About a month ago, I had the true privilege of giving the message at Church in the Park in Houston, TX, a ministry to the homeless every Saturday. I am not new to public speaking, but I am very new to preaching, as my first experience was only 6 months prior. As usual, in the days and weeks leading up to giving the message, I was giving a lot of thought and prayer to what message God might want to speak through me and how to deliver it.
The story I’m telling you today amazed me because it revealed something very simple about God, yet it was so profoundly communicated to me by Him through the experience.
In preparing for a sermon, you search for the most impactful illustrations and analogies, for the most insightful scriptural cross-references, and you pray that the Lord would not only give you the words to speak, but also, no matter what words leave your mouth, that they would be received by the ears of others with the Holy Spirit’s impactful guidance. And I even sometimes drive myself to the point of worry…something we are instructed by God not to do (1)…in this process. Isn’t it interesting how even good work on our Lord’s behalf, if we are not absolutely centered on Him, can be the things that drive us from Him? In my case, I’m thankful that He convicted me of my worry and replaced it with peace (mostly, anyway). But the lesson remains that “Christian work” can be the very thing that hinders our relationship with our Lord if our hearts are set on the work and not absolutely and simply set on Him alone.
On that Saturday morning, I felt well-prepared, and I thank the Lord for that. I delivered the sermon in a manner that I was pleased with…sometimes afterward you realize that, “oops, I forgot something!” Or, “That came out very awkwardly…I should reword all of that.” And your greatest fear is that you might lead someone astray through your own ignorance of God’s Word, combined with overzealousness. It is an amazing responsibility. But on this morning, I praised the Lord that it seemed to be very well received by those in attendance.
Afterwards, several people were standing up front to pray with anyone who desired it. As I stood at the front, I was the single person who no one approached to pray with. Others would actually stand in line to pray with another prayer partner, glancing briefly at me, making eye contact then looking away and waiting their turn. I thought, “Lord, why is no one praying with me? Please make me approachable! I enjoy this as much or more than the preaching. Please make me welcoming so that others will feel comfortable praying with me.”
No one prayed with me. That is, until near the end, a man walked up who looked a little disoriented. I spoke up and asked him how he was doing. He asked what was going on. I told him that we were praying with people at the end of the service and breakfast would be served soon. He walked over toward me, and this began a series of events that have remained burned in my memory.
He spoke, but I couldn’t quite make out every word. I thought, “Did he just say he wanted to give His life to Jesus?” I looked at him almost stunned for about 2 seconds, then I actually asked him, “What did you just say?” I laugh at myself now, firstly because I was so shocked that he was giving his life to Christ, and secondly that I actually asked him to repeat it. But I did want to be sure. He affirmed. He wanted to go right up front and be prayed over and to give his life to Christ!
After praying with him and doing some discipling on what it really means to be saved by Jesus Christ, he shared a little bit more. He said that he didn’t even come to the service. He was sitting on a bench several blocks away and knew that the service was going on. Then, in his words, “Something told me I needed to get up and go to the alter call.” When he arrived, he ran into me, and by the end of the morning, he had accepted salvation from our Lord Jesus Christ.
What a joy this was! The first time I had ever personally taken part in another’s declaration of belief in Jesus. What floored me even more was the fact that the one man who gave his life to Christ that morning—was the man who didn’t hear a word of my sermon. I absolutely love this because it is such a declaration of the power being of God and not of us!(2) After all of my toil and worry about having just the right words…it became apparent that all that mattered was that I and we were obediently in the appointed place at the appointed time…and the rest of the work—the real transforming work—would be accomplished by the Holy Spirit.
Brothers and sisters, the pressure is off. Do not feel that you need to have the right words or be further educated in scriptures. If you want to invest your time and energy to being more effective in spreading the Good News of Christ, spend your time and energy in simply being obedient to His call and giving yourself to prayer. In the middle, a diligent worker will certainly prepare to the best of his/her abilities—this is being a good steward—but do not fret over that! Simply go and be. Go where God leads and abide in Him, His word and prayer, and I can testify with confidence that the Holy Spirit will do wonders with your tiniest of offerings. Remember, not one person who heard my sermon came forward to receive Christ that day, but the one who didn’t hear a single word did. May you be blessed with the similar experiences, time and time again. I pray that we both are so blessed. Amen.
1 - Matt 6:25-34, 1 Cor 4:20
2 - 1 Cor 3:5-9, 2 Cor 4:1, 1 Cor 2:5
You can listen to the sermon from Church in the Park that morning by following this link to the blog post: Relationship with God - Church in the Park Message
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