Laborers' Podcast- Expository Preaching

Welcome to the laborers podcast. Thank you for joining us tonight tonight. We're going to talk about Expository preaching. Hope you'll stick with us. Welcome to the laborers podcast.

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Now, let's join our laborers for tonight's broadcast.

Welcome back to the laborers podcast. The comment line is open. So even if you're watching later. Leave us a comment. Let us know that you're watching. Ask questions if we can pray for you. Let us know that too.

We'd love to we'd be honored to be able to pray for you tonight on the laborers podcast. Got big John got Randy and we've got Claude the happy Calvinist. How you guys doing?

Doing well.

What does that fantastic shirt of yours say Rob.

Well, I received it from a very special friend of mine who lives in Eastern, Tennessee. And it says that I was a Calvinist before it was cool. Amen, and I wear I wear it proudly. I wear it proudly. Hey at one time and this goes along with this positive preaching to when you're when you grow up in a certain church and Doctrines the doctrines are not tall.

Different viewpoints are not taught. You you only know of what you are exposed to right? So I had never heard of Calvinism. I never heard of the different types of eschatology. On and on and on on we could go and and same thing is true with these points of a healthy church.

I had never heard that there were different types of preaching. I didn't. I didn't know of church discipline and you know I could go on and on with these things that I did not know exist in Christianity in the church and Calvinism was one of them.

I was teaching a Sunday school class and It I was exposed because of the the early early beginnings of social media and and television. I was watching some some programs on TV. Word pictures, did you ever catch word?

No, I don't know what that is, okay. Look look who's with us and there he is. What's going on guys the way The Wayne the blue-collar Calvinist.

Yes, I had to finally join y 'all. Glad to finally join y 'all. I'm sorry. It's a took me so long, but. Most y 'all are different time zone and that's just how it works out for me when you get up at four o 'clock in the morning.

Well, we're glad that you're with us and we're glad that you filled that empty box up there. But word pictures you guys can look it up. I think mark mark Keller. Maybe the the pastor's name that did these and I was so drawn to these things.

But he he was teaching doctrines of grace. Calvin Calvinistic Ideas and I even emailed the guys like look we're not robots. And he was like and he was gentle and kind but you know, he gave me a response but you know I downloaded John Piper's thing on tulip and that thing was thick and.

And I went through that thing trying to debunk and you know say that Calvinism was not was not right. But the the Lord eventually led me in a different direction and you know, here I am today. But you know, I'm so thankful for Social media and all the all the different avenues and it means God has is using now.

To expose people to these doctrines that you know, I was never exposed to so so I'm thankful and and the one we're gonna talk About tonight is is expository preaching. I'm grateful that I was exposed to to this type of biblical preaching.

Did you guys have a similar experience to where when you were growing up you were just exposed to the one style. Didn't know that other styles existed different types of preaching existed. What was your Beginnings when it comes to preaching.

I didn't know. I probably didn't really.

Know that there was different styles of preaching. But whenever I went to Bible College, I was introduced to the term expository preaching and I'll never forget what brother strap said. Excuse me, dr. Strap said.

When he was defining each type of preaching Expository it said good biblical preaching and I thought that was so funny that there was a litany of Definitions for the other types of preaching but he didn't have any for for expository preaching.

But it said they said good biblical preaching, but I do know some guys who teach and in a different way than the next positional and and There's many that don't do it, right?

But there's some that do preach right. That's not expository. What about you other guys? What's your first exposure?

Yeah, my experience was um mostly topical. You know every Sunday was a different it may be a series for example. You know the fruit of the spirit. It may be a series on a specific character or whatever.

But most of the time is like topical every Sunday. There's a different verse. There's a different book. And we never really get that. We never really get the whole picture of The Bible, you know, we never get the whole picture of what the author is saying.

You know, so in my earlier times, you know, even in ministry. I didn't have a full grasp of doctrine and Theology because I was you know, even in my early times of preaching it was Topical, you know, and when you're topical you go to your favorite topics the one that you're comfortable with the one that you like, you know so that was that was my early upbringing ministry.

