You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘preaching’ tag.
I find this audio message of Piper (it’s actually two that are condensed into one, and therefore 90 minutes) very helpful for those who are discovering more of the Sovereignty of God in salvation. We have shared it with those wrestling with reformed theology. I hope you enjoy it!
The Glory of God in the Gospel
Much has been made of the ‘Apostles teaching’ in Acts 2 and that the early believers ‘devoted themselves to it’. What exactly was this apostles teaching? For us to understand what it means today, we must understand what it meant firstly in that context.
Firstly it was the teaching of the Apostles. Those whom Jesus had left behind, and Matthias who had replaced Judas. At the time of Acts 2, these were the Apostles.
Secondly, what did they teach? When we read through Acts we see that there was one common thread through everything that was taught by the apostles, which was the gospel. A quick study of all of the teaching / preaching of the Apostles in the book of Acts reveals this very quickly. As can be found in the previous post here, every time an apostle opened his mouth in scripture he preached the gospel. In fact they would find a way to jump from their present circumstances straight to the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus! This was the apostles teaching!
As Paul says ‘when I came to you I resolved to know nothing among you except for Christ and Him crucified’. And surely, when we see the clarity with which the apostles preached the gospel would we be able to understand how Paul could say ‘the church is built on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets’. The prophets in the Old Testament had spoken of Christ to come, the apostles in the New Testament declared him crucified, risen and ascended.
The devotion to the Apostles teaching in Acts 2 gets worked out in so many other practical ways in the chapter, it’s hardly surprising it’s mentioned first. The devotion to the gospel led to fellowship, breaking of bread in celebration of Christ, and praying to the God with whom we now have access! They claimed none of their possessions as their own, they sold things for others, shared their lives with each other, any many got saved.
Jeremiah was right, new ways are always just a form of old ways (Jer 6.6). If a man today would claim to live in any shadow of an apostolic gifting then scripture makes it plainly clear that his first love is God and his first message is the gospel. This is what establishes churches, this is what strengthens churches, and this is what matures churches.
As we start 2010 I would love to encourage pastors to increase the amount of time that they commit to preach through books of the bible. I started the church in November 2008 by preaching a 4 part series through Habakkuk, and ended 2009 with a 9 part series on Philippians. In the first 56 weeks of RHC, we preached Bible book series’ 75% of the time, did another one series which took up another 10% of the year, and the rest (about 15%) was from standalone sermons by either guests or myself. My plan for 2010 is to keep it roughly the same.
Although I grew up in a church that did very little expository preaching, I have found it to be excellent for myself and the church on a number of levels and I highly recommend it for the following reasons:
1. Series are a great way for the church to get onboard and move in one direction over a period of time. Homegroup studies can be easily put out through the series (as we have done on our website), the kids ministry can follow the preaching series as well (at RHC, the Kids Ministry follows the preaching schedule almost exactly).
2. It forces me to study the bible in depth, beyond my devotions. This is something all pastors should be doing (and even if you are preaching through books you should study more in advance). I love that I have to get a few commentaries per book that I am studying, and really dig deep.
3. It gives me a text to preach for the week, and therefore my preparation is far more focused. It doesn’t lighten my load at all, if anything it’s more work to prepare but the work is more focused. I don’t spend time wondering what to preach, but wondering how to preach the text. This means that the quality of preaching is improved.
4. I can deal with difficult subjects without anyone feeling picked on. When we are talking about homosexuality, it’s because the text says so, nor because I discovered someone struggling with it in the church. The same with money, marriage, etc.
5. It forces me to preach the full counsel of God. My pet themes don’t always come out every week in a different form. The text is there and I have no option but to preach it. This forces growth for both myself as the pastor and the church. It’s biblical and wonderful.
6. It keeps me preaching the great themes of the bible in their correct proportion. I have found that ecclesiology isn’t really that big a deal! Christ’s finished work, redemption, the personal outworking of the gospel and scripture in our lives become the major themes that dominate the scriptures.
7. One of the reasons I love preaching through books the most though, is that I have to really wrestle personally with the texts before I preach them. I have found most of my personal spiritual growth has come from wrestling with texts in the week before I preach on them. How can I stand up and say ‘To live is Christ and die is gain’ unless I have come to the point before God? How can I preach on faith unless God is stirring my heart?!
8. You can go away for a weeks study break every 4 months and really thrash out large portions of preparation at this time. Your study has a specific focus and outworking. If your plans change and you don’t end up using all your prep, you have wasted nothing. These times of getting away and getting refreshed become incredibly helpful.
Some may have various reasons in mind why they shouldn’t do this. Here are some of the common reasons, and what I would say to them:
1. “We want to be Holy Spirit led”. I have often found that this reason is not really that people want to be Holy Spirit led but that they want to leave their prep / planning to the last minute. If God can tell you what to preach on the Thursday before the weekend why can’t He tell you 2 months in advance? I find that having a text beforehand makes me come to it in prayer asking the Holy Spirit to guide me in terms of what to say and emphasize in the passage.
