Meditations

Long-Winded Preachers

“Paul was preaching, and since he was leaving the next day, he kept talking
until midnight…Paul continued talking until dawn, then he left.”
~Acts 20:7 (NLT)

Soul Snacks: I used to be a big fan of the twenty-minute sermon.  I still am, in fact—when someone else is preaching, that is.  But the longer I preach, the longer I preach, if you get my drift.  After many years of pastoral ministry, now twenty-minutes is just a good introduction.  I’m joking of course—my intros are no more than eighteen minutes:-P

Few aspects of the preacher’s preaching are more prominently discussed than the length of his sermons.  In seminary, we are taught how to “get ‘er  done” in fifteen minutes or so, twenty minutes at the most, and violating that rule of thumb is a good indication that our sermon preparation had been sloppy.  A friend of mine says if you want to preach a twenty-minute sermon, prepare twenty hours; a forty-minute message will take you ten hours of prep time, and an hour-long sermon means you’ve spent about twenty minutes preparing.

In my earlier pastoral ministry I worked years with a phenomenal preacher.  But he was an hour-long kind of guy.  He had great stuff, he just didn’t know how to bring the plane in for a landing, so to speak.  He’d get to the end of his message, and then just circle the airport looking for a spot to bring ‘er down.  If he would have cut that hour in half, his sermons would have gone from good to great.  His preaching kind of reminds me of the story I heard about a man who went to the dentist to have a tooth removed. He asked the dentist what the cost for removing his tooth would be, and the dentist told him it would be $90. The guy told the dentist that 90 bucks seemed like a lot of money for a few seconds work. The dentist said, “If it’d make you feel better, I can pull the tooth out real slow!”

Well, I am here to defend the long-winded sermon—since I now qualify as long-winded.  Hey, it’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it.  And I am in good company.  Paul, the greatest theologian in the New Testament, perhaps in human history, preached so long that one young man named Eutychus, fell asleep while sitting on a window seal and fell three stories to his death.  Amazingly, that didn’t put a damper on the service.  Paul, without skipping a beat, went downstairs, healed the man, then came back upstairs and talked from midnight until dawn.  You go Paul!

Here’s the deal: It’s not the length of the sermon that makes it good or bad, it’s the content of the message…it’s the passion of the preacher…it’s the heart of the shepherd out of which the sermon flows that makes it effective or not.  If you read this entire passage in Acts 20, you get some great insights into the heart of Paul, the long-winded preacher:

Paul was full of faith and confidence in the Lord—“don’t worry, he’s alive…and the young man was taken home unhurt.”  (Acts 20:11-12, NLT)

Paul earned people’s respect through his suffering for the Gospel—“I have endured the trials that came to me…” (Acts 20:19, NLT)

Paul was fearless in his preaching—“I never shrank back from telling you what you needed to hear.” (Acts 20:20, NLT)

Paul was Christ-centered and cross-focused—“I have had one message…repent from sin and turn to God…the work of telling others the Good news about the wonderful grace of God.” (Acts 20:21, 24, NLT)

Paul was purpose driven—“My life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work the Lord Jesus assigned to me.” (Acts 20:24, NLT)

Paul was faithful to God—“I declare today that I have been faithful.” (Acts 20:26, NLT)

Paul passionately protected his flock from danger—“Guard God’s people and feed and shepherd God’s flock…watch out…” (Acts 20:28,31, NLT)

Paul was pure in his motives—“I have never coveted anyone’s silver or gold or fine clothes…I have worked with my own hands to supply my own needs.” (Acts 20:33-34, NLT)

Paul practiced what he preached—“I have been a constant example…” (Acts 20:35, NLT)

Paul was selfless—“I have been a constant example of how you can help those in need by working hard.” (Acts 20:35, NLT)

It’s no wonder than when he had finished speaking and was getting ready to leave, “they all cried as they embraced and kissed him good-bye.” (Acts 20:37, NLT)

How long is the perfect sermon, you wonder?  When the preacher exhibits the same qualities that we see in Paul, his sermon can be a long as it takes!

