6. Sincerity and Earnestness
Nothing sickens people more than deceit or hypocrisy; nothing is more attractive than sincerity. People expect high standards of honesty from preachers and sniff around like dogs after a rat to see if they can discover any contradictions in us. We are personally committed to our message and must be sincere. Christ himself condemned hypocrites harshly.
There are two sides to this sincerity: preachers must mean what they say in the pulpit, and must practice what they preach when out of it. As Richard Baxter put it, “he that means as he speaks will surely do as he speaks”.
The very first requirement is that those who proclaim the gospel must themselves have received the gospel; those who preach Christ must know Christ. Spurgeon describes an unconverted preacher as follows.
A graceless pastor is a blind man elected to a professorship of optics, philosophizing upon light and vision . . . while he himself is absolutely in the dark! He is a dumb man elevated to the chair of music; a deaf man fluent upon symphonies and harmonies! He is a mole professing to educate eaglets; a limpet elected to preside over angels.
We smile at his descriptions, yet such people have been found in the pulpits of some churches. Rev. William Haslam, for example, was a diligent minister in the Church of England from 1842. But he was not satisfied, having no spring of living water within him. Nine years after his ordination, he preached on the text, “What think ye of Christ?” As he was preaching, the Holy Spirit (probably in answer to many prayers) opened his eyes to see the Christ he was speaking about, and his heart to believe in him. The change in Haslam was so obvious that a local preacher, who happened to be there, jumped up and shouted, “The parson is converted! Hallelujah!” His voice was drowned by the praises of the congregation. Haslam “joined in the outburst of praise, and, to make it more orderly . . . gave out the doxology . . . and the people sang it with heart and voice, over and over again.” The news spread like wildfire “that the parson was converted, and that by his own sermon, in his own pulpit!” His conversion was the beginning of a great revival in his district, with a vivid sense of God’s presence, and conversions almost daily for the next three years. In later years God called him into the most unusual ministry of leading many of his fellow ministers to a personal knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Church members have a right to expect that the Holy Spirit has done more than just convert their pastors. They look for the fruit of the Spirit as well, for Christian maturity. Paul told Timothy and Titus to be models of Christian behaviour (1 Tim. 4:12; Titus 2:7). Peter similarly instructed the elders to set an example (1 Pet. 5:3). The emphasis is plain. “A man cannot only preach, he must also live. And the life that he lives . . . is one of two things: either it emasculates his preaching or it gives it flesh and blood.” We cannot hide what we are. Indeed, what we are speaks as plainly as what we say. When these two voices blend, the impact of the message is doubled. But when they contradict each other, the positive witness is cancelled by the other.
This leads to a practical problem. The congregation tend to see preachers as models of Christian maturity, to put us on a pedestal, and to idealize, even idolize, us. We know, however, that this is at least partly false. Although the grace of God has been and continues to be at work in us, we are not as perfect as they seem to think. So what should we do? Does sincerity demand that we destroy this fairy story and tell the truth about ourselves from the pulpit?
As always, we should avoid extreme reactions. To turn the pulpit into a confessional is not appropriate or helpful. Yet, to pretend to be perfect is dishonest and discouraging to the congregation. So we should admit the truth. Like them, we are weak and sinful, exposed to temptation and suffering. Like them, we struggle with doubt, fear and sin. Like them, we depend continuously on God’s forgiving and liberating grace. In this way the preacher remains a model — but a model of humbleness and truth.
The New Testament emphasizes the need for the preacher to be self-disciplined. “Keep watch over yourselves,” Paul reminded the elders of the Ephesian church, adding, “and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers” (Acts 20:28). He wrote to Timothy: “Watch your life and doctrine closely” (1 Tim. 4:16). The order in these statements is important. Pastors have God-given responsibilities both to the congregation we serve and to the doctrine we teach. Yet our first responsibility is to guard our personal walk with God and our loyalty to him. Nobody can be a good pastor or teacher of others who is not first a good servant of Jesus Christ.
Disciplined habits of pastoral visiting, counselling, theological study and sermon preparation become barren unless they are supported by disciplined personal devotion, especially biblical meditation and prayer. Every pastor knows how difficult this is. We may be misunderstood and opposed; we may become lonely and discouraged; we shall certainly grow weary in mind and body. Even the strongest personalities collapse under these pressures, unless the power of God is being revealed in our weakness and the life of Jesus in our mortal body. Then “inwardly we are being renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:7-11, 16).
The Importance of Sincerity
It is very easy to slip from strict honesty into pretence or hypocrisy, so we need to remind ourselves why sincerity is important. The New Testament gives at least three reasons.
First, it warns us that although teaching is a spiritual gift and a great privilege, it brings with it many dangers. Paul suggests to the Jewish leaders, “If you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth — you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself?” (Rom. 2:19-21). Hypocrisy in teachers is unacceptable because they should know better! Teachers cannot argue that they do not know their own curriculum! Jesus judged the Pharisees harshly, because “they do not practise what they teach” (Matt. 23:3). This is why James gave the surprising advice: “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers and sisters, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly” (James 3:1).
Secondly, hypocrisy causes great offence. Many people have separated themselves from Christ because of the hypocritical behaviour of some who claim to follow him. Paul knew this, and was determined not to be an obstacle to other people’s faith: “We put no stumbling block in anyone’s path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way” (2 Cor. 6:3, 4). As evidence Paul lists how he had suffered for his faith. There was no contradiction between his message and his behaviour. People will not accept our message if our life contradicts it — just as they would not buy a cold cure from a salesman who coughs and sneezes between each sentence!
The third argument for sincerity is the positive influence a “real” person can have. Paul, for instance, firmly “renounced secret and shameful ways”, and committed himself to “setting forth the truth plainly” and to commending himself “to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God” (2 Cor. 4:2). He detested trickery and deceit, and could appeal to both God and fellow-believers as witnesses to his openness (1 Thess. 2:1-12). There was nothing in his life or lifestyle that prevented his hearers from believing his message. He was believable because what he said matched what he was.
Sincere believers attract unbelievers. Even the fiercest critics of the evangelist Billy Graham respected his sincerity. Similarly, we are told that a friend once met the philosopher David Hume (who rejected Christianity) hurrying along a London street and asked him where he was going. Hume replied that he was going to hear George Whitefield preach. “But surely,” his friend asked in astonishment, “you don’t believe what Whitefield preaches, do you?” “No, I don’t,” answered Hume, “but he does.” Hypocrisy always repels; genuineness always attracts.
One of the chief proofs of genuineness is the willingness to suffer for what we believe. The faithfulness of the true servant of God is proved when opposition comes (2 Cor. 6:4, 5). Paul even spoke of his sufferings as his credentials or qualifications (2 Cor. 11:21-33; 1 Thess. 2:1-4; 2 Tim. 3:10-12). He was prepared to be “persecuted for the cross of Christ” (Gal. 5:11; 6:12). It is often through a dark and lonely struggle that faith emerges:
It is not from a pulpit but a cross that power-filled words are spoken. Sermons need to be seen as well as heard to be effectual. Eloquence, homiletical skill, biblical knowledge are not enough. Anguish, pain, engagement, sweat and blood punctuate the stated truths to which men will listen.
Sincerity in Manner
This is probably the best context in which to mention briefly the practical matters of voice production and gesture. These should not be rehearsed, for preachers are not actors, and the pulpit is not a stage. An actor is self-conscious, whereas what is needed in the pulpit is self-forgetful sincerity. Our presentation should flow naturally from our sincere desire to let God speak through us. We should focus on cultivating a growing awareness of God and of the people to whom we are speaking. This will help us both to be ourselves and to forget ourselves!
However, it can be valuable to ask a friend to comment on our voice and mannerisms. This is what I did when I began to preach. I received feedback from two friends who were medical students (and thus trained in the art of observation). Although I remember being shattered by some of what they said, their criticisms were always valuable. Colleagues can also be asked for feedback. This may sometimes be given by a group that may include members of the congregation who are not preachers. This assessment should consider the way we speak, our gestures, manner and mannerisms, as well as the content of the sermon, our use of Scripture, the clarity with which we present our dominant thought and aim, structure, words, illustrations, our introduction and conclusion. Preachers’ clubs can also provide feedback, and can help us by identifying weaknesses in our preparation as well.
