My Dear Shepherds,
A friend loaned me a book she really liked: Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life, by Dacher Keltner. The author writes, “I have seen how much health and well-being we gain by being amazed at things outside ourselves” (p. xxvi) (his italics). Awe, he says, is therapeutic, restorative. Here and there he mentions “the Divine” but nary a word about the glory-filled wonders of God’s gospel which ordinary preachers declare week after week.
Paul, after portraying the glory of Christ’s downward descent to death on the Cross, rhapsodized about the great reversal, Jesus’ stunning ascent:
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2:9-11)
Now there is awe for you! Our challenge is to preach on such texts so that people not only understand them, but their eyes go wide and their hearts leap. Preachers serve as God’s advance awe team. We are divinely dispatched to summon saints to bend their knees before Christ now, to set tongues praising the Lord Jesus Christ now, all to the glory of God the Father now.
Last Sunday our pastor poured all his energy into stirring our hearts with, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” As he did, I thought of pastors across the world holding high all kinds of biblical wonders, raising their voices and reaching for heaven-sent words to inspire their congregations with the awe that is God’s due.
There is no end to the soul-stirring themes and texts entrusted to us in Scripture: our compassionate and gracious LORD, the Law, Psalms, and Prophets, Christ’s incarnation, the dark glory of the Cross, cell doors sprung open at his resurrection, his soaring ascension to the right hand of God the Father—each and all of them holy ground! But there’s more! Salvation by grace alone through faith alone, union with Christ through the Spirit, the trumpet call summoning saints to meet the Lord in the air, heaven’s hymns and wonders. And on and on, a holy etc., etc., etc.
All of us desire to see our people stirred by these glories when they arise in our text. For example, how would we preach the verses above, so our people don’t just understand; they worship? If we don’t give forethought to how we are going to preach these wonders, we will likely fall back on lackluster clichés. People won’t be moved.
Before you preach, peer long into the glory before you till you see anew or afresh what you’ve missed, till your own heart and imagination awaken. Don’t hurry and don’t assume that inspiration will just come upon you once you’re up there preaching.
Pray for fresh zeal and stirring language. Write out your thoughts, even if you don’t read what you write when you preach, because writing exposes tired language and raises fresh sentences to the surface.
Pray for eloquence natural to you, for the ability to speak movingly with your voice. Surely the Holy Spirit welcomes such a prayer!
Our people are immersed in a cacophony of unbelief, a world that shushes, doubts, curses, denies, and defies the Lord. Till God’s great reveal, preachers herald the knee-bowing, tongue-loosening, creation-encompassing worship of the Lord Jesus Christ! Till the trumpet sounds and the angel shouts, preachers are entrusted with awe!
Be ye glad!
