By the Word of God the heavens were made.
The Word of God is living and active.
When we read, listen to and meditate on the Word of God stuff happens.
In my calling to preach the Word I need to remember that the Word of God is more living and active than I am.
My calling has never been and never will be to create a word or empower a word. God calls me to re-present His Word in all of its world-making, kingdom shaking authority.
I love how Hughes Oliphant Old puts it in the first volume of his multi-volume work on preaching and worship.
One might even go so far as to say that according to the prologue of the Gospel of John, Jesus is God’s sermon to us preached in the living out of a human life. It is to this sermon, then, that all our sermons witness; it is this sermon that all our preaching unfolds and interprets. If God’s ultimate revelation is a word, then we can serve God in no higher way than to be ministers of that Word. Furthermore, it must be to God’s Word that our word responds. Our sermons only have authority to the extent that they reflect his sermon. When they do reflect his sermon then they have tremendous authority.