And when they had come to him, he said to them: "You know, from the first day that I came to Asia, in what manner I always lived among you, serving the Lord with all humility, with many tears and trials which happened to me by the plotting of the Jews; how I kept back nothing that was helpful, but proclaimed it to you, and taught you publicly and from house to house, testifying to Jews, and also to Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Acts 20:18-21 (emphasis mine)
Corporate worship in a local church is the primary ministry of the local church. Corporate worship has four indispensable components: (1) Reading & Preaching the Word, (2) Prayer, (3) Worship in Song, (4) The Sacraments—Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
Last time we considered the importance of reading God’s Word as an essential component of corporate worship. This time: Preaching. Here are two simple truths about preaching.
First, what to preach:
Preach the Word, not current events, not politics, not the preacher’s opinions, not devotionals intended to make people feel good about themselves.
Preach the Word, not self-help. The gospel is the opposite of self-help because the gospel addresses the fact that we are altogether unable to help ourselves, which is why we need the Savior, Jesus Christ.
Preach the Word, not moralism (be good) or legalism (do good).
Preach Christ and the Gospel no matter what the text. And if one can find nothing to say about Christ and the gospel from a text, one has not fully understood the text.
Second, how to preach. “Preach the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27). The best way to do this is to preach through whole books of the Bible (a). Most times, that means preaching verse by verse. Sometimes giving overviews of books or chapters is appropriate. And though some New Testament books may be preached more often, we must not ignore the Old Testament.
Someone once described preaching through books like this: (1) Read the text. (2) Explain the text. (3) Do the same thing next week continuing with the next verse. A commitment to this kind of preaching helps keep both the preacher and the people focus on the Word rather than on favorite subjects.
(a) Preaching topical messages from time to time may be appropriate, but these can too often turn into the preacher’s opinions, whereas a steady diet of preaching through books of the Bible point us to what God says about everything. BTW: Expositional preaching is preaching that exposits (explains) a text. Topical messages can and should be expositional, meaning they are based on a text of scripture, even if the message is not a part of a verse by verse series through a book of the Bible.
Next: A few words about prayer in corporate worship.