Mark 1: Expositional Preaching

9 Marks of a healthy church. These are by no means the only points to look at when evaluating a church, but these are definitely 9 very important points.

They came from 9 Marks website. I would strongly encourage everyone to go through all 9 points on their website. There is much more detailed information that everyone should know when looking at a church. Also, if your staying at the church your at, how does your church handle these 9 points? Can it do better at these points? How can these points be initiated in a church that needs correction in these areas? What are the benefits of following these 9 Marks?

Here is the overview of Mark 1: Expositional Preaching

Why don't we just quit preaching? Considering the widespread popularity of engaging anecdotes and vivid vignettes, wouldn't it be more effective to simply tell a few captivating stories on Sunday Morning? And why think specifically about expositional preaching - that brand so often associated with excruciating boredom and half-empty pews? In our fast paced society of sports tickers and sound bite infotainment, can we really expect anyone to have the patience for a serious exposition of an ancient text? In an age that has developed a pungent distaste for the exclusivity of religious truth, how can the authoritative tone of expositional preaching hold any promise at all? In a voyeuristic culture inundated with glossy magazines and risqué sitcoms, maybe pastors would be wise to modernize - quit the text-centered approach and accommodate to our culture's predilection for the visual. So… what do you think? Why preach?

The purveyors of technique in today's marketplace of ideas cringe to think that anyone would still be lauding the sermon as an effective pitch. Times have changed. Truth itself has changed. What communicates to the postmodern mind is narrative, journey, epic, vignette; not linear arguments, objective conclusions, or exclusive truth claims. The days of expounding the meaning and implications of a text are long gone. Meaning, like beauty, is now in the eye of the beholder. Universally binding morality is thereby supposed to be a mere myth, and so the authority of the preached Word of God is brushed aside as obsolete. Winning the culture means playing on their new field. So we are told.

But God's Word has something to say about what we preach and how we preach it. What you'll find on the following pages is a brief Biblical rationale for the primacy of expositional preaching in the local church. But that's not all. You'll also find some practical resources to encourage and facilitate the continuing development and increasing fruitfulness of your own expositional ministry. We'll even walk you through the sermon preparation process. Learn what expositional preaching really is (and is not), and discover the difference between expositional sermons and other kinds of sermons. Learn how you can plan for feeding people a healthy diet of expositional meals months ahead of time, and thereby free yourself from worrying about what to preach on this week. Download audio samples of expositional preaching at its best. Hear Mark Dever's topical sermon on expositional preaching from the seminal 9Marks sermon series. Listen to Mark's lecture for pastors on expositional preaching. Print out learning guides and study tools that will help you mine the riches of the Word for yourself. And when you've got something of a handle on it….build it all into your younger guys. You ready? Let's get to it.

Benefits for the Pastor

 Releases the pastor from Saturday Night Fever - the dreaded dilemma of what text to preach tomorrow morning. 

Increases the likelihood of the pastor preaching the whole counsel of God over time.

Increases the pastor's command of the Word by forcing him to study difficult or often-neglected texts for himself.

Increases the Word's command of the pastor by giving him a broader exposure to the probing sword of Scripture, deepening his continued repentance and faith, incrementally increasing his knowledge of God, and therefore enhancing his Spirit-produced ability to please God in every way (Heb 11:6; Col 1:9-12).

Increases the pastor's God-given prophetic authority in the pulpit by grounding his preaching in the divinely intended meaning of the text.


Increases the pastor's God-given blessing in the pulpit by remaining faithful to the intention of the One who sent him to preach a specific message.




Increases the trustworthiness of the pastor's preaching in the eyes of the congregation.

Benefits for the Congregation

The congregation is released from slavery to the preacher's hobbyhorse texts and topics.

The applicational intention of the text is released to do its creating, convicting, converting, and conforming work in their lives.

Increases their knowledge of God and His word by broadening their exposure to all the different parts of Scripture.

Increases their trust in the inspiration, inerrancy, clarity, and sufficiency of Scripture.

