Jesus said many interesting and wonderful things while He was here on earth. In St. John's Gospel in chapter 6, verse 35, He says "I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst." In chapter 21:15-17 Jesus tells Peter not once, