Preaching Is Hard Work
This message was delivered August 25 at the 2022 Send Twin Cities Preaching Workshop.
Brothers, we are living in times that deeply condition us for “ease” and for paths of least resistance. Unless we retrain ourselves, we are subconsciously always on the lookout for short cuts, for time-savers, for life-hacks. For the closest parking spot. For the optimized schedule, with no hour wasted. The quickest route from point A to B, even if not the most enjoyable one.
Steven Wedgeworth, a pastor in South Bend, writes, “Much of what we call “technology” does not actually help us to become more productive at our work but rather does our work for us. While claiming to help us become more efficient, this sort of technology actually trains us to do little or nothing at all.”
I believe he’s right, that our generation is being trained “to do little or nothing at all.” And we too have been influenced by a society increasingly thin on work ethic. We’re clearly not becoming more Protestant in our work ethic. That is, we’re not becoming more Pauline.
Herculean Labor
In his commentary on the Pastoral Epistles, Bob Yarbrough pauses in his introduction to celebrate Paul’s “herculean labors.” He says, “God’s mighty work in Christ resulted in Paul working mightily.” Paul’s “open ethical secret” is that he had “a ferocious work ethic” (29). “. . . what Paul modeled and counseled in his letters to Timothy and Titus reflects an embrace of arduous labor at many levels and in many ways” (30). Yarbrough notes “the fingerprints of Paul’s work ethic at 29 places in 1 Timothy, 24 in 2 Timothy, and 15 in Titus, for a total of 68 references” (31).
Paul saw the ministry of Christian preaching and teaching, done rightly, as hard work, not a nice fit for guys with soft hands and a preference for an indoor job. Paul writes to the Thessalonians, “We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work” (1 Thess 5:12–13). And he says to Timothy, “Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. 18 For the Scripture says, . . . “The laborer deserves his wages”” (1 Timothy 5:17–18).
And such pastoral labor is not only cursed (like all labor) but specifically opposed and targeted by Satan, who often focuses his assaults on opposing lieutenants. If he can cut off the leadership and supply lines, he will soon overwhelm the ground troops. In fact, if I could channel Screwtape for a moment, I suspect Satan and his minions are doing everything they can to make our age and its patterns as inconducive to preaching as possible. Visual over audible, distraction over focus, increasingly short attention spans over normal human attention spans. This is not a side effect, I suspect, but demonic intention. If Satan didn’t already know to make a special attack on preaching, I’m sure he took notice when the apostle Paul, at the climax of his last letter, gave this exalted, preamble and charge:
I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word. (2 Timothy 4:1–2)
So, brothers, what I’d like to do under this banner of “the hard work of preaching” is, first, give some time to counting the costs — and they are significant, enough to make most men very eager not to preach. Then let’s conclude with a few reasons why it’s worth the hard work. So, we’ll linger in the costs, and then glory in the rewards.
And to clarify what I mean by preaching in this workshop: the heralding of God’s word in Christ to the church in the context of corporate worship. I mean the Sunday morning feeding of Christ’s sheep, as worship, with his word by their local pastors.
So, in counting the costs, let’s distinguish among the hard work of preparation, the hard work of the preaching moment, and the hard work outside the pulpit.
Hard Work of Preparation
The hard work begins in preparation, long before the moment of delivery. Preachers often bear the burden weeks before a particular message, a weight that gets greater the week of, and is especially heavy the night before and morning of.
First of all, preparation for preaching is hard work because we are stewards. We have been charged to give a message that is not our own but God’s. “What we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake” (2 Corinthians 4:5). Faithful preaching resists the allure of simply telling other people in public about myself and what I think and what I have done. Rather, it is a stewardship from God (Titus 1:7; 1 Peter 4:10) to serve others, not self, by announcing the good news about who he is, what he thinks, and what he has done and will do, based on what he says in his word. “Whoever speaks, [let him do so] as one who speaks oracles of God” (1 Peter 4:11). Brothers, we are stewards, and “it is required of stewards that they be found faithful” (1 Corinthians 4:2).
Which leads to a second aspect of the hard work: study. Which, I know, many of us find enjoyable, but also quickly becomes hard work, when you have a due date. Paul says to Timothy, and to you, “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). A pastor who doesn’t sweat and strain at his study and teaching is not fulfilling his calling. And diligent word-work is hard work, when done well.
Third, part of the hard work is that preaching requires heart work. Before we graciously expose the church to the words of God, he calls us first to submit ourselves to him. To preach his words well requires that they first land hardest on the preacher himself. Again, we bear another’s message, not our own. In our preparation, we carry a weight that involves not just the mental work of study, but the heart work of repentance and the spiritual work of shepherding a particular people. Preaching is hard work because it calls for self-humbling, not self-exaltation. Did not our Lord himself say, “everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:14)? Brother preachers, tremble, and do the hard work of applying Scripture to yourself, internalizing first, then applying to your people.
Fourth, then, the goal of preaching makes it hard work: “The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” Not just love, but love “that issues from . . . faith.” That’s hard work: not just telling our people what to do but preaching in such a way that hearts are purified, consciences calibrated, and sincere faith fed. To stir love, we aim to incite faith. We play the music first and foremost, not bark dance steps — though we do give dance steps. But we want our people to come away thinking not “wow, that was a lot of dance steps” but “what music! oh do I want to dance to that music!”
Fifth, the hard work of preaching includes “cutting sharp doctrines” that to not please carnal hearers. J.C. Ryle:
Mark what I say. If you want to do good in these times, you must throw aside indecision, and take up a distinct, sharply-cut, doctrinal religion. . . .
The victories of Christianity, wherever they have been won, have been won by distinct doctrinal theology; by telling men roundly of Christ’s vicarious death and sacrifice; by showing them Christ’s substitution on the cross, and his precious blood; by teaching them justification by faith, and bidding them believe on a crucified Saviour; by preaching ruin by sin, redemption by Christ, regeneration by the Spirit; by lifting up the brazen serpent; by telling men to look and live—to believe, repent, and be converted. . . .
