When It Comes to Preaching

In the Reformed tradition like ours at RB Community, preaching is an essential part of worship. The pastor's spiritual responsibility is to expound God's Word with clarity and truth. However, over the years, a temptation for even seasoned pastors is to treat preaching as “work," and the attention to study, prayer, and preparation can dull over time. Early in 2025, God changed how I approach preparation, prayer, and preaching of sermons. This conviction arose out of two questions: 1) What if someone visiting our church was exploring the truth of Christianity and Jesus giving it one more try? Would I prepare the sermon any differently? Of course, the Lord is sovereign and can use anyone to speak truth (God once used a donkey to speak truth to a man named Balaam in Numbers 22). It is ultimately the Holy Spirit at work. But the posture of my heart needs to be humble, desiring faithfulness to preach Christ-centered sermons. The second question is, "What if this were the final sermon that I ever preach?" At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, I may never know when it will be my final sermon. So it is to approach every single sermon with an urgency to leave nothing off the table. A 19th-century Scottish preacher named Robert Murray M'Cheyne once said regarding preaching, "Did you preach it with tears?" It is to view preaching as more than just saying eloquent words. It is to proclaim God's truth with the power of the Holy Spirit and showing the heart of God. The Apostle Paul might have had these in mind in 2 Timothy 4:2, "Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke, and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction." But why limit this to preaching and only to a preacher? Is not the whole church's work just as serious as we encounter people in the name of our Lord? This mindset extends to everything in life. The life and ministry we share at RB Community is urgent and requires humility, devotion, and excellence for the glory of God. We do not know who we will meet in our work. We do not know how many opportunities we will have. But we do know that it matters more than we realize. May we live, serve, and speak with that kind of urgency all for the glory of God. In Christ Alone, Pastor Jason