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Tonight’s sermon has been about 16 years in the making, and I’m still not ready.
I was called to preach in 2004 at summer camp—what a powerful blessing a whole week of preaching is—and a few weeks later, I was in Bible college.
My friend, Tyler Prater, now a pastor in Kansas and a powerful preacher of the Word, sat me down and “preached” at me a while about the fire that should be burning in a preacher’s heart. Maybe he saw my lackadaisical attitude or my laissez-faire approach to my studies and knew I could do better, or maybe he just wanted to rant about Bible preaching! Either way, it sunk in, and I took it to heart. He was only a 20-year-old junior at the time, but he was right.
After that, my pastor’s preaching got red hot! But I don’t think my pastor changed. I think I changed.
I was eating it up. Bro. Davison could preach for an hour (and he would!) and I’d love it. We were in John for two years and it was incredible. Every Sunday night was an exciting story from the kings and prophets (that was the series title!), and the sermon lived up to the series’ name.
Chapel preachers blessed my soul.
Even dorm devotions from my fellow classmates, as tedious as they sometimes could be, encouraged me.
The Word was alive, and it was a powerful time in my life. I’ll never forget the hours and hours and hours in the Word of God. And I’ve never been the same since.
Sure, I’ve had my ups and downs! No, I haven’t always been at the same level of fire! Yes, I’ve falled off the wagon… and it’s run me over!
But I’m still in love with the Word of God.
And I want you to be, too.
I suppose that’s why tonight’s sermon is so important to me… not because I have some great sermon planned or an emotional story to tell. I’m still working on all that.
It’s so important to me because of the TEXT! Second Timothy 4:2 is the pinnacle of my ministry philosophy: PREACH THE WORD.
Some preachers claim to preach the Word and then pull a phrase out of context and rant and rave about their own opinions. But Calvary Baptist Church has been BUILT on the Word, and I’m eager to carry it on. We’ll occasionally do a mini-series on this or a topical seminar on that, but our main diet will be and must be THE WORD.
I think the kind of preaching Paul has in mind takes loads of Bible study, hours of research, and heaps of prayer.
I knew that in college, but it’s only now becoming a reality.
I practiced it as a youth pastor and poured every bit as much emphasis on Bible preaching to those teens as I am to our church now, but, now it’s hitting a little differently. Now the WEIGHT of the responsibility weighs heavier on my soul, and it’s a task I’m fully incapable of doing without the enabling grace of God.
With God as my witness, I mean that sincerely.
And He is my witness, as we’ll see in this morning’s sermon. But tonight’s is the one I’ve had on my mind since 2005, I suppose. I can’t promise that it will be life-changing for you… I can’t even promise it’ll be good! But it’s deeply meaningful to me, and I believe it’s the course that our church MUST stay on if we are to be obedient to God.
I encourage you to be back tonight.
–Pastor Ryan