I’ve been trying to get hold of a commentary series on the books of Samuel that does a stunning job of demonstrating the interconnectedness of the individual stories (a rarity in commentaries on narrative books!)

I’ve been pondering how the gospel writers wove together events and parables in a way that honoured their historicity, yet communicated their own theological emphases under the inspiration of God.  The gospels are not simply four perspectives on a car accident, it’s much richer than that!

So as we engage a story, we must break open the blinkers of the section headings and get a sense of what is going on around our focus text.  The context almost always sheds light on the point of our focus.

What is true on a local level, is also true on a macro level.  To be effective preachers, we need to be whole Bible people.  That is, we need to have a sense of how the whole fits together, not just historically, but as a greater plot.

The tension underlying every narrative is the fall of Genesis 3.  The characters in every plot are people responding to God as they hear His Word.  The resolution to the problem of Genesis 3 can never be the moral successes of particular characters, but rather the amazing intervention of God’s grace incarnated.

While we don’t need to always finish the macro story, we must always be aware of how our particular text fits into that larger narrative.  Only then can we be sure to avoid the simplistic little niceties of sharing tips for successful living through ancient tales with moral morals.  For whether we realize it or not, how we live this Thursday is part of the great narrative of God’s grace being spurned or celebrated in the epic of history and the annals of eternity.

So on a book by book level, on a canon-wide level, and on a history as a whole level, we must see individual plots as part of the bigger plot of God’s great story.  As preachers we have the privilege of shining light both in narrow focus, and in broad illumination.

All too often I come across childrens’ ministry that seems like random ancient tales with a moral.  An interesting little tale from long ago and far away that is offered with a moral moral – do this, don’t do that.  But then children go to school where the tales told in the classroom don’t begin with “once upon a time,” but with “the scientists know that…”  All too easily the children in our Sunday School classes make the inevitable observation that there is more truth in one environment than the other.

Children need to have their Bible stories offered more carefully – with theology and historicity included, not to mention the gospel in all its glory.

But then we look at ministry among adults.  All too often it is abstract doctrine combined with moral exhortation.  A book we agree must be honoured is often dishonoured by being presented in dull, lifeless abstraction.  Then these adults go to a media saturated world where moral shaping doesn’t begin with a prayer and a verse, but with credits and a powerful opening sequence.  The world knows not to lecture us on what to believe and to do, but rather to dress it up in George Clooney’s wardrobe and wrap it in a plot.  Adults do their duty by sitting through sermons, and are shaped by a week full of stories saturated in moral guidance, political direction and conscience numbing power.

Adults need to have their hearts gripped and shaped by engaging Bible stories, where theology and truth are dressed up in real life!

God gave us a lot of His Word in story form.  This was not merely to resource childrens ministries, nor to furnish preachers with an anthology of sanctified illustrations.  It was because God is a great communicator, and because the truth about God is that His truth is incarnational.

Bible stories dress up truth in real life, they are theology in concrete.  Our privilege is to accurately, compellingly, engagingly re-present God’s great communication as we preach His real Word to this, His real world.  If we relegate stories to childrens ministry alone, then we restrict ourselves to a small segment of His Word.  Furthermore, we blind ourselves to the narratival features of the apparently “non-story” genres.

Over the next few days, I’d like to nudge us back toward preaching our theology in the dress of real life.  Let’s revisit the world of the Bible story well preached!

Undoubtedly, a recycled sermon takes less preparation time than a sermon from scratch on a passage previously never preached.  But my suggestion, if you are preparing to re-preach an old sermon, would be to follow a process along these lines:

1. Prayerfully consider the text itself before looking at the old notes or outline.  Even if you only have time for a brief engagement with the text, there needs to be a freshness about your approach to it, even if the end result remains the same in terms of message outline and details (since the passage does communicate something specific, and that, at one level, does not change).  Be sure to feel the impact of the text on your heart as you pray through it.

2. Prayerfully consider the specifics of this occasion before looking at the old notes or outline.  It is good to get a clear image of who the message will be preached to on this occasion.  What are their circumstances, what are their needs?

