Category Archives: purpose

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A Fresh Angle On Sermon Application

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My friend, Dr. Abraham Kuruvilla, has written an excellent book, Privilege the Text! A Theological Hermeneutic For Preaching (Moody). In his attempt to interact with the subject of Christ-centered preaching, Abe presents a fresh angle on application. He advocates what he calls, Christiconic interpretation, utilizing the Greek word, eikon, in Romans 8:29. “God’s goal for his children is, ultimately, to conform them into the image…of his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the only one who perfectly exemplified ‘faith-full’ obedience. He alone fulfilled divine demand. Thus every pericope [every portion of Scripture you select to preach] points to a facet of the image of Christ; to that facet God’s people are to conform, in the power of the Holy Spirit” (p. 269).

I found the discussion helpful because it gives me a way to tie sermon application to the larger picture of God’s goal for every Christian. It also helps me realize that the divine demand in every preaching portion is calling me to one slice of the life of Christ. Without this angle, it’s possible that we will only talk in terms of morality. Abe’s angle on application helps keep application distinctly Christian.

For instance, the wisdom and humility of Christ is displayed in Luke 9:49-50 “John answered, ‘Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he does not follow with us.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘Do not stop him, for the one who is not against you is for you.'” When I encouraged us to adopt the humility that does not attack other Christians and other ministries, I was urging us to take on part of the image of Christ. He was secure in His relationship with God and wise enough to have such perspective and balance. God wants the same for His children.

What part of the image of Christ did your preaching portion call you and your people to yesterday?

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Making Sure Our Congregants Are Among the Great in God’s Kingdom

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Some of you recognize the young Cassius Clay in the above picture. He once said: “I said I was great, even before I knew I was.”

In Luke 9:46-48 Jesus teaches that we must all be great in order to qualify as a Kingdom-of-God citizen. Here is another example of the need to add theological thinking to your exposition (see August 13, 2013 post) and to thicken your sermon with theology (see October 7, 2013 post). Like many of Jesus’ parables (and I take it that this instruction is a quasi-parable), Jesus ends the teaching in a way that forces us to evaluate whether or not our faith is well-executed. In this case a well-executed faith replaces arrogance and ambition with true humility. This is required of all true Believers and we must explain this to our listeners so all of them can be counted among the great that get into God’s Kingdom.

This requires us to show the connection between saving faith and a certain kind of lifestyle, something that occurs throughout Jesus’ teaching. According to v. 48 anyone who receives a child in Jesus’ name receives Jesus, which is equal to receiving God (“…receives him who sent me…”). By the way, virtually no one in our churches thinks of being saved as receiving God. Most all think of receiving Jesus. The attitude and accompanying action of receiving a child in Jesus’ name is synonymous with being “least.” And being “least” is being “great” (according to God’s criteria of greatness). Craddock writes, “Whoever welcomes the lowliest has shown humility appropriate to the kingdom.” The humility authenticates our faith in Christ. The humble are great in God’s Kingdom.

I think most of us preaching Luke 9:46-48 would do fairly well explaining why the disciples’ argument about who was the greatest among them was ugly and completely inappropriate. I think we would explain the significance of receiving the child. I hope that we would also preach in such a way that our parishioners would feel compelled to make the same choice Jesus’ hearers were forced to make: “Am I going to be great by grace that makes me least?” If you follow Jesus’ theology and logic, you will inevitably urge the proper response that constitutes worship during the teaching time.

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Fight the Urge to Be Exhaustive (and exhausting?)

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I remind myself regularly, “Lord willing, we’ll cover that another time in another Text.” I’ll say that to parishioners periodically on a Sunday. It’s one of the benefits of preaching to roughly the same listeners each weekend. We do not have to worry about being exhaustive in every sermon.

 
If you’re a bit neurotic like me, you might be thinking: “That sounds like an excuse for shoddy sermons.” But that’s not my reason. Take, for instance, Luke 9:18-20 which contains Jesus’ crucial question, “Who do you say that I am?”, and Peter’s confession, “The Christ of God.” That paragraph begins in verse 18 with: “Now it happened that as he was praying alone, the disciples were with him…” I had to fight the temptation to elaborate on Jesus’ prayer life.
 
I fought that temptation because Luke provided no commentary; just the fact. Although Jesus’ prayer life–like yours and mine–was crucial to His relationship with God, it was incidental in this scene. On that particular Sunday I intended to communicate what God was saying through Luke and Luke wasn’t saying much about prayer. Here’s why often, less is more:
 
1. Less is often more because covering less leaves more time on Luke’s theology and intention for the Church. I’m finding that, as I develop as a preacher, I am consistently cutting out incidental, biblical data from my sermons. The longer I preach, the more I realize the need to spend more time on the parts of a preaching portion that contain theology that functions for the Church.
 
2. Less is often more because covering less also leaves more time for application. I can’t tell you the number of times I look at the clock on Sunday and wish I had an extra five minutes. Those extra minutes could be used to make sure we all know how to implement the theology when we leave church.
 
Obviously, this is not the only way to approach preaching in church. But in your attempts to be biblical, consider the value of accomplishing more by covering less.
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Does Worship Stop When Your Preaching Starts?

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We have our work cut out for us if we are going to keep congregants worshiping when the sermon starts. Think about it.

Who leads worship in your church? When people hear the term, worship leader, who do they think of? In most churches, most people now equate worship with the singing, not the preaching. In most churches, the sermon follows the music and singing. If parishioners equate worship with singing, what do they think is happening during the sermon? Years ago congregants were asked what segment of the worship service made them feel closest to God. The number one answer was moments of silence. Last place went to the sermon. As I said, we have our work cut out for us.

