By Pastor Stephen Hess –
If someone were to ask you what the central part of a Christian worship service is, how would you respond? Some Christians might say that the music is the most important part of the service and that the primary reason we gather is to sing. Other Christians might say that the Lord’s Supper is the most important part of the service and that it should be served every time we gather. Reformed Christians would agree that singing and participating in the Lord’s Supper are important, but we believe that the central part of Christian worship is the preaching of God’s word.
There are several reasons for this belief. First, preaching should be central because it keeps God’s word central. Since the Bible is the very word of God and is the primary way God speaks to us, nothing could be more important than expounding his word. Second, preaching should be central because it was central in the Bible. Take a quick look at the ministries of Moses, Ezra, Jesus, Peter, or Paul, and you will quickly see that from the Old Testament to the New Testament, preaching has always played a central role in the community of faith. Third, preaching should be central because preaching is God’s primary means of transformation. In Romans 10, Paul asks, “How are they to hear without someone preaching?” He answers: “So faith comes by hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (v. 17). God uses preaching not only to bring people to repentance and faith, but to sanctify believers and help them grow in his word.
All of this tells us why preaching should be central in our worship, but next we must ask what form our preaching should take. In many churches today it is popular for preachers to deliver topical sermons that begin with the felt needs of our culture. In these sermons the questions of our modern culture become the focus more than the text of Scripture itself, and Scripture is used to support the ideas of the preacher. There are a couple of problems with this approach. First, this kind of preaching assumes that our questions are the most important ones. As Tim Keller once said, “If we start with our questions and only then look to the Bible for answers, we assume that we are asking all the right questions—that we properly understand our need. However, we need not only the Bible’s prescription to our problems but also its diagnosis of them.” Second, this kind of preaching makes God’s word secondary rather than primary in focus. Instead of being the locomotive that powers the sermon, God’s word becomes a caboose that trails behind.
In Reformed churches we favor a different approach which is known as “expository preaching.” To exposit something means to explain or unpack it. Expository preaching is the act of explaining or unpacking God’s word and showing how it applies to our lives today. This approach has several advantages. First, it makes God’s word central. The expository preacher is not focused on communicating his own ideas or human wisdom, rather, he is focused on explaining the truth of God’s word. Second, it allows God to set the agenda. When we begin with the text of Scripture rather than our own felt needs, it allows God’s word to tell us what we need to hear rather than what we want to hear. Third, it challenges us to hear more of God’s word. Churches that value expository preaching will usually work through whole books of the Bible chapter by chapter. This prevents us from focusing only on our favorite passages and forces us to listen to larger portions of God’s word.
The great preacher Charles Simeon once said, “My endeavor is to bring out of Scripture what is there, and not to thrust in what I think might be there. I have a great jealousy on this head; never to speak more or less than I believe to be the mind of the Spirit speaking in the passage I am expounding.” That is a beautiful description of expository preaching, and that is the kind of preaching we strive to practice at Highview. What we desperately need is not man’s wisdom but God’s unchanging truth. Each week as his word is unpacked and explained, we believe that God will use his word to accomplish his work in our lives.