Gospel-Focused Sermon Preparation

The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.

Sam Allberry
Suddenly a penny dropped while I was on an aisle 18 or whatever it is. And I suddenly found myself actually choking up in the middle of Kroger because I suddenly realized something I hadn’t noticed before in the passage and I just saw something of, of Jesus in that text I hadn’t seen before, which touched me and overwhelmed me. But it’s often while I’m doing something else, and it’s just percolating in my mind that those insights then come.

Ray Ortlund
Out Welcome back to your not crazy gospel Saturday for young pastors. I’m Ray ortlund. I’m with my friend, Sam alberi. Hey, right. And we’re going to think now about sermon preparation and gospel culture preaching is the ministry of Word and Sacrament lies at the center of pastoral ministry. We have the privilege of even in our fallibility, to some imperfect, but real degree, being the voice of Christ himself into the world today, gathering sinners to his heart. What an amazing privilege. We want to do this well. So in this episode, Sam, let’s link the ministry of preaching with the nurturing of gospel culture and and think through together, think out loud with our friends listening, how can we preach in such a way as to nurture, develop, and make even more beautiful, the reality of gospel culture in our churches? What are some thoughts that you have?

Sam Allberry
Yeah, well, the first thing is, what are we asking the Lord to do? As we prepare our sermons and as we stand up to give our sermons what I what I pray for has shifted over the years, I’ve always prayed that I’d be faithful that God would use it the corporate speak. But now I find myself praying for more than that, which is I want people to, to see and revel in the beauty of Jesus. I want, I want us to be wowed by him. And so I’m praying the Lord would help us do that. As I start preparing, and as I, as you stand up and give the sermon that something in this would help us find fresh ways to, to love Jesus.

Ray Ortlund
So you see yourself on a growth and change trajectory through the years in your preaching ministry.

Sam Allberry
Yes, I look back over past sermons, and almost always, I have the same verdict, which is too much exegesis, too little Jesus, I’m doing too much just explaining the text, and not enough proclaiming Christ. And those two are not, you know, completely unrelated, obviously. But yes, I’ve think in in the past, I would spend too much time simply going through exegetical observations, and insights, which have their place in art are useful and can be interesting. But aren’t necessarily presenting Jesus, I think of what Paul says in Galatians three verse one about was not Christ, portrayed as crucified. And I think it’s because Paul had a kind of Pictionary, whiteboard and was drawing pictures of Jesus on the cross. There was something in Paul’s preaching of the Gospel where people could see in their mind’s eye, Jesus, and His giving of himself for them. And so that’s, that’s what I’m gunning for. Now. That’s what I’m longing for in my sermons is that people would see Jesus remember stepping into the pulpit of my home church for the very first time preaching my first ever sermon. Notice that little inscription on the pulpit that said, Sir, we would see Jesus, which I think is from the book of Acts.

Ray Ortlund
That is the very way in which my own preaching has changed the most over the years. I actually, Sam, I’m grieved. When I look at the first early years of my preaching, I didn’t understand what preaching was for. I thought I was there to challenge Christians to be better Christians to coach them and upping their game as Christian believers. And I, I didn’t actually cross the line into scolding. Some of us pastors do at times and we have no right to do that. But I am embarrassed and grieved at the preaching And that I sincerely gave myself to I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t realize what I was doing. I was helping people upgrade themselves. And I was doing an expositionally from scripture, and therefore it seemed self reinforcing. But now, the authority of Scripture, the message of Scripture, I understand to be exactly what you’ve said, it is for the presentation of Christ, in His perfect obedience, replacing our shoddy obedience, and His atoning death, replacing our self punishments. And Jesus, in His grace and glory, Jesus himself made vividly real to people, as had to be the case when Paul said Christ was presented to you. If I can now a successful meaningful sermon that I can praise God and rejoice over is one in which Jesus is made obvious. And I am enjoying the very proclamation of Christ, because he’s being made obvious. Yeah. And I can tell in the congregation and the people, there’s a quietness that settles upon them. And they’re hanging on every word, not because of my rhetoric, not because of my exegesis. But because they’re connecting with the risen Christ Himself, He is there. We deeply longed to preach that way. It’s a different kind of preaching.

