Several months back I did something during a sermon that afterward unsettled me. In explaining one point, I found myself for some thirty seconds deliberately saying what one man in the congregation wanted to hear. These unplanned comments concerned a doctrine he and I had discussed several times and largely disagreed over. While I did not say anything contrary to my beliefs, unquestionably my primary motivation for saying what I did was to gain his approval by demonstrating our common ground.
Those thirty seconds painfully reminded me how easy it is when preaching to slip into motives unworthy of my calling. Indeed, at some time or another during my ministry, each of the following motivations has passed through my mind:
- The desire to entertain or be humorous for the sake of popularity.
- The desire to impress others, to be liked for what I say, to attract a crowd to my credit.
- The desire to be an eminent preacher or lay the stepping stones for moving to a larger church.
These thoughts are not the norm, but they all make their passes at me.
What distresses me so much about this is I abhor ulterior motives. I know impressing people is a total waste and pleasing God is all that matters. Nonetheless, dark motives arise unbidden, unwelcome, akin to what Paul describes in Romans 7: two drives vie within, the good and the bad, the latter which he hated but could not completely dispel. Like Paul I sometimes feel, “What a wretched man I am!”
Yet when I sense something awry within, I cannot recuse myself from the pulpit, like a judge with a conflict of interest in a case. I must step to the bench every week whatever the state of my motives. How do I avoid a lingering sense of condemnation in my battle for a pure heart?
The answer for me lies in three assumptions.
I have variable motives more often than mixed motives
The term mixed motives suggests that fallen motives energize everything I do. In this model, if motives are pictured as the three main liquid-fuel rocket engines on the NASA space shuttle, then one engine is an ulterior motive and the other two are pure motives, and they always fire together. Hence, I never preach from a pure heart.
As I consider my experience, though, that model rarely holds true. The better picture is an automobile engine with eight cylinders, and one cylinder represents a self-centered motivation. The point of this analogy is that the cylinders fire sequentially: The bad cylinder fires here and there, but not all the time. In this model my motives vary, and usually I preach from a pure heart. A selfish desire surfaces now and then, but I recognize it, realign my thoughts, and return to noble motives.
When I did itinerant preaching, I saw the variable nature of motives clearly. The week before I preached at a church, the thought might cross my mind that I wanted to preach well to win the respect of the host pastor. Nevertheless, by Sunday I would pray through to right motives. The better my motives, often the greater were the sermon’s effects, and ironically that could lead to a fresh temptation, as I drove home gratified that my forsaken wrong desires might be fulfilled after all!
Overlapping interests are not mixed motives
When I preach, I have an indescribable sense that my life matters, amplified by simple comments like the one a few weeks ago from someone who is going through difficult times: “Your sermon really encouraged me today.” If that were not enough, the church pays me a salary. In study I learn thrilling things about God and his Word. In church people treat me with respect. In heaven I lay up treasures. Although I hope I would continue to preach even if it brought unremitting hardship, out of obedience to God, the fact is if I had to stop preaching, I would suffer an agonizing loss.
Thus, to seek either God’s interests or my interests is rarely the question, for God’s glory does not come at my expense. On the contrary, everything I do for the Lord rebounds to my own best interest sooner or later, a hope that he actually encourages me to keep in mind. “Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be given you as well.” If I disdain any thought for my own welfare, I am too high-minded.
That applies even to preaching, because in his goodness God has ordained that it blesses both my hearers and me. In regard to the preacher’s salary package, Paul taught the Corinthians, ” ‘Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain’ … because when the plowman plows and the thresher threshes, they ought to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest” (1 Cor. 9:9-10). Apparently God approves if complementary interests not only occur to me but even motivate me. I can preach both to glorify God and to pay the bills.
God approves if complementary interests not only occur to me but even motivate me
However, competing interests—such as boosting my ego rather than glorifying God, protecting myself rather than giving myself, avoiding truth to please people, building my kingdom at the expense of the Lord’s—are another matter entirely.
While complementary interests are legitimate, Matthew 6:33 and Philippians 2:21 show they must be secondary. Otherwise it is frighteningly easy for me to begin to view my interests as God’s. I might let them gradually turn into competing interests, or when my legitimate interests appear at risk, to compromise. When I keep God’s interests first, he promises to find a way to take care of me.
For instance, to my surprise, one Father’s Day after the worship service, a church leader handed me a thick, sealed envelope with “Happy Father’s Day” written on the outside. “There’s enough in there,” he said with understatement, “to go to The Olive Garden [my favorite restaurant] more than once.” During the service he had passed the envelope, and the people had been most generous.
My wife and I, however, did not go to The Olive Garden. Our dishwasher and washing machine, after more than two decades of service and numerous repairs, had each recently given up the ghost. We had to spend hundreds of dollars to replace them.
Perhaps through the timing of the church’s gift, the Lord wanted to make a point. That very morning I had preached perhaps my hardest sermon since coming to the church, from Matthew 7:21-23 (“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven … “). I had sought first God’s kingdom by preaching truth without regard to what it would cost me personally, and less than thirty minutes later the Lord provided our financial need.
While this case is unusual, I am reminded that my interests are not at odds with the Lord’s, but they remain so only when I keep them in proper priority.
