Sermon(1 Cor 2:1-5): Powerful word of God

The original Korean text: https://blog.naver.com/stevision/50025749163

 

>> 1 When I came to you, brethren, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in much fear and trembling; 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. (1 Cor 2:1-5) <<

 

There is no easy job in the world. Servant of God is by no means an easy job. Korean Christian clergy have to preach too many times a week. They must preach at dawn-prayer time every day, evening-worship on Wednesday, night-prayer time on Friday, morning-worship and evening-worship on Sunday. They must preach also when they make pastoral visits to the saints. If they repeat the same sermon, saints amazingly notice it immediately and think their pastor are lazy servants of God. Therefore pastors hardly repeat the same sermon lest the saints be disappointed. But the number of passages of sermon is not infinite, so a day certainly comes when they must take the same passage as before for the text of the sermon, and must interpret the passage a little differently from the sermon he has given before, so that the saints may be moved. Can't there be a worship service where the passages of Bible are officially read for about 20 minutes (without a sermon)? Of course, to be moved and touched in the worship of God is a matter of each individual. Must a pastor preach in the dawn-prayer time, which is absolutely Korean-style? Isn't the official title the dawn-prayer time, not the dawn worship service? It would not be bad if, in the dawn-prayer time, the pastor reads the Scripture for about 10 minutes, then all saints pray to God for about 30 minutes and go home. The servants of God in Korea are so exhausted with too many sermons they have to give. How wonderful would it be if the saints listen intensively to the sermons for which the pastors took great pains? But there are too many sermons to listen to a week, so the saints do not seem to be so attentive to all sermons. Isn't it a severe waste of sermon or a severe waste of the word of God? If the saints are well trained to accept God's word, they can receive sufficient words of God for the day only by reading the Scripture together at the dawn-prayer time even if there is no sermon then. The same goes for the night-prayer time on Friday. Prayer is the main objective; nevertheless must pastors preach then? Isn't it sufficient if they start the prayer time by singing three hymns on time, read the Scripture 10 minutes, then have time for individual prayer, then go home respectively? Isn't it a reality that hymnody and sermon have become the main part of the night-prayer on Friday, so that there is no sufficient time for prayer? We must give up the idea that we must have time for sermon unconditionally when we gather. And honestly speaking, do the saints really wait for the sermon with great expectation? Don't they inwardly want the sermon skipped or shortened? These are all side effects that occur because there are too many sermons a week, and because the sermons are much longer than necessary. During dawn-prayer time or night-prayer time on Friday, you may read the Scripture itself for about 10 minutes instead of preaching. If saints read the Bible, continuously from Genesis to Revelation, they can read the entire Bible, which will be great beneficial to them. Prayer times are times for prayer, so a pastor may read the Bible for a few minutes without giving a sermon then.

 

There is difference in the length of sermon among churches or individuals. By the way, is it normal that a sermon takes 1 hour when it is not a revival sermon? I think that a sermon longer than 40 minutes contains a lot of preacher's private words or secular words. Does it need one hour for a pastor to proclaim the powerful words of God? 20 minutes is sufficient for the purpose. Listen to the sermons edited into 30-minute sermons on FEBC or CTS. How rich and moving they are, without giving any boredom! Do they lack touching message because they last only 30 minutes? But in fact they were sermons originally longer than 40 minutes. Therefore sermons longer than 40 minutes were ones that could be 30-minute sermons, which could move the saints more and give them boredom less. If the sermon lasts over 30 minutes to 40 minutes or to 1 hour, the intervals will inevitably be filled with interesting worldly stories. It can't be otherwise. It is impossible to give a sermon of pure advice longer than 30 minutes, no matter how sinful the saints are, no matter how much the preacher has been moved by the Holy Spirit, no matter how eagerly he would give them good words necessary to them. Therefore I think the original sermon need not be longer than 30 minutes. Adding 20 minutes or 30 minutes of examples, personal experiences, and trivial words to that 30-minute sermon does not bring forth the deserved fruits for the time invested by the preacher himself or the saints. At least the sermon is problematic if some saints complain that the sermon is a little long. When do the saints get irritable? When the sermon lasts over 40 minutes. A 30-minute sermon will never make them bored. It is not good if the preacher made the saints irritated on account of the long sermon and took up their time although he had made much time for adding examples and experiences (testimonies). How regrettable! He could have reduced the pains of preparing the sermon half if he had prepared the 'sermon for 30-minutes' with the help of the Holy Spirit. It is better to concentrate your mind on the message itself of the text of the Bible that will teach the saints, during the time to be used for preparing 30 minutes' examples and testimonies. The Bible is the word of God, so it can be alive and active with power in the hearts of the saints. I can't find a good reason why the sermon should be longer than 30 minutes, even if it contains some illustrations (example stories) or testimonies (confessions of personal religious life).

