This sermon on evangelism is really good. It isn't necessarily nothing I have never heard before, but in a short 24 minutes, he was able to hammer out some key contentions with faith, using the Bible, history, text and much more. It was a passionate, humorous, and challenging message, great for a non-believer and great training for a believer. It is a must listen!
A great sermon at the Menlo Park Presbyterian Church on 1 Corinthians 15. It is such a great passage that it is hard to mess up, but Voddie uses his apologetic background to really put a new spin on it...
This message at the Southern Seminary was really strong. It was apologetic, it was challenging and it was Biblical. It was a great call to all Christians to be strong and courageous as we defend and contend for the faith of the gospel.
When preparing to preach or teach, the question that I ask, isn’t what do I need to preach or what can I preach or what do I want to preach, etc. No, I ask, “Lord Jesus, what is it that you are preaching or that you are teaching, or in other words, what is it that you are saying, to me”? I need to include myself as one of the needy recipients of God’s Now Word. Therefore in order for me to declare prophetically that which He is speaking, I need to hear clearly what it is that He is saying to me/us, now. I dare not presume upon this vital question with some sort of simplistic or presumptuous answer. No, I need to seek Him, wait upon Him, hear Him and then declare what I have seen and heard or even am seeing and hearing, in the nowness of His presence (1 Jn 1:3).And this:
Preaching isn’t about what we want said or accomplished. Preaching is first, last and always about what the Lord Jesus is saying in, to and through us.Sounds good to me.
Voddie Baucham began the conference proper with a session dealing with "Preaching to Postmoderns." He explained that this is a difficult title because it relies on a term that is nearly impossible to define. Some use postmodernism to describe a generation, a group of people currently in their twenties. But this is unfortunate because postmodernism is not new. Since the sixties at least this postmodernism was shoved down the throats of students. In reality postmodernism is about a specific epistemology. We are talking about individuals who take issue with (though they do not necessarily deny) certain truth claims. Postmodernity is about taking issue with certain truth claims or with our ability to know and to grasp this absolute truth and therefore taking issue with certain constructs. We are dealing with individuals who ultimately come to a place where they are not willing to stake a claim on certain historical doctrines or truths. They may not deny certain doctrines or truths but they also will not go to war with them. It operates under this mantra: what is true for you is not necessarily what is true for me. Another difficulty is that we could actually believe that we have to fundamentally change the practice of preaching in order to suit a group of people. Preaching is preaching is preaching. As Lloyd-Jones said, ultimately if a sermon is going to be preaching, it has to be expository in nature. We don't start with ourselves or start with a need. We start with the text. Having said that, we do live in an age where people take issue with certain types of exposition. So how do we engage this group? How do we engage the individuals growing up around our college campuses who are immersed in postmodernism, but want to both hold on to the truths of Scripture and be relevant to the culture around us. Can we do biblical exposition with this group?
The answer is yes, you can! From 1 Corinthians 15 we'll learn how. Here Paul is dealing with people who claim interest in Christianity or identify with it but there are certain aspects that they cannot grasp onto wholeheartedly. The issue of the resurrection is problematic because their way of thinking, their philosophy, their preconceived ideas, must be brought to bear on the text or the message that is being proclaimed. When the message being proclaimed rubs the wrong way of something we hold to, the message loses. This is what he deals with in 1 Corinthians 15. Paul makes three arguments: argument from authority, argument from evidence, argument from logic.
In the first few verses, Paul argues from authority. Paul identifies himself as the one who sends or provides this message but that he does so on behalf of God. God says that there are certain requirements to be His child. This argument from authority points out those who are true believers. You cannot claim to be something without having met the requirements to be what you claim.
In the next set of verses Paul argues from evidence pointing to Jesus. There are so many who are wrong on Jesus, wrong on Christ, and hence wrong on the gospel. They don't believe that He died for sin, that He was raised. If we're wrong on the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus we're wrong on the gospel. The argument from evidence is that Jesus, in His life, fulfilled promises that were made hundreds of years before. Jesus dies according to the Scriptures, is raising according to the Scriptures in fulfillment of prophecies. There is also eye-witness evidence of those to whom he appeared (including Paul himself). The third evidence is to look at Paul, saying "Look at me." We can fall into a trap of thinking we're sharing the gospel when we're really sharing our own story. Paul shares his story but only after the gospel, not in place of it. We are prone to simply compare our stories with each other, reducing the gospel to experience. Paul doesn't leave his story out, but he also doesn't highlight it.
Then there is the argument from logic. It is a little bit difference because here Paul answers people directly who claim to believe in Christ but not in the resurrection. He takes their arguments to their logical conclusion. In this passage people are saying that Jesus is fine, but they just can't believe in the resurrection. Paul, though, says that if there is no such thing as the resurrection there are seven things that absolutely must follow. You can't just get away with saying this. With that one statement you've then made other conclusions necessary. Namely, Christ has not been raised; our preaching is vain; your faith is vain; we are liars and blasphemers; your faith is futile and you haven't been forgiven; those who have died have perished; we are the most pathetic lot around and we may as well just eat, drink and be merry.
Are these three points magic bullets that always work with postmoderns? No, absolutely not. But it is a verse-by-verse, straight out of the text exposition. It means that it's easy to remember; that, because the Word of God is alive, it is powerful; it validates what we say because it's rooted in the authority of Scripture; it keeps us from being the authority.
