Category Archives: Preaching

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A Portrait of Purpose

Pray and Preach

And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, and they found him and said to him, “Everyone is looking for you.” And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” – Mark 1:35-38

In 2010 The Museum of Modern Art hosted artist Marina Abramovic’s performance entitled “The Artist is Present.” For 736 hours she sat immobile in the museum’s atrium while spectators were invited to sit across the table from her. It essentially was an artistic staring contest, but photographers captured incredible shots of people responding with laughter, smiling, and crying to the Serbian’s stares. It’s a fact that we all know from experience, staring at someone ordinarily evokes a response and the response can often be more pronounced than one would have guessed.

Stop and stare at the Savior here in Mark 1:35-38 and those few mornings hours after the Sabbath day. What do you see? What response is bubbling to the surface? What I see in this portrait of Jesus is a pattern for God’s people to hear and heed: Communion with God fuels mission for God. We find in our text Jesus praying, resisting, and preaching and all three points have something essential for us to see tonight as we meditate on the truth that communion with God is essential to mission for God.

3 RESPONSES TO JESUS’ EARLY WAKE UP CALL

First, see the priority of prayer. The start of His ministry has been a resounding success; His authority currently captivates everyone. They clamor for His presence and power, and what is His immediate response? He withdraws to a desolate place in order to pray. Let’s just think about Jesus’ practice of prayer that we observe in the gospels. When He was baptized we are told he was praying (Luke 3:21). When he was transfigured, we are told that His face was transformed as he prayed (Luke 9:29). Before He appointed the twelve disciples, Luke tells us He tells us He continued all night in prayer (Luke 6:12). After feeding the five thousand all the people want to crown Him as king, but He leaves them in order to pray (Mark 9:23). In the moments leading up to His betrayal, arrest, and eventually crucifixion we find Him crying out in prayer. Our Lord is consistently is found praying, it was a priority that fueled His mission.

We would be wise here to be challenged and encouraged by His devotion to prayer. In commenting on this passage, JC Ryle said, “Here is the pulse of our Christianity, here is the true test of our state before God.” How healthy is the pulse of your Christianity? What can we say about those who pray little, what’s the pulse of their Christianity? Let’s confess that this is most of us.  We understand the value of prayer and can even recount blessings untold we have received at the throne of grace, but we progress slowly. What might our prayerless reveal? If prayer, as modeled by Jesus Christ is little more than an act of humble dependence, then prayerlessness is little more than an act of independence. Jesus was dependent on God for strength, wisdom, and assurance, and so He prayed. Might our small progress in prayer be rooted in a soul that finds greater joy in independence from God than dependence on God? We need to see first of all the priority of prayer and . . .

Second, see the pitfall of preoccupation. The disciples cried out, “What are you doing out here praying? The people need you.” We observe here, and will find similar occasions all over the gospels, that a recurring pitfall for Jesus’ mission on earth was preoccupation with earthly concerns. The people’s concern was with health and happiness, not with the King’s demand for repentance and faith. The disciples’ preoccupation with these things not only interrupted Jesus’ communion with God, but also threatened His mission for God. Jesus shows us that no one makes progress in communion with God or mission for God that is not schooled in self-denial. If your life were shot as a documentary for all to see, what preoccupations would the audience see? Any preoccupations that interrupt communion with God or threaten you mission for God? See the priority of prayer, the pitfall of preoccupation, and for this text, most centrally. . .

Third, see the primacy of preaching. This was Christ’s mission, to preach the gospel of the kingdom. Preaching was the God-ordained means to extend the kingdom of grace, and preaching remains the God-ordained means to extend the kingdom of grace. Have you ever thought about how incredible this truth is? That God builds His kingdom on the authority and power of His word? Not through signs and wonders, but through the gospel being preached to the ends of the earth!

Every weekend the church gathers and the element of our worship that gets the most extended time is preaching. You come each week and primarily get to sit and listen to someone speak to you. It’s strange is it not? 1 Corinthians 1:18 says that preaching seems foolish to the world. But let it not be foolish to us! The preacher may not be gifted and the sermons may be meager offerings, but it is God’s chosen grace to extend His kingdom. How then do you think about this chosen grace? Do you even think of it as God’s grace to you? Your commitment to and delight in hearing the word in your church’s gathering is a pretty good place to start your evaluation.

