Why do we not expect pulpit preaching to promote worship?Two reasons are given. First, sermons have begun to be moral lessons, rather than expositions of God's Word. A God-centered, redemptive sermon will allow us to worship. A sermon of this kind will cause us to look heavenward and embrace by faith the God who redeemed us.
Secondly, we have become poor listeners with no expectation of seeing God. "Good listening requires good thinking and good thinking is a chore."
James Stewart: "If in a congregation one soul here and another there may be receiving, as the sermon proceeds, some vision of the majesty of God, some glimpse of the loveliness of Christ, some revelation of personal need beneath the searchlight of the Spirit, is the ministry of the Word to be minimized... Is not such preaching worship?"
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