Preaching vs. Worship?

I love this from Jeff Purswell. My only caveat is I’m sure there will be many readers out there whose experience of preaching week by week is woefully inadequate, and does not qualify as biblical exposition. Still, the principles outlined here by Jeff remain true. Let’s pray for preachers!

I am no musician. I play no part in a choir or a musical team. I do love words, and as a sidebar to my job I get to participate in editing worship song lyrics. But there you reach the limits of my musical gifting.
Even so, my friend Bob Kauflin recently invited me to speak at the WorshipGod09 conference and to address an audience populated by faithful servants engaged in leading worship, singing, and serving musically in diverse ways. These are gifted people and we benefit from their example, leadership, and service each Sunday in our local churches.

But as much as I appreciate what they do, I told them the following: What you do each Sunday is important, but it’s not most important.

Musical worship is inspiring, informative, and a wonderful privilege, but there is nothing more central to Christian worship than the preaching of God’s Word. Notice I did not say preaching is a great and necessary follow-up to worship, or that preaching is an optional extra in worship. Preaching is central to worship each Sunday.

Let me illustrate this point through a few great worship services in your Bible.

Think of Mount Sinai where God rescues and gathers his people specifically. He says, “Let my people go so that they may worship me.” So in that gathering to worship, what is the climax? It is the giving of the Law.

A few books later, in Deuteronomy, the people are gathered beside the Jordan. Their wanderings are finally at an end. They are on the cusp of the Promised Land, and Moses renews the covenant with the next generation. What is at the heart, what is the substance of this gathering? It is the reiteration of the Law of Moses, and we read page after page of preaching, explanation, application, and exposition.

When Joshua brings the people finally into the land, he gathers them together (Joshua 8). What was the climax of that gathering? Was it the singing? No. He read the Law to the “assembly.” (The Hebrew term is regularly translated in the Greek as “church”—the church is the assembly, the gathering of the people of God.) Joshua read the Law to the gathered assembly. And he read it all: “there was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, and the women, and the little ones, and the sojourners who lived among them” (Joshua 8:35). Let’s not miss a thing. Let’s not miss a word. Let’s not miss a stroke.

After the return from exile, Nehemiah gathers the people into a great assembly. What do they do? Ezra reads the Law and then explains it—he exposits it to give the sense of message.

And we could go on through the Bible…

Throughout salvation history, all the way into the new covenant, God’s Word is at the center of worship. The early church devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and every church was nourished on God’s Word, all the way down to the last chapter of the last book that Paul wrote, where he tells Timothy to preach the Word “in season and out of season” (2 Timothy 4:2).

Why? Why so much preaching? Why all this talking? Because the primary way we encounter God in worship is through the preaching of the Word of God.

Think about it this way. Normally, in what we call “worship,” we spend significant time—perhaps the whole time—addressing God, singing to him, praising him, extolling him, praying to him. Wonderful! But in preaching we are no longer addressing God; he is addressing us. Nothing is more important than this moment. And this is why the most important worship leader in your church is your pastor.

That really gets to the heart of preaching. The Bible is not simply a book that we talk about. When God’s Word is faithfully preached, God is addressing us. God is speaking. We hear not merely a man’s voice. We hear the voice of God.

And when God addresses us, what is the appropriate response? We respond with glad and reverent hearts, with voices that proclaim his praise, and with lives that increasingly reflect his character.

God addresses us with a saving Word. We respond to him with faith, praise, and obedience. That is the rhythm of worship.

———-

Jeff Purswell serves as the Dean of the Sovereign Grace Pastors College and a pastor at Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, MD.

Filed under: Biblical exposition, Church, Preaching, The Bible, The word of God, Worship

Prophet and Shepherd

“A ministry that is all prophetic all the time will wear down a congregation. It will eventually defeat a congregation. A ministry that is all sympathetic all the time will coddle the congregation straight into the deadly pastures of unwarranted self-assurance and the false pastures of self-security. A pastor who would be a theologian knows when and how to be both convicting prophet and comforting good shepherd.”

