Preaching For Life Change: It’s All In Learning To Preach Like Jesus
Consider the greatest sermon ever preached, The Sermon on the Mount:
• Jesus began by sharing eight secrets of genuine happiness;
• Then He talked about living an exemplary lifestyle, controlling anger, restoring relationships, and the issues of adultery and divorce. • Next He spoke of keeping promises and returning good for evil. • Then Jesus moved on to other practical life issues like how to give with the right attitude, how to pray, how to store up treasure in heaven, and how to overcome worry. • He wraps up His message by telling us to not judge others, encouraging persistence when asking God to meet our needs, and warning us about false teachers. Advertisement
Put into practice what you’ve just learned!
This is the kind of preaching that we need in churches today. It changes lives! It’s not enough to simply proclaim, “Christ is the Answer.” We must show the unchurched how Christ is the answer. Sermons that exhort people to change without sharing the practical steps of how to change only produce more guilt and frustration.
A lot of preaching today is what I call, “Ain’t it awful!” preaching. It just complains about our society and makes judgments about people in general. It’s long on diagnosis and short on remedy. It makes Christians feel superior to “those out there” but it rarely changes anything. Instead of lighting a candle, it just curses the darkness.
When I go to a doctor, I don’t want to just hear what’s wrong with me; I want him to give me some specific steps to getting better. What people need today is less “ought-to” sermons and more “how-to” sermons. Exhortation without explanation leads to frustration.
Some pastors today criticize “life-application” preaching as shallow, simplistic, and inferior. To them the only real preaching is didactic, doctrinal preaching. Their attitude implies that Paul was more profound than Jesus; that Romans is “deeper” material than the Sermon on the Mount or the Parables. I call that heresy!
The deepest kind of teaching is that which makes a difference in people’s day-to-day lives. As D.L. Moody once said, “The Bible was not given to increase our knowledge but to change our lives.” The goal is Christ-like character.
Jesus said, “I have come that you might have life.” He didn’t say, “I’ve come that you might have religion.” Christianity is a life, not a religion, and Jesus was a life-application preacher. When He finished teaching the Crowd He always wanted them to “go and do likewise.”