What’s in a Sermon? Part 6: Expectations

 April 14, 2022

What’s in a Sermon? Part 6: Expectations

Well, just like a sermon, blog series must also come to an end. I will not say “In conclusion” yet, as this is not the conclusion. It is, however, the last step before we talk about how the whole sermon wraps together.

This time, we are on to the segment of the sermon called “Expectations.” The first thing you might notice is that this is a plural heading: there’s really only one Context, one Overview, one Reflection—though how you find emphasis in these may be different either depending on your personal understanding or your study methods.

Expectations, though, are more varied from the passage. Let us return to the Beatitudes and pick one: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God” (Matthew 5:9). When you look at the “Expectations” portion of the sermon, you are now going to take the whole of the Biblical understanding you have just presented and then give practical ways in which your hearers can work with it. You are striving to answer the question:

“What does God expect us to do with this truth?”

As an aside: this concept is based on the assumption that God expects us to respond to the truth we see in Scripture. This particular post is not the place to wrestle with Law/Gospel/Spirit/Letter/Grace/Response issues, but I will acknowledge that there are varied understandings of the nature of God expecting our response to His truth.

Here in Expectations, the preacher should be working to connect the timeless truth of Scripture with the real lives of the hearers. This is a place where it can be extraordinarily tempting to pad it with a personal agenda, but beyond the jokes by bald guys about Elisha and the bears, don’t do it. Instead, you want to connect with where the people are right now. And because your congregation is not all in the same place in life, there are multiple Expectations to be found.

First of all, there is the key idea that Jesus has brought us peace with God. You can respond to this truth by encouraging people to trust in Jesus, to tell others about Jesus, and so forth—there is a salvation-message expectation in almost any reasonable unit of Scripture.

Second, there is the idea that we are called to be peacemakers with others, so what actions can that look like for us? You may find it good to encourage the congregation to forgive one another, make peace with troublesome folks in their life, be sure they are peaceful in a chaotic world. It would be valuable to note that “peace” is the presence of right relationship, not just the absence of conflict, and that right relationship is not possible between an abusive individual and survivors of abuse: do not add trauma to trauma by making all conflict as simple to resolve. Some conflict requires separation and protection of one party to bring peace.

Third, there would be ideas about how the Christian is called to intervene and bring peace into a chaotic world and how the Church, in its local and global forms, could be a part of bringing peace. This looks different based on differing contexts of the church, but consider the possibility that you are in a community with divisive issues. How can the church help? The bare minimum is to do no further harm—but what could you do affirmatively to promote peace?

Expectations is where you, the preacher, are connecting the truth to ways that your hearers can live it out. Your creativity really comes into force here, but you must also keep your ego in check. Your job here is not to prescribe absolutely (in most cases; should be obvious that “do not murder” means… “do not murder” for all) but to show what Scripture does prescribe and illustrate ways to live it out. 

At this point, you are not proclaiming eternal truth, as you are with the Overview and Reflection, summarizing what the Holy Scriptures say, but you are presenting your own opinion. Be clear, be humble, be aware of your hearers and their world.

Next up, we’ll see how all this rolls together to make a sermon.

In Defense of Lots of Books

 April 13 2022

In Defense of Lots of Books

Something that the pandemic launched were lots of videos from pastors posted on the Internet, along with lots of Zoom interactions with people in ministry. That led to a spike in discussions about the bookshelves often spotted behind those ministry leaders during their videos.

Some folks noted that a good many preachers seemed to have expensive-looking hardwood bookshelves in their study space, while others noted that many also had nice leather-bound volumes lined up behind them like they were in a classical library. In turn, I’ve seen some discussions across social media about pastors and showing off books and bookshelves. Let’s talk about that for a minute.

First, the bookshelves should be addressed: many of those videos were shot in offices and studies that belong to either a church or an educational institution. Probably those bookshelves are hardwood, handcrafted years ago by a church member who does woodworking and you’re right: on the open market, if you could pry them out of the church, they would be expensive. But they aren’t necessarily a flaunting of wealth. After all, they belong to the church (or school), not the speaker. The bookshelves are built solid because they are built to last as long as the building. Does that mean it would be good for a church to spend thousands upon thousands now to build those kind of shelves? That’s a different discussion…but I’ve served a church where I had lovely built-in hardwood shelves all around me. They were about 80 years old and had been built in a different time.

Second, the books. Now, I can’t speak about having the rows upon rows of leather-bound, museum-grade books. I have a sneaking suspicion that some of those visuals are books that again belong to an institution that are just there for show—which to me is not a good thing—but I don’t know that. It may also be their hobby to collect vintage books. (And something that’s interesting is to see people rant about another person’s monetary spending from a $1000 phone, but that’s another show.)