Earnestness
Earnestness goes one step beyond sincerity. To be sincere is to mean what we say and to do what we say; to be earnest is also to feel what we say. Earnestness is the deep feeling essential to preaching. “No man can be a great preacher without great feeling,” wrote James W. Alexander of Princeton. Elsewhere he says, “it is a matter of universal observation that a speaker who would excite deep feeling must feel deeply himself”.
To handle issues of eternal life and death as if we were discussing the weather is inexcusable. How can we deliver a solemn message in a casual manner, or refer to the eternal destinies of men and women as if we were discussing where they will spend their summer holidays? Christians who care are earnest. They care about God, about his glory and his Christ. When Paul was in Athens, he was “distressed” because he saw the city choked with idols, he was angry about the idolatry, and defended the honour of the one, living and true God (Acts 17:16). And when he told the Philippians that many were living “as enemies of the cross of Christ”, he could do so only “with tears” (3:18). The thought that people were trusting in their own righteousness instead of Christ, and that they were being self-indulgent rather than holy, made him weep.
We should also care about people in their lostness. Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem because its inhabitants rejected his love and did not realize what was best for them (Matt. 23:37; Luke 19:41, 42). For Paul preaching and weeping went hand-in-hand. For three years in Ephesus he “never stopped warning . . . night and day with tears” (Acts 20:31; compare vv. 19, 37). And weeping did not die out with the New Testament. Christian evangelists, bringing the good news of salvation but fearing that some might reject it and thereby condemn themselves to hell, have never been far from tears. D. L. Moody “could never speak of a lost soul without tears in his eyes”. When George Whitefield preached, people always realized that he loved them:
His tears — and he could seldom manage a sermon without weeping — were totally unaffected. “You blame me for weeping,” he would say, “but how can I help it when you will not weep for yourselves, although your immortal souls are on the verge of destruction, and for aught I know, you are hearing your last sermon and may never more have another opportunity to have Christ offered to you?”
I constantly find myself wishing that we preachers could learn to weep again. Many things seem to stop us from crying over the lost sinners on the broad road which leads to destruction. Some preachers are so caught up in the joyful celebration of salvation that they never think to weep over those who are rejecting it. Others have been deceived by the devil’s lie of universalism: everybody will be saved in the end, they say, and nobody will be lost. Their eyes are dry because they have closed them to the awful reality of eternal death and outer darkness of which both Jesus and his apostles spoke. Others faithfully warn sinners of hell, but do so casually or with a sick pleasure. This is almost more terrible than the blindness of those who ignore or deny its reality.
A congregation learns the seriousness of the gospel by the seriousness with which their pastors preach it. “We must not talk to our congregations,” said Spurgeon to his students, “as if we were half-asleep. Our preaching must not be articulate snoring.” One thing is certain: if we ourselves grow sleepy over our message, our listeners can hardly be expected to stay awake.
Mind and Heart
The New Testament makes it clear that combining the mind and the heart, the rational and the emotional, can bring our listeners to faith and obedience. Paul reasoned and argued with people, using the Scriptures through the power of the Holy Spirit to try to turn them to God. But he also wept over them — just as his Master had done.
Consider how he combines teaching and pleading in his letters. 2 Corinthians 5 contains one of the major explanations of the doctrine of reconciliation in the New Testament. Paul explains that “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ”, that God was “not counting people’s sins against them” and that for our sake he actually made Christ who “had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (vv. 19-21). Here are tightly packed truths about God’s actions, about Christ and his cross, about sin, reconciliation and righteousness, which commentators are still struggling to unpack and explain. Yet Paul is not content just to make a deep theological statement. He goes beyond the fact of reconciliation to the message of reconciliation, beyond what God did in Christ to what he now does in us. He is an ambassador for God, begging his readers to “be reconciled to God” (v. 20). He did not stop with the exposition, but went on to the appeal. But the appeal came only after he had conveyed the truth.
Some preachers have no fear of enthusiasm; they make endless appeals for decision or conversion. In fact, their sermons are sometimes nothing but one long appeal. Yet their listeners are bewildered, because they have not understood (or been helped to understand) the nature or basis of the appeal. To ask for a decision without doctrine is an offence to human beings, for it suggests a mindless manipulation.
