Do you ever question if your job makes a difference? I do. Even after leaving a successful secular career and experiencing so much of God’s love, joy, and peace trying to do the work of an evangelist…there are still melancholy times when I wonder if it matters.
Because if you think about it, preaching is pretty absurd. People’s lives are going to change by listening to something I say – especially for 30 minutes once a week? I mean, what kind of difference can that really make when the average person spends almost 2.5 hours on social media and over 3 hours watching television per day? Then consider the “jokes” made about long sermons, the “research” about people’s 20-minute attention spans (unless it’s Facebook or TV, evidently), the readiness with which people miss church, and the online availability of more talented speakers than I will ever be. Why preach?
The Apostle Paul even agrees that preaching is foolish; but importantly, he goes on to emphasize that it’s not about the preacher. It’s about the One being preached. “Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For the Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Cor. 1:20-25).
The method and the message don’t make any earthly sense, which is why God chose preaching: it makes it clear the power and wisdom belong to Him. Preaching makes a difference because God chose preaching. So, what is there left to do except to preach? To preach nothing “except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). To constantly seek to grow, not in speaking “with lofty speech” or “plausible words of wisdom”, but “in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God” (cf. 1 Cor. 2:1, 4-5). What matters is Christ crucified, the Spirit, and the power of God…and that’ll preach.
Jesus didn’t just preach the most famous sermon of all time: He practiced it every day of His life. That is what He wants for us, too. Learn to Practice What You Preach with us.