The National Center for Family Integrated Churches welcomes Marcus Servin with the following message entitled, Preaching the Word of God as worship. I'm going to talk about preaching today and you can't really talk about preaching in a lecture without doing a little preaching so we're going to take our Bibles shortly and get into a text and I'm going to walk you through that text and just give you an example of expounding a text from Scripture and what that actually looks like especially if you're not familiar with it but first let me just tell you a brief story about a young preacher who had labored in a particular town. The town rose up against him and threw him out. He had only been there for a couple of years and these people didn't agree with his preaching style and some of the other preachers that were working with him so they pitched him out he labored in another area for several years and he got an invitation to come back to this town the town was Geneva Switzerland and so he arrived about this same time in November of 1541 and he went into the main church which was St.

Pierre if you've been to Geneva it's a huge Cathedral and he started preaching Now there were a lot of people there that day. There in fact, it was a great crowd. And some people have speculated perhaps they came to hear some message of recrimination, some Message of judgment or something like that against the people who had thrown him out Previously, but it wasn't that at all For the young preacher just stood up and he started at exactly the next verse is Where he had left off about three years prior What was the preacher's name? John Calvin. And he labored there in Geneva for the next 23 years.

As he preached, lectio continuo, which would be the Latin term for one text after another after another and so that was his style of preaching he would take books of the Bible and that's why if you study Calvin and read some of the sermons you'll find that I'll have like 79 sermons on Isaiah or 43 sermons on Zechariah or 123 sermons on Matthew and so he would go through books of the Bible one after another now different points in his ministry he moved from just preaching on Sundays which we would expect for a preacher to do that there would be two services in Geneva but he also went to preaching on Wednesdays excuse me Mondays Wednesdays and Thursdays of every week and then the opposite weeks he would lecture on those days. But those sermons became so popular, early morning sermons in fact, that they just switched to the point of having five sermons every week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and both John Calvin and several of the other preachers who labored there in Geneva would take turns in preaching through the Word of God every day early in the morning before the day began and so that tells you a little bit about a preacher and about preaching now what about me I've been preaching for 33 years I do not consider myself an expert at preaching in fact I remember the story of Augustine as an older man when he got the end of his life and he wrote down in a book form all of his retractions in other words all the things he wished he would have said differently and that happens to me quite frankly when I pull out some of my early sermons I've kept them all in a filing cabinet and I'll pull them out and look at them sometimes as a foundation for a new sermon or sometimes just out of curiosity and I'm always a little bit amazed that I really said that or how come I didn't say all these other things that went with that doctrine and so it's very very easy as a preacher to be humbled and when you look at your old material now the question comes up why would anybody want to preach in the first place because preaching is first of all hard work secondly it is hazardous and thirdly it produces a lot of humility what Why would you even want to do that?

Well, the answer is if you feel compelled to do it. If God has so gripped your heart and mind and soul that you feel compelled to do it and if you didn't then God would somehow judge you for being neglectful of your duty and so there is a great sense of being committed to preaching and going forward Paul speaks of this in 1st Corinthians chapter 9 just to remind you he says for necessity is laid upon me woe to me if I do not preach the gospel and so this whole idea of feeling compelled to preach is the reason why many men preach they feel that God has put it strongly upon their heart and they can do no other John Bunyan was a preacher in England he was a separatist preacher oftentimes he spent months and even years in jail because he was preacher and there was always one magistrate who would propose a little deal to John Bunyan and the deal went along these lines if you'll stop preaching and promise to stop it I'll let you out of prison and you can go home to your wife and your children and and so on and John Bunyan would always reply in this way if you let me out today I will surely preach again tomorrow this was this was the drive in John Bunyan to continue preaching and to not give way and to go forward with the Word of God.

Now preaching today I'm sad to say has fallen on some hard times and so when we think about sermons today we think of a short sermon maybe no more than 20 minutes full of stories full about the preachers opinions sermons that for the most part don't preach the doctrines of the Bible but instead are given to trying to deal with felt needs of people. And as a result, the sermons have lost the impact that I believe they've had in previous generations. You may not realize this. Some of you are preachers in the room know I'm speaking the truth. But as a preacher, you can actually go online and buy what I call sermons in a box.

And essentially, you can buy a nice little kit that has six to eight sermons, a nice series. It's all nicely titled, It's got all the outlines. It'll have video clips. It'll have audio clips. It'll have Manuscripts printed out for you in different steady aids and all of that.

