The conclusion of the sermon is a dangerous time for the preacher. He spent only 30 to 45 minutes in an explanatory flood, unloading his study and zeal for the congregation. Preparing the sermon for 10 to 20 hours is a thing of the past, and you’ve already got in your car to drive home. Are you likely exhausted?emotionally, spiritually and physically.
If you are a follower of preaching, you give everything to the pulpit.
- I’ve been there.
- And for the last 30 years.
- I’ve learned valuable lessons about what I should and shouldn’t do after a sermon.
- Here are three key lessons:.
Wait to be attacked
Preaching is fighting the enemy every week. Paul said to the Corinthians, Did God like to save those who believe through the madness of preaching?(1 Corinthians 1. 21) Does this mean that they are taken from the prince of the air powers, to the spirit who now acts in the sons of disobedience?(Ephesians 2. 2). The point I want to emphasize is that God uses preaching as a way to change people, to take them away from enemy dominion.
The dark side has an opinion about this activity: it must be stopped. Don’t be naive to think that after delivering the message you won’t lose sight of it. Do you prepare the message?With scripture study, meditation, and prayer?has protection benefits. After the sermon, you’re usually exhausted and empty, in other words, you’re vulnerable to an airstrike.
Meat works hard, too. Preaching provokes temptation. On the one hand, pride in the way God uses it and on the other hand, condemnation because God is not. In addition, there is the problem of the message itself, in which you have uttered many words knowing that “in the multitude of words there is no lack of sin”. (Proverbs 10:19)
When men preach, there are many failures
If you’ve preached for a while, you know every message has flaws. Well, these weaknesses become really intimate after preaching, knocking on your door to visit. Don’t open the door! They will invade your home, disturb your peace, and dye the whole message before your eyes. You’ll feel stupid, damned, like the whole sermon isn’t good.
There’s time and place for everything in the sun. Evaluating your sermon immediately after giving birth will make you hate it.
After preaching, you must prepare for enemy and flesh attacks. Just as soldiers prepare for the enemy offensive, you must prepare to be attacked.
Before, during, and after attacks, run for the good news of the gospel; understand that preaching is about the power of God’s Word, not his own words; remember that a sermon has never been preached in the history of the world that has been so bad that it could drain the power of God’s Word. God is old enough for people to remember his eternal words and forget his silly words. Do you really believe that God’s purposes depend on the quality of your preaching?That’s not what you are, preaching, after the message, it’s time to apply the message to your life.
After preaching, prepare for attack, remembering that God is greater than His mistakes.
Calm your soul
When you’re attacked, your soul will be noisy. The accusing thoughts will knock on the door of your mind, demanding your attention, or maybe they are ideas that inflate the ego, that raise your vanity to the heights and end up thinking of yourself?At times like this, you have to calm your soul.
Calm your soul by trusting in God with the results of your sermon. Calm your soul by setting your thoughts on God, not your performance. If you are proud, remember that your message makes no sense unless God makes it powerful. If you feel condemned, remember that the Word of the Lord does not return empty (Isaiah 55:11). Your sermon will do exactly what God wants. Fortunately, you cannot thwart the Lord’s good plans!
You should ignore the attacks you are experiencing and set your mind on the above things (Philippians 4. 8). The best advice for a preacher who leads after leaving church service is: “Shut up, and recognize that I am God” (Psalm 46. 10) This keeps both criticism and praise in the right place.
Once you have delivered your sermon to God, rest and do something that distracts you. I need at least two or three hours to recover after a sermon. I spend this time reading, watching a show or even sleeping. When my children were older, I sometimes did something with them that distracted me and invigovigoed me.
Someone once said that preaching a sermon equals 8 hours of manual work, I don’t know if that’s true, but that’s definitely how I feel!The goal is to recover the body and soul so that they are ready for the next message. .
Don’t pesques
Because preaching encourages both indictment and admiration, you will be tempted to fish for praise. Are you going to ask inductive questions designed to get positive answers?A form of energy identity. I’ve done it too many times. There are few things as superficial as a compliment, except perhaps when you’re looking for compliments and end up catching a critic who bends your cane. It’s worth remembering that when you go fishing, I often don’t know what to catch.
The biggest problem behind this fishing expedition is that we are very focused on delivery, we want to know what impression we made, how it felt, as if there was a barometer to measure what God was actually doing or what he would do. the need to depend on the approval and praise of others rather than entrusting ourselves to God.
It is worth remembering that most preachers receive more encouragement in a month than other professionals in a decade. And when the spirit comes, transfer glory to God.
And please don’t listen to your own podcast, your own sermon, the reason is this: you are hopelessly subjective when evaluating your own sermon, you spent between 15 and 20 hours of preparation, which means that objectivity has left the room for days. If you really want help, choose experienced preachers and trusted members who don’t want your approval and ask them to help you give constructive feedback. So thank them for that, no matter what they say.
Conclusion
Charles Spurgeon, perhaps the greatest preacher of the last 300 years, made the famous statement: “It has been a long time since I predicted a sermon that I am satisfied with. Can I hardly remember if this has happened before?
And he was known as the “Prince of Preachers”!
If Spurgeon wasn’t satisfied with his sermons, it’s safe to say that mere mortals like you and I will find ourselves in a similar situation.
Can we be prepared for these moments?
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