Is Jesus Christ the dominant theme in your preaching? In the pulpit, do you magnify his sovereign lordship and saving work? In your ministry, do you continually point your listeners to him? Do you call people to commit their lives to Him?
– Steven Lawson in The Kind of Preaching God Blesses
A Sabbath heart is restful even in the midst of unrest and upheaval. It is attentive to the presence of God and others even in the welter of much coming and going, rising and falling. It is still and knows God even when mountains fall into the sea.
Worship flows from love. Where love is meager, worship will be scant. Where love is deep, worship will overflow.
Simply put, all preachers are finite, and we must rely upon the infinite power of God in our pulpit ministries.
Setting apart an entire day, one out of seven, for feasting and resting and worship and play is a gift and not a burden, and neglecting the gift too long will make your soul, like soil never left fallow, hard and dry and spent.
All man’s ideologies are spiritually bankrupt. They are impoverished in their inability to save. God alone is the Author of saving wisdom. Every preacher must be deeply persuaded of this reality, or he has no right to the pulpit. 
Without rest, we miss the rest of God: the rest he invites us to enter more fully so that we might know him more deeply. “Be still, and know that I am God.” Some knowing is never pursued, only received. And for that, you need to be still. 
Hope is essential to human life…. God’s master story, of course, is the story of hope…. This hope strengthens us in the hardships and drudgeries of everyday life. Knowing where all things in heaven and earth are headed, we can wait and persevere…. Without it we are left with grumbling, addiction, or despair. 
This foundational truth of Christ and Him crucified must be emblazoned upon every preacher’s soul.
Brian J. Mikul 