Preaching My Word vs. The Word (Part 1)

Last week I was asked to teach a preaching class for Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary's extension in Greer, SC. The instructor is a dear friend of mine, and I was honored for the opportunity to share with the students. One of the topics I was given to speak on was: "Text-Driven vs. Agenda-Driven Preaching." Doesn't that sound riveting?

Actually, I think this is a hugely important subject for pastors to consider. Whether we are aware of it or not, as preachers we are tempted to craft a sermon around our personal agenda rather than around the Scripture that we are preaching. It is possible that our sermons are shaped more by what we want to say than what the Scripture says. In other words, we often times study a passage and think, "How does this passage let me say what I've been wanting to say? How do these verses let me 'share my heart' about something going on in the church? How can this sermon really rebuke some people that need to be rebuked? How can I use this sermon to move people to do what I need them to do so that our church will change?"

Every preacher has done this. There are times that the Scripture absolutely confronts us with a particular issue or need that we are facing as a local faith community. There are times that we as pastors need to speak "prophetically" to a problem or sin or deficiency in the lives of the people that we are serving. But those moments should naturally flow out of the text we are preaching. It should be the clear application of the text or passage. So, it is not always wrong to apply the message of the text to a particular situation that is going on in the life of the church.

But, more often than not, we are tempted to start the sermon with a particular situation in mind rather than starting with a clean sheet of paper in our study. Thus, we are apt to take a passage, and instead of exposing the message of the text we use it to expose the message we wanted to talk about. Instead of allowing the Holy Spirit to help us put together a text-driven sermon, we allow our flesh to craft a personal agenda-driven sermon. We have all crossed the line between preaching the Word into preaching "my" word. Why does this happen?

There are several reasons for this:

[1]  You may be frustrated with the condition of the ministry. Maybe the church isn't growing as you had hoped. Maybe it is hard to get people to step up and lead. Maybe your are discouraged by what you sense to be a lack of support. When it's time to write the sermon, your mind is burdened by what you feel is a deficiency in the ministry, and amazingly, the text you choose to preach addresses it!

[2]  You may be frustrated with complainers. Every pastor has had to deal with those who express displeasure over all sorts of things--the music, the temperature, the youth group, and just about anything that happens in the church. When you sit down to think through your sermon, your mind is consumed with those who have been particularly active in the complain department.

[3]  You may be frustrated with critics. There is a difference between complainers and those who openly criticize us as pastors. The conversation shifts from "I don't like this" to "I don't like you." It is really easy in the midst of feeling criticism to want to strike back, and sometimes the best way we think we can do this is with the sermon. It is crazy in those times how the verses we are studying present the perfect opportunity to blast those who have been blasting us!

[4]  You may be frustrated with challenges to your vision/mission. Perhaps people have left the church. Ideas that you want to act on, that you believe will move the church forward, are still lingering in committee discussions. Maybe the deacons have too many questions about something in your vision that seems so simple. People want to "go back to Egypt," so to speak, rather than march into the Promised Land that you are trying to lead them to.

Did you notice a common word in all those reasons? Frustrated.

Whenever our preaching ministry is coming from a place of frustration, then it is likely that our sermons, our messages, are not shaped supremely by the Word, but by our desire to alleviate our frustration in some way. We start with our idea, our frustration, our desire to say something rather than starting with the text. Thus, we wind up shaping the sermon around our agenda rather than around God's agenda for His church. Sometimes in our preaching it is hard to tell the difference between the two, and that can be quite detrimental to both pastor and people.

In the next few posts I want to discuss some indicators that you might be driven by agenda fueled preaching, as well as point out some guardrails that will keep us from driving off the path of text-driven preaching. But for now, if you are a pastor, simply ask yourself this question: "What drives my preaching? What shapes my sermons? Do I start with the text, or my agenda? What captures my mind when I am studying--my dissatisfaction with my ministry, the people, etc., or my satisfaction with Him?"

Joy and Agony of Preaching

I have no idea how many sermons I have preached in my 30 years of ministry. There is no way for me to figure out how many hours of my life have been spent studying, reading, listening, and writing in order to preach those sermons. What I do know is that every week of my life as a pastor, preaching is both my greatest joy and my greatest agony.

It is my greatest joy because nothing really compares to the satisfaction of hearing God speak in His word, of having the Holy Spirit illuminate the truths of Scripture, and of having the honor of standing before God's people and to proclaim the glorious Word of God. There is something powerful and joyful that happens when God's people gather to hear God's Word. Each Sunday morning when I rise to preach, I open my sermon by saying, "Take your Bibles and turn to..." Then I hear the rustling of pages turning from passage to passage, and I look into the faces of dozens of trophies of grace, and I watch the saints nod in worshipful agreement with the text, and I get to witness the eyes of the blind opened by the Spirit through the work of the Word. How can this not be a great joy to me?

I agree with John Bunyan, who said of preaching in his autobiography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners: "...my heart hath been so wrapped up in the glory of this excellent work, that I counted myself more blessed and honoured by God by this than if He had made me the emperor of the Christian world..."