2. “We want to do something relevant”. I would say your job as a pastor is not to give people life lessons with a few scriptures. That is not able to make disciples. Teach them to work through passages of scripture, especially the tough ones. There is nothing more relevant.
3. “What if there are many people sharing the pulpit?” I have found this only helps with training preachers and keeping the church on one track even when many others are preaching.
4. “I feel I want to preach on something different every week”. This is probably the best objection actually, and I have no real way to counter this except to say that you will likely find that when you preach this way, you don’t end up covering the full counsel of God, and most likely just cycle through your favorite subjects in one form or another.
I would greatly encourage you to explore preaching through books of the bible in 2010. My encouagement is that even if you start small, make that start and allow God to grow you in this area of preaching.
This post is taken in entirety from here.
Over at Enjoying God Ministries, Sam Storms, gives some helpful instruction on preaching.
In the second of three articles in his series An Appeal to All Pastors: Why and How Should We Preach, Sam gives us eight reasons why pastors should be committed to biblical preaching.
- We must preach because of the power of the Word of God to change human lives and to transform the experience of the church.
- We must preach because preaching is God’s ordained means for making himself known to us.
- We must preach because preaching not only communicates truth about God, it also mediates the very person and power of God.
- We must preach because preaching (aside from reading) is the most effective means for transmitting the truths of Holy Scripture.
- We must preach because preaching is the fuel for worship. Preaching fans the flames of passion for Jesus.
- We must preach because preaching is not simply the fuel for worship, preaching is worship.
- We must preach because preaching is the catalyst for church growth, renewal, and revival.
- We must preach because preaching is the means by which the glory of God is revealed and imparted to those who listen with faith.
Last week I sat down with someone in the church who humbly wanted to talk about preaching and being more effective. As an encouraging, supportive brother I was more than willing to listen to him. One of the points he raised was that I typically try to cover too much material in my preaching, with the result that I am often saying so much that the one clear message gets lost in the blur.
As we spoke about it, we came to the conclusion that this is not a biblical issue. No where does scripture say that you must only have one main point, or that there should be one unifying theme, however we realized that this is a point of great wisdom for improving the clarity of your message.
As we spoke, I realized that often I come to the task of preaching with a ‘teachers’ hat on, rather than a preachers. They are not very different, but if I could attempt to distinguish them I would say that a teacher teaches truth that could be delivered to any people anywhere at any time. It stands alone apart from it’s audience. Preaching seems to be to take the truth that teachers bring and apply it in a specific context, to a specific people at a specific time, with a far clearer sense of action required. In short, preaching is far more prophetic in nature.
I realized that in my prep I have been trying to cover everything that the text says (for fear of leaving something else and not preaching it in context), instead of trying by the Holy Spirit to find the one main thing that God is speaking to this people about through this passage. This feedback and the subsequent discussion has lightened my load. I still need to study the passage as thoroughly to see what it is saying, but then I can zero in on the one unifying theme, not feeling a sense of compulsion to deal with everything else.
I have posted some notes that I took mainly from the abridged version of Richard Baxters book ‘The Reformed Pastor’ which is republished under the title ‘The Ministry We Need’. I make it a habit to read these notes regularly to remind me of the seriousness of the task and the dangers of treating my task as a career. Other great writings of a similar nature are John Piper’s book ‘Brothers we are not professionals’ and the chapter entitled ‘The ministers self watch’ by Charles Spurgeon from his book ‘Lectures to my students’.
Here are the notes I regularly read over:
In ministry, strategy and techniques, plans and changes can all be clutching at straws. What people need are shepherds whose own hearts have been warmed by the gospel, blazing for Christ. ‘Churches are dead because preachers are dead to the person of Christ’.
The Oversight of Ourselves
1. Be diligent to keep myself in a spiritually fit and healthy condition.
Preach your sermons to yourself first. Your people will notice if you have spent much time with God and they will benefit. Brethren, watch your hearts. Keep them free from lusts and passions and worldliness. Maintain your faith, love and zeal. Spend time with God. I think a minister should be especially careful of his heart before public ministry. Read some spiritually stimulating book, or consider the great importance of your message, or think of your people’s great spiritual needs.
2. Make sure your life agrees with your teaching.
One proud word, one flash of temper, one selfish action can soon destroy all your labours. How strange that some preach so carefully yet live so carelessly. Your lives should condemn sin and inspire godliness in every way. I urge you to be generous and compassionate. Use your material resources to meet the needs of others. Buy spiritual edifying books for your people. He is no true Christian who has anything he is not ready to give away, if Christ asks for it.
3. Make sure you have what it takes to be a good minister of Jesus Christ.
We have duties that are too difficult for many to do We have to warn people about many subtle temptations so that they escape them. We have much prejudice and obstinacy to overcome. Great skill is needed to make the truth plain to everyone’s conscience! Much ability is required to answer all the devious arguments against the truth.