–Stephen J. Nichols, “Proclaiming the Image: Theology and Preaching,” Gheens Lectures at Southern Seminary

(HT: Thabiti Anyabwile)

Filed under: Church, Preaching

Worship, Planning, and Spontaneity

Bob Kauflin has a helpful post today discussing the importance of planning and spontaneity in leading corporate worship. Here’s part of his post:

In my experience, people tend to value one or the other. Either we trust completely in our plan and wouldn’t think of veering from it, or we minimize preparation and think God is only active when something spontaneous happens. When it comes to leading corporate worship, both planning AND spontaneity are important values.

To consider this further, please see below a conversation with Jeff Purswell, C.J. Mahaney and Bob Kauflin from the recent Sovereign Grace WorshipGod ‘09 conference:

(HT: The Gospel Coalition blog)

Filed under: CJ Mahaney, Church, Holy Spirit, Wisdom, Worship

The Local Church

From John Samson at Reformation Theology:

1Peter 2:5 - you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house…

Solomon’s Temple was perhaps the most expensive building built in human history. Kings and Queens visiting from other nations stood in wonder and awe when seeing it for the first time. Yet in these days, God is now building a spiritual building that far exceeds Solomon’s Temple in worth and value. It is made of human souls.

Christ said, “what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world let loses his soul?” The obvious answer is that all the gold and silver, all the wealth of this world and the prestige that goes with it – all would be futile if in the end, the soul was lost. That’s because one human soul is worth more than all the riches of this world.

Christ builds individual Christians into a spiritual temple. It’s spiritual because it houses the Holy Spirit. “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16). That’s a reference to the local church, not to individuals in this particular context. The word “you” is plural, referring to the corporate gathering rather than individuals. Most people do not esteem the local Church in such high terms, because they see its obvious flaws. But it is good to be reminded that this is indeed how God sees it. The local Church is amazingly precious to God. – JS

Filed under: Church, Evangelical, Jesus Christ

“We preach Christ crucified” – Do we?

Martyn-Lloyd Jones:

“I am increasingly convinced that so much in the state of the Christian church today is to be explained chiefly by the fact that for nearly a hundred years the church has been preaching morality and ethics, and not the Christian faith. It is this preaching of the ‘good life’, or being ‘a good little gentleman’, and of viewing religion as ‘morality touched by emotion’, as Matthew Arnold put it, that has been the curse. Such men have shed the doctrines; they dislike any idea of atonement, they dismiss the whole notion of the miraculous and the supernatural, and ridicule talk about re-birth. Christianity to them is that which teaches a man to live a good life.”  (Life in the Spirit, 19)

(HT: Matthew Morizio)

Filed under: Biblical exposition, Christ crucified, Church, Culture, Doctrine, Evangelical, Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Moralism, Preaching, The Gospel

Does Church Membership Matter?

Kevin DeYoung thinks that membership matters in the church, so he provided six reasons for the importance of church membership:

1. In joining a church you make visible your commitment to Christ and his people.
2. Making a commitment makes a powerful statement in a low-commitment culture.
3. We can be overly independent.
4. Church membership keeps us accountable.
5. Joining the church will help your pastor and elders be more faithful shepherds.
6. Joining the church gives you an opportunity to make promises.

Read the whole post, and check out DeYoung’s book Why We Love the Church (written with Ted Kluck).

(HT: James Grant)

Filed under: Church, Culture, Discipleship, Evangelism, The Christian Life

15 Reasons I Love The Church

I love the Church that Jesus us building too. My thanks to Justin Childers for this:

-She is Christ’s bride and body (Eph. 5:22-33).
-She was purchased by Christ’s own blood (Acts 20:28; Eph. 5:1; 25).
-She exists to glorify God (Eph. 3:10; 21).
-She provides accountability and encouragement for my family and I.
-She provides an opportunity to love and serve other sinners.
-She will kick me out if I live as an unbeliever.
-She provides the opportunity to utilize my spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 12, 14).
-She is the pillar and buttress of the truth (1 Tim. 3:13).
-She displays the manifold wisdom of God (Eph. 3:10).
-She is my eternal family (Eph. 2:19-22).
-She reminds me of the gospel.
-She is built by Christ Himself (Matt. 16:18).
-She will never be defeated (Matt. 16:18).
-She is the dwelling place of God (Eph. 2:22).
-She nourishes my soul with the Word.