3. Prayerfully walk through the whole passage preparation process as you reconsider the previously preached sermon (or ideally, your old exegetical notes).  Why are you selecting this text?  What are the pertinent elements of exegesis that should drive your understanding of this text?  What do you now think was the author’s purpose in writing this text?  Is that main idea still the best summary you can make of this text?  You may find that your interim growth and biblical studies have changed your level of understanding so that you start tweaking your old passage or study notes.  If you only look at the end product (outline, notes, etc.) then you are preaching without the richness of the exegesis that didn’t make it into the notes, but was fresh on your heart.

4. Prayerfully walk through the message preparation process as you reconsider the old sermon.  What is your message purpose this time, this congregation, this occasion?  Can you improve the message idea to fit this particular preaching event, or to better reflect the text’s idea?  Is your old outline the most effective idea delivery strategy?  Do the details of introduction, conclusion and “illustrative materials” fit?  You may well find that the message also changes in some ways.

5. If at all possible, prayerfully preach it through out loud.  Listeners can spot a stale notes-dependent presentation.  Just because it looks ok on paper, does not mean it can be preached with freshness from your heart and mouth.  Run through it and prayerfully “own it” again.

This may seem like a lot of work, but actually I could do this process in less than a couple of hours (plus the run through of step 5).  This is a lot less time than a full sermon from scratch, and as we’ll see tomorrow, time saving is not the only benefit.

There is a dangerous temptation for some to separate themselves from personal accountability by presenting things under the label of the Holy Spirit.

Maybe you’ve had one of those conversations with a lovestruck person who tries to hide from their responsibility by saying that God has told them to divorce their spouse and marry that other person’s spouse.  Or maybe the single who has the exception clause that God has told them to marry that person who has no regard for the Lord (but suddenly has a tenuous Christian connection through ancestry or somehow is a seeker whose salvation can be guaranteed).  It is so frustrating to pastor somebody hiding behind the shield of untouchability, because, after all, well, you wouldn’t want to argue with God, would you?

The same thing applies the other way around.  Listeners can be frustrated by preachers who claim God told them what to preach on, but then the message bears no thumbprint of God’s deep and fresh work in the preacher or the preaching.  Followers can grow weary of every decision a leader makes being the fruit of their personal heavenly hotline that therefore can never be questioned.  Surely the fruit of the Spirit should lead to deeper relational connections, not to greater relational superficiality?

By all means be someone who prays and longs to hear from God.  Be someone that only wants to do what the Spirit empowers.  Be someone that has a close and real walk with the Lord.  But don’t hide yourself from any personal responsibility by making that a shield behind which you hide.

As we move into 2012, let’s be preachers and leaders who walk very closely with the Lord, who saturate our ministry and lives in prayer, who yearn to know God more closely and please Him more profoundly.  But let’s not protect ourselves from potentially legitimate correction, instruction, and accountability from others by inappropriately hiding behind a front of unquestionable spirituality.

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Next Week: 

Confessions of a Preacher

6. Impose a sermon structure instead of letting the text’s structure influence your message.

Those who are committed to preaching as a ministry governed by rules and tradition will regularly cross this line.  For it to be a sermon it must have . . . tends to lead to imposition of “correct structure” on Bible texts.  It is interesting how few texts genuinely offer a standard number of parallel and equally weighted points.  Much more often there is a flow of thought or plot, a combination of one dominant thought with supporting elements, or whatever.  Let’s be careful that we don’t abuse a text by forcing a sermonic grid onto it in an attempt to preach the text.  We may be left preaching a bruised and caged specimen.

7. Preach a preferred cross-reference

I remember listening to a set of lectures on tape (remember tapes?)  The cover said they were lectures on the Pastoral Epistles.  The labels on the tapes said the same.  Actually, the lecturer also kept referring to the Pastoral Epistles too.  But the overwhelming sense I got when listening to them was that the lecturer wished he were in Romans.  He went there constantly.  Maybe he felt he’d missed out when a more senior lecturer got to do the prized epistle.

When you preach a text.  Preach it.  It is inspired.  It is useful.  It is worth the effort to study it and understand it and preach it.  Don’t take the short-cut that may or may not be there to a more familiar, a more “preachable” or a more exciting text.

8. Preach a plethora of cross-references.

Every now and then I hear a preacher who seems to be entering the “who can reference the most Bible books in thirty minutes” competition.  Please don’t.  There are few good reasons to cross-reference, don’t do it otherwise.  (See here and here for the main two reasons in my opinion.)  Every moment taken in a cross-reference is time not used in preaching your preaching text, if it doesn’t add to the preaching of this text, don’t let your time be stolen.

