Video Transcript: Session 26 Use of Positive Words

Welcome back. We're continuing in this making a preaching of sermons to talk  about presenting your sermon we began last time talking about making your  message memorable and talks about word pictures. I just want to bring this back up again, what do people remember, study in the University of Texas. And that's  the list. So we've got to do more than just give something to read, got to do  something, to give them more than just something to hear, or just something to  see, we've got to combine those things in some ways, and said, This is a  principle we've got to know about. We've got to know our presentation trumps  information, so you can have the best information in the world. But unless you  present it in a memorable way, people are going to go away. And they're going  to forget what you said. And so we began talking last time about how do you  then make your message memorable. And we talked last time about using word  pictures, picture language, describing things. And you watched video about  that? Well, today, I want to look a little bit about this idea of words have power,  and then we're going to look at passion as well, in your message. Words have  power. Now. Words can make a difference in somebody's life, especially if  they're empowered by the Holy Spirit. But what we say to people how we say it,  can have great power, but particularly if it's something positive. Now, you know,  when I shared with you my call to preach this sixth grade teacher, with whom I  share this snotty little statement, after she talked about all the work we had to do to get ready for high school, and all the homework she was going to apply. And I  and my devotions that they talked about, in all making books, there is no end,  and much study of the weariness to the flesh. That woman who comes to me  and says, and you have a thought of becoming a preacher, planted some words  in me. Now she could have said and said, who do you think you are you, you  know, that's in my traditions. If you use the word of God, out of context kind of  stuff, that she could have said that she could have come down on me for being a little snotty kid. But instead, she took a moment to say a positive word to me.  And that positive word was planted in my heart so that years later, that became  something that came back to my heart and mind when I started feeling a call  into ministry. And I can say, I can picture that moment of her coming and leaning down by my desk whispering into my ear, those positive words. Now, I'd say,  words have power, especially positive words, because in the church, we have  tended to use negative words a great deal. And I'm not sitting in judgment of  that. But that has often characterized our preaching. This man is Jonathan  Edwards, you'll note the years 1703 to 1758 that he lived. Jonathan Edwards  was one of the preachers in Connecticut, back during those years, the colony, of course, we weren't our nation quite yet them. The colony of Connecticut and,  and during his time, in this little village in Connecticut, a revival broke out is  known as the Great Awakening in the history of religion in the United States.  Now, Jonathan Edwards is known for preaching one particular sermon. Now it's  called sinners in the hands of an angry God, people who describe his preaching 

was that he used very little, very little gestures. Didn't, you know use a lot of  volume we're going to talk about use of the voice later, but to kind of read his  messages. And yet, people would fall down in the aisles, and they would arrive  in concern for their souls, and what we're running forward to confess their sins  and be renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit that happened early in His  ministry during the beginning of the Great Awakening. Now, this sermon, sinners in the hands of an angry God was preached toward the end of the Great  Awakening, not the beginning. And in it, he pictures, people in dire straits this is  this is how he puts it in one section of a sermon. Do you know that the God that  holds you over the pit of hell much as one holds a spider or some detestable  insect, detests you, and has already dreadfully provoked His wrath towards you  burns like fire, he looks upon you as worth of nothing else, but to be thrown into  the fire. Talk about negative preaching, right? Negative negative preaching.  Today, at least in the United States, we are known for our negative preaching.  We are now own for our judgment of the society around us and the culture  around us. I've been reflecting on this in my blog lately that how do you? How do you preach to the culture around you. And I'm finding that all of these years and  we have talked about the moral majority in the United States, we've talked about taking back our nation. And all these good things that we've condemned all  these simple movements in the United States. Our influence in the country has  declined precipitously, people have rejected us and every survey in the United  States of how people outside the church view us Christians is that they view us  as judgmental, they view us as hypocritical. They view us as too political, that  we're too aligned with a particular political party. We're not, we're not objective  about politics ta da ta da ta da. And so in this time, I want to talk about this  session, I want to talk about having positive words, when we can say things  positively, offer a positive outcome. Now, God may call us the Prophet certainly  speak negatively. But when they did, they spoke the tears in Jeremiah is, for me, one of the great prophets of the Old Testament, obviously. But when he  preached judgment, and he did, he preached it with tears. He's known as the  weeping prophet, and picture that the weeping prophet. In other words, as he  told people that if they didn't repent of their sins, if they didn't turn back to God  and change their life, they were going to be taken over by a foreign power, and  they were going to be exiled from Jerusalem. And he kept preaching that and  preaching that, and he did it at great personal cost. And he himself was thrown  into a cistern, he was left to die there when the when the city was being  attacked, his words were burned in the fire, he was considered an outcast, he  was thrown into prison, all of those kinds of things happened to him. But he's  known as the weeping prophet, he presented these messages with tears. Now,  that's instructive to me. I can think of one person in my tradition, I, in my tradition to get excommunicated, takes about two years, to two years of non repentance.  But there's a story that I was told by somebody who was involved in it, where a 

