One of the things preachers must aim to do is move the hearts of their hearers. That is, the sermon is not a lecture that seeks to merely inform the mind, though that’s necessary. The sermon aims to engage both the mind and the heart.

Tim Keller writes, “A sermon that just informs the mind can give people things to do after they go home, but a sermon that moves the heart from loving career or acclaim or one’s own independence to loving God and his Son changes listeners on the spot” (Keller, Preaching, 165).

Keller goes on to point out that preaching to the heart requires that a preacher preaches from the heart. “It’s got to be clear that your own heart has been reached by the truth of the text” (Keller, 166). Those who are sitting under your preaching should see and hear and feel how the text has pressed into your life, moved your affections, caused you joy or sorrow, and given you hope. The listener should see how you are getting your points from the text itself (teaching them to read their Bibles) and they should see (perhaps with the eyes of their own hearts) how the truth of God’s Word has set your own affections aflame.

I think this is one of the reasons John Piper has been so massively influential in my own life. Perhaps this helps explain his popularity as a preacher for over thirty years. When Pastor John steps into the pulpit, you know you’re going to hear someone who pays assiduous attentiveness to the text of Scripture. He breaks down the text in fine detail, noting how each proposition relates to the other. No word is left untouched. Yet, you also know that a Piper sermon is not merely going to make you think. As he unpacks the Word of God, you can see and feel how much of an impact these eternal truths have made on his own life. He preaches with precision and passion. And that passion is infectious. Because his own heart has been moved, he is better prepared, by the power of the Spirit, to move your heart.

So, preachers, aim to preach in such a way that both mind and heart are engaged.

What I want to note here in closing is one implication of what Keller asserts and what Piper demonstrates. If preaching to the heart of the people means the preacher’s own heart must be reached by the text, then part of preparing to preach is taking time to savor the truths of the Bible. By savor, I mean that a preacher should feel the weight or value of biblical realities. So, preacher, as you prepare to engage the affections of your hearers on Sunday, do you build into your weekly sermon prep ways to press the Bible into your own heart? Sure, you can’t conjure such things up. But the Spirit uses means. So, take some time this week to set aside the technical aspects of sermon prep and simply pray. Pray and, perhaps, meditate, or journal, and ask the Spirit of God to simply blow your heart away with the truths of his Word.

Then, having labored to see great and glorious things in the Bible, having been moved by the Spirit to savor what you’ve seen, go to the pulpit to stand and say what you saw.