Category Archives: relevance

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When Our Theology Waters Down Christ’s Warnings

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If we’re not careful, our theology may cause us to water down Christ’s warnings in the Gospels. Let me give you two examples. I believe genuine Believers are eternally secure. But that belief can cause me to water down Jesus’ warnings. I believe in dispensationalism with a small “d.” But that belief can also cause me to water down Jesus’ warnings.

In Luke 17:20-37 Jesus answers a question about when “the kingdom of God would come” (v. 20). A strong warning is found in v. 32 “Remember Lot’s wife.” Like all of Luke’s Gospel (cf. 1:4 “that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.”), Luke records this discussion about the arrival of the Kingdom of God so we would be sure we will enter it when it comes.

However, it’s possible that our theology might cause us to say to our congregants: “That’s a warning that need not be heeded.”

Over the years, I’ve tried not to allow my belief in eternal security or my brand of dispensationalism to water down Jesus’ warnings. Rather than allow my theology to cancel out the warnings, I’ve worked hard to give the warnings full force while maintaining my theology.

That means the question for me is no longer, “Are we eternally secure?”, but, rather, “How are we eternally secure?” Part of being eternally secure means heeding Jesus’ warnings and not being like Lot’s wife. In order to be ready for the arrival of the Kingdom of God, I must not allow anything in this fallen world to capture my affections.

And, as far as dispensationalism goes, the mindset and faith Jesus describes as necessary for salvation at His Second Coming is the same mindset and faith needed to be ready for salvation-by-Rapture. V. 33 makes this clear: “Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.”

Before Sunday, see if your preaching portion contains any warnings and ask yourself if you are giving them full force.

Preach well for the sake of God’s reputation.

Randal

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How Many Minutes In Your Sermon Are Actually Spent Preaching?

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My mentor, Dr. Haddon Robinson, used to talk about two angles on preaching. One, the preacher talks to people about the Bible. He functions much like a history teacher. Two, the preacher talks to people about them from the Bible. He functions as a theologian for the church. The first angle is heavy on explaining the ancient, biblical world. Congregants learn lots of interesting information, if they happen to like history. The second angle is heavy on applying that ancient, biblical Word. Congregants learn how to enter God’s world being portrayed by that ancient, sermonic history.

In his book, A Theology of Preaching: The Dynamics of the Gospel, Lischer writes, “After several years in an academic environment, theological students and teachers start preaching about the text rather than letting God preach through the text” (p. 46).

As I wrestle with preaching portions and develop sermons each week, I catch myself sounding too much like a history teacher. As I listen to sermons, I hear the vast majority of minutes devoted to teaching history. I fear that many people are listening to the History Channel each Sunday.

Think about your own preaching style. How many minutes in your sermon are actually spent preaching? How many minutes are spent giving a history lesson? Now, it’s true, biblical theology is conveyed through biblical history. So, part of preaching is telling parishioners what God did back then. The question is do we retell the history from the stance of the theologian who shows how Scripture functions for the Church. Ortlund said of one of Jonathan Edwards’ sermon, “Eighty percent of the sermon is application…” (A New Inner Relish, p. 53). 80%!

Here’s some ways I avoid contributing to the History Channel each Sunday:

  • My introductions include a brief statement about what the preaching portion is intended to do to the Church (the shape or form worship takes when life is applied to that Scripture).
  • My perspective is always on us and our lives, even when I’m retelling the fruits of exegesis.
  • After minutes delivering biblical history, I remind us again how it’s shaping us.

Preach well for the sake of God’s reputation in the Church and in the world.

Randal

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How To Balance Saint-Sanctifying, Seeker-Sensitive Preaching (part 10)

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Have you ever tried balancing on a bongo board? Okay, I probably should ask it this way: Have you ever tried balancing on a bongo board at my age?!? Unless you’re extremely blessed, it’s usually a struggle to stay on for long; even tougher to stay on while you attempt to move around on it. I find it difficult to balance preaching to insiders and outsiders with the same insider-directed message. As you may have read when this little series began, 1 Corinthians 14:24-25 shows us it can be done, but it’s not easy to do.

So, my goal in this series is to list and briefly explain how three effective pastors reached and, in one case, still reach both insiders and outsiders with the same insider-directed message. The three are Jonathan Edwards, D. M. Lloyd-Jones, and Tim Keller. They are not your typical seeker-sensitive preachers and yet they were, and are, effective in reaching non-Christians while they preach theologically loaded sermons to the Christians. How? So far we’ve looked at the following aspects of their method. They:

  1. Categorize listeners according to their spiritual condition
  2. Search the heart with probing questions
  3. Motivate listeners through both love for God and fear of God
  4. Attack the sin behind the sins
  5. Speak the thoughts of sinners (both the justified and unjustified)
  6. Identify our idols
  7. Show how the Gospel works to recreate the human heart
  8. Contrast what the world says with what God says.

