that Your agenda is more important than mine. Not my “To Do” list be done, but Yours. I die to my plans so that I might live out your plans.

I am trying to Live Dead to my agenda this week.

If you’ve missed any messages in our series called Live Dead, you can find them all by clicking here.