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Each Sunday in America, nearly 400,000 congregations gather to worship. There are friendly smiles at the doors, passionate leaders singing and performing songs, and good shepherds pouring their hearts out as they tell the greatest story ever told, the story of God’s love to man. But here’s a probing question: Is that enough?
Is it enough to take the gift of God inside of you and put it out in the open for others to receive? That’s a great question. And it all boils down to stewardship of gifts. We all know that all of our gifts and talents come from God. That includes the hospitality that welcomes the guest at the door, the musical talents that flow from the platform and the gift of encouragement that pours from the pastor’s sermon. These gifts were given to the church and placed inside individual believers for the good of all. We are stewards of each individual gift.
So here’s the big question: when or where does my responsibility end. Have I been a good steward of my gifts when I have laid them out for others to receive, or does my responsibility go farther? I believe true God-pleasing stewardship goes much farther. I have to steward my gift all the way into your heart.
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I was reading through the book of Exodus, and started noticing how many miracles God did through Moses. We speak highly of prophets like Elijah and Elisha, but Moses didn’t do too badly for himself. I started making a list:
And these were just in the first 3 months of his leadership. Can you imagine the stories the first generation of free Israelites could tell? They truly depended on God everyday.
It dawned on me that in order to experience the miracles I listed, you would have to have been a slave. There was no other way. Stories of Moses are still being told today, but the only people who can say they witnessed it with their own eyes, were the Israelites who walked out of Egypt with Moses. If you were old enough to remember the miracles you were old enough to be enslaved by the Egyptians.
Maybe you’re like me. You read miraculous stories in the Bible and wonder why you don’t see or experience them more in your life. I think the reason most of us don’t see more miracles is because we don’t need them.
When was the last
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Nothing gets a debate going among preachers faster than the question “Are you preaching the Bible?” The question is so vague, because in all of my years I’ve never heard a pastor say NO! To get the true meaning of the question, you have to know who’s asking it.
For some people they mean, “Are you preaching long, from the King James, and screaming at me, telling me how worthless I am?”
For others they mean, “Are you preaching exegetically through whole books of the Bible? (Usually for a really long time)”
For others they mean, “Are you preaching on topics that are completely unhelpful to my everyday life but I consider them to be deep?”
And the last group means, “Are you preaching the Bible the way that I interpret it?”
I have to admit I struggle internally with this pressure to “preach the Bible.” Let me give you some brief background about my teaching style. From my first sermon I’ve always felt more comfortable preaching in a verse-by-verse exegetical style. It wasn’t something I was taught or told I had to do, but I tend to speak from the overflow of my devotions, so it usually is more verse-by-verse. As I began pastoring, I began to feel the strain of topical
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