Show us at this day any . . . village, or parish, or city, or town, or district, which has been evangelized without “dogma.” . . . Christianity without distinct doctrine is a powerless thing. . . . No dogma, no fruits!
It is easier to think and speak indistinctly. It’s hard work to cut sharp doctrines that you yourself will deliver to real people.
And then, taking all that into account, the text itself and our careful study of it, our own heart work and repentance, the context and needs of our people, then the time approaches. And deadlines are hard work. There is a big difference between prep a sermon in theory and prep it by today at 5pm. (All of a sudden, manual labor sounds really nice.)
Perhaps the most stress, for me, comes in the pinch between a coming assignment, on a fixed day, and the uncertainty of what specific direction to take in the message. What does God want me to say to this people and at this time? And how will I approach it? What’s the outline?
That might cause some of us the most stress, but the hardest work, I find, often comes at the end: cutting. That is, determining what not to say. Or, not saying too much, or going on for too long (leave them wanting just a little bit more, rather than feeling like they got a little, or a lot, too much). It’s hard work to not say what you personally want to say but is not a faithful stewardship, and it’s hard work to not say what you’re prepared to say but is just too much for this one short message.
Brothers, preparing well for preaching is hard work. And because it’s private, not public like the preaching event itself, we can be tempted to cut corners in our preparation. And if that’s a common pitfall for you, you may need to step back and learn some Protestant work ethic. You may need to learn to work. Now, to be sure, hard work does not mean excessive sermon prep when you have other responsibilities; I’m not advocating for half your work week given to sermon prep; nor am I saying that hard work means long sermons. In fact, it takes more work, and some of the hardest work, as we just said, to cut and make the sermon tighter, decide what to leave for another time. Rather, what I mean is taking what time you have and really working hard, not dillydallying, checking twitter, texting, allowing yourself to be given to diversion in those precious few moments you have to think hard, pray hard, work hard, to prepare the meal to feed your people.
If “feed my sheep” was easy work, Christ may not have said it three times to Peter. It is hard work. Not just overflow. Yes, overflow is important starting point. Brothers, we want our preaching to begin with overflow from our hearts before God. And overflow rarely (I’m tempted to say never) finishes a good sermon. What starts in overflow finishes with hard work.
So, preparation for preaching is hard work. Now, what about in the moment?
Hard Work in the Moment
For Christians, corporate worship, in a real sense, is our most important hour of the week, and single most important habit. We want to be careful with this way of thinking and talking, because the importance of the hour lies not in our performance or individual roles, but in what God delights to do by his Spirit when his people gather together in worship. And yet it’s unavoidable that the preacher plays a significant part — which should humble God’s spokesman, not puff him up.
For preachers, the public nature of the sermon is both a necessity and a cost. It is necessary because the very nature of the task is heralding God’s word to his church. And it’s hard work because, among other pressures, most of us agree that public speaking is challenging. Survey after survey reports that on the whole, modern people fear public speaking more than anything else. Some of us remember the famous bit from Jerry Seinfeld: “Speaking in front of a crowd is considered the number-one fear of the average person. Number two is death. Death is number two? This means to the average person, if you have to be at a funeral, you’d rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy.” Public speaking on its own is hard work, and all the more to make it good.
Second, add to that the solemnity of the task. Now back to Paul’s charge his protégé, and us, in 2 Timothy 4:1–2, of which John Piper writes, “There is nothing quite like it anywhere else in Scripture. . . . I am not aware of any other biblical command that has such an extended, exalted, intensifying introduction” (Expository Exultation, 66). Note the “five preceding intensifiers” to Paul’s charge to Timothy to preach the word:
(1) I charge you(2) in the presence of God(3) and of Christ Jesus,(4) who is to judge the living and the dead,(5) and by his appearing and his kingdom: Preach the word.
To those today who suspect previous generations overestimated the place of preaching, Piper comments, “I doubt that anyone has ever overstated the seriousness that Paul is seeking to awaken here.”
Beyond the solemnity of the moment is, third, the call to courage. Public speaking is one challenge. Speaking into the church’s most important hour is another. Preaching with courage, when God’s word is at odds with the prevailing word in society (which inevitably takes root in the church in some form or fashion), requires even more. If we are faithful to God’s voice, it is almost certain that someone within earshot each Sunday, if not many, will not like what we are saying.
Related, fourth, speaking to our context is hard work. Right after Paul tells Timothy to preach the word, he says that “the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (2 Tim 4:3–4). This is the context of preaching. We are living in those days.
Fifth, preachers also are unusually exposed spiritually. Extended monologue, on God’s behalf, to human souls, unavoidably reveals a man’s own heart, both by what he says and what he does not — which produces a deep, unconscious aversion to preaching in many men. Preaching is tacit self-revelation: what we don’t say also speaks. And we hold ourselves to a standard by saying it in public.
Sixth is the hard work of authentically embodying the message: heralding what needs to be heralded; gently saying what needs gentleness. Without being overly and underly affected, dramatic or deadpan, emotionally engaging with the message, with appropriate forcefulness and urgency.
Seventh, there is, in preaching, what is for some a paralyzing exposure to criticism. To preach this Book to these people, in whatever century, means that every Sunday someone in attendance, if not many, are not going to be happy with something you said.
This is why Paul talks twice, pastor to pastors, in Acts 20 about not shrinking back. To preach the Christian Scriptures is to encounter the regular temptation to shrink back. Paul says, “I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house, 21 testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ” (verses 20–21). And: “I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God” (verse 27).
Hard Work Outside the Pulpit
Finally, sacrifice in good preaching is intimately intertwined with the preacher’s own life. Faithful preaching is not just a once-in-a-while event but a lifestyle. Paul’s charge to Timothy to preach the word includes “be ready in season and out of season” (2 Timothy 4:2) and “always be sober-minded” (2 Timothy 4:5). When a man stands before God’s people as God’s spokesman, the stakes are not only raised for his words in the moment but for his life outside the pulpit.
Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers. (1 Timothy 4:16)
Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. (James 3:1)
The man who addresses God’s people as his herald will be looked to, unavoidably, as an example. “Set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity” (1 Timothy 4:12). Lazy preachers may get by for a time, but their laziness will be revealed soon enough. “Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress” (1 Timothy 4:15). Sunday after Sunday becomes a public demonstration of whether the preacher is growing or stagnant, and it will be plain over time (1 Timothy 5:24).
Preaching, then, is not just something we do from time to time. In a real sense “preacher” is something we’re called to be: be ready in season and out; always be soberminded. Be alert (Acts 20:31). Preacher is not just a job; it is a life-vocation. And preaching, like singing (not like athletics), is a lifetime skill, not something that peaks in your 30s, 40s, or even 50s.
One of the greatest costs outside the pulpit is the subtle (and at times not-so-subtle) way the preacher’s wife and children endure the ups and downs Daddy navigates. It is no small thing to carry the height of one’s vocational responsibilities during the weekend, when the kids are out of school and most available. It takes work, and emotional fortitude, to give yourself fully to family all day Saturday, without being distracted by the task of preaching to dozens or hundreds of hungry Christians in less than 24 hours. (Which is one great benefit, of many, in team preaching!)
Good Christian preaching and teaching requires regular, and at times enormous, self-sacrifice. Brothers, done rightly, it is hard work. In the preparation. In the moment. And outside the pulpit. It’s often a quiet, private, behind-the-scenes mantle the preacher’s wife and children see, but the congregation does not. It is not heavy lifting physically, but it can be unusually taxing spiritually and emotionally.
It is a burden good preachers gladly bear, and yet it is a burden. Faithful preachers say to their people, as Paul said to his, without pretense, “I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls” (2 Corinthians 12:15).
Burden Gladly Bearing
So, then, in closing, how do we do it with joy? How do we bear the burden gladly? We look to particular rewards. I’ll end with four brief rewards, among others.
Mysteriously, and almost irrationally, some of us find in our ourselves a holy ambition to do this. Without meaning exactly what Paul meant as an apostle, whose calling was so bound up with his conversion, we can’t help but say with Paul, at a less ultimate level, “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” The first reward, then, is getting to do what you sense God has called you to do: let out the Holy Ghost fire shut up in your bones. Like Eric Liddell, you think, “When I preach, I feel his pleasure” — even though the hard work of preparation and delivery doesn’t always feel immediately pleasurable. You’re doing what you’re called to do, and somehow, enjoy the hard work and its completion. Which leads to…
The satisfaction of work well done and completed. First, at the sermon level. Very practically, it will be more satisfying if I push through the resistance and finish this sermon well.
Then, at the life-work, level, is the satisfaction, someday, of a life-calling completed and well done. Oh to be able to say with Paul: “I am innocent of others’ blood, Acts 20:26. I did not shrink from declaring the whole counsel of God and anything that is profitable, not matter how immediately unnerving.
The joy of being Christ’s instrument in life-change and life-sustenance. It’s such a joy to be used by God in ministry that we can come to find our joy more in being used that in having Christ ourselves. Thus the need for Christ’s word in Luke 10:20. So, brothers, don’t let the joys of preaching replace the foundational joy that is Christ himself. And the joys of preaching, the joys of being used by Christ in others’ lives, are real joys. They are part of the blessing of giving. In their place and proposition they are part of the rewards to look to, to sustain us in the hard work.
Final Word
Let’s go back to Paul to end, and with a word of hope for those who battle laziness. Paul would be quick to challenge today’s hardest workers with the truth that, apart from God, our best labors will prove futile in the end. And for those who know they need help, who have more regrets about laziness than over-work, he would remind them, “We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10).
Brothers, God has not left you to labor in our own strength. But he does mean for you to labor. He has good works prepared ahead of time for you, and as a pastor, preaching and teaching will be some of the central good works for us. And he doesn’t demand a dead sprint, but invites us to walk in them.
Preaching As Worship in Practice
This message was delivered August 25 at the 2022 Send Twin Cities Preaching Workshop.
Now the plan for this talk is to focus on the work of preaching as an act of worship — that’s what I mean by the phrase “preaching as worship” — but before we get into that, we should ask what are preachers for anyway …
What are pastors (or preachers) — what are we for?
I’ve been helped here the insights of Pastor Eugene Peterson. I didn’t know Peterson was a church planter until I read his memoir a few years. Most people know Peterson from his books, but back in 1962 he was commissioned by his denomination to start a new church in the greater Baltimore area, and they didn’t even call it church planting back then, it was just: Hey, there’s a lot of people here; we need a new church; go start something.
And so Peterson answered that call and started gathering people in his home, and a church was birthed — in one of the craziest times in America history.
We think things are bad today, but the 1960s were the original “Age of Anxiety” … between the Vietnam war, and racial tensions, and three major assassinations, and the sexual revolution, and a new drug culture, there was some stuff going on.
And what’s fascinating about Peterson’s story is that at the same time he was trying to plant this church, hospitals in the area saw a dramatic increase of people needing services for emotional and mental health. And a psychiatrist from a clinic close to where Peterson lived had this idea. He said: Hey, let’s get some pastors together and train them in psychology and therapy, and basically, let’s make these pastors a front-line defense to intercept mental health needs before they get to us doctors.
Because they had such an influx into the hospitals, the doctors needed these pastors to slow things down for them. And so for two years, every Tuesday, for three hours, Peterson went through this training with other pastors. Peterson says that at that time there was a booming market for pastors to become more like counselors; the “pastoral counseling movement” was picking up steam; and so he learned a ton from those sessions about psychology and therapy — and he said it almost ruined his ministry.
Peterson writes,
Incrementally, without noticing what I was doing, I had been shifting from being a pastor dealing with God in people’s lives to treating them as persons dealing with problems in their lives.
