I love to speak publicly. I also love to teach. Since I love God and also love these things, I love to preach. Now, I have not met too many preachers who do not love to preach (ha) but I want to share three main reasons I love to preach.
Now, first, here are some temptations I and every preacher have to fight against when we preach that should not be why we love to preach:
Look for Personal Glory
Preachers cannot be seeking personal glory in the pulpit. Put yourself aside and let Jesus shine through you.
Look to Win Personal Influence
Preachers also cannot be trying to gain personal influence in the pulpit. Again, it is all about Jesus.
Look to Build a Brand
Preachers (yes me), do not even get me started on using the pulpit to build your personal brand.
With those temptations addressed, here are three reasons I love to preach:
Clearly Communicate the Gospel
When we are in the pulpit we get to clearly communicate the greatest story of all time every time! What a great privilege, and one we must take seriously. Think about it: We get to present the gospel to committed disciples and seekers every week. That excites me so much.
Display Love for God’s People
Every time we deliver a sermon we can choose to love those we are communicating with. I love that we can love people simply by delivering the gospel message. We can love them by being timely and contextual with our illustrations. We can love them by exuding passion for Jesus and them. We can love them by clearly communicating God’s grace to their lives. We can love them by properly preparing and delivering the best we possibly can.
Answer/Develop Spiritual Questions
The privilege of being in the pulpit means we get to present, answer and develop the spiritual questions of God’s people that he loves. As a preacher I love this aspect so much. You know there are people in the audience struggling with deep questions about faith or even life. You can be an influence in directing those questioning to Jesus and a deeper faith.
I hope this can be an encouragement to you as a preacher. We all struggle with certain temptations when we step into the pulpit, but fight for the pure intentions and the clear guide of the Holy Spirit.
Why Do You Love to Preach?
Join the conversation and let us know. You can do so in the comments below or on social media: Join our Facebook Group, tweet us or post on our Facebook Page. We would love to connect!
Grow as a Preacher in 2017
Want to grow as a preacher and leader? We’ll help you do it. Just subscribe to the blog. And to get you started and as a way of saying thank you, we’ll include four free resources: Sermon Evaluation Worksheet, 56 Weeks of Preaching Topics, Sermon Series Planning Evernote Template and the Weekly Productivity Evernote Template. All this for free when you subscribe.
This article originally appeared here.