It is a sermon in a box It's it's not doing the hard work of preaching. It's not taking the Word of God and expounding it which requires diligent effort and that's what makes preaching powerful is when you interact with the Word of God and you have what God has to say to people flowing out of the text. And so when that happens people's lives are changed and people are impacted with the gospel. Now I want you to turn in your Bible to Nehemiah chapter 8. As I already said you can't have a lecture on preaching you've got to have a little preaching in the mix mix of it and so that's what I want to do is turn to that Old Testament text Nehemiah chapter 8 we're going to work our way through this text over the course of the hour as well as I'll have some practical tips for preachers at the end and then also some practical tips for listeners of sermons and so we'll talk about both those things after we go through this text.

What makes for an effective expository sermon well some preachers like to have three points I'm gonna have four today and I was thinking over the last week or two what was the sermon where I had the most points and I think there was one sermon where I had 14-15 points and my strategy at that point was just to keep going on and so I had part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 and just kept going for quite a while I think that 15-point sermon grew to be about 30 points over time so the whole issue of having three points in a poem or three points in a prayer is sadly a ridiculous way of thinking about sermons. What the whole idea of sermons is that you get into the text and you want to bring it out in such a way that it impacts people at those points of their life where they need to be impacted, where they need to be convicted. And so we come to this text here in the book of Nehemiah, And I'll just say that my points are these. What makes for an effective expositional sermon? Well first of all that it has a significant occasion.

There's some gathering that's brought people together and you have an opportunity to minister to them and to speak into their life. So some sort of significant occasion. Secondly, it's incumbent upon the preacher to be an accurate expositor. So if the preacher is sloppy or lazy or something like that, then there's going to be a problem with that sermon. It's not going to reflect what the text really says.

It's not going to take into account what all of Scripture has said because you're responsible before God not only as a preacher to preach that text but to weave it into all of Scripture because all of Scripture is connected with itself. It's not just these random little parts here or there. Thirdly, that sermon must carry with it some spiritual conviction and this is where the preacher is absolutely dependent upon God because it's not as if you can bring conviction just by being eloquent or just by having some interesting comments about the text. Conviction comes when the Holy Spirit is bringing that person to the point of facing their sin. And so that's what you pray for as a preacher, that God will bring spiritual conviction upon those who are listening.

And I'll just be completely transparent and say I pray that for myself, that God will bring spiritual conviction upon me. Because just To be completely honest here, it's the sermons that have spoken to me as a preacher that I preach with the most passion. Those are the ones that I can really get behind, and it's more than just information, but it really is talking about how god has worked in my own life and that carries a lot of water uh... Forcefully that there be some necessary application so sermon I think or or or the preaching of sermons it's just not about preaching tax laying all that information out there walking away from it insane well came out holy spirit is your job to to somehow connect all the dots no preachers are called to also show people and to point people to the applications in their life And so even though at this time in history there's a popular brand of preaching where there's no application at all, I'll just say to you that I would eschew that type of thinking entirely, that the Bible really calls us as preachers to lay out the gospel and then to apply it some way or another so that people can begin to actually deal with the text so let's deal with the text we come to Nehemiah 8 we'll look at the first eight verses let me just read them for you and then we'll go on a little further and all the people gathered as one man into the square before the Watergate and they told Ezra the scribe to bring the book at the law Moses are to bring the book at the law Moses at the Lord had commanded Israel so Ezra the priests brought the law before the assembly both men and women and all who could understand what they heard on the first day of the seventh month.

And after he read it, facing the square before the Watergate from the early morning until midday in the presence of the men and the woman and those who could understand. And the ears of all the people were attentive to the law. And Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform that they had made for the purpose and beside him should Mattathiah and Shema and Ananias and Uriah and Hilkiah and Massasiah on his right hand and Pediah, Mishael, Malchijah, Hashem, Habedadana and Zechariah and Meshalem on his left hand. And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people for he was above all the people and as he opened it all the people stood and Ezra blessed the Lord the great God and all the people answered him Amen Amen and lifting up their hands and they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground now also Yeshua, Bani, cherubiah, Jaman, Achaib, Shebethiah, Hodiah, Massasiah, Kelita, Azariah, Josabad, Hanan, Palaiah, the Levites helped the people to understand the law. The people remained in their places and they read from the book from the law of God clearly and They gave the sense so that the people understood the reading.

What was going on in this situation here? Well, the wall had already been rebuilt. And as a result, there was a time of leading up to not only rebuilding the wall, but rebuilding the culture of the Jewish people. Nehemiah was concerned not only with their physical protection, but also their moral and their spiritual protection, and that involved a recommitment on the part of the people to the things of God. And so They all gathered as one man, as people who were hungry for the word of God.

