Sermon Tone Analysis

*Expository Sermons and How to Listen to One*

/Taught by Pastor Phil Layton for Sunday School class at GCBC on June 10, 2007/

www.goldcountrybaptist.org

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*/Definition of Terms/*

*Exegesis* – drawing out through careful study and interpretation (hermeneutics principles) the original meaning of a passage by God through the original author to original audience

*Exposit* – expound, explicate, explain, or expose verbally the message of the passage

*Preaching* – goes beyond explaining to declaring the message and significance of the passage with a view to change and application

/ /

*Amos 8:11-12 **“Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord God, “When I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine for bread or a thirst for water, But rather for hearing the words of the Lord.

\\ 12 **“People will stagger from sea to sea And from the north even to the east; They will go to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, But they will not find it.

\\ \\ *

This text does not say people won’t be able to find a church or a synagogue, but it does speak of those who are seeking the Word of the Lord and are hungry for it, but cannot find somewhere where they hear truly hear God’s Word.

Have you ever heard someone  lamenting that they have searched high and low desperately just to find somewhere where they are really fed God’s Word in a deep way?

There certainly are no shortages of churches in our country.

One could argue that we are living in a time of feast not famine, a time when an endless buffet of church options and entrees are available to suit every appetite, from snacks to substance, depending on how you define preaching, that is.

Sure, the church is not perfect, but it seems to be growing and therefore must be well-fed.

To some, the modern American evangelical movement may seem more robust and healthier and bigger and better than ever.

-          More mega-churches than ever (some over 20k attending)

-          Media ministries bringing in many millions of dollars

-          Televangelists and famous personalities packing stadiums and drawing massive crowds to events

-          Huge pep rallies, enormous songfests, Christian bands hit the charts, Christian books hit the NY Times Bestseller list, there are books about having your best life now, a purpose-driven life, how to pray blessing into your life like Jabez, or rapture novels to keep us from being left behind

-          Come election time, the clout of evangelicals is not something a politician of any party can avoid -> statistics continue to show a substantial portion of the US population considers themselves born again Christians

 

So how is it, that a prominent and astute theologian like Walter Kaiser can say that we are living in one of those days that Amos 8:11 talked about?

He is one of many who has declared the type of famine Amos spoke about is not only now present here, it has been for some time: “The famine of the Word continues in massive proportions in most places in North America.”[1]

Steve Lawson’s excellent book /Famine in the Land /shows that despite some of the external and worldly measuring standards and superficial success of American churches on the surface, it stays on the surface and is not deep.

The mainstream church is weaker and more shallow than ever on the inside because of a spiritual drought in our land as so many have substituted other things in place of the Living Water in recent decades.

People are malnourished and not getting the meat of the Word to grow, and sadly, many churchgoers don’t even really want the meat of the Word.

But even more tragically, many pastors don’t want it either, and when they turn away from their mandate to teach the whole counsel of God from God’s Word, they are depriving their people of the only soul-satisfying and all-sufficient source of truth, life and growth, the Bible.

Lawson says pastors need to focus on filling the pulpit rather than filling their building with more people by any means.

Both pulpit and pew are to blame when the church satisfies itself with less than true and deep Biblical preaching, and I agree that there is a famine in the land as far as truly hearing the Word, preaching the Word, and people being grounded in biblical understanding and living according to the Word of God.

This is a great challenge to all of us, and as I was moved and convicted and challenged afresh in my study this week of the primacy of preaching and the massive responsibility we have and what hangs in the balance depending on how we respond to this task, I want to share some of the things that move my heart in hope that they will move yours as well.

Steve Lawson opens his first chapter this way:

 

As the Church advances into the twenty-first century, the stress to produce booming ministries has never been greater.

Influenced by corporate mergers, towering skyscrapers, and expanding economies, bigger is perceived as better, and nowhere is this “Wall Street” mentality more evident than in the church.

Sad to say, pressure to produce bottomline results has led many ministries to sacrifice the centrality of biblical preaching on the altar of man-centered pragmatism.

A new way of “doing” church is emerging.

In this radical paradigm shift, exposition is being replaced with entertainment, preaching with performances, doctrine with drama, and theology with theatrics.

The pulpit, once the focal point of the church, is now being overshadowed by a variety of church-growth techniques, everything from trendy worship styles to glitzy presentations to vaudeville-like pageantries.

In seeking to capture the upperhand in church growth, a new wave of pastors is reinventing church and repackaging the gospel into a product to be sold to “consumers.”

Whatever reportedly works in one church is being franchised out to various “markets” abroad.

As when gold was discovered in the foothills of California [here in Coloma in the 1840’s], so ministers are beating a path to the doorsteps of exploding churches and super-hyped conferences where the latest “strike” has been reported.

Unfortunately the newly panned gold often turns out to be “fool’s gold.”

Not all that glitters is actually gold.[2] … God’s work must be done God’s way if it is to know God’s blessing.

He provides the power and He alone receives the glory only as His divinely prescribed plan for ministry is followed.

When man-centered schemes are followed, often imitating the world’s schemes, the flesh provides the energy and man receives the glory.

Throughout church history, preachers who have left a lasting impact on the church have known that, in the words of Michael Horton, “the regular proclamation of Christ through the close exposition of Scripture [is] more relevant in creating a worshipping and serving community than political causes, moral crusades, and entertaining services.”

In many evangelical churches, however, the centrality of biblical exposition is being demoted to second-class status.

