How Is This Sermon Going to Change You?
The ladder ends where it began. With the heart of the preacher laid bare before God. Your manuscript is finished, you have your notes organized and your pages numbered. You know this sermon well and have spent adequate time in studious preparation.
It’s time to let it soak. Marinate. Stew. But the two most important aspects remain: self-forgetfulness and Spirit-dependence. The resolve to get out of the way and let God’s Word shine through the pulpit should be every humble expositor’s aim. This message is not about us—far from it. We preach Christ.
Listen to this great self-dismissive preacher:
Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (1 Cor. 1:20-25)
The intentional weakness Paul described is best expressed through prayer—prayer for your sermon as you review it, prayer for a tone that will correspond with the content. Pray for a pastor’s heart. And most of all, pray that God would be glorified in the lives of those who hear His Word proclaimed. And seek every opportunity to get out of the way. Don’t be the self-styled, big-personality, rock-star communicator preachers-of-YouTube-fame. Seek to be the first member of your church to respond to the message you are about to preach. You should have the most reasons for life change, since you understand the text the most.
The final aspect of preparation isn’t scheming your delivery and voice inflections and making sure you have a winning smile. Gross. There is a place for addressing delivery, and we will talk about that in moderation at the Mac Center. But preachers are not trying to emulate Churchill or Cicero. Far more necessary is a profound awareness of the expositor’s dependence on the work of the Spirit of God.
This sermon has zero chance of impact apart from God’s work.
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned (1 Cor 2:14).
This reminds us of our need for utter dependence on the mingling of God’s Word with God’s Spirit. Before you ask God, by His Spirit, to grant understanding and transformation in the hearts of your hearers, ask Him to do that to you. God is the one who writes His eternal truth on our hearts. Seek His favor. Without it, this sermon is powerless.
John Piper wrote a book about preaching called Expository Exultation. Those two words serve as his helpful definition of preaching:
- Expository: you better see what you say in the book.
- Exultation: you savor and leap over what you’ve seen in the book.
This is expository preaching. The Bible is the message, and that message, when faithfully preached by a man whose heart is submitted to Christ, is apprehended and loved and delighted in by the preacher and the people. This is preaching empowered by—and dependent on—the Holy Spirit.
Our task is a sober one, listen again to Paul’s words to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:1-5:
I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths.