First Corinthians and Other Goodies

This is my 300th post.

I haven't posted links to sermons in a long time, so I will have to play catch up.

You can hear my sermons on The Sower, The Mustard Seed and the Leaven, and the Wheat and the Tares here. That finished out our summer series on the Parables of Jesus. It was a great series, but I'm glad its over.

Gary and I have started a new series on 1 Corinthians. A few weeks ago I taught on 1 Corinthians 1:10–17. I opened by recounting the sad story of a recent church split in Florida, and then we talked about what the passage had to say about dividing versus trying to maintain unity. We are called to divide from those who teach error. But we are also called to maintain unity in the church.

At Believers Fellowship, we appreciate diversity within the body of Christ. We are united with all of those who affirm the Nicene Creed, and separate from those who don't. We have beliefs beyond what is written in the creeds. We cherish these beliefs--they make us who we are. But we recognize that these beliefs are not bases for division.

Find the 1 Corinthians series here.

The Parables

Two more of my parables have been uploaded to the church's website. You can listen here. My latest additions are the Parable of the Sower and the Parables of the Mustard Seed and Leaven.

In related news, I think I might try to turn the parables (and the one that I am doing on October 4th) into a book. This was not my original plan, but I have been encouraged by many people to do it.

One change that I will have to make is adding longer explanations. In the sermons I only spent about five minutes explaining the parables, but in the book I would expand these sections to be as long as the parables themselves. I think I will divide the book up into an introduction, conclusion and five sections. Each section would be on a topic and would consist of two chapters--a parable and an explanation. Here are the titles of the sections, all related to the kingdom of God:

I. Good News (The Parable of Great Banquet)

II. Awaiting Redemption (October 4th Parable)

III. Transformation (The Parable of the Good Samaritan)

IV. Faith (The Parable of the Sower)

V. Grace (The Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard)

The Parable of the Mustard Seed would go in the introduction.

What Is Good Preaching?

I’ve been forced to reflect lately on what “good preaching” is. It’s funny how two people can talk to me after a sermon—one saying, “that sermon was your best ever” and the other saying, “that sermon was fruitless.” What is good preaching? What makes a sermon good? Here are some things to consider: (by the way, don't read into the picture placement)

1. How much does delivery matter? Most people prefer a good speaker to a bad one. Can we justify this? Jonathan Edwards read most of his sermons, and he is considered by many to be the greatest American preacher of all time. Paul contrasted himself to Apollos and said that his inferior oratory skills meant that his sermons depended on the power of God for success (1 Cor 2:1–5). On the other hand, Paul may have been speaking tongue-in-cheek in 1 Corinthians. It is highly doubtful that Paul was a poor rhetorician. His speeches in Acts are fantastic, and his epistles are well thought-out and argued.
   
   
   
2. How much does interpretation matter? Can a good sermon misinterpret a text? If you speak truth, but from the wrong text, can your sermon be good? If you’re a Calvinist, are all Arminian sermons therefore bad preaching? If you’re post-mil, are all Dispensationalists bad preachers? Can a non-trinitarian sermon be good? (I’ll answer that last one—“no.”)
   
   
   
3. How much does the preacher matter? We see high-profile preachers fall all of the time. The inconsistency of their lifestyles and their message destroys the credibility of their sermons. Are all of their sermons, therefore, bad preaching? I heard John Piper give a sermon on evangelism in which he admitted up front that he was not a good evangelist and therefore this sermon was hard for him to give. He said he was convicted by his own words but that he just wanted to be faithful to what the Bible said. If he wasn’t living his message, was that a bad sermon?
   
   
   
4. How much does style matter Does a sermon have to be expository (going through the Bible verse-by-verse), or is there room for topical preaching (say, on parenting, or worship, or evangelism, or money)? Do we have biblical examples of either of these? Does a sermon have to be christocentric (i.e. about Jesus), or can we preach on behavior? Do we have examples from the Bible? If I am preaching on Paul’s command to “Flee sexual immorality,” do I have to preach about Jesus, or can I preach about sexual immorality and the reasons we should flee it (as long as my reasons are theological)?
   
