3.WALKING YOUR SERMON

Every week when I was a pastor, I did what I called walking my sermons. Although this depends on the Biblical foundations I wrote about last week, I believe it is the most valuable advice I can give preachers.
The sermon is an oral event. It is what Marshall McLuhan called a hot medium of communication. I would argue that you should not write out a sermon, and then try to memorize it, trying to translate from writing, a cool medium, to the heat.
After I had read my text aloud many times, some before a mirror, and worded my points, I was ready to compose my sermon. I would literally go outside and walk, rain, snow, or shine. As I walked I would preach over everything that came to mind about each point. Several times over the years I had deacons or leadership kid me about this practice. But they admitted they liked the results. As far as I know, others in the church didn't know about it. In fact, I think people thought my sermons just came to me out of the blue, and they were made uncomfortable, when I talked about the process.
Although I was doing this long before I had heard about Prayer-Walking, what I did was similar. One big difference came when I saw people. In Prayer-Walking I would walk toward people praying for them as I drew near. In walking my sermons I usually prayed briefly for people I saw. But I would walk the other direction. God has called some of you to large enough cities that avoiding people is impossible. But there, they will ignore you, if you are not too loud or acrobatic.
As I walked, I would preach everything that came into my mind on each point. I would sometimes preach up to an hour on a point, although it usually didn't take so long to preach a single point. You might think that would make my sermons too long. But it had the opposite effect. I would automatically know what fit the sermon, and what did not. I held the conviction that if I could say the same thing in less time, I had said it better. Brevity is force.
Preaching everything that came to mind also seemed to add a depth to what I preached. It settled a broader understanding in my mind.
After I had preached the entire sermon over, I would usually know how to frame my introduction in a way that would grip the attention of my people, and lead into the rest of the sermon. My introduction usually came from something I knew connected with the entire sermon. And at least for my Sunday morning sermon, I would preach the shortened version over at least one more time.
But what about notes? First, notes are a cooling factor in your sermon. Worse, if you stumble, it is often over your notes. I would mark scriptures in my Bible that I would rather read than quote. And on rare occasions I would take quotations into the pulpit. With this method you only need to go into the pulpit with your introduction and points in mind. Your illustrations and applications will simply come as ways of making each point.
Some of you, possibly very few of you these days, may know that I regularly published sermon material in PROCLAIM and other magazines over the years. But I did not write out sermons, or even illustrations, until I had preached them to my people. In this way I hoped to keep the fire of the sermon as I translated into print.
So, will this method work for you? I am convinced that it will. But you will not know if you can do this until you have tried. If you have difficulty, you can contact me, daveswatch@gmail.com. I will check this account at least once a week. If you wish to talk to me, I will give you contact information.

However you do it, Preach The Word!

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2 THE FOUNDATIONS OF BIBLICAL PREACHING

What I am teaching in these blog posts is expository or direct Biblical preaching. I believe there is a place for topical preaching and apologetic, or subject teaching. But I believe you will find great power in sharing what God has to say to people in His word.

THE SPIRITUAL CONNECTION

AND

BIBLICAL BEDROCK

OF THE SERMON

"Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works."

John 14:10

In preaching God must strike the hearts of people with the lightning of His presence. The first important factor in connecting to that is your own relationship with God, ultimately, consistently and immediately.

"Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let him who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? declares the Lord."

Jeremiah 23:28

The sermon must be anchored on the bedrock of God’s word.

"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; be ready in season out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching."

2 Timothy 4:1,2

I actually think these 5 things are essential to sermon preparation.

Get yourself right.

Read yourself full.

Think yourself clear.

Pray yourself hot.

Preach yourself out.

This is not necessarily a sequence. God can give seeds of sermon ideas in any order.

What I have below is a good general order for laying a solid foundation for your sermon. I call it Serback for sermon background thinking.

SERBACK

TEXT:
Determine the specific Bible text you are going to preach. It can be long or short.

C.I.T.:
(Central idea of the text) A simple sentence that states the heart of the passage. This generally needs to be in the past tense. It states what the passage said to the people who first heard it.

FOCUS:
You can focus on a specifics in a passage. For instance a sermon on John 3:16 may focus on the love of God, the gift of God, the Son of God, believing in God, not perishing, or eternal life.

PEOPLE:
You need a clear picture of the people you are addressing. The first distinction is Believers or Unbelievers. And you may know other things about the people who will hear you.

