Mark I: We Preach the Word

The Nine Marks of a Healthy Church
Mark 1: Incarnational Preaching

Introduction
“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory.”

I am beginning my series on the nine marks of a healthy church which is based on the Nine Marks of a Healthy church, by Mark Dever. Before I begin my message on the first mark (Expositional preaching, or what I call Incarnational preaching), I want to preface this entire series by saying that all this assumes community. That is, that although the nine marks do not explicitly include fellowship, or community, it is implied by the very title “Nine Marks of a Healthy Church”; it’s not the nine marks of healthy individual spirituality. Community is everywhere implied! In fact, preaching is a communal event. It is communal worship and only happens where 2 or more are gathered together.
So let’s dig into the first mark, preaching. Many people wonder, “What’s the use of going to church?” One of the reasons we go to church is because of preaching (note: not the preacher). You see, all week we have the freedom to decide what kind of information is going to enter our heads; we choose the books we will read- we choose the sections of the Bible- we choose the things we watch on TV and the things we listen to on the radio. If we are going to be rebellious, this is when it is most possible.
But when we listen to the sermon we are forced for 20 or 30 minutes to listen to… to submit to someone else’s authority to decide what we are going to hear. That’s a humbling prospect, both for the listener and for the preacher.
I am often humbled by the fact that so many people who are older than me, smarter than me, better educated than me, and even more godly than me are willing to sit and listen to my preaching. And I think that’s because they are not so much interested in my opinions and thoughts and hobby horses, as much as they are interested in hearing what the Bible has to say and how God would communicate it to us this morning.
That is the task of the preacher: to take a message (the written word of God) which was recorded between 2000 and 4000 years ago in a language that has only recently been revived, to a people who no longer exist in a culture and historical context that is more alien to us today than ever before, and speak that message in a way (not just reading the Bible) but so as discern how God might apply that text in a relevant way to us today. In other words, in his preparation time, the preacher must ask himself, the text and (most importantly) the Lord, “What does God want to say today through this text to these people?”
This is a difficult task in our day and age because the pressure is greater than ever before for the pastor to be entertaining, winsome, practical and “relevant” to our culture. We live in a time that applies like no other time before us when the prevailing culture within the church is to abandon the biblical themes altogether and instead be told what our itchy ears want to hear. We want stories, we want narratives, we want epics; we want the sermon to make us feel the way that the signing made us feel! Tell us we are victims, tell us that the gospel will heal our emotional damage, tell us things are going to get better, tell us how to love ourselves; don’t say that we are sinners, don’t say that God is an angry God; don’t talk about the suffering of the righteous- it doesn’t grow churches! It doesn’t compete with television.
1. “The Goal of expositional preaching is for the people of God to hear and to heed the Word of God” (Dever). This means that the preacher fills the role of being a modern day prophet; he is the conduit of the message- from God, to the people- in order for God to do His work in their lives. The preacher is the distributor of the message, not the manufacturer.
That is why godliness on the part of the preacher is something he must daily strive towards. As well, he must study the Word thoroughly in order to be certain that the message is from God and not his own opinion or pet peeves.
In Acts 27:28 Paul reminded the Church about his preaching ministry saying, “For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God.” That’s my goal! Hearing the word of God is essential to the church because “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Matt 4:4). Psalm 119:130 says,
The unfolding of your words gives light;
it gives understanding to the simple
Look what happened in Israel when the word of God was rediscovered (Read Nehemiah 8:7-9).
Notice that the Levites didn’t just read the Law? They laboured in it to make sense of it for the people. The content of their preaching was the Word of God, not the latest management theory or cultural analysis. Because it was the Word of God, it was prophetic. Their method of preaching was expositional, they explained the text. And the effect was that the people understood and obeyed.
2. God’s Word is Performative
