“Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned:” (1 Timothy 1:5)

Brothers, let us realize the goal of our preaching in the church. There are many ideas about what should be preached, and to what end. What is the goal of the pastor’s preaching to be? It is to be love.

Love is often considered by many to be a weak substitute for godliness. The truth is that love fulfills the law and is the first and second of all commandments (Romans 13:8-10;Matthew 22:35-40. It is only by love that we can truly help our brethren by bearing their burdens (Galatians 6:1-3). It is only by love that we are demonstrated to be the followers of Jesus (John 13:34-35). It is by love that we know that we are saved (1 John 3:14).

Brothers, we must abandon worldly ideas and ways, even when they are framed in religious terms (This is what we saw in the first four verses of this chapter.), and yield to the Word of God as the authority for our ministries; and God’s Word commands us to teach and preach that God expects love out of us.

There are those who will oppose us in this teaching. They will bring to bear many texts of Scripture to support their contentions. Do not be dismayed by this, as we are told by Paul that they have a fundamental problem: they don’t know what they are talking about. They lack understanding of God’s Word (1 Timothy 1:5-7). Those who miss love miss everything (1 Corinthians 16:22;1 John 4:7-8).

Our teaching should be saturated with the love of God, our preaching should always point toward loving God, and the result should be that the love of God would be shown by us to those around us.

Brothers, the goal of the law is to bring us to Christ that we might by Him love God and one another, and this should be what we aim for in our preaching ministries.

Published by JasonS