Video Transcript: Developing a Sermon Expository Preaching

Glad to have you back again here for session 16. Developing a sermon, the  class is preacher preparation presentation a class on making and preaching  sermons. And in this session, we're going to begin that section on developing a  sermon we've been looking before we'll do a review. But today just look at the  title, expository preaching. We're going to talk about the definition of that and  what that means. But first of all, just a review of where we've been, we've been  talking about how you prepare to preach. And we looked at various things in  there about your prayer life is very important, contributing to your preaching,  because we we recognize that what we do is spiritual, not just the physical act of preaching, not just the study of preaching, but there's a spiritual aspect to it. And so we don't want to miss that. And that comes through prayer. And not only our  prayers, but the prayers of others. As we looked at Paul, and the way he exhorts others to pray for him, he asked them to be part of this process, because  through their prayers, He will receive deliverance and through their prayers, a  door will be open for him. So we're people who pray, we've talked about that we  talked about studying the Bible that the Bible is the source of messages. And  we'll talk about that a little bit more today. And the in that we looked at exegesis,  and eisegesis, and homiletics, and hermeneutics and we defined all those  wonderful terms. But the idea of studying the Bible that it's exegesis, that we're  pulling something out of the Bible, not putting something into it, we're not coming to it with our own preconceptions, but we're pulling messages from the Bible.  And then we spent some time looking at kinds and styles of sermons that there  are a variety of styles that we can use that we might be called to teach. So we're trying to convey information to people, or we may be called to proclaim the  gospel, the good news. And so we want to get the facts straight about man's sin  and Jesus coming into the world as God in the flesh, to die for sin, and then he  dies and he raises from the dead and he offers now a relationship with us if we  will just trust Him, and trust what he did on the cross. So we can proclaim the  gospel or we can proclaim the news, such as that story teller, that man whose  herald is crying out the news of the day that the kingdom has come, or talking  about important things like, you know, marriages and family life and forgiveness, etc. As well as stewardship and money management and all of those kinds of  practical things that we can talk about the Scripture and then we looked at  admonition, the fact that sometimes our sermons are going to call people to  action, they're going to warn them about certain things, and show you a clip of  Jim Cymbala, or Cymbala depending on how you'd like to pronounce it. Just  admonishing a group of church leaders, Christians, that their church should be a house of prayer, and just an example of that kind of thing. So that's where we  have been in this process. Today, we turn to this idea of developing a sermon.  We're prepared now, we know somewhat of what Bible passage we're going to  look at, we know something of what kind of sermon we want to make and what  kind of sermon style we're going to use. And now we move into okay, how do 

you develop the sermon then, and I want to begin today talking about expository preaching. Now, here's the definition of it. An exposition is the kind of sermon  where the message and the aim of the sermon are controlled by the message  and the aim of a biblical passage being preached. Now, that's one definition. So  it's an expository an exposition. In other words, it's meant to expose what's in  the Bible. It's, it comes from there. Now, one person I haven't introduced you to  yet somebody who's a marvelous preacher, teacher is Haddon Robinson. He's  now with the Lord, just recently, but he was a wonderful preacher. He taught  homiletics that is the art of preaching for 19 years at Dallas Theological  Seminary. For another six years, he was president of Denver Seminary in  Denver, and just a marvelous person who understood the process of preaching  well and his wrote many, many books about preaching. Seven of them, I believe, as well as preached various places and spoke at various conferences. He  understood preaching, and he was an advocate in his book, Biblical preaching,  for expository preaching. And here's how he defined it. Expository Preaching is  the communication of a biblical concept derived from and transmitted through a  historical, grammatical and literary study of a passage and its context, which the Holy Spirit first applies to the personality and experience of the preacher then  through the preacher applies to the hearers. Now I want to take that, that  definition, apart a little bit with you, but what I want you to notice we've talked  about topical sermons versus exegetical sermons, you know that that idea? How do you make a good topical sermon? We talked about that a bit. And you may  have a real tendency toward topical sermons. But the argument of most leaders  in those who teach the the art of preaching is that the most faithful preaching  comes from expository preaching where I'm looking at a passage, and I'm trying  to bring an exposition or an exposing of what this passage means what it says.  And so we may have a variety of styles in our preaching over a period of time.  But generally speaking, the bulk of our preaching should be expository  preaching. That's the understanding that Haddon Robertson comes at this  definition with now let's look at it just a little bit better. It's a communication of a  biblical concept. That means, as he says, later, in a chapter there, we approach  the Bible with a childlike desire to hear the story. In other words, it's not us  coming with, Oh, I gotta make a sermon. But I want to know what Scripture  says, I want to know what God says through the Scripture. And so I have this  desire. That's why I read the Bible. And it's to understand and experience what  they understood. In other words, the original writers, and the original hearers,  what did they understand? What did they context, do they have of God, what  was their culture like, and that's the next part of the definition is through a  historical, grammatical and literary study of a passage in its context. Now, what  he's referring to there to there is what we talked about as exegesis. In other  words, I'm going to look at the historical setting of the past passage I'm looking  at, I'm going to look at the literature of that time in that place and look at the kind