And they gathered in the square before the Watergate. This was the oldest part of the city of Jerusalem. If you get out your maps in the back of your Bible and you look at that small little section which is in the center Jerusalem on the highest part overlooking the two valleys that run down the side that's the old city that's where this took place this assembly of all the people of Israel who had returned out of the places of captivity in Babylon. And Ezra was instructed by the people, well, please bring the book of the law of Moses. What are we talking about?

Well, the Torah, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. And Ezra was instructed then to Read the law. What kind of man was he? Well, the Bible tells us a little bit about this preacher Ezra. In Ezra 6, excuse me, Ezra 7, verse 1, now after this, in the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, Ezra, the son of Sariah, son of Azariah, son of Hilkiah and so on, it gives all of his genealogy, went up from Babylonia.

He was a scribe skilled in the law of Moses that the Lord the God of Israel had given and the king granted him all that he asked for the hand of the Lord his God was on him now a little bit more about his procedure and how he got into the Bible itself, into the text. In verse 10 of Ezra 7, it records, for Ezra had set his heart to study the law of God and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel. So we see what kind of a man he was as a preacher. He was a man who had a heart to study the law of God and he actually did it. He didn't just talk about it, he didn't just study the Word of God all day learning constantly but never doing, but he actually studied and did.

And so that's an important distinctive for us to remember, especially for some of you young men who are aspiring to be preachers at some day that you not only study the Word of God you not only have that great collection of commentaries and various other theological works that you delight in but you also then start doing. My first sermons were sermons in front of grade school children. After that it was sermons at rest homes where they were delighted to have anybody show up and lead a service and preach the Word of God and so if you're aspiring to preach young men don't think that somehow I have to wait until that day when seminary is done I'm fully ordained and then I can start preaching well Well just start preaching to your brothers and sisters, start preaching to some of the neighborhood kids, start preaching to anybody who will listen. George Whitfield, when he was a young boy, used to stand on a little stool and preach to his brothers and sisters. And God used that time, even though at that point he had yet to spiritually awakened to all the things of God yet even a young age he found himself in front of people speaking the Word of God and God used all of that to good effect well Ezra was a man like that and so the Bible tells us just going back to that passage in Nehemiah 8 So Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly both men and women and all who could understand what they heard on the first day of the seventh month and so they were all gathered together men and women were there together there was no exclusion all of them were ready to hear the Word of God and he began to proclaim now it says all who could understand what they heard the idea is to be in contrast here to the idea in paganism which was based only on a mystical experience, especially in the ancient Greek religions.

If you paid a certain amount of money, you had a certain mystical experience, because of that, you were giving a little bit of knowledge or gnosis or gnosis, as they would say. Well, that then would be the very idea of a preaching that many of the ancient people gravitated to. But this was completely different. What God had set up was that there would be a man who would preach the text of scripture. All the men and women and all those who could have understanding were gathered around, and the text was proclaimed.

And it was proclaimed in such a way that there was a reading of the text and there was an expounding of the text, which we'll get to in short order as we press through this. Now 185 years before this the law of God was found during the time of the reign of King Josiah. You all remember the story no doubt from 2 Kings. When it was found the king became aware of it and there was a grand public reading and so this whole idea of gathering people together for the the reading and expounding of the word was not foreign to the people of Israel that had happened before and it would happen again and so he read from it the Bible says from morning until midday in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand and all the people were attentive to the book of the law the Bible calls those who preach to be faithful students the Bible also calls those who listen to be attentive which means that you're engaged with the text just as much as the preacher is that's one of the reasons I know for me I'll always list what next Sunday's text is going to be on this Sunday so that people can understand ahead of time so heads of households and fathers can be reading through that text and preparing their families to come to God's house to hear the preacher expound that text And so I would encourage the same if you're a preacher to do that, to lay it before your people or for heads of households to read it and prepare for the preaching of the Word of God.