 

"I was with you in weakness and in much fear and trembling. (v. 3)" Who is the most audacious in the world? Perhaps he who, as a thief, rebukes others, saying, "Live rightly!" How can a man who does not obey God as a pastor preach to the saints? How can a man who secretly commits adultery preach to the saints on the pulpit? (How can a man who defends the homosexuals, the filthiest humans in the world, preach to the saints, the cleanest in the world?) How can a greedy man, who did his best to win the election of high positions in the denomination in all ungracious ways, cry to the saints, "You should give up the worldly greed and live according to the will of the Lord"? Insolent sinners are they! Verse 3 tells us that preachers should be humble. Isn't it a normal preacher who, thinking that he is not a righteous man, that he is not qualified to preach, first applies the word of God to himself in fear and trembling and repents of his sins, and who nevertheless then obeys God and preaches the word to the saints because the word was given by God to the saints? Paul, who had persecuted the saints a lot before he became a Christian, preached gospel to people with a heart of sorry, fear and trembling. It is unbecoming for a preacher to act overbearingly as if he himself were the God. You must not preach in a scolding manner. Of course, some preachers have violent tone. I'm not talking about such external factors, but I'm saying that preachers should be humble and meek. Of course, the outward tone also is important. A voice of persuasion and gentle exhortation is better than that of loud rebuke toward the saints.

 

It is not good to create a serious atmosphere by unnatural means when you preach, because it makes the hearers uncomfortable. When you preach, you must not frequently make a weeping voice or intentionally keep silent long, so that an awkward atmosphere is produced. You must try to succeed in the preach by the message of the preach, not by techniques of preach which are not essential to the preach. Of course, you can be greatly moved while preaching, so that you may cry and discontinue the sermon and keep silent for a while. Nevertheless, the preaching is when you proclaim the words of God, not when you pray personally to God. Once or twice a year, you may cry or make a weeping voice when you are greatly moved by the Holy Spirit while preaching. But if you do it every other week, the saints can get annoyed. Do you as a preacher feel good if a baby cries in the audience while you are preaching? The same is true of the saints. (They do not like a weeping voice of the preacher.) Preaching is a part of worship. It is not right for a preacher to reveal his personal feelings too much. Preaching is a solemn proclamation of words of God. A preacher is a representative of God, so he must keep the solemn atmosphere of the worship of God while preaching.

 

"When I came to you, brethren, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom. (v. 1)" As Paul himself admitted, he learned much and was good at writing, but had no ability to speak fluently to people. Perhaps this is why he did not rely on his own wisdom but spoke 'in demonstration of the Spirit and of power (v. 4)', when he preached the gospel to people. The important factor is the gift of the Holy Spirit. The saints are not moved by the preaching when the preacher who is clumsy in speaking tries to simply imitate other preachers. He'd better preach the gospel according to the personality God has given him, depending completely on the Holy Spirit, and using his tone and gestures. Of course, some preachers have received from God such gifts as wisdom of speech and skill of speech. Revivalists are that kind. They can touch the heart of the saints very much, actively using skills of speech God gave them. Whether you have learned much or not, whether you're eloquent or not, you should preach the gospel by fully becoming instruments of the Holy Spirit and by using gifts of the Holy Spirit. Paul did not use his limitations as an excuse not to preach the gospel, but he did his best to preach the gospel in those limitations. In fact, Moses was not fluent, either. But Moses was one who laid the foundation of the Old Testament, while Paul, of the New Testament. These two men were not ones who would lay the foundation of the church by their eloquence. They must simply repeat to the people what God had spoken. Skill of speech is a good gift, therefore there is no reason why God should not give his servants such a gift when needed.

