Expositional Preaching
Marks of a Healthy Church • Sermon • Submitted
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· 18 viewsPreaching expositionally seeks to see what God has to say rather than coming to the text with what I want it to say.
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Introduction:
Introduction:
Introduction:
Introduction:
A few years ago now I was taking a certificate program in Biblical preaching. For each class I had an assignment of preaching 4 sermons in that particular area that the class was in. So if I was taking a class on preaching Psalms, then I would be preaching 4 sermons, to my church, in Psalms. So I wrote this sermon, I thought it was good. I kind of had a feeling in the back of my head that I wasn’t really handling the text as it should be, but I went with it. I thought to myself, “This is what the church has to hear, so this is what I am going to preach.”
So what’s the big deal. The church needed to hear it. Why did it matter so much?
What is preaching expository?
What is preaching expository?
An expository sermon may be defined as a message show structure and thought are derived from a biblical text, that covers the scope of the text, and that explains the features and context of the text in order to disclose the enduring principles for faithful thinking, living, and worship intended by the Spirit, who inspired the text. - Brian Chapel
We see a great example of this in . Specifically in verse 8.
Do you see what the Levite’s were doing?
Charles Simeon said it this way, “I have a great jealousy on this head never to speak more or less than I believe to be the mind of the Spirit in the passage I am expounding.
We are not free to do what we want with the Bible. It is sovereign. It must win. Always.
Illustration: Imagine you wrote a letter. Maybe it’s a letter expressing your love to your soon to be spouse. You are pouring out your heart. Revealing your inner thoughts. Bearing your soul. And then your future spouse reads it, and comes back with a response: “Yah, I agree with you, we should go out to dinner sometime.” That wasn’t you expressed in the letter. You didn’t even talk about dinner. Your future spouse complete missed the point of the letter. You had an intended message. You were the author. You had a point. You made your point. It was the readers job to see that point, but they somehow didn’t see that point and came to the letter with what they wanted it to say.
BI: Preaching expositionally seeks to see what God has to say rather than coming to the text with what’s I want it to say.
Why preach expository?
Why preach expository?
If I don’t preach expositionally, i will never preach more than I already know. I can take a text and exhort you on a topic, but never really teach the main point of that passage. You can take your bible right now and open it up and pray for guidance and put your finger down on the page and read that verse randomly and get a great blessing from it. But you won’t understand what God means to say through it until you understand what that phrase is in it’s context. If you want to understand what the text means, read around it.
When we preach expositionally, we set out to see what God has to say in the text rather than what we already know.
Transition: We want to be a church full of disciples who are making disciples of Jesus Christ. We can’t do that if we are only ever hearing things that I already know. We need to grow.
It Presents the Power of the Word
It Presents the Power of the Word
God accomplishes what he wants to accomplish through speaking.
It’s through his word that what was dead becomes alive again. .
The Vision of Dry Bones. This vision, Ezekiel’s third in the book (see 1:1), is one of the most famous passages in Ezekiel. While it stands on its own as a powerful statement of God’s power to re-create the community, the context is significant. In chapter 36 we see the promised gift of new heart and spirit (36:26–27) left questions hanging (i.e., how can this be? and can it be true for us?). Chapter 37 answers these questions. The vision itself is reported in vv. 1–10 with vivid power. The landscape is filled with bleached bones to which Ezekiel is commanded to prophesy. As he does, the bones are restored to life. The vision receives a double interpretation in vv. 11–14. The primary meaning relates directly to the exiles’ despair (v. 11) and concludes the vision in v. 14. Verses 12–13 transpose the metaphor to a graveyard and contain one of the few hints of resurrection in the OT (see note).
37:1 The vast landscape of dry bones suggests the aftermath of battle, the ultimate outcome of the judgment of ch. 6.
37:3 The question can these bones live? anticipates the exiles’ own self-perception (v. 11): total hopelessness. It also introduces one of the key words in the passage: the verb “to live” appears in vv. 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, and 14. Ezekiel’s response leaves the outcome to God’s sovereignty.