The Motives for Watching Over Ourselves
You can preach about Christ and yet neglect him, about the Spirit and resist him, about faith and yet remain unbelieving, about conversion and stay unconverted, about heaven while remaining worldly. If you are not careful your treacherous heart will soon find an opportunity to deceive you. You will not even see the hook or line, much less the subtle angler, while he is tempting you with his bait.
Application: Section 1 – The Need for humiliation.
1. Pride
It afflicts even the best of us. Our speech, the company we keep and even our appearance. It follows us into our studies, God wants our message to be clear and simple for everyone to understand, but pride prompts us to be witty and clever. Pride makes us aim at impressing people rather than edifying them. In this way pride gains control over our ministry. The truth may be preached, but it’s manner may do more to advance Satan’s cause than God’s.
After pride has affected our preparation it then follows us into the pulpit. It affects our preaching style and prevents us from saying anything offensive no matter how necessary. Pride makes us please our audience, seeking our own glory rather than the glory of God. Pride then follows us down from the pulpit, making us eager to know what people thought of us. If they were pleased we are overjoyed, but if they are unimpressed we are dismayed. We hardly bother to know whether anyone was converted.
True godliness cannot exist unless pride is hated, mourned over and fought against. Pride is Satan’s main characteristic. No one lives more for self and less for God than a proud man. Therefore watch yourself and in all your studies – make sure you do not forget humility.
2. We do not give the Lord’s work all the energy it requires.
Speak as though people’s lives depended on it. We must reason from the scriptures so clearly that sinners must either accept the truth or deliberately reject it.
3. The worldliness amongst us.
Our excessive involvements in the ways of this life.
Our lack of generosity and failure to use all we have for Christ.
The management of personal work:
1. It is vital people are convinced of their pastors ability and love for them. If his ability is suspect they will not value his teaching. If the sincerity of his love is questionable they will not trust him. If ministers tried harder to win people’s affection their ministry would be more effective.
In every bible story, in every biblical book there are many aspects to the story that God is telling. In God’s modus operandi of giving us stories and accounts, there are elements of the stories that pastors and leaders can pick up on to illustrate points to our people, with hundreds of nuances and caveats. Take for example the story of David and Goliath. How many sermons get preached on this text, and on what aspects of the story? ‘Being in the right place at the right time’, ‘Not adorning the worlds ways’ (Saul’s armor) ‘overcoming sibling frustrations’, ‘battles in valleys result in victories in nations’, ‘David’s generation: men of courage’ etc. Let’s be honest, this list could reach 25 without any creative thinking! If this text was preached a 1000 times around the world, there were probably 1000 different sermons on it.
However, is there not a greater message in this text? Surely above the little deviations and caveats there is a superior theme, a higher tune? No doubt God wove those caveats into the story for us, but is this the main point of the text?
What is this higher tune, what is the primary meaning? Surely it is the salvation of God for his people which is to the praise of His glory. In the story of David and Goliath we see a story not dissimilar from our own. There is a nation, a people living in fear and trepidation. They are facing defeat resulting in slavery and captivity. Death and destruction await. The taunts of the enemy only heighten their fear. There seems to be no way out.
But hold on, who is this? A young boy arrives, sent from his father to serve his brothers. He willingly offers to go into the valley to take on the giant. He takes his own life in his hands (1 Samuel 19.5) to fight a battle on behalf of his people and brothers. He does not fight with the weapons of his time but in quite remarkable circumstances defeats the giant. Not only that, but the victory he wins in the valley get’s imputed to his people! His victory becomes their victory. Though they did not lift a finger, his victory becomes their victory! When Goliath falls the Philistines tremble and run for their lives. One mans victory imputed to his people.
This is not a full exposition of the text, but can you see how the gospel is woven into every portion of the bible?
I have been really challenged lately about how my job as a servant of God’s people is to show them God’s action in Christ before we show them anything else. When we understand that we are on the receiving end of God’s goodness, we are freed to apply the secondary caveats of the story to our own lives. We can face the giants in our own lives but only because Jesus has already defeated The Giant.
The bible is full of these situations! Jesus fulfills every part! He is the true and better Isaac who willingly laid down his life, and just as God said to Abraham ‘now I know you love me, because you have not withheld your son, whom you love, from me’, so now we can say to God ‘now we know that you love us, because you have not withheld your son, whom you love, from me’. Jesus is the true and better Adam who passed the test in the garden and who’s righteousness is imputed to us! He is the true and better Joseph who though sold into slavery ends up forgiving and saving his brothers, and delivering the nation. This list is endless!
I know that the temptation for myself is to get hung up on the details, to get caught down the rabbit holes of secondary themes in the text and spend my life avoiding the majors. May God continually remind me to take his word, apply it to my own heart, and preach the major themes!
Buried then alive 