Be sure to start with part one of this article, found here.

The craving for recognition needs to die.

Number five: The craving for recognition is strong and it needs to die. I'm not just talking about the desire for praise here. That's there. But there is something bigger that I'm trying to capture in this word recognition: The desire to be acknowledged. It's a craving for all your work to be recognized. It's a craving to somehow be recognized. The craving for recognition is very strong, and it needs to die.

I'm beginning to think that for pastors who preach weekly, they need a definitive work of mortification in this area. I believe God desires and frequently brings about this work early, maybe even in the first few years. That seems to me to make sense. If he's going to use you over a long period of time there's a work he needs to get done early. God will bring the young preacher through some refining.

Now don't automatically assume that all the distress in your life is due to this work of God. Sometimes there's the stress of transition, adjusting to a new rhythm that you haven't been used to before. Sometimes it's the stress of pastoral load. Sometimes it's the stress of needing to actually grow in your preaching. There are things that actually need to be adjusted. Sometimes it's the stress of carrying sin. But nonetheless, I believe it is not uncommon for God to walk a young preacher through a process of refinement.

Let me share with you what God did for me. About two years into my preaching I was regularly experiencing an unusual amount of anxiety in the morning late in the week. It didn't take long for my wife Bev and I to figure out that it was connected to the preaching responsibility, because it was particularly acute on Thursday mornings. I could hold it off Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. But I would wake up on Thursday mornings with heaviness, and it was sometimes approaching despair. It went on for a matter of months and it got worse, so that we got concerned about it.

So Beverly ministered to me in ways that were profound. She prayed for me. She would get up with me. She would speak to me. She would write me notes. It was amazing. But it went on. It just went on and we couldn't quite figure it out: God, what's going on?

We drew some other men into this. There were three or four guys that I very purposefully laid this out. We explored. Was I overextended? Was there a sin issue? Apart from this mortification thing was there some other sin issue that God was pressing on me—a Psalm 51 type pressing. Is there something like that?

Our best understanding was this: This was not something to try to escape. This was not something that was going to be fixable by identifying some solution. This was something God was walking us through. The best thing to do was to humble yourself under the mighty hand of God and let him do his work. It was not fun. I believe God was weaning me from myself and was cultivating a desperation for him and a desire for him to be recognized, not me. I think God was training me in a verse that I had chosen as a teenager, according to my earnest expectation and my hope that "in nothing I shall be ashamed but that with all boldness as always so now also Christ should be magnified in my body whether by life or by death." So I think that's what was happening. I know for me there was a definitive work that God was doing and I believe God did.

But having done that work there is still a need for an ongoing work. You will always wrestle with yourself as a rival to God. So you will need to have some mechanisms in place—some habits of thought, some habits of practice—before you preach and after you preach to purposefully put this to death. One of the greatest helps to me in this regard has been the passage in 1 Corinthians 4. 1 Corinthians 4:1-5 became for me a companion. I think it's a good one to have in your arsenal.

This, then, is how you ought to regard us: as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed. Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. At that time each will receive their praise from God.

Now I think those realities—the reality of stewardship, the reality of the fact that what's required of stewards is faithfulness, the fact that God will judge you and the fact that he will commend—will help you to invest fully in your labor while at the same time sitting very loosely from yourself.

So that after you're done preaching whether in the presence of recognition or in the absence of recognition, whether in the presence of feedback or the absence of feedback, whether in the presence of praise or the absence of praise your heart will still say, "Oh, I'm already thinking about next week. I'm already investing in next week's responsibility."

Effectiveness in your preaching is dependent on God.

Number six: Effectiveness in your preaching really is utterly and completely dependent on God. Listen to the words of Spurgeon: "All the hope of our ministry lies in the Spirit of God operating on the spirits of men." You are utterly and completely dependent on God, and God is faithful.

Listen to the words of Dr. John Piper:

How utterly dependent we are on the Holy Spirit in the work of preaching. All genuine preaching is rooted in a feeling of desperation. You go to your study. You look down at your pitiful manuscript and you kneel down and you cry, "God, this is so weak. Who do I think I am? What audacity to think that in three hours my words will be the odor of death to death and the fragrance of life to life. My God, who is sufficient for these things?"

I think it was Lloyd-Jones who said at one point, "To me there is nothing more terrible for a preacher than to be in the pulpit alone, without the conscious smile of God." There's nothing more terrible than to be in the pulpit alone. We are utterly and completely dependent on God. But God is faithful.

Yes you are utterly and completely dependent on him for strength, for illumination and insight both during your study, during your writing, during your preaching, but especially for the efficacy of the Word during your preaching. God must perform a miracle every Sunday. But he does it. He does it and he delights to do it. God really does use your preaching. Real transformation happens.

