Jacob told Esau to go on ahead in Gen. 33:13 …“My lord knows that the children are tender and that I must care for the ewes and cows that are nursing their young. If they are driven hard just one day, all the animals will die.” Well-meaning Christians with a lesser understanding of how the flock should be led might think the church needs to be scolded and scrubbed with a version of ‘Sinners in the hands of an angry God’ every Sunday. Preaching should ultimately bring life and health and hope and for sure a measure of conviction.

Preaching must achieve a goal. If the goal is to draw a crowd or to send people away with a good feeling, the preaching needs to stay in the candy aisle. The problem of course is that over time, even the most shallow Christians are not sustained by sugar coated, melt in your mouth dainties. Everyone and every church needs the true meat of the Word in order to grow.

The Holy Spirit is not the 90s, He is the Almighty.

If your goal is to grow a strong church with solid Christians, men, women, youth, etc. there must be a solid and vibrant understanding of the real core tenets of our faith. Do people understand: Yes there is a devil, and he will war against their destiny and heritage—do they know how to battle back? There is a difference between singing and true worship. There is an actual throne room and they are supposed meet God there. The Holy Spirit is not the 90s, He is the Almighty. Heaven and hell are both real. Trials are real. Deliverance is real. Instruction, correction and rebuking are real.

…the Lord spoke to me and told me to stop explaining the Gospel out of my head to the invisible skeptic and start preaching it out of my heart to the ones searching.

People are created to live completely for God and our preaching should tap into that inner DNA. You won’t be too radical. You won’t be too hard to understand. And you won’t kill the whole flock if you measure your sermon with grace and truth. Once, right in the middle of my sermon, the Lord spoke to me and told me to stop explaining the Gospel out of my head to the invisible skeptic and start preaching it out of my heart to the ones searching. …Stop explaining and start preaching. Truth will cut through the outer layers of this culture. Truth that will set people free isn’t found in the candy aisle. We’ll let you know if you start getting too much like Jonathan Edwards. Until then, go deeper and get stronger and see if the church doesn’t begin to follow suit.