The people in the first century may have thought the Messiah would spend His earthly ministry keeping up the priestly institutions and ceremonies, like the great high priest Aaron. Many thought He would rule and reign in the manner of the great King David. But this Savior defied all expectations and conventions of the day. From the moment of His arrival to the moment of His death, He could be heard preaching, for that is why He came.

Stopping and staring at this portrait of the Savior will evoke a response. Let our responses be renewed interest in the priority of prayer, greater awareness at the pitfall of preoccupation, and strengthened delight in the primacy of preaching. However unexpected this scene was to the 1st century disciples, may the truth of this scene not be unexpected or unfamiliar to us, that communion with God fuels mission for God.

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6 Directions to Look Off the World

Looking Unto Jesus

In Looking Unto Jesus Isaac Ambrose says, “We must take off our mind from everything which might divert us in our Christian race from looking unto Jesus.”

The allure of this world and indwelling sin within our heart will motivate the mind’s eye to be fascinated with things other than Christ. Therefore, we must do the work of turning from the fleeting pleasures of this world to the everlasting pleasures of Christ. It’s only then that we will begin truly to know, consider, desire, hope, believe, love, enjoy, and be conformed to Christ.

What can help us to look off all other things? Ambrose provides six of them.

6 DIRECTIONS FOR HOW TO LOOK OFF ALL OTHER THINGS

  1. Study every day more and more the vanity of this world. Read Ecclesiastes often to learn the lesson of striving after the wind. Men often look on such strivings through a false glass and thus don’t seem them as being the vapors that they are. Learning of this vanity shows worldly honor and respect to be little more than bubbles soon to pop.
  2. Converse but little with any evil thing this side of Christ. Have as little to do with the sinful pleasure, profits, riches, and manners of the world as much as you can. The less the better. Ambrose says, “Things of this world have a glutinous quality; if you let the heart lie any while amongst them, it will cleave unto them, and if it once cleave to them there will be no way, but either repentance or hell-fire must part them.”
  3. Be more and better acquainted with Christ. Get more tastes of Christ and heaven and the earth will become more bitter to the soul. When Christ is in view all the world begins to fade and collapse in comparison. “The glory of Christ will darken all other things in the world.”
  4. Set before your heart the example of such saints who accounted themselves as pilgrims and strangers on the earth. When you read about those saints of old who expectantly wandered through their wilderness condition, don’t be surprised to find your heart being shaken off earthly things.
  5. Go in your meditations to heaven and stay there a while. The mind that is in heaven cannot dwell among earthly things. The eyes that take in a survey of heaven and heavenly things have no time to fix his eyes on such poor things below.
  6. Cry mightily unto God that he would take of your eyes off the world. If the heart bends down to earth, go to God to raise it up towards heaven. Cry out with the psalmist in 119:37, “Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways.”

AN IMPLICATION FOR ORDINARY MINISTERS

Dear pastor, you have a unique, God-given chance each week to help your congregation look off the world and look up to Christ. As you ascend to the sacred desk you must do so with an aim to preach Christ and Him crucified.

Lift Him up! Lift Him up in all His glory, majesty, power, and beauty and watch the world fade away from your congregation’s eyes. Pray for the Spirit to shine forth the brilliance of Christ in your explanations and exclamations. Pray for the Spirit to inflame your heart with love for Christ that the cold and worldly souls melt under your proclamation of the Savior.

Apply Ambrose’s directions to your own life so that when you stand behind the sacred desk your you soul appears blessedly burned from seeing the Son.

Lift Him up! Lift Him up in your preaching, so that in looking unto Jesus your people might find life.

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In Pursuit of Astonishment

Astonishment

‘And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.’” – Mark 7:37

One of my favorite things to do at the end of each year is peruse the proliferation of “Best of . . .” lists that shows up all over the place. One list, hands down, always captures my attention more than any other; the “Best Pictures of . . .” list. So it was with great excitement and expectation that I recently clicked on “The 1oo Most Astonishing Images of 2013.” I can still picture the Korean satellite image of Namibian sands, the hurricane whirling around on Saturn, Devil’s Tower underneath the night sky, and the wings of a butterfly under a microscope.

There is something compelling about astonishment. It invites the soul to stop, sit, stare, and wonder.

ASTONISHMENT AT JESUS

Astonishment was a normal reaction to the person and work of Jesus. In Mark 7 after healing a deaf and dumb man, the gospel writer records that the crowds “were astonished beyond measure, saying, ‘He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.'”