P.S The Puritan pastor Richard Baxter once remarked, “I preach as never sure to preach again, and as a dying man to dying men.”  The next time you are listening to your pastor preach, realize that for him, he carries into the pulpit a heavy awareness that eternity hangs in the balance.

Read Acts 28

[In Rome] Paul dwelt two whole years in his own rented house,
and received all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of
God and teaching the things which concern the Lord Jesus
Christ with all confidence, no one forbidding him.
(Acts 28:30-31)

Food For Thought… If you take the time to read this last chapter of Acts in its entirety, which is the culmination of a story that began back in Acts 21, you will notice a curious thing: It has no ending.

Other historical accounts in the Bible bring the story they tell to an obvious conclusion. Not Acts. The author, Luke, adds no “the end” or “that’s all folks” to this history of Christianity in the first century. He simply leaves Paul in Rome, performing miracles along the way, trying to convince the Jews that Jesus was the fulfillment of Old Testament promise, and preaching the Good News to the Gentile world.

I don’t think Luke was intentional and strategic in leaving us hanging in Acts 28. Rather, I think the Holy Spirit, who inspired him to write this account, had a specific reason for preventing Luke from bringing this ship into the harbor. He wanted us to realize that we, the church, the people of God, are the continuing story of the Acts of the Holy Spirit.

You see, there are still miracle stories waiting to be recorded. God is still working among his people, Israel, through the likes of you and me. The world is still waiting to hear the Good News of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. The Kingdom of God is still waiting to advance and reclaim territory now held by Satan that rightfully belongs to the Creator God.

We are the story! We are the next chapter—Acts 29! We are to take up Paul’s mantle and do the stuff of the Kingdom wherever we are. This is a story that is to be continued.

So give it your all. Your testimony will not be recorded in the Bible, but it will be written down in heaven’s record, and celebrated by God himself, along with heaven’s hosts for all eternity.

You are the story!

Prayer… Father, I want my part of the story to bring great glory and pleasure to you!

One More Thing… “Enemy-occupied territory—that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign in sabotage.” —C.S. Lewis

Read Acts 25

The Jews had some questions against Paul about their own
religion and about a certain Jesus, who had died,
whom Paul affirmed to be alive.
(Acts 25:19)

Food For Thought… That is really the crux of the argument for, or against, Christianity, isn’t it? Is Jesus dead and buried—end of story! Or did he die but rise from the grave, alive forevermore?

Of course, we who follow Christ stake our claim on the latter. That is the crux of Christianity. We will go to the death for that belief, because it is all that matters. As the great historian Jaroslav Pelikan so simply yet profoundly put it,

“If Christ is risen—nothing else matters. And if Christ is not risen—nothing else matters.”

An African Muslim converted to Christianity. Some of his friends asked him, “Why have you become a Christian?” He answered, “Well, its like this. Suppose you were going down the road and suddenly the road forked in two directions, and you didn’t know which way to go, and there at the fork in the road were two men, one dead and one alive. Which one would you ask which way to go?”

Jesus is either dead or alive. If he is dead, then our Christian faith is worse than worthless because it is history’s worst fraud. But if Jesus is alive, it is history’s greatest miracle by miles. If Jesus is alive, we ought to ask him which way to go, and then drop everything to follow him. If Jesus is alive, we ought to make him the core of our lives, the purpose of our existence, and the passion of our every breath. If Jesus is alive, he must become the foundation of our faith, the reason for our hope, and the source of our love. The Apostle Peter, who witnessed his bodily resurrection from the tomb, said,

“Through Jesus, you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God. Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart. (I Peter 1:21-22)

Is he dead or alive? I am banking my eternal existence that he is alive!

Prayer… Jesus, you are the Risen One, and I will follow you with all my being—heart, mind, soul and strength.

One More Thing… “Without the hope of eternal life, this life is not worth the effort of getting dressed in the morning.” —Count Bismarck