THE VALUE OF EXPOSITORY PREACHING - IN A NUTSHELL

This past week  I visited  a beloved  older member  of our church. As we  chatted  about many things  and church life and  people, she asked me a question: 

"So what is this expository preaching that you are always talking about? Can you explain that to me  in a short, clear way?"  

I tried my best  to  help her  to understand  our  chosen method  and practise  of preaching once again. 

A little later in the week, and in preparation for  my Sunday evening sermon on Acts 20:1-16, I was reading Gary Millar and Phil Campbell's  helpful book,   Saving Eutychus. 

You know that  well loved  story of   Eutychus who, having fallen asleep,  fell out of the window  during Paul's long preaching session. This  helpful little book is about  "How to preach God's Word  AND keep  people  awake".  I wished that I had that handy summary   on pages 40 and 41   ready  for my seasoned saint  at that time. 

Well here it is,  a helpful little summary on the nature and purpose of expository  preaching, for  the benefit  of  me and her and you : 

Expository Preaching

1. does justice to the biblical material which makes it clear that God works through His Word to change people’s lives—as it ‘uncages the lion’ and allows God’s word to speak.

2. acknowledges that it is God alone, through the Holy Spirit, who works in people’s lives, and that it is not our job to change people through clever or inspiring communication.

3. minimizes the danger of manipulating people, because the text itself controls what we say and how we say it. The Bible leaves little room for us to return repeatedly to our current bugbears and hobbyhorses.

4. minimizes the danger of abusing power, because a sermon driven by the text creates an instant safeguard against using the Bible to bludgeon (or caress) people into doing or thinking what we want them to do or think.

5. removes the need to rely on our personality. While we all feel the weight, at times, of having little ‘inspiration’, energy or creativity, if our focus is on allowing the immense richness of Scripture to speak in all its colour and variety, the pressure is well and truly off.

6. encourages humility in those teaching. While it can be a temptation to think that we are somehow special because we are standing at the front doing most of the talking (and, on a good day, receiving the encouragement), getting it straight that the key to preaching to the heart is simply uncovering the power and freshness of God’s words helps to keep us in our place.

7. helps us to avoid simple pragmatism. If our focus is on working consistently to enable people to encounter the God who speaks through the text, we will not feel under pressure to address every single issue and topic as it comes up in the life of the church. Conversely, working through the Bible week by week will force us to cover subjects that we wouldn’t choose to address in a million years. In other words, expository preaching is the simplest, longest-lasting antidote we have to pragmatism.

8. drives us to preaching the gospel.  Expository preaching is also uniquely valuable in that it persistently drives us to the Lord Jesus Christ (wherever we are in the Bible) and so ‘forces’ us to preach the gospel—that is, to spell out what God has already done for us in the death and resurrection of his Son, and then to move from that grace to what God asks and enables us to do. When we preach the gospel we are not simply telling people how to be good or leaving them to wallow in the overwhelming sense that they are irredeemably bad.

WHY I MUST PREACH ON SUNDAY ...and everyday !

I am sitting in my study preparing  for Sunday morning.  

We are currently  preaching through Paul’s first letter  to the Thessalonian church. Our current morning sermon series  is  called  "Portrait of a God-centered church".  

As  this  wonderful pastoral  letter moves  my soul, I am moved  to  think about the  state  of the church in the world. 

I am forced to  rethink and to  rehearse  and to consider how we  may rebuild our broken churches  upon  this  Thessalonian model, in our own day when the church at large is inclined to be anything but God centered.  

If anything, the modern church  has a tendency to be self -centered and man centered.  

This problem is, of course  not unique to our own age,  for this has been the constant struggle  of the church ever since she was born  on the day of Pentecost. 

And I remember  that  the effects of sin  upon our world  have had a heavy toll upon us all.  The pull is ever  downward,  as indicated by  the law of gravitation. 

G = 9.8m/s. 

Things fall down, not up!  

The tendency is always towards decay, towards  disorder – towards a state of entropy – as illustrated by the second law of thermodynamics [1].  

So too  it is with the church. 

One of my favorite poets is  T.S. Elliot[2]. He   has expressed  himself  in powerful poetry on the subject:

"Of all that was done in the past, you eat the fruit, either rotten or ripe.

And the Church must be forever building 

And always decaying - and always being restored.

For every ill deed in the past we suffer the consequence: For sloth, for avarice, gluttony, neglect of the Word of God.

For pride, for lechery, treachery, for every act of sin.

And of all that was done that was good, you have the inheritance.

For good and ill deeds belong to a man alone, when he stands alone on the other side of death,

But here upon earth you have the reward of the good and ill that  was done by those who have gone before you.

And all that is ill you may repair if you walk together in humble repentance, expiating the sins of your fathers;  And all that was good you must fight to keep with hearts as devoted as those of your fathers who fought to gain it.

The Church must be forever building, for it is forever decaying within and attacked from without;

For this is the law of life; and you must remember that while there is time of prosperity

The people will neglect the Temple, and in time of adversity they will decry it."

T.S. Elliot  recognizes that the church is in need of constant reformation, for she is constantly subjected to  sin and decay. 

Every generation must understand  this, and every generation of believers  must rebuild her walls which  are constantly being  assailed. 

We cannot  live on borrowed capital. 

A house lived in for along time must be renovated. 

We  cannot   presume that our fathers yesterday have done a good work. 

We must work  today and labour today to maintain the faith as itwas once delivered  to us  by our Lord Jesus.

And that is why I must preach on Sunday, praying that the Word, the gospel will come  in power  and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction! 

(1 Thessalonians 1:5) 

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[1] The Remarkable Birth of Planet Earth, by Henry Morris: (p. 14) All processes manifest a tendency toward decay and disintegration, with a net increase in what is called the entropy, or state of randomness or disorder, of the system. This is called the Second Law of Thermodynamics. ;  Scientific Creationism, edited by Henry Morris:  (p.25) The Second Law (Law of Energy Decay) states that every system left to its own devices always tends to move from order to disorder, its energy tending to be transformed into lower levels of availability, finally reaching the state of complete randomness and unavailability for further work.

[2] T.S. Elliot : Chorus from the Rock