It is worth noting, though, that many folks in ministry are working not only with their own books but a hand-me-down collection of books from other ministers. I’ve been the recipient of boxes of books from a church that shut down its library, and many of the older books have that nice, leather-look and old binding. So that is where some of them come from. (Why not sell them and give the proceeds to the poor? First issue: you have to find a market for them. If we all sold every copy of Matthew Henry’s Commentary, we’d flood the market like a pollen dealer in the South and they’d be worthless.)

The rest of those books? 

Why keep them? Why have them?

We tend to keep the books that we acquire along the way, which means the more schooling you’ve done, the more books you have on hand. Pastors who pursue the traditional ministry education have done a BA of some sort (120-140 College hours) and then a Master of Divinity (90 or so Graduate-level hours). That’s a lot of classes to buy books for and many of those classes call for more than one! Then you pick up one or two for this study or that purpose, and the collection grows. You attend a conference and see a recommendation and decide to learn more by reading about it.

You might find a hole in your understanding—I’m currently trying to read up on “Cultural Intelligence” from Michigan State University to strengthen my understanding of dealing with people not like me—and the better path is to read up on the deficit before you track down someone to pepper with questions. Those stay.

That’s why I have lots of books: because the more I know, the more I realize I don’t know. That’s most pastors I know, because to a great degree, our work is the work of a teacher for a class that sees a constant stream of individuals promote, graduate, transfer out, transfer in, and repeat the subjects. So we are always in need of learning for ourselves so that we can enable learning for others.

Now, do some pastors have stacks of books to try to make themselves look smart or fancy? Sure. There are posers in every vocation, so the ministerial vocation is no different. 

But if we expect ministers to have a hefty helping of humility (and we should!), then we should expect them to know their need for learning. And that’s where the books come in.

All told: you should have lots of books. Even if you don't read them all in your lifetime.

(Plus, there should be books you read for fun. I have books I read for fun. I’ve never seen someone more aghast at a book, though, than when they saw fiction on my shelf. I’ve got primary sources on cults—the cult’s own writings. I’ve got conspiracy theory books. Liberal books. Fundamentalist books. But more people have been bothered by Star Wars books…go figure.)

What’s in a Sermon? Part 5: Reflection

 April 12 2022

What’s in a Sermon? Part 5: Reflection

Having looked at the Context of a Bible passage and an Overview of what is happening in the passage as a whole, we come to the main point of the sermon, which is derived from a Reflection on the passage.

Now, to be honest, “Reflection” may not be the best title for this point in the sermon but it fits the acronym we are working toward, so “Reflection” it is. The idea is to provide a summary of the main point of the passage you are working with—what you find, upon Reflection, Prayer, Contemplation that the Scripture is saying.

In this section, you are still in the process of getting at the heart of what God has said in the text. Your creativity so far is still about explaining what is already there. While you may be seeing it in new ways, your main goal through all three of the first points is to get at the heart of the text, that people would see the Word of God plainly.

Reflection gets to the heart of your exegetical work. It is here that the meaning in the text should be plainly articulated to the congregation. They need to hear from you what you see as the meaning—and how it fits with the faith once delivered to the saints. 

This is, ultimately, the truth you are delivering that you want remembered. If nothing else is remembered from your sermon, you want this remembered. Why? Do you really think that folks are going to need that cute story about the dog next Thursday in a family tragedy? Or that they will always remember how well you raised money for the new kitchen?

Neither one of those are eternal truth. You want this to be eternal truth, truth that the Holy Spirit can work deeper and deeper into their hearts throughout the week.

Returning to the previous example of the Beatitudes, one might find several high points of meaning that share well in the Reflection, though you would be able to narrow it down to a summary that the blessed life is found counter to the normal expectations of this world. You could then use those sub-points to help explain how that is the main meaning in the passage.

I would refer you to works such as Grasping God’s Word by Hays/Duvall to address the question of “one meaning” in the text. I find it valid to say there is a primary meaning and also to note that this primary meaning is universal. That is—the blessed life is found counter to the normal expectations of this world holds true in 21st century America, 8th century Polynesia, and 2nd century China. How it fleshes out may be different, what aspect of the cultural push is hardest may be different. But if your “Reflection” finds a truth that is only valid in your current cultural climate, you have probably jumped ahead to an application point and need to slow down a step.

Are you going to get the Reflection perfectly? Probably not, but you will do well to put your research time into this. See what other commentators and preachers have found. Read widely—from the Ancient Christian Commentary Series to the Commentary for Christian Formation to the New Horizons Commentary and so forth. You want to work on seeing robustly into the truth here, not just hitting the flavor of the moment.

