Introduction to Expository Preaching

DMN Expository Preaching Lectures • Sermon • Submitted 22 days ago • Presented just now

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We will introduce the topic of Expositional, Christocentric preaching.

Notes

Transcript

I want to start off by thanking you all for being a part of this. This is a huge deal for me, I’m so excited to be able to do this with you all and I truly do believe that we are doing something together that will absolutely be beneficial for you and also for the health of our church. This project and this curriculum that we are going to be going through together is a labor of love from me. This is basically the culmination of 2 and a half years of work so in some ways I’m ready to get it over with and in some ways I can’t wait to get started. Let’s start by just sort of break down what we will be doing today and throughout the rest of the month. My plan is to teach for about 45 minutes to an hour and then at the end we will have a little Q&A time so if you think of any questions, write them down and we will circle back to them at the end of the day. If I think we might go a little long, we’ll take a little break but I’m optimistic that shouldn’t be too much of a problem. All of you that are here were given an agreement to participate form and on the back there was a questionnaire on expository and Christocentric preaching. When we finish our last session, you are going to get that questionnaire again. Fill it out and then me, my expert panel, and my major professor will go over that data together to see if there was any improvement between the first survey and the second. When you get those, please be honest. If you go through all of this and feel like the score is lower the second time, mark that, we’ll use it. Let me also tell you why I feel like this project is so important. When I was a pastor in Virginia, we did not have qualified men that could stand in the pulpit and faithfully preach if my old senior pastor and I were not available. I thought that it would be important to teach men to the best of my ability on how to preach not just a good sermon, but a expository, Christ-centered sermon. I believe that as a leader within the church, there is a Scriptural precedence to raise others up to do this. I don’t think that it is entirely the responsibility of the seminaries to help produce faithful preachers. I believe that there are men within the church and that are sitting in this room that will be able to do this. One of the main arguments that I use in my paper to support the need to do this comes from 2 Timothy 2:2. Paul writes to Timothy and says, “The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” People have poured into my life so that I would be able to teach others and now I am hoping to teach you the things that I have been entrusted with so that you can go and teach others. The information that we go over during these next few weeks will absolutely help you preach but it will also help you study the Bible. I think it will even help you listen to sermons better. I think it will help you share the Gospel with others and lead in your own homes. What we are going to do today is really just an introduction to expository preaching. We are going to get some key terms defined so that you will be able to differentiate between a couple different types of preaching. Think of today as the Vince Lombardi “This is a Football” Day. If you want to play football well, you need to know what a football is. If you want to preach a faithful sermon, you need to know what a sermon is. Before we dive in, let’s open up in prayer and ask God to bless these weeks that we spend together.

What is a Sermon?