Ultimately what is important is not winning an argument, but winning a soul. It is easy to feel good about using logic and intellect and information to feel superior to an opponent. One thing exposition does to you is making the baser parts take a back seat. We don't write the mail--we just deliver it. And that's enough.
Postmodernism is nothing new. If we love the Word and cherish it and the God who gave it to us, and get into this book and get this book into us, we will have ready responses that have the authority of the Word of God that will be alive and active. This does not mean we don't share our experiences, but we do so as people who have been encountered by truth to show that our experiences do not validate that truth, but merely show an example of a life that has been touched by these truths.
This is only the second time I've encountered Voddie's teaching (you can read about the first here), but I've found both of these sessions remarkable in their content, delivery and application. You'll want to get ahold of this MP3.
You're welcome. If you have not heard of Voddie, you are in for, uh, something... It could be conviction or disagreement or a change of your whole world and perspective. He is part John the Baptist, part Barnabas and part Apostle Paul... To read more about him, click on the picture above... He is pro-homeschool, pro-family church and pro-Jesus. I am not sure how else to describe him. He is an incredible preacher, teacher and apologist. I am starting off with his talk "The Centrality of the Home," which after listening you will immediately wonder why I have included it, especially on his stance on youth pastors...The Preacher and ………Prayer
One of the most stimulating things I have read on prayer in a long time is in my Book of the Week which I have nearly finished reading and will review in a few days time. In his book, ‘Preaching that Changes Lives’, Michael Fabarez has some imaginative ideas about soaking our preaching ministry in prayer - from beginning to end - and not just by the preacher. Here’s the first of two excerpts I’ll post from this excellent book.
Over the years Fabarez has developed three prayer teams;
1. A ‘Message Prep’ team: “As part of my preparation I have made it a practice to partner with one or two men who will pray with me in my office. Scheduling prayer partners to come in the thick of the study and preparation battle can provide refreshment and perspective as they pray for God’s involvement and intervention in every aspect of the sermon…..I ventured to broaden the circle even wider. This resulted in a prayer team of over 25 people who cover every hour of my weekly preparation. My single most heartening comfort amid the labour of study is knowing that there is a godly person grappling in prayer for me, the sermon, and its impact.”
2.A ‘Pre-Delivery’ team: “I have limited this group to a small number of hand-picked men who arrive 30 minutes before the service begins. Some are church leaders, some are staff, and others are laymen….The expectations and enthusiasm generated in that concentrated half hour of prayer are contagious. We experience a heightened sense of dependence on God to work in our midst. We feel a deepening burden to see God’s Word communicated accurately. We ignite within our hearts a passion to see God’s truth transform people’s lives. It also greatly encourages the preacher to know godly men are standing with him as he goes forth to proclaim God’s Word.”
3. An ‘As You Preach’ team: “If the entire preaching process is a spiritual battle, we should naturally assume that much of it is waged while the preaching actually is taking place……find people who will forfeit their opportunity to sit under your preaching once every two or three months in order to pray for its effectiveness. In so doing they will quickly grow in their understanding of the critical impact prayer has upon effective biblical preaching.”
Fabarez closes the section with this challenge. “Choose today to renew your passion for prayer. Make it your priority. Enlist those around you to join in asking God for his transforming work in the lives of those who will hear His Word proclaimed this week.”
From the blog of the steward of secret things.For today’s Classic Materials we return to one of my favourite books: “The Supremacy of God in Preaching” by John Piper. One of the great challenges I find in the act of preaching is both to enjoy God and be earnest on his behalf, to be satisfied in truths about God but handle them seriously. How do I preach with gladness and gravitas?
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As you might suspect, John Piper has some suggestions. Find seven of them below, complete with one Piper quote from the subsequent paragraph.
1. Strive for practical, earnest, glad-hearted holiness in every area of your life.
“One of the reasons is that you can’t be something in the pulpit that you aren’t during the week - at least not for long.”
2. Make your life - especially the life of study - a life of constant communion with God in prayer
“Cotton Mather’s rule was to stop at the end of every paragraph as he wrote his sermon to pray and examine himself and try to fix on his heart some holy impression of his subject.”
3. Read books written by those who bleed Bible when you prick them and who are blood earnest about the truths they discuss.
“Jonathan Edwards….Calvin, Luther, Bunyan, Burroughs, Bridges, Flavel, Owen, Charnock, Gurnall, Watson, Sibbes and Ryle!”
4. Direct your mind often to the contemplation of death
“Death and sickness have an amazing way of blowing the haze of triviality out of life and replacing it with the wisdom of gravity and gladness in the hope of resurrection joy.”
5. Consider the biblical teaching that as a preacher you will be judged with greater strictness
“Paul puts it most ominously in Acts 20 when he says to the people that he has been teaching in Ephesus, ‘I am innocent of the blood of all of you, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.’ (Acts 20:26-27) Evidently, not to teach God’s counsel with fullness and faithfulness can leave the blood of people on our hands.”
6. Consider the example of Jesus.
“…the crowds heard him gladly, the children sat in his lap, the women were honoured. Yet no one in the Bible spoke of hell more often or in more horrible terms.”
7. Strive with all your might to know God and to humble yourself under his mighty hand.
“Don’t be content to guide your people among the foothills of God’s glory. Become a mountain climber on the cliffs of God’s majesty, and let the truth begin to overwhelm you so that you will never exhaust the heights of God.”
Taken from the blog of the unashamed workmen.
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