37:4–6 God commands Ezekiel to do what seems pointless (prophesy over these bones, v. 4), and includes the promise that he will perform the impossible (vv. 5–6)—bring them back to life. The key to “resuscitation” is stated in v. 5: breath is the Hb. ruakh, the same word used for “the Spirit” in v. 1, and which appears seven more times in the vision.
37:8 The first phase of prophesying results in the rebuilt bodies, which lack breath. So far this activity only yields corpses—but it is still a necessary first step.
37:9–10 The second phase of prophesying is addressed to the breath (or wind or spirit/Spirit; Hb. ruakh, which can take all three meanings). The coming of the wind/breath/spirit that gives life powerfully alludes to God’s creative work in . God creates, and God re-creates.
37:12–13 I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. The vision of national revival is transposed into the metaphor of a cemetery, which seems to be related to the experience of exile (v. 12b).
37:14 The fundamental lesson of the vision is repeated: when the Spirit is present, God’s people are enabled to live. This is the only basis on which hope can be held out to the despairing community
So how does God bring to life what was dead? Vs. 14.
And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord.”
Biblical exposition binds the preacher and the people to the only source of true spiritual change. Because hearts are transformed when people are confronted with the Word of God, we preach this way because we are committed to saying what God has to say. The exposition preacher opens his Bible before God’s people and dares to say, “I will explain to you what this passage means.” The words are not meant to show my authority butt humbly confess that I have no better words than God’s word.
BI: Preaching expositionally seeks to see what God has to say rather than coming to the text with what I want it to say because there in no better word than God’s Word.
It present the authority of the Word
It present the authority of the Word
“Who has the right to tell me what to do?”
Preaching addresses our constant need for authority and meaning. There’s always this question in our world: “Who has the right to tell me what to do?” Or “You can’t tell me what to do.”
Without an ultimate authority for truth, all human striving has no ultimate value, and life itself becomes meaningless.
Paul says:
And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.
The Bible says that God has spoken in his word. It’s the preachers task to communicate what God committed to the Bible in order to give God’s people his truth for their time.
Without the authority of God’s Word, preaching become an endless search for topics, therapies, and techniques that will win approval, promote acceptance, advance a cause, or soothe worry.
When we approach the Word of God as God’s Word, suddenly the questions about what I have to right, disappear. God can tell his people what they should believe and do, and he has. And as a preacher, I have no write to say anything other than what God has already said.
BI: Preaching expositionally seeks to see what God has to say rather than coming to the text with what I want it to say because there is no other authority.
It presents the Work of the Holy Spirit
It presents the Work of the Holy Spirit
When we proclaim the Bible, we bring the work of the Holy Spirit to bear on others’ lives. There is no truth out there that gives more encouragement for God to work. The work of the Holy Spirit is tied to preaching like heat is to the light of a bulb. When we present the light of God’s Word, his Spirit performs his purposes of warming, melting, and conforming hearts to his will.
Just like what we say in verse 5 of :
Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.
Ez 37:5
God commands Ezekiel to do what seems pointless (prophesy over these bones, v. 4), and includes the promise that he will perform the impossible (vv. 5–6)—bring them back to life. The key to “resuscitation” is stated in v. 5: breath is the Hb. ruakh, the same word used for “the Spirit” in v. 1, and which appears seven more times in the vision.
BI: Preaching expositionally seeks to see what God has to say rather than coming to the text with what I want it to say because it is how the Holy Spirit works.
Other examples in the Bible
Other examples in the Bible
The Bible has many examples of this kind of preaching and teaching: Levitical priests taught the law
They shall teach Jacob your rules
and Israel your law;
they shall put incense before you
and whole burnt offerings on your altar.
Bless, O Lord, his substance,
and accept the work of his hands;
crush the loins of his adversaries,
of those who hate him, that they rise not again.”
