Means of Grace: The Word
Introduction
I’m about to break a rule that was given is every preaching class I ever had. My homiletics professors told me, “Never use yourself as a positive example in a sermon. Never make yourself the hero of a story.” I certainly don’t intend to make myself a hero, but I do want to introduce this topic, kind of like Paul in 2 Corinthians 11, giving my resume. I took multiple preaching classes in my undergrad and masters. My doctorate is in expository preaching and I wrote my dissertation on Christ-centered preaching. I have read, thought about, and listened to a lot of preaching.
Now I haven’t been preaching for 30 + years like Pastor Kevin, but I have been preaching vocationally for 10 + years, which as a 31 year old is about 1/3 of my life. I don’t recite this resume to sound impressive, but to hopefully convey to you that I do not take this topic lightly. My academic and vocational life has been given to preaching. As pastors, preaching is the most important thing that Pastor Kevin and I do.
Last week Pastor Kevin took us through a clear, concise explanation of the gospel. If you haven’t heard that go to our website and check it out. This morning we’re going to move from the gospel to the means of grace. The means of grace are the practices through which the gospel is lived out. If the gospel of Jesus Christ is the water, the means of grace are the straw through which we quench our regular spiritual thirst. The first mean of grace that we’re going to consider this morning is the Word, and more pointedly, the preaching of the Word.
The Word ministers to us in different forms. We read the Bible. We listen to the Word. We memorize and study it, whether alone or in groups. But the focus this morning will be specifically on the Word preached when the church is gathered. Not because those other methods are unhelpful, but because they’re not necessarily mandated. Personal Scripture reading is good, but it’s not always been feasible for God’s people. People haven’t always had personal copies of Scripture and people haven’t always been able to read, but the church has always gathered around the Word on Sunday morning.
I would never try to create a dichotomy between personal Scripture reading and gathering as a church under preaching, but if you had to choose one over the other, the gathered preaching is infinitely more important. To put it more plainly, you’re not necessarily in sin if you don’t read your Bible every day. You are sinning when we forsake the gathered assembly of the church (Heb 10.25). If I could summarize this sermon in one sentence it would be: God’s primary means of making the church progressively more like Jesus is through expository, Christ-centered preaching. We will start with a brief biblical theology of the Word of God and then draw two points of how we view preaching here at Christ Community Church.
A Biblical Theology of the Word
The Scripture, and the history of the world, began with the Word of God. Genesis 1.3 says, and God said, and the refrain of every day of creation is that God creates via his Word. After God creates Adam he speaks to him. He verbally gives him the stipulations of the creation covenant. This is the case with every covenant moving forward. God speaks to Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David. And while God intermittently visits people through angels or theophanies, his consistent primary means of communication is his Word.
Even in Exodus 33 when Moses asked YHWH to show him his glory, God responds by speaking to Moses.
Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy (Exod 33.18-19).
When God led Israel out of slavery in Egypt he made them a nation by speaking the 10 commandments to Moses and instructing him to write them down. When Moses breaks the tablets, YHWH requires that he write them down again. This was the first ever Bible, the written Word of God. The entire book of Deuteronomy is Moses’ last sermon to Israel and most of it is an exposition of the 10 commandments.
It’s not just the Pentateuch that show us the primacy of God’s Word, God gave he OT anointed office of prophet to speak his Word to his people. The phrase “the word of the LORD came” or its equivalent occurs more than 3,800 times in the OT. Their messages were written to form Scripture. Pastor Kevin read when Ezra returned from Exile, read the Scripture, and explained it to the congregation. Moses was the first old covenant prophet and John the baptizer the last. He came preaching repentance in preparation for the messiah.
Along with the Law and the Prophets, the Writings also glory in the Word of God. I so appreciate one of our Pastor/Elders Mike Champoux. During this quarantine you may have noticed on Facebook Mike has organized a church-wide reading through the Psalter. This past week several of our people read through Psalm 119. Notice the beauty with which the psalmist glories in God’s Word. In one of my doctoral seminars the professor described Psalm 119 as “amazing Law how sweet the sound.” All three sections of the OT ascribe creating and redeeming power to God’s Word.
And then the Apostle John begins his Gospel announcing Jesus Christ with, in the beginning was the Word (John 1.1). Jesus Christ is the Word of God. He is the creative power of God. He is the fulfillment of the Law, Prophets, and Writings. Not only is Jesus the Word, but he comes preaching God’s Word. Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel (Mark 1.14-15).” A few verse later Mark writes, [Jesus] said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues (Mark 1.38-39). Jesus spent his ministry preaching and teaching. His largest block of recorded words comes from the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5-7).
Christ preached the gospel: his sinless life, his substitutionary death on the cross for his people, and his resurrection on the third day. This is the message that Pastor Kevin preached last week. Jesus’ preaching was about the good news that he came to live, die, and resurrect in the place of sinners and that if you’ll repent and believe in that good news, you’ll be saved.
This is the message that the apostles preached; read Peter’s sermon from Pentecost. Read Paul’s sermons from the book of Acts, or the Epistle to the Hebrews, which is an early apostolic sermon. And during the ministry of the apostles while the NT is being written God uses revelatory gifts such as prophecy to communicate his Word. But when you get to the end of that time, when Peter and Paul are at the end of their lives in 2nd Timothy 4 and 2nd Peter 1, they don’t instruct the church in prophecy or tongues, they tell the Elders to preach.
Paul commands Timothy, preach the Word (2 Tim 4.2). Peter says he’s going to die soon and then encourages the Elders, we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Pet 1.19-21). As Peter and Paul are both about to die, their final apostolic command to the next generation of Elders is preach the Word. God always has and always will create and redeem through his Word.
Faithful Preaching is…
In light of that brief biblical theology of the Word, we need to make two points about preaching and how God wants us to practice this means of grace here at Christ Community Church. (1) Preaching is most faithful when it is expository. And (2) preaching is most faithful when it is Christ-centered.
Expository
The first application is that we believe and practice expository preaching. The word expository is from the Latin exponere, which means to set forth, or bring to light. The only way we know who God is or what he requires of us is because he’s spoken to us. Carl FH Henry’s six-volume magnum opus on epistemology sums it up – God, Revelation, and Authority. Our basis for any knowledge at all is God’s revealing of it. If God has spoken through his Word, the Scripture, then preaching at it’s most basic is to read a text and explain what it means. Elders are not to come up with a message, they are delivering God’s message. God is the chef; we are merely the waiters.
This is what Moses did in Deuteronomy with the 10 commandments. This is what Ezra did after Exile. In his book on preaching, Al Mohler says the job of the preacher is to read, explain, repeat. This methodology seems like foolishness to the world. That’s not new; Paul spoke of the foolishness of preaching. Churches have been tempted to listen to the hiss from time to time. In history the medieval RCC placed the Eucharist over preaching. Modern churches value singing, videos, or drama over preaching. But as we saw, God’s method of communicating to his people always has been and always will be his Word.
In his book, Expositional Preaching, David Helm states it as plainly as possible: “every faithful biblical expositor…carries within himself the fixed conviction that the Word of God creates and sustains the people of God, his church.” If God has revealed himself exclusively through his Word; if the Scripture contains the gospel of Jesus; then the Elders of the church must preach the Word. It is the first and foremost mean of grace for all humanity. It is the means by which God justifies the unredeemed and sanctifies the redeemed.
Christ-Centered
This unapologetically connects us to our second point: faithful preaching is Christ-centered preaching. In Luke 24 Jesus shows us that the OT is all about him. He said,
“O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself Luke 24.25-27).
Later in the chapter he says,
“These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations (Luke 24.44-47).
Jesus Christ didn’t merely reveal this truth after his resurrection; he also practiced it in his ministry. Earlier in Luke’s Gospel Jesus models Christ-centered preaching:
And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing (Luke 4.16-21).”
Jesus read the text from Isaiah and explained it in light of himself – expository Christ-centered preaching! There are a plethora of texts that argue for a Christ-centered hermeneutic and homiletic: John 5.39, 45-47; Acts 2.14-41; 3.12-26; 4.8-22; 7; 1 Corinthians 1.17-2.2; Colossians 1.28-29; and not to mention the entire book of Hebrews, to name a few. Preaching is most faithful when it is expository and Christ-centered. What we need more than anything is Christ and he is found in the Word alone!
There’s a sense in which the application of this sermon is out of reach at the moment. It’s ironic that I’m teaching about expository Christ-centered preaching and this isn’t even a sermon. A sermon happens when the church is gathered and we can’t gather. But when we can, whoever stands in this pulpit, whether it’s Pastor Kevin, me, or one of the other Elders, we must deliver expository Christ-centered sermons. And the call to whoever isn’t in the pulpit on a given Sunday morning is to gather and sit under expository Christ-centered sermons.
It is through God’s Word that faith is born. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ (Rom 10.17). Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God (Matt 4.4). Unless providentially hindered, if you are not feasting on God’s Word every week with his people, your soul will wither up and die. The Word is where God is. The Word is where the gospel is. The Word is where Jesus is. Love the preaching of the Word, understand the preaching of the Word, and submit to the preaching of the Word.
Conclusion
During my doctoral studies there was a two-week stretch that I had to be in Louisville for seminars. I talked to Bethany and the kids on the phone, but I wasn’t physically with them. Kind of like what we have to do now through social distancing with COVID-19. We offer this live-stream teaching, but it’s not the same. I couldn’t wait to get home and hug my wife and feast with my family. And church I can’t wait for the Sunday that we can gather together and feast on expository Christ-centered preaching for the glory of God and the good of our souls.