Sam Allberry
It is I’ve mentioned in the past, I won’t dwell on it now. But in Ephesians, 217, Paul says that Christ came and preached peace to you who are far off in peace to, to those who are near. So in Paul’s preaching of Christ, Christ was preaching Christ. And that’s, that’s, you know, I know that’s a thing. I don’t ever want anything less than that. Yeah.

Ray Ortlund
We are not in the pulpit, to form our own sort of brand for articulating the gospel that everybody knows. Oh, that’s Ray Portland’s message that Sam Albury his message? How contemptible Yeah, who do we think we are? We preach not ourselves. But Christ crucified, Paul said. And of course, in Romans chapter 10, this verse blows my mind, how then? Will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him? Of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? Now this is this concatenation of, of conditions that have to be set up for people to to lay hold of Christ Himself. And so and we preachers are a part of that process, that it’s a great privilege. But the second question of the three, and how are they to believe in Him, of whom they have never heard? Actually, that’s not the best translation. The verb to hear a Kuo in the New Testament does not take an accusative direct object. It takes a genitive direct object. So when you have a Kuo with an object in the genitive, it’s not here of him. But it’s here him for example, in the narrative of the Transfiguration in the gospels, when the Father above says, This is My beloved Son, listen to him. Hear him, it’s a Kuo with the genitive case. That’s the grammar here in Romans 10, verse 14, so the translation should say, and how are they to believe in Him, whom they have never heard. It is essential for Christian belief to spread through the world, the essential condition is that people would hear him. That’s real preaching, because this is in a context of preaching.

Sam Allberry
And it lifts it from being mere instruction, which is no bad thing. We like instruction, we need instruction, but it preaching is meant to be so much more than that. It’s not just data transfer. Here’s some here’s some more theology to stick inside your skull. It’s wanting people to encounter Jesus Himself.

Ray Ortlund
Yes. Of course, my dad was the best preacher I’ve ever heard hands down, and he had a God given way and it was also in that upper middle class church there in California. Socially acceptable, not embarrassing, had a God given socially acceptable way to preach Christ such show that the Lord Himself was present, it was as if my dad was reaching out and taking the hand of the listener and gently acceptably, putting that person’s hand into the hand of Christ Himself in preaching, not a one on one counseling session. I’ve never seen that anywhere else in any other ministry. But God gave my dad that ability. And it seemed to me, apostolic. That was happening in the first century. And of course, it’s happening wonderfully today. It’s just that I’m saying, I, as a preacher, I want to get in on that. Yeah. That’s how I want to preach.

Sam Allberry
So how do we get from that aspiration? How do we how do we get from A to B? So that’s what we long for now. That’s, that’s the vision the Lord has given us. That’s what we want to see happening. But it’s Monday morning, I’ve got a new text to preach for the following Sunday. How do we get to that? What do we do?

Ray Ortlund
Well, let’s think about study preparation, and ramping up for Sunday morning, Sunday morning ministry. How do you do that? Sam?

Sam Allberry
I’m doing it at the moment. I’m preaching this Sunday. So I’m in the midst of this, this process myself, I and being a preacher, I’ve alliterated. This, I have different stages of sermon preparation. The first is discovery. So I’m just in the passage and just seeing stuff, noticing stuff, I’m not pressuring myself yet to have a message, I’m just discovering all the gems that are in there, running around the place and looking at everything. I’m at the moment, in between stages two and three, which is deliberation and design. So deliberation is I’m trying to think through what is all this stuff on noticing? What does it mean? What’s its what’s its message? What am I meant to be thinking about? What is it what is the text drawing my attention, my attention to design then is okay, I need to think through how to how to plan and structure, a sermon such that I now have a sense of, okay, this is the message. And this is the way to convey that message. And then obviously delivering said sermon, both in terms of writing the message and then getting ready to stand up and actually preach it. So those are those are my four DS, Discovery, Deliberation, design, delivery. Throughout all of it, we need dependence on the Lord. So at the moment, I’m in Mark 1013 to 16. And I’m noticing some amazing things about Jesus in the text. But I haven’t yet assembled those different things I’ve noticed into a Okay, so this is the message. And this is going to be the shape of the sermon. That’s, that’s tomorrow’s job.

Ray Ortlund
And we believe that even as the Holy Spirit is in the preaching moment, the Holy Spirit is also in preparation. Yeah. So we respect preparation.