Felt Need:
I have noted 11 basic human needs. You need to think about this yourself. I suspect many of you will come up with more needs.

PHYSICAL NEEDS
Sustenance
Security
EMOTIONAL NEEDS
Comfort
Wonder
Truth
Righteousness
Forgiveness
Divine Connection
Significance
Purpose
Ultimate security

PURPOSE OF THIS SERMON:
There are at least 6 major biblical purposes for a sermon. These are followed by a specific purpose which is stated as a simple sentence beginning with, “I want my hearers to . . .” You need to determine the major and specific purpose of each sermon.

Doctrinal; “I want my hearers to know…” or “understand…”

Devotional; “Praise God for. . .”

Evangelistic; “I want my hearers to give their lives to Christ.”

Consecrative/Actional; “I want my hearers to commit to…” or “I want my hearers to (do)…”

Supportive; “I want my hearers to be comforted.”

Promotional; (This is a type of consecrative sermon promoting a specific cause or program.)

If you do not know how you want your hearers to respond they will not know when you are finished.


THRUST:
This will be a simple sentence corresponding to your specific purpose statement, such as “Accept Christ as Savior and Lord.” This is not unlike the thesis of an essay.

PICTURE:
You need to find a visualization of what you are saying. Jesus did this with the parables. “Behold, a sower went out to sow.”

Emotion:
Your picture will always draw certain emotions. It will help you to think about what emotion you wish to strike. Some legitimate emotions are joy, humility, sorrow, fear, anger, conviction, and submission. To some extent the emotion you strike in your visualization will apply to the entire sermon, although each element, possibly each sentence may strike a separate emotion. (One of my favorite preachers did not think this was helpful to him. He thought deciding ahead of time what emotion to strike would be contrived.)

Reason:
Any emotion can be misused. I think it is valuable to note the reason you want to elicit a certain emotion.

URGENCY:
Determine why this sermon is urgent for people to hear. You will find that settling this will be crucial to stirring the hearts of people. There are several reasons for urgency that sermons may touch.
Truth
Danger
Value
Necessity
Imminence

CONNECTION TO THE GOSPEL:
Every sermon needs to connect the the gospel of Jesus Christ. You will often need to think about a Scripture passage for some time, before you see how its truth links to the gospel.

CHARISMATA:
I think it is worth noting which spiritual gifts you are asking God to give you in the sermon. Of course, you want to be open to whatever He decides to give. Several of the listed gifts are obviously part of preaching.
1. Prophesy
The word prophecy does not primarily speak of prediction in Scripture, although it can. It is a word for speaking from and for God.
2. Evangelism
3. Teaching
4. Encouragement
5. Leadership
6. Spiritual Discernment
7. Mercy
8. Tongue
In Acts 2 each person heard in their own dialect. Everyone has their own heart language. Especially when I have preached through an interpreter, I prayed for that miracle. I believe it is more often needed than we think even when everyone speaks your language.

POINTS:
Charles Swindoll calls these principles emphasizing the importance of what you are saying.
It is good to think your points out so that they can all be drawn out of a single sentence.
Here are some examples.

YOU HAVE BEEN GIVEN A TRUST. 

Matthew 25:14-30

“A Trust Includes The Responsibility of Faithfulness.”

“A Trust Includes The Risk of Faithfulness.”

“A Trust Includes The Reward of Faithfulness.”

DO YOU BELIEVE THIS

John 11:17-27

“Do You Believe This Ultimately?”

“Do You Believe This Immediately?”

“Do You Believe This Intimately?”

Linking points in a single sentence can be more effective than using parallelism like rhymes or alliteration in giving people something to remember.

When you have finished these foundations, you can compose your sermon.

Next week I will suggest a most unusual means of preparing a sermon that I believe will unleash the power of God in your preaching.

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BIBLICAL PREACHING

INTRODUCTION

Paul's admonition to Timothy is still appropriate.

“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; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.”

In my next few blogs I want to share with you with you some foundations, preparations, and suggestions for improving biblical preaching.

I am including them here in my Thinking In The Spirit blog because I don't want to start a new Blog for something that will be short term. I believe I have some things to share with you. And I pray that God will bless your ministry through them.

FOUNDATION

The first thing you need to settle is why you are preaching. You need to ask yourself several questions here. It may benefit you greatly to ask yourself these questions even if you have your sermon together for this Sunday.

Have you been born again? In John 3:3 Jesus said you cannot even see the kingdom of God if you have not been born again. A call to preach must be linked in your mind to the calling to be a child of God.