Now Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform that they had made for that purpose and then it lists all the different people who stood beside him. Now this was just not a spontaneous gathering, it was planned and there were seven men standing on his left side and and there were six men standing on his right side and they were all in uniformity standing up there on the pulpit or on this platform and the word was opened and they all heard it and so what we find here is this very significant occasion where the Word of God is brought before the people what's the significant occasion for you and me well the Lord has instructed us on in the fourth commandment that were to honor God by observing the Sabbath day that we're to be in the Lord's house on that day and we're to not neglect the gathering together of those who come for corporate worship of God. That would be that significant time or significant occasion for you and me. Now there might be other occasions too when there's preaching going on, some special gathering or something like that, a series of meetings or conference and all of that, and those are significant times as well, but ordinarily it's every Sabbath day when we gather on the Lord's Day and there is to be an accurate exposition so it tells us in the text here Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people and he was above all the people and as he opened it all the people stood.

Sometimes people will come up with a practice in worship that whenever the Word of God is read then people stand. This is the only example I know of in the Bible where this happens I wouldn't necessarily make it a practice on the basis of one text although the whole issue of the reverence of the Word of God is the key element here that the people have been trained and the preacher also communicates that for him the Word of God is a book to which we show great reverence we affirm that the Bible is infallible in other words all that it speaks about is true. We affirm that the Bible is inerrant. There are no errors contained therein. We affirm that the Bible is inspired of God.

It's more than any book of antiquity. It's better in terms of its impact, in terms of a spiritual impact in any other book that we could think of. And so the Bible is unique in that way. And for that reason, we revere it as the word of God. We affirm the verbal plenary inspiration of scripture.

So the Bible is just not about phrases or concepts, but the very words of God, the verbal aspect, and all of them, the plenary aspect. Every word in the Bible is inspired. Even those parts of the Bible that you might think are sort of irrelevant. All the list of names for example you might think well that doesn't really connect with me I'm going to skip over that but even if you stumble over the words read them anyways and encourage your pastors to preach them anyways because there's always good spiritual content in all those areas that you didn't think was even there, but God will make it evident. Now, the people responded to the word of God, verse 6.

And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, Amen. Amen. Lifting up their hands and they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground well we should train our people whenever the Word of God is read or proclaimed to not only have a reverent attitude, but also to respond to it in some way or another. And these people responded by lifting up their hands and shouting Amen. They worshipped the Lord.

They had their faces to the ground. They showed true humility and need. And they concurred with Ezra's work. And they were expressive in their worship in praising God for all that he had done and all that he would do. Now, I want you to notice in the list of names, again, that portion that you might just easily skip over, that there is a reason why the names are all listed.

And that is that these men who were helping Ezra, they helped him in terms of expounding the text. And so Ezra would stand and read the text, and then all these Levites would work their way through the crowd, maybe gathering a knot of people over here or a knot of people over there, and they would expound upon what was just preached. And here we find, really, the beginnings of the whole issue of what our Reformation distinctives would be and that is the public reading of the Word of God and the expounding of the Word of God and those two go part and parcel together and that's one of the Reformation distinctives but I hope you can see that it flows right here out of the text right out of the Old Testament we see that happening the public reading and the expounding of the Word of God and so they read in verse 8 from the book from the law of God clearly and they the day referring to those Levites gave the sense so that the people understood the reading And so just in those first eight verses, we see a tremendous pattern given to us about the whole issue of expounding scripture.

It's to be studied. It's to be read publicly. And it is to be expounded with the goal at bringing about some sort of understanding in the Greek obviously this is in Hebrew this Old Testament tax but in Greek there's the word Herman at all and it simply means to interpret or to explain a text and so that's where we get our 25 cent theological word hermeneutics which is to have some method of approaching the Word of God studying it and then explaining it or interpreting it for the sake of the people so when you hear people talk about hermeneutics don't be afraid of that term just remember it means to explain the text as simple as that and so that's what they were doing here amongst the Levites and Ezra working together. Now all of this produced a spiritual conviction and as I said earlier it was not something that just came from Ezra because he was a great speaker or the Levites because they were wonderful at interpreting the Word of God conviction always always comes from the Holy Spirit who convicts people who makes them aware of their sin and as a preacher and anybody who is preaching on a regular basis, that's one of the foremost things that you should do is be humbling yourself before God and calling out to God, Lord, would you use my words today to bring conviction, not only on me, Lord, but upon my hearers?

Would you bring conviction into their heart trusting that God will do that work and what happened when Nehemiah excuse me when Ezra began to proclaim these words and the Levites taught the people, well it tells us in verse 9 through 13, And Nehemiah, who was governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people, said to all the people, this day is holy to the Lord your God do not mourn or weep for all the people wept as they heard the words of the law and then he said to them go your way eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready for this day is holy to our Lord and do not be grieved for the joy of the Lord is your strength so the Levites calmed all the people saying be quiet for this day is holy do not be grieved and all the people went their way to eat and drink and send portions and to make great rejoicing because they had understood the words that were declared to them. And so you're praying for spiritual conviction. And in this case, God answered Ezra's prayer.

