For years I've been convinced that the best preaching is expository where the preacher's objective is to preach directly from a specific text of Scripture. The task for the preacher is to first attempt to understand what the scripture meant to the original readers and then, using that information, determine what the message is for today. The final step is to decide how to best communicate that message in the sermon. It certainly is not the easiest way to preach, but I feel the process builds in a certain amount of controls so that what is preached is in fact "the word of God" and not simply some good ideas with a few passages of scripture tacked on.
My goal with each sermon is not so much to give neat and tidy answers to the difficult questions of life, as it is to cause people to think. After wrestling with a text all week it is almost a relief to hand it off to others to roll it around in their minds for awhile. One of the greatest compliments I hear in preaching is for someone to say, "I haven't been able to stop thinking about the passage you preached last Sunday."
The sermon this morning, with it's contrast between thinking as a natural individual and thinking as a spiritual individual in the natural world, is just such a sermon. My hope is that by wrestling with this concept God's spirit will help each of us see practical ways he desires us to live in the natural world as a person full of his Spirit.
2 comments:
If people who are trapped in worldly thinking can't understand spiritual things, how do you ever get them to move over to the spiritual realm?
That is a mystery which can only be solved by the Holy Spirit of God. Our job is not to "get them to move" but to present the word of truth, the message of the Gospel; both in how we live and what we say. The Lord is the one who opens people's eyes, apparently as one submits to him. In Acts 16 Lydia sat listening to the presentation of the Gospel and "the Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message." I am not of the school of thought that believes one is zapped into believing whether they want to or not. By listening with an open heart and mind Lydia allowed the Holy Spirit to do his miraculous work in her conversion.
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