God is bigger than my small motivations
Motives matter, but they are not everything. God can use even wrongly motivated preachers, as Paul told the Philippians in chapter 1. The glory of God is such that he can work his purposes even through people as selfish as Joseph’s brothers. In his love for those listening to my sermons, God can also redeem my selfish moments. My struggle with wrong motivations does not mean all is lost.
Obviously, though, that does not give me grounds to sell my soul to them. Although God can redeem my wrongly motivated sermons, I have no guarantee he will if I make no attempt to keep myself on course.
Several months ago I saw both sides of this illustrated in one message. I was in a meeting in which the speaker delivered a compelling sermon. Regrettably, in my opinion, he also delivered an ongoing advertisement for himself. It was the most vulgar display of self-promotion I have witnessed in the pulpit (I have never sat in the congregation to witness my own vulgar displays). As much as I wanted to avoid judging the preacher’s motives, I could not escape my thoughts, which ruined the sermon for me. Nevertheless, several others in the congregation responded positively and told me afterward how the sermon had challenged them.
The results of his ministry, therefore, were mixed.
Such experiences confirm to me that the pursuit of pure motives is worthwhile. Sincerity brings moral authority and with it greater effectiveness. More important, even if righteousness offered no pragmatic benefit, I want to be a man of truth. “He who speaks on his own,” said Jesus, “does so to gain honor for himself, but he who works for the honor of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him” (John 7:18).
Correcting wrong motives
How, then, do I best correct my motives that are truly wrong?
There are several ways to respond to my motivation problem, but I find only one beneficial.
Blinders
To resolve the dissonance of my conflicted values, I could act as though my motives are always pure, or I could assume they are so insignificant they amount to nothing.
If I do this, I am kidding myself. The sinful nature lives on—even in the soul of the preacher—and in no area does my fallen nature insinuate itself with greater subtlety than in my motives. Even when I am squeaky clean in action and in words and most of my thoughts, I find that motivations are the last stand of the sinful nature.
Like the man who ignores a cockroach infestation in his home, with denial I suffer the worst impact of ill motives.
For example, years ago if you had asked me whether I ever preached in anger against others, I would have answered with an unqualified no. Now I look back, though, at my experience in my previous church and realize I felt considerable anger toward several people and the whole church situation. That anger motivated some of my sermons, and without question those messages did more harm than good.
God can use even wrongly motivated preachers.
Obsession
I could put all my attention on my motives and attack the dirt in my soul with unceasing, compulsive zeal.
This, too, has its problems. Now I resemble a homeowner who wants to sterilize his home of all dust and germs; it cannot be done. My self-consciousness can distract me from the Word, the Spirit, and my listeners, and curtail my boldness. If I become obsessed with my motives, I can sink into despair and conclude I am unworthy to preach God’s Word. I can focus too much on my sin and too little on Christ.
While I do need to purify my motives, when self-examination leads to paralysis, I have gone too far.
Balance
My name is Brian, and I am a sinner saved by grace. I will combat fallen motives until this life ends. I am sensitive to my motives, and when they veer from kingdom purposes, I will repent. Although I am imperfect, Christ has called me to preach, and he will work through me as I depend on him. God’s Word is stronger than my weakness.
With a balanced view like this, I can preach with both sincerity and confidence.
The hard Father’s Day sermon I mentioned earlier turned out to be just one installment in a four-week series. Each successive week as I prayed about the sermon to come, I felt led toward another topic that, in effect, drew a line in the sand: “This is what it means to be a true follower of Christ; whose side are you on?”
Each week as I considered whether I was accurately sensing God’s leading, I weighed the potential fruit and fallout. The truth of God’s Word would surely stir up sincere believers and challenge others to a deeper commitment. Most likely, though, some who were visitors or newer to the congregation would reject me and the message. Our church of thirty-five could lose some of these precious few with whom we were trying to build trust, as well as their personal networks of unchurched people we hoped to reach. Our weekly offerings could shrink. As is always the case, truth could hurt us in the short run.
The question for me was not whether I was willing to offend people with the truth but whether I was properly sensing God’s leading. Was this the right time, and the right number of times to speak such hard words? I suspect there was some personal ambivalence as well, for I doubt any pastor faces the prospect of losing attenders without thinking twice.
It is too soon to assess the full repercussions of this series because we have slumped into summer. As I would expect, I heard several enthusiastic comments from the committed core. One man handed me a torn-off piece of the bulletin scribbled with these words: “I thank my God that now I know you’re not soft on sin. Excellent message!”
I also saw what I interpret as a rejection. Ten minutes into the final sermon in the series I saw one person in the congregation slide down emphatically in the chair and a few minutes later get up and walk out on the sermon. The next two Sundays that person missed church; I tried unsuccessfully to make contact by phone, and my messages were not returned.
In my ministry I have preached my fair share of discomforting sermons that talk plainly about subjects like judgment, and I would like to be able to thump my chest and say the risks in doing so never occurred to me. What I can say is that as I overcome any misgivings, my desire to do everything for Christ and his kingdom, at whatever personal cost, only grows stronger.
By the way, the person who walked out on my sermon came back to church last Sunday.
Craig Brian Larson is pastor of Lake Shore Assembly of God in Chicago, Illinois.
1997 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. For reprint information call 630-260-6200 or contact us