The way. What was your what's your first exposure to? Expositional or expository preaching.

Expository preaching for me the first time was. We're getting on about three years since I experienced expository preaching for the first time. I grew up under different different Denominations and teaching the old UPC Pentecostal and on one side and in the Southern Baptist on the other.

Every church I attended was a topical. Was a topical church. So of course between the two I stayed very confused. When I step foot in a reformed Baptist Church for the first time I heard expository preaching and for the first time I started understanding Scripture.

Hmm.

Praise the Lord What about you Paul?

I'm just I'm just glad to be here. You all go right ahead. I'm enjoying listening to y 'all.

But we can go ahead and start the Word Association. I thought this would be a different approach to expository or understanding or teaching expository preaching. I wanted to I wanted to do this topic so that we could continue to have it in our conversation.

To.

Expose it to those who are have not been exposed to it yet kind of like we were who Only knew of one way or one form or style of preaching. Because I believe there's so many churches still out there that Maybe have never even heard that.

This exists. So I want to keep it on our tongues on our conversations. So when I say these words we're just going to do Word Association. You go after it and make the association with these words and expository preaching.

So the first one is theology.

Also, hold on. Let me let me call timeout. So I you know, I've not been here at a long time, too. So y 'all y 'all y 'all know if you've been regular on here if you're just if you're new to the labors podcast.

So if y 'all get to preaching. We've got the keys ready. I've got the keys ready. Oh sweet. Oh, yes.

All right. All right.

Well somebody start us off get us get us going with Theology. Well, what does theology have to do with expository preaching?

In one word.

No, just go after it. Oh, okay. Yeah, I think.

In expository preaching You get the author's thoughts on that theology. So if you're talking about justification by faith alone, and you're looking at Romans you're getting Paul's complete thought on that theology.

Versus going topical and you're going everywhere you're gonna good concise understanding of what what what what that uh theology is.

When I think about theology from an expositional point of view I think about Like the whole doctrine of something so in in a lot of ways you can you can preach topically. Expositionally we did at the conference.

The topic was the Holy Spirit, right. And there were different. Subject or not subject but different.

All.

Ministries or avenues that the Holy Spirit is is working in and we talked about him from an expositional Point of view though. There was a topic to the otherwise a theme. When I think of theology I think about the full discourse of of everything.

In other words, there's there's books of the Bible that you can teach from expositionally the entire book and They and while that book may be where you derive part of your theology I don't know of a single book that contains all of it.

Mm-hmm, right so.

I.

Theology is going to be something that extends beyond. What one book inside of the the Bible would cover it would be more of a whole picture.

What I think about anyone and so so the term the term itself theology that is the knowledge of God. So when we we think about theology in the light of expositional teaching and preaching a lot again the We may get in.

Yeah, we'll get into that later, too. But you know that that combination of both teaching and preaching. Exposes that's that's where the term comes from. It's a it's an expose or it's an exposition of The text of Scripture and ultimately the text of Scripture points us to the Lord.

Yeah, when I think about theology and it comes to in association with Expositional preaching The way we understand expose expositional preaching is that we we do it consecutively we we stick with maybe verse by verse or chapter by chapter and you some people are going through books and so.

You don't miss theology when you do it that way. When you when you stick with topical or other means of preaching you can maybe skip over some things. But when you're going expositionally There's theologies that are tough that you that you have to tackle that are addressed and brought up.

Sure.

Ultimately, that'll always be the case. For example, so we finished up back in October November with the book of Luke, you know, we've been in it for four years. So what we did is.

A.

What we're doing now still yet is a Topical exposition. Okay, it's a topical exposition. We're studying the significance and the value of preaching and the preaching of the Word of God to God's people in and through the book of Ezra which is gives us context and The the the full it gives us context of the sermons of Haggai and Zechariah.

So what we're doing now is actually a topical Expositional series through the book of Ezra Haggai and Zechariah to understand them in full context. So you can actually you can actually do both.

Yeah, you can. One of the things I was thinking about when you were talking about it a.

The.

