Preaching Matters

By John Meador

Preaching matters. Specifically, your preaching matters. It matters to the people you preach to each week, and it matters to God.

As preachers and teachers, we sometimes get the wrong impression about our preaching. If we’re not careful, we’re likely to downplay the importance of what we do when we pray, study, and then stand and deliver. The amazing leaps of technology, entertainment, and the high-definition world our people live in has shortened their attention spans and generally made it more difficult to connect. This sometimes discourages us and leads to muttering about how big a struggle it is on a given Sunday. However, all that has not minimized the importance of what you and I do.

The ultimate judge of what we do, of course, is Him. In a very real sense, we preach to an audience of One. Remembering that means a great deal.

Paul reminds us of a coming day when we’ll give an account for what we do. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10). There is ample evidence that God may recall our righteous words and actions that we have performed for His glory in eternity. The good fruit, of course, will last forever, and nothing more surely than His Word. 

I’m always surprised when someone reminds me of a message I’d preached years ago that they still remember (Are you sure I preached that one?). One woman called me 17 years after I’d preached a message and wanted to know if I still had the outline. She’d lost her notes but remembered the text had impacted her and she wanted to pass it on to others. That was a good day.

Others have commented years later how a certain statement made marked a turning point in their lives. And of course, there are those who came to Christ during messages I’ve preached, and as they remind me of that, I get at least part of the point that preaching matters.

What I don’t think we realize is that heaven may well be a rehearsing of effective life and ministry. It certainly isn’t about rehearsing sin! I’m beginning to believe that preachers and teachers of God’s Word are going to realize our significance in the coming kingdom.

Remember, there is no fruit in a person’s life apart from the Word. Jesus said, “If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples” (John 15:7-8). The Word always goes before the work. Look it up.

Is it possible that you and I will be in some way rewarded for faithful exposition of His Word when all the fruit of the saints is paraded before the judgment seat of Christ? While each of us are responsible for feeding ourselves the Word as believers, there is no question that God uses faithful preaching to prompt, inspire, convict, and generally move others into self-study of the Word, which bears fruit! So, when you preach and teach, you are storing up reward in heaven that will enable you to glorify God all the more in eternity.

Here’s a likely scenario: every prayer you pray about your message, and every hour you struggle to accurately divide God’s Word is noticed by God. The hours we spend doing word studies, outlining, checking against others’ comments, working to find illustrations because we’re passionate about our people understanding the Word—all of those things are deposits in the bank of eternal glory. 

Further, can you imagine saint after saint standing before Christ with their righteous deeds, some of which were prompted by your teaching and preaching, and your faithfulness with the Word! While we know that most of the fruit God allows us to assist others in bearing will not be seen by us on earth, I’m convinced we’ll see it all in heaven—and finally realize just how much those hours spent in the quiet of study really matter in the grand scheme of things.

Here is someone who left a life of sexual sin behind because you took a stand on purity in the Word, and their lives from that moment on were lives of fruitfulness and service to God. Here’s another one—a woman who was so burdened by the guilt of abortion that she was paralyzed spiritually until you preached about the amazing forgiveness of Christ. She, too, moved on to a life of fruitfulness. Then there’s the guy who heard you preach about being called to ministry, and he surrendered his life to the mission field where whole tribes came to faith! What you do matters a lot.

When you close your study door and get on your knees when no one else is looking, when you struggle through a passage or a message that causes you frustration, when you preach and no one responds visibly—again, just remember, your preaching matters. One day, you’ll see just how much it does.

John Meador is senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Euless, Texas

Pulpit Helps Magazine, a ministry of AMG International, was a monthly publication which ran from 1975-2009. Founded by Dr. Spiros Zodhiates, Pulpit Helps was dedicated to the mission of equipping pastors, Bible teachers, and students of the Word for preaching, teaching, and living God's Truth. Each month, Pulpit Helps provided sermon starters, bulletin inserts, illustrations and quality articles on preaching, counseling, Christian living, and more. The ministry goals of Pulpit Helps continue today in the form of Disciple Magazine online.