This word, which had been neglected for so long caused the people to weep, not only because they had hardly heard it, but also because the Holy Spirit was at work in bringing them to conviction and making them aware of their own sin, making them aware that they had neglected the great things of God. They had not done what God had instructed them to do in previous generations. And let me just say at this point, just as an aside, that is always the first use of the law. When we hear the law of God, it always exposes our sin like a blinding light and shows us our need for a Savior. That's the first use of the law.

The second use of the law being a restraint of wickedness in this world. The third use of the law being that rule of righteousness or right way of living for the believer that it shows us how how we ought to live but the first use of the law is exposing sin and pointing them to a need for a Savior Charles Spurgeon when he first showed up in London, he was 20 years old, he was a preacher even at that time. He had been trained and taught his doctrine and his Bible for most of his life at his grandfather and grandmother's table, their kitchen table, that's where he got a lot of his early theological training, he came to London and he found that the people were so starved that a morsel of the gospel was a treat to them. And he realized that there were people who are hungry for the things of God and so he determined as a young man he was going to give it to him and that's what he did for the rest of his life expounding the Word of God in London as a result he had a huge impact and he still has an impact even from the grave today because of his expositional work of preaching the Word of God.

Now what is the reaction here in Jerusalem of these people when they hear the word proclaimed. They weep. They weep. And again, it's not because of any sort of speaking abilities that Ezra had. I don't get the impression from looking at Ezra Life that he was this dynamic speaker.

He was just reading the Word of God. He was sort of like Jonathan Edwards when he read in his monotone voice sinners in the hand of an angry God in the 1730s. So just in a rather perfunctory manner he read the text, God brings conviction, and through the explaining of the text the people realize how much they have not done and they're moved to the point of doing something. They're not sure what yet, but they feel that God is calling them to obey Him. And so Ezra says to them, we'll go your way and eat the fat and drink the sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready.

They have something to do now. Ezra is telling them, we'll go out and give to the people who have nothing, because frankly, there were thousands of refugees who had come back from Babylon, come back from the time of captivity in that foreign land, they had nothing. They were showing up in Jerusalem on a daily or weekly basis and there was plenty of ministry to be done the land was filled with returning refugees and what reason does Ezra give them to celebrate for this day he says is holy to our Lord And so the reason why they celebrate, even though they realize they neglected the reading of the word of God, they neglecting obeying it, nonetheless, they're called to a recognition that this day is holy and it ought to be a day that they celebrate and rejoice in the good things of God. He says, and do not be grieved for the joy of the Lord is your strength. This should communicate to us that holiness does not equal gloominess.

Do you get that? Holiness does not equal gloominess, but holiness equals joy and overflowing gratitude, leading to works of obedience and faithfulness. That's what holiness leads to. And I think that's an important lesson just for each of us as we go through this text thinking about Ezra's motivation here I mean he had a perfect opportunity to manipulate all these people they're all weeping there in front of him he could have could have gotten all kinds of money from them and all sorts of things but that was not his reason for being or his call of God upon him but it was instead the idea of encouraging the people to do the right things before God and to be godly in return. So holiness does not equal gloominess.

When I read this text, I'm always reminded of a little expression my grandmother used to say she would always say to me and I was a skinny red-haired kid she'd always want to know well are you fat and happy and I would think well I'm not fat but I am happy and so she would be on a mission then to fatten me up but whenever Ezra says eat the fat and drink the sweet wine I think of my grandmother and that little expression that she would always say to me well in verse 11 the Levites calm down the people saying be quiet this day is holy do not be grieved And all the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions to the people and make great rejoicing because they understood the words that God had given to them. Now, having received something important and something convicting you need to apply it. That's the foolishness of the method of preaching that just lays out the text and then does nothing with it. Just sort of leaves it there on the table. The whole idea of actually pointing people to something they might do is a part of scripture itself.

And we see it in this very text. Look at verse 13. On the second day, the heads of the fathers' houses of all the people with the priests and the Levites came together to Ezra the scribe in order to study the words of the Lord or the words of the law so one of the first things that people wanted to do was to study it further they were beginning to understand what God had said but now they wanted to go deeper they wanted to study more And so they sat down with Ezra who had given the public reading and then they sight about studying the Word. For those of you who are heads of household, Psalm 78 or Deuteronomy Chapter 6 talks about these ways of thinking that we're to go forward and to take the Word and proclaim it to our own families. And so in that sense, every man who is a head of household has a responsibility before God to be faithful to their own little kirk or church.

