The Aim of Expository Preaching

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Charles Koller says the aim of expository preaching is to persuade its hearers to conform to the will of God. Its goal is reconciliation and fellowship of humanity with its loving Creator. The message also has other objectives once salvation has been secured. Koller lists seven:
1.   Consecration – commitment to living for Christ.
2.   Indoctrination – to learn the way of Christ.
3.  Inspiration – to promote the spirit of praise and thanksgiving.
4.  Comfort – the imperative to repent and acknowledge God’s forgiveness.
5.  Strengthening – confirmed and fortified in the faith.
6.  Conviction – share the truth of God with other needy people.
7.   Action – to become “doers of the Word.”
Preaching’s aim is to communicate the Word of God to all people where they are.
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Social Media and The Gospel

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Someone recently said to me, “Facebook, Skype, and other social media sites are nothing more than places where lonely men and women go to hook up.” I replied, “That’s like saying the only reason some people go to sporting events is to visit the concession stand.” There are some Christians in this life who are so sin-sensitive that they can’t see the expanding opportunities to share God’s message of forgiveness right in front of them (literally).

Sin abounds. There is no doubt. But so does opportunity. It is sort of like that old expression, “It is all in how you look at it.”

I am thankful for my Facebook and Skype accounts. There are indeed some “interesting” people there. But I can’t go to Walmart or take a walk in my neighborhood without seeing the reality of sin in people’s lives. If I used the logic of my friend who warned me of the ills of social media, then I guess I should avoid Walmart too. I shouldn’t go on walks. I shouldn’t go to sporting events. I shouldn’t do anything.

I shared with my concerned friend that I have had more one-on-one ministry involvement on social media than in person in recent days. I can’t explain it, but oftentimes when people learn that I am a pastor/minister they open their lives up to me. In chat rooms and on Skype lines they ask the questions we ministers wish everyone would ask.

A few days ago a man I have only met through Skype asked me if I would talk to his wife about the Lord (via Skype). They live in another state. She was an unbeliever. He had tried for years to share Jesus with her, but she wouldn’t receive it from him. I readily agreed. The next morning at 5 a.m., I sat in my office with my headset on and chatted with Thomas and Eve. I asked Eve to tell me what she thought of Thomas and his relationship with Jesus. She said, “It is good for him and I wish I could come to understand it.” I will restrain from sharing the entire conversation. But I will tell you that I shared the simple gospel message to her. I shared the basic, simple gospel message of God’s love, our sin, and Jesus’ cross. Educated people keep telling me that post-modern people are so different. I rarely agree. Because this post-modern woman, over a Skype line, became broken and convicted by the Holy Spirit because of that “old, old, story.” As I led her in prayer I could hear that she and her husband were shedding tears of brokenness and joy. After her “amen” she celebrated the Lord Jesus. In fact, all three of us did. It was a beautiful re-birth! AWESOME GOD!

Yeh, stay away from Facebook, Skype, and all other social media. While you are at it, throw away your television, move far away from your neighborhood, avoid Walmart at all costs, and go live in seclusion. Isn’t that what Jesus did? No, not quite. It seems that I am reminded of how upset the “righteous” people were when He hung out with the publicans and sinners in “social” situations. “Hey Jesus, don’t you know that being social can corrupt you?”

God bless you.

That Special Place: The Sanctuary

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There is just something special, at least for me, about the empty church sanctuary (I know that in the modern age we call it the “Worship Center”). I enjoy walking and praying alone in the stillness of this day lit place of safety. This room, which seems to resonate with the ambiance of previous awe-inspiring worship services, serves as a place of reminder and reflection in several respects.

People tend to be predictable. Although they may show some openness to innovation and change, for the most part people love standing right in the center of their personal comfort zones. What I mean, at least in the case of church, is that church people tend to sit in the same chairs or pews each Sunday. This is true of the staid, traditional church as well as the more casual, blended or contemporary church. As I love to tell my students, “people is people.” I make use of this reality in sermon preparation.

Each week I find a time to walk alone in the sanctuary with a legal pad in my hand. Because people tend to sit in the same place from week to week I can remember them by name and experience as I stroll by their seats. This gives me the opportunity to do a little pastoral reflecting upon things they may have told me, pains they have endured, joys experienced, or anything else that is significant in their lives. As I whisper a prayer for them and reflect upon the week’s selected text, the Holy Spirit begins that wonderful process of illumination. The Lord graciously begins to reveal the relevance of the text and its meaningful application for this particular family and church.

From row to row and chair to chair the process of illumination tends to magnify. My mind and heart begin to race as certain implications of the selected text gradually are revealed. So not to forget, I jot each of these thoughts, ideas, and concepts down on the legal pad. Each thought or idea has a significance that I could not have discovered in a commentary, book, preaching resource, or on the internet. It is a far more personal and pastoral approach, in my estimation, because I actually am engaging my flock instead of engaging reading or internet materials. Please understand that I believe there is a place for commentaries and other helpful resources. But there simply is no greater place to begin to see and understand the implications, relevance, and application of the selected biblical text than in a place where I can think solely of the church members. I also see the implications for my own life. Therefore it becomes a moving devotional time for me. The Holy Spirit looms large in this special and significant time of sermon preparation.

