Sermons

Preaching Philosophy

Pastor Christopher Ames

God is still communicating with His people today! He does so primarily through His written Word , so as a preacher, I approach my obligation to preach with a few considerations:

1. I am trying to please God. The apostle Paul set the standard for preachers when he told Timothy to “preach the Word” (2 Timothy 4:2) and to “devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching “ (1 Timothy 4:13). My job is to preach His Word, and not to dilute it or twist it with fads, human ideologies, or irrelevant stories. People may hunger and thirst for righteousness, or they may have itching ears; but my obligation is to preach God’s authoritative and powerful Word.
2. God’s Word is sufficient. God uses His Word to accomplish His purposes on His schedule. He uses His Word to change people’s minds and hearts. He said to Isaiah: “so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:11). My job is to believe Him and trust Him with the results, not to pressure or manipulate people.
3. God gave us all of His Word. It’s all profitable. Even the Old Testament. Even the lists of names! Even the parts that are hard to understand. In Paul’s farewell speech to the elders from the Ephesus churches, he says “I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). That means that my preaching and teaching must cover the whole Bible – not just the simple passages. The way I accomplish this is twofold: First, I preach through entire books of Scripture. Second, I point out where the truth we find in one passage echoes truth we find elsewhere in the Bible. The goal is to help God’s people see that all of God’s Word stands together to tell His story.
4. We need to understand God’s Word. Before we can believe and respond to what God says, we need to be able to understand it. Ezra the scribe read God’s Word to the people and told them what it meant (Nehemiah 8:8). That is a great example of what we call “expository preaching.” God gave us His Word in human languages, but not all human language is equally clear. It is my job to strive to understand the Scriptures clearly so that I may proclaim and explain them clearly.
5. God gave His Word to His people. God intended for His Word to meet needs in His people. He intends for His people to be “doers of the Word, and not hearers only” (James 1:22). Paul also tells Timothy that in his preaching, he is to “reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” (2 Timothy 4:2). It is not good enough to merely understand the Bible: God’s people must live in its light.