Preaching

(This was originally published as an article in our church magazine "The Grapevine")

Don’t be put off by the title, this article is not just relevant to those who enter the pulpit, it’s a challenge to every Christian.

I read a blog post a few years ago by a pastor called Thabiti Anyabwile that included the quote below. His post was mainly a challenge to preachers, but I thought it would be worth expanding a little.

Throughout church history there have been many challenges from outside and from within. That is no different today.

There are lots of old confessions of faith, creeds, and doctrinal statements designed to define and defend the true Biblical doctrine. One such series of statements is the Second Helvetic Confession and it states the following:

“THE PREACHING OF THE WORD OF GOD IS THE WORD OF GOD. Wherefore when this Word of God is now preached in the church by preachers lawfully called, we believe that the very Word of God is proclaimed, and received by the faithful; and that neither any other Word of God is to be invented nor is to be expected from heaven: and that now the Word itself which is preached is to be regarded, not the minister that preaches; for even if he be evil and a sinner, nevertheless the Word of God remains still true and good.”

Let me explain what I think this means for two groups of people:

1. Preachers, do we really believe this as we prepare and stand up to speak?

2. Christians, do we really expect this when we go to church on a Sunday?

Let’s deal with preachers first.

If preachers really believed this, that in preaching they are transmitting the word of God, they would do one of two things. They would either give up preaching because they would know they were not gifted to take on such a weighty task. Or, they would constantly seek to improve their ability by listening to others preach and reading books about preaching, because they want to honour God’s word as highly as possible.

I say this to myself as much as to anyone else; a preacher should feel the awesome responsibility as he prepares his sermon. He should feel that weight as he steps into the pulpit to speak to God’s people gathered in front of him.

The task of preaching is not to be taken lightly. The task of preaching is a wonderful privilege. It is through the preaching of the word of God that God changes lives by the Holy Spirit.

The temptation for the preacher is to just get a sermon prepared. Once he has his preparation method or routine, it is very easy to go through the motions to produce a sermon.

But, if the preaching of the word of God, is the word of God, then it needs to have gripped the heart of the preacher first, not just be the product of his study and writing ability.

What about the average Christian in the congregation?

As well as the great responsibility that the preacher has, each Christian must ask themselves if they believe this statement to be true.

If they do, then they will prepare their own hearts to hear the word of God preached whenever that opportunity arises, because they know that they are about to hear a life-changing message.

That might mean they pray for God to enable them to be sensitive to what is the Spirit will lay upon their heart. It might mean asking God to help them be ready to change, even if that change is going to difficult. It might mean repenting of sin. It might be approaching a brother or sister and asking for forgiveness.

The Christian who believes that they are hearing the very word of God when a preacher begins his message must be expectant that God will speak to them right there and then. They will expect to be encouraged, challenged, taught, rebuked, corrected, cut to the heart and changed in the most profound ways.

But they will also expect that this will not be done in isolation, God will speak to all who are present and therefore, there will be others to pray with, share with, delight with, cry with, repent with and speak with as the Spirit takes the word and applies it.

The temptation for the average church member is to go through the motions, or to be focused on the tasks they have to do or the people they feel they need to speak to that morning. Or maybe just think that church is activity, something to be done like the shopping or watching a tv series.

A Christian should never view church as mundane or comfortable because the word of God will be spoken there, and it is anything but those things.

And just in case there was any doubt let me close by saying this; this is why preaching of the word of God must be central in churches, because it communicates the very word of God.

Listen Up

It is a dangerous thing to come to word of God but not be prepared to listen to Him speak. This is one of the things that the Parable of the Sower in Mark 4 teaches us.

The word of God is the good news of the Kingdom, and the good news of the Kingdom is about a person, Jesus Christ, the Living Word of God.

Each soils shows a different reaction to Jesus. But there is always a reaction meaning it is dangerous to not be ready to listen and be changed by Jesus.

Jesus commands people to “Listen!” in verse 3. Then in verse 9 “he who has ears to hear, let him hear”.