Peter and the apostles expounded Scripture and urged their hearers to respond with repentance and faith in , ).
(), Peter and the apostles expounded Scripture and urged their hearers to respond with repentance and faith (, ).
BUT God condemns those who put words into his mouth.
BUT God condemns those who put words into his mouth.
On the other hand, God condemns those who “speak of their own imagination, not from the mouth of the Lord”
Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord.
For who among them has stood in the council of the Lord
to see and to hear his word,
or who has paid attention to his word and listened?
“I did not send the prophets,
yet they ran;
I did not speak to them,
yet they prophesied.
But if they had stood in my council,
then they would have proclaimed my words to my people,
and they would have turned them from their evil way,
and from the evil of their deeds.
, , ).
The Bible says God accomplishes what he wants to accomplish through speaking
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
, , ). This means that if preachers want their sermons to be filled with God’s power, they must preach what God says.
“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
But the word of God increased and multiplied.
, ). This means that if preachers want their sermons to be filled with God’s power, they must preach what God says.
What does this mean? This means that if preachers want their sermons to be filled with God’s power, they must preach what God says.
I pray this every time I preach. I seek to get better, but regardless of how good I get, without the the spirit of God, nothing lasting will happen.
). This means that if preachers want their sermons to be filled with God’s power, they must preach what God says.
Expositional preaching is important because God’s Word is what convicts, converts, builds up, and sanctifies God’s people
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
; ; ; ). Preaching that makes the main point of the text the main point of the sermon makes God’s agenda rule the church, not the preacher’s.
since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;
; ; ). Preaching that makes the main point of the text the main point of the sermon makes God’s agenda rule the church, not the preacher’s.
And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.
; ). Preaching that makes the main point of the text the main point of the sermon makes God’s agenda rule the church, not the preacher’s.
Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.
). Preaching that makes the main point of the text the main point of the sermon makes God’s agenda rule the church, not the preacher’s.
Preaching that makes the main point of the text the main point of the sermon makes God’s agenda rule the church, not the preacher’s.
We need to see this, that if it comes to preaching or teaching or reading of the Bible or talking to our neighbour, we have no right to saw what we want. We seek to be faithful to what God has said. And it starts with how the preachers handles God’s word.
BI: Preaching expositionally seeks to see what God has to say rather than coming to the text with what I want it to say because…What do I have to add to God’s word?
Conclusion (So What):
Conclusion (So What):
Here my professors words were hard to hear at the time. But it reminded me of the responsibility and duty we all have to handle the Bible correctly. We don’t get to impose our own imagination on the text. God has spoken. We are to listen. When we preach expositionally, we seek what God has to say rather than coming to the text with what I want it to say.
But why does this matter to you?
We are not free to do what we want with the Bible. It is sovereign. It must win. Always.
Without the authority of God’s Word, we get trapped become an endless search for topics, therapies, and techniques that will win approval, promote acceptance, advance a cause, or soothe worry.
God becomes what we want him to be rather than how he has revealed himself in his word. And then when hard things come up that we can’t explain by our definition of who God is, we begin to give way to false ideas of who God is.
If I am reading God’s word and I am finding that I’m always in agreement with it, that I’m not being challenged, God’s Word is what convicts, converts, builds up, and sanctifies God’s people. If God, through his Word, is truly doing that,
Expositional preaching is important because God’s Word is what convicts, converts, builds up, and sanctified
The problem that I was doing when i preached that sermon was that I was putting my words into God’s mouth. I wasn’t his mouth piece, I was being my own mouth piece claiming God’s authority. I came to the text with what I wanted the church to hear rather. My professor caught onto that and in my review, well...lets just say that didn’t go very well. There was some technical that happened which cut off the recording of the sermon he was watching, which I am glad for. I don’t get it always right, but I will seek to do it. Because it’s important. And it’s important for our healthy and God’s glory.