Now Peterson appreciated psychology (and I do too), but the issue here is about clarity on the pastoral calling. Peterson writes:
My work is not to fix people. It is to lead people in the worship of God and to lead them in living a holy life. … by reducing [people as] problems to be fixed I omitted the biggest thing of all in their lives, God and their souls …
Peterson says that he was on the verge of accidentally abandoning his pastoral vocation, but, by God’s mercy, he became convinced that his primary work as a pastor was not so much to “help” people, but it was to call people to worship God. Later he writes that he believed that the most important thing he did as a pastor was to stand before his congregation each week and say, “Let us worship God!”
And I wonder what you think about that?
The bottom-line question here is: What do you think a pastor is for?
Well I think Peterson is right —
Our primary work as pastors (as preachers) is to call people to worship God. Or I think a more complete way to say it is that as pastors, we are to call people and lead people to worship God by giving them Jesus. That’s why we preach, brothers.
We should never isolate preaching from the pastoral calling overall, because preaching is at the very heart of what it means to be a pastor. Preaching is at the heart of our calling, and so if our calling is mainly about leading people to worship God, then preaching AS worship makes total sense.
So don’t hear me say “preaching as worship” to be about function or technique or even conviction, but understand preaching as worship to be about vocational identity.
We as pastors exist to call and lead people to worship God by giving them Jesus … and preaching is the main way we do that.
And I say all that, for starters, just to highlight the relevance of this topic. I think it’s really important and fundamental, but now, for where we’re headed, there are two parts — answering two questions.
First, how do we preach as worship? (And worship as we preach?)
Second, how does this kind of preaching fit into the greater worship service? (And I’ll try to get super practical at this point.)
Part One: How do we preach as worship?
First, think about the common ways that we think about preaching as part of worship. How do we normally talk about it? A lot of times we’ll call the “worship” the singing part, and the preaching part sort of stands alone. Imagine how an average person in your church might explain the preaching part. If somebody with no church background asked an average person, “Hey, why does your pastor preach? What is this preaching thing he does?”
What would they say?
Well, I would guess that the average person assumes the point of the preaching is mainly teaching: “The pastor-preacher is telling me things to help me live rightly” — that’s a typical way to think about it, and that’s not bad. That is absolutely part of it.
But the idea of “preaching as worship” says more. It says that the preaching part does just go along with the worship or just assist the worship, but the preaching part is worship.
The person who has influenced me the most on this is John Piper, who has been a preacher for over 40 years, and who is a teacher of preaching. Dr. Piper was my preaching professor in seminary, and he’s written a few books on preaching, but recently is Expository Exultation:
In that phrase “expository exultation” Piper means “preaching as worship.” Dr. Piper unpacks the phrase more in the book’s Introduction and says that by “expository,” he means the “rigorous intellectual clarification of the reality revealed through the words of Scripture.” (Or, another way to say it: expository means explaining what the Bible says.)
And then for “exultation,” Dr. Piper defines it as “a worshipful embodiment of the value of [the expounded] reality in the preacher’s exultation over the word he is clarifying.” Or, here’s another way to say this if we put them both together, “expository exultation” means to explain what the Bible says as you worship the God who said it.
That’s a definition for “preaching as worship.”
It’s to explain what the Bible says as you worship the God who said it.
And therefore, all the parts of the worship service go together. The songs and prayers and readings and confession and ordinances and the preaching go together because they all are doing the same thing. They are acts of worshiping God. We don’t stop the worship time of our corporate gathering in order to hear preaching, but we continue worship in the hearing of preaching.
So it goes like this: in a similar way that a musician leads the church to worship God through music (as he also worships God through music), so a preacher leads the church to worship God through the hearing of preaching (as he also worships God through the preaching).
Now, the musician and a preacher are not asking the church the same thing. A lot of times it’s easier to sing than it is to hear. But both the “singing with” the music leader and the “listening to” the preacher are meant to be worship. And well, what is worship?
Dr. Piper explains that worship is the “conscious knowing, treasuring, and showing the supreme worth and beauty of God.” Worship is to act in a way that shows the heart’s valuing of the glory of God and the name of Jesus (27). Preaching as worship is preaching that does that. Piper writes,
To preach the word means to show the glory of God as supremely valuable so that people can behold it, treasure it, and be transformed. Which means that the preacher must aim at worship and act in worship. He must exhibit and experience the worth of Christ. He must explain and extol. (86)
Practically, for us as preachers, it means that our goal is not simply to say what we have to say as best as we can, to believe what we say as fully as we can — which we requires no skill of ours, but is completely owing to the Holy Spirit.
This has changed the way I think about sermon feedback — which we all get from time to time, some good and some bad. Well, after a sermon, if I get positive feedback, if someone says: “Pastor, I really appreciated the sermon?” I’ll say, “I believed everything I said.” (I also say “thank you” and “praise God” — but saying that “I believed everything I said” reorients the attention from myself to the work of God. Most of the time people’s positive feedback is a response to our skill — it’s what you said or how you said it — but the real miracle is that we believed what we said.
It’s that we have encountered God in the text, and in our proclaiming him from that text, we submit ourselves to what we’re saying. It’s that the word we’re speaking is a word that we put ourselves under in wonder.
Now of course this isn’t every single sentence in the sermon, but there are real points in the preaching — high points when the truth is so rich — that our hearts just soar and we marvel at God as we tell of him. That’s how we preach as worship — the grand subject of the Bible, and of our sermon — GOD — is the grandest subject in the room. Here he is. Behold him.
We don’t say [meh] “Behold your God” [non-chalantly], but BEHOLD YOUR GOD!
We should prepare our sermons with these points in mind, and we should pray for them. That’s preaching as worship — Part One — now here’s Part Two: How does this kind of preaching fit into the greater worship service?
Part Two: How does this kind of preaching fit into the whole worship service?
This is where I wanna try to get really practical. Here’s another way to ask the question: Is there a way to structure a worship service that is most congruent to this vision of “preaching as worship”?
