Sermon Tone Analysis

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?

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?

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

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.

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

“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:

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.