In a strange twist, the preaching of the cross is now foolishness, not only to the world but also to the contemporary church.[3]

John Stott has said, “The low level of Christian living is due more than anything else to the low level of Christian preaching.”[4]

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, one of top 2 or 3 expository preachers of the 20th Century, said:

‘The most urgent need in the Christian Church today is true preaching; and as it is the greatest and most urgent need in the Church, it is the greatest need of the world also.”[5]

If these men are right, and I believe they are, what is true preaching?

/Turn to 2 Timothy 3:15-4:5/

 

This passage kind of puts together all 5 of the subjects we put together for the first few weeks of our doctrines class:

-          Why study doctrine (4:3)

-          Inspiration of scripture (3:16a)

-          Authority ~/ Power of scripture (3:15-16)

-          Studying scripture ~/ hermeneutics (3:16-17)

-          Expository preaching (4:2)

 

/How does v. 2 define true preaching?

/(Going phrase by phrase through this verse is a good place to start)

 

-          *“Preach the Word”*

o   This is the most fundamental distinction – we are not just to preach a message that contains some of the Word in it, we are to preach the Word.

In other words, Scripture is not just a part of our message, it /is /our message – we have nothing to say to improve upon it, we simply want to echo and explain and apply nothing more or less than God’s Word

 

 

‘We must resist the urge to merely incorporate Bible verses into our messages to support our own opinions and agenda.

To preach expositorily is to actually /preach /Bible verses … we are going /to the Bible /to find out what we will say.

In the end the preacher does not use the Bible to preach his own message; /instead, it is the Bible that uses the preacher to preach its message … /Those who try to preach from multiple texts in the same sermon often end up using the Scriptures to preach their own message.

Most preachers will find it safer to make a regular practice of seeking to convey the message of God in one passage per sermon.

While other passages may be mentioned to reinforce the meaning of the text at hand, one primary passage should drive each sermon.’[6]

§  I try no matter what I’m speaking on to always have a primary passage – always have a text.

Even if I’m giving my testimony, I usually try and structure it around the words of a life verse like Romans 11:36.

In my series on God’s attributes, I did my best to do so expositionally verse by verse through a passage for each truth.

For my seminar yesterday on Spurgeon, I used Ephesians 4:11-16 as outline

o   /Is it every appropriate to preach on multiple passages in one sermon?/

When Paul speaks in Acts 20 about declaring “the whole counsel of God” there certainly is room for variety and you can be biblical in a thematic sermon where you give God’s whole counsel on a subject

§  unfortunately, too much of contemporary topical sermons don’t seem to be driven by what the Word says and the great danger in doing mostly topical is you determine what to teach and then find Scriptures about it, rather than letting the Scripture determine what you’ll teach by systematically going through a book in context

§  on the other hand, it /is/ important that what we teach is consistent with all of scripture, so it can be helpful when done right if an initial passage is opened up and expanded to see how that truth is illustrated and explained throughout scripture.

§  Yes, there is a place for sermons treating topics and doctrines or themes or even studying the life of someone, or hearing special testimonies or reports from missionaries or special presentations or seminar sessions like we did yesterday at the men’s conference – but /I am convinced and committed that the regular diet of the local church service should be the verse-by-verse teaching through passages and books of the Bible.

/

o   When Paul says “preach the Word” it’s not what we want to say, we are to preach what God has said the way He said it without reshaping, twisting, distorting, or watering down God’s intent

o   Paul says elsewhere we don’t preach ourselves – we are not to preach about us or man’s views and opinions or just tell stories or jokes or impress or flatter or entertain – the sacred task of God’s minister is to declare what God says and bring God’s truth to bear with humble boldness

As John Stott writes: ‘There is an urgent need for courageous preachers in the pulpits of the world today, like the apostles in the early Church who “were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the Word of God with boldness” (Acts 4:31, cf.

v. 13).

Neither men-pleasers nor time-servers ever make good preachers.

We are called to the sacred task of biblical exposition, and commissioned to proclaim what God has said, not what human beings want to hear.

Many modern churchmen suffer from a malady called “itching ears,” which induces them to accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings (2 Timothy 4:3).

But we have no liberty to scratch their itch or pander to their likings.’[7]

o   What’s the difference between preaching the Word vs preaching /about /the Word or preaching that includes scripture?

Their use of the Bible is much like the singing of the national anthem before a ballgame—something merely heard at the beginning, but never referenced again, a necessary preliminary that almost becomes an awkward intrusion to the real event.

In their attempt to be contemporary and relevant, many pastors talk /about/ the Scriptures, but, sadly, they rarely speak /from/ them.

Instead they rush headlong to the next personal illustration, humorous anecdote, sociological quote, or cultural reference, rarely to return to the biblical text.

How can pastors expect dying souls to become spiritually healthy if they never give them the prescriptive remedy?

How can pastors expect sinners to be converted (1 Pet.

1:23–25) and Christians to be sanctified (John 17:17) if they fail to expound God’s Word?[8]

-          *“Be ready”* (requires thorough study and preparation; see 4:13, 2 Tim.

2:15)

Ezra 7:10     /For Ezra had set his heart to 1//study the law of the Lord and to practice it, and to teach His statutes and ordinances in Israel./

-          *“In season and out of season”* (all the time, we are never to cease or give it up, even though verse 3-4 say many will not want to listen and will turn away)

-          *“Reprove, rebuke, exhort” *

o   true preaching calls for change – thinking, living, turning from sin

o   calling sin for what it is

o   true preaching of the Word contains encouraging or convicting or strengthening going on, not just an information dump

o   the implication is that the audience should not always be comfortable or just intellectually stimulated

o   this sounds different than the way some have described modern preaching as “a mild-mannered man speaking to mild-mannered people urging them to be more mild-mannered”