More on the measure

Mark Lauterbach is spot-on with his series on "The Measure of a Sermon." Here's the opening to Part 4:

I have learned a great deal from my wife. She is a gift to me – and God has used her in my life more than any other human. One of the lessons she has taught me is about motivation and grace. She did this in the kitchen . . . .

She is a fabulous cook. Because of that I often enter the home at the end of the day to wonderful fragrances . . . baked chicken, stir fry, or chocolate chip cookies. As I walk in the garage door I am often not hungry – I am tired, worn in mind, distracted. My wife could tell me she is about to make dinner and ask what sounds good to me. I would not know. The possibility of dinner would not stir my hunger. But, one whiff of her cooking stirs my appetites.

This is what good preaching does. What I am talking about in these posts is the temptation of preachers to exhort people to be hungry – to trust in moral exhortation and the thunderings of the Law to create interest. That would not even be true to the Old Testament.

What NT preaching does is bake the cookies and let the Spirit empowered fragrance draw them to the Savior, stir hunger, and provoke godly motive. The law has rarely softened a hardened heart.

Amen. Mark's whole series at GospelDrivenLife is powerful.