2 Timothy 4:2 “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience”
Using the Bible to preach is not the same as preaching the Bible. In other words, preaching does not start with the preacher. By definition, a sermon starts with God’s word. A Bible infused passion rant does not equal a sermon. A “Holy Spirit thought” (Usually sounds like a clever tweet or phrase) is not a word from God that should be preached. But it happens. It happens often. During out of season times of ministry the preacher feels the pressure to get clever. Consider the following story.
Just two months ago, our family moved into our new house. We actually moved in before the house was complete. We were so excited! The plumbing wasn’t totally done and the appliances were not yet installed. We had a bucket for the first problem and a cooler with ice for the second! Why wait three more days?! We moved in. It happened on day 2.
I almost burned the house down. Hu?! Yes, you read that correctly. I almost burned the house down! If you don’t know, when you build a house the burn pit is a necessity. Everything from scrap wood to the construction crew’s empty snuff containers get thrown into that thing. Boxes are fun to burn. When you move, boxes are everywhere! So we lit them up.
Day two was a calm and non-windy day. Well, before lunch it was calm and non-windy. After lunch the wind picked up and Southern Illinois turned into that horrible city up north called the Windy City;) I threw a box in the fire and returned downstairs to get more. When I got back I noticed smoke in the treeline! Wind plus dry ground plus burning cardboard equals pandemonium!
I have been around fire my entire life but I have never seen fire spread this fast! It was dry and leaves were everywhere! Just behind the treeline? Two horse barns. Fifty feet to the right? A propane take. Twenty feet away? Our brand new uninsured (We had builders insurance but not yet homeowners) house. Inside? My wife, our sleeping son, two plumbers, my mom with a broken arm, and my pop.
Next scene. I am in the woods frantically beating down fire with a garden rake. Jordan runs outside and turns into beast mode. She had two five gallon buckets full of water in each hand! Later we would be in awe at her accomplishments. The buckets weighed as much as she does! Oh, she would not want me to forget this! She was wearing her new leather booty shoes. You know, the kind not made to stomp fire. And the plumbers. After a few expletives, they ran outside to help as well! It was as crazy as it sounds!
The fire department showed up about two minutes after we got the flames out. They spent the next 45 min flooding the fence line. After all was said and done, nothing was destroyed. Not even Jordan’s shoes! Before the fire crew left, I found some time to talk with the chief. He told me he was a Christian. He said he was a member of a church that I happened to be familiar with. I had forgotten the pastor’s name so I asked this nice gentlemen “What is the pastor’s name again?” He stumbled with his words and said “I can’t remember. I have not been in a long while.” That was interesting. We continued to talk.
Now to the point of this post. Before Fire Chief left, he made the comment “Preacher, you’ll get a sermon out of this for sure!” I have been thinking about this well-meaning comment for a while. It is a common thought. The man believed sermons are birthed out of wild fires turned into metaphor turned into sermon. Maybe that was his experience as a member of that church he rarely attends. I know I have heard preaching like that. I heard a preacher get a “sermon” out of hand sanitizer one time. But the more I thought about that innocent comment the more it bothered me.
It bothered me because preaching never starts with wild fires. I did not get a sermon out of the fire that day. A funny blog post maybe, but not a sermon. Sermon’s start with the Bible! A sermon is not a sermon unless it comes from the Bible first. Metaphor is not wrong. But metaphor comes after exegesis, never before.
Fellow pastors. It would have been lazy and unfaithful of me to turn a fire into a sermon. I could have spiritualized that day. It could be something that our people would love to hear for a change! Visitors may really connect with a story like that! But our charge is not “Preach your life experiences with a little bit of Bible mixed in” but “Preach the word” 2 Tim. 4:2.
Brothers. If you preach your life, your story, your “word”, fire won’t come. If I were to stand before our people and preach about this fire with Bible verses to complement it, fire won’t fall. But if we will be faithful to preach the word? Fire!
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