Preaching to Satisfy Your Ego

Simplicity. Clarity. Brevity.

These are the very top virtues for any sermon.

Of course, you have to be true to the text you're preaching. That's absolutely important. But assuming you understand the text at all, then your sermon needs to aim at: simplicity, clarity and brevity.

If you are not aiming at those virtues, you are doing your congregation an incredible disservice. And why are you doing it? To satisfy your ego.

Yes, that's right. I'm posting anonymously and I'm about to say something that many ministers will consider an unfair, unjust judgment that lacks all the facts.

But I'm doing it anyway because I've been in that pulpit. I know what tempts ministers and their egos.

If you are not aiming at simplicity, clarity and brevity as your top three goals after doing justice to the text, it is because your ego has gotten in the way.

Why do I say this? It's quite simple really. Suppose that your number one concern after doing justice to the text was your listeners. Suppose that you were most interested in their best interests. What would that look like?

It looks like this: simplicity, clarity, brevity. When your biggest concern is being understood by your hearers, what isn't your biggest concern?

Impressing your audience.

Now stop and think about that for a minute. If you are concerned about impressing your audience, what will you necessarily NOT care about? You won't care about whether or not they actually understand what you're saying. You won't care if they get it. They don't need to get it to be impressed.

In fact, it's usually helpful if they don't get it, if you want them to be impressed. After all, all they really need to know is how smart you are, or how well read you are, or how good a job you do of crafting an excellent sermon. And if they come away saying, "Man, he knows so much! I'll never know as much as him!" then they're impressed with you, even though they didn't understand.

Who, you ask, are these crazy ministers who care more about impressing their audience than communicating with them? Well, frankly, most of them.

Oh, now I've got you agitated I suppose. But it's true. They want you to think they're brilliant.

You don't believe me do you? Ok, I'll prove it. This Sunday, after the service, when you're shaking your pastor's hand, tell him, "Hey, thanks for that sermon, it was really simple and easy to understand!"

What kind of reaction do you think you'll get?

Then the next Sunday, shake his hand and say, "Wow, pastor. Just WOW! That was absolutely brilliant! You're so well read! Pure genius! Just the way you have with words is astounding!"

I bet you'll get a much more positive and lively reaction. You may even have to excuse yourself from the conversation.

Look, Pastors are sinners just like the rest of us. We can forgive them for it, right?

But they are tempted with a desire to impress their audience. And this leads to all kinds of foolishness that would have no place for those seeking to communicate with simplicity, clarity and brevity.

I have actually heard people speak glowingly of a minister, "I never had any idea what he was saying till the last 2-3 minutes of his sermons, when it would all come together." And there are many ministers who foolishly and recklessly seek to mimic that style of preaching.

Really?

Most ministers aren't quite that far gone, but just about any minister can be tempted to use jargon from time to time. Or maybe they drop some names of some famous authors or ministers and quote them. At length. And no one has any idea what they said, because it's a translation of a Latin text written several hundred years ago. But boy, that minister did his homework, didn't he? We won't doubt his credibility will we? Never mind that we have no idea what he actually said.

But what if ministers sought to impress their hearers with the text instead?

What if their number one goal was for you to understand what this text was saying, even if you were only a child? What then?

You know, we Protestants are very quick to say that the Roman Church was crazy to conduct services in Latin for so long after Latin became a dead language. Why do we think that's so crazy? Because no one knew what they were saying, and therefore what was said was of no value.

Isn't that Paul's criticism of the Corinthian church in 1Cor 14? Verse 9 says, "So with yourselves, if with your tongue you utter speech that is not intelligible, how will anyone know what is said? For you will be speaking into the air."

Ministers - I wish you would actually stop and THINK about that. If no one knows what you're saying, it's of no value to the people you're speaking to. You're speaking into the air. It doesn't matter if you're babbling in some nonsense baby talk and claiming it's the language of angels, or if you're speaking in Latin to people who don't speak Latin, or if you're just arrogantly using big words and complex sermon structures because you have a fancy seminary degree and you want everyone to know it.