Most of the time I walk back into my study and begin to type many of these thoughts and ideas into the message. Some of the thoughts have no place in the actual sermon. They were given by the Holy Spirit in order that I might pray for a situation or consider how I might minister to a family in need. Some of these thoughts do indeed make their way into the message. Sharing this illuminated and biblically charged information with the congregation the following Sunday is an awesome joy. I know that the message is God’s Spirit-anointed message because I broke away from the study and walked in that special place called the “Sanctuary.”

The C. I. T. of the Text

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The “Heart” of the Passage

At the heart of a paragraph should be one cardinal thought: It is what I (and many other homileticians) call the “central idea of the text” (CIT).
The central idea of the text is channeled through the original purpose or intent of the biblical author. Once the preacher understands that ONE dominat idea, then he can begin to contemporize the central idea by create a thesis statement (how the ancient text relates to the modern listener). The Thesis takes you into the homiletical aspects of the sermon preparation process.

The sermon, as a living word from God to his people, should make its impact on them then and there. They will not remember all the details. We should not expect them to do so. But they should remember the dominant thought, because all the sermon’s details have been marshaled to help them grasp its message and feel its power.

The proposition of the message, derived from a solid CIT and Thesis statement (see chapter 4 of Crossing the Homiletical Bridge) answers the question, What is the sermon about? ... Whether a sermon has two points or ten points, it must have one point, it must be about something (it must propose something).

"The first thing in making a sermon, the sine qua non, is the idea. There can be no sermon that was not first preceded by an idea or a theme."
John Killinger,
Fundamentals of Preaching, 44

I have a conviction that no sermon is ready for preaching, not ready for writing out, until we can express its theme in a short, pregnant sentence as clear as crystal. I find the getting of that sentence is the hardest, the most exacting, and the most fruitful labour in my study.
J. H. Jowett,
The Preacher: His Life and World, 133

Haddon Robinson says ideally each sermon is the explanation, interpretation, or application of a single dominant idea (C. I. T) supported by other ideas, all drawn from one passage or several passages of Scripture. He notes that sermons fail because:

a. They have too many ideas; but more often they deal with unrelated ideas.
b. Preachers may conceive of sermons as a collection of points that have little relationship to each other.
c. Fragmentation; little more than scattered comments based on words and phrases from a passage.

Get to the heart of the passage first and foremost, then all else will become quite easy.

Do the Right Thing, Making Right Choices - 2 Kings 18:1-6

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Hezekiah was not like his father Ahaz. He did it right. We always encourage our children, friends, and/or colleagues to "do it right" and "make the right choices." It seems Ahaz rarely did and made a real mess of the kingdom. Yet Hezekiah was determined to restore righteousness to God's people. I think he did an awesome job. He made the right choices:

1. The Choice of Authentic Worship (vs. 4)
2. The Choice of Audacious Trust (vs. 5)
3. The Choice of Attached Loyalty (6)

Yeh, my students would nail me and say it looks kind of like a preacher's outline. But remember what I always teach, "take the rough outline idea and direct it to the people (the masses)." So, if you use it, do just that. (Hey, I can't do it all for ya, can I?)

The Moments Before

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I have been asked many times by students and church members alike this question, "Tony, what do you the moments before you come into the Worship Center (aka "sanctuary") to preach?" I tell these wonderful folks that, for me, it is much more than the moments before that I start to get spirtually psyched up for the preaching moment. For at least 15 years now I have risen from bed around 4 a.m. on Sunday mornings. I get my coffee, my Bible, and my printed manuscript (yes I use one but rarely can anyone really tell). I pray. I pray for additional illumination regarding the selected biblical text and I pray that God reminds me that this will be HIS moment and not mine. I then read and re-read the manuscript. I picture the delivery event in my mind. I rehearse at least three times. I edit. This is all for the purpose of being as prepared and ready as I can before my church family. Rest comes later. Around 6 a.m. I finish getting ready and I then just relax and reflect. The last hour in the study at the church before I preach, I pray again and once more read through the selected passage. As I walk out of the pastor's study, I grab the door knob and pray that God would receive glory and that I share HIS message for the listeners.

Man Wastes his effort

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Its early Monday morning in Ottowara Japan. Preached in the two churches yesterday and it was a joyous experience. The people of these churches were more of a blessing to me than I was to them. We could learn much from such a spirit of unity and cooperation. Visted the Shinto Temples and Shrines of Nikko. Such elaborate detail in these places of "worship." I was moved by the one thought that mankind for centuries has attemped to get to god and/or impress their idea of god in order to receive a blessing and have assurance of eternity. Person after person prayed before the tomb of a dead emperor god. In front of them was his closed, sealed tomb. He is dead and has been for centuries. I wanted to cry out to them, "The true God of heaven is alive and well. His tomb is empty, we dont come to God. He has come to us in His Son, Jesus!"