I listen to a sermon nearly every day. I’ve listened to a hundred Francis Chan sermons. I’ve listened to a lot of David Platt, Matt Chandler, Andy Stanley, Craig Groeschel, Mark Driscoll, John Piper, David Jeremiah, and the list goes on. Do youtube searches to listen to any of their sermons and they will not disappoint.
As far as people I would call friends, one of the people I love listening to is David Cartwright. This morning I listened to his sermon from Sunday. I commend it to you. You can watch or listen to it here. He said his job in preaching wasn’t to try to make friends and it wasn’t to try and make enemies. His job is to preach the truth in love.
As a preacher, it’s fairly easy to stand before a congregation and tell them God loves them. People love to hear that and need to hear that. It is more difficult to stand before a congregation and call sin sin and call them to repent. It is difficult to stand before a congregation and tell them that their lifetime of service to the church without a relationship with Jesus will get them nowhere with Jesus. As you listen to pastors and listen to sermons from me and from others, I pray that you know how difficult it is to speak God’s truth about sin and repentance when it flies in the face of our world and so few are doing it. And I pray that as we speak with love that you can tell it comes from love. It’s easy to preach the sermons that you like to hear. It takes love to preach the tough sermons we all need to hear.
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Scott Knowlton's Blog 