Derek Thomas has a great post about Falling in Love with the Church — again.

Filed under: Christ-centred, Church, Discipleship, Doctrine, Evangelical, Jesus Christ, The Church, The word of God

Where is the Call to Repentance? [Where is the Change?]

This is excellent from Peter Mead:

So many deeply challenging messages fall short of their intent.  After preaching through a powerful passage, the final few minutes often undermine everything.  All sorts of conviction has been achieved, then at the end all open wounds are smoothed over, rather than following through to excise the growth of ungodly matter in the life of the listener.  The sermonic surgery ends in comfort and the problems persist.  Why?

One reason is that too often preachers are too careful to offer balance and comfort too soon.  In effect, the message finishes flat with something along the lines of, “But what if you haven’t lived up to this?  What if you’ve failed in this area?  Well there is grace, God forgives, etc.”  And people go away having felt convicted, but reassured that all is well.  Whether or not all is well, all is back to normal and lives move on relatively unchanged by the encounter with God’s Word in that message.

When the light of God’s Word shines in all its radicality, in all its power, in all its uncompromising directness, let’s be careful not to undermine the whole thing by merely reassuring people.  This is not a call for extreme holiness preaching without love – a sort of military-style duty-driven drill of responsibility.  It is a call for the scandalous love of God in the gospel to reek havoc in comfortable self-absorbed lives. It’s the pulpit equivalent of a Keith Green concert – calling for deep repentance and response, rather than comforting listeners with the “everything is happy” jingles of some “Christian” music.  God’s overwhelming love calls us to full followership, to radical reality and response, and sometimes to tears, silence, repentance and brokenness.

If we preach the Word, but always sooth the listener, then perhaps we fail to preach the Word.  Perhaps we are tickling ears.  Perhaps we are preaching in fear.  Or perhaps we are preaching out of our own limited spirituality.  Perhaps it’s time for some of us, maybe all of us, to be broken ourselves, to be repenting of comfort-preaching, to get real in response to an oh-so-radical Gospel?  Let’s ask ourselves two questions, one concerning our preaching, and first of all, one concerning our own lives.

Filed under: Church, Gospel-centred, Jesus Christ, Preachers, Preaching, Repentance, The word of God

Gospel-Centredness

From Joe Thorn:

At Redeemer Fellowship we talk a lot about being gospel-centered as a church, and we encourage gospel-centered living among our people. From time to time we get asked by our newcomers, “What exactly does that mean? What does it look like?” Here is a brief explanation.

The Gospel

Before we jump into gospel-centeredness we need to be clear about the gospel itself. In the simplest of terms the gospel is the life, death and resurrection of Jesus that accomplishes redemption and restoration for all who believe and all of creation. In his life Jesus fulfilled the law and accomplished all righteousness on behalf of sinners who have broken God’s law at every point. In his death Jesus atones for our sins, satisfying the wrath of God and obtaining forgiveness for all who believe. In his resurrection Jesus’ victory over sin and death is the guarantee of our victory over the same in and through him. Jesus’ saving work not only redeems sinners, uniting them to God, but also assures the future restoration of all creation. This is the gospel, the “good news,” that God redeems a fallen world by his grace.

Gospel-Centered: The Big Picture

Therefore, to be gospel-centered means that that the gospel – and Jesus himself – is our greatest hope and boast, our deepest longing and joy, and our most passionate song and message. It means that the gospel is what defines us as Christians, unites us as brothers and sisters, changes us as sinner/saints and sends us as God’s people on mission. When we are gospel-centered the gospel is exalted above every other good thing in our lives and triumphs over every bad thing set against it.