He uses means. He does it through spiritual gifting. God gives gifts, and he intends to use them to accomplish something. You can trust God for that. Spiritual gifting both requires faith and it encourages faith. God's asking you to exercise faith. But the fact of spiritual gifting also ought to encourage your faith. Thinking about the reality of spiritual gifting will shift your focus from self-confidence to trust in God.

He also works through the act of ministry of the Holy Spirit. During your preparation. I'm so encouraged by this growing awareness of the Spirit's activity during sermon preparation. I've grown to love this, especially during the writing. This has been kind of an interesting thing. I used to only love the research part and didn't like the writing part. Now I love the writing part because it's a place where I'm experiencing God's presence.

I have recently gotten in the habit of having another little pad by my writing desk and all I do is keep a tally for every time that I sense God has just given me words and phrases. You feel like you're being borne along; the active presence of the Holy Spirit of God in your writing.

Then during the preaching, there is what Lloyd-Jones calls the conscious smile of God, this awareness of God's presence. You're experiencing, I don't know how to say it, something bigger than yourself is happening while you are preaching. So I'm learning to cultivate a greater awareness of God's presence by his Spirit, and I have a greater desire for God's presence by his Spirit in preparation and delivery.

Yes, all the hope of our ministry lies in the Spirit of God operating on the spirits of men. Any genuine change is a distinct work of God. It's very important that you know that. It's very important we remind ourselves of that. We are completely and utterly dependent on God, and God is faithful.

Now let me just mention two other means of grace to you in preaching. I want to talk about the prayers of the people and the prayers of your spouses.

Implore the prayers of your people on your behalf. Yes there's the possibility of doing this in a self-promoting or a self-absorbed way: Please pray for me. But it doesn't have to be that way. Ask them to pray regularly for you. Ask them to pray for the Spirit's power. Ask them to pray for humility, boldness, and words. I believe there is a particular eagerness on God's part to bless his people as they gather on Sunday morning, and to bless them particularly with his Word. So ask the people to pray, and if possible have a group of them praying for you and with you on Sunday mornings.

Some years ago we started a prayer gathering at nine o'clock on Sunday mornings. Our service starts at ten. I had no idea how much strength I would derive from that meeting. It ends typically with folks gathering around me or whoever is preaching that morning. It can be awkward. In fact what I appreciate so much about the guy who gives leadership to this is he knows it's awkward and yet he tells me pretty much every week "I know this is awkward for you, but we're going to keep doing it. We're going to keep doing this, gathering around you and praying." And I tell you, I can't wait to find out in heaven all that God did because of that. Even in this lifetime when I'm an old man sitting on a rocking chair on a porch and I reflect back on my life, those are going to be sweet memories, nine o'clock Sunday mornings.

Then very specifically I would encourage you to implore the prayers of your spouse. I believe preaching prospers under the prophetic voice of a close ally. Godly spouses are a gift, and they have a role to play. Implore your spouse to carry this burden with you, to pray for you, to speak to you words of encouragement, biblical encouragement. Don't be content with nice words. Biblical encouragement is putting something in you that wasn't there before—putting strength in your heart that wasn't there before, putting hope in your heart that wasn't there before, putting courage in your heart that wasn't there before. I think the best model of this in Scripture is Jonathan going out to David, who's now running from Saul. He's out in the desert of Ziph and nobody knows here he is but Jonathan finds him. And he goes out. And you know what 1 Samuel 23:16 says? "Jonathan helped him find strength in God." He put something in his heart that was not there before. That's encouragement.

Preaching is a costly act of love.

Finally, number seven: Preaching is a costly act of love. Ultimately preaching is an act of love, but it's a costly act. Bruce Thielemann said, "The pulpit calls those anointed to it as the sea calls its sailors. And like the sea, it batters and bruises and does not rest. To preach, to really preach is to die naked a little at a time and to know each time you do it that you must do it again."

So just a little note of encouragement, I thought I'd give you another quote. Even more poignant. E.M. Bounds: "Life giving preaching costs the preacher much. Death to self. Crucifixion to the world. The travail of his own soul. Crucified preaching only can give life. Crucified preaching can come only from one who has been crucified."

So how should you pray? You should pray, God, give me love for this people that goes beyond my awareness of the cost. Give me a love for you and your Word that is born out of labor in your Word, that on Sunday mornings that love might shine like a diamond. Help me to lay down my life so that my preaching can give life.

It's not just your prayers, it's your presence as well as you give yourself away every Sunday. As you spend yourself every Sunday you can't make that up. That flows out of care. That flows out of love. So the question is this: Do you care about what you're preaching? Do you care about the people to whom you are preaching? Or—here's the sobering part—do you primarily care about yourself in preaching? It is love for Christ and the love of Christ that should control you.

So let me leave you with these words of Paul and this question: "I resolve to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified." Are those words the standard for both the content and the character of your preaching? Is that both the content and the character of your preaching?

Amen.

Mike Bullmore senior pastor of CrossWay Community Church in Bristol, Wisconsin.