He is speaking to a mixed crowd, including His disciples. So this is for everyone, not just those who don't believe, trust or follow Jesus.

The fours soils give the 4 kinds of reaction to the word. This parable is the key to all the rest in many ways. Jesus is saying that the message of the soils is for every time you hear the word.

The first is the hard ground. This is a heart that is not bothered and Satan takes that opportunity to steal the word away. We might quite easily look at the leaders and teachers of the law think they were useless and blind to what was in front of them in chapter 3. But, if we come to God’s word with indifference, or in a way which shows we think we have got Jesus nicely boxed up and understood, we are in danger of being hard soil. The word can’t do its work because we think it is not relevant or we choose not to seek to understand.

Do we have desire for the word of God or has it become mundane listening to it on Sunday never mind reading it or going to a home/gospel group during the week?

In our society we are so used to listening for the sake of absorbing information, or just listening to/watching TV to "switch off" after work, that we treat the word of God in the same way. That’s why asking questions and chatting with one another about the word, inviting people to encourage and challenge you is key to breaking up the hard soil and letting the seed sink in. We need to keep one another going. We need to fight the apathy and routine, we need to fight just being at the church to tick a box.

The second is the rocky ground. The word is heard and it is even received with joy (v16). But there is no root and it dies off with no fruit produced.

This might be when we hear about the wonderful forgiveness we have in Jesus and we are amazed again at the grace shown to us but we still can’t spend time with or speak to someone who hurt us. We need to broaden or view of how the word applies. The first step is not suddenly being their best mate but keeping reminding yourself of what Jesus has done for you, praying the Spirit would change and help you begin to show that same love for the person who offended you.

The third is ground where thorns and thistles grow. The pleasures and troubles of this world muscle in and choke the joyful reception of the word.

For us this might look when we hear about the goodness of marriage and sexual purity and get really excited by God’s vision for it but then the attraction of pornography muscles it’s way back in offering an alternative instant pleasure. Knowing when you’re weak, preaching the truth of God to yourself, having someone you share and pray with will help you to root out the weeds so that the soil is good.

It can be easy to see Jesus as cool, good, exciting, even satisfying, but He needs to be all satisfying, He needs to be our everything, we need to say with Paul that we consider everything a loss compared to knowing Jesus, or we will not keep on keeping on with Jesus when the riches of this world come calling.

Or maybe a stormy time in life comes along you need the joy of the gospel and knowing Jesus deeply to survive and come through the other side bearing fruit.

That leaves us with the final soil. It’s good and there is great fruit from it. How can we practically cultivate the soil of our hearts so that it’s ready to receive the word and bear fruit?

If you don’t yet know Jesus, are you going to be like those who sought out Jesus for a further explanation? Will you do something about the things you have heard about Him? Or maybe you think you have now heard enough to come and trust Him. That’s what being good soil would be like for you I believe.

All of us can pray for the Spirit to speak to us. The Holy Spirit speaks of and shows us Jesus and changes us to be more like Him. He longs to take the word, bring it to life and work out in our lives.

Have your Bible open on a Sunday morning. Follow along with what is being by the preacher. Make notes. Ask questions of the preacher at the end. Chat with the person next to you about things you didn’t understand or have been challenged about. If you’re the person that someone has shared their challenge with, why not encourage them during the week or follow it up with them in a couple of weeks time.

Why not listen to Sunday’s sermon again during the week so that the seed is not lost in busyness life?

Saturate yourself with the Bible. Not so you know lots of verses, facts or doctrine, the Pharisees could recite the scriptures better than anyone. Do it so that you get to know Jesus better and become more like Him. Our knowledge of the written word should always be to that end, to enjoy and deepen relationship with the Living Word.

If you don’t learn well by sitting and reading, maybe get an audio Bible and listen. If you find it easier when some explains as you go, get some good books or listen to good sermons. If you need to talk things through with people to really understand and think what they look like in practice why not go to Home/Gospel Group, or arrange to meet someone from church for a coffee and chat about some things you have read in your Bible or heard at church.