The Gospel-Centered Life

More specifically, the gospel-centered life is a life where a Christian experiences a growing personal reliance on the gospel that protects him from depending on his own religious performance and being seduced and overwhelmed by idols. The gospel centered life produces:

Confidence (Heb. 3:14; 4:16)
When the gospel is central in our lives we have confidence before God – not because of our achievements, but because of Christ’s atonement. We can approach God knowing that he receives us as his children. We do not allow our sins to anchor us to guilt and despair, but their very presence in our lives compels us to flee again and again to Christ for grace that restores our spirits and gives us strength.

Intimacy (Heb. 7:25; 10:22; James 4:8)
When the gospel is central in our lives we have and maintain intimacy with God, not because of our religious performance, but because of Jesus’ priestly ministry. We know that Jesus is our mediator with God the Father and that he has made perfect peace for us through his sacrifice allowing us to draw near to God with the eager expectation of receiving grace, not judgment.

Transformation (2 Cor. 3:18; 1 Thess. 5:23; 2 Thess. 2:13)
When the gospel is central in our lives we experience spiritual transformation, not just moral improvement, and this change does not come about by our willpower, but by the power of the resurrection. Our hope for becoming what God designed and desires for us is not trying harder, but trusting more – relying on his truth and Spirit to sanctify us.

Community (Heb. 3:12, 13; 10:25; 2 Tim 3:16, 17)
When the gospel is central in our lives we long for and discover unity with other believers in the local church, not because of any cultural commonality, but because of our common faith and Savior. It is within this covenant community, if the community itself is gospel-centered, that we experience the kind of fellowship that comforts the afflicted, corrects the wayward, strengthens the weak, and encourages the disheartened.

The Gospel-Centered Church

A gospel-centered church is a church that is about Jesus above everything else. That sounds a little obvious, but when we talk about striving to be and maintain gospel-centrality as a church we are recognizing our tendency to focus on many other things (often good and important things) instead of Jesus. There are really only two options for local churches; they will be gospel-centered, or issue driven.

Issue-driven churches can be conservative or liberal, and come from any denominational tribe. A church can get the gospel “right” on paper and still not be gospel-centered in practice.

Some churches are driven by doctrinal purity. In the pursuit of the truth it is not uncommon for a church to be more about their theological heritage than the founder and perfecter of our faith. Some churches are driven by numbers. The desire to see as many people as possible trust in Christ can lead to a pragmatism that gives the nod to anything that results in more people in the front door. Some churches are driven by a desire to be culturally relevant, while other churches are focused on howculturally distinct they can remain. In both cases something other than the cross is capturing the attention of the congregation. Some churches are driven by social or spiritual works that, while good, begin to eclipse the point of all good works.

Gospel-centered churches do not forsake these things, but they are not driven by them. They are driven by a love for Jesus and his work on our behalf. Therefore gospel-centered churches are so focused on Jesus and the hope of redemption that they are passionate and articulate about their theology. Their desire to know and make known Jesus demands doctrinal precision and leads them to want and work toward as many people as possible repenting of sin and trusting in Christ. When the gospel is central in a church it leads them out into the world on mission, while preserving their counter-cultural character as the people of God. The gospel-centered church is driven by love (for God and others) and this leads to joyful obedience that points back to God.

In saying this I don’t want to suggest that we at Redeemer do not struggle with being issue driven. That temptation is always present, and it is why we work hard to maintain gospel-centrality by keeping the gospel always before us in our work and worship.