What is a sermon? Or maybe a better question is, “What is preaching?” What does it mean to preach? You can stand up at a pulpit on a Sunday morning, give a word of encouragement to the people of God, sprinkle in a few Scripture references and not really be preaching. Even what I am doing right now isn’t preaching even though I am a preacher. There is a huge difference between simply teaching and delivering a sermon by preaching the Word of God. The deliverance of a man’s opinion to a church isn’t preaching. Getting on a hobby horse and addressing the cultural trends of the day through Jesus-tinted glasses isn’t preaching. In fact I would say that a large portion of people that claim to be preachers do very little if any of it. Steve Lawson once said that the problem isn’t that there are too many preachers, the problem is that there are too many preachers that aren’t doing any real preaching. The delivery of Gospel information, even good information, on its own is not preaching. Think of it maybe in this way: All preaching has elements of teaching but not all teaching can be connected to preaching. That’s what many of you guys have done, you have taught and many of you that have taught have taught really well but I think that if you were honest with yourself, you would probably admit that you hadn’t preached. Our purpose in preaching is not to relay information. The purpose of preaching and the sermon is to inform with the intention of applying what God has said in His Word. J.I. Packer wrote, “Preaching appears in the Bible as a relaying of what God has said about Himself and His doings, and about men in relation to Him, plus a pressing of His commands, promises, warnings, and assurances, with a view to winning the hearer or hearers…to a positive response.” The responsibility of the preacher is to take what God has clearly said in His Word and to deliver that to the people with the hope, I’d even say expectation, that the Holy Spirit will produce a positive response in the listener. The last thing that we want to do is go into the sermon with the intention of saying, “Here’s what I think.” No one cares what you think. It doesn’t matter what you think. The last thing anyone needs is for you to say, “Here’s what the text means to me and here’s what it could mean for you.” Who cares what it means to you. You weren’t there when it was written, you didn’t write it, you weren’t led along by the Spirit to record it. It does not matter what you think. What matters is what did the authors of Scripture mean when they wrote it? What does God want His people to know in His Word. We almost need to take a small detour then and before we go too much further, discuss what the Bible is, what it contains, and why we must use it. It would be foolish and a huge mistake not to use it. Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart write, “The Bible is at the same time both human and divine. The Bible, it has been correctly said, is the Word of God given in human words in history. Because the Bible is God’s message, it has eternal relevance; it speaks to all humankind, in every age and in every culture. Because it is the word of God, we must listen- and obey. But because God chose to speak his word through human words in history, every book of the Bible also has historical particularity; each document is conditioned by the language, time, and culture in which it was originally written.” God has preserved His Words and the preacher is to be like the herald of a king delivering a message from the king to the people. We don’t change the message to fit our agenda, we don’t alter it to make the message more consumable for the masses. The greatest need of the herald of God’s Word is faithfulness to the Word that the King has given. I’m sure you all know 2 Timothy 3:16–17, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” Every Scripture in our Bible is God-given, God-inspired, and God-glorifying. If all Scripture can do that, why not preach it? In a few weeks we’ll talk about using illustrations to help explain the text but while we are talking about the purpose of Scripture, it’s worth mentioning now that we may risk over illustrating in the hope of winning over our listeners. The Scripture is sufficient. The Word of God is a consuming fire and when the man of God declares the excellency of the God of the Word, people will come to watch him burn. I recently heard Alistair Begg say that when it comes to our introductions and the stories that we tell to catch the attention of our listeners, we often do ourselves a disservice because as soon as you start off with this big dramatic tale of heroism, that is what has your audiences attention. They will keep coming back to that moment and everything else that happens in the sermon will be held up in comparison to that. People walk away impressed with a story or an illustration and not smacked in the face with the majesty of God. What is it that we really believe about the Bible? Do we take seriously Isaiah 55:11? “So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, Without accomplishing what I desire, And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.” Are we taking seriously what Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:16-17? Do we think that God needs help to save sinners outside of His Word? Do we really believe that there is authority and power in the Word of God? If there is power in the Word, you don’t need to dress it up, open up the cage and let the Lion out, it’ll defend itself! But we’ll get that more in just a few weeks, let’s get back to what we mean by a sermon. Haddon Robinson says, “Ideally each sermon is the explanation, interpretation, or application of a single dominant idea supported by other ideas, all drawn from one passage or several passages of Scripture.” In the course of a sermon, the preacher has a main point that he wants the audience to engage with. This main point usually has sub points that will be used to support the evidence in favor of the main point. I’m sure that some of you have heard of the old Baptist preaching technique of 3 points and a poem. You have 3 main points and then you use a poem or some other illustration to clarify that point. I would argue in favor of one predominant point that stands out and is connect to other sub-points. To just use an example from one of my own sermons, when I preached Psalm 118 on Palm Sunday, if you looked at my outline or my bulletin you would see what would look like 3 main points. Did I actually have 3 main points? Nope, I only had 1 but I looked at that one from 3 perspectives. My main point was that the Christian life is a life of victory. Victory was the main point and that was what I wanted the church to zero in on. My 3 sub points for that was that the Christian life is a shared victory, a secured victory, and a savored victory but that all centered on victory. I would strongly encourage you if you are just starting out to find that one main point of the text and use your sub points or whatever you want to call them to emphasize that main point. If you have to force the point into the sermon, that point may not actually be the intended point of the sermon. Save it for another sermon. God has an intended meaning in ever verse of Scripture. As we begin to talk more about exposition today and maybe even next week, we’ll talk about how expositional or expository preaching forces us to not put themes or ideas that aren’t present in the verses. This forces us to not preach solely on the things that we are drawn to. Not every sermon is a sermon on church membership or the importance of baptism. Expository preaching pushes us out of the comfort zone of the doctrines we feel comfortable with and into something far greater. In our sermons, we are going to faithfully convey what God has said in His Word and seek to apply or show how it can be applied to the audience. Jim Shaddix says that in a sermon, “the preacher lays open a biblical text in such a way that the Holy Spirit’s intended meaning and attending power are brought to bear on the lives of contemporary listeners.” If we want to preach, there has to be a text. One of the most helpful words that I have ever heard when it comes to describing the preaching event or the sermon is what Martyn Lloyd-Jones said in his book Preaching and Preachers. Lloyd-Jones said that preaching is logic on fire. It is theology coming through a man on fire. What he means is that preaching is more than just doctrinal or theological explanation. It is doctrine that has come alive. Preaching is truth that puts fire in the bellies and hearts of the listener. The fire that comes out of that doctrine is both light and it is heat. It is light in that it shows us who God is, it shows us who we are, it shows us how we must be saved, and it shows us what is wrong with the world. It is heat in the way that not only does it allow us to see, it lights something inside of us. The Holy Spirit uses preaching to bring dead hearts to love, frozen hearts are melted by the attending power of the Spirit of God. If you have all light and no heat, you get academic and theological egg heads. If you have all heat and no light, you have mysticism and spirituality. Faithful, expository preaching brings theology on fire in a perfect blending of light and heat.