This same Bunyan also said, "In my preaching I have really been in pain, and have, as it were, travailed to bring forth children to God." It is joyful, and painful, this work of preaching.

I know a lot of my pastor friends who are depleted after they preach. Many state that they are physically and emotionally spent. Some descend from the pulpit discouraged, self-critical, and exhausted. It is hard work. Incredibly hard. But most Sundays, after the final amen, I'm exhilarated. I have this rush of energy, this sense of joy, and this feeling that if I had to, I could immediately preach another sermon. Now, Monday is different. That's when I experience the adrenaline dump. But, on Sunday, standing in front of God's people with an open Bible and a few notes, proclaiming a message of good news, showing how Jesus is the subject, song, and point of the Scriptures provides great joy for me. I very rarely take a Sunday nap as I feel very "up" after preaching the Sunday morning services, attending my Bible Fellowship class, and engaging with hundreds of saints in fellowship and conversation after the service. If we don't eat lunch after church with friends or a visiting family, I usually come home, change clothes, eat a little, then sit in my den watching TV and reflecting on how thankful I am to the Lord that He would call me to this great and noble task of preaching His Word and serving His people in the local church. I really cannot imagine doing anything else that would bring such continual joy to my soul.

But getting to that point is agony. Seriously. Every week.

This may not be every pastor's experience, but it definitely is mine. The joy of proclaiming God's Word on Sunday is preceded by the agony of preparing the message the week before. Real agony. The kind of struggle that makes me want to quit sometimes, that pummels my soul, that batters my mind. I liken it to having to research and write a major term paper in college, which involves hours of reading, studying, and writing, then having to give an oral presentation in front of hundreds each and every week. It can be a torturous, agonizing task...every single week.

I think I have figured out why. First, there is a weight to preaching that scares me. James 3:1 says, "Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness." There are ample warnings to the church in the New Testament to watch out for false teachers, for those who are in the church, but who are unfaithful to the truth. There were people who were "teaching for shameful gain what they ought not teach" (Titus 1:11). The early Christians were continually warned not to be carried away by empty philosophy and false teaching. Paul seems to indicate that the greatest danger to the church wasn't persecution from without, but false teaching from within.

The last thing I ever want to do is approach the task of preaching in a flippant manner, thinking that it is nothing more than a motivational moment, an opportunity for me to inspire, or seeing it as part of creating an emotional environment that creates some sort of experience for people. I am too afraid of casually thinking that way about preaching. I recognize the seriousness, the weightiness, the awesomeness of the task...and most weeks I agonize under it. I live in constant fear that I will use the Scripture to support my ideas, or worse, replace the truth of Scripture with my own interpretation.

Which leads to the second reason for my agony--each week sermon preparation is an intense wrestling match for me. I wrestle with the text, pouring over word meanings, cross references, context, commentaries and other resources. Some say that writing sermons is both an art and a science. To me it is an exhausting wrestling match, and not just with the text. I have to wrestle against distractions, my own laziness, as well as my own selfish heart. The more I get into the text, the more the text gets into me and I have to wrestle against my pride, hard heart, and sin as the text does its work in me before I ever preach it to others. 

What this means day to day for me is that the sermon is never out of my mind. Every activity, conversation, commute for work or period of rest is affected by a simmering sermon. I never go to bed with a clear mind, but always one that is turning over words and phrases, potential outlines, and searching for an illustration that will drive home a certain point. The sermon is always there. The result of this is that most Saturday nights that I go to bed worn out from a week of wrestling, only to agonize in my sleep over whether or not I have it right, or that I did enough, or that it honors the text enough.

Finally, it is war. Every week when I sit down, open my Bible, and begin to start my study for the sermon, I am ever aware that I have an enemy who hates Jesus, the church, the truth, and those who deliver it. As I am jotting down notes and ideas from the text, I will sometimes become aware of my inadequacies. I will suddenly be reminded of past or present sins that are filled with guilt and shame. There will be tension in my home. I will sense a creeping discouragement coming upon me, or maybe even waves of doubt. My heart idolatry will rage against me. But I know what it is--it is a war, a real, spiritual war each and every week in my study.

I have never prepared a sermon without this great agony. But I am grateful for it. Truly grateful.

This agony has taught me to pray in ways that I otherwise wouldn't have learned. It has taught me to discern the difference between flesh and Spirit when I'm studying or preaching. It has forced me to trust in the illumination of the Spirit. It has humbled me, and reminded me to get out of the way. It has shown me the importance of rest, and proven to me that God is able to take my meager attempts at preaching and use them for His purposes. And it has prepared me to fight well for the glory of God each week in my heart and in my study.

I go to bed each Saturday with my sermon done, and my mind battered and bruised from the battle. But when I wake up on Sunday, the light of joy begins to dawn as I realize that in just a couple of hours I will humbly stand before God's people, leading them to rejoice in the good news of Jesus as shouted from His Word. The agony is worth the joy.