Teaching expositionally sometimes We we tend to tunnel vision ourselves to a book and that book is Is exactly what you think it would be it would be have have an author an intended audience and so on.

One of the things that we have to be cognizant of is that that's not an isolated Event on an island. So while the book of Acts is telling The story of how the Holy Ghost moves through the church in the first century and we see Luke's depiction and his his Recollection of all these things that's happening that has a letter written to Theophilus at the same time.

We have Paul showing his side of Encounters with churches and then you have also the books that he wrote to those two churches during the same time that you could go into those books while you're reading the book of Acts and have a Fuller view of what's going on.

If you think about the book of Corinthians we've talked about the book of Corinthians a lot both books. You see where Paul's talking to Church of Corinthian or the church in Corinth or if you look at the pastoral epistles that he gives to Timothy and You'll see that some of these he's in jail During his time that he's depicted in the book of Acts so you can go through Acts Expositionally and miss a Massive amount of the understanding of what Paul is going through in Acts Just like you could read the pastoral epistles Expositionally and still miss a great deal of the environment in the context that the book had written in The only way you gather that is if you read the whole thing and know the text and then keep your How your timeline I hate to use that word because it starts bringing, you know gives people vibes of different stuff.

But the Timeline that the author is writing in or the timeline of the person's life in question It's not an isolated event on an island somewhere he's affected by everybody right and Everything around him.

So in those cases you can go line by line verse by verse in a book and still miss Humongous portions of theology because you're not capturing all of the story. Does that make sense?

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Dwayne were you were you gonna say something?

No, sir.

No.

I'm actually I was just listening and listening to men who have been in in the subject a little bit longer than me.

Okay.

So art any any association with you guys when it comes to art.

Yeah.

Again one of my one of my favorite authors William Perkins, right? So his book the art of prophesying and the calling of the ministry. Very important the art and it's it's in the title the art of prophesying right the art of preaching when we when we consider We think about the terminology art the art of Sermon preparation right the art of sermon preaching and proclamation and teaching.

It it truly does paint a picture of a great deal more than just going up. And again, this is not. Again, we we all understand and know that without the Word of God. There is nothing to be said by the preacher.

Nothing, we should never enter the pulpit to assume that we have anything to say or any. Anything of any value for anyone other than the Word of God? I will say this however in preparing the sermons We should be not innovative.

That's a bad word not innovative. We don't have to be clever, but we should put time effort and energy Into as I believe it was Vance Havner or a W toes you're once said how we set the table makes a difference, right?

You know when when when we were growing up, you know, our parents cooking making dinner for us and all that. It may not have seemed like a big deal when we sat down at the table. But there was a lot of effort there was a lot of energy and going into that food, right?

When and I use my mama for an example when I was in high school.

Mainly.

But man, nobody can make a Reuben sandwich like my mama, right? You know. You can go to a restaurant get a Reuben sandwich and it could be a Reuben like you get at home, right? Cuz it's not gonna have it's not gonna flavor.

It's not gonna have the grease. It's not gonna have all those that you get at home, right? It's not gonna have all that love and passion poured into it in the art of preaching is that it's the man of God being in love so in love with with God and with his word and so Plugged in to God in his word that when it comes when it comes to the preparation.

It's more than just a a rope preparation where we just sit down and we say, okay last week. This was the pattern I followed so I'm gonna follow that pattern this week. All right patterns are not bad again, I'm not.

Patterns and practices are good, but we've got to be willing and to be open To the Spirit of God in our preparation. Amen spirit of God seasons and and makes it so that when God's Word is delivered that the congregation could tell if the pastor puts in.

Effort.

Pastor may get by and I'm sorry, I'm not trying to hog. You know one one or two weeks. You know it. And again, I think we all probably Thought this or heard people say this, right? They'll say well, it just seemed like there was something missing from the sermon this week.

Well, sometimes that is the preachers fault. Sometimes it's the folks in the pews fault not praying and preparing their own heart their own minds. But there is definitely an art when it comes to expository preaching in the preparation that it's not.

Just.

Dull plain boring speech. But that it's mixed with Passion the passion of God passion for God the power of the Holy Spirit, you know. So on and so forth we have all those things and you can't you can't do without them.