Do you see how these things all actually draw us closer together? They make us more of a family and our growth is not an individual project, but a corporate one.

And remember there is abundant grace when we mess up. Continuing to sit under the word and listen to it will help us not to feel guilty or down in those situations, but actually continue to repent and believe which is what being part of the Kingdom is all about (Mark 1).

As you go into this week then, expect God to speak, trust God by asking Him to bring His word to bear fruit in your life and others. Work out what are the best ways for you to listen and put those into practice so that the seed of the word grows in your life.

Preaching - what is it?

Here's a very challenging quote that I recently read on the Pure Church blog by Thabiti Anyabwile. His post is much fuller than mine and has some links to some lectures, check it out here.

For now, just read the quote and mull over the weightiness of it.

The Second Helvetic Confession states:

THE PREACHING OF THE WORD OF GOD IS THE WORD OF GOD. Wherefore when this Word of God is now preached in the church by preachers lawfully called, we believe that the very Word of God is proclaimed, and received by the faithful; and that neither any other Word of God is to be invented nor is to be expected from heaven: and that now the Word itself which is preached is to be regarded, not the minister that preaches; for even if he be evil and a sinner, nevertheless the Word of God remains still true and good.

Preachers, do we really believe this as we prepare and stand up to speak?

Christians, do we really expect this when we go to church on a Sunday?

Bible Handling.......and your chance to do it!

What a privilege it is to be involved in Bible ministry on a regular basis.

Being a staff worker with uccf:thechristianunions gives me this privilege all the time.
One such example was last week, when my colleague, Hamish, and I spent a day training the Relay workers from out regional team.
We started after lunch with 2 sessions: One on basic Bible handling, looking at the author's purpose, context and structure tools (as they are described in Digging Deeper by Andrew Sach and Nigel Beynon). The other giving them time to put those skills into practice by working on some passages in teams of 3 then presenting their findings and an outline to the whole group. We purposely chose passages which studied in isolation from their context would not make complete sense, or lose their thrust.

The evening was then spent chilling out together with a little bit of healthy competition thrown in for good measure in the form of Cranium!

The following morning we embarked on a new set of sessions which Hamish and I had decided to introduce this year for the first time. We decided to specifically look at handling the Old Testament and how it is about Jesus. The format was the same, teaching of skills and helpful stuff about ways passages can point to Jesus. Then we gave them passages to go away and study and present their findings.
What was encouraging was that while some of the Relays had done a lot of Bible handling before, all of them seemed to really benefit from the concentrated time spent thinking and discussing together. The OT stuff stretched us as well as them, which is always a good thing. Hopefully we all will grow in love for Jesus and the word as we see it hanging together so wonderfully.

Final thing to say is, if you are a final year student, or you're wondering what to do when finishing university in a couple of years, why not think about Relay (see video below) and you too could enjoy some wonderful fellowship and excellent opportunities to sharpen one another through studying the Scriptures and discussing how best to understand it.

Train up a Child - Family Devotion

A few weeks ago my wife and I went around to have dinner with a family from church. They have 4 kids aged between 2 and 8.
We all sat down and ate food together, which was lovely, and then headed into the living room.
We chatted about various things while the kids played and showed us as many of their toys and books as they could.

Then as it approached the time for the youngest to go to bed we were asked if we would like to take part in family devotion time.
We were all given a Bible and took turns at reading a verse each from a Psalm. The dad of the family then led us in prayer and anyone else who wanted to pray followed on from that.

A couple of things struck me and I thought I'd share them:

1. The importance of the word of God in the life of a Christian family was clear, just because visitors were present that didn't change the fact that this was something important to be done as a family.

2. Children can sit and read and listen and take part in something so simple, yet so profound.

It was a great privilege to witness and take part in. It was an example of Proverbs 22v6 in action. I have much to think through about how best to go about family Bible time and other related parenting things but I hope and pray that Nancy and I will be good parents to our soon to arrive bundle of joy and any more the Lord chooses to bless us with.