 

Problems arise when you give priority to your knowledge, wisdom, and verbal ability over the word of God itself. You tend to rely on your worldly learning, wisdom, and ability of speech if you try to preach when you do not clearly understand the Christian doctrine, clearly perceive the veins of the books of the Bible (the context or the central messages of the Scripture), or when the words of God are not realized in you. Frankly speaking, do the saints understand all the words of God and all the profound doctrines of Christianity? Scan one thousand pages of books of systematic theology. You can find therein a lot of valuable Christian knowledge you still do not know. Do the saints know 5% of the contents of the books now? Some saints can understand English. You'll certainly make their faith twice as deep as now if you guide them to read through the English Bible. If you teach saints who have graduated from college to read the Bible in the original languages, in Hebrew or in Greek, their faith will surely be ten times deeper than now. Korean Christians are already very accustomed to the scheme of revival sermons, tribulation - firm faith - blessing, and they have been worldly blessed already very much; now I think it's time they received a higher religious education. Now, Korean preachers will have to prepare themselves to teach the believers who have already been in another level of desire for spiritual knowledge than before. It's not difficult to find good example stories that are interesting. Internet and books give you a lot of information about them these days. However, you must see if you rely on the skill of preach or on the fluency of speech, when you spend much time seeking for examples and fill 50% of the preach with the example stories while the saints have less than 5% of Christian knowledge.

 

What is a wise sermon? A wise sermon is not 'wise sayings', or 'plausible good sayings', but 'the proclamation of the word of God that the Holy Spirit gives' (v. 4). People of the world are ones who are unbelievably wise, of course, wise in their sight. Therefore preachers can't advise and lead them by their wisdom. When can the preachers declare words of the Holy Spirit? They can speak on behalf of the Holy Spirit when they are loved by him. So he who hates brothers (people of God), deceives the Holy Spirit, and commits sins secretly can never preach the words of wisdom the Holy Spirit gives. Does a wise man always succeed in something? No! A powerful man generally succeeds. Therefore words of preach that the Holy Spirit does not support are nothing but vain words. Powerful are the words of a preach of a man who obeys God and is full of the Holy Spirit even if he preaches in plain words. The value of God's words lies not in pleasing the ears of the hearers, but in bringing them into the rule of God. The sermon you heard today may not be interesting to you, but the sermon is the best sermon if the power of the words of the sermon manifests itself in your life for 10 years or 20 ears, or even in your whole life. However, what really makes such a sermon a great sermon is not illustrations or confession of religious experience but the words of the Bible themselves declared in the preaching. The Bible has enough messages essential for believers today. They change themselves even when they just read the Scripture. The Holy Spirit guarantees 100% efficacy of all the words of the Bible.

 

A discreet (wise) sermon focuses on Jesus Christ and his cross (v. 2). A true sermon is the sermon that preaches Jesus the Savior of all human beings and his death on the cross that eliminates sins from them. A sermon should reveal the hearers' sins and make them assured that Jesus is the Lord of their life. A sermon that only shouts, "Peace, Peace!", is nothing but the opium of the people Marx mentioned. The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword (Heb 4:12). A sermon that overlooks sin is not a wise sermon, nor is a sermon that overlooks every one's own cross a wise sermon. A wise sermon makes the hearers Jesus' disciples. Those disciples bear their crosses and follow Jesus. They even look foolish in the eyes of the people in the world. Therefore, wouldn't it be a wise sermon that makes the hearers look foolish in the sight of the worldly people but truly wise in the sight of God?

 

May God grant the gift of word of knowledge of God and the gift of word of wisdom of God to you all who teach the word of God

 

Chong Tack Kim

                                   - Dongtoma Sunshine Church -