I’ll admit it. Sometimes, as a preacher, you get frustrated with the people you’re preaching to. You preach and preach, but growth is slow, the harvest takes a long time to come in, and many of the words fall on “rocky ground.” In other words, the people just don’t seem to be getting it. Worse, they don’t even seem to care that they’re not getting it.

The people listening can feel the same way about the preacher. We can feel like he’s going too long, he’s not “feeding us,” we don’t like his style, or generally aren’t getting his points.

This problem is understandable. After all, at the same time preaching is abrasive and gives us healing. It is rough and gives us comfort. It tears down our flesh and builds up our spirit. It is spoken by man and we are spoken to by God. There is bound to be strife between the preacher and the people every once and a while.

At the end of Colossians, Paul says a few things that are helpful here:

v. 2 - “Continue in prayer,”

v. 3 - “Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ,”

v. 12 - “Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you, always labouring fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.”

Paul says to continue in prayer. He says that we should pray for him, the preacher, that God would give him a chance to preach the gospel. Later, he tells the people that their preacher, Epaphrus, is praying for them.

I don’t know much about cars, but I know that the piston is needed to work the engine, much like the preaching is needed to work in the lives of the hearers. However, the friction caused by this movement can wreck the engine if there is no oil to go between the parts.

Prayer is the answer. It brings in the oil of the Holy Spirit to go between the preacher and the people. In such an important thing as preaching, or hearing preaching, the spiritual transaction must be “greased” with the oil of the Holy Spirit.

So, preachers, are you praying for the people you’re preaching to? We should be praying for them “fervently!” And for us hearers, are we praying for our preacher? If there is tension on either side, spending time in fervent prayer for one another could be the answer.