I Need Him

My first sermon was not really a sermon. I gave my testimony before a group of teenagers. From start to finish I spoke for a whopping seven minutes. I thought I had enough material for half an hour. My knees knocked, my voice cracked as I did my best scared out of my mind.

I did not preach again for nearly a year. My pastor, Charles M. Roberts, assigned me and another young ministry student to go out to Lake Sam Rayburn and travel around the lake at camp grounds holding services through the summer. God had other plans. We never made it past the Shirley Creek Marina. We started there and stayed there. Jason Waltman and I alternated preaching each week. What started out as two college boys preaching at a point on the lake eventually became the Shirley Creek Baptist Church.

At the end of the summer Brother Charles invited Jason and I both to preach on two consecutive Sunday nights at our home church. Jason preached first and knocked it out of the park. The following week I got a text but did not think I could go through with it out of fear. I prayed. Studied. Wrote down notes. Prayed some more. The closer Sunday came the more I contemplated withdrawing from the whole thing. I saw no way I could stand before that church of several hundred people and preach. Not me.

I practiced preaching. I went out into our backyard storage building and preached that sermon to boxes and shelves using a deep freeze as my pulpit. I bet I preached that sermon from Exodus 3 dozens of times before Sunday rolled around.

I knew I needed God's help. I knew that the day He first called me to preach. I almost backed out on my preaching assignment that Sunday night.  That is when the girl I dated spoke words I still remember today, "God will not call you to do something He will not enable you to do." I owe so much to her for those powerful words. With God's help I preached that late summer night back in 1986 at Denman Avenue Baptist Church in Lufkin, TX. With His help I have been preaching since then.

I've preached in outdoor tabernacles, in two foreign countries, multiple states, in large worship centers, in small country churches, in living rooms, in a converted warehouse, in school cafeterias, basketball ball gyms, in football stadiums, in the mountains, near the ocean and lakes. One thing has not changed in all those years. I need God's help. Whether ministering to a dozen or hundreds I need His anointing, inspiration and passion to do what He calls me to do.

Those first few sermons I pleaded with God for help out of raw terror. Now after 30 years of preaching I still plead for His help sitting on the front pew before going to the pulpit. I plead for His help in the wee hours of the morning praying through the message point by point before ever arriving on the church campus. I need His help all the time. I need His insights. I need His revelation. I need His joy to permeate my whole being while delivering eternal truth. I need His anointing, or put another way, I need His empowering.

As I write this Sunday is past. It's Monday morning. Time to start all over again. The journey of digging into the text, studying, gathering information and illustrations for three different messages starts all over with each new week. It is like studying for three research papers every week but far more important. I need God's help today just as much as I needed it those first few times I preached. I need Him more to keep it fresh, to not let me fall into the rut of becoming a professional preacher . I need Him to guard against my  just mechanically going through the motions. I need Him, O I need Him every hour I need Him. What about you?