Now, #9: They plunge beneath the surface of theological terms.

This may sound counter-intuitive. We might think it’s best to reach non-Christians by avoiding heavy theological language. But all three pastors excelled in preaching sermons that included (and include) lengthy explanation, illustration, and application of theological terms. Listen to how Keller tackled repentance (sorry, I do not have the actual sermon; Logos footnoted this only from, The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive (New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2013):

“If you hold grudges, if you’re full of pride….In other words, when you do things wrong, it sets up strains in the fabric of reality and eventually, they lead to breakdown. When the breakdowns come, when the circumstances hit you, when there’s some kind of meltdown, then you suddenly say, ‘Whew! What have I been doing? What has been wrong? How could I have thought that? What’s the matter with me?'”

Keller helps us know what repentance means by showing us how it happens in someone’s mind. It’s like what the young prodigal son might have thought as he was coming to his senses in Luke 15. Check out some of the overlap with #5 above. If your preaching portion contains theological language, fight the temptation to lighten them and delve deep into its meaning.

Preach well for sake of His reputation in the Church and in the world.

Randal

P.S. One of the most helpful little books I’ve read on this topic is Willimon’s, Peculiar Speech: Preaching to the Baptized. It will remind you of who we’re preaching to and help shape your perspective on crafting sermons.

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How To Balance Saint-Sanctifying, Seeker-Sensitive Preaching (part 9)

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My goal in this series is to list and briefly explain how three effective pastors reach both insiders and outsiders with the same insider-directed message. In other words, how do Edwards (as in, Jonathan), Lloyd-Jones, and Keller preach theologically loaded sermons to the saints and still manage to reach sinners? The three are not your typical seeker-sensitive preachers.

So far we’ve looked at the following aspects of their method:

  1. Categorizing listeners according to their spiritual condition
  2. Searching the hearts with probing questions
  3. Motivating listeners through both love for God and fear of God
  4. Attacking the sin behind the sins
  5. Speaking the thoughts of sinners (both the justified and unjustified)
  6. Identifying our idols
  7. Showing how the Gospel works to recreate the human heart.

Now, #8 is: Contrasting what the world says with what God says.

A few weeks ago the concept of meekness came up in a preaching portion. Almost everyone knew the world’s take on it: meekness is________? Right. Meekness is weakness. Defining what biblical meekness is is one thing, a good and necessary component of biblical preaching. However, we are more effective when we can contrast God’s view of meekness with the world’s view on it.

Why does God’s salvation include such a character trait (another way of getting at #7 above)? Why does the human heart have an allergic reaction to it (another way of thinking about #5 above: “Because the weak get run over in the ‘real’ world!”)? Let your listeners see just how diametrically opposed God’s kingdom and the kingdom of darkness are. Let them know why the two are opposite and why the kingdom of God is the better quality of life (both here and now and in eternity). That kind of analysis is good for saint and sinner alike.

Preaching well for the sake of God’s reputation.

Randal

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How To Balance Saint-Sanctifying, Seeker-Sensitive Preaching (part 6)

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In this series, I’m summarizing some of the things effective preachers do to hit both outsiders (unbelievers) and insiders (saints who entered the building with ears to hear) with an insider-directed message (cf. 1 Corinthians 14:24-25 for an example). These are ways in which men like Jonathan Edwards, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and Tim Keller (of Redeemer Presb’ in NYC) reach both audiences.

So far we’ve noted the following effective rhetorical devices:

  1. Categorizing your listeners according to their spiritual condition
  2. Searching the hearts with probing questions
  3. Motivating listeners through both love for God and fear of God
  4. Attack the sin behind the sins

Today’s tip is: Speak the thoughts and reasoning of sinners (both the justified and unjustified)

In describing Edwards’ approach, Carrick highlights the need to try to put your finger on “the secret language” of the hearts of our listeners (The Preaching of Jonathan Edwards, p. 302). This involves trying to figure out what the non-Christian and Christian might be thinking about the particular theology being communicated.

Apart from Keller’s unique, Christ-centered hermeneutic/homiletic, the one thing I’ve benefited from from Keller’s approach is his ability to articulate how his listeners are thinking about the preaching portion. This involves, of course, reading and listening to commentaries about our culture (newspaper, news reports, magazines, books, films). It involves listening to what people are saying whenever they declare their thoughts about life.

Carrick described Edwards as having “an incisive knowledge of the human heart” (p. 269). Add to that the ability to put words in our listener’s mouths, the things they should be saying. It’s an effective combination that helps “unmask the man.”

I must admit that this is the one area I’ve had to work on the most and am still working on. I find it much easier to exegete the Text than the pew. I’ve also found that the more I study my own depraved heart, the easier it is for me to speak the secret language of the hearts of my congregants.

