Him we preach

To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. – Colossian 1v27-28

This is an election year in the United States. I have not been there, but if this is like every other election year tomorrow morning preachers all over America will stand in their pulpits and preach politics.

This is only one of the topics that will gather attention and be sure to get plenty of ‘amens.’ Personal preferences will be preached as Bible principles, some gossip in the church will be make it way to the preacher’s notes and he will want to deal with it publicly hoping to deal with it in a general way, perhaps, to avoid a one on one confrontation. I know the temptation – sometimes our desire to be praised gets in the way of faithful preaching.

I don’t think Paul worried a whole lot about hearing an ‘amen.’ What did Paul preach? ‘We preach Him [Jesus].’ Preaching Jesus is all we really need. By preaching Jesus Paul said that they were ‘warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom,’ with the eventual goal of presenting every man perfect and mature in Christ Jesus.’

“We preach Him.’ What an ambition, what a goal, and what a choice!

I guess if I could only give one word of advice to a preacher it would be ‘Preach Him!’