Last week we talked about the question, “Is there life after death?” And, we took a look at what the world has to say about the subject and what the Word, the Bible has to say about it.
And, it was great for us to have our daughter, Janelle, and her family here with us. Later after they had gone home I asked Pastor Karenlee if Janelle had made any observations about the service. She said that she really enjoyed the worship but that the sermon seemed more like a lecture than a sermon. This is a sentiment that
I believe some of you have tried to convey to me as well.
Anyway, this caused me to re-reflect on how I develop and deliver my messages from God’s and as I pondered on my preaching I started thinking about the dimensions involved with God’s Word.
As you know, one of our memory Scriptures is Matthew 22:37-40 and it states in Matthew 22:37 (NIV),
“(Jesus) replied, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’”
And, the account in Mark 12:30 (NIV) adds the word strength,
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”
These seem to me to be the targets of preaching. These form the whole out of which everything flows.
Here we’ve got three arrows pointing to “the Lord your God”; heart, soul, mind and the measure of intensity, “all your strength”.
Has this ever happened to you? You send someone to pick up a pizza and when they get back from the pizza joint one of the pieces is missing? They claim that it was never there and one of the workers at the pizza joint must have eaten it. However, the tomato sauce in the corner of the pick up person’s mouth gives it away. The pizza’s not whole, it’s just not the same.
Or, you are putting a 1,000 piece puzzle together and you get to the very last two pieces and you realize that there is only one piece to fill those last two holes. It will never work. All of those hours of painstaking labor for nothing. One piece missing ruins it all!
Now, here’s the thing. A sermon missing any one of these elements is incomplete and will be less effective than it should be. All of these elements must be complete for a good sermon and I may be unbalanced toward one of these elements.
But, you see, it’s not just me. It’s you, too! If you are a follower of Jesus Christ you are a preacher, too. You are a preacher in your life, you are a preacher in your actions, you are a preacher in your speech, you are a preacher in your emotions. So, Karenlee and I as your pastors need to have this all together and you all as followers of Jesus need to have it all together as well.
But with loving the Lord your God there is a trinity; heart, soul and mind.
First we’ll take a look at the heart. Emotion. What does that have to do with preaching and living a balanced life as a Jesus follower?
When it comes to preaching the sermon may be full of Biblical and historical facts and figures and yet be bone dry.
On the other hand a sermon may be filled with hilarious jokes and/or tear jerking stories which lead to huge emotional swings without containing any Biblical truths. The first is a lecture and the second is entertainment or emotional manipulation. Neither is preaching and neither would make an effective witness for the Lord.
So, we need to determine why emotion is essential to good preaching, good witnessing and living for Jesus!
Just why is the emotional, heart aspect of our love relationship with Jesus is essential!
In the old days preaching used to include acting to some measure.
I remember my Great Grandmother Mary Elizabeth telling about finding some notes from an evangelist that had been carried by the breeze out the window of a small country church and on one of the pages there was a note in the margin to “cry here”.
The famous old-time preacher was speaking to a class of preachers and telling them that when they speak of heaven their faces should reflect the joy of heaven with a smile. However, he told them when speaking of hell their ordinary face would do!
Now, we’re not talking about contrived emotions but genuine emotions that come from knowing the Lord our God.
Psalm 28:7 (NIV)
“The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in Him, and He helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise Him.”
Psalm 86:12 (NIV)
“I will praise You, Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify Your name forever.”
Romans 15:13 (NIV)
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
Colossians 3:16 (NIV)
“Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.”
We are to be filled with joy and gladness and thanksgiving for our great salvation, but, you see, when it comes to emotions it’s not just joy and happiness that is a witness for Christ.
John 11:35 (NIV) says, “Jesus wept.”
Jesus was grieved over the lost nation of Israel, His chosen people.
And, our grief over the lostness of the unsaved is just as important as the joy of our salvation and people will sense if this emotion is present and will surely know if it is absent!
The emotion of our relationship with God needs to be an underlying aspect of my preaching and of all of our witnesses. That is why the first and greatest commandment requires us to love the Lord our God with all of our heart!
So, the Lord our God has called us to love Him with all of our hearts, our emotions, our passions, but, the Lord our God has also called us to love Him with all of our souls.
What about our souls? Do we really need to love the Lord our God with all of our soul? Why do we need to love God with all of our soul?
If the heart of a Christian is all about the emotions of our relationship with God the soul is all about our faith, our trust, our full reliance on God, our unquestioning gut belief in God.
In the NIV here are some numbers:
Faith - 287
Believe - 269
Trust - 30
What is this faith? What is this belief? What is this trust?
It is embodied in one of our memory Scriptures:
Proverbs 3:5-6
“Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your way acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.”
