On The Importance Of Preaching

 

After thousands of years with written scripture, you would think we would all have the basics down by now.  I was recently asked, "Why preaching remains important for the ministry of church leadership?"  The short answer is found in Matthew 28:19-20, "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Making disciples and teaching.  That's the simple answer.  "Go tell the world about me.  I was dead but now I live.  I've gotta go now for a little while but goodbye is not the end."  I go back to these lyrics to a song by Cain talking about the Great Commission often.  What the apostles endured wasn't supposed to lie in the grave with them as the disciples would soon need to become teachers.  They were reluctant at first to travel outside of Jerusalem but would understand later that these weren't lessons just for Judea, Samaria or Galilee.

I may be wrong but believe that the majority of dogs in the world don't know how to sit on command.  To correct that, they have to be incentivized, trained and led.  Sure, dogs born and raised in a home full of trained canines can learn from following their parents and siblings but that isn't always the case and once emancipated or rehomed they can fall away from what they learned if not used.  I have seen a similar thing in human homes.  Left to our own devices, we may never hear "the good news" that God became man, became the final perfect sacrifice for our sins and rose again.  If you don't hear that message, you miss out.  If you do hear it but don't take your faith with you as you become an adult, you may remain a lost lamb -- as if you never heard it at all.

Sermons are a vessel for outreach to the uninitiated and prodigals.  They are among the ways for us to bridge the years since the cross and help our listeners relate to their role in the greatest story ever told.  We can't do it alone and that is why the Holy Spirit is there in the believer's life.  It is directly linked with the work of witness, both as the enabling power (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:8) and as the confirming agent (John 15:26; Acts 5:32).  The New Testament points to His ministry as essential to effective witnessing, for when we have said all, only the Holy Spirit can make our experience valid in the life of another person.

So, the reason to keep preaching is to keep reaching.  If leading a church, you have goals and we mentioned them earlier: go and make disciples, baptize them and teach them.  Ministry straying from those goals needs a loving rebuke.