We’ll finish the ten tomorrow, although ten is not the limit, there may be more!

1. There are other ways to preach the narratives themselves.  You don’t have to simply talk your way through the text.  Consider the possibility of preaching the emphasis of the text from the perspective of a contemporary character – Anna, Simeon, a shepherd, etc.  Consider a bit of “in hindsight” first person preaching – Joseph looking back, or Luke having done his research.  Remember though, if you have a “manger scene” play with children involved, your going into character may feel like too much of a good thing, even though you will surpass their preparations.

2. Why not preach all four Gospel introductions?  We tend to dwell in Matthew or Luke or a blend of the two.  Why not introduce people to Matthew’s introduction, then Mark’s (why no birth narrative, where was this all headed anyway, why is Mark 1:1-13 such a stunning intro to his gospel?)  Then give them the visitation, prophecy, Mary focused and children prepared emphasis of Luke’s opening chapters.  And who wouldn’t want to preach from John 1:1-18 right before Christmas (or any other time for that matter!)  All four are stunning pieces of inspired text!

3. There are other New Testament passages that explain the Incarnation and Christ’s mission to the world.  Perhaps it would be helpful to offer some explanation from other parts of the New Testament.  What did the preachers of Acts say about why Christ was sent into the world?  What about Paul’s explanation of the timing of it all in Galatians 4?  There’s plenty on Christmas beyond Matthew and Luke.

4. Why not tap into the mine that is Old Testament prophecy?  Where to start?  Most people dip into the Old Testament at Christmas to read Isaiah 9:6-7, or Micah 5:2.  Why not help people understand the richness of those texts and others like them in their context?  What were the Jews waiting for when the first Christmas dawned?

5. Perhaps it is worth encountering a Christmas Carol and its theology?  Not my typical approach, but people know the carols.  Perhaps it would be worth helping people to understand the richness of the second verse of Hark the Herald Angels Sing biblically?

Tomorrow I’ll offer another handful of yuletide ponderings.

1. There’s nothing wrong with familiar passages.  It is tempting to think that we have to be always innovating, always creative, always somewhere surprising.  Don’t.  Just as children will repeatedly ask for the same bedtime story, and adults will revisit the same movie of choice, so churchgoers are fine with a Christmas message at Christmas.  Sometimes in trying to be clever we simply fail to connect.  Don’t hesitate to preach a Matthew or Luke birth narrative!

2. Preach the writer’s emphasis, not a Christmas card.  Anywhere in the Gospels it is possible to be drawn from the emphasis of the text to the event itself.  If you are preaching Matthew for several weeks, great, preach Matthew.  If Luke, preach Luke.  Whether it is a series or an individual message, be sure to look closely and see what the writer is emphasizing in each narrative.

3. Familiar passages deserve to be offered fresh.  Don’t take my first comment as an excuse to be a stale preacher.  There’s no need to simply dust off an old message and give it again without first revisiting it.  Whenever we preach God’s Word we should stand and preach as those who have a fresh passion for what God is communicating there.  There’s no excuse for a cold heart or stale content.

4. Fresh doesn’t have to mean innovative or weird.  Now all this talk of fresh could lead us down a windy path into strange ideas.  There is plenty in each text that is very much there, so we don’t need to superimpose our own clever and innovative “five facts about struggling against capitalism from the angel’s visit to Zechariah.”  Equally, we don’t have to preach dressed as a sheep in order to offer something fresh.

5. Be careful when fresh includes disagreeing with tradition.  You may find that looking closely at the text and studying the culture of that time actually causes you to question some stable assumptions (see what I did there?)  Was there a stable?  Where was Jesus born?  When did the Magi arrive?  How did the star thing work?  Think carefully about throwing a hand grenade into peoples’ traditions.  There is a place, and a tone, for correcting errant thinking, but tread carefully.

This is where the big idea approach to preaching is so on target.  If the big idea of the text is the control mechanism during message formation, then the text should be coming through.  Sadly though, too many preach generic messages that essentially disconnect from the text itself.

I suppose preaching is essentially very easy for some folks.  A thirty-five minute message is really only a couple of minutes of “worked material” that builds tenuous links between the text and the message.  Once the text is tied in somehow, the standard message content can flow freely without hindrance.  Easy.

