I‘m intent on laying up treasures in heaven, but I’m concerned my reward for preaching may be small.
Great would be my reward, I’m sure, if I preached with painful reluctance, but the real reason I preach is I simply love the ministry of the Word. At no time am I more self-indulgent than when I sit down to study and later to stand to preach God’s Word. Not that I follow my own agenda, but God’s agenda is such exquisite pleasure.
In National Geographic, T. H. Watkins writes about the Four Corners region of the American Southwest. It has classic desert beauty: graceful sand dunes, buttes that glow orange in the morning light, rugged canyons, sandstone wedges jutting into the sky.
Watkins writes that the area is “endlessly various and fascinating in its forms. Much of this I have come to think of as my own country. … I have spent several years exploring this western landscape, driving its roads, flying over it, hiking into its canyons, camping along its rivers … sometimes writing about it, most of the time just thinking about its warps and tangles of rock and sky.”
To study and preach the Word is to explore limitless terrain,
My feelings are the same for the endless grandeur of Scripture. To study and preach the Word is to explore limitless terrain. Someone has said when you thank God for something, you enjoy it twice; similarly, when we preach the fruits of our study, our pleasure in God’s truth multiplies. The more I do so, the farther the horizon stretches, the more colorful are its truths, the more striking is its righteousness.
Preaching’s grace
But Scripture isn’t just beautiful landscape; like Mount Sinai it is sacred ground. My sandals come off at the thought I handle the words of God himself.
A sermon series can become a monument in my life. In my first pastorate, with three preaching services per week, I soon began preaching through books of the Bible on Wednesday nights. I discovered those sermon series became not just segments in my preaching calendar but markers in my personal history. I remember 1983, for instance, as “the year I preached Romans.” Whatever else happened that year, life was significant because I had climbed, mapped out, and mined one mountain in Scripture and shared its precious metals with my people.
Feelings are fickle, of course, and at times I don’t relish the thought of sermon study. Aside from lazy moods, I chafe at sermon work primarily when I let my schedule fill with other things or when I hardly pray about the message to come. I chafe when I run out of time to prepare or don’t know what to preach. If it’s Saturday night and I’m empty, then I’m sweating, not giving thanks.
But that’s the exception.
More often I feel like an overwhelmed King David. After settling into his palace of cedar, David’s heart ached at the thought that he had better accommodations than the ark of the Lord. He spoke to Nathan the prophet, and that night the Lord told Nathan he looked with such favor on David that the Lord intended to defeat all David’s enemies, make his name great, and build a house from David’s line that would endure for eternity.
When David heard the prophecy, he was stunned. He went into the temple and sat abashed before the Lord. “Who am I, O Sovereign Lord,” he said, “and what is my family, that you have brought me this far?
… Is this your usual way of dealing with man, O Sovereign Lord? What more can David say to you?”
How is it that God allows me to be his messenger? As I consider this honor, my throat tightens. I thank God again and again. My chest heaves with emotion. Who am I, O Sovereign Lord?
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
