Changed Lives Through Preaching

Andy Stanley’s “Communicating For a Change” is one of the best books on preaching I’ve read.  I use his relational outline every time I preach.  In this book Stanley states his goal for every sermon:  “To teach people how to live a life that reflects the values, principles and truths of the Bible. I want people to do something different, not just think about it.”  The important thing is what people do with what they hear.  He states, “We need far less information, far more application, far less explanation and far more inspiration.”  If you’ve ever listened to Andy Stanley preach, he certainly knows how to be applicable!  I feel no need to correct Stanley on this one, but I would make an addition.
How I preach with this goal in mind comes back to how I believe life transformation happens.  Does it happen by being told to do something and how to do it in simple terms?  Does it happen by following application points or steps?  That would certainly be part of it.  However, taken too far this can ruin preaching and will eventually the listeners.  Given a steady diet of "application by steps and points" preaching (my words, not Stanley's), the hearers will begin to expect the preacher to just tell them exactly what they need to do and how to do it. And oftentimes he will oblige, and rightly so. But what if he doesn’t?  Are the listeners off the hook for application?  Has the preacher squandered the moment for life transformation?  But there is a greater deficiency I would like to point out.
James tells us that the person who hears God’s word and does not do what itself is involved in dangerous and foolish self-deception.  (James 1:23-25)  By all means, when I preach I want people to do something different as a result.  But I also want them to be different.   James also tells us that before we can rightly apply the word we must continually “look intently” into the God’s word.  To look intently is to fix your gaze with careful inspection.  Our hearts must be inclined in the direction of the word (Psalm 119:36).  I must love what I study.  (Psalm 119:59).  I must love the word I preach.  Those who listen must love the word I preach or be on their way to doing so.  Because what I love will have my attention, and what has my attention will change my life.  I will be transformed into the very image of that which has my attention.  That’s what 2 Corinthians 3:18 is all about.  The Holy Spirit changes us as we behold the glory of God.  When I preach, people should be able to see that the Bible is full of glorious truth and is far more amazing and wonderful than any movie they will ever see or any video game they will ever play or any of the other million things towards which their hearts are inclined.  Life transformation will not just happen in Nike fashion, by just doing it.  If that’s all I have in my preaching, I will be lending a hand in the creation of moralistic deists. Life transformation happens when I love the glorious truth and when my attention is captured by seeing in it the glorious God who wrote it.

Is This Where Procrastination Comes From?

Procrastination today creates urgency tomorrow.  And sometimes I like it.  In "First Things First", Covey (unbeknownst to him?) puts his finger on a principle right out of the Sermon on the Mount.  "When urgency is the dominant factor in our lives, importance isn't".  The Kingdom of God, wherever it may manifest itself, is the first thing.  'Important' doesn't do it justice.  Covey writes about the addiction to urgency that comes from allowing the urgent to crowd out the important or first things:

"Some of us get so used to the adrenaline rush of handling crises that we become dependent on it for a sense of excitement and energy.  How does urgency feel?  Stressful?  Pressured? Tense?  Exhausting?  Sure.  But let's be honest.  It's also sometimes exhilarating.  We feel useful.  We feel successful.  We feel validated.  And we get good at it."

So if the kingdom of God is the daily important, first thing, then procrastination just may be my attempt to put the kingdom of God off till tomorrow.  (Of course, that's assuming my daily priorities are a relflection of me seeking the kingdom first, but that's another post.)  Then I get the rush of of accomplishing something urgent
tomorrow that should have been important today.  I reduce the kingdom to an unimportant, last minute task rather than the first thing that makes everything else in life make sense.  Procrastination is the drive to the dealer's house today.  Urgency is the drug tomorrow.

The Clock and the Compass

In "First Things First", Stephen Covey points out a contrast that explains some of my trouble in figuring out if I had a "good day" at work.