man was put under discipline in the church. And in my tradition, the first step of  that is that, you know, they're they're warned about their sin, elders and Pastor  go to this person, and they sat with him. And they talked to him about a sin he  was, he was an alcoholic, and, and was abusing his wife. And she was on the  verge of divorcing him, and she asked the church to get involved. And so the  church followed Matthew 18, by going to the person and then exhorting him to  repent. They did that over a long period of time. And every time they would  come in, they would challenge him said, you realize Do you realize, do you  realize what you're doing? Repent, turn, turn, turn, and nothing worked. And it  came to the Sunday that his excommunication notice was going to be read in  the church that morning. And that morning, one of the elders came to his house.  And rather than come and talk about his great sin, the man hardly said a word,  rang the doorbell. man who's going to get excommunicated is there and this  elder just broke down in tears, sorrow for him, sorrow and the tears broke the  man's heart. And he repented of a sin, he got help. Family was able to be  restored. But all of the judgmental language didn't strike him until there were  tears involved. That's just to say, I want you to be thinking about how you can  use positive words in your messages. Now we've got a brief video here. It's it's a story of one of the great inventors in the United States. And how did he become  a great inventor when his teacher early on judged him as unfit and unable to  learn? So just watch this and reflect on the power of positive words. “One day  Thomas Edison came home and gave a paper to his mother. He told her, “My  teacher gave this paper to me and told me to only give it to my mother.” His  mother's eyes were tearful as she read the letter out loud to her child: Your son  is a genius. This school is too small for him and doesn't have enough good  teachers for training him. Please teach him yourself. After many, many years,  after Edison's mother died and he was now one of the greatest inventors of the  century. One day he was looking through old family things. Suddenly he saw a  folded paper in the corner of a drawer in a desk. He took it and opened it up. On the paper was written; Your son is addled mentally ill...We won't let him come to  school any more. Edison cried for hours and then he wrote in his diary: “Thomas Alva Edison was an addled child that, by a hero mother, became the genius of  the century.”” You'll note on the screen five to one. And there's a website link  there that you want to go there. But that's another study I came across where  they said, What are the most effective companies, the most effective companies  are those where they have an average of five positive words for every one  negative word, five, to one, and found that companies that had less than five  positive words to every one negative word tended to be dysfunctional in one  way, shape, or form. Now, it's just a reminder that that the positive words are  going to have an impact in our world and probably in your congregation. And so  choosing your words, when you do preach judgment, and you'll have to, you  can't avoid that if you're going to be preaching the full counsel of God in the 