Increases their trust in the pastor's preaching and teaching.

Decreases their likelihood of being deceived by false teaching.

Functions for them as a responsible model of personal Bible study.

I see some huge benefits in these points for any church wanting acurate, sound Biblical doctrine!

For the Kingdom

Fruit of the Spirit

Ignorance is not a spiritual fruit

For the Kingdom

Lion of Judah

“Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. ‘He that will lose his life, the same shall save it,’ is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers. It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill book. This paradox is the whole principle of courage; even quite earthly or quite brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will risk it on the precipice. He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine…”

G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Spiritual Warfare - Part 3 of 3

2 Corinthians 10:4 & 5 - for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,(NASB)

So the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh,
But divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.
AWESOME... So what is it? What is this secret? This key for destroying strongholds?

We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God. AND we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

This verse talks about spiritual warfare being a knowledge and persuation enterprise, and Paul is saying the way to defeat darkness is to persuade with the truth.

So for us as followers of Christ, we need to engage ambassadorship with our minds. We need to learn techniques to cast down those speculations and apply them in our everyday encounters. I'm not talking about winning the world, going out and making spectacles of yourselves. I'm talking about just simply being prepared, as we should, for those people God brings into our lives.

So take some initiative to become trained! Study the Word. Know why you believe what you believe. And continue to pray for the Grace from God to do so.

------------------------------------
Most of the thoughts and comments from Parts 1,2, and 3 come from "The Student Survival Kit" by Stand To Reason.

I highly recommend this series and also "Decision Making and the Will of God" which I have links to in my sidebar.
------------------------------------

I love you all

WWJD - Part 2 of 3

Many people have the bracelets that say WWJD- What Would Jesus Do. I think this is all-in-all a great think, but I can't help but wonder; How are you to know what Jesus would do, if you have NO idea of what Jesus DID??

We must be students of the gospel. In order to have knowledge of the subject matter for effectiveness; we must study the Bible. If you think "What Would Jesus Do" in a situation and say to yourself, "He'd probably be nice, kind, sweet and accepting." Then you only know part of the truth. Jesus many times wasn't nice, kind, sweet and accepting. He over turned tables and called people vipers, thieves and snakes. A nice, kind, sweet and accepting Christ would never have found himself on a cross.

So knowledge is a very important issue when being an ambassador. Knowledge is also very important in every day decisions. When faced with a WWJD moment- if you don't know what Jesus did and therefore you don't really know what Jesus would do, what are you left with? Your own conscience and desires. Which have been proven faulty and sinful many times over.

So be encouraged to dig into the Word and understand the character of Christ.

I love you all

Ambassadors - Part 1 of 3

2 Corinthians 5:20 -
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

So we are ambassadors. An ambassador stands inbetween the people being spoken to and the sovereign, so that the words being spoken are to be as if they come directly from the sovereign.

That strikes me HARD! As I look at this verse, I realize that I maybe the only Living Bible that anyone every gets to see!
....EVER. My example! I believe that I (we all) need to be MORE intentional in our ambassadorship for Christ in our everyday life!

So what characteristics does a good ambassador have?

1- Knowledgeable- They must have at the very minimum the basic knowledge of the subject matter.
2- Message- They should be able to give a powerful message, a powerful, persuasive message.
3- Character- They must live a good character. If some one is a drunkard, a womanizer, mean or just plain rude. Then their knowledge and delivery won't do much good. They won't be effective.

We need all three to be effective. So I would like to challenge everyone living for Christ to set NEW goals. Set them higher. Purpose to be better examples, more knowledgeable and more persuasive. And then above all, pray for the grace to do so... because only the grace from God will give us the ability to do this.

And don't give up at the first stumble. Growth takes time. And when we fall, we need to learn to get back up, to make it part of the dance... cause we don't fall back to zero, the beginning or back to being new babes again. Only back a little, cause our foundation is growing ever higher and stronger with Christ in us.

I love you all

If you stumble,
Make it part of the dance!