Several months ago I decided, in light of this reality, to tweak my approach to sermon introductions. My goal was to help people realize that the teaching time is a time for worship, too. Actually, I started with my prayers that I say prior to our public reading of Scripture. In that prayer I ask God to help us worship during the sermon. I ask Him to help us move from knowledge to appropriate response. Worship is, after all, the Believer’s response to the revelation of God. Then, I decided that most Sundays, after the public reading of the preaching portion, my introductions would begin with some variation of: “This is God’s Word. We worship this morning by responding to (fill in the blank with a summary of the scene in Luke’s Gospel, for instance).” At the end of the introduction, I’ll state the response that the preaching portion is intended to create.

For instance, in Luke 9:1-9 we read Jesus’ ministry description He gave to the original Twelve. So my introduction might begin with: “This is God’s Word. We worship this morning by responding to Luke’s record of when Jesus sent out His first official disciple-makers.” (Note that responding is different from learning about.) Then, my intro might end with: “This is a time for us to evaluate whether Jesus is accomplishing His mission in the world through you and me.” Throughout the sermon and especially at the end, we’ll talk about the small, but vital part we’re playing in God’s disciple-making program. We’ll make sure everyone is urged to join this ongoing mission.

I don’t want worship to stop when the preaching begins. I know you don’t, either.

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Consider the Value of Faith-First Application

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Faith-first application is my term for sermon applications that call for Believers to believe some aspect of the Gospel before asking for life-change. This application approach is the result of reading the Gospels and Scott Hafemann’s book, The God of Promise and the Life of Faith. When you read the Gospels you hear Jesus asking in Luke 8:25, “Where is your faith?” In other places you hear Him address His disciples, “O you of little faith” (cf. Matt. 6:30; 8:26; 14:31; 16:8; Luke 12:28). Jesus could have easily addressed other issues, such as their anxiety in Matt. 6:30 or their fear in Matt. 14:31. But He addressed their faith.

Scott Hafemann’s book helps show that faith in the promises of God leads to obedience. He also states, of course, that the opposite is true–that unbelief leads to disobedience. So, if it’s true that every act of disobedience is first and foremost an act of unbelief, then I must attack unbelief in my efforts to attack disobedience. And the opposite? I must urge faith first, before I try to urge righteousness. 

I know you know the connection between anxiety and little faith and between fear and little faith in our examples above. That’s the point. Jesus touches on our little faith because He knows that when faith grows, righteousness also grows. The story of Jesus calming the storm challenges our faith. Take a look at your sermon application in yesterday’s sermon or the one you’re creating for this coming Sunday. See if there is a way for you to feed the faith of your congregants. See if you can make a connection between their faith and applying their lives to your preaching portion.

There is a fringe benefit to this approach to application. Faith-first application eliminates commonly heard self-help moralism by connecting faith with practical application, making the latter distinctly Christian.

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Preaching That Matches Jesus’ Sense Of Urgency

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I learned from Jesus’ application of His own parable of the four soils that every teaching time in church is urgent. He teaches us in Luke 8:18 “Take care then how you hear…” This is Jesus’ primary application, after He showed us four kinds of hearing of the Gospel. This means that every sermon requires immediate action or attention. I’ve identified four kinds of hearing that take place in faith-families (I’m sure you can add to this): Congregants can

  1. hear and not understand.
  2. hear and don’t care.
  3. hear, understand, care, but not change.
  4. hear, understand, care, and change.

Jesus’ stern warning in v. 18 has helped me realize how important it is each Sunday to explain why it’s important to hear and respond to God’s Word. In an earlier post I mentioned how Jesus continually divides us all into two categories. In this case, we have the have’s (“…for to the one who has, more will be given…”) and the have not’s (“and from the one who has not, even what he thinks that he has will be taken away.”). Your theology will probably dictate how severe the warning is (loss of rewards–demotion, versus loss of spiritual life–destruction). Either way, I want to be sure my preaching matches Jesus’ sense of urgency. I do not want to be guilty of allowing parishioners to “think” they have what they don’t have.

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Preaching Two Kinds of Faith

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Recently, I was preaching on Psalm 112 and emphasizing the aspect of fearlessness in verses 7-8, “He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord. His heart is steady; he will not be afraid.” In my search for images for that Sunday’s slides, I came across this saying:

 

“Let you faith be bigger than your fear.”

 

After thinking about this for a moment or two, I realized that this kind of thinking betrays a lack of understanding of biblical faith. What struck me harder was the fact that the saying seemed to preach so well. I could hear myself saying something like this in an attempt to apply our lives to this Psalm.

At the risk of nit-picking, let me suggest that genuine faith in Christ is, by nature, stronger than fear. To tell someone to let their faith be bigger than their fear is actually telling them to exchange less-than-saving/sanctifying faith for genuine faith. So, it’s actually not about letting faith be bigger; it’s about explaining how faith in Christ conquers fear. That exercise in theological exegesis will help our congregants be the kind of person described in Psalm 112, which is what the Psalm is intended to do.

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Preaching on Fathers’ Day Can Be Hazardous!

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Thankfully, I was on vacation on Fathers’ Day Sunday.  Not that I especially like being on vacation, but because I didn’t have to twist a text to apply it to fathers.  How did you manage that Sunday?  I worshiped in a church in Maine.  The pastor selected Luke 15’s parable of the Prodigal Son.  I appreciated his emphasis on the father portrayed in the parable, though some of the principles he developed for us to follow may have been stretching the truth.  It shows how difficult it is to preach with greater accuracy if we are too focused on being relevant.  Often the occasion of the sermon takes precedence over the occasion of the Scripture.  Or, our purpose for choosing a sermon on Luke 15 for Fathers’ Day overrides the purpose for which that Scripture was given by God.  God help us for the sake of your reputation!