IMPOSSIBLE APPLICATION 2

more from BIBLICAL PREACHING

Impossible Application 2

So how do we present practical application without promoting an outside-to-in simplistic copyism in the church?  Yesterday we started by stating that the human fleshly tendency will be to perform in order to maintain autonomous distance from God.  Furthermore we added that practical preaching can give people lists of things to do, but not address the heart issue.  Continuing on . . .

3. Heart transformation is not something listeners can self-generate, neither is it something we can force on folks.  Actually, if it is about response, then the burden is on us to offer Christ and the gospel so compellingly that perhaps some might respond.  This means that we don’t simplify our view of preaching to explanation separate from application, for it is in the explanation that hearts should be stirred for the application.

4. Listeners have a sensitivity to the integration of the preacher.  That is, whether the explanation we offer has obviously marked our lives from the inside-out.  Listeners don’t just look for conformity to our own lists of practical applications, they sense the importance of heart change in the truths of what we say.  If we don’t have a vibrant and real walk with Christ, then the practical application content will be meaningless.

5. Take the opportunity afforded by practical applications to drip-feed a critique of copy-ism and do-ism.  Over time, week after week, perhaps people will start to sense the difference between writing a list and trying to live up to it, as opposed to a from-the-heart response to the grace of God in Christ.  Grace truly transforms values and therefore behaviour.  Part of our task is to make sure we don’t reinforce the post-Genesis 3 notion that informed choices will lead to success in our performance before, but distant from, God.

6. Reinforce that it is possible to perform without being transformed.  The Pharisees should helpfully haunt churchy types like us.  It is possible to look really good on the outside, but God wants to transform us from the inside.  Perhaps we settle too easily for conformity to church social mores, rather than having appetites whetted for the wonder and glorious privilege of knowing God in Christ.  If listeners don’t pick up that possibility from the preaching they hear, where will they develop such an appetite?

IMPOSSIBLE APPLICATION

from Biblical Preaching

Impossible Application

As we preach the Bible we have to make sure we don’t simply offer historical and theological instruction.  Part of our responsibility is to present what difference the message should make in a life.  We need to give a sense of what this truth looks like dressed up in everyday clothes.  But therein lies a challenge.

How do we present practical application without promoting an outside-to-in simplistic copyism in the church?  Here are some thoughts:

1. The human fleshly tendency will be to perform in order to maintain autonomous distance from God.  I know that we tend to think of fleshliness as rebellion alone, but we need to see how the flesh can also play up to a religious role.  The essential impulse remains the same as it did in Genesis 3 – I can be like God.  This is why we need to be so careful in our preaching.  Simply pounding the pulpit and demanding greater morality does not avoid the problem of rebels becoming religious, but still keeping God at arms length.  The older son in Luke 15 matched his brother in viewing the father as employer and purveyor of benefits, and went beyond his brother in resisting the father’s extreme desire for relationship.

2. Practical preaching can give people lists of things to do, but not address the heart issue.  Notice that I wrote that it can, not that it must always do that.  I think preaching should be practical.  But if we think that adding practical suggestions to historical explanation amounts to good expository preaching, then we know neither our Bibles nor our listeners very well.  We need more than practical instruction.  We need heart transformation.  And that requires an awareness of the difference between response and responsibility.  Consistently presenting responsibility to people will not auto-generate any sort of responsiveness in people.

I will continue the list tomorrow…