Kirk would be the Scottish word for a church, but we're responsible then to make sure that our own family is being instructed in the Word of God. And so These men were zealous of that as well, and so they came to learn it so that they might then teach their families and do. Beyond that, we see that the people also were eager to obey the word of God explicitly. Verse 14 and 15, and they went and found written in the law that the Lord had commanded by Moses that the people of Israel should dwell in booths during the feast of the seventh month and that they should proclaim it and publish it in all their towns and in Jerusalem. Go out to the hills, bring branches of olive, wild olive, myrtle, palm, and other leafy trees to make booths as it is written.

And so the people went out and brought them and made booths for themselves, each on his own roof, and in their courts, and in the courts of the house of God, and in the square at the Watergate, and in the square at the gate of Ephraim, and all the assembly of those who returned from captivity made booths and lived in the booths from the days of Joshua the son of none to that day the people of Israel had not done so and there was great rejoicing and day by day from the first day to the last day he read from the book of the law of God and they kept the feast seven days and on the eighth day there was a solemn assembly according to the rule." So the reading of the Word then led to the explaining of the Word and the explaining of the Word led to conviction and the conviction under the word then led to action in the life of the people. They were eager to obey what had not been done for all these hundreds of years and they went out and they cut branches and they made booths and there was great rejoicing you could say it like this it was like this extended family camp out they were all cutting branches they were all building booths or little huts on their roof or out in the square and the children loved it because they saw their parents not only doing something unusual but they also had the excitement that this was something that God approved of God wanted them to do this and so doing God was going to bless them.

Well this is an expounding of the text. We've gone through the whole chapter there just rapid fire and this is a narrative text. It's not the kind of text that would be a didactic teaching text where I would just linger over every line or every word nonetheless I hope you could see that there was a lot that flowed out of this and as from a preacher's point of view in preaching this I would point to Ezra in particular being the example of Christ. Our Lord Jesus Christ was prophet, priest, and king. Here we have a priest, Ezra, who is representing Christ.

And what does he do? He proclaims the Word of God and the people are moved by it and they see their need to be rightly related to God. And that would be the point of contact there of how we all need to obey God and be rightly related to him. We can't do it through his law. We can only do it through his appointed representative, which in this case was Ezra pointing to the person of Jesus Christ.

And so I would make that connection in terms of the text. So let's move on to some practical applications of preaching and talk a little bit about that. How am I doing on time, Alan? OK, wonderful. Practical advice for preachers.

Preaching is hard work. Some people have said to me over the years, wow, it must be great to have a job where you only have to work one day a week. And I kinda go, well, it's not exactly like that. There's a lot of hard work in just mentally thinking and processing all the things I can't even number the times where my wife or my children had said to me something and my mind has been on a text over here or upon this thing over there related to the sermon and that just happens and that's one of the things as a husband and father always have to deal with and not let myself get too distracted. Nevertheless that a preacher has a responsibility the Bible tells us in 2 Timothy 2.15, to show yourself approved, rightly handling the Word of God.

How do you do that? Well the first thing I do is I write out the text. It might sound ridiculously simple, but I sit down there at the keyboard or pen in hand, I've done it both ways, and I write out the text. I want to interact with every word of the Bible. George Whitfield, when he was a young preacher, used to wake up in the morning at four o'clock.

I can't say that I do that but he would get up at four o'clock in the morning he would he would kneel down and pray and and he would have his Greek New Testament on one side and and he would have his Bible in the middle and he would have Matthew Henry's comments on Holy Scripture on the other side and he would pray over every line of the text of the Bible he would just work his way through he would look at it in the Greek or I suppose in the Hebrew if he had that, then he would read the comments and he would pray over every line. And that's a pattern that I've learned from Whitefield of praying over every line of the text and just going through it, getting it to be a part of me so that if you cut Marcus' servant, he bleeds Bible. That's always been said of Charles Spurgeon and other great preachers, that the Bible just flows out of them. And so it takes that kind of work. Secondly, you need to study and consider how your text fits into the remaining parts of the Bible.

Different texts of the Bible are just not isolated units that only stand completely alone. But they're connected to Old and New Testament passages. And there is continuity between the testaments. And so if you're preaching an Old Testament text, you have to then look to the New and see how it was interpreted. If you're preaching a New Testament text and you should look back to the old and see what were his antecedents, where did it come from, what were the underlying presuppositions or ideas.

