Christ-Centered Sermons

Models of Redemptive Preaching

Bryan Chapell

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9780801048692
• eBook ISBN:
  9781441242679
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

Highly regarded preacher and teacher Bryan Chapell shows readers how he has prepared expository sermons according to the principles he developed in his bestselling Christ-Centered Preaching. This companion volume provides concrete examples of how a redemptive approach to Scripture is fleshed out in various types of sermons and various genres of the Bible. The example sermons not only demonstrate different approaches but also are analyzed for pedagogical purposes, helping readers move from theory to practice. In essence, the book allows students and preachers to look over Chapell's shoulder as he prepares these messages to learn how to construct their own expository sermons that communicate grace and truth from both the Old and New Testaments.

Part One
Structure

Organizational tools that help communicate biblical truths predominate the early chapters of my book Christ-Centered Preaching, and the sermon examples in Part One of this companion volume highlight these tools. These examples feature both formal and informal structures, along with comments about techniques that will help listeners understand and remember messages.

Example SERMON ONE
Expository Sermon in Formal Structure Format

This first example sermon introduces the formal wording and structure of sermons constructed according to classical standards as described in chapter 6 of Christ-Centered Preaching.41 The example contains many notations, format identifiers, and footnotes that function as instructional commentary. This “extra” commentary makes the sermon appear unusually long, but the actual preaching content is that of a traditional thirty- to thirty-five-minute sermon.42

The principles and suggestions introduced in this sermon are meant to serve as instructive examples. No one should employ all of these standards all of the time, but informed preachers will have enough knowledge of them to use those most appropriate for the text and task at hand. Just as a musician practices scales to develop the skills for more nuanced compositions, preachers who have knowledge and mastery of these basic components of sermon structure are best prepared to alter, adapt, mix, or reject them in order to take the approach most appropriate for their particular text, congregation, and circumstance.

These structural components are the working tools of experienced preachers. My goal in presenting them is to outfit the tool bag of starting preachers. In later examples we will alter the use of these tools and explore new techniques, but for now the goal is to create familiarity with the “hammer and nails” of traditional sermon construction. The reason for starting with the basics is simple: it is very unusual to find a skilled preacher who does not have a working knowledge of standard sermon components such as introductions, propositions, main points, illustrations, applications, and conclusions.

Natural talent and instinct are certainly sufficient for some preachers of special gifting. But for most of us, slowing down long enough to learn these tools of our trade is the wisest approach, though it may seem constraining at first. The finest craft usually will come from those who best know their materials, tools, and options, even though they will not expect to use them all in every project.

This first sermon is expository, meaning that it explains a particular passage of Scripture by clarifying the main and subordinate ideas of the author in the context of the biblical passage and by applying these spiritual truths to our contemporary situations. The approach is deductive, meaning that it moves from the development of general principles to the statement of particular applications (inductive sermons move in the opposite direction). The text itself is from a didactic (i.e., teaching through thought development) portion of a New Testament epistle. Later we will explore other approaches to other types of biblical literature (e.g., historical narrative, prophecy, poetry).

Proclaim His Word

2 Timothy 4:1–5

[Note: Words in brackets below are not said out loud but are shown here to indicate how various sermon components are used as a traditional sermon progresses.]

[Announce text] Please look with me in Scripture at 2 Timothy 4:1–5.43

[Scripture introduction]44 Paul’s second letter to Timothy was written near the end of the apostle’s life. Realizing that he must pass the baton of his ministry, Paul gives this charge to Timothy, a young minister who is facing many of the same questions and fears we will face as ministers today.45

[Reannounce and read text] Read with me these words of equipping from 2 Timothy 4:1–5. [The preacher reads the Scripture passage out loud.]

[Prayer for illumination] Pray with me as we ask God to guide us in the study of his Word. [The minister offers a brief prayer asking the Holy Spirit to bless the understanding of the preacher and hearers as God’s Word is proclaimed.]

[Introduction]46 As she listened to her neighbor’s brazen confession, my mother’s worst fears about her friend and neighbor were sadly confirmed. My mother had witnessed a growing relationship with another man that seemed dangerous and inappropriate for this married friend that I will only identify as “Betty.” So, to protect her friend and to try, if possible, to correct her, my mother decided she had to say something. Tentative questions of concern were met with surprising candor from Betty. “It’s all right,” she said. “You don’t need to be worried. God has graciously led me to this new relationship. I’ll be so much happier with a new husband.”

My mother left the conversation shaken by Betty’s callous disregard for her marriage. She was sad about Betty’s choices but also afraid for her. My mother knew that if Betty continued on her present course, God would not ignore her abandonment of her marriage vows and her abuse of his grace. Ultimately he would judge47 the sin. Betty needed to hear the correction of God’s Word, as well as the grace he offers to those who repent. The hard question with which my mother wrestled was this: “How can I warn my friend that God judges sin and yet provide her with hope in the help he offers?” As that wrestling continued internally, my mother confessed later that she struggled to say anything externally.