The Greek word here for astonishment is ἐκπλήσσω, and more literally means “being struck out of one’s mind.” Mark had to invent a word (ὑπερπερισσῶς) to describe the extent of the people’s astonishment as they were amazed “beyond measure.”

When was the last time Jesus blew your mind beyond measure?

ASTONISHMENT THROUGH FAMILIARITY

There is, I think, an unusually potent application this question has for pastors and preachers. The enemy to astonishment is familiarity. You will never be astonished by something you are familiar with, it will just be common. But here’s the tension for ministers: they must be familiar with God’s word. So much so that we even have an apostolic encouragement to that end, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15).

The truth we confess about God and His word protects us from the normal antagonism familiarity has for astonishment. In the economy of God it seems like familiarity is a friend, not foe, to astonishment. This makes sense when you consider that familiarity with God is knowledge of an incomprehensible being whose greatness is unsearchable (Psa. 145:3). Even the Christ we preach is a treasure trove of unsearchable riches (Eph. 3:8).

Could it be, paradoxically, that familiarity with God is actually a God-ordained means to astonishment with God? It sure seems to be the pattern of Paul. Scour his letters and notice how often he breaks out in doxology, in astonishment. Here’s a quick sampling:

  • “The Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.” (Rom. 1:25)
  • “Christ…is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.” (Rom. 9:5)
  • “Him…to whom be glory forever. Amen” (Rom. 11:36)
  • “To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever. Amen.” (Rom. 16:25-27)
  • “Now…Unto him be glory in the church, and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (Eph. 3:20-21)
  • “Now unto God and our Father be glory forever and ever. Amen.” (Phil. 4:20)
  • “Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.” (1 Tim. 1:17)
  • “Our Lord Jesus Christ…the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings, and Lord of lords…to whom be honor and power everlasting. Amen.” (1 Tim. 6:14-16)
  • “The Lord…to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.” (2 Tim. 4:18)

That Paul was familiar with God’s glory in Christ is something no pastor can deny. One recent Pauline theology is even titled “Paul, Apostle of God’s Glory in Christ!” That, however, this familiarity with God’s glory in Christ was an enemy to astonishment is something we must patently deny.

Familiarity with Christ is the means of astonishment at Christ.

THE PASTOR’S ASTONISHMENT

I know this truth has born itself in my life. Every time I seek to memorize a book of the Bible I am continually amazed and astonished at the God worthy of all glory. A deeper familiarity with God’s word only increases my amazement at the Incarnate Word.

What implications might this then have for the pastor’s preaching ministry? I see two . . .

  1. Aim to preach with astonishment. If familiarity brings astonishment then your sermon prep should be marked by the plea of the old divines who cried, “More light, more light.” Light comes before heat. Doxological preaching will rarely, if ever, come apart from agonizing labor in God’s word.
  2. Aim to preach for astonishment. In our preaching we want to see heads, hearts, and hands moved “beyond measure” at the glorious God the glorious word proclaims. You want them to experience the praise you experienced from the text. Open the text clearly, yet boldly, and watch the Spirit’s fire fall.

Astonishment is compelling and it comes from a deep dive into the word. Pursue astonishment at all costs and find that your ministry will never be the same.

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The Friendship of Failure

Light of Failure

Last week I preached what was, at least from my perspective, an absolute dud of a sermon.Thankfully, God is sovereign and can turn dross into diamonds.

But to call my sermon dross is to be rude to the dross.

As my boys flew down a slide at a the Golden Arches1 I drank the Heavenly Nectar2 and contemplated my latest hop into homiletical mediocrity. With my wife sitting across the table, I walked through the elemental missteps I had made in composition and delivery. I half-joked about retiring from preaching and finally venturing out into “the real world.” But my wife won’t suffer my “woe is me” misery, for some reason she thinks it best to encourage me in these moments.

Praise God for such partners in ministry. I love her. She helped me turn the failure into a friend. As much as I wanted to shake off the sense of a job done poorly, what I really needed to do was learn from the job done poorly. So I stopped, looked, and learned.

My purpose in this little post is not to disclose everything the failure revealed. It’s to simply say that when the inevitable failures come in ministry, don’t run. Let the fire of failure refine.

Wise Solomon said, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend.”

Failure can be one of your most faithful friends.