Do you have a vital relationship with Jesus Christ? If you are not in tune with Him, you will not touch lives. In Matthew 23:8-10 Jesus said.

“But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ.” 

We have one teacher. If He does not speak through you, you are wasting your t

Is God telling you to preach? I remember God calling me to preach my freshman year in college. His call was as clear to me as Isaiah's call in Isaiah 6. Proclaiming God's word is my life calling. And it may be yours. But I believe God tells others of us to preach in different ways. Some of you may have been asked by your church or your pastor to preach, not necessarily as a life calling. Others may have been led to start a home church. And you have to fill the needs of those who have gathered with you. But you need to settle this issue.

Do you care about the people you preach to? My pastor when I was in high school once told me, “David, you cannot preach to people that you don't love.” Many years ago I was in a preaching slump. I talked to an experienced preacher about it. He suggested something that proved to be powerful for me. He said, “In the early part of the worship service, look into the eyes of individuals in the congregation.” It is amazing what you will see, when you really look at people. I found myself understanding and connecting with them. This will not keep you from worshipping. In fact, you can pray for each of them while you praise God.

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THE SERIOUSNESS OF HYPOCRACY

It is interesting how we rank sins. My nephew has noted that different Christian denominations rank sins differently. He said divorce is about at the top in the denomination we belong to. But he told me a story of a similar church in a different denomination that was considering making someone he knew a deacon. They never questioned his divorce, but they would not ordain him, if he couldn't quit smoking.
I don't mean to minimize these or any other practices God's people treat as serious. But we often overlook hypocrisy, which is the sin Jesus condemned most severely. Jesus spoke so much about hypocrisy that I will not attempt to draw out everything He said about it. That might be a worthwhile subject for future blogs. But looking at one passage we can see some crucial reasons it is such a plague on our spiritual lives.
In Matthew 23:25-26 Jesus condemns the Pharisees because of their hypocrisy.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.”

Hypocrisy is devastating because of
The Seriousness Of Whom You Impress.

I am too horrified at the ways I have been a phony in my life to share them with you here. But I can tell you, I often catch myself trying to impress other people. I want others to think I am smart, or honest, or manly, or good. Trying, even wanting, to impress people makes them into false gods. God sees into your heart. He is not pleased with what impresses other people.

Hypocrisy is dangerous because of
The Seriousness Of Whom You Deceive.

You know that being a fake doesn't fool God. You may deceive other people some. Probably the more people you deceive, the worse the cancer in your soul. But the person you deceive most is yourself. The Pharisees were blind to the fact that appearing to be good, or close to God, didn't make it so.

And hypocrisy kills because of
The Seriousness Of What You Miss.

Pretending to be smart may not always keep you from learning. Pretending to be strong may not always make you week. Pretending to be rich, may not always make you poor. But pretending to be holy always offends God. Trying to appear good to people will cause you to overlook the corruption in your heart. Hypocrisy will make you miss God's forgiveness. And there is nothing worse in this life or the next than missing a relationship with God. And even as a child of God, a fake spiritual life will corrupt your relationship with Him and stunt spiritual growth.

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TO YOU

Several months ago I wrote a blog post that was primarily on Jeremiah 29:11. I was reacting to something I heard said from the pulpit. The preacher said we could not take this as a promise if we were not Israelites being sent into exile. I took exception to this in my blog, showing that this verse has universal application. But in this post I want to apply this truth to Scripture as a whole. Look with me at something Jesus said in Matthew 22:31-32

And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.”

Jesus addresses the Sadducees in these verses. But he quotes the words spoken to Moses at the burning bush in Exodus 3. Jesus asks them, “Have you not read what was said to you by God.”
It is crucial to understand that God speaks to you in His word. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 10:11 that,

“These things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.”

Some of you are rightly thinking, “But we need to approach Scripture with spiritual discernment.” Most of us know examples of misusing Scripture. The old joke tells of someone opening the Bible for direction and blindly stabbing his finger in and landing on, “Judas went out and hanged himself.” This startled him enough that he thought he had better look for another. So he stabbed his finger again. This time he landed on, “Go thou and do likewise.”

But God's people can discern. We are enlightened by the Spirit of God. 1 Corinthians 2:14-16 reads,

“The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. ‘For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ.”

