I think the Apostle Paul responds to this, at least somewhat, in verse 23 when he writes to the Colossians saying, "All of this is true, if indeed, you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven and of which I, Paul, was made a minister."

Paul understood that it was possible to hear in vain and he hoped that it I was not true of this church -- that their response to his preaching was not just a succession of nice accolades and respectful comments. Rather, we would like to have an assembly line of maturing Christians go out the door of the church, wherein we could at least see something and note some progress. We could statistically even mark what kind of impact this sermon had over against another. But, we do not have that sight; it is largely a hidden work in the human heart. Such a work will bear good fruit, but this will take time to be evident.

Since the Lord established His church, there have been preachers -- lots of preachers. The church has heard good preachers and poor preachers, faithful preachers and faithless preachers, eloquent preachers and pulpit babblers, pulpit humorists and pulpit bawlers, expository preachers, narrative preachers, thematic preachers, evangelistic preachers, literary preachers, sawdust preachers, post-modern preachers, seeker-seeking preachers, famous preachers, infamous preachers -- lots and lots of preachers. And to what end? Well, it all accumulated to millions and millions of hours preaching. You go all the way back to the first century and try to estimate how much time has been consumed in preaching, and we should measure not only the time of the preacher, but the time and attentiveness of the congregation as well.

This represents a massive investment of human time, energy, and attention in the task of preaching. And for what? To what end? Millions and millions of hours of preaching. Countless books and conferences and controversies. So what? The preacher may sound like Luther on Sunday, but he feels like bathing in Ecclesiastes on Monday morning, "vanity, vanity, all is vanity." Striving after the wind-that is what it feels like.

We feel like the preacher of Ecclesiastes who laments in chapter 1, verse 15, "What is crooked cannot be straightened and what is lacking cannot be counted." Vanity. It is such a deal to be called to preach. You work hard and you see nothing. This in not piece work, it is just a piece of work!

Furthermore, this line of work has a nasty way of getting you into trouble. It seems that the more faithful one is in preaching, the more trouble one encounters. Why? There is conflict and controversy. You preach the Word. You did not come up with it. This is not your opinion, and it is not something you came up with in order to offend people. You are simply preaching the Word. After all, that is your assignment.

So you get up, and the next thing you know you are on the front page of the papers. You are the subject of gossip for the deacons' and their wives, even the youth group is up in arms over whatever you said.