How would you respond in such a situation? My mother’s account reminds us that an opportunity to proclaim the truths of God’s Word can arise at any time. For his purposes, God continually places us in situations in which we can help others by carefully and faithfully applying the Word of God. But most of us struggle to speak up with clarity and conviction when God calls us to this purpose despite our knowledge that God will judge [FCF].48 Questions about what to say and how to say it silence us. But we can overcome our hesitations by learning from Paul’s charge to proclaim God’s Word in 2 Timothy chapter 4 [Scripture bond].49 Instead of making God’s judgment a cause for question, Paul makes it a source for motivation, indicating that . . . [the preacher now states the following proposition]

[Proposition]50 Because God will judge sin, we must proclaim his Word for the purposes he intends.

Paul first gives a solemn context for the purposes of proclaiming God’s Word. He writes to Timothy in verse 1, “I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom.”51 Everything we do is “before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge.”52 In light of the divine oversight of the One who will hold everyone accountable, Paul urges the proclamation of God’s Word for these purposes: to rescue the needy, to defend the truth, and to fulfill our duty.53 First Paul tells us that . . .

[Main point 1] Because God will judge sin,54 we must proclaim his Word to rescue the needy.55

People’s needs vary, so Paul’s instruction for the proclamation of God’s Word varies accordingly as the apostle addresses the needs of those who do not believe God’s Word, those who do not obey God’s Word, and those who have lost confidence in God’s Word.56

[Subpoint 1] How should we approach those who do not believe God’s Word? We should convince them.57

Paul says to Timothy in verse 2, “Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.” The first task listed that those proclaiming God’s Word should “be ready” to do is “convince.” Paul has just reminded Timothy in verse 16 of chapter 3 that “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” Scripture has this divine and authoritative character because it is God’s means to rescue sinful people from the judgment to come. The God who will judge sin also mercifully provides the gospel whose truths redeem those who believe it. Therefore, Paul gives the highest priority to using Scripture—the Word inspired by God—to convince others of its truths.

Such convincing may require us to explain the meaning or defend the credibility of God’s Word. These matters almost always require great patience and careful teaching, so Paul further reminds Timothy that he must be prepared to convince others, “with all longsuffering and teaching.” In other words, convincing others requires our reflecting to them the same patience and care God exhibited in redeeming us. Those who do not believe God’s Word must be convinced by those of us to whom he has revealed his truth and in whom his truth now lives.

But not only the unconvinced need the proclamation of the gospel.

[Subpoint 2] How should we approach those who do not obey God’s Word? We should rebuke them.

There are those who know but do not obey. Those who believe the right things can still fall into error. In verse 2 Paul also tells us how to respond to these people. There he instructs, “rebuke” with “longsuffering and teaching.” Rebuking involves identifying wrongdoing as being wrong. There are times when we must confront others and tell them directly to stop disobeying or distorting or even denying God’s Word. As Jesus says in Luke 17:3, “If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.”

Not every wrong needs rebuke all the time—“love will cover a multitude of sins” (1 Pet. 4:8)—but rebuke must be in the arsenal of faithful proclaimers of God’s Word. When people ignore the clear teaching of the Word, we must be willing to warn them of the consequences of continuing down the wrong path. If God did not love his children, he would not warn them of the dangers of their sin. Yet because he does love, God does warn, and he uses faithful proclaimers of his Word to warn others through rebuke that is intended to rescue them from the horrible consequences of unrepented sin.

[Transition] Some are unconvinced, some do not obey—Paul has addressed how to deal with each of these—but some also wander because they have lost confidence in the truths of God’s Word.

[Subpoint 3] How should we approach those who have lost confidence in God’s Word? We should exhort them.

Paul continues in verse 2 by commanding Timothy to “exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.” People need to understand the importance, as well as the content, of what God’s Word requires. To “exhort” them means to urge them with the counsel of God’s Word to act upon the hope and strength that Christ offers. Our exhortation should direct God’s people to the assurances and “teaching” they need in order to do what he requires, even if it seems difficult. Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 12:9 that God himself exhorted the apostle in a time of trial by saying, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”

Because Jesus will judge humankind, we must proclaim God’s Word to those who need to be convinced, to those who need to be rebuked, and to those who need to be exhorted.58

[Illustration] The Cuban Resettlement Camp in Key Largo, Florida, was abuzz one morning. There were almost eight hundred Cuban refugees in the camp, and they all seemed to be anticipating someone’s imminent arrival. As the next busload of refugees from the Key West site arrived, seven older gentlemen in wheelchairs at last departed from the buses. The crowd, which normally was loud and exuberant at the arrivals’ newfound freedom, was silent and reverent, while at the same time extremely attentive to the needs of these seven. These were the seven prisoners of conscience who never denied their faith in Jesus Christ. The first three were arrested for street preaching in the main park of Havana in the early 1960s, and the others were arrested for openly carrying their Bibles across that same park as a signal to others of an underground church meeting.

For their faith these seven endured decades of imprisonment and brutal torture, which had left them crippled and disfigured. Despite multiple broken bones, they refused to renounce their Savior and to swear allegiance to the atheistic communist regime. In the following weeks, the camp officials noticed that these seven would hold religious services every morning, afternoon, and evening in which many would be convinced59 of their sins upon hearing the gospel message for the first time. The seven also openly rebuked the sins of individuals with firmness, confidence, and love as they gave instruction on...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part One: Structure
• Part Two: Biblical Theology
• Part Three: Gospel Application
• Notes
• General Index
• Scripture Index
• Back Cover