  1. McDonald’s (their favorite post-church pastime) ↩
  2. Diet Coke ↩
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Sermon Evaluation Form

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Lord willing, tonight I will sit next to my wife during corporate worship for the 12th time this year and listen to another man preach God’s word at our church.

We planted IDC with the conviction that I would preach no more than forty times a year. So this year has seen six different men preach at IDC, half of them are working out a call to ministry. The preaching opportunity is therefore a time for these men to hone skill in exposition and for the congregation to affirm their stated desire to be preachers of God’s word.

I want to always get better at how I serve these men by way of feedback, so this week I created a sermon evaluation form that captures some of the distinct preaching convictions of our church.

I hope it will provide more tangible flesh to sermon reviews. Feel free to download the form and adjust accordingly to fit your church.

Sermon Evaluation Form

Our form is based, in part, on Tony Merida’s sermon evaluation form in Faithful Preaching.

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Training Future Preachers

David Helm, Mike Bullmore, and Bryan Chapell discuss a timeless issue for pastors: How do you train future leaders and preachers? Watch, listen, and learn.

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The Sum of Preaching

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Check out Spurgeon’s summary crescendo on the matter of preaching:

Of all I would wish to say this is the sum; my brethren, preach CHRIST, always and evermore. He is the whole gospel. His person, offices, and work must be our one great, all-comprehending theme. The world needs still to be told of its Saviour, and of the way to reach him. Justification by faith should be far more than it is the daily testimony of Protestant pulpits; and if with this master-truth there should be more generally associated the other great doctrines of grace, the better for our churches and our age.

If with the zeal of Methodists we can preach the doctrine of Puritans a great future is before us. The fire of Wesley, and the fuel of Whitfield, will cause a burning which shall set the forests of error on fire, and warm the very soul of this cold earth. We are not called to proclaim philosophy and metaphysics, but the simple gospel. Man’s fall, his need of a new birth, forgiveness through an atonement, and salvation as the result of faith, these are our battle-axe and weapons of war. We have enough to do to learn and teach these great truths, and accursed be that learning which shall divert us from our mission, or that wilful ignorance which shall cripple us in its pursuit.

More and more am I jealous lest any views upon prophecy, church government, politics, or even systematic theology, should withdraw one of us from glorying in the cross of Christ. Salvation is a theme for which I would fain enlist every holy tongue. I am greedy after witnesses for the glorious gospel of the blessed God. O that Christ crucified were the universal burden of men of God . . .

Blessed is that ministry of which CHRIST IS ALL.

– Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, 79-80.

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Dever’s Grid for Diverse Application

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Yesterday I looked at William Perkins’ four condition for application and four kinds of application. One modern expositor who knows the value of discriminatory application is Mark Dever.

Each week when Dever preaches he takes the main points of his sermon and ask how each of them are related to the following six categories:

DEVER’S SIX CATEGORIES OF APPLICATION

  1. Unique Salvation History – What about the passage is important for the way God unfolds his plan of salvation in history? What’s unrepeatable by us but worthy of worshiping God for?
  2. Non-Christian – How does the passage speak to the unbeliever? How does it call him/her to repentance and belief? How does it warn, rebuke, correct, or prod the unbeliever? What does it say about the danger of the unbeliever’s situation, the exclusivity of Christ, the sinner’s need for a Savior, or the sufficiency of that Savior as a substitute for the sinner?
  3. Public – What does the passage say about our lives and roles in the public sphere, both as Christians and non-Christians (e.g., government, neighborhood)?
  4. Christ – How is Jesus foreshadowed or typed? What particular perfection of Christ does that type depict? How is Jesus remembered or described in character, authority, glory, or essence?
  5. Christian – What does the passage mean for the life of the individual Christian? How does it call him/her to deeper repentance and belief? How does it warn, rebuke, correct, motivate, comfort, or encourage the Christian?
  6. Local Church – What does the passage mean for the corporate life of our local church? How does it call the local corporate body to tend to its corporate life together and corporate witness to the unbelieving community around it?

So, let’s say Dever has three points in a given sermon. If every point has a clear application in all six categories, he could have as many as 18 different applications! But, as you can see from this sample, not every point has an application in every category. Our friends over at 9Marks have provided you with a blank sermon application grid for you to put this philosophy of application into practice.

