Yesterday was the Christmas Concert at Agape Family Fellowship in Albany/Tangent where I am the Interim Pastor. We had seven special music performances that were solos, instrumentals, and duets. The music was so good, it was obvious that everyone put in a lot of time practicing. I am sure that everyone in the audience was incredibly blessed by the music. My part was to preach a short 10-minute gospel presentation at the end that made it clear what Christmas is all about. It is funny, a normal sermon that I preach each week is 40 minutes and I don’t get nervous about it, but this short sermon made me very nervous about how I would do. I went over it in my head dozens of times, and rewrote it three times. I think the reason that I was so nervous is because I expected a number of people to be in the audience who didn’t know the Lord so I wanted what I shared to be very clear. I prayed a lot asking God to use me, to speak through me, and to help me not to mess up the message. I get to preach the same message this coming weekend at JBC on Saturday, and twice on Sunday morning so I should be practiced up after yesterday. I love teaching “Leadership class,” writing my blog, preaching through 1 Peter on Wednesday nights, and getting to preach occasionally on weekends, and other occasions as they pop up. Preaching and teaching the Bible is God’s method of drawing people to Himself so that they become believers and followers of Him. He expects that those who are given this responsibility will be faithful and responsible and will prepare well. That is what I get nervous about.

1 Corinthians 1:21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.