What is Expository Preaching?

Now that we have identified preaching and identified the sermon, let’s dive into starting to define the main two elements of what I am advocating for in this project: Expository preaching and Christocentric preaching. One of the perks of attending Crossroads is that you guys have already seen what expository preaching looks like. I would definitely describe Ken as an expositor. My entire ministry I have sought to be an expositor. Not all preaching is expository. Just because the Bible is used in the sermon does not make it an expository sermon. To preach an expository sermon is more than just saying, “I’m going to preach through an entire book of the Bible.” You can do exposition without going through a prolonged series through a book of the Bible. In fact, that is what I have in mind for this training with you all. My hope is that while you would be able to preach through a book of the Bible in a verse-by-verse approach, my greater desire is that you all would be able to take a section of Scripture, whichever one you may like, and faithfully exegete the text. That you would be able to explain what that portion of Scripture means and then apply it to your audience. So, what is expository preaching? Here are some ways that excellent expositors have defined it. Tony Merida defines expository preaching as, “explaining what God has said in his Word, declaring what God has done in his Son, and applying this message to the hearts of people.”David Helm defines expository preaching as, “empowered preaching that rightfully submits the shape and emphasis of the sermon to the shape and emphasis of a biblical text. It brings out of the text what the Holy Spirit put there and does not put into the text what the preacher thinks might be there.” John Stott says, “Exposition refers to the content of the sermon (biblical truth) rather than its style (a running commentary). To expound Scripture is to bring out of the text what is there and expose it to view. The expositor pries open what appears to be closed, makes plain what is obscure, unravels what is knotted and unfolds what is tightly packed. The opposite of exposition is imposition, which is to impose on the text what is not there. But the text in question could be a verse, or a sentence, or even a single word. It could equally be a paragraph, or a chapter, or a whole book. The size of the text is immaterial, so long as it is biblical. What matters is what we do with it. Whether it is long or short, our responsibility as expositors is to open it up in such a way that it speaks its message clearly, plainly, accurately, relevantly, without addition, subtraction or falsification.” As we seek to be expositors, we have to take into consideration the context that the particular section of Scripture is found in. We need to know what was going on that led the author to write what was written, we need to know where the text falls in redemptive history, we need to know how it connects with the rest of Scripture. To be faithful expositors means that we take the text as it is, view it in light of its original context and audience, and apply it faithfully to our listeners. To remove a text from its context is a gross misinterpretation of the text. The purpose of exposition is to show people what God has said, what God has done, point to what God is doing, and prove how it is applicable to our lives. Scripture must be the driving force of the sermon. If all we are doing is teaching our theological preferences or ideas without the root of Scripture, we aren’t expositors. We are just publishing opinion pieces. Tim Keller writes, “Expository preaching grounds the message in the text so that all the sermon’s points are points in the text, and it majors in the text’s major ideas. It aligns the interpretation of the text with the doctrinal truths of the rest of the Bible. And it always situates the passage within the Bible’s narrative, showing how Chris is the final fulfillment of the text’s theme.” Good expository preaching is like the guard rails in bowling. It keeps you contained, it keeps you focused, it keeps you from making unnecessary mistakes. Exposition keeps the Scripture in front of you and it also keeps you grounded in the Word. This means that you shouldn’t be making these gross leaps for ideas but you let the text teach the text. Maybe that is the easiest way to describe expository preaching: It is allowing God’s Word to function as a Word from God. Exposition means that we are not interpreting the text according to man but allowing God’s interpretation of His own text to be applied. To kind of go back to our logic on fire comparison, exposition cannot be all doctrine. True exposition always has the fire of application with it. If you just explain the verses, you are teaching and not preaching. Now what might this look like in Scripture? Do we have an example of what expository preaching looks like in the Bible? We do. For one, I think that the entire book of Hebrews could be considered an exposition on passages of the Old Testament. But one of the clearest examples of exposition might come from a place that you might not expect. You might think it would be with Paul or with one of the other New Testament authors but I actually think we see it clearest in the book of Nehemiah. In Nehemiah 8:1-8 we read:

Nehemiah 8:1–8 NASB95

And all the people gathered as one man at the square which was in front of the Water Gate, and they asked Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses which the Lord had given to Israel. Then Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly of men, women and all who could listen with understanding, on the first day of the seventh month. He read from it before the square which was in front of the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of men and women, those who could understand; and all the people were attentive to the book of the law. Ezra the scribe stood at a wooden podium which they had made for the purpose. And beside him stood Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Maaseiah on his right hand; and Pedaiah, Mishael, Malchijah, Hashum, Hashbaddanah, Zechariah and Meshullam on his left hand. Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it, all the people stood up. Then Ezra blessed the Lord the great God. And all the people answered, “Amen, Amen!” while lifting up their hands; then they bowed low and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. Also Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, the Levites, explained the law to the people while the people remained in their place. They read from the book, from the law of God, translating to give the sense so that they understood the reading.

At the end of verses 7 and 8 we see that Ezra and the Levites read the book, they translate what was read, and they give sense so that the people understood what was read to them. This doesn’t mean that they just translate what was read from one language to another but they are actually doing the work of exposition. They are explaining the meaning of the text so that it makes sense to them. They make clear what the Law said so that the people would then understand and have it applied to their own lives. That is what we need to do as we engage in exposition. Read the text, explain the text, apply the text, stay within the confines of the text. There we go, we have defined exposition and why we should do it. That’s the first half of what I am aiming for with this project. The second half that I want us to apply to preaching is a Christocentric preaching model.

What is Christocentric Preaching?

When we talk about Christocentric preaching, we really mean that all of our preaching should be Christ-centered and the reason that this is is because all of Scripture is ultimately Christ-centered. Multiple times in Jesus’ life, He testifies to the fact that all of Scripture points to Him. In John 5:39 Jesus says, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me.” Don Carson said, “What is at stake is a comprehensive hermeneutical key. By predictive prophecy, by type, by revelatory event and by anticipatory statute, what we call the Old Testament is understood to point to Christ, his ministry, his teaching, his death and resurrection.” A failure to see Christ as the center of not just the Old Testament but all of Scripture is a major hermeneutical blunder because it fails to see Scripture with their intended purpose. I’m sure you already know what Jesus says to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24. Luke 24:25–27 “And He said to them, “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! “Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?” Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.” Then later on in Luke 24:44 we read, “Now He said to them, “These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”” We see that the three major divisions of Scripture all find their fulfillment in the life and ministry of Christ. If all of Scripture is Christ-centered, doesn’t it naturally make sense that our preaching should be Christ-centered? Spurgeon once said, “A sermon without Christ as its beginning, middle, and end is a mistake in conception and a crime in execution. However grand the language it will be merely much-ado-about-nothing if Christ be not there.” Think of what Paul told the church in Corinth in 1 Corinthians 2:2 “For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” Obviously Paul taught more than just Christ’s death. What he meant was that everything that he preached focused on Jesus Christ and Him Crucified. That must be the shining north star of our preaching. If Christ is not proclaimed, get out of the pulpit. Spurgeon once told his students, “No Christ in your sermon, sir? Then go home, and never preach again until you have something worth preaching.” You may have never heard a Christ-less sermon but trust me, they are more common than you might think. I remember going to a camp when I was a pastor in Georgia and on the Gospel presentation night at this camp, Christ was in no way proclaimed. The speaker was a pastor that was still going through seminary and I’m not sure what seminary it was but whatever one it was, I wouldn’t recommend. The way that he offered the “Gospel” was just by inviting students to come to the light and not once was the name of Jesus ever spoken. I even asked my other leaders if they noticed anything wrong and even they picked up on it. The teenagers even picked up on it! Needless to say, camp got a pretty strong review from me by the time it was over. When we talk about Christ-centered preaching, I don’t mean that we just shove Jesus in there and hope to find a connection. Over the next few weeks we will talk about the ways that Christ can be preached from all areas of Scripture. We’ll see that no matter where we turn, we can find some aspect of Christ’s life, death, resurrection, second coming, and mission. Bryan Chapell writes, “We should be willing to learn principles of redemptive interpretation that the New Testament writers employed and exemplified. From these principles we learn that the more common approach to understanding the redemptive nature of all biblical texts is to identify how God’s Word predicts, prepares for, reflects, or results from the person and/or work of Christ.” If we think of a book like Exodus, how much of the imagery points to or prepares for Jesus? Jesus is the greater Moses, Jesus is the greater Pharoah, Jesus is the greater Passover Lamb, Jesus is the greater exodus! Our task in preaching is to see to it that Jesus is always seen as greater. Our task is that we would show our people Christ and testify about what He is and has done for the glory of God. What exactly then does a Christocentric approach to preaching do? Sidney Greidanus says that the Christocentric approach seeks “to do justice to the fact that God’s story of bringing his kingdom on earth is centered in Christ: Christ the center of redemptive history, Christ the center of the Scriptures. In preaching any part of Scripture, one must understand its message in the light of that center, Jesus Christ.” We preach a King and a Kingdom. We preach Christ as the living and breathing Word of God, the Word made flesh. John writes in John 1:1-4