Now I think the answer is Yes — and I’ve shared an earlier version of these things with a group of pastors before — but to put all my cards on the table, since we planted our church seven years ago, we basically tried to develop a liturgy that best features preaching as worship. And we’ve changed some small pieces here and there, but the hope has been to have a cohesive service of worship that has preaching right at the center. And there are five commitments that aim in this direction, and for the rest of our time, I’d like to share with you for you to consider. And I really do mean consider. At best these five commitments are only tactics; they’re not rules. There should be room for exceptions, and flexibility is important. And so with with that as the disclaimer, here you go. …
Five liturgical commitments that serve preaching as worship:
#1. Maximize the opportunity to welcome people and call them to worship.
First, for us, we need to recognize that the window of time just before arriving to corporate worship on Sunday morning is crazy for everybody (not just us).
I don’t know about you, but I feel like Sunday mornings before church are diciest moments of the week. My wife and I have eight children, and it’s never simple for my family to herd all the the children in the van, and do car seats, and make sure everybody’s got their stuff — and don’t kick your brother; stop screaming; No, you can’t bring Legos. — Lord, help me! It can be a stressful time.
But really, it can be a stressful time for everybody — or at least, most people.
So think with me here. Use your imagination for a minute: it’s Sunday morning, 9:55, and standing from wherever you stand, you catch a glimpse of the people coming in the doors of the church and finding their seats.
And as you see these people you remember that everybody is always coming from somewhere, and again, for most of these people, if they’re anything like you, they’re probably not coming from the best of places. And for some, they’re coming from a much worse place than where you’ve been.
Only God knows all the roads that have led to this assembled wonder of sinners and saints. Only God knows the emotional pain and confusion people have brought in with them, or the regret they can’t shake from the week before (or the night before or whatever), or maybe their carry cynicism or maybe curiosity. There are as many situations and stories in this room as there are people, but they’re all here, in this room, and why are they here?
Do you ever wonder that? Do you take it for granted? Why are these people here?
They are here because God has brought them here.
God in his providence has ordained that these people will be here today. And one of the first things you get to do for these people is to welcome them on God’s behalf.
Now, hopefully, they’ve been greeted and welcomed before they even sit down … because you’ve got greeters at the doors, and other church members who are scanning for new faces and old faces; and people are extending their hands and smiling and saying hello. All of that is important.
But then when all the shuffling stops and the talking hushes, one person will stand up in front of this church and say something, and whether it’s you, pastor, or someone else, whatever it is this person might say, however it is this person might say it, there is an opportunity to represent God in welcoming this room full of embodied souls.
And I encourage you to maximize that opportunity.
Remember people have come from all over the map — remind them that God wants them there. Tell them that you are glad they are there.
And then call them to worship. Despite how casual your church’s culture might be, this is a moment that should not be casual. Say something and/or pray in a way that prepares people for an encounter with God.
That’s the first commitment to make that sets up everything else.
Second thing to consider:
#3. Don’t front-load announcements, and leave them out of the sermon.
Every church has announcements to make about the life of the church because every church has a life. We are an active people in community and on mission, and we have good things happening outside the hour and fifteen minutes of our worship together on Sundays — and at some point in that hour and fifteen minutes together, it makes sense that we announce those things. However, I want to encourage you to consider holding as many of those announcements as possible for the end of the service, not the beginning.
The reason for this twofold:
First, it’s that the announcements of church activities and opportunities fit better when they are batched closer to the time when they be acted on.
For example, if you’re having a men’s retreat, and you want the men to sign up for the men’s retreat, don’t tell them to sign up for the men’s retreat and then tell them to stand up and sing. Wait and encourage these men to sign up after the service, when we transition from being the church gathered in worship [vertical], to the church sent out on mission [horizontal].
We’ve been here, and now we’re going there. And that’s the natural time to mention things about the life of our church and announce all that’s going on.
The second reason to hold announcements for the end is that, if we mention all these things at the front of the service, then it competes with our first commitment about welcome and the call to worship.
I’m convinced that, for the first 5–10 minutes of the service, practically speaking, less is more. I think a solid welcome and call to worship needs some space to breathe. People are already coming from who know’s what, remember, with all kinds of stuff going on, and you want to help steady their hearts to behold the glory of God. Don’t let good announcements crowd that.
So I encourage you to consider holding announcements for the end.
But, most importantly, I think, whether you make the announcements at the beginning or the end — or some at the beginning, and some at the end — do not make announcements during the moment of preaching.
And there are several reasons for this, but the most practical reason is that it makes the sermon unnecessarily long. There are some guys who might preach 50 minutes, but 15 minutes of the sermon they were talking about the upcoming membership meeting or the new online giving platform or whatever — all these things are important, but good things can distract from the most important thing in this particular moment, which is preaching the Word of God.
The preaching, which is most likely the longest unbroken portion of your service, and usually at the center of your service, should be allowed to do what makes it unique, and that is to tell the church what God has to say.
This brings me to the third commitment:
#3. Distinguish the Scripture reading and preaching from every other form of speech in the service.
Now, I am saying Scripture reading and preaching separately because some churches will have a Scripture reader come and read the text before the preacher; other churches will have the preacher read the text himself. You can practice this commitment either way.
The idea is that because the Scripture reading and preaching are so unique — because you’re about to explain what the Bible says as you worship the God who said it — incorporate some kind of liturgical action to honor the sacredness of this moment.
And there’s a good chance we already do this in some way.
I grew up in North Carolina, and I went to a Southern Baptist church out in the country — I didn’t have a pastor, I had a preacher — Preacher Timmy — and he would have liked word “liturgy” as much as he liked the words “communism” and “sissy.” But he had a liturgical commitment before he’d read the Bible.
It didn’t matter what had happened in the service before he came up to preach — we might have taken prayer requests from the floor; there might have been a soloist who couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket; it didn’t matter — when it was preaching time, Preacher Timmy would go behind the pulpit and say: “Let’s all stand in honor and reverence for the reading of God’s word.” That same sentence every Sunday.
And I was a little kid and didn’t know anything, but I knew this moment meant something. Because everybody was standing, and nobody’s got their phone out 30 years ago; it’s just open Bibles everywhere, and everybody’s looking at their Bibles, and he’d read it.
