The Priority of Preaching: Why We Do What We Do

 

“The preacher’s task is to declare what God has said, explain the meaning, and establish the implications so that no one will mistake its relevance.” Alistair Begg 

Once after the famous French preacher, Jean Baptiste Massillon had preached, a listener exclaimed, “What an eloquent sermon! How gloriously he preached!” When that comment was reported to Massillon, he replied, “Then he did not understand me. Another sermon has been thrown away!” 

  God has not called preachers to entertain or be eloquent. He’s called us to something so much higher and so much greater. We are to “preach the Word” (2 Timothy 4:2). That’s our commitment at Grace Church. We are not attempting to please people but a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s His Book and we want to honor Him. 

  Humanly speaking, particularly in our media saturated culture, preaching doesn’t make sense. It never has. It’s why 1 Corinthians 1:21 refers to “the foolishness of preaching.” The pulpit and preaching are not to be a bully pulpit or a place for our opinions. It must be the message from God’s Word that the Holy Spirit anoints and applies to our lives. 

  After I’m done preaching, my heart’s desire is that you can look at your Bible and understand what Scripture is saying and how it applies to your life. One day we will all stand before our Sovereign, Jesus Christ the Judge of the living and the dead. In view of that solemn day, it’s essential preachers preach God’s Word. It’s essential that you listen to the preaching of God’s Word with a view to obedience. It’s frightening when someone is goofing off, whispering or scanning their phone during a sermon. Some day they will give account for ignoring the Word of God. On that great coming day when we stand before Christ, we want to hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant!” Preaching and hearing the Word are of utmost importance in view of eternity. Then, how do we accomplish this? 

  We must preach God’s Word. Our preaching must be resolutely Biblical. The task of the preacher is to expound or bring out of the biblical text what is already there. The preacher’s responsibility is to open up the passage in such a way the message is communicated clearly, accurately, relevantly, without addition, subtraction, or falsification. Preaching is not a dull lecture. God’s Word is alive and powerful. Nothing is boring about His Word. It’s a sin to be boring with Scripture. We enter the pulpit with confidence that God has spoken, that He’s caused what He has spoken to be written and we have this inspired text in our hands. It’s astounding that we have God’s Word in our hands and on our lips. It’s God’s grace. Understanding what God has written is hard and serious work. 

  We must preach to our contemporary world. God’s Word is relevant. It intersects with cultural and social issues: racism, civil liberties, morality, poverty, government, ethics, marriage, family…to name a few. As Scripture speaks to these issues, the preacher must not be silent or he has failed the Lord and his God-given mandate. Wise preachers are to equip the congregation with biblical convictions through expository preaching. It’s our responsibility to open up scriptural principles which relate to the problems of our culture in such a way as to help everybody to develop a biblical worldview. The pulpit must help listeners develop Christian thinking so they can penetrate their segment of the community more deeply for Christ. We’re not to sacrifice truth to relevance or relevance to truth, yet resolve to be faithful to Scripture and pertinent to today. 

  We must listen before we preach.  How do we learn to build bridges from the ancient biblical text to our contemporary world? The wise preacher listens carefully both to the ancient Word and the modern world to be able to relate the one to the other with faithfulness to the Word and sensitivity.  We must listen to the voice of God in the Scriptures above all. It’s the first and most important act of listening. Yet, God has called us to share His message with real people so we must listen to the voices of those in the world around us. It means listening, knowing and caring about both those in the congregation and those outside the church. Faithful preachers need to ask questions and listen to the answers. It means listening to those from varied generations, ethnic and economic groups. 

  We must practice what we preach. It’s not enough to preach well, we must live well. The message that breaks the heart of the listeners must first break the preacher’s heart. I don’t know what other preachers do, yet I find that I’m often broken and humbled before the light of God’s Word as I work through the text. Wise is the preacher who is cognizant that his actions before and after speaking will speak louder than his words. A preacher must be a person of deep convictions and commitment. He must live to serve and please King Jesus and to bring glory to His name. 

  Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones pastored Westminster Chapel in London during World War II. London suffered, with tens of thousands killed or injured. One Sunday, a bomb fell a short distance away while Lloyd-Jones prayed during a service. The sound was tremendous. Windows rattled. Plaster fell. Lloyd-Jones paused for a moment and then continued to pray. 

  The man who gave announcements came up when the prayer was over. After he’d completed his task, he dusted Lloyd-Jones off, and then Lloyd-Jones started preaching. Why would he do this? Because D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones knew that preaching was the main thing. 

  Wise are D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones words: “I would say without any hesitation that the most urgent need in the Christian Church today is true preaching; and as it is the greatest and the most urgent need in the Church, it is obviously the greatest need of the world also.” 

  With bombs falling, and the future of England in question, Lloyd-Jones kept preaching. Our world desperately needs the message from God. We need that focus today. God’s preachers dare not abandon their post! 

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