The past couple of summers we have taken our vacations at a cabin on Seneca lake about 2.5 hours from here. And a few times each year I’ll go for a walk along some nearby railroad tracks. Along the tracks are a couple of railroad bridges with walkways built onto the side so you don’t need to use the tracks themselves. These bridges are over 100 feet high and they have a railing on one side. The first few times over the bridge were quite spooky for me; I don’t like heights. But, after a few trips across I became accustomed to the footing and the security of the railing and the sturdiness of the bridge itself. I had faith that it would not collapse. I believed that the builder made it strong enough not only to carry me but to carry a train as well. I had trust in the bridge.
This faith and belief is the same with God. Now, God is absolutely faithful and trustworthy but in the beginning our faith may be frail.
If I were to pose the question,
“What is the one greatest thing that you struggle with when it comes to trusting God?” Does one thing pop into your mind? Think about it!
If one thing popped into your mind you know what it is! I’m not even going to make suggestions as to what it might be. You know what it is!
In all likelihood God is going to let you take baby steps first. You take that first step out onto the bridge of trust and you find that Jesus is holding it up! Then you take the next step with more confidence. God is faithful! You can believe in Him. You can place your faith in Him because He is faithful. You can trust Him!
When you trust God He will direct your paths, He will show you which way to go.
But, what if you’re not sure it’s God telling you to take that step of faith. What if you only think He’s telling you to do something and maybe He’s not. Maybe He’s asking you to do something ridiculous.
Maybe it’s like when the Lord directed Gideon to reduce the army from 32,000 to 300 while going up against the Midianite army.
Or maybe it’s like Peter getting out of the boat to walk on the water to Jesus.
Whatever it is, it’s not as big as either of those. So, why don’t you do it? One thing I am sure we never want to hear from Jesus is, “Why didn’t you …?”
Faith will build. Trust will build and by all of this the love for the Lord your God will build you soul and you will be able to love the Lord your God with all of your soul.
Why is this important? As I preach you will be able to see if my soul is filled with confidence gained by faith in God and believing in God and trusting in God. And as you witness to the unsaved they will be able to see if your soul is filled with confidence gained by faith in God and believing in God and trusting in God.
An empty soul without faith and trust in God is transparent. If you do not love God with all of your soul your witness will either be shallow and lifeless or you will just not witness at all.
If my soul is empty and without faith and trust is God I might as well quit and go home and let a real pastor take my place.
The soul is where faith meets with emotion.
Am I happy in the Lord with a secure faith in Him?
Am I in anguish for the lost with a soul that knows for a certainty that Jesus has saved me from an eternity away from God?
Do I walk in joyful, confident obedience with God?
So, the Lord our God has called us to love Him with all of our hearts, our emotions, our passions, and, the Lord our God has also called us to love Him with all of our souls, but, what about with all of our minds? Is that really necessary!
This is perhaps why my sermons have been somewhat dry and like lectures. We need to know about God! We need to know His truth!
Am I the fountain of knowledge and truth about God? Heavens no! But, we have in our grasp that fountain of knowledge and truth. It is none other than God’s Holy Word and our mind is where that knowledge and truth enters into us!
That is why we preach from the Bible. That is why we study the Bible in SS. That is why we look into God’s Holy Word on Sunday evenings and Wednesday evenings and in the Ladies Tuesday Luncheon and in the Teen gathering at Chip and Chris’ home!
What do we get from studying the Bible?
We get to know God’s character.
We get to see God relating to humanity
We get to see the blessing of obedience
We get to see the curse of disobedience
We get to read the actual words spoken by Jesus while He was on earth
We get to see the dynamics of the human and God relationship throughout history
We get to see a glimpse of the future
We come to understand salvation
We get to have a conversation with God; He speaks to us through His Word and we pray to Him for understanding and knowledge
What if someone comes to you and tells you that the Bible really does not say that Jesus was God in human form what would you tell them?
John 10:10 - “I and the Father are one.”
John 14:8-9
“Don’t you know Me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?”
What if someone said to you that all religions are the same and all paths lead to heaven, what would you tell them?
John 14:6
“Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’”
And the Lord God said to the nation of Israel in
Isaiah 43:10
“You are My witnesses,” declares the LORD, “and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe Me and understand that I am He. Before Me no god was formed, nor will there be one after Me.”
Even if we were given the advantage of having a Bible search engine line Biblegateway.com would we be able to find the passages we would need to defend the truth?
That is exactly why God has commanded us to love Him with all of our minds in addition to our hearts and our souls! We need to know God intellectually as well as with our emotions and our faith!
These are the trinity aspects of loving the Lord our God and without all of them my preaching is less than it should be. Without all of them your witness is less than it should be. And, without all of them our love for God is not all that it should be.
If we don’t have all of them we need to repent and ask the Lord to help us to love Him with all of our hearts, souls, mind and strength.
Do you? (Invitation)