Preach well for sake of God’s reputation in the Church and in the world.

Randal

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How to Balance Saint-Sanctifying, Seeker-Sensitive Preaching (part 5)

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In this series, I’m summarizing some of the things effective preachers do to hit both outsiders (unbelievers) and insiders (saints who entered the building with ears to hear) with an insider-directed message (cf. 1 Corinthians 14:24-25 for an example). These are ways in which men like Jonathan Edwards, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and Tim Keller (of Redeemer Presb’ in NYC) reach both audiences.

So far we’ve noted the following effective rhetorical devices:

  1. Categorizing your listeners according to their spiritual condition
  2. Searching the hearts with probing questions
  3. Motivating listeners through both love for God and fear of God

Today’s tip is attacking the sin behind the sins.

In Murray’s introduction to Lloyd-Jones’, Old Testament Evangelistic Sermons, he writes, “Sin must never be preached as though it were primarily a matter of actions. Sinfulness is a graver problem than sins” (p. xxiv).

It’s easy to preach against sin-as-a-matter-of-action because that is what the preaching portion is often doing. In order to reach both kinds of listeners, effective preacher/theologians attack the sin behind the sins. That means talking about one’s unbelief and alienation from God.

So, for instance, think about the common, “Five ways to manage your anger”-type sermon. It’s important to delve into a discussion of what’s in the human heart that’s causing the anger. Then, if you feel the need to offer the five ways, you’re not only addressing the sin, but the sin behind the sin. As you’ve probably heard before, we don’t only want to address the symptoms, but the cause too. In the following example, the first Q & A deals with the symptom; the second with the cause:

Why are you angry? Because I didn’t get my way.

Why are you angry? Because getting my way is what makes me happy. Now we’re onto something that can be addressed by the Gospel. As you develop your sermon for this weekend and, if your preaching portion pinpoints a particular sin to be avoided, ask yourself is you are attacking only that sin or the sin behind the sin.

Preach well for the sake of God’s reputation in the Church and in the world.

Randal

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How to Balance Saint-Sanctifying and Seeker-Sensitive Preaching (part 4)

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This series of blog posts is built off the premise that seekers can be reached with messages that are designed for the saints (cf. 1 Corinthians 14:24-25 and the outsider that is reached with an insider-directed message). What follows is another way in which effective preachers, ancient (Jonathan Edwards), past (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones), and current (Tim Keller), reach both kinds of audiences with the same message.

They motivate their listeners through both love and fear.

Edwards, for instance, writes: “No other principles will ever make men conscientious, but one of these two, fear or love….Hence, God has wisely ordained, that these two opposite principles of love and fear, should rise and fall, like the two opposite scales of a balance; when one rises the other sinks” (p. 376 in Carrick’s, The Preaching of Jonathan Edwards, quoting Edwards’ Religious Affections).

First, motivating through love means inquiring about our listeners’ love for God (not God’s love for us). Motivating through fear does refer to our being afraid of the wrath of our holy God.

You’ll notice in Edwards’ quote that he is arguing for both of these elements being included in our sermons. It caused me to look at my preaching and ask, first, if I am motivating my listeners to respond appropriately to the Text and, second, how I am motivating my listeners to respond to the Text.

Some of our preaching portions actually do motivate through one or the other, so when that happens, we simply urge everyone along just as God Himself does. Yesterday I preached on Hebrews 10:24-31 which contains the terrifying warning: “a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries….It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” And that was meant for the Saints!

However, many, if not most, preaching portions do not contain explicit motivation from either angle. In those Texts, during the application segment(s) of our sermons, it is important for us to motivate through love for God and fear of God. According to Edwards, this is one way to unmask the listener and bring him or her to faith.

Preach well for the sake of His reputation in the Church and in the world.

Randal

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How to Balance Saint-Sanctifying with Being Seeker-Senstive (part 2)

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For many of us preachers, Paul’s hypothetical situation recorded in 1 Corinthians 14:24-25 brings us comfort and encouragement. It reads, “But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or an ungifted man enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all; the secrets of his heart are disclosed; and so he will fall on his face and worship God, declaring that God is certainly among you.” The unbeliever takes the posture of a worshiper; he has become a Believer as a result of the insider-directed message.

However, did you notice what the preached Word did? “He is convicted…called to account…the secrets of his heart are disclosed.” The preached Word did that and this made me ask whether all exegesis and sermon preparation do this. In his commentary on 1 Corinthians, Conzelmann states, “The passage is important…for the Pauline understanding of prophecy: it is not prediction of the future, but unmasking of man.”

