One of the biggest things God is changing in me is my view of preaching in church. I had been at a point where I felt like the most effective teaching & preaching was intellectual and highly expository (which means that the bulk of the teaching is simply dissecting the Bible verse by verse and explaining its meaning). I respected and held in high regard the teachings of preachers who avoided emotional pleas, avoided passionate exclamations of excitement, and in general just stuck with reading and explaining the Bible.

I want to focus on one aspect of the way God has changed my view of preaching, I’ll expound on more of that in future posts. But this one thing is something that I feel like God has radically changed in my mind. Prior to the past 2 years, I felt like a good sermon shouldn’t necessarily INSPIRE someone emotionally. I was deathly terrified of emotion and inspiration. I felt like it would to quickly become a “hype factory” where people get excited for excitements sake, and not for Christ’s sake. The only problem with that line of thinking is The Bible.

One word continues to come up in my studies and conversations. That word is Exhort. Read the Bible and you’ll see Exhort all over the place (see John the Baptist for example…oh and don’t forget Jesus). Exhort means to “strongly encourage or urge”. Now, if preaching is supposed to be an Exhortation, how can you STRONGLY ENCOURAGE OR URGE someone to do something without allowing emotion into the equation? How can you strongly encourage someone without raising your voice? How can you strongly urge someone by simply explaining the truth of scripture? That’s just not normal. Think about some of the greatest public speakers of all time who brought about change. In light of our recent celebration of Martin Luther King day, look at him! The man KNEW how to exhort!

Exhortation doesn’t HAVE to include the Gospel. Public speakers exhort all the time. But when you combine Exhortation with the Power of the Holy Spirit in preaching the Gospel of our Lord Jesus, it should take us to another word entirely…..and that word is INSPIRE. The definition of inspire: to exert an animating, enlivening, or exalting influence on someone. I can think of no greater description of what we desire in our preaching every single week! I want to ANIMATE the Gospel for people who are used to the Christian message being lame and boring! I want to ENLIVEN the Gospel for someone so that they understand that these words are the Life that is Truly Life! And what more could we ask for than to exalt influence over someone and help them find salvation?!

I’m not abandoning 1 Timothy 4:16. I am committed to preserving Biblical Truth no matter what, but that’s not the only job of the preacher. The preacher must communicate truth in a way that INSPIRES people. We must EXHORT people to put their trust and hope in the Gospel! And I’m changing in my preaching to reflect this. I am going to bring more energy, more enthusiasm, more excitement, and more passion to my sermons than ever before. I’m not going to worry about over-emotionalizing anything, because I’m not going to sacrifice Biblical Truth! I’m just going to get freakin hyped about these Words of Life, and then communicate those Words in a way that is true to not only their intellectual reality but also their emotional reality.

Bottom line: I feel like God is bringing me to a place where my preaching isn’t just going to be true to Scripture and relevant to those who hear it, I’m going to do everything in my power, which comes from the Holy Spirit, to INSPIRE people. Jesus is teaching me that Inspiration is an absolutely crucial part of every believer, and lucky for us…God’s got the market on inspiration.