BE A GOOD MINISTER

 1 TIMOTHY 4                                      

Pastor Rick Jackson

 

By God’s grace, I have been preaching for 48 years. Until I sat down and started this message I hadn’t realized how varied a ministry the Lord has allowed me to have over the years. I have pastored 3 churches for 38 of those 48 years. I have preached in homes, schools, churches, Sunday Schools, nursing homes, military bases, funeral homes, restaurants and fairgrounds. I have preached over an hour and have preached for a few minutes. I have preached in person, on the radio and on the internet. I have driven to preach, walked to preach and once I even flew to preach. I have preached to 1 or 2 and I have preached to thousands. I have been boring and hopefully I have been interesting. Any good that has come from my preaching is to the Lord’s credit, any bad is mine.

I was fortunate that when God called me to preach He had already taught me what to preach, His Word. It is a great relief to me to not have to pour through encyclopedias and other reference books to find something worthy to preach I just reach for the Book, God’s Holy Word, the Bible. It is a great shock to me that some Christians complain when a preacher preaches the Bible. What should we expect any preacher to declare? Every preacher should declare:

 

I. THE GOSPEL OF GOD [1 Cor. 1:17]

 

1. It is the power of God unto salvation [Rm. 1:16]

2. Lost people need to hear it [Rm. 10:8-17]

3. Saved people need to hear it [1 Peter 1:3-9, 25]

 

II. THE WORD OF GOD [Acts 20:27-32]

 

1. The example of Jesus [Mk. 2:2]

2. The example of the apostles [Acts 8:4, 25; 13:5, 14:25, 15:35-36, 17:13, 20:27]

3. The admonition of the Scripture [2 Tm. 4:2, Titus 1:3]

 

III. AS LED BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD [Micah 3:5-8]

 

1. We need Him [John 14:16-17, 15:26, 16:7-15]

2. We need His direction [Acts 13:1-5, 16:6-11]

3. We need His power [1 Cor. 2:1-5]