I agree.

Yeah, that was really good. That was really good if I could jump in real quick. Um, The art so There is an art in not only in the preaching but also in the preparation, right? So if you go to an expository if you're going for example if you're going through a book You know like John was saying you want to know the author you have to know the intended audience with the authors trying to communicate by the Holy Spirit Etc, etc.

And also when it comes to the art Every every expository sermon Needs to also be self-contained. Right and I'm gonna use a movie analogy, so if I'm going to the movie and You know, I know a couple of years ago Marvel Cinematic Universe was a big thing.

And you know, I don't want to go to this movie Having to have seen that I have to have seen the previous eight movies to understand what I'm looking at, right? With expository preaching if someone if if someone comes in and you're in Luke chapter 5 Right, they should be able to understand that sermon without Having to been there from chapter 1 to chapter 4.

I agree Art that you know that we have to have When we're communicating this that you know We give the recap we give to give the people where we are how we got to this chapter or this verse or whatever.

But it also should be self-contained as well to minister to the people And edify the body so.

Yeah, man, I mean.

All right, brother Dwayne. Yeah. Yes, sir. Yeah, I was actually trying to find the guy's name right now, but Forgive me. I have forgotten the gentleman's name. The g3 conference not too long ago there was a older pastor that got up on the platform.

And went off on a lot of other pastors talking about too many pastors in the Reformed world are getting behind the pulpit and just teaching and they're not preaching. They're losing that art of preaching and I and they're probably doing that trying to.

You know practice expository teaching. You know, like you said earlier you you y 'all just got through with Luke for what four years, correct? Yes, sir, right. We actually just got through with Luke. We did in three years.

So good job showing off there, but. But but no and you know, but with my pastor that I serve under You know, I'll give him credit. Through three years of teaching Luke and I could see how that would get very monotonous.

That's that's not an easy thing to do. There is a huge but that is an art. It is an art in itself to to pick apart those scriptures line by line for years on end. And do that weekend after weekend. I would say I would rather have a topic to talk about.

Then have to do that if I was sitting behind a pulpit. I won't lie. You know, but However, you know, I said I'll give my pastor credit he he never stopped preaching through that I understood behind. The the points he would emphasize that he meant them there was emotion behind as a preaching.

He wasn't trying to give us some Emotional experience. But he never preached without emotion and even though it wasn't the lead of his preaching. The teaching was preaching but the emotion was always there and you could tell he he believed what he was telling us.

And.

Therefore our attention spans were better. We weren't in a lecture room Just trying to grit through a professor that was you know to get a good grade kind of a thing and I think we've all Set through sermons like that before and it gets very old.

I I hated school. I don't want to go back to school on Sunday, so. There's a reason. I'm the blue-collar Calvinist, so but there's a good reason behind that but you know so the art of preaching In an expository fashion is Extremely extremely important important for Me as someone who does not Stand behind the pulpit, but instead sits in front and in that congregation looking eye-to-eye with my pastor.

If he was just teaching through the book of Luke I He would have lost me a long time ago, I'll just be honest, but however I remember What was being said? I remember what was being taught and.

And.

And I can go back and and I can read something and I'll remember the emphasis he put on that and I'll go. Why did he put emphasis on this? So yeah, there is a part that can only be Delivered by a pastor who was called into the ministry to do expository preaching it is it is not Something that you just get up and do or can learn in a college classroom.

I do not believe.

Agree with that. I Would think I'm gonna have to kind of combine to two bullet points Rob unless you want to go ahead and take art by yourself. And then I'll I'll transition the next one. Yeah, let me make one comment.

Then you can transition to the next one. Was you gonna combine instructional and teaching together?

I was going and combine art instructional and teaching. Nice. Okay, but We'll try to. I know that's a big swing. That'd be fantastic.

The only thing that I was gonna say was I've not been in a position yet in my life where I've. I have preached Consecutively Sunday after Sunday. I was in a position once where I was preaching Consistently and so listening to what Randy was telling us about Having some containment so that you didn't have to be there, you know Previously to understand everything that was going on.