   
   
5. How much does the audience’s response matter? The purpose of a sermon is to change lives. If lives aren’t changed, was the sermon a dud? If the audience hated your sermon, was it bad? If they loved it, was it good?
   
   
   
6. How much does context matter? Does a good sermon have to happen in church? Can you get good preaching in a chapel or at a conference? Were the Billy Graham crusades good preaching?



7. How much does relevance matter? Does a sermon have to be contextually relevant? Isn't the Bible timeless?
   
   
8. What does it mean to “Preach the Word”?
   
   
9. What other factors should be taken into account?

The Parable of the Great Banquet

Gary and I are in the midst of a sermon series on the parables of Jesus. On July 26th, I taught on the Parable of the Great Banquet.

My approach to the parables has been different than what you typically hear in church. Instead of preaching a sermon about the meaning of the parables, I have rewritten them in contemporary settings. I'm not going to use this approach forever (it takes a lot longer than writing a sermon), but it has been a lot of fun to do for the parables.

You can listen to the Parable of the Great Banquet here.

The Parable of the Good Samaritan

Gary and I are in a series on the Parables of Jesus. On June 28th, I taught on the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Afterward, several people independently told me, "I will never forget that sermon." No one has ever said that to me about anything else I have ever said. Someone else told me, "That sermon made me SO mad . . . in a good way."

I am trying something different with this sermon series--instead of doing my traditional three points and a poem at the end, I have rewritten the parables for modern ears. It just kind of makes sense to me to explain a story with a story. It's different (and it's not something I will do forever), but I like it.

You can listen to it, my sermon on the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, or any of the other sermons in the series here.

The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard

Gary and I have started a new sermon series on the parables of Jesus. Gary started us off with three weeks on The Parable of the Prodigal Son, and I followed with a sermon on The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard. You can listen here.

I really enjoyed this sermon. As I reflected on how to preach a parable, I kept coming back to how much of a parable's "punch" is tied to the medium of a story. By changing the medium from story to sermon, we diminish the power of the passage. So, instead of preaching a sermon, I thought I would tell a story.

For this sermon I wrote an original 5,000 word short story and I read it. There is a short introduction and a short conclusion, followed by the reading of Matthew 20:1–16, upon which the story is based.

Life Entwined 1--Connecting to God

On Sunday, April 26th I taught the first message in our new series called Life Entwined: Weaving the Branches of Faith. At Believers Fellowship, we believe that there are three branches to the Christian faith: Connecting to God, Living in Community, and Engaging the World. These three branches cannot be separated and they are not a series. You cannot have one without the other two. The series is about weaving together the three branches.

We are going to do this series every year. Last year Gary did "Connecting to God" and I did "Living in Community" and "Engaging the World." This year we switched.

I spoke from Romans 8:12–17 on "connecting to God by the Holy Spirit." You can listen here.

Generations Sermon 3

Last week, I preached the third and last sermon in a series we called Generations. In it, we celebrated the generational diversity at our church.

Most churches today target specific demographics. They either have old school worship for the fogies or modern stuff for the whipper-snappers. As a result, everyone in the church looks the same--either all old with no kids or all young with no seniors. Neither of these situations is ideal. In his book, Jesus Wants to Save Christians, Rob Bell says something like "The church is the place where two kinds of blue-haired people, old women and young men, can coexist in peace" (paraphrase). That should be the case. Churches need the energy and passion of youth and the wisdom and experience of elders.

In the Generations series, we looked at the benefits and challenges of a multi-generational church. Gary taught the first two messages (an intro and a message to the older people) and I did the third message (to the young people). I spoke from 1 Timothy 4 on the need for leaders among the younger generation.

You can listen here.