Other preachers make the opposite mistake. They explain the central biblical doctrines precisely. They are faithful to the content of Scripture. They explain it clearly and apply the lessons to today’s world. Yet somehow they appear cold and distant. There is no urgency in their voice, and no tear is ever seen in their eyes. They would never dream of leaning over the pulpit to beg sinners in the name of Christ to repent, to come to him and to be reconciled with God.
What is needed today is Paul’s combination of reason and emotion, of teaching and pleading. J. W. Alexander begs for “theological preaching”. What interests people, he says, is “argument made red-hot”. A twentieth-century British preacher who made a similar point was Dr. Campbell Morgan, minister of Westminster Chapel, London. The three essentials of a sermon, he told his students, are “truth, clarity and passion”. He told a tale of a preacher who asked a great actor how he could draw such crowds by fiction, while he was preaching the truth and not getting any crowd at all. “This is quite simple,” replied the actor. “I present my fiction as though it were truth; you present your truth as though it were fiction.”
Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones also shared this conviction.
Logic on fire! Eloquent reason! Are these contradictions? Of course they are not. Reason concerning this truth ought to be mightily eloquent, as you see it in the case of the Apostle Paul and others. It is theology on fire. And a theology which does not take fire, I maintain, is a defective theology, or at least the man’s understanding of it is defective. Preaching is theology coming through a man who is on fire.
We need to remember that the Holy Spirit is both “the Spirit of truth” and the one who appeared on the Day of Pentecost in “tongues of fire”. Since the two are not separated in him, they will not be separate in the Spirit-filled Christian either. Once we allow him his freedom, both in the preparation and delivery of our sermons, the light and the fire, the truth and the passion will be reunited.
We also need to remember the experience of the two disciples with whom Jesus walked to Emmaus on the first Easter afternoon. When he vanished, they said to one another, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32). They were deeply moved. Fire had begun to burn within them when they glimpsed new truths. It is still truth — the Christ-centred, biblical truth — that sets the heart on fire.
Humour in the Pulpit
At first sight, seriousness and humour may seem to be contradictory. However, the issue is not so simple. Jesus used humour in his teaching, as for example, when he talked about people who “strain out a gnat but swallow a camel” (Matt. 23:24):
How many of us have ever pictured the process, and the series of sensations, as the long hairy neck slid down the throat of the Pharisee — all that amplitude of loose-hung anatomy — the hump — two humps — both of them slid down — and he never noticed — and the legs — all of them — with the whole outfit of knees and big padded feet. The Pharisee swallowed a camel and never noticed it.
But humour has to be used wisely at the right place and the right time. “The evident purpose of Christ’s humour is to clarify and increase understanding, rather than to hurt. Perhaps some hurt is inevitable, especially when . . . human pride is rendered ridiculous, but the clear aim is something other than harm . . . Truth, and truth alone is the end.”
We must never joke about serious topics. But humour may be used to break tension, so that people can relax before concentrating again. It may be used to break down people’s defences — to move them from stubbornness and rebellion to responsiveness. Finally, it can help us to laugh at ourselves and shame us into repentance. As James Aggrey, a founder of Achimota College in Ghana, said, “I get their mouths open in a laugh, and ram the truth down.” Or to put it another way, “after the mirthquake the still small voice”.
Conclusion
Sincerity and earnestness cannot be put on like decorations on Christmas trees. They are the fruit of the Spirit. They describe a person who believes and feels what he says. “The man, the whole man, lies behind the sermon. Preaching is not the performance of an hour. It is the outflow of a life. It takes twenty years to make a sermon, because it takes twenty years to make the man.”
James Black put it similarly, “the best preaching is always the natural overflow of a ripe mind and the expression of a growing experience. A good sermon is never worked up but worked out.” I like those two words “outflow” and “overflow”. True preaching is never a superficial activity; it wells up out of the depths. Without the spring of the Holy Spirit’s life within us, the rivers of living water can never flow from within us. It is out of the overflow of the heart that the mouth speaks (John 4:14; 7:37-39; Matt. 12:34).