Some people do this by leaving the text behind.  It is read, a couple of comments are made, and then the message moves on from the text into generic sermon zone.

Others do this by pulling from the text the three things they want to find there.  Perhaps something pointing to human sin, and something to do with God, and maybe something along the lines of consequences, or perhaps a vague segue to Calvary, or whatever.  Thus the narrative is plundered for intro links to the message the preacher intended to preach.

Let me encourage you to make the preaching text more than an introduction for the message, or an introduction for the points.  Allow the text to be master over the sermon.  

Seek to preach so that God’s Word is communicated and God’s voice is heard.  Seek to preach so that listeners can clearly hear the text and its influence on the entire message.  Seek to genuinely preach the Word.

Here’s an application shotgun blast:

Biblical teaching on the future gives us encouragement in trials (John 14:1); comfort in griefs (1Thess.4:13-18); motivation for purification (1John 2:28-3:3); it moves us toward morality (Col.3:1-5ff); it drives us to diligent spotlessness (2Peter 3:14); it leads us to lay aside lusts (Rom.13:11-14); encourages exemplary living (1Thess.5:1-11); fires our faith (Heb.10:35-39); spurs us to strengthen our hearts (James 5:7-8); produces perseverance in our service (1Cor.15:58); fires us to finish well (2Tim.4:7-8); focuses our passion for preaching (2Tim.4:1-2); stirs worship as we see the sovereign plan of God (Rom.11:25-32); and offers blessing for both reading and heeding (Rev.1:3).

I could have added more, but you get the point.  (1) There is a lot of biblical content that points our thinking to future things and eternity.  I didn’t touch on the gospels, or the Old Testament, in that blast.  Two more mega rounds of applicational value.  If we are going to preach the Bible, we can’t help but point our listeners to the future.

If we are going to seek biblical transformation in the lives of our listeners, we can’t help but speak of the future.  As we see in the blast above, (2) the Bible assumes that our values are shaped by the future.  Where you treasure is, there your heart will be also.  Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.  Can a follower of Christ really represent Christ in this world without having eternally shaped values?

We live in a world marked by hopelessness.  Whether it is the forlorn agony of poverty, or the vain emptiness of wealth, we are surrounded by the hopeless. (3) Of all people, followers of Christ should be marked by hope, which is a biblical fruit of future focus.  If we preach a Christianity bereft of future reference, we snap a leg from the stool of truth on which we sit.  Sadly too many believers are trying balance on faith and love, but hope is strangely absent.

Let’s be sure to preach the Bible, shaping values and stirring hope.

Here are my responses to these five common reasons for avoiding the subject of the future, then next time I’ll offer some positive reasons to go eternal in your preaching.

1. Eschatology is divisive.  After all, there are so many views on the millennium, the coming of Christ for the church, the details on the timeline, political implications today, etc.  Actually, most issues in the Bible are potentially divisive – the nature of God, the person of Christ, the role of the believer in salvation, the work of the Holy Spirit, etc.  If a subject is potentially divisive, surely we shouldn’t avoid it, but watch our attitudes and clarity when we do speak of it?

2. It is difficult.  I suspect many a preacher avoids all references to the future because they are pretty sure they aren’t sure where they stand on it all.  Like most subjects in the Bible, it is both complicated enough for a doctoral research pursuit, yet simple enough for a child to understand.  Avoiding a subject because it is difficult will lead us to missing out on the rich wonder of the Bible, and our listeners will never hear us mention the central subjects like the Triune God, the Incarnation, etc.

3. It is obscure.  Uh, no.  Biblical reference to the future is not limited to a couple of the more apocalyptic prophets.  Every book in the New Testament except one includes reference to the return of Christ, let alone all the other aspects of future teaching.  Obscure it certainly is not, if we read the Bible, that is.  I suppose the challenge is that many don’t and so judge Christianity by their cultural worldview instead.

4. It is irrelevant.  Again, no.  We’ll look at applicational value of future thinking next time.

5. It is embarrassingly sensational.  Sadly, it can be and often is.  There is too much hype and puff coming from some.  The solution to that is to offer our listeners the good example of being well grounded biblically, rather than leaving them to become newspaper and paperback theologians.

None of these reasons are enough to kick the future out of our present preaching.  Next time, we’ll start stacking up the positive reasons to bring back future and eternal preaching.