of literature it is in the Scriptures. And I'm going to look at the words that are  used. And I'm going to look at the Bible and its message throughout the Bible.  And that's where I'm going to learn more about what they understood and what  the readers understood, and what they felt. And that's going to help me as I form a sermon for today. And then just to take a note here, that context is king.  There's a tendency, when people first start preaching that they do topical  messages, a great deal, and nothing wrong with that as long as you try to study  the each passage carefully. But there's a tendency in that, to sometimes pull a  verse out of its context. For instance, I heard a sermon just a couple of weeks  ago, on this verse from Philippians 4:13, I can do all things through Him who  strengthens me. Okay, that's your verse, you're going to look at that. What could that mean? Well, I've heard one preacher who said that that meant you can do  it, you can do it, whatever you want to do, you can do it. You want to play  tennis? Well, you want to become a professional tennis player, or you can do it,  you can do all things as long as you dedicate your life to Christ, or you want to  be, you know, a fantastic artist, you want to be a singer, you can do it. You can  do all things through Him, who gives me strength, you can you can make that  sermon out of that verse. But it would be the wrong understanding of the verse.  That's not what it means. And you can look a variety of translations of it. One of  them says, I can do everything through Him who gives me strength, while that's  just not what it means. So if you look at the context, here's the context. Starting  back at verse 12. I know what it is to have a little, and I know what it is to have  plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well fed  and going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need, I can do all things  through Him who strengthens me, that's in the New Revised Standard Version.  But see, the context is Paul is talking to the Philippians thankful for their gifts.  They have sent him a gift of some kind to support him in ministry even as he's in prison. But he said, You know what, I thank you for your gift, but I really don't  need it. Because I've learned that's one translation where it says, I know, I have  learned the secret of having a lot or having a little. I have learned contentment,  how have I learned contentment? Well, I can do all things through Him who  strengthens me. And so it's that idea that I've been through a great deal. And so  I've learned in that process that in whatever I face, God gives me the capacity to be content. I think of my father in law, died at the age of 68 as a result of  leukemia, and when he was diagnosed, we were living in California, he was  living in the state of Michigan. My wife left me with three little kids to go back  and be with him during the first chemotherapy treatments and some of the  hardest times that my wife is a nurse so she thought she would be able to help  and at one point, she was sitting with her father. And said to him, dad, doesn't it  make you angry, make you angry that this happened aren't you angry at God a  little bit. And he looked at her with a sense of sadness. And he said, Oh Poot,  that was a nickname for her, help her. God has taken care of me for 58 years 

He's shown me time and time again, how faithful he is, how could I not trust him  in this. That's what this verse means. And so you may in other parts of Scripture, find things that say, Be bold, be confident, go and go for it. But that's not what  this verse means. And so you'll look at the context of a passage, or here's  another example, submit to God and be at peace with him. And this way,  prosperity will come to you. Now you can make a sermon about that. Many  people in the United States contexts have what are called these health, wealth,  gospel people on the television quite regularly, who say God wants to bless you  with wealth, all you got to do is send me some money and you know, you'll get  you'll get it back. Well, this is the kind of verse that just say, look at you, you  submit yourself to God, and prosperity will come to you. But if you look at the  context of that statement, you'll find that it's made by one of the, the comforters  of Job, remember, he's he has this tremendous loss in his life, he loses  everything, all of his possessions. He goes from a very wealthy man to a very  poor man, in a matter of moments in Scripture. And then his 10 Children, seven  sons, and three daughters die in a wind hits the house, and it collapses on them. And so he goes from a rich person, financially a rich person relationally with his  children, and his family, and all of a sudden, he's got nothing. And three friends  come to comfort him. And they do a good job at first for seven days, they don't  say a thing, they just sit with him in his pain. But then they start talking. And  basically they say to him, you know, God must really be angry at you, you must  have done something wrong. And the implication is these kinds of words, if you  would just submit to God, if you'd admit what you've done wrong, be at peace  with him, that then he'll restore your prosperity. But here's what God says about  that verse by Eliphaz the Temanite, at the end of the book of Job, said, after the  Lord has said these things to Job, he takes Job on a nature tour, he says to  Eliphaz the Temanite, I am angry with you and your two friends, because you  have not spoken the truth about me as my servant Job has. So now take seven  bowls, seven rams, and go to my servant Job, sacrifice a burnt offering for  yourself, my servant Job will pray for you. And I will accept his prayer and not  deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has. You see context is king. That's just the way it is so. So in  summary, again, it's a communication of a biblical concept. That's expository  preaching, where we approach the Bible with a childlike desire to hear the story,  and understand and experience what the original writers and readers  experience we want to experience that, and it is a derived from a historical,  grammatical and literary study of a passage in its context. And then there's this  last part of that definition, which the Holy Spirit first applies to the personality  and experience of the preacher, then through the preacher, he applies it to the  hearers. Now here, I want to introduce you to somebody from long ago. This is  one of those early preachers in the United States, mid 18th, mid mid 19th  century, his name is Henry Beecher, and he once did a series of lectures on 