Helpful reading on maintaining gospel-centrality.
Gospel-Centered Life Curriculum by Bob Thune
Gospel-Centered Discipleship (Fight Clubs) by Jonathan Dodson
The Cross Centered Life by C.J. Mahaney
The Gospel for Real Life by Jerry Bridges
A Gospel Primer for Christians by Milton Vincent

Filed under: Christ-centred, Church, Discipleship, Doctrine, Gospel-centred, Missional living, The Christian Life, The Cross

10 reasons churches stall

These are the openning lines of each point from Marcus Honeysett’s excellent article. I recommend you read the whole thing here, and here.

1. The church forgets who we are and what we are for. 1 Peter says that we are a royal priesthood (who we are) for declaring God’s greatnesses to the world (what we are for)…

2. The majority of believers are no longer thrilled with the Lord and what He is doing in their lives. When questions like “what is God doing with you at the moment” cease to be common currency it is sure sign of creeping spiritual mediocrity. When a large percentage of believers are spiritually stalled, the church stalls too…

3. The people get happy with not going anywhere because of the comfort and refreshments on offer. Worse still when people get happy with activities, events, service and even good teaching and preaching but are resistant to challenges to radical living and sacrifice for the gospel…

4. When filler-Christians who have no real commitment to gospel vision out number the core of committed believers who do…

5. When a large percentage of the church are used to being passive receivers of ministry from other people rather than being active self-feeders on the Word of God…

6. No life application from the Bible. When preaching, teaching and Bible study become ends in themselves rather than means to an end, something is badly wrong. The aim of no passage of scripture is that we should simply know what it says without the knowledge translating into discipleship and worship…

7. A church becomes afraid to ask radical questions. Perhaps a pastor knows that things are foundationally wrong but knows he will be severely resisted (or sacked) if he raises the issue…

8. Confusing Christian activities with discipleship. The myriad of opportunities within and without the local church to spend time doing churchy things makes it very easy to believe that doing those activities automatically means we are growing as disciples…

9. Not understanding how to release and encourage everyone in the church to use their spiritual gifts for the building up of the church. This stall can take several different forms: the church (or the leader) that expects the leader to do everything and everyone else to do nothing…

10. Moving into maintenance mode. At some point all churches take decisions that tend towards stalling. No church was stalled at the point that it was founded. At the beginning all churches were adventures in faith and daring risk for God. No one actively decided for comfort over risk, but at some point the mindset shifted from uncomfortable faith and daring passion for the Lord to comfortable mediocrity…

Filed under: Christ our treasure, Christianity, Church, Discernment, Discipleship, Doctrine, The Christian Life, The Church, The Gospel, The word of God

DeYoung and Kluck on the Church

Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck write as guest columnists today in the Newsweek/Washington Post forum on religion. Here’s an excerpt:

Perhaps Christians are leaving the church because it isn’t tolerant and open-minded. But perhaps the church-leavers have their own intolerance too–intolerant of tradition, intolerant of authority, intolerant of imperfection except their own. Are you open-minded enough to give the church a chance–a chance for the church to be the church, not a coffee shop, not a mall, not a variety show, not Chuck E. Cheese, not a U2 concert, not a nature walk, but a wonderfully ordinary, blood-bought, Spirit-driven church with pastors, sermons, budgets, hymns, bad carpet and worse coffee?

Their book Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion is now available.

(HT: Justin Taylor)

Filed under: Church, Culture, Discernment, Doctrine, Emerging Church, Evangelical, Jesus Christ, The Bible, The Church

The Great god Entertainment

“For centuries the church stood solidly against every form of worldly entertainment, recognising it for what it was — a device for wasting time, a refuge from the disturbing voice of conscience, a scheme to divert attention from moral accountability. For this she got herself abused roundly by the sons of this world.

“But of late she has become tired of the abuse and has given over the struggle. She appears to have decided that if she cannot conquer the great god Entertainment she may as well join forces with him and make what use she can of his powers. So today we have the astonishing spectacle of millions of dollars being poured into the unholy job of providing earthly entertainment for the so-called sons of heaven. And hardly a man dares raise his voice against it.”

