Hi everyone!

As I was working on my sermon this week, I thought, “I am not going to preach on anything that someone else hasn’t preached before.” There have been so many great preachers that have come before me, including one of my favorites Billy Graham. At a former church, one of the older members came up to me and said, “We need more people to come to church. You should preach more like Billy Graham.” I replied, “If I could preach like Billy Graham, I would sure do it.” Oh, how I wish I could!

In Bible history, King Solomon was the guy who led the Israelites in building the first temple in Jerusalem (957 BC). God gave him great wisdom, and with it, Solomon wrote the book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament. In Ecclesiastes 1:9-10 Solomon writes, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new?”

As a preacher, there is nothing new that I can preach that hasn’t been preached before. However, there are people who haven’t heard it before! This is incredibly liberating for me because I don’t have to come up with any new material to preach each Sunday! I just need to put it in a form that my hearers can understand and identify with today. The guy in the middle of this meme doesn’t translate the message very well:

I want you to be encouraged. When you talk about Jesus to someone, you don’t have to have the Bible memorized, you don’t have to have the skills of Billy Graham… you just have to be you. Tell people what Jesus means to you. Do it with the lack of social filters and honesty of a 5-year old!

Simply say, “When my life has [insert vivid description], Jesus has always been there for me."

What you say may have been said before, but it may be brand new for that person, and it might just be what they needed to hear.

Thank you for 30 seconds of your time. Go in peace and tell others about Jesus!

Pastor Gary

St. Mark Lutheran Church - Santa Rosa, CA