Sam Allberry
Yeah. Paul says in, in one of the letters to Timothy, reflect on what I’m saying, and the Lord will give you insight into this. That’s both and isn’t it? We do we are meant to reflect we’re meant to spend time lingering over scripture. And as we do say, we pray the Lord would give us insight we don’t assume. Unless the Lord gives me instant insight, I’ve got nothing else to do, you know, that sometimes we have to spend a lot of time with a text to get the insight but we we have to both use our our minds and the faculties God has given us and be prayerfully dependent on him to give us the that inner understanding.

Ray Ortlund
And we want to respect the people such that we want to bring to the to them on Sunday morning. Something that has been thought through carefully responsibly. It’s not only out of reverence toward the Lord, but out of respect for the people. We’re not inviting them into church so that they can waste their time on something that is slept ash in our part.

Sam Allberry
Yeah, I, I can’t remember I’ve mentioned this or not, right. But I grew up with a very significant fear of public speaking. And I’m really grateful for that, because it was not natural or intuitive for me to become a preacher, you know, would have been the last thing I would have wanted to have done. But I since that was what the Lord had for me to do that it had been confirmed in various ways. For the first time in my life, I actually had something I wanted to say in front of other people. Yes, but that fear meant that I never presumed I’ve just got the gift of the gab. I can just stand up in front of people and I’ll always be scintillating, and, you know, captivating to people. I actually can’t stand up in front of you Unless, unless I believe I have something for them to hear good for you. So I’m grateful for that fear because it’s made me think I don’t have the gift of the gab. I used to wish I did. I’m really glad now I don’t. Because it could easily make me lazy. I’ve, I’ve heard preachers who are spellbinding to listen to but on the Monday morning, I can’t remember a thing they said. And that’s a danger. So I’m glad I don’t have that natural smalti kind of charismatic, kind of gifting because it means I actually, I want to have, I want to have a clear message. Monday morning for the saints that are manual that I believe the Lord has given me to preach to them

Ray Ortlund
very good. I, I’ve got several words, not alliterated. So but here they are one digging. And the we’re going to talk in a moment about the crossway scripture journals that they so wonderfully produced, that would be a great tool for the digging,

Sam Allberry
you can scribble all over them. And that’s right, make all kinds of myths. And I

Ray Ortlund
get up my Greek New Testament, I get up my Hebrew Bible, I get out, you know, more than one translation, I’ve got a pad, I do this old school, you know, I actually write it out. And I just dig into the text, I want to understand everything, and I thoroughly enjoy that spadework in the tech sector. So that’s first, secondly, waiting. And here I’m talking about the intervals between those study times, I leave my study, go to a meeting, I leave my study, to go take a walk with my wife, I leave my study to do other things. But when I have really engaged mentally, and then I’m involved in the other activities of life, my mind is not standing still, my mind is mulling over the passage, even during these intervals when I’m doing other things so that when I come back for my second chunk of study time, I find as I begin, I’m even further down the road. Yeah, then when I left off at the last time, and I’m seeing new things I saw, I’m scribbling like mad, writing down these, these, these new insights that I’ve gained while waiting,

Sam Allberry
I really resonate with that array I, I was in Kroger yesterday, I’d spent a lot of time in the text at my desk prata wanted to go out run some errands, and I suddenly a penny dropped while I was on an oil 18 or whatever it is. And I suddenly found myself actually choking up in the middle of Kroger because I suddenly realized something I hadn’t noticed before in the passage, and I just saw something of, of Jesus in that text I hadn’t seen before, and which touched me and overwhelmed me. But it’s often while I’m doing something else, and it’s just percolating in my mind that those insights then come,