Quotes from Forum 2011

Here's a list of really helpful quotes from Forum 2011.
It doesn't do all of the talks justice, but it will give you at least a little taste of the kind of things we were thinking about.
I've noted a little bit of context or passage reference underneath, thought it might be useful!

(Disclaimer: these quotes are as I wrote them down, they may not be word for word what was said, but my aim is that they convey the point of what was being said)

"Glory is all to do with God's essential nature....When God is most clearly seen for who He is. And here we see that it is most clearly seen in Jesus' death."
Tim Rudge showing us that it is at the cross we most clearly God's essential nature, that He is love.

"Come warm yourself at the great fire of my self-giving love"
Tim Rudge telling us that this is what Jesus wants us to do.

"We as Christians need to be radically identified, with the world, in love, but radically different in holiness."
Rebecca Manley Pippert explaining how we really have to be out there loving people, yet distinct in character, set apart, holy.

"The solution to life, ministry and mission lies in Jesus. Jesus is at the very centre of all we are about"
Mike Reeves, pretty self-explanitory stuff from John 15.

"True branches are never cut off....True, living branches are pruned....God wants us to know the pleasure of being fruitful....Because He loves us so much He will go to war on the things that enslave us. He does it for our joy out of love"
Mike again from John 15 helping us to understand the part of discipline in the Christian life as well as showing us the security of being a child of God (He used John 6 and 10 to back up the point that true branches are not cut off)

"Having His word abide in you means having your heart won to Christ"
Once again Mike from John 15, he went of to speak of the fact that we are to feed on the love of Christ and that wins our hearts.

"We must understand that our motivation is God, our model is Jesus and our means is the Spirit"
Becky Pippert on evangelism.

"Be prepared, the world will oppose you as you point people to Jesus"
Jason Clarke warning us that we will face persecution if we live and speak for Jesus. He also spoke of how knowing we are loved by God means we can face being hated by the world.

"If you want to be a messenger of the gospel you need to be in authentic personal relationships with non-Christians"
Danno speaking to us about the gospel and personal evangelism from 2 Tim 4.

"We need to be God's people in God's world cultivating it for His glory"
Once again Danno showing us the need to be in the world using our gifts and abilities to bring glory to Him.

"No-one is qualified for Kingdom work! A bombshell to the proud and a comfort to the despairing"
Mark Meynell helping us to be real about out role in God's mission to the world.

"God does not call the qualified, He qualifies the called"
Mark again, after speaking about Thomas and Peter, clearly telling us we need to seek where God is calling us and trust He will equip us for the job.

"I'm no less than a forgiven sinner saved by grace and given a ministry by mercy"
One of Mark's closing sentences, helpfully summing up the standing of a Christian.

"The centre of the glory in heaven is the Lamb slain, the cross is where the glory is most clearly seen, because it displays His love, mercy and grace"
Richard Cunningham taking us through John 17 on the final morning.

"We are to be distinct from the world....Love what God loves, hate what He hates....It's about transformation of character not isolation"
Really helpful stuff again from Richard about not becoming a holy huddle but being salt and light in the world because we are being transformed to be more and more like Jesus.

"The Word of God is the instrument of the Spirit to transform us....If we love Jesus we will obey His Word"
Again Richard pointing out that we need to obey out of love which is radically different from legalism.

"All wills bowing in the same direction, all affections focussed on the same thing burning with the same flame, all actions heading for the same goal. Unity of heart, mind and will"
This is what Jesus' wants for believers in His High Priestly prayer in John 17 and what Richard encouraged us with as he effectively commissioned us for our ministry on campus as CUs, united to share the love of Jesus.

If or when these talks are available to listen to, I wholeheartedly recommend you download them and work through them.

The blessing of the Word of God

Just watched this. We are so privileged to have had the Word of God in our language for such a long time. Have we lost the joy shown by these people upon receiving the New Testament in full for the first time?

The Kimyal People Receive the New Testament from UFM Worldwide on Vimeo.