Why I Preach Like I Do Part 2

Yesterday, I talked about some things that guide the preaching at Revolution. Today I want to unpack the second thing that drives our preaching.

We preach for life transformation, not knowledge transference.

I realize if you are a pastor, you would say this is why you preach. But often our sermons say the opposite. In listening to a lot of sermons online, it seems like the goal for pastors is to either show how smart they are or how smart they can make their churches.

In my opinion, one of the most crucial steps in sermon prep is editing, choosing what you will not share. This is difficult because there is often more a pastor would like to share than he has time for. I am one of those guys who loves theology. I love to talk about it, read about it. I could spend hours talking about the sovereignty of God. As interesting as that as is to me, when I preach, I have to show my church not only why that doctrine is true and beautiful, but how that impacts their life. Most pastors seem to stop at, “it’s true” and then move on.

Why does it matter that Jesus was God and human? Why does the Holy Spirit matter?

When preaching, you must always answer the “why does this matter” question.

This is one of the reasons I love preaching through books of the Bible. I’m able to build on each sermon each week. I can quickly refer to something as a reminder, show the context, which helps to answer why an author mentioned what he mentions and then make an application that has to do with life transformation.

All the doctrines I love are about life transformation, we just need to help our people see them.

Two books that have helped me immensely in this area is The Big Idea and Communicating for a Change. 

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