“The highest service that a man may attain to on earth is to preach the word of God.”
John Wycliffe, as quoted in Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 107
Who Is Sufficient?
“The privilege is great, the responsibility heavy, the temptations many and the standards high.”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 101
Must Be Something Else
“Why is this power missing in our preaching? I strongly suspect that the main reason is our pride. In order to be filled with the Spirit, we must first acknowledge our own emptiness.”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 98
Elijah Built the Altar Before the Fire Fell
“They should not imagine that even God-given talents can bring people to Christ without the addition of God-given blessing.”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 98
That’s Actually Pretty Clever
“No man can bear witness to Christ and to himself at the same time. No man can give the impression that he himself is clever and that Christ is mighty to save.”
James Denney, as quoted in Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 96
CHEERFUL HEARTS AND GOOD WORDS
Sermon Video INTRODUCTION: We need to begin with the obvious, which is that Scripture teaches that our words affect how we are doing, not to mention those all around us. But this “obvious” truth ...
With an Eye on the End of the Furrow
“Christians preachers are to be neither inventors of new doctrines nor editors who delete old doctrines. Rather, they are to be stewards, faithfully handing out scriptural truths to God’s household. Nothing more, nothing less, and nothing else”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 96
Not in the Doghouse
The Johnstons had been members of the church for fifteen years before the pastor or any of the elders suspected that there was trouble in the marriage. And that suspicion arose because of an overheard conversation in the parking lot—one of the elders’ wives was looking for a dropped baby bottle in the back of …
The Real Move
“The preacher with a humble mind will refuse to manipulate the biblical text in order to make it more acceptable to our day and age. Any attempt to make it more acceptable is really about making ourselves more acceptable or popular.”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 95
Pride as Pest
“In other preachers, however, pride is more indirect, more deceptive, and more troublesome. It is possible to seem humble while constantly longing for praise. At the very moment we are glorifying Christ, we can actually be looking for our own glory. When we are pleading with the congregation to praise God, or even leading them in praise, we can be secretly hoping that they will spare a bit of praise for us”
Stott, The Challenge of Preaching, p. 94.