A lot of words get said throughout a church service, but in this moment of the Scripture reading, more directly than any other moment, we are hearing from God. So I think it is a good practice, and most congruent with preaching as worship, to do something to set this moment part. Do something to say, Hey, this part is different from the other parts.
At our church, we don’t stand corporately for the Scripture reading (yet), but the Scripture reader, after he announces the passage and gives people a few seconds the turn there, he starts his reading by saying, “Hear the word of the Lord.” And he means exactly what he says.
Hey, everybody, listen up. Give your attention to what God has to say. Open your heart to this. Receive this. God is speaking to us.
The Scripture readers reads from the Bible, and then the preacher comes and preaches. And it’s clear that this preacher is not coming up here to tell you what he thinks. But he is coming up here under the authority of that Word you just heard. And he’s going to do what Ezra did — he’s going to tell you what the Word of the Lord means. He’s going to help you understand it.
Which brings us to the fourth commitment:
#4. Guard the preaching moment from being rushed.
Now, having been welcomed and called to worship, undistracted by announcements because we’re holding those for the end, and having heard the Word of God set apart and read, don’t rush the moment of preaching. Don’t squeeze it.
If other parts of the service have gone long — which they can at times — don’t make up for that by cutting the sermon. A lot of times this might seem like a real-time, moment-of decision — and sometimes it is, but there are some things you can do going into the service.
For example, if after working on the passage and writing out my manuscript or notes, if I knew my sermon was going to be longer than usual, I’ve got three options:
I can just cut a section from the sermon and reduce its length
I can suggest we sing one less song
I can talk really fast and get through it quickly
Well, first, try to cut it down. I don’t think we need to preach 50 minutes. Over time, I believe we’ll serve our people better with consistently, faithful 35-minute sermons that with 50-minute sermons of rambling. So think critically: what could I leave out here? What could I take out and turn into a reflection for this week’s email? Think that way, first, and that usually does it.
But then if you still think it’s gonna be long, talk to your music leader — maybe buy him a cup of coffee and a donut — and tell him we need to cut one song. But don’t, in the moment of preaching, don’t rush what you’re saying in an attempt to fit the whole service into a certain time.
I have made this mistake at least once — November 6, 2016 — the first part of our service went a little long; I was preaching Genesis Chapter 10; it was about a 4,000-word sermon; I preached it in 27 minutes. And look, math is not my thing — but that means I spoke 2-and-a-half words per second for 27 straight minutes. … I need to tell God and our church that I’m sorry.
We shouldn’t rush the preaching, brothers! Again, this is the moment where the preacher, filled by the Holy Spirit, with his Bible open, is going to tell us what the Bible says as he worships — and leads us to worship — the God who said it.
There is a sense in which, as a preacher, as you stand before the church to preach, you realize that it’s possible that you’re about to tell these people the most important thing you’ve ever said in your entire life. You want to feel that.
And the effect this should have on us is not to make us sullen and overly serious and intense. No! But it should make us protect that time. Don’t just “get it over with.” Don’t rush the preaching.
That’s the fourth commitment, and now here’s the last:
#5. Receive the Lord’s Table at the close of each sermon.
Again, I want to remind you of my disclaimer at the start. I am only offering this as something to consider, but here’s at least why I think this is worth doing. And it all has to do with the preaching.
In the preaching of God’s word, what is the main thing you’re trying to do?
We believe that preaching is worship — expository exultation … the preacher is explaining what the Bible says as he worships the God who said it, and leads others to worship the God who said it. And this work of preaching is at the very heart of the pastoral vocation: we are to call and lead people to worship God by giving them Jesus.
Now, that might be our goal, and we might actually say things like this in the sermon, but often the last thing you do is the action that speaks louder than words. So when it comes to preaching, how are you ending?
Well, a good way to assess whether you’re preaching for worship or something else is to consider what we’re preaching to. Are you ending on people’s hearts or their wills? Are we inviting them to come and adore OR are we telling them to go and do?
Now, there are moments in a sermon, because we are preaching the Bible, that we will tell our people to go and do. But the issue here is the primary application, the crescendo of the sermon, the thing that people are left with … and if you’re convinced that preaching is worship, your sermon should end on the glory of Jesus in the gospel, for your people’s delight in him.
Now there’s some theological freight behind this. It really comes back to how God is glorified in the display of his glory. Jonathan Edwards explains it like this:
God glorifies himself towards the creatures [in] two ways:
(1) by appearing to them, being manifested to their understanding; [preaching does this!]
(2) in communicating himself to their hearts, and in their rejoicing and delighting in, and enjoying the manifestations which he makes of himself. . . . God is glorified not only by his glory being seen, but by [his glory] being rejoiced in. . . . (Miscellanies)
Now if we agree with that — and I think we should — then the arc of my sermon is not to land on people’s toes; it’s not to hand them a “Christian to-do” list; it’s to show them Jesus. It’s to remind them what Jesus has done for them, and the ordinance that Jesus has given us for that is his Table.
And when I know that the Lord’s Table is going to follow this sermon I preach, I know that whatever I may get into during this sermon as I’m explaining what the Bible means, I am certain that we’re gonna end this thing with “See him! Behold him! HAVE HIM!”
And in that way, the preaching ends with what the preaching has mainly been about the whole time — and also what our calling is all about! — leading people to worship of God by giving them Jesus. Come and adore him. Rest in him. Delight in him.
* * *
Father in heaven, please bless these brothers and their preaching. Give them more of Jesus, and give their churches more of Jesus through them. I ask it in his name, amen.
Preaching to Real People
This message was delivered August 25 at the 2022 Send Twin Cities Preaching Workshop.
Shepherd the flock of God that is among you
Three texts to interpret: the Scriptures, the wider culture, your people
Our aim is that by knowing and obeying the Scriptures, our people would shine like stars in the midst of the wider culture
You have to know the culture so that you can equip your people to live faithfully in it
Danger: gathering Christians together in order to unload on the sins of the world
Danger: preaching about the sins “out there” or online or “in that church”
Better: Assume that the sins that are manifest outside are present in subtle and seed-form inside. Address both. Don’t condemn the mature form and ignore the seed.
