Andree Seu
Andrée Seu is a Senior Writer for WORLD and author of Won't Let You Go Unless You Bless Me and Normal Kingdom Business. A graduate of Westminster Seminary, she has four children and was widowed in 1999. She offers daily thoughts at worldontheweb.com.

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Joy from above

The best sermon is the sermon as testimony | by Andrée Seu

What a blessing when a sermon is a testimony. If the orator has had no living encounter with the material, the parishioners shift in their chairs. If God has done business with the man, we hang on every word. It astonishes. It comes with authority (Matthew 7:28-29). It surpasses mere textual knowledge as a road surpasses a map.

The testimony-sermon is the Word of God believed, then obeyed, then blessed in obedience, then reported to the congregation. It brings practical counsel from the crucible of personal suffering. It carries "the fullness of the blessing of Christ" (Romans 15:29), pushing into all dimensions. It lifts off the flattened page, from the realm of Idea to the realm of Incarnation in human affairs, providing entry points for God's "kingdom come."

For so God has ordained that His presence with power would be directly related to the praiseful obedience of His people. The testimony-sermon completes the circle of revelation and no longer short-circuits it. The Word of God is always truth applied to something, not to nothing.

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