A Tonic for Tired Preachers

One of the things I remember about preaching Sunday in, Sunday out was the grind.  Not that I ever would have talked about it much, because preachers are supposed to love the fact and the act of preaching. 

And I did, . . . . whenever it felt good to me, or when people said genuinely-nice things about my preaching.  But anytime my sermons felt like big, fat zeros, or whenever it seemed like I was disconnected from everything and everyone important to me, it was natural to wonder if preaching was what I was supposed to be doing.  Most weeks, I didn’t have much opportunity to dwell on those kinds of questions; I had to start working on my next two sermons. 

(I know, I know, dubious assumptions, failure to acknowledge the biblical preachers who had it much rougher, etc., etc. But it still happens. Just ask your preacher in private).

I think it was my teacher Phil Slate who told me that the great Batsell Barrett Baxter used to say, “The tyranny of preaching is that Sunday comes every seven days.” I always took some comfort in knowing I wasn’t the only one.

Now, if you’re a preacher and any of this is sounding familiar to you, I have a book recommendation. And, no, this isn’t one of those books that you’re supposed to read because you’re supposed to have read it, and you won’t be considered a real preacher by the hot shots until you do.  Instead, this is one of those books that will send you right back into the Word and will change the perspective from which you see it. J. I. Packer called it “A powerful tonic for tired preachers—a book that digs deep into the theology, strategy, and spirituality of pulpit preaching.” Years ago, I discovered it to be all that and more. 

The book is The Supremacy of God in Preaching, by John Piper. It’s out in a revised edition now.  Mine’s a copy of the original which, after I had first discovered it--I don’t remember how or when--I would pull it off the shelf about twice each year.  It never failed to lift my eyes so that I could see again the center of the universe and source of my help.  A few snippets:

On the job of the preacher:

“It is not the job of the Christian preacher to give people moral or psychological pep talks about how to get along in the world; someone else can do that.  But most of our people have no one in the world to tell them, week in and week out, about the supreme beauty and majesty of God” (p. 12).

On the goal of preaching:

“The wonder of the gospel and the most freeing discovery this sinner has ever made is that God’s deepest commitment to be glorified and my deepest longing to be satisfied are not in conflict but in fact find simultaneous consummation in his display of and my delight in the glory of God.  Therefore the goal of preaching is the glory of God reflected in the glad submission of the human heart.  And the supremacy of God in preaching is secured by this fact:  The one who satisfies gets the glory; the one who gives the pleasure is the treasure” (p. 26).

On sappy sermons :

“He [Charles Spurgeon] said to his students: ‘We must conquer—some of us especially—our tendency to levity.  A great distinction exists between holy cheerfulness, which is a virtue, and that general levity, which is a vice.  There is a levity that has not enough heart to laugh, but trifles in everything; it is flippant, hollow, unreal.  A hearty laugh is no more levity than a hearty cry’.”  (p. 58).

So preachers, once you know what you’re going to preach next Sunday, and have spent some time with the text, I think you’d be wise to spend, say, a Thursday afternoon with Piper’s book.  Trust me on this one.

Oh, if you want to get a free sample of where Piper’s coming from and what the book is like, read his sermon by the same title here.  Good stuff!