This gets us to the heart of the sermon: you are proclaiming God’s clear truth here. You will likely find a couple of things to note, because you should almost always be able to find the Gospel of salvation in the text. Share them plainly. Share them with enthusiasm. If you believe that the Holy Spirit will take the Word of God and remind His people of it in the week to come, this is where you push hard for understanding, because this is where you are dealing with the Word of the Lord.

What’s in a Sermon? Part 4 Overview

 April 11 2022

What’s in a Sermon? Part 4 Overview

So, we looked at the “Context” portion of the sermon a few days ago, and now we’re moving ahead to the “Overview.” (By the way, there’s a plan that this all fits under, you will see it in the summary in a later post!)

Overview is where the sermon works to answer the question: What is going on in the specific passage of Scripture? It is, essentially, where the preacher needs to summarize the passage, and may be the right place to read the passage. Or to read it again. Generally, this is a good place to read through the whole passage even if you’re going to go back and read each verse as you highlight it later.

Oh, and have you noticed that so far we have not talked about creating the central point of the sermon? That’s right. Because you will create that—it comes from the passage itself—but you do not need it as you construct the Context or the Overview. You will use that central point when you edit the Context and Overview down to size for the time available.

This section, Overview, gives the summary of what is happening. At times, this is a longer section than the Context but it can also be shorter. You may need to use this segment to explain what is happening around a speech—like the Sermon on the Mount—but you’re mainly looking at the overall passage. 

You would take the Beatitudes and summarize the general idea of that segment of Jesus’ teaching, how it was contrary to the prevailing wisdom of the day, how each one interconnects with the others.

In Context, you want to leave the hearer with an idea of how this passage fits with the Big Picture of God’s Story. In Overview, you want to leave the hearer with an idea of how this passage works.

Overview is also one of your primary defenses against bad application later. In Overview, you would note what Paul is writing about, overall, in Philippians 4 when he goes on to say “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me…” (Phil. 4:13). Without being clear in the overview of the passage—Paul thanking the Philippians for supporting his work even when things went poorly—you might focus on that verse as if it empowers you to do whatever you want.

(Hint: it doesn’t.)

The Overview section of your sermon is a key part to helping people see Scripture as more than just disconnected sentences. It, along with Context, also aids hearers in putting the text together on their own, equipping them to read the Bible well. After all, one of the best things a preacher can have is hearers who know the Word well. Keeps you working hard and working humble.

Sermon Recap for April 10 2022

Here is what you’ll find: there is an audio player with the sermon audios built-in to it, just click to find the one you want. You’ll also find the embedded YouTube videos of each sermon.

If you’d like, you can subscribe to the audio feed here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/DougHibbardPodcast

Audible Link is coming soon! Search "Doug Hibbard" to see if it's there yet

Spotify is here: https://doughibbard.libsyn.com/spotify

The video is linked on my personal YouTube Page here: https://www.youtube.com/user/dheagle93

Sermons are stockpiled here: http://www.doughibbard.com/search/label/Sermons

A Brief Word on Ukraine

 I have hesitated to actively encourage the United States and other nations from becoming directly involved in repelling the Russian invasion of Ukraine for a couple of reasons. I am going to change my opinion—not that anyone cares what I would think, since to Democrats I’m a useless fundamentalist and to me, the Republican Party ceased to be a viable option when they chose not to have a party platform in 2020 and went with “Whatever Donald Trump Wants” as the motto. That’s the first step toward tyranny: adherence to personalities over principles. And it historically tends to start when you like the principles of the personality so you have to oppose good things now to avoid horrible things later. Few people choose bad principles first; usually, they choose the expedient path to accomplish what they see as good and lose sight of reality.

Either way, my political views don’t amount to much more than a rapidly depleting hill of beans in their influence, but that’s neither here nor there.

So, my couple of reasons for not advocating directly involvement by other nations:

First, because I am asthmatic, I have never served in the military and cannot do so. I’ve tried and been rejected 3 times, once even got all the way to the physical and could not breathe well enough to get a “your asthma isn’t too bad” waiver. Since sending the United States Army or Marines into a shooting war involves no risk to me (or my children, as they are not in the service, either), I do not think I should be quick to advocate sending others into harm’s way. Because this is a reality of war: people die and people suffer. Probably if you let veterans of war vote, you would find peace a much more preferable option. So, in deference to those with an up-close risk, I have not wanted to say “somebody else should go die for Ukraine.”