That is a powerful statement. “We have the mind of Christ.” Let me point out how these verses say God speaks. Verse 14 concludes that the things of God are, “spiritually discerned.” Let me suggest what this means. Spiritual discernment is only given by the Holy Spirit. It means the Spirit of God speaks to us personally and as gathered believers in the church. This does not mean we will never misunderstand Scripture. But it does mean He will speak to me in His word correcting my thinking.

You might ask, why then do we have so many denominations? I don't think I am qualified to answer that comprehensively. But let me tell you an experience I have had. Many years ago our church participated in a National Day of Prayer gathering and another pastor invited me to join a pastors’ prayer meeting. I started meeting with them weekly. The group had two Episcopalian pastors. There were some Congregationalists. There were a few more Presbyterians from several Presbyterian groups. There was a Lutheran pastor. And in those early days, I was the only Baptist. I prayed regularly with those men for over ten years. A week never went by when we did not quote or read aloud some scripture. And my impression was that we never disagreed on how to apply a verse in our lives. That was because God speaks through His word.

More than 40 years ago I was leading a group of adults in my church to memorize Scripture in our mid-week services. One week I was helping them memorize Acts 27:25.

“Wherefore sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God that it will be even as he has told me.”

A lady in the group shook her head saying, “What does it mean?”

I answered, “God has said some things to you, too.” And this truth immediately dawned on her. God will speak to you in His word. And you can confidently apply it to your life.

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THE WEDDING GARMENT

What is the wedding garment in the parable in Matthew 22:12? In the parable recorded in the first verses of Matthew 22, when those who would not come to the king's wedding feast were destroyed, the servants were sent out to bring anyone they found, good or bad, to the wedding feast. But when the king came in to see his guests he found one without a wedding garment. “Friend,” he said, “how did you get in here without a wedding garment?” And there was nothing the man could answer. The king commanded his servants to bind him hand and foot and send him out into the outer darkness where there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Jesus consistently uses this phrase for those who will be excluded from the kingdom of God. I believe it has to describe hell.

I think the wedding garment represents three things in our lives.

I believe it must represent intimacy with Jesus Christ. In Matthew 7:23 Jesus said the problem with many who preached and healed and did miracles in His name was that He had never known them. I am told by reliable sources that the wedding garments may well have been supplied by the king himself. You did not get one because you were born into a wealthy family, or because you knew the best tailor in town. You could only get one from the King. Salvation is not simply affirming a creed or even mouthing a prayer. It is a relationship where in we know Him because He knows us intimately.

I believe the wedding garment must also represent the transformation of life that intimacy with Jesus produces in us. Romans 12:2 calls us to be transformed by the renewal of our minds. And new birth must include such life transformation.

Finally, I believe it represents the fruit of the Spirit produced in and through us. In Matthew 7:16-20 Jesus said we would know false prophets, and I assume true disciples, by their fruit. I believe this begins with love, joy, peace, and such in us. But it also includes such fruit in those we influence by the Holy Spirit of God.

Jesus applies this parable by saying, “for many are called but few are chosen.” I don't believe it is consistent with the gospel to say that those who are chosen are chosen because of their good works. In that parable we would assume that there were bad people who had a wedding garment. And we are not told that this man was better or worse than others at the table. I rather think Jesus is saying we will know those who are truly chosen by God from the fruit His personal intervention produces in our lives.

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YOUR ANGELS SEE HIS FACE

God has been showing me something in scripture this week that I just have to share with you. In Matthew 18 the disciples asked Jesus about greatness.

“At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, ‘Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me.’”

Jesus answered by saying that we cannot even enter the kingdom of heaven unless we repent and become like little children. And He said whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Now let me point out the humility that is like the child Jesus stood before them. Even a newborn baby is not innocent. He is selfish to the core. But he is absolutely dependent. And we must humble ourselves to become dependent upon God to enter the kingdom of heaven. Our salvation, and everything in our lives depends upon Him.

When Jesus says, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me,” who is he speaking about? I believe Jesus must first be referring to literal children, especially those who have already accepted Him as Savior. But I also believe Jesus is speaking of those of us who have entered the kingdom in childlike dependence. When people receive us as we go to them with the gospel, they receive Him.

Now look just a little further down the passage to verse 10

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.”

Again, who is Jesus talking about? I believe He is telling us that children have guardian angels who always see our Heavenly Father's face.

We do not yet see Him face to face. 1 John 3:2 says we will be made like Jesus when we see His face. But could it also be that as we become children of God, we too are surrounded by Heavenly angels who continually see His face?” And of course Jesus Himself is always interceding for us before the Father. You are well-represented before the throne.

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