Zack Eswine—whose blog is well worth subscribing to, especially if you’re a pastor—has very helpful counsel for those who share this common frustration: “Sometimes we may feel there is no point in preaching because we do not see the kinds of changes in our hearers or ourselves that we had hoped for.”
His whole post is worth reading. Here’s an excerpt:
All is not lost when the after-sermon desert offers no water.
This moment may have been meant to prepare some for what they have yet to face.
It may be meant to call out to others months from now when they are more heedless or needy than they are today.
It may serve as one more evidence of the hardness of one’s heart.
It may serve as one more piece in a puzzle God is putting together for another—the picture will not complete for some time, but completeness will not happen without the corner-piece offered by the sermon today.
Those who are changed seemingly in a moment by your sermon today have had multiple moments of God’s working prior. Take heart. There is seed there though it lay beneath the ground. Step out into the barren field dear friend, and pray for His rain to fall.
