Are you ever afraid when you preach? Maybe as you make ready to mount your pulpit? I hope so! If you\u2019re not, then I\u2019m afraid of you and consider you a danger to the ministry. Forty-five years after I preached my first sermon, I still feel fear every time I preach \u2014 and I\u2019m so glad I do!<\/p>\n
I almost can hear somebody thinking right now, \u201cIsn\u2019t pastoral ministry about helping people to live beyond their fears?\u201d Somebody else is thinking, \u201cOur Savior says, \u2018Do not fear, only believe,\u2019 and John wrote, \u2018Perfect love casts out fear\u2019\u201d (see Mark 5:36 and 1 John 4:18). I know all those verses and a whole bunch more just like them; but I tell you I\u2019m still afraid every time I preach, and I think you should be, too!<\/p>\n
You see, I\u2019m not at all persuaded that the idea of fearing God is some Old Testament relic. In our New Testament understanding of God, we want to remember God is not fear but love and, again, that \u201cPerfect love casts out fear.\u201d<\/p>\n
Really smart preachers who know who they are, whose they are and who called them demonstrate that by a healthy dose of fear. Come with me to that day when Isaiah stepped into the temple after King Uzziah died. There in the temple, Isaiah was face-to-face with the incomparable contrast between his own sin and God\u2019s pure, holy glory. Isaiah also saw smoke billowing throughout the space, suggestive of God\u2019s power to consume (see and compare Isa. 33:14 and Exod. 19:18, for instance). Isaiah feared that he would be destroyed because he was in the presence of the purest of all beings. He announced woe on himself; he was in deep trouble.<\/p>\n
Preacher, have you ever thought about the fact that these are the first words out of Isaiah\u2019s mouth about himself in his whole book? They are the words of a fear-filled man announcing a prophetic, well-deserved woe on himself. Isaiah first had to face his own sin-filled nature and rampant uncleanness before he could worship God as he should.<\/p>\n
Sometimes I still wear the gold college ring my student congregation bought me for graduation. Every time I slide it onto my finger, I am forced to recognize our University of Mobile motto from Proverbs 1:7: \u201cThe fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.\u201d It is smart to be afraid sometimes.<\/p>\n
The number of times the Bible extols \u201cthe fear of the Lord\u201d as a virtue is not beyond number, but it is high. It happened at the foot of Mount Sinai, when \u201cIt came to pass on the third day, in the morning, that there were thunderings and lightnings, and a thick cloud on the mountain; and the sound of the trumpet was very loud, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled\u201d (Exod 19:16). When Jesus came down among us, things actually got worse. When He stilled the storm, \u201cthey feared exceedingly!\u201d (Mark 4:41). At the Transfiguration, \u201cthey were greatly afraid\u201d (Mark 9:6). On resurrection morning, the first witnesses to the empty tomb \u201csaid nothing to anyone, for they were afraid\u201d (Mark 16:8). So, now tell me, dear preacher-reader, that we ought not to be afraid!<\/p>\n
Let me give you two reasons why preaching with fear is important. The first is that what we are called to do is stand in God\u2019s place and announce His message. Surely we must all know we, too, are men with dirty mouths. The second is that we are filled with this holy awe kind of fear because God just might choose the moment we preach to do something totally amazing and beyond any human understanding one more time. It\u2019s a glorious and good thing to be afraid at a moment such as that.<\/p>\n
So, preach in the words of Puritan Richard Baxter, \u201cPreach as though never sure to preach again, a dying man for dying men!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Are you ever afraid when you preach? Maybe as you make ready to mount your pulpit? I hope so! If you\u2019re not, then I\u2019m afraid of you and consider you a danger to the ministry. Forty-five years after I preached my first sermon, I still feel fear every time I preach \u2014 and I\u2019m so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2722,4743],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5439"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5439\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}