Category Archives: advent

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The Attitudes that Affect the Way We Respond to God’s Word

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Things that get in the way of applying life to the Bible

In my last post I began summarizing some of the things I’m learning from Marsden’s, An Infinite Fountain of Light. In the book he highlights a number of ways in which Jonathan Edwards is relevant for our day. Much of Edwards’s enduring value stems from the similarities between our listeners and those in the eighteenth century.

Here are some excerpts that help us know what is in the air we breathe:

“the autonomous individual is the fundamental unity of society” (p. 33). Which explains why it is very difficult to get a local church to think about community or to even think that the church is important enough to commit to.

“the God within” (p. 33). Virtually everyone in our society has been trained to think that listening to their own voice or following their own heart is the way to success. Each weekend you and I give them another word, a Word from God that is outside of themselves.

“the privatization of meaning” (p. 33). This is a spinoff from the one above. People in our day are ditching parents or a close knit group of neighbors or spiritual community and opting to discover their own meaning. Again, on Sundays we confront them with God’s Word and His meaning, but it’s not easy because deep down they believe they are the final authority on meaning.

That’s only three of them, but they are big ones that we face. What’s fascinating is to read how all this started with someone like Benjamin Franklin (remember, he and Edwards are contemporaries). Marsden points out one huge difference between their society and ours: they believed that there was some kind of transcendent basis for their values; our society does not.

This kind of analysis reminds me that when I am preaching, listeners are hearing God’s Word in the context of their cultural values. These attitudes always affect the way people interact with God’s revelation. As you head into this Christmas week and prepare to teach and preach on Christmas Eve, keep this in mind. See if your Scripture speaks directly to these attitudes and may our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21).

Randal

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Expository Preaching Should Always Reach Beyond Our Comprehension: What I’m Learning From Jonathan Edwards’s Earliest Sermons

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We are, after all, preaching about “God’s excellencies” every Sunday!

It’s been some time since I have written about what I’m learning from reading Jonathan Edwards’s earliest sermons.

One of those sermons was, God’s Excellencies, on Psalm 89:6

“For who in the heaven can be compared unto the Lord, and who among the sons of the mighty can be likened unto the Lord?”

Well, the answer, of course, is “Nobody can be compared to our Lord!”

In his introduction to that sermon, Kimnach, using Edwards’s own words, describes it as,

“a sermon in which the subject matter is frequently beyond ‘the outmost verge of our most outstretched thoughts.'” (p. 413)

Kimnach explains that one of Edwards’s favorite sermon themes was “the grandeur of God” (p. 414). No wonder Edwards spoke of going beyond the outer edges “of our most outstretched thoughts”!

This reminded me of the balancing act we attempt every Sunday with respect to expository preaching. If we are really preaching the Bible, not just from the Bible, our task requires finesse. We need to communicate the excellencies of our God, but those excellencies, according to Edwards, often extend beyond “the outmost verge of our most outstretched thoughts.”

Think Advent and incarnation!

One way to think about the effectiveness of our preaching is to assess the degree to which we can clearly present the excellencies of our God and just as clearly state that we haven’t done Him justice.

This gives our listeners the opportunity to worship in two ways. First, they can worship the Lord according to what they have just learned. Second, they can also worship the Lord by acknowledging that what they just learned doesn’t match His greatness.

May our Lord receive glory in the church and in Christ Jesus because of this exhilarating, Sunday morning tightrope walk (Ephesians 3:21).

Randal

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We Made It Through Another Advent Season!

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Heading into each December I experience mixed emotions when I think about  preaching. I am excited because Advent has great sermon potential. I am apprehensive because I’ve covered this ground many times before. Twenty-seven to be exact.

On top of that, God has blessed me with two relatively long pastorates (12 advents at The People’s Church in New Brunswick, Canada and 15 advents and still counting at Calvary Bible Church, Mount Joy, PA). But with that blessing comes the challenge of finding new things to preach.

If you struggle like I do sometimes trying to figure out what to preach during Advent, here are some ideas that may help for 2018:

  1. Early in my pastorate at CBC, a dear parishioner reminded me that the birth narratives never get old. She was trying to ease my angst about finding something new every year. It was a good reminder. The Gospel narratives are always appropriate. Like classic Christmas songs or movies, the birth narratives of our Lord never get old.
  2. Every year I look forward to receiving Advent devotional booklets from the fine faculties of Dallas Theological Seminary and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Almost every year I receive direction for or confirmation of my Advent preaching plan.
  3. Church & Culture is a blog by veteran Pastor James Emery White of Charlotte, NC. Along with having a finger on the pulse of our society, he shares many of his Advent sermon themes. Having been at Meck’ for many years, White knows what it’s like to face yet another Advent season with the same faith-family.
  4. The Advent key words, hope, peace, joy, and love, make excellent series. The four Christmas concepts also provide latitude for us to preach on many Old and New Testament Scriptures.
  5. Finally, Advent provides excellent opportunities to explore major Christian doctrines. It’s a great time to read in depth theological works on theology proper, the Incarnation, the Trinity, Christology, Anthropology, and Pneumatology (this was my first year to include a sermon on the Advent of the Holy Spirit and the corresponding peace in John 14).

May God give us many more opportunities to preach during Advent so He receives glory in the church and in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 3:21).

Randal