Jay Herndon

Preach to the Need 

She sat on the front row every time she was in church. She was an eccentric woman, a high-needs, high-maintenance person. A Jewish lady with a Master's degree in Buddhism. And now she was in Church. "I love Jesus," she assured me with all the sincerity that she could muster. But she wasn't sure that He was the Son of God. And when I asked her to trust Jesus, she often faltered. She loved Him, but she couldn't trust him. She was often offended by my assertion that Jesus was God. And so her relationship with the church was on-again/off-again: she would sit in the front row for a month or so, until the offenses became too great, and then she would quit for awhile. Eventually she would come back again, sitting on the front row.

I often wondered why she kept coming back, clearly she was going to be offended again. So why was she there?

After every sermon she gave me her evaluation—she told me whether she agreed or not. And after every "good sermon" she would look at me intently, and say, "Always preach to the need, Pastor! Always preach to the need!"

Most of her comments and conversations were a little bizarre, the kind that you take with a grain of salt. But after many repetitions her point began to sink in. The reason that she came back is because the message touched her need. And as peculiar as this lady was, she began to teach me something about preaching—"always preach to the need." The maxim resounds in my mind now, every time I prepare a sermon, "always preach to the need."

All people have tremendous needs. Some disguise their need with expensive clothes and a mask of sufficiency, but the need is still there. And it is up to the preacher to expose it and present Jesus as the answer to it. Peter did this on the day of Pentecost: exposing their need so expertly that they were "cut to the heart" and asking "what shall we do?" Peter preached to the need.

Too many sermons are merely homiletic entertainment, theological amusement, preached with the hopes that people will say, "What a great preacher he is." But that is not the kind of preaching that Jesus wants from us. Every Sunday people come to church driven by various needs: physical, financial, emotional, family, spiritual and so on. Some are lonely, some are afraid, some are hurting, some are desperate, some are guilty. And much more. What a tragedy that they come to church and not have their need acknowledged and addressed! Jesus wants us to meet these needs.

I think the third chapter in my eventual book, "Passages for Pastors: Common sense advice from scripture for those in the ministry" will address this issue: "Always preach to the need." I hope it echoes in your mind every week.

Acts 2:37 "When they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?"

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