Bible, you're going to have to say something about the sin of the culture in which you live. It's, it's obvious it's in the scriptures, you're going to have to preach  about the problems within your church, maybe occasionally. But how you do that can make the difference about whether your sermon is memorable or not. And  so is it judgment with 'tude? Secondly, think about choosing your word as Luke  6:45. That's a powerful verse. A good man brings good things out of the good  stored up in his heart. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up  in his heart. The question is what stored up in your heart? If you're going to  choose positive words, if you're going to be a positive preacher? And I'm not  saying, you know, to be positive, that everything's hunky dory, but what's the  good in your heart? To examine your own heart? When you're making a  sermon? Are you angry? You know, I found I had to deal with some stuff in my  childhood that made me pretty judgmental of other people love to tell him about  it. So what's in your heart? And then thirdly, be aware, be aware, be aware of  the word you preach? Maybe have somebody else listen and just ask, you know, are you? Are you somebody who's coming across as positive? One of the things that made awakened me to this was when I lived in Southern California, I used  to go practice my sermon on Sunday morning by just walking through the  neighborhood. And I take my manuscript, I didn't preach with a manuscript  anymore at that point, but I take it along with me, and I would just kind of work  my way through the message, right. And, and I'd wander back and forth.  Sometimes there'd be cobwebs that come down during the night on the  sidewalks, I'd be in the street, and it was early on Sunday morning. So most,  most mornings were Sunny, at least. So I could do that. Well, anyway, one  particular Sunday, I was wandering along and I was preaching and I was doing  the gestures, and I was I was doing everything. It was on a street that didn't  have houses on it. And I looked down, you know, about a block and a half away  and there was an intersection with a light. And on the other side of that  intersection was a policeman from the city in which I lived Ontario, California.  And I'm preaching away and I cross the street once, I cross the street twice,  cross street back and I'm just talking away, and I noticed that the policeman  didn't go when the light turned green and then turned red and didn't go on to  turn green again. And then next time it turned green, he came, and he pulled up  on the opposite side of the road right next to me. And he got out of the car. He  said, Good morning. Good morning. He said, uh, how are you? I said, I'm fine,  are you? He said, Well, he said, I noticed you talking to yourself a lot. You seem  pretty angry. I was just blown away. And then I had to explain, Well, you know,  I'm a preacher, I'm just going through my sermon. But that word of you seem  pretty angry. realized oh, man, is this how I'm perceived when I'm preaching?  And so that, that idea of being aware, aware of how I come across, even if you  have to videotape yourself to say how you come across when you're preaching,  be aware of the words you choose? Are there positive words. So how do you 

make your sermon memorable? Well, you use picture language, you recognize  that words have power, particularly positive words, negative words do too, by  the way, you know, we know from parents to children, that if your parents are  critical of you, as a child that will stick with you words have power, words, have  power in your preaching, choose positive words. And thirdly if you're going to  make your message memorable, you should preach with passion. Now, passion, you know, this is one picture I came across igniting a fervent heart for God.  What is passion? How do you preach with passion? Well, we can say some of  the things it is not. It is not just drama. It's not just your overworked or grandiose  gestures. It's not just a loud voice. It's not just because it's easy to mimic those  things. My wife has a spiritual gift of discernment. And sometimes, you know, we have had the privilege of traveling around for periods of time, when I first retired, we had a whole year, we just went from church to church to church, and I heard  a lot of different pastors. And she would say, oh, man, that that's pretty fake. I  mean, he's faking it there. It's not genuine. And, you know, it would be wonderful call to something, but it just comes across as just wrong. So it's not just these  things, you can play act these things. And in fact, many speakers are known for  that throughout the history of the world. In fact, it is said about Theodore  Roosevelt, one of our most famous and most effective presidents, is said that he would have in his notes when he was doing a speech, argument weak, speak  loudly. And the story is told, I don't know if it's apocryphal or not that that  preachers do this, you know, put it in the margin of their their sermon, you know, argument weak, shout louder. And sometimes that works to get people's  attention, sometimes not. And so, what I want you to do right now is, we're going to reflect on what it means to be a speaker of passion. And so I got a brief video  for you to watch. And then we'll come back, and we'll talk about it again about  what does it mean to be a passionate preacher of God's word? I guess most of  us as preachers long to preach with passion. But we need to be careful that we  don't mistake passion, with personality or enthusiasm. Just for a few minutes, let me try and show you what the Bible has to say about what it means to really  preach with passion. One of my favorite pictures of what it means to be a  preacher comes from Isaiah 52. And let me read you some verses. How  beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who  proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to  Zion, your God reigns. And the picture is like a little village who've sent off some  people to war. And they're waiting back in their village for news of how the war is gone. And they wait day after day longing for someone to bring the news from  the battle line. And eventually, a figure is seen running down the mountain sides  towards the village and he's shouting something but it's difficult to hear what  he's shouting and as he gets closer you hear the good news that we've won.  And that is the picture of what it means to be a preacher. To be a preacher is  someone who comes to declare to announce to proclaim good news. I don't 