Some people say “Don’t preach to the choir.” The choir needs some preaching. The issue is that you want the choir to say both Amen and Ouch.
The main point of the text does not have to be the main point of your sermon.
More precisely: the main point of the text (in terms of exegesis) does not have to be the main point of your application
The Bible (or at least, the individual books) was written for us, but not to us. The issues in Galatia are not identical to the issues in your church.
Therefore, it’s appropriate to take up a minor point in a text and press it home in a major way in your church (if that’s what your church needs).
Imitate the apostolic method; don’t slavishly ape the apostolic application (i.e. don’t try to force your church to be Corinth or Ephesus or Rome).
Paul’s example of boldness
And in this sermon, Paul addresses the crowd as though they were misled. He doesn’t come out guns blazing. He doesn’t call them sons of the devil for opposing the gospel and trying to kill him. He recognizes that their hostility was stirred up by false accusations and so instead of going nuclear (like Stephen does at his martyrdom), Paul tries to identify with this mob, to bridge the gap in order to lead them to Jesus:
He emphasizes their shared Jewish heritage (22:3-4)
He emphasizes their shared zeal for God (“as all of you are this day”). Notice this: he doesn’t root their violence toward him in enmity toward the gospel; he gives them the benefit of the doubt and says, “I know that you’re here today because you have a zeal for God. I completely understand, because I was educated according to that zeal for God and his law. You and I? We’re the same.”
He emphasizes that he too persecuted Christians, dragging them to prison and even supervising executions.
He then describes his encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus. This is the turning point of his life, and you can see what he’s trying to do. “I was a persecutor like you, zealous for God. And then Jesus knocked me off my horse and redirected my zeal. I’m still zealous for God, but my zeal is shaped and formed by the death and resurrection of the Messiah for my sins.” And even here he is trying to build bridges in order to persuade them. He emphasizes that Ananias, the Christian who came to restore his sight and baptize him, is “a devout man according to the law, well spoken of by all the Jews in Damascus” (22:12). In the midst of this, he weaves in the gospel: Jesus is the Righteous One (22:14). By calling on his name, your sins can be washed away (22:16). Baptism is the public identification with Jesus and his people. Then, note that after his conversion, Paul emphasizes that he came to the temple to pray. His Christianity didn’t lead him to turn away from Judaism; it fulfilled his Judaism.
In a vision, the Lord tells him to leave Jerusalem, because the people won’t accept Paul’s testimony. Paul then reiterates his former persecution of the church: imprisoning Christians and approving of Stephen’s execution. Now, before I show you how he ends this sermon and his testimony, I want you to see how Paul is preaching the gospel to these people. He’s surrounded by a mob of people who are zealous for God and the law, and who just got done beating a follower of Jesus. And he knows that they did so because they were stirred up by slander and false accusations, by the mis-leaders, by apostles from the world. So what does he do? He tries to show them that even persecutors can be transformed. And they can do so without losing their zeal for the God of Israel. He’s essentially saying, “I was like you. I thought zeal for God meant opposing and persecuting followers of Jesus. But then my story collided with Jesus, and he changed everything. Well, not everything. I’m still zealous for God. Christians are devout people with good reputations. But by calling on the name of Jesus, the Righteous One, my sins have been washed away. And yours can be too. You don’t have to reject my testimony about Jesus.”
So what’s the lesson for us? If possible, we need to help people see that they can be transformed by Jesus. When we can, we must identify with people and show them that we were just like them. Unrighteous, liars, thieves, sexually immoral, homosexuals, drunkards, greedy: that’s who we were. But we were washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). And what’s more, we need to help people to see what parts of their life must die for good, and what parts will be raised and transformed. When Jesus calls a man, he bids him come and die. We must all die with Christ. But if we die with Christ, we will be raised and some of our former life will be raised and transformed. Violence toward Christians must die for good. But the zeal for God beneath it—than can be raised and transformed. Our task is twofold: to help people to see where they are right now, and to help them see where they might be, if Jesus collides with their story, and transforms them like he’s transformed us.
So, Paul is speaking to this mob like refugees from the world, like those who have been misled by slander. He’s becoming like a Jew in order to win them, identifying with them and their concerns and their passions and zeal in order to show them the way out of their sin. He’s really trying to win them to Jesus. Now notice how Paul ends his sermon, and how the crowd reacts.
And he [Jesus] said to me, ‘Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’” Up to this word they listened to him. Then they raised their voices and said, “Away with such a fellow from the earth! For he should not be allowed to live.” (22:21-22)
4) Notice that they were listening to Paul; they were eating it up. Some of them may have begun to see themselves in Paul and be on the way to calling on Jesus. And then Paul has to go and spoil it by mentioning the inclusion of the Gentiles in the people of God. At this, the crowd again goes ballistic, and the sermon is over. I’m confident that Paul knew good and well what reaction his words were likely to get. Remember what stirred this crowd up in the first place: they thought Paul brought a dirty Gentile into the temple (21:28-29). Paul knows that those zealous for the law can easily despise Gentiles. He knows that better than anyone. And yet, in his testimony when he has them hushed into silence listening to how Jesus changed his life, he says it anyway. He could’ve held off. He could have ended the sermon with, “I was like you. Now you can be like me. Call on Jesus. He’ll wash away your sins and purify your zeal for God.” But he doesn’t leave it there, because he can’t leave it there. He has to be bold. He has to be clear and courageous about who Jesus is and what sin is.