preaching at Yale University. And he came up with a classic definition of  preaching, which is quoted quite often, he said, a preaching is communication of truth through personality. In other words, it is God using me in my my  personality, my strengths, my weaknesses, God's communing, communicating  truth through me. Now, what does this mean for me? Well, it means a couple of  things. It means that my style will eventually be mine. Not somebody else's, not  just duplicating somebody. I'm working with a pastor right now, mentoring him,  and one of the things he identified in himself is his own style of preaching. And  he said he was kind of a rebellion because when he went to seminary, he had a  homiletics professor who was very good, and yet this guy was excellent,  excellent preacher and teacher. But when he preached, he said he had certain  characteristics. He always wore a bow tie, and he memorized the scripture  passage, so he wouldn't even open his Bible. To read the passage, he would  simply give the message and speak it with the Bible closed. And it was very  impressive to people caught people's attention on that sort of thing. He said,  after a few weeks, you found these people when they were going out these  students, his students, going out to preach wearing bow ties and memorizing the passage. And he said, I kind of rebelled about that and said, What's my voice in  preaching? Well, he had the right idea that it's through personality, because  sometimes that doesn't work just to imitate somebody else. One of my great  mentors in ministry was Peter Wagner. And he went to Bolivia as a missionary  and thought he'd be the Billy Graham, a Bolivia. So he studied Billy Graham's  methods of preaching and saw his gestures. How did he gesture? And how did  he speak words? And when did he emphasize things? And when did he not and, and he rented a stadium to try to have this great stadium revival and four people came. And that got Peter Wagner thinking about church growth, because it just  didn't work to imitate somebody. How is God going to speak through you? What  is your personality? What is your life experience. And if you understand that,  then God can speak with you. So it means something about my styles, but it  also means something about my spiritual life. If God's gonna speak through me,  I've got to be in a position to be able to hear him well. When I get too stressed.  When I become too self absorbed, I can lose my hearing of the voice of God.  Another person to introduce to you is Calvin Miller. Calvin Miller wrote a book  called marketplace preaching. And he says something in this regard that I think  is very relevant. He says this, The congregations ought to feel that their leader is a person of God, and that the preachers, words come from a relationship that is  constantly renewing itself. Congregations want to hear God's word from  someone who walks with Christ. And so if God is going to communicate truth  through me, that means I've got to do the things that are within my power, to be  a good channel of that communication. I've got to be somebody whose ears are  attuned to God, who spend the time necessary. I'm not just speaking off the cuff, when I go somewhere, I do the preparation necessary, because I want to hear 

what God is saying, As I approached the Bible with a childlike reverence. And I  want them to communicate God's word to his people, not my word. And so the  bulk of your preaching then likely will be expository preaching in this way, that  

it's this kind of thing that we're going to be doing, we're going to be taking the  Word of God, we're going to study it, and we're going to create an exposition of  it. In other words, we're going to expose what God says through this passage to  our people. And we're going to be praying that God will use us as the channel to  change lives and impact people. So as we go on, this is how you develop a  sermon. You start by thinking in exposition, how can I expose to people what  God's mind and heart are as revealed in the Scripture passages? So next time,  we're going to go on and look a little bit more at you know how to do that  effectively, in a way that gets people's attention and holds it so see you next  time.