And so is Paul declared in Acts 20 verse 27, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God and so a preacher has to be very cognizant of how the text fits thirdly you need to humble yourself and pray for the Holy Spirit to use you. That God will use your words. Because you know your sin, You're painfully or acutely aware of where you fall short of God's standard, but you're going to stand up there anyways and you're going to proclaim the Word of God to the best of your ability so you pray the god would humble you spurgeon I don't know if you know this had a school for preachers and as he uh... Grew in popularity in the size of his church crew in numbers There are a number of young men who wanted to be preachers and so he set about to teach them and he started search Spurgeon's College which by the way is still in existence and There's an example of one preacher a young man who went up in the pulpit with a great expression of confidence. He went up there very full of himself and ready to roll and confident in his abilities, but the more he preached the harder it got and by the time he came down he was crushed and felt like he had extremely difficult time he was distressed brokenhearted he went to Charles Spurgeon about this and he said what should I do a Spurgeon said to him well if you had gone up as you had come down, you would have come down as you had gone up.

In other words, saying if you had been humble going up and contrite and broken before the Lord, then perhaps you would have come down full of confidence that God used your words rather than the other way around. So the preacher always wants to go up to the pulpit humble, praying over the text, recognizing that God would be so gracious to work through your words and to bring conviction and change into people's lives. Another very important aspect of preaching is to make sure that your points flow out of the text. If there's any takeaway from this lecture or presentation today, I hope it would be that. If you're going to be a preacher, make sure that the points you're communicating actually flow out of scripture and Hold your Bible up when you're reading and preaching.

I have to say to you, somehow preaching the Word of God loses something if you're just holding your iPhone, or if you're holding your tablet, or you've got your laptop up here and it's reflecting off your glasses or something like that, there's something loss when that happens in my opinion. And so holding the Word of God and as something is flowing out of that text, you're pointing at it and reading it over communicates in a way that you would not imagine. Because God's Word is powerful, it does not come back void. It has the ability to pierce down to joint and marrow to the inner parts of man we all know those texts from Isaiah 55 and Hebrews 4 but it applies to preaching and so preach with the Bible in your hand and visually show that the place where you're getting these truths that have changed your life and your hope are going to change their life come from the text of Scripture. They're just not your opinions.

I always make a commitment to myself on Saturday night to ask myself this question. Do I have something in the Bible or in this sermon for everyone? Now This is what I mean by that. I'm thinking about little five or six-year-old Ellie sitting in the second row. And I'm asking myself, do I have something in this sermon for her?

I'm thinking about Mike in the back row. He always sits in the back row in the right hand corner. I always know where he's at. Do I have something for Mike, who's a well experienced, deep thinking Christian? Do I have something for him?

Then I think about the young couple over on this side. Do I have something for them? Something that's going to help them in their life as a newly married couple? And overall, I ask myself, do I have something that proclaims Christ, that proclaims Jesus Christ as our savior in this sermon? And I just go through those questions, and I ask myself those questions.

And I'm not saying that you bring down your sermon to the level of the five year old or six year old please hear me correctly I'm just saying is there something in this sermon that's going to connect with that person is it going to be a quote Is it going to be an illustration? Is it going to be a theological concept? Is it going to be a historical reference? Is it going to be an exhortation? I want to make sure that everyone who hears leaves with something.

And Again, I'm dependent upon the Holy Spirit to make that real, but that's very much in my conscious mind. I want to make sure that Jesus Christ is proclaimed. And some might say, well, How can you do that of an Old Testament text? And I explained earlier how I would point to Ezra as that example, that type of the Lord Jesus Christ, and how when we interact with the Word of God, it shows us our sin and our need for a Savior. So I would drill that home.

I would seek to bring application out of the text. Sometimes preachers will like to weave applications in the midst of the text all the way through and I've done that over the years that's probably method I prefer the best when you take a text of Scripture there's a certain passage maybe one verse or another and there's an application that flows right out of that well you jump on that and you drive it home there are other times harbor when I've just piled them all up at the end and that's the old pure to weigh a preaching where you might have uh... Forty minutes of expanding the word of god in forty minutes of application and you just laid out there's like a one-two punch and that you do it that way and that would be one way of doing it and I would say for a preacher you just have to find the way that works for you for me for the most part I like to weave it through the tasks You have to make sure that in your preaching you're truly yourself. Now if I tried to be like Kevin Swanson, I would be a colossal failure.