A.W. Tozer

(HT: Todd Pruitt)

Filed under: Church, Culture, Worldliness

Focused Preaching

There’s nothing worse than preaching which meanders. No direction, no unity, no thrust to our sermons, and soon our hearers will have no desire to listen to them! In vivid contrast, JI Packer comments on JC Ryle’s preaching:

“Ryle never just marked time, and again and again, to use his own phrases, he was able to focus his points in a few ‘picked and packed words’ that would ‘strike and stick’ His divisions were always clear (for one thing…for another thing), his headings stuck out, his down to earth illustrations and rhetorical emphasises gave a sense of the drama, the dangers, the challenges, glories, and joys of life under the hand of God.”

(In “Faithfulness and holiness”, p61 )

(HT: Colin Adams)

Filed under: Church, Evangelical, JC Ryle, JI Packer, Preaching, Quotes

Why We Love the Church

A couple of advance blurbs for Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck’s next book, Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion (due out at the end of the month):

Well, they’ve done it again. The two guys who should be emergent, but aren’t, have followed up their first best seller with what I hope and pray will be a second. In Why We Love the Church DeYoung and Kluck have given us a penetrating critique of church-less Christianity and a theologically rigorous, thoroughly biblical, occasionally hilarious, but equally serious defense of the centrality of the church in God’s redemptive purpose. In spite of her obvious flaws, DeYoung and Kluck really do love the church, because they love the Christ whose body it is. You don’t have to agree with everything they say to appreciate and profit from this superbly written and carefully constructed book. This is a great read and I recommend it with unbridled enthusiasm.
Sam Storms, senior pastor, Bridgway Church, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

If you’re looking for reality, authenticity, and honesty, you’ve found it in this book. Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck, shrewd observers and faithful practitioners, have once again written a book that is like the best of foods—good tasting and good for you. Their style is easy, creative, and funny. They are theologically faithful, fresh, and insightful. They are sympathetic with many concerns and even objections to much in the church today, yet are finally defensive, in the best sense of the word. They are careful critics of the too-popular critics of the church. They are lovers of Christ and His church. I pray this book will help you love Christ’s church better, too.
Mark Dever, author of 9 Marks of a Healthy Church

(HT: Justin Taylor)

Filed under: Books, Church, Doctrine, Evangelical, Jesus Christ, Mark Dever, Sam Storms, The Church

Speaking The Truth In Love

My thanks to Jimmy Davis for this:

“Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ….”  (Ephesians 4:15)

T. M. Moore offers insight into how to speak the truth in love:

There are two obstacles to be surmounted in learning to speak the truth in love. The first is that you must love the truth. If you do not love the truth you won’t care enough about it to learn it or to defend it when it is called into question or denied. To love the truth you must court it continually, engage it in conversation, take it into your heart and mind, yield all your life to it, speak of it often with others who love it, and thank the One Who gives us His truth. Before you begin to speak out on behalf of the truth, make sure you love it well.

The second obstacle is that you must love those to whom you would speak about the truth. If you do not love them you won’t care whether they hear the truth or not. You won’t care, either, about how you present the truth to them, and may be just as content to bash and hammer them with truth as to speak with gentleness and love. Loving those to whom you would speak of the truth can be as difficult as loving the truth. Both take time and effort and a constant line of communication to our loving Lord. But both these obstacles can be overcome.

And think of the gain in overcoming them: the joy of truth day by day as we wait upon the Lord in His Word; the excitement of talking with other truth-lovers and reinforcing and edifying one another in truth; and the adventure and utter delight of helping those who do not know the truth begin, at the very least, to glimpse it at last.

Begin by loving the truth, and the truth will teach you to love others, and to be the bearer of truth to them, in love.

Help me, Lord, to love Your truth and to love those to whom I would proclaim it.

[HT:  T. M. Moore's daily email devotional Crossfigell. You can sign up to receive this devotional at www.myparuchia.com.]

Filed under: Biblical exposition, Church, Discipleship, Doctrine, Evangelical, Love, The Christian Life, The word of God, Truth