I really took advantage of John when I was able to teach or preach and you know, consistency consistently because because he says in his books I write these things so so he kind of gave me a overall guideline when I was diverse and It was almost like cheating he kind of tells you this is this is why I'm writing the book, you know.

So you could go through that that chapter of those verses and you could pull out, you know What he was what was going on specifically there, but you also understood why he was writing that too. And so I Appreciated going going through John and him helping me out in that way.

So like I take I teach Wednesday night more or less line by line chapter by chapter. But on Sunday, I typically go with a with a topic and I break that topic down. Exposition Lee and that's If I were honest with you, that is not my favorite way to preach right, but what it does do is there'll be folks who don't show up every Sunday morning and And you have to know if you're gonna if you're gonna do anything with art, then you have to know your audience.

Right. So I have an audience that is Mostly repetitive on Wednesday. I can count on most of the same people so if we're if we're going for the law of averages if we're going for how can I Communicate and I don't have to worry about it being contained in every single message.

I can I can say, okay next week We're going to finish this topic and I can expect 99 of the people that I tell that to will be there the next Wednesday. God willing, right? On Sunday morning. I don't have that option Sunday morning.

If I could get all the people that go to my church to come to church at the exact same time We'd have a good-sized crowd on Sunday morning, but I can get 75 to 80 percent of everybody and people that were here this week will not be there next week for some reason so it's difficult when that is the way that your your congregation goes to Teach the exact same way on Sunday morning.

So when I take a topic like I'm not gonna say what I'm gonna preach on Sunday yet. We'll leave it alone. But if I take a topic like I did last Sunday and I preach on that topic. It will be the portion of scripture that I use.

I will do my very best to use that as much of that book as I can and If there's another book that is layered on going on at the exact same time I will try to include as much as that now, you know, you do have a timeline, right?

That you everybody says the same thing preach as long as you want to they don't mean that they do not mean that they're. They're lying to you.

The wife of the husband who says preach on preacher, yeah.

Yeah, it always sounds the same way. Take your time.

The.

Thing is that I want to I want to to be between 30 and 45 minutes. That requires me to do something that I'm not good at and that is to to learn the text learn the sermon outline. I I'm going to be reading a lot of scripture if you ever come to any service that I've ever Had the opportunity to speak at you're going to see me read a lot of text and that's because the more text I read The less likely I am to mess this up.

So whenever I'm teaching and whenever I'm instructing I'll do my best to learn the text so that as I'm reading the text The things that I've learned are forever more coming up in front of my mind. As I'm reading the text it is it's like becoming clear to me that the The obligation that I have it during this sermon and when I get done I can look to you.

I can look you eye-to-eye face to face even if I have to walk down there where you're sitting. And I can talk to you without reading from a lecture a set of notes. I've no problem with notes. Take all the notes you want to even take them with you to the pulpit if you need to so that you can keep track of where you're going.

Don't sit there and read from the page. Know the material studied and show yourself approved so that when you show up you'll be that workman worthy of us. How you can stand there in that in that place and you can have Understood the text as best as possible.

You can talk to these people Eye to eye and you can engage them. You can engage their mind. There's a lot being said without words. Right the way the way you're talking to somebody about the about a portion of.

You take a book of the Bible take Ezra and whenever you start talking about how Ezra is setting up the temple. But the walls in ruin and you know that Nehemiah is coming in at the same exact time Ezra's there.

They're building the wall up. You can think about how Exhausting this this task is and what these people must be going through to see it while the entire law was read to them During that period of time.

That you can look at people in their facial expression when you've been talking for 20 minutes and realize you couldn't hack it. Yes, if you can't listen to me for 20 minutes try to break down this portion of text.

These these people stood until it was over with and heard the whole thing read. Know the text. Don't don't know the text to teach the sermon just like you don't study for a test you take you'll you'll you'll forget what you took the test about if you if you go to a college and You want to be a mechanic?

You can go ahead and learn how to take a test to pass public speaking if you want to but you'd better not skip out. On engine building you better learn the text and know the thing better than just to take the test.