Ray Ortlund
which is why if we’re going to give, say eight hours, in preparation for a Sunday morning sermon, it’s better not to spend eight consecutive hours on a Saturday, but for two hour, chunks of time throughout the week, you’ll get way further down the road, in terms of understanding and insight and satisfaction. So digging, secondly, waiting thirdly, obviously writing. And I manuscript, my sermons, it’s a bad habit, but I’m too old to change. Writing I want, I really care about every word, I want to, I want to say things and in such a way that I don’t give the impression this passage is what you basically heard last week in the other passage, but this passage has something to say, that is unique in Scripture, and it’s special. So writing, and that’s careful. And then that it’s very careful writing then refining. I come back to it and I rewrite it, I rewrite it and I rewrite it and partly because I’m compulsive, and then finally so I go, I preach, and then finally resting. Because I’m going to preach again the next Sunday, and I need to rest. Right? That’s so important. On top of that, yeah, it’s part of the preaching ministry is not preaching, but resting. And when we’re resting, I have found Sam, especially on a Sunday afternoon or Monday, something in me, I just collapse. I and I feel defeated. I feel like a failure. I feel stupid, and various forms of despair. And what I’ve come to realize and I can’t remember now who it was there was a very fine lecturer at Fuller Seminary, who wrote books on stress in ministry and so forth. He said when that’s happening in a post ministry, sag of your spirit, your adrenal gland And is drawing upon your body replenishing itself for the next big push. Yeah. And you’re feeling sad and depleted because your body is working. It’s a good thing that’s happening. And it’s not as though if you were just more spiritual, you wouldn’t feel this letdown. But, but God has designed you in such a way that you need rest. Go ahead and accept it, and realize God is getting you ready for the next big push. So resting is a part of that.

Sam Allberry
I’m struck as well, he mentioned rewriting as a stage and pull that two things. I think Paul most often asks people to pray for him. One is that he would speak clearly. And the second is that he would speak boldly. But it’s interesting that he asks repeatedly for people to pray that he would preach clearly. He puts a high premium on that. And I find ray that I probably spend longer rewriting than I do writing. Yes, because what I’m aiming for then is it takes me one, one, swing just to try and figure out what I’m saying. It takes me many more swings, to figure out how to say it as well as

Ray Ortlund
well done, well done. It’s easy to be trite and predictable. And people tune us out. Yeah, we actually lose an opportunity. But to be to borrow a phrase from Pastor TJ Tim’s to be category busting. Yes. That takes revising. And careful thought, Okay, let’s come back to these crossway scripture journals, Sam crossway sponsors that you’re not crazy podcast. And we really appreciate everybody there at crossway books, the Scripture journals, how can they be useful to pastors?

Sam Allberry
I mean, in so many ways, right? We’ve mentioned one already, which is that they can be great for sermon preparation for scribbling all over the text and circling things, looking at connections and that kind of stuff. They can be useful to give to the congregation. We’ve done this at Emanuel a couple of times, if we’ve had a particular sermon series, we’ve managed to give everyone in the congregation, the Scripture Journal of that book of the Bible, as a way of encouraging people to sort of read through the text themselves and make notes and so on. I use them in one to one sessions, there’s a younger Christian I was going through Mark’s gospel with so it was just easier to buy him a scripture journal, got one for myself, and we would both go through it and sort of jot down insights and that kind of thing. And I use them just in my own devotional life, working through Song of Songs at the moment. And I I wanted to use the Scripture journal because there’s certain things I want to I do sometimes right in my Bible, but I’m, I can be a little bit more kind of crazy when it comes to the Scripture journals. And it gives me more space to, to write down things and to, to circle things and just to play around with it.

Ray Ortlund
The reason why crossway did the Scripture journals is the foundation of it the confidence is the Bible does not suppress thinking, the Bible or rouses thinking. So when we have the margins and the lines on the facing page, and the spaces between the lines on the text pages of where that gives us plenty of opportunity to satisfy the desire to engage thoughtfully with the text to press into it, to to dare to meet this challenge of thinking, thinking thinking and to record the thoughts that are being aroused within us the insights we’re gaining and so forth. Were like pirates opening up this vast treasure chest and running our fingers through all these coins and jewels and so forth.

Sam Allberry
That’s such a lovely way of putting it there’s something unique about the Bible in that regard, isn’t there we we assume when we read the Bible, we’re going to need some space to park some some profound thoughts. Okay, we don’t have that format when we buy a novel at the airport to read on the plane doesn’t have blank pages because well, we’re gonna want to really write down some profound thoughts. We assume we will need that with the Bible.

Ray Ortlund
Yeah. So this the Scripture journalists from crossway killer. Thanks, guys. God bless.

TGC
You’re not crazy is a podcast for the gospel coalition, hosted by Ray ortlund and Sam all very produced and edited by Andrew Parra. Check out more podcasts shows from [email protected] forward slash podcasts.