APPLICATION IN COMMUNITY

One thing Dever does to aid sermon prep is letting church members or interns speak into his sermon application grid. The last I heard his normal practice was to do this on Saturdays with a few men in his church. I can only imagine how often these men bring applications to mind that may have been missed otherwise. Not only would such a practice benefit the sermon, but think of the discipleship benefit for these other men! The sermon’s application is aim at the congregation’s life, so it makes total sense why including parts of the congregation in sermon prep can be a great advantage. I’d encourage you to consider how you might do something similar in your preaching ministry.

I hope these posts on discriminatory application, both old and new, stirs you to apply God’s word in fresh ways this coming Lord’s Day.

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Diverse Application in Preaching

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One of the most treasured lessons I have gleaned from the old Puritan divines is the practice of “discriminatory application.” This method seeks to apply the sermon’s truth in diverse, yet specific, ways because every audience is the collection of diverse spiritual conditions.

For help in this practice we can turn to William Perkins’ The Art of Prophesying. It is the standard teaching on how the Puritans went about the practice of application.

Perkins defines application as “the skill by which the doctrine which has been properly drawn from Scripture is handled in ways appropriate to the circumstances of the place and time and to the people in the congregation.” You’ll notice this definition presupposes a delineated “doctrine” in every sermon. At the risk of oversimplification, we could say the Puritans viewed a sermon’s “doctrine” much like modern homileticians advocate every sermon have a main point or big idea. Once the main point has been explained and expounded its truth should be applied.

Perkins says “there are basically seven ways in which application should be made, in keeping with seven different spiritual conditions.” Ever true to his Puritan tradition, Perkins is somewhat repetitive in his listing, so I will summarize his seven conditions under the following four.

4 CONDITIONS FOR APPLICATION

  1. The Hard Heart. Those who are unbelievers and are both ignorant and unteachable. To the hard-hearted the law must be stressed, and its curse stated clearly along with its threats.
  2. The Seeker. This category includes those who are teachable, but ignorant, and those who have knowledge of God, but are not yet repentant. The law of God must also be stressed to this group, but when the beginning of genuine sorrow appears they are to be comforted with the gospel.
  3. The Converted. These need to be taught the full-orbed nature of Christ’s blessings and benefits: justification, sanctification, adoption, and perseverance. They also need to be taught the law, not as those under its curse, but as a guide for how to bear the fruit of new obedience in keeping with their repentance.
  4. The Backslider. For those falling in faith the specific doctrine which counter-acts their error should be expounded and taught. We need to stress its importance to them, along with the doctrine of repentance. Let this be done with brotherly affection.

With these four categorical conditions set, we can now move on to the various ways a preacher can apply truth to each condition. Perkins says, “Application is of two kinds, mental and practical.” The mental and practical each have two summary applications, which I combine into the following list.

4 KINDS OF APPLICATION

  1. Doctrinal application. Doctrine applies the main point in such a way to show the hearer what the mind ought to believe.
  2. Reproving application. Reproof is the flip side of doctrine. It applies the main point in such a way to show the hearer what the mind should not believe.
  3. Instructional application. Instruction is the main point applied in a way to enable the hearer to live well in the context of family, the state, and the church. It involves both encouragement and exhortation.
  4. Correctional application. Correction is the application of the main point in a specific way that transforms lives marked by ungodliness and unrighteousness.

A savvy reader would note at this point that my summary of Perkins’ approach would mean a preacher has at least sixteen different, and legitimate, applications at his disposal in any sermon. Do you see it? If a preacher offered all four kinds of application to all four conditions for application, he would have sixteen points of application in one sermon! The preacher would be wise to heed Perkins admonition that applications “must be carefully chosen, and limited to a few, lest those who hear God’s word expounded are overwhelmed by the sheer number of applications.” The point in application is not to overwhelm the congregation, but pierce their hearts and minds in appropriately specific ways.

How about you? Do your sermons regularly and specifically apply the main point to the varied conditions present within the congregation? If so, praise God! If not, see if you can integrate Perkins’ practice into your preparation for this weekend.

Tomorrow I will show you how one modern expositor goes about preparing for “discriminatory application.”

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A Burning Light

In his incredible lecture on “The Preacher’s Private Prayer” Spurgeon remarked,

It is said of Alleine, ‘He poured out his very heart in prayer and preaching. His supplications and his exhortations were so affectionate, so full of holy zeal, life and vigour, that they quite overcame his hearers; he melted over them, so that he thawed and mollified, and sometimes dissolved the hardest hearts.’

– Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, 45.