“God’s Word performs what it prescribes” (Dever). That means that is has the power within itself to accomplish what it commands. For instance, in Genesis chapter 1 we see God spoke and it was so: “Let there be light and there was light”. By preaching the Word, the word is (in a sense) unleashed upon the hearts and minds of the hearer so that the Holy Spirit can use it to transform our wills and attitudes and behaviours. “God’s Word never returns empty” but it will accomplish what God desires for it (Is 55:10-12).
Here’s the work that the Word of God accomplishes in the church:
· First, the Word gives life to God’s people (Gen 1; 12:1-4; Ez 37; Jn 1; Rom 10:17);
· Second, the Word gives holiness to God’s people (2 Chron 34; Jn 17:17; Eph 5:25-26
There are also benefits for the pastor when he preaches expositionally:
· Releases him from Saturday night fever: “What shall I preach tomorrow”; It also means that the congregation is not limited by my knowledge or maturity level, but in fact, you may grow beyond it!
· It increases the likelihood that the pastor will, over time, preach the whole counsel of God (rather than just preaching a limited number of topics);
· It increases the pastor’s command of the Word forcing Him to study difficult texts that He might otherwise avoid.
· It increases the Word’s command on the pastor exposing him to all the themes and challenging him to deeper repentance and faith as he discovers the great treasures of God and the depth of human rebellion.
· It increases the pastor’s prophetic authority in the pulpit by securing his preaching to the immoveable anchor of God’s Word.
· It increases the pastor’s blessings in the pulpit because God gets the credit for the effect of the message, not the pastor. He is rewarded for his faithfulness, not his fruitfulness.
· Finally, it increases the pastor’s trustworthiness. The pulpit is not abused for pragmatic purposes as long as the pastor is preaching systematically and expositionally through the scriptures and allowing God to choose the theme.
Conclusion:
I suppose the irony here is that most of this message has been thematic and not expositional at all. Sure, I have quoted a lot of scripture and backed up all my points to show that my message is biblical, but the fact is that, so far, this has been a thematic sermon. That just shows that I am not against preaching thematically- as long as it is biblical. There are occasions that may require it.
But let me just return to my original text and briefly expound on it: John 1:14, “The Word (Logos) became flesh and dwelt (or tabernacled) among us.
I have actually preached in this verse about two years ago. But there is so much packed into this one verse that even if I preached it every Sunday for the rest of my life, I would not exhaust all that there is to say about it. But let me just quickly show how it relates to my theme this morning.
John is writing his gospel for a Greek audience. He is taking a concept that would be easily understood in Jewish terms and he is interpreting for a Greek audience. The Jewis reading this would have easily understood that the Word (Logos) is the Dabar Elohim- is the OT concept of the Word of the Lord; God’s powerful and dynamic revelation. But the Greek would have understood the Word (Logos) as Aristotle’s primary Logos- the essence of God’s reason which is the source of all reality.
What John says is- Logos is both and…. Logos is the Dabar Elohim and the primary cause- but He is something more. He’s a person- God who has revealed himself in part to all people (especially Israel)! And not only that but He is God who has revealed himself fully because he has now become flesh and walked among us.
Paul said it differently in Philippians. He described the incarnation as God leaving the riches and glory of heaven and becoming a servant. That’s what we do when we preach the Word. We are taking this divine, majestic and powerful thing and clothing it in the garments of a beggar- human words so that the hearer is ennobled by being exposed to this dynamic reality. So we choose our words carefully. We incarnate the message in a way that bridges the cultural distance between the 2000 year old Greek and Hebrew mind and crouch in terms that speak to us today in way that is culturally relevant and contemporary without losing the majesty and timelessness of the original divine message.
Application:
So let me give three things that you can do in order to get the most from the message:
1. Pray- before during and after the message
2. listen- don’t allow Satan to rob you of the seed of the Word- force yourself to listen if you have to.
3. Apply what you have heard.
4. Take notes and study the message when you get home- go over it with your spouse, children….We do all this in community so that we as a body and not just as individuals can be challenged corporately and respond corporately to the Word of God. It is, therefore our responsibility to each other to hear the Word of God preached and respond. That more than anything else will unite a church.