Easter can feel like the Super Bowl for Pastors. If you are scheduled to preach this weekend, I don’t have to tell you about the excitement and weight of preaching on Easter. In reality, it should be no different than any other week, and yet as fleshy humans the idea of the crowd gets in our head and distracts our heart.
If you are going to have an off-week, you don’t want it to be this one. Along with Christmas Eve and Mother’s Day it can be among the highest attendance days of the year. If nothing else, it is the one weekend that all who claim your church as their church are most likely to show up at the same time! If you find yourself struggling today thinking about what or how you will preach this Easter Sunday, I pray the following thoughts might encourage your heart and overcome any struggle or pressure your flesh brings to bear.
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you need to validate your worth through an amazing Easter sermon performance.
Just focus on Jesus’ Resurrection & the gospel
Too often we get stuck feeling like we preached on the same thing last year. We wrestle, think and pray looking for a new angle. That might be helpful until it isn’t. What makes our faith so powerful is that the gospel DOES NOT CHANGE. Focus on it! Don’t apologize for it. Don’t feel bad about it. The gospel doesn’t need to be new and different. It just needs to be front and center. By all means work to connect with your listeners. Help people see the ultimate reality with fresh, personal relevance. But don’t feel bad about presenting the same powerful gospel truth that Jesus’ death and resurrection alone makes eternal life possible for all who believe.
You are His chosen ambassador. Just fulfill your duty and deliver His message. When we remember to make his message the center without making ourselves the center, Jesus smiles and people have their best opportunity to understand and respond to Him.
2Cor 4:5 For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake.
Trust the Holy Spirit to empower the gospel message and penetrate hearts.
We can get stuck worrying about how to communicate better. Better than last year. Better than the other pastors in town. We worry too much that people don’t come as often because we aren’t good enough communicators. This is our big chance to win them back! This also can be a good focus until we get stuck in our own fleshiness and make it the most important focus. We can fall into temptation to be clever, creative, engaging and compelling ways that obscure the gospel.
It is the Holy Spirit the brings conviction, insight and enables all to respond to the gospel. It is the Holy Spirit the empowers all who speak the gospel with clarity and boldness. Trust Him to guide you as you prep, empower you as you speak and transform the hearts of those who hear.
That is not an excuse for laziness in preparation, but gives us great confidence as we share. Think about this. God Himself wants to communicate His gospel clearly and powerfully through you! If He has called you specifically to the place you serve, then He believes that they need to hear the Easter Resurrection gospel through you this year. Trust Him to do His part. Do your part by abiding, studying, preparing and then preaching without allowing your flesh to distract you.
1Cor. 2:3-5 I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, 4 and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.
Trust the gospel of Jesus’ resurrection power for yourself as you share it with others!
Our flesh thinks we still have to earn the calling we have been given. Our ability, performance or impact DO NOT earn us anything from God. You are saved, called & empowered to serve by the grace of God through the power of our Risen Savior! We will never be good enough on our own, BUT Jesus is plenty good enough for all of us! That is the point of the gospel! Let it go!
Jesus loved us before we were believers and went to the cross so we could be called to life in Himself. Never forget that truth! Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you need to validate your worth through an amazing easter sermon performance.
Resurrection from death is real! Eternal life and eternal death are real. Relax and rest in Jesus as you prepare to share this weekend. Gather with your church as a grateful worshipper. Take the platform as a Jesus trusting faithful servant. Resist the urge to take Jesus’ spotlight. Just preach the simple, clear gospel of our resurrection Savior. Let His light Shine that even more may be drawn to Him as you share. I am praying for you especially this weekend!
Rom 1:15-16 So, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
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