When I was growing up, my mom use to have (well, she still does) a phrase that she would use for leftovers.  She called them “mustgoes”.  She would say, “Tonight we are having mustgoes.”  You might think, “what are mustgoes?”  Mustgoes are when everything must go.  When she said “mustgoes” then we knew it was clean out the refrigerator night.  All the leftovers must go.
What do you think of when you hear the word leftovers?  Do you like leftovers?  Honestly, I would have to say that I do.  When you have leftovers it means that you get to eat sooner than if you had to cook a meal from scratch.  Some leftovers are actually pretty good — like cold pizza.  It’s not to bad at all.  But what about 2 days later?  The pizza that was AWESOME the first night when it was fresh and good the second day when it was cold is now just OK on day three.  By day 4 it is dried out, stale, and not very good.  Have you ever eaten leftovers after 5 or 6 days?  They are not very good.  Actually they are pretty bad at that point.
Let’s make a transition here.  We have been talking about food in our kitchens, but now let’s relate this to sermons that pastors preach.  Have you ever heard a leftover sermon?  You know the one that was preached last year or 2 years ago.  Maybe you attend a church where the pastor has a 2 or 3 year cycle. Every 2 or 3 years they preach the same thing.  Or maybe they have been there for a while and the cycle is longer, maybe 5, 6, or 7 years.
What is even worse than being served leftover sermons is being served someone else’s leftovers sermons.  With the advancement of the internet, there are sermons everywhere.  There are even special websites designed to post sermons that pastors have preached.  Now while the founders of these sites say they are there as research tools for pastors and they encourage them to study a variety of messages to gain insights from other pastors so they can then go write their own message, too many of the pastors who visit these sites simply steal someone else’s message and preach it as their own.  Oh, some pastors might reference the pastor as if they gained a few insights from them but if you checked the leftovers against the reheated leftovers you would find that you are eating the same thing.
So what is wrong with that?  Leftovers are leftovers, right?  Not exactly.  It is great to eat fresh meals at home each day.  It is even good to have some of that food as leftovers the next day. Every once in a while it is even nice to go out to a restaurant and eat the fresh food that someone else has cooked for you.  But how would you feel if you went out to a restaurant and all they offered you to eat was leftovers from yesterday, the day before, or even the day before that?  How would you feel if your server told you that the leftovers were not from the kitchen but were what was left on peoples’ plates?  They had scraped the food off and were going to give you the best of the leftovers.  The food was good.  The people liked it.  So it will be good for you too.  YUCK!  No Thank You!
But that is what is happening in our churches each and every week.  Some pastors are re-preaching old sermons that they preached years before.  They are serving leftovers.  Other pastors don’t even do that.  They search the internet to find someone else’s leftover sermon to serve to the people who came to feast upon the Word of God.
What ever happened to the men of God who would go into their “study” and spend days in prayer and studying God’s Word in order “to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the Word of Truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15)?  Instead of spending time searching the internet for someone else’s sermon, where are the men of God who say “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the Word of God.” (Acts 6:2)?
I don’t know about you, but I am tired of leftovers.  I am hungry for some fresh food from the Word of God. As Job said, “I have treasured the Words of His mouth more than my daily bread.” (Job 23:12)  I love to read God’s Word each day.  It is my daily bread.  Now, give me some men of God who will come alongside my own personal study, and will serve it up hot and fresh each week as the Body of Christ comes together in worship to the Almighty God.