Coming to a Close

After 31 years of pastoral ministry, my pastorate is coming to a close. I have been at my present post for 11 years in Fresno and on Sunday I will preach my final sermon. What would you want to say if it was not just your final sermon as pastor but was your final sermon as a local pastor (I'm fairly sure I will preach again since my doctoral work is in Homiletics, the science of preaching)? What should I say? If you had only one more opportunity to share from the Bible, what passage would you choose? What theme would you highlight? What statements would you want to make sure you made?
I'm not sure that is what preaching is really all about. To be a preacher means that you are "a herald of a message that is not your own". To come to believe that the spoken word about the written Word is yours to create is to begin the slide down the slippery slope of heresy. Preaching is at its core the sensing of and the leading of the Holy Spirit both in the study and in the delivery of the message. Without His involvement and direction, preachers may give good speeches but not great sermons. So, the real question of the week is not what my final sermon will be about but what does the Holy Spirit have in mind for the congregation on this week? Sermons are not about what one preaches and the satisfaction derived from doing a good exegetical job, it is about communicating to an audience the gospel of Jesus Christ in such a way that the message is timely for the moment and usable by the Holy Spirit to meet the needs of a vast array of lives that are all at different spiritual points and facing different crises in their personal lives. For instance, two of those families that will attend this week have lost loved ones. Several others are coming off deep personal crises that have overwhelmed their lives. Still others are resistant to the gospel; some are dreading our leaving; others are looking forward to our departure; and most have no idea what the coming days and weeks may be like for them and for their families. Into such a cauldron of boiling issues the preacher must add just the right blend of spices to help make the stew of people's lives palatable and understandable from a spiritual realm. Not an easy task you say? An impossible task, I say. Unless it is done under the guidance and movement of the Holy Spirit. Only He can take the morsels dropped from the table of the Word and the activity of worship and make them into a recipe designed for each life.
So, what shall I preach? There are many things I want to say. Many things I desire to say. But for this day, this Sunday, the Holy Spirit keeps drawing me back to praise. The 150th Psalm speaks of the unbridled praise one offers no matter what the circumstance or what instruments are in your hand. "Let's All Be Part of the Band" sounds like a good title. I will see if this is indeed the will of the Lord.