So many people get up behind a pulpit on Sunday morning and treat it like it's a test. That I've learned enough to preach this lesson note know the text and be changed by it.

Man, and.

Take that as a Charles Spurgeon said that he threw more sermons away on Saturday night than he ever preached in his entire life. But whenever he read a portion of Scripture that so changed his mind or wrecked his soul and sent him to his prayer closet.

That's what he give his church was stuff that tore him up. And and he no doubt knew the text whenever he went to that pulpit so that it wasn't cracker juice. Mixed up with salt and trying to swallow that down, you know, it was seasoned.

With love and compassion. And it was pretty much the exact same thing Paul said a while ago, right? That's why he's the preacher among preachers in this group.

I'm just the old guy again. I'm glad to be here with y 'all.

Before cell phones before smartwatches. Did any of you guys were you ever in a service where somebody set the alarm on their electronic watch? I was in services years ago and people would set their alarm on their electronic watch.

This was before cell phones and smartwatches and it would go off every Sunday at 12 o 'clock.

And sad at the same time, yeah, yeah my first pastor after I got saved he was a Church of God pastor and.

I.

Won't say his name because I didn't tell him I was gonna say it but he uh. He said he was he was preaching at a church one day and and he could tell that everybody was just it was homecoming and everybody.

Was really excited about the fellowship afterwards. I was ready to eat. It's ready to to get the sermon over with. I guess they had a Battalion of people in the back, you know ready to break out the Tupperware or whatever, you know, and he said he could tell they just wouldn't have been interested in what he had to say.

He said, you know what? Let's go ahead and finish the thing. Let's go eat and it's like, all right. He said he never went back and was never invited back, you know. They were they were over the sermon before it happened.

They just showed up to celebrate. Hmm.

Let let me combine these next three and then we'll do the next three after that biblical Application and context. Pick all three or one of the three and it's association with expository preaching.

Said biblical.

Application or context? Um, yes, so I.

Think with the Wayne says something earlier as far as the passion of the preacher. And also so so in biblical exposition It's not just Like he said given a lecture right you're not just given the context you're not just giving the original thought of the author and Building the structure of you know, the ancient Israel or Corinth or you're not just doing that.

But you have to give the people. Why is this important and why is this important to you? Right. So if you're a pastor of a church and you're familiar with the concern you come you're familiar with What's going on in the church?

You know certain situations, you know, you you you are better equipped to minister to the people now if you're if You're a tenor and preacher, you know, you don't really know the congregation God can still use you.

But it's gonna be different from a pastoral perspective, right? So for example, I preached on James chapter 5 Couple of weeks ago in an earlier part of chapter 5 it was the judgment of God. He was he was talking about the judgment.

That's gonna be on the poor on the rich. That's oppressing the poor and then that's verses 1 through 7 1 through 6 and then 7 through 12. He's encouraging the ones that are being oppressed. So I divided into.

The.

Judgment. So my first point was the judgment of God and the second point was his encouragement. And so even my wife told me so she said that first half of this sermon. She said it was tough. I mean it was it she said I like the second half when she said the first half was tough because my church.

They're not they're not used to hearing about the judgment of God, right?

Um.

Then I used to hear and that's what expository preaching does. It's whatever the text says. Right, whatever the text says. And and and they could see and I think I'm Claude said it, you know, if you're not faithful to the text, they will catch it.

Right, they will catch it. It's easier for them to catch it. And one of the things expository teaching does is. It teaches the people how to study.

Amen, right.

So one of the things one of the things that I like is when I'm reading the text that I'm giving my points and I'm preaching or teaching. They should be able to say oh I see that even if they didn't see before but they could look at the text.

They should be able to look at the text that okay. I see where he got this point from right? Now if they don't see it then then it may be an issue on communication or it may not be there. You're just you know.

You read the text and you just went way left right and they will be able to catch that. So it teaches the congregation how to study the Bible how to read the scriptures how to when they go home on their own how to dig in how to Dig into the text and I think it's to understand the text fully and how to apply it To their lives.