Second, there is the very real likelihood that if other nations get involved in Ukraine, we will see the cascading expansion of the war like World War One started: small conflict, got bigger, engulfed a lot of nations. The possibility that other nations could equip Ukraine to handle the invasion and then see Russia depart seems better for the world overall.

However: we need to remember how World War Two started while we try to avoid going down the path of World War One: an aggressor nation, seeking to reclaim its former glory and empire, began by conquering its nearby, smaller neighbors. Those neighbors appealed to stronger nations for assistance and received none on the grounds of avoiding the cascading growth of the war.

That aggressor nation then committed atrocities like the Holocaust and millions of other murders as part of their overall strategy of conquest and it cost hundreds of thousands of lives to end that war. The leadership of nations like the United Kingdom and France were leery of getting into another situation like the trenches of World War One. Many of them had fought there. It was not wrong to be hesitant.

It was wrong to trade the lives of others thinking that a bloodthirsty aggressor would be satisfied. He was not, neither was his circle of advisers and supporters. The cost was too great.

Now, we have a hesitancy based off of years in Iraq and Afghanistan (wars whose situation we’ll leave aside for now) and the memory of Vietnam, the ongoing conflict in Korea. All of these lead to the question: is it worth it?

The answer we should be seeing more and more clearly. The answer is yes. 

This is not an empire-building crusade by the European Union or NATO. (And the UN is always too weak to do much and the pairing of Russia and China will prevent them from doing anything.) This is about right and wrong.

You may ask…but what about when Putin and Russia invaded Syria? Or what about this wrong that we left unaddressed?

I would hope you don’t mean that, having not done the right thing in the past, we are therefore obligated to never do the right thing in the future.

Meanwhile, what could be done? That’s a question for professionals, but I would wager a pack of bacon that there are military personnel who could walk to a file cabinet and pull out a stack of options.

It’s time to make that call and get those options.

What’s in a Sermon? Part 3: Context

 What’s in a Sermon? Part 3: Context

Apparently, you’re here for the long-haul on the sermon methodology, so let’s get straight into the first point of the sermon:

Context. Every sermon that I write and preach aims to lead with idea of “context,” which answers this question: How does this passage fit in the Big Picture of God’s Glory?

Why this question? 

Because the typical American Christian will hear dozens of sermons a year, plus Sunday School lessons, Bible studies, radio broadcasts, and more. And it is important that the sermon—because we tend to elevate its value—help us all see that the Word of God is a connected masterpiece and not just a moderately curated collection of one-liners.

(Delete rant about single-verse quips on tweets and t-shirts that miss meaning terribly.)

Context, for the sermon is going to cover important parts of the big picture. That’s going to include where in the Bible your passage is—it’s not a bad idea to give your hearers the run-down on how to get to the book you’re preaching from. In fact, the more we are preaching in environments that are not heavily Bible-saturated, the more we should do that. “We’re in Genesis, which is the first book in your Bible, it’s part of what we traditionally call the Old Testament. If you use one of the pew Bibles, it’s on page 9” may seem like a bad opening, but it points people to the text rather than engages them with your cleverness.

Remember, after all, the sermon is not about your cleverness. You can be clever and creative, and you should be. You ought not be boring.

But that doesn’t mean you need to hit the hook ‘em statement right at the beginning like a speech.

Your time to work on being interesting hits with the context, though: this is where your Biblical study, background research, historical efforts all come into use. Your goal here is set the stage for what this passage would have looked like to the initial audience; what are some of the key facts about when it was written or why it was written. And no, you should not punt this to “It’s in the Bible because God wants it there” without any other discussion. Yes, we accept by faith that God put it there for a reason. Your job in preaching is to help people understand the reason!

You don’t want to spend too much time on context, though, because it’s a sermon, not a history lecture. Trust me: this is an easy mistake to make, especially if you are rushed in your preparation time. Remember this principle: be short, be clear, be moving on to the next point.

Why?

For starters, this is often repeatable background information. If you are preaching a series in Ephesians, then you don’t do the full workup on context every sermon. You can spread it out, make it sequential as you address what Ephesus was like. Touch on covenant development along the way.

Second, you may take some of this material and sink into the rest of the sermon. If there is something specifically applicable about part of the context (presence of an imperial prison, perhaps?) to one passage, fix into discussing that passage and why it is relevant.

You’ll front-load this material, because it’s basic introductory matters and it’s fine if your hearers do not remember it perfectly. After all, you do not remember it perfectly, either, or you wouldn’t need those reference books, would you? The purpose here is for the hearers to get a feel for the situation.

Context is not the part of the sermon that typically connects to life-change, but it helps make the connection from the original direction of the text to the present day. It helps with the footing to make that solid throw downfield.