I'm a preacher who stays behind the pulpit. I really don't get very far away from this pulpit. Why is that? Because I like to have my notes there. I like my Bible there.

If I started wandering over this way or wandered over that way like Kevin does people would go that's the most ridiculous thing why is mark a servant trying to be like kevin swanson doesn't work that's because market service not kevin swanson and kevin swanson's not market servant you have to be you have to be true to yourself so even though You might have men that you admire. You admire their turn of phrase. You admire the way they preach. You admire this or that about them. Don't try to imitate them, because people will see through you in a split second That you're trying to be like Joe Moorcraft or Vody Baucom or some other preacher that you look up to.

Just be yourself. Lastly, in regard to a preacher, make sure that you preach those points of truth that have ministered to you. You can ask my wife about this, but every Saturday night I wake up about three o'clock in the morning. It is without fail. It's what I call the 3 a.m.

Test. And what runs through my mind at 3 o'clock in the morning on Sunday? Well, I go through my title. I remember my text. I go through the main points.

I remember the illustrations I remember the applications what am I doing I'm preaching the sermon to myself I'm preaching it to me and some of the most powerful sermons the sermons I've got the most feedback on have always been those sermons that have been preached to myself. And I can go away saying, Lord, thank you for speaking to me through this text, Lord. Or sometimes I'll say, Marcus, that sermon was for you. That was for you, brother. You needed to hear that.

And so make sure that it preaches to you now a few thoughts in closing on those who listen to sermons bring your Bible bring a notebook encourage your preacher he'll be so impressed is be so encouraged just to see you show up with an open Bible and a notebook and see you making a few notes. And you may not be writing down everything he's saying, but write down a few of the important points so that you can reflect upon them later. Secondly, ask the preacher a question. Make it your goal to not just go up and say, great sermon, pastor, thank you for that, but actually go up and say, you know, on verse 28, when you're going through that, I just wondered, what did you mean? Could you explain a little more to me about that he'll be happy to do that and talk about it and then at the end say thank you so very much that really ministers to me you know just a simple little comment like that interaction allows the text to go deeper with you and it allows the preacher to know you've heard him study the passage before the beginning of the service if you can, if your pastor is given to you, listing his sermons and his tax ahead of time.

Prayerfully ask that God will teach you and that you'll be humbled, that you'll be led to repentance if that needs to happen, that you'll apply what the Bible has said to you. So many Christians, I'm afraid to say, just sit and soak. They get great sermons and great talks and read great books, and they do very little with it. And so I want to encourage you to don't sit and soak, but to actually take the Word of God and apply it. And lastly, for those who are heads of households, I'd encourage you to discuss the sermon.

Now I'm not talking about having pastor so-and-so for lunch in the sense that you're slicing dicing up the pastor's sermon and being critical because if you do that all you're going to do is teach your children to be critical Christians but instead in a comprehensive devoted God honoring way talk about what you learned not the faults of the preacher because there are plenty of them but talking about what you learned At the close of John Knox's life, he still was a preacher despite his infirmity, despite his difficulty in getting up into the pulpit. He would go and preach anyways, and there was one young man who was a student at the University of St. Andrews, his name was James Melville, and he would go to hear John Knox preach, and he would say these words about Knox. I would take my little pen and my little book, and I would seek to comprehend his words. And in the opening up of his tax, he would speak for over an hour, and then he would apply it to me, and I would shiver and tremble, so that I could not hold my pen to write.

He was very weak. I saw him every day of his teaching go slowly and warily with the fur of Martins around his neck, staff in one hand, and the good godly Richard Ballantine, his servant, would hold him up with the other armpit, from the Abbey to the parish kirk and by the way of said Robert another servant lifted him up to the pulpit where he behooved to lean at his first sentence but before he was done with his sermon he was so active and so vigorous it seemed as if he would knock the pulpit in pieces and fly out of it. Why is that? Because the text moved him and he spoke out of the passions and the convictions that God had given him and so communicated that to the people and that's why the people found his sermons so very powerful and so when you think about preaching the Word of God Remember that you must do so humbly and you must do so in such a way that you also are ministered to by the Word of God. Let's pray together.

Lord we just thank you for this opportunity to discuss preaching. We pray Lord that you might use this in our life to be one good listeners or on the other hand good preachers who are convicted by your word and preach it passionately and so we pray all of this in the name of Jesus our Lord amen for more messages articles and videos on the subject of conforming the church and and for more information about the National Center for Family Integrated Churches, where you