SEVEN “BE’S” OF EXPOSITORY PREACHING
After the hard work of exegesis and the development of the sermon, the message is ready to preach. But before stepping into the pulpit to preach it, remember the following general guidelines:
1. Be Prepared
I cannot emphasize this enough. The Word of the living God is the source of our messages, and its truths are inexhaustible. There is simply no excuse for a man stepping into the pulpit without having something profound, insightful, and rich to share with his people. My father was an expositor, and one thing he hammered into me when I was young was the importance of preparation. He told me again and again, “Don’t you ever go into a pulpit unprepared. And if you say ‘The Bible says …’ you make sure to the best of your ability that it truly does say that.” Lack of preparation leads to poor preaching, offends God, and leads people to weakness, not strength. People often ask me if I get nervous before I preach. That only happens when I am not sure what I will say. If I know what I am going to say, I do not get nervous, no matter what the subject is. Confidence is directly linked to preparation. Too many men enter the pulpit without working the results of their study and exegesis into an expository message. As a result, they are unsure where they are going, and the sermon is unfocused. Still others fail to spend enough time in study and message preparation. Make sure you are thoroughly prepared before you get into a pulpit to expound God’s holy Word. It is very easy to be hard to understand, just be unfamiliar with your subject and the listeners will share your lack of understanding. They may think you were too deep for them, but that is not true. You had not grasped your own subject, or they would have grasped it, too. It is very difficult to be clear; you have to master your subject.
2. Be Interesting
Refrain from boring people with the Bible. Preach more than what is obvious in a passage, what your people can see for themselves. The way to avoid preaching just the obvious is to work hard in preparation. Make sure your well is a lot deeper than their buckets. Make your sermons an adventure in discovery for your people.
3. Be Biblical
The Word is “living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). Stories, analogies, anecdotes, or discussions of current events do not have the power or authority of the Word of God. Power in expository preaching comes from the Word, not from slighting it in favor of other themes.
4. Be Prayerful
After all is said and done, after all our diligent study and careful preparation, if we are not energized by the Holy Spirit, our preaching will be in vain. I once read of a godly pastor who years ago kept repeating, “I believe in the Holy Spirit. I believe in the Holy Spirit,” from the time he left his office until he stepped into the pulpit. He acknowledged his total dependence on the Holy Spirit’s power. We need to bathe our sermons in prayer. Generally speaking, prayer is a way of life. Specifically, I begin praying for the sermon the moment I begin preparation and then pray particularly for my Sunday-morning message on Saturday night, often falling asleep in prayer. I pray Sunday morning, first privately in my study, then with some of the elders, thus surrounding the message with prayer. Then in the afternoon I pray directly for the evening message. Afterward, I have a season of prayer with other pastors before preaching.
5. Be Enthusiastic
If you cannot get excited about what you are to say, you cannot expect your people to get excited, either. The message God gives should be like fire in our bones so that we have to preach because we are weary of holding it in (see Jer. 20:9). When I step into the pulpit on Sunday after a week of study and preparation, I am excited about what I will say. People sometimes ask me how far in advance I prepare my messages. I prepare each week for that Sunday. That is where my intensity comes from. The thrill of fresh discovery generates my enthusiasm. Some years ago we had a Christmas outreach at our church. I asked one of the men at my table how long he had been coming to the church. “A year,” he replied. “And how long have you been a Christian?” I inquired. He answered that he was not a Christian. “Why do you come?” I asked. “I’m in sales, and you’re so enthusiastic that you get me pumped up for my week of selling.” I politely told him there was more to my messages than just enthusiasm. Yet, I was grateful to learn that I was not boring. There must be an enthusiasm, an excitement, and an intensity in our preaching.
6. Be Authoritative
Preach with conviction. The Bible is God’s authoritative word to man. As someone remarked, “God didn’t give us the Ten Suggestions; He gave us the Ten Commandments.” We could define authority as “soft confidence.” If we believe what we say is true, we should say it with confidence and authority. We say soft confidence, because we cannot resemble a spiritual drill sergeant, barking commands at our people. Preach in the second person. Say “you,” not “we” or “they.” You are God’s spokesman from Him to them, so you must be direct in the use of “you.” I remember hearing several years ago that the Los Angeles Police Department had to flunk a man out of its police academy because he had a weak, high-pitched voice. They felt it inappropriate for him to tell people, “You’re under arrest!” in a voice that did not sound authoritative. We must preach with conviction, and people must sense it. As Paul wrote to Timothy, “Preach the word … reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction” (2 Tim. 4:2).
7. Be Relevant
Avoid being oblique, obscure, pedantic, or using outdated illustrations to which people cannot relate. Show how the timeless truths of the Word of God touch their everyday lives.12 True expository preaching is actually the most effective kind of applicational preaching. When Scripture is accurately interpreted and powerfully preached, the Spirit takes the message and applies it to the peculiar needs of each listener. Apart from explicit general application in principlizing the main parts in the exposition, the expositor is not compelled to give a set number of points of specific application before a sermon can have an applicational impact. That is not to say he should not make some illustrative applications, but if the text is allowed to speak fully, applications will multiply far beyond what he can anticipate as the Spirit of God takes His Word and applies it to each listener. If hundreds or even thousands are present, the expositor by proposing his own specific applications may place unnecessary restrictions and run the risk of eliminating many other applications to the lives of his hearers. Rather, he should concentrate on giving the correct meaning of the text and be content with general applications. This grants the Holy Spirit, who is most capable in applying the Word to every heart, His rightful place in speaking to individual lives. God’s high and solemn calling to preach His Word demands our best study and careful exposition. The spiritual food of God’s Word causes our hearers to grow in grace, so we must be sure that it is properly prepared before we serve it to a congregation, and we must serve it in a manner befitting its unique authority.
1 John F. MacArthur Jr., MacArthur Pastor’s Library on Preaching (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2005), 243–246.