A lot of ministers like to say, "My sermon this morning has 3 points, and they are..." and then they proceed to list them. This is ridiculously helpful for people taking notes.

And yet, one minister once said to me that he never does that, and he never does it very deliberately because it insults the audience's intelligence. It's not that he had 3 points and just failed to disclose them, it's that he was against having points at all. His sermons were like one gigantic run on sentence.

My eyes were opened when I invited a friend to church one Sunday, and he actually came. And the sermon text was some passage from the Old Testament that was 3 chapters of genealogies. Yes, 3 chapters.

My poor friend walked out absolutely bewildered. He had no idea what had just been said and learned NOTHING. He certainly wasn't about to abandon hope in anything and everything but Christ.

What a shame.

Yes, I know. The genealogies are Scripture too. I get it. But seriously, muster a bit of courage. If you can't preach an intelligible sermon on some passage of Scripture - SKIP IT!

Oh, but my conscience won't let me do that! That'd be like saying that this passage isn't Scripture!

No, it's not like saying that at all. It's admitting that you can't preach a coherent sermon on that passage, and you're sparing your flock the pain of having to endure an incoherent sermon.

And seriously, WHERE is the principle of lectio continua found in Scripture? Or do we not believe in Sola Scriptura anymore?

For those of you who don't know the jargon, what I just said is that the principle of lectio continua - which just means preaching through a book of the bible, chapter by chapter, one passage at a time until you finish the book and move on to the next one - is not found in the Bible anywhere. Nowhere does God command that in Scripture. However wise the principle might be, it's nowhere to be found in Scripture. And Sola Scriptura is a Latin phrase that just means Scripture alone. The point is that the Bible alone gets to tell us what to do, not some stupid principle that men made up, no matter how wise.

So for Christ's sake, and the sake of your hearers, SKIP that passage you can't preach. Maybe no one can preach some of those genealogies. Then maybe no one should preach them.

Or is it better to speak into the air and waste an opportunity to drive the point of the gospel a little deeper into someone's thick skull this week? Or actually communicate to those visitors who aren't sure if they should be there?

Because if you're trying to impress your audience with what you know, with your mastery of the Old Testament canon, with your familiarity with the famous authors of the church, your knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, or the subtle nuances of how to craft the perfect sermon according to the coolest theory you've ever heard - then you aren't preaching the text anymore at all.

You're only preaching yourself.

You're not saying, "Hey, look at Jesus!"

You're saying, "Hey, look at me!"

I know how strong the temptation is. I have felt it. You want them to listen to you. You have to establish your credibility. They have to accept what you're saying. They shouldn't question you. They need to just do what you tell them...right?

No.

No, you don't need them to listen to you.

They need to fall in love with Jesus.

You need to decrease, he needs to increase. You need to DISAPPEAR in the pulpit.

Preach the WORD.

As long as you're preaching the Word, what you're saying has all the credibility your sermon needs. It's the Word of GOD.

It has been proven by Christ's resurrection from the dead and ascension into heaven. It has been proven by the apostolic authority bestowed on the men of his choosing. It has been proven by signs and miracles of all kinds performed at the time when the foundations of the church were laid.

The Bible's credibility has been MORE than established.

I have news for you, preachers. You HAVE no credibility in the pulpit except that which you BORROW from the text! No one gathers to hear YOU on Sunday morning. They gather to hear from GOD.

To the extent that simplicity, clarity, and brevity are NOT your goal in the pulpit is the extent to which your preaching is simply to feed your ego. To that extent, you are not preaching the Word of God but only preaching yourself. To that extent, you put up your own ego as an obstacle between your flock and Christ Jesus, their only hope for salvation. You are risking peoples' eternal salvation for the sake of your EGO.

I don't envy ministers on judgment day. 

This is one of the reasons why I no longer envy them for today. I know that temptation. I am glad I no longer have to face it, at least not with such high stakes.

If you think that temptation didn't have a strong pull on me, just look at how long all my posts are on this blog! Terrible! Sorry readers!