First, does your message expose (exposit) the Scripture? Does it get the congregation to the heart of the passage read, or is it used like a springboard to make personal pronouncements hoping it will lead to better behavior? Let the Scriptures speak for heaven's sake; it is God's word and so much more interesting than anything you have to say! Preachers are lazy beings and there is hardly any indication that they have prayed through the process or have done the hard work of diving into the meaning of the text themselves. Instead, they rush to whatever comes to their furry ears and fuzzy minds when they first read the text. An expository sermon doesn't need to be a teaching, neither does it need to reveal the preacher's process of study, or have three points, or take up a full 40 minutes to show the wonder and the power of God's word. Let the Scriptures speak and avoid every embellishment that doesn't directly support the message.

Secondly, does your sermon announce the gospel? Does it bring them to Jesus? So many sermons are biblical, but without gospel. You can preach for five weeks on "Steps for Improving your Marriage" (or choose your subject) without ever delivering your people to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. What Jesus has done for us is the only good news that transforms lives, all the rest is self-improvement advice. It's the speaker at last Wednesday's Rotary Club who always begins with a joke! A sermon about improving someone's performance dies in hopelessness. A sermon that doesn't point them to Jesus is a false gospel. You can preach the law all day and all night (for five weeks!) and it never bring anyone to the answer to the law's demands: Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Preachers, please distinguish between law and gospel, and please never ever preach the law apart from the answer to the law's demands. Bring them to Jesus!

And lastly, are you scared as you make your way up the three steps into the pulpit? Are you feeling the weight of responsibility to help your people to the love of God - as if this could be the last time you preach and the last time they hear? If you are not scared, appropriately nervous, you do not have a proper appreciation for the miraculous power of God's word preached to bring conviction and hope. You probably have too much invested in proving your cleverness, and not enough in God.

If you are preaching and there realize you are taking God for granted, and the unbelievable miracle of him using a human to bring food to hungry people, please stop and announce to the congregation, "I am sorry, but I am suddenly aware that my prepared sermon today is more about showing you how smart I am than showing you the way to God." This will be a greater blessing than muscling through a sermon that is an exercise to feed the preacher's ego.

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