You preached that before!

It is quite likely that you have members of your church that mark the texts that you have preached. It is not uncommon for one of them to come to you with a bit of a wagging finger and say "you have preached that before."

What church members fail to realize is that passages of Scripture are not disposable. In their minds, use it once and you cannot use it again. Might as well rip it out of your Bible.

This past Sunday, I again had one of those conversations with a church member. The church member happened to be my wife! Once again, I explained that I may have preached from that text before, but that it was in fact a fresh sermon. I had not even looked at any old notes.

But she had. In fact, she had notes from both sermons in her Bible....and the sermons were nearly identical!

At this point, I was a little embarrassed. Had I really, unintentionally recycled an old sermon?

It is my preaching goal to have my sermon echo the spirit and content of the text. Here, several years apart, I had come to the same text, prayed over it, examined it from every angle I could, tried to understand the Spirit's design for the passage and then developed two extremely similar preaching outlines.

As I thought about it, the text hadn't changed so why should the sermon? The more I thought about it, the better I felt about both the messages.

Conviction Whiplash

Ministry brothers, a quick word if I may.

I have been reading in Ezekiel recently and was caught by these words this morning in chapter 33.

30"As for you, son of man, your people who talk together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses, say to one another, each to his brother, 'Come, and hear what the word is that comes from the LORD.' 31 And they come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear what you say but they will not do it; for with lustful talk in their mouths they act; their heart is set on their gain. 32And behold, you are to them like one who sings lustful songs with a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument, for they hear what you say, but they will not do it. 33 When this comes—and come it will!— then they will know that a prophet has been among them."

I must admit, while I love my church those words resonated in me. It spoke to the frustration that I often feel on Sundays and even more so during the week. The appearance of attentiveness, yet possibly they see church as little more than spiritual entertainment.

To be honest, I wanted to yell out.... "yeah, that is what the problem in my church is!" It is the stinking sheep.

Oh, if only my reading for the day had ended there. I could have smugly gone about the rest of my day shaking my head about my people.

But instead I continued to read into chapter 34.

1The word of the LORD came to me: 2 "Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy, and say to them, even to the shepherds, Thus says the Lord GOD: Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? 3 You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. 4 The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them. 5 So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild beasts. 6My sheep were scattered; they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. My sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with none to search or seek for them.

7"Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD: 8 As I live, declares the Lord GOD, surely because my sheep have become a prey, and my sheep have become food for all the wild beasts, since there was no shepherd, and because my shepherds have not searched for my sheep, but the shepherds have fed themselves, and have not fed my sheep, 9therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD: 10Thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my sheep at their hand and put a stop to their feeding the sheep. No longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them.

When a pastor becomes more concerned about his own interests....his comforts, his satisfaction, his success, his salary.... than he is about the care for his flock (yes, those same stinking sheep from chapter 33) then he is in deep trouble. God Himself stands against the shepherd!

Pastoring is tough enough by itself. I shudder to think about doing it with God opposed to me.

Why do these passages have to stand back to back in Scripture? Couldn't I have had a few moments to revel in the indictment of the brokenness of my people without having to deal with the brokenness of the pastor?

They stand so close together in the Word, because they stand so close together in my church.