Do our sermons get to the point where God unmasks our listeners? I recently studied the methods of three effective pastors from three eras of history who addressed both saints and seekers through exegetical/theological/philosophical sermons: Jonathan Edwards, David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and Timothy Keller. Here’s what I learned from them:

1. They categorized their listeners according to spiritual condition. They also spoke directly to these categories. Often we think about application by categories of gender, occupation, age. But what about: the genuinely saved; those who profess Christ, but are struggling dearly with sin; professing Christians who show no evidence of being saved (absolutely no fruit); and those who profess to be non-Christian.

Keller suggest, for instance, that you should speak to the skeptics or doubters as though they are there each Sunday. He says that’s one way to ensure that they will show up. Word will get around that your church is a place where such attitudes will be discussed and where such attendees are welcomed. Look for places in your sermon where God’s Word is addressing these categories of listeners. See if this doesn’t help you to begin to unmask the man.

Preach well for the sake of God’s reputation.

Randal

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Creating Saint-Sanctifying, Seeker-Sensitive Sermons: Working Towards A Balanced Approach

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A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege of conducting a preaching workshop at Lancaster Bible College. Our afternoon focused on creating saint-sanctifying, seeker-sensitive sermons: working towards a balanced approach. This post begins a short series on this important topic. Lord willing, I’ll be conducting this seminar in detail at LBC’s campus in Greenbelt, MD on the afternoon of April 3, 2014.

The topic is important because:

  • Seeker-sensitive approaches continue to be very influential and many of us feel some measure of pressure to adopt effective methods.
  • We are creatures of extremes which means some of us might be out of balance (too seeker focused or too saint focused). Or, to put it another way, maybe you have totally dismissed the seeker-senstive approach or you have bought into it whole-hog.

First, let me ask you to analyze your own approach and setting. Do your sermons and approach lean more towards being seeker-senstive or saint-sensitive? What percentage of your listeners on an average Sunday morning would declare to you that they are non-Christian (an important question as we search for balance)?

Alright, let’s look at areas of theology and ministry that are affected by this discussion.

Theology: What did Jesus mean when He said, “Anyone who has ears to hear, let him hear”? Does a certain kind of sermon create ears that can hear?

Hermeneutics: Is the standard approach to reaching seekers the best way to read the Bible? Is, for instance, the “five ways to manage your anger”-type sermon the best interpretation of Scripture selected to support such a sermon (yes, my selection of the word, “support,” is loaded).

Homiletics: Have we paid so much attention to the interest of our listeners that we have forgotten the listener’s spiritual condition and need for theology (as opposed to self-help [defined as moralistic improvement from Scripture apart from faith in Christ)?

That being said, it is not my intention in this series to debunk seeker-senstive, topical preaching. I do want to help bring some clarity to what it means to be seeker-senstive. I especially want to show from 1 Cor. 14:23-25 that we should be and can be more seeker-sensitive with an insider-directed message from God’s Word.

1 Cor. 14:24-25 gives us hope: “But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.”

So, the only way to be seeker-sensitive is not creating an outsider-directed message and delivering it on Sunday morning. We know from v. 22 that these words were “for believers.” Be assured that your sermons aimed at the saints have the potential to reach the outsiders who join us each Sunday morning. More on how that happens in future posts.

Preach well for the sake of Christ’s reputation in the Church/world.

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Preaching Jesus’ First Sermon in Luke 4:14-21

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One of the challenges of preaching in the Gospels is trying to apply to Christians what appears to be written/said to non-Christians. For instance, in Luke 4:18-19 Jesus reads from Isaiah 61:1-2. Isaiah’s message seems tailor made for an evangelistic sermon or as a call for social justice (i.e., the poor, captives, and oppressed are mentioned). Isaiah and Jesus certainly contain an evangelistic and social thrust. Primarily, however, Luke writes for the Church to bolster their faith (cf. Luke 1:4). If, as Jesus says in Luke 4:21, this Scripture from Isaiah was being fulfilled that day, Jesus’ short message is a time for us to challenge believers to be sure they are experiencing the reversal of fortune described initially by Isaiah. All who profess faith in Christ move from poverty to spiritual wealth/power, from captivity to spiritual freedom/power, from blindness to spiritual perspective/vision, and from oppression to spiritual courage and hope.  According to Luke 4:22-30, the church-going folks in Jesus’ hometown did not believe Him. They did not believe they were needy. Believers, by definition, need to believe that Jesus does what He says He’ll do and receive His gracious gift of salvation/sanctification.

I’m not saying evangelism or social justice have no place. It’s just that Luke intends to say something to the Church about their response to Jesus’ person and work.

For those who are interested in preaching Christ from such a seemingly-already-Christ-centered text, remember, Jesus would later face rejection greater than that recorded in Luke 4:28-29. On the cross He would experience the deepest and darkest forms of human distress described in Luke 4:18. And He would do so so that those of us who believe His Word would never have to experience them.