And this is a challenging lesson for us. It’s easy to want to preach the aspects of the gospel that people will like, to smooth over the rough edges so that we can win people to Jesus. “We’ll talk about all of the hard truths after they believe. We’ll call that “discipleship.” For now, we’ll intentionally avoid talking about the aspects of the truth that we know will set them off.” Brothers and sisters, we cannot do that. When we call people to repent of their sins, their bigotries, their idolatries, we cannot avoid the ones that we know will make them angry. God sent Jesus to bless us by turning every one of us from our wickedness (Acts 3:26). Our wickedness. The particular wickedness that belongs to us. You can’t preach the gospel to a white supremacist and not call him away from his racial pride and hatred. You can’t preach the gospel to a partying frat guy and not call him away from his drunkenness and debauchery. You can’t preach the gospel to a practicing homosexual and not call him away from practicing homosexuality. You can’t preach the gospel to contemporary egalitarian progressives and not call them away from their commitment to a false view of human nature, and marriage, and men and women and sex.
Such preaching may end the relationship. They may say, “Away with such a bigot.” But faithfulness to Jesus means that we don’t have the right to adjust the truth to suit their sin.
Think of it this way: our call is to testify to the truth, to witness to who Jesus is and what he has done. We hope and we pray that our witness and our testimony is persuasive, that God moves and that people embrace the good news. But our testimony and our witness is faithful, whether it leads to conversion or to rejection. We are the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing, the aroma of life to life and the aroma of death to death. So we cannot compromise, minimize, soften, or hide the truth in order to win converts. We must bear witness, regardless of the response.
Practicals
How do you do this?
Preach out of your counseling ministry. Know your people.
Use wisdom in how you weave it into your sermon. It will require creativity so that you aren’t using your people as sermon fodder. Get concrete, but not personal.
In speaking comfort, you can sometimes get more specific. Let people know that you see them. “I have you in mind.”
Rely on your team. Marshall the resources of your elder team in identifying the key issues, sins, temptations, and tendencies of your people. “Shepherd the flock among you” is a command given to elders (plural).
Know yourself. Know your own temptations and sins and preach to yourself.
Know your reluctances, hesitations, and reactions.
One of the things I’ve learned over the years in preparing to preach is to pay attention to my reluctances. Whenever I’m preparing the sermon, there will be times where I will have a subtle check about saying what I’m seeing out loud, or applying what I’m seeing in a certain way. A little hesitation. An intuition. An impulse to steer in a different direction, or add a qualification.
Now I’ve learned that those sorts of moments are of vital importance in preaching and teaching. I’ve learned to interrogate those reluctances, hesitations, intuitions, and impulses. Where are they coming from? And where do they want to take the sermon?
So when did the reluctance show up in preparing to preach this passage? Whenever I started to describe the task of the elders in terms of rule or authority or governance. Whenever I started to describe the responsibility of the congregation to submit and obey the elders. Whenever I started to write the word “rule” or “govern,” I felt an impulse to change it to the word “lead.” The unspoken impulse said, “Don’t say ‘rule’; say ‘lead’” (even though the word “rule” is used in 1 Timothy 5 to describe one aspect of the task of pastoring).
And so I started probing that reluctance and that impulse. Where was it coming from? Because I don’t automatically assume it’s bad. There may be good reasons to move in that direction. But I want to understand the impulse and not simply follow it. Because often that hesitation in me is revealing an awareness I have about you, about this flock. And I’m called to shepherd this flock.
So why was I reluctant to speak about elder’s ruling and governing the church? Because I had an intuition that some people might not like it. Why might they not like it? And there are a lot of answers to that question:
Because we are modern Americans in an egalitarian culture that is allergic to notions of traditional rule and authority, that bristles at talk of obedience to human beings.
Because we are very sensitive to the danger of abusive and domineering leaders, both in the church and outside of it.
And then I probed that idea for a bit. Why are we sensitive to it?
Because we’ve personally experienced such domineering leadership.
Because we live in a mass media environment in which such leadership abuses are widely publicized so that we are all aware that they happen elsewhere.
But as I thought about that source of reluctance, I realized that there was a danger in heeding it. Of course, we’re aware of the leadership abuses around the country. Scandal sells. There are no headlines for fidelity. “Prominent Pastor Abuses His Authority” gets clicks. “Local Pastor preaches 28th Faithful Sermon of the Year” does not. “Evangelical Leader Has Inappropriate Relationship with His Assistant” gets clicks. “Pastor’s Family Enjoys Third Friday Family Fun Night of the Month” does not.
In other words, our sensitivity to abusive leadership is driven in part by the reality of abusive leadership, and in part by the relative publicity of abusive leadership in a mass media environment driven by scandals and clicks. And my intuitive awareness (or at least suspicion) of that sensitivity meant that I felt an impulse to shy away from the language of “rule” and “obey.”
Why then did I want to use the word “lead” instead? I spent less time considering that question, but my first answer is that, in a democratic society, we choose our leaders. And thus, if I don’t like one leader, I can choose a different one. If the elders of one church don’t suit you, go down the street to another. If you don’t want to follow this group of elders, then you can always choose a different group.
And now I felt I had at least some understanding of my reluctance. I think I see it more clearly, and therefore (perhaps) see the needs, concerns, and temptations of this flock better (and if I’m wrong, there are nine other guys who can help me see better). So then what do I do or say in response? First, I felt I needed to say it. The words “rule” and “govern” needed to be in the sermon; they are Bible words. And elders are called to shepherd the flock of God, not coddle the sensitivities of the flock.
At the same time, some of the sensitivity is driven by the real danger of overbearing domineering rule. And so I also felt it important to use multiple terms to describe the task (lead, feed, govern, guide, rule, guard), lest the connotations of one term mislead. I felt it important to clarify the boundaries of that rule (in the appropriate sphere; there is a Chief Shepherd, and I’m not him), and the plurality of that rule (there’s a team) so that the checks and balances are clear. And I felt it was important to clearly name the danger of domineering leadership, so that you know that we pastors know that it’s a danger, and you can hold us accountable—pastor, practice what you preach.
And here’s the amazing thing—in order to do all of that, all I had to do was preach what’s in the passage. It’s all there—the boundaries, the plurality, the danger of domineering. All I had to do was to humbly stay close the text and unpack the word of God, willingly, eagerly, and as an example for you.