"Our struggle to put first things first can be characterized by the contrast between  two powerful tools that direct us: the clock and the compass.  The clock represents our commitments, appointments, schedules, goals, activities - what we do with, and how we manage our time.  The compass represents our vision, values, principles, mission, conscience, direction - what we feel is important and how we lead our lives.  The struggle comes when we sense a gap between the clock and the compass - when what we do doesn't contribute to what is most important in our lives."

If my wife asks me when I come home from work, "Did you have a good day?", the clock and compass is probably in my mind when I answer her.  There are days when I get a lot of items checked off my task list, but at the end of the day I wonder if everything I checked really connected to my purposes as a pastor.  There are other days when the quantity of work doesn't seem to be much, but what does get accomplished connects with the core of my calling.  These are satisfying days.  When clock and compass connect, the end of the day brings a really good kind of tired. 

Big Truths for Young (and Older) Hearts

The first night I was reading "Big Truths For Young Hearts" I said to Kelly, "I feel like I'm sitting in my seminary Systematic Theology class and the first two rows are full of fifth graders."  Dr. Bruce Ware is a theology proffesor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and this material is adapted from the material he teaches his seminary students.  It also comes from conversations had while on long vacation car trips with his family and from bed-time lessons with his two daughters.  It would be a rare theologian who could manage to teach such big, deep truths on the level Ware does.    Ware does a great job of arranging the material and he covers the same topics you might find in a huge theology book such as Erickson's or Grudem's.  This book could very easily be used as a resource for a Bible Study or Sunday School Class with Middle School age and up.  As a pastor, I would dare say the average church member as never read a book on Systematic Theology.  I would not hesitate to point the adults in my church to this book.  Like a good book of theology should, I was led to a place of awe on many occasions as I read.  These truths are for any heart, young or old.

The Bible Opened to Suffering People

It only makes sense that if much of the Bible was written by suffering people, then suffering people would have insights into the word that non-sufferers would not.  This was true for Bunyan.  I can only imagine what it must have been like for Bunyan to sit in his prison cell and read Paul's letters that were written from prison.

"I never had in all my life so great an inlet into the Word of God as now [in prison].  Those scriptures that I saw nothing in before were made in this place and state to shine upon me.  Jesus Christ also was never more real and apparent than now.  Here I have seen Him and felt Him indeed.... I have had sweet sight of the forgiveness of my sins in this place, and of my being with Jesus in another world.... I never knew what it was for God to stand by me at all times and at every offer of Satan to afflict me, as I have found Him since I came in hither."

The Smell of Affliction

Piper writes about Bunyan's suffering and how it influenced his writing.  It has caused me to wonder what my preaching and teaching would smell like if someone were to listen to it a few hundred years from now.

"The smell of affliction was on most of what Bunyan wrote.  In fact, I suspect that one of the reasons the Puritans are still being read today with so much profit is that their entire experience, unlike ours, was one of persecution and suffering.  To our chipper culture this may seem somber at times, but the day you hear that you have cancer, or that your child is blind, or that a mob is coming, you turn from the light books to the weighty ones that were written on the precipice of eternity where the fragrance of heaven and the stench of hell are both in the air."

Bunyan Preached the Gospel to Himself!

As I've preached through Ephesians, on a number of occasions I've encouraged people to "preach the gospel to yourself".  Years ago I struggled with debilitating doubt and still struggling with pride.  I still struggle with both pride and discouragement.  I have found that the gospel is the remedy for these and many other ailments.  Bunyan experienced an extended time of wondering if he had committed an unpardonable sin and "feeling hopelessly damned."  His remedy was to preach to himself the gospel of God's free, justifying grace.

"One day as I was passing into the field ... this sentence fell upon my soul.  Thy righteousness is in heaven.  And methought, withal, I saw with the eyes of my soul Jesus Christ at God's right hand; there, I say, was my righteousness; so that wherever I was, or whatever I was doing, God could not say of me, he wants [lacks] my righteousness, for that was just before Him.  I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse, for my righteousness was Jesus Christ Himself, "The same yesterday, today, and forever." Hebrews 13:8.  Now did my chains fall off my legs indeed.  I was loosed from my afflictions and irons."