day no. 15,133: homiletical help, week 9: not just any words will do --> CLARITY PT. 3

Good morning witnesses,

Preaching is merely testifying to the truth in front of everyone. Instead of placing your hand on the Bible, you place your nose in it and look up and say what it says. We are not called to the stand to invent something worth listening to, but to testify that what God has said is the only thing worth listening to. We provide evidence for this by living out the principle in front of our people. If we make our sermons about us, we are teaching people that their lives are about them. But if we take the stand and swear by the Bible alone, we demonstrate what we're asking them to do in their own lives, live in light of the Word, believing and doing what it says to believe and do.

This week, let's talk about CLARITY one last time: which words to say what  

Worldly wisdom would say a man spending 30 minutes in transparency is humble. He is living his life in front of everyone and giving everyone the opportunity to peek into his experience. That is humility. Authenticity and transparency are the tell tale signs of humility.

Worldly wisdom would also say a man spending 30 minutes proclaiming what God has said without any reference to his personal experience is proud, boring and out of touch. He merely shouts what God says to do without relating to his hearers. When he says, "thus sayeth the Lord," he is proud if he does not first say, "I remember a time when..."

Godly wisdom has, not surprisingly, the precise opposite take on the situations. A man who spends 30 minutes of your time talking about himself is proud whereas a man who spends 30 minutes telling you what God has said is humble. The world interprets authenticity as humble and authority as pride whereas God interprets authenticity of that degree as pride and authority derived that way as humility.