One of the dangers preachers face is the temptation to let our preaching itself become the heart of the message rather than Christ. Smith offers a list suggesting times we may be preaching ourselves, such as:
1. "Our sermons are filled with personal illustrations designed to draw attention to ourselves more than to the text.
2. We use illustrations that do not illustrate the text and, therefore, draw attention away from it.
3. We do not pay the price to study but defer to our own interest.
4. We do not explain the text carefully but choose to advance our opinion on a text. This is exalting our wisdom above God's agenda.
5. We use a sermon structure that is predetermined instead of letting the structure of the text become the structure of the sermon…"
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The final major section deals with surrendering to Christ and His cross in our preaching task. The preacher, he notes, must surrender to the text itself—"a commitment to proclamation not invention…to preach the text alone."
Smith says that when the preacher dies so others may live, that is "surrendered communication" — "a relinquishing of our right to say anything we want any way we want. It is limiting our own freedom of expression in order to maximize effectiveness and minimize self-interests." Surrendering to the text, he says, means "at all times deferring to the Scripture, to the point that the sermon is always an expression of the content and spirit of a particular passage."
Smith concludes the volume with an appeal to strive to preach more effectively, not for self-glory but because we preach the cross.
"Of course God can use a bad sermon as well as a good sermon," he writes. "Praise Him for the fact that He works in spite of my weakness! Praise Him that He even does great things with poor sermons just to teach me that this is His work, not mine! …However, the logic of the cruciform life is that if there is a Christian life, it is a crucified life, wholly given over to God. So if there is proclamation, it is done with surrendered excellence to His glory."
This is a powerful book that deserves to be read by any pastor as a reminder that "the greatest threat to the pulpit is the giftedness of its preachers." Smith does a valuable service in reminding us that only as we die can our preaching truly live.