think if you were in that village anyone would be standing there saying how long  is this preacher gonna go on for? Do I need to get home get my rice potatoes  on? Because there is something compelling, something passionate, something  exciting about the announcement of good news. And so in our preaching, we are not simply Bible explainers. We are Bible proclaimers, we are announcing,  declaring proclaiming the good news. The New Testament word for preaching  the good news of the kingdom. It is one word it means to be a herald it means to be an announcer. And sometimes I wonder whether we lose that sense of  authority and declaration in our preaching. That when we reduce it simply to an  understanding, an explanation of what the Bible says, we miss the  announcement that declaring that our God reigns. One great example of this is  Peter on the day of Pentecost. You remember that Peter was filled with the Spirit as Jesus had promised, and then he stands up in front of a crowd. And he  preaches an astonishing sermon. And he finishes by saying this, therefore, let all Israel be assured of this. God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified both the Lord and Christ. Now, that is preaching with passion. We don't know whether he  said it loudly, whether he waved his arms or whether he stood very still and said  it quietly. The point is that the passion comes from the authority with which he  declared the good news that Jesus is King. And that that message that Peter  preached on that day, had an extraordinary impact in the lives of his hearers  3000 People were cut to the heart and cried out, what must I do to be saved.  And if we're going to be people who preach the gospel with passion, it's going to mean that we are people who are gripped by the good news that Jesus is King,  that he has been raised from the dead. We're going to be people who announce  that who declared, yes, we do want to explain the Bible carefully. But we want to go beyond simply explaining it, to declaring the good news. You think of other  examples, of sermons in the Bible, think of Paul in Athens in Acts 17, when he  said, I command you to repent, that a sense of authority and urgency in our  preaching. And if we're going to be preachers with passion, it's not about our  personality. It's not about a gimmick, it's not about our performance. It's about  declaring the good news, that our God reigns, that Jesus is King, and that his  kingdom has come. So how do you gain passion? Several things. Pray for it.  Prepare your message. With that in mind, when you present it, let yourself go. I  remember the day that I became passionate preacher, and I hope you've been  able to see in these classes up to this point that I'm passionate about preaching. And it is not mimiced, it's genuine. How do you get there with a sermon? I  remember the Sunday it happened. That week, I was preparing the message.  And it was a message debate. Luke chapter 12, where a man comes to Jesus  and says, Master bid my brother divide the inheritance with me, and Jesus says, who made me the judge among you. And then he went on to talk about having  treasure in heaven, says that we're not focused on the things of the earth where  moth and rust consume or thieves break in and steal. And I remember I was 

working on that and working on it. And I was praying that I'd have the message  because I was new, fairly new to preaching at that point. And I remember it was  it happened that Sunday morning as I got up to preach. All of a sudden, I  realized what this passage meant for me, that I should seek first the kingdom of  heaven. Seek first the kingdom of heaven. And all this other stuff, food and  clothing, shelter will be added to seek first, the kingdom of heaven. And I  remember preaching it about that morning at that time, there's a movie that was  fairly popular. A couple of men that are three of them, actually, that were in a  midlife crisis. And so they decided to do this thing signed up for a Western cattle  drive. And the man who was in charge of it was kind of a crusty cowboy kind of  guy. And in the process, they started talking about the meaning of life because  that's what these 40 Something men were questioning as they were there. And  this guy turned up to them and said one thing, it's one thing. They said, Well,  what's the one thing that you find? Uh, one thing? Jesus said, The One Thing is  seeking His kingdom. And so let go. A quote from Charles Spurgeon, the prince  of preachers preach not calmly and quietly as though you were asleep or preach was fire and pathos and passion. Or Dwight L. Moody, great revival preacher  who said, when asked, Why did people come to hear you preach? He said, Well, it's because I sent myself on fire and people just come to watch me burn so pray prepare asking God to let you understand how important this section of scripture is and your sermons will be more memorable