John 1:1–4 NASB95

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.

Jesus Christ, the living, breathing, walking, talking Word of God in the flesh. It is Him that we preach and it is Him that all Scripture points to. John Calvin said, “We ought to read the Scriptures with the express design of finding Christ in them. Whoever shall turn aside from this object, though he may weary himself throughout his whole life in learning, will never attain the knowledge of the truth; for what wisdom can we have without the wisdom of God.” All of Scripture and all of our preaching must either point to a Christ that has come, a Christ that is here, or a Christ that will come again. If we are really preaching expositional sermons, they should naturally be Christ-centered because He is the focal point of all of Scripture. Our task as preachers is to show our people Christ on every page of Scripture. Next week we will start to talk about how we do that, how we put the sermon together.

Dangers of Thematic and Moralistic Preaching

One last thing that I want to talk about today and then we’ll have some discussion is the dangers of thematic and moralistic preaching. I would say that there is nothing necessarily wrong at preaching themes that are found in Scripture. I think that the danger of thematic or topical preaching versus expository preaching is that we box ourselves in. Chances are we will want to preach the themes that we like more than the things that need to be expounded. Paul challenges preachers to preach the whole counsel of God. Paul doesn’t say that he taught the topics that he found interesting or the topics that he thought would be of interest to the congregation. No, he preached the Word of God. How can we preach the whole counsel of God if we keep coming back to our greatest hits? This isn’t to say that there is never a time for a topical sermon. It just shouldn’t be the main diet of the preacher and the congregation. Tim Keller I think is a great example of someone that blended topical and expository preaching in ministry. Keller was a huge advocate for exposition but even when he preached a more topical sermon, it still explained a text of Scripture and how it connected to that topic. The danger of topical preaching though comes from trying to force a topic to match a part of Scripture instead of having Scripture drive the message. You can do a sermon on a topic like baptism or missions and still preach exposition-ally on that topic. The big issue with topical preaching is that the preacher risks repeatedly coming back to the same topics because that is what they are comfortable with. Exposition propels us along often to a greater number of topics than our topical preaching will do. What about moralistic preaching? What even is that? When I think of moralistic preaching, I think of people that preach behavioral change instead of Gospel-renewal. It preaches man more than it preaches God. It preaches works more than grace. In some ways moralistic preaching makes you or the congregation the star of the sermon over Christ. Good exposition, good Christocentric preaching should naturally produce moralistic change but you can teach morality without teaching Christ. By preaching morally, by not preaching Christ front and center, we will teach the Bible as if we are the heroes and that God is writing a story about us. Remember a few years ago when Matt Chandler was preaching and he said that the purpose of a story like David and Goliath isn’t that we would go out and slay the giants of our lives, we just need to be like David? His big take away was that the Bible is not about you and you aren’t the hero of the story. God is the hero of David and Goliath, God is the rescuer that uses someone like David to accomplish what God wants. When we preach moralistic and behavioral change, we risk telling people that the secret to a better life can be found in what you are able to do and not through what God can do through you. We don’t want solely moral improvement, that can be found in so many places other than Christianity. What we want is faithful preaching of Christ crucified and raised from the dead. Let’s go to the Lord in prayer and then let’s talk about what you guys are thinking.

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