Expositional Preaching and Sermon Preparation

Hello brothers,

 

            Here are my rough, incomplete notes and a few thoughts from Mark Dever on sermon preparation.

 

Expositional preaching overview

 

·         They encourage expositional preaching, which they define as: “the point of the passage is the point of the message.”  The hope is that the people “hear God’s word” for what it really says.  It exposes God’s word to his people.  Different from teaching.  With teaching such as when he is a professor doing a lesson, he can stop anywhere and pick up at the next class, but with preaching there is a moral ought.  There is weight to it and has to come out. (no interruptions until it is all out).

·         Note: they have interns compare two sermons on the same texts from well respected, expositional preachers as an exercise to see how one passage can be handled differently, yet faithfully, and still state the same basic message from the word (depending on whether there is only one main idea in that passage; if there is more than one, then it is possible that they would preach different messages.

·         Historically, expositional preaching has been central to the gathering of God’s people from OT times (Moses), New Testament times (Peter in Acts 2), and the early church (he gave a number of examples of early church fathers preaching expositionally.  Consecutive chapters through a book of the bible type expositional preaching was common among early church fathers, for which he gave examples.

·         It is powerful when the people of the church, the members, are living out the written word, because then what is being preached from the written word is being lived out by the people.  Very powerful witness to the world.

·         Length of passage to cover in a sermon: typically one story if preaching from the OT and a paragraph when preaching from a NT epistle.  However, can also do overview sermons of whole books, whole testaments, or going the other direction, can do sermons on one word.  He said that the overview sermons are the hardest to do.  He did overview sermons on the major prophets and he looks back at those studies as being foundational and very important for his own soul.

·         He wants the congregation to know the books of the bible, and know them well enough that they know where to go in it for godly living/problem solving, etc.

·         Topical sermons are okay if they are not the steady diet to the church.  He has done topical sermons on prayer, the atonement, etc.

·         He aims at preaching “singles,” rather than trying to his homeruns.

 

His Preparation Method

 

·         Timing: he does his sermon preparation on Friday and Saturday.  He doesn’t recommend that others follow that example, but he does it that way because he is much more focused, efficient.  Also, he carries it with him the whole time that he is preparing, so if he starts earlier, it distracts him from whatever else he is supposed to be doing in the other time.  By the time Sunday morning comes, the message is going to come out one way or another, i.e. he has to preach it to someone (to God alone, I guess, if necessary).

·         Outlines the book, chapter, passage (this would have been done earlier because they give their sermon schedule 4 months in advance or a year in advance.

·         Exegesis: he begins with exegesis. (I have in my notes here Stott, Lloyd Jones, Ambrose, MacArthur (sp?), as examples of preachers who do exegetical, expositional preaching – there is a longer list later.)

·         Homiletics: he makes a homiletical outline. Don’t inform, preach.  Don’t let systematic theology kill expositional preaching.

·         Gospel: always put a clear presentation of the gospel into the sermon.  Why?  You can’t take the chance that there is a visitor in the present who will never have a chance to hear the gospel again.  This week he is preaching Genesis 1:1 to 2:3.  There is not a verse in this text that clearly gives him an opportunity to preach the gospel of God, man, Christ, response, so he is just adding it at the end of the sermon.  The gospel is also the accurate hermeneutical key to understanding all of scripture, so that is another reason to always include it.

·         Note: something about meda narrative comparison.

·         Manuscript: he uses one, but tries to be careful to not have a wooden sermon.  He uses one because he doesn’t want to miss things (the difference between lightning and lightning bug is small in speech, but huge in meaning. – Twain).  He notes that Augustine did not use a manuscript, but he was an expert teacher (having taught many years as a professor) and he would preach based partly on how the congregation was receiving the word preached.

·         He is exhausted after preaching a sermon, and will soon go to sleep.  He takes Monday’s off.

 

Structure.

 

·         How to begin.  Mildly interesting (Lloyd Jones).  Front load some of the application.

·         Body.

·         Conclusion.

·         Application.  Truth must be applied; it is not just for our mind.  Good application is very difficult.  He said that the puritans were good at it.  John Piper is good because he meditates a lot on the scriptures (and has a different style because of it).  CCEF is also very good at application.  It is an art.  He is predictable in his application.  He has a chart to use to brainstorm application points, and then uses a few of them.

·         Illustrations.  Do use them, but he doesn’t prefer to use to many, or trite ones, or comical illustrations.  On being funny, he does use some humor, but he doesn’t want it to detract from the seriousness of what is being preached.  He wants people to receive the word with seriousness, trembling, but with great joy in God for his marvelous mercy.  Laughing in a sermon will lighten the whole tone of the sermon.

·         Note on personal illustrations: he avoids them because he is a very large personality and he doesn’t want to build a fan club.  There are going to be many in the congregation who already think too well of you just by being the senior pastor.  If not so big a personality, then okay to use personal illustrations.

·         He takes about 5 minutes to preach through a page.

·         Richard Baxter. (don’t know what that reference it to there).

·         Helpful notations: he underlines the first word of each sentence in red.

 

Who Shaped his Preaching the Most (he said more than this, but this is what I got down)

·         Ed Hanegar – teacher/preacher he was under in England I believe.

·         Lloyd Jones

·         John Stott – urbana 1980.

·         Roy Clemons – pastor in England.

·         Reading puritans.

 

Preachers he likes now

·         John Piper

·         Dick Luens (sp?)

·         L. Duncan – presbyterian brother he mentions often.

·         CJ Mahaney

·         Michael Lawrence – associate pastor at CHBC.

·         Andy Davis.

·         Al Martin – it is good for his soul, but understands depending on your background, that some people don’t do well with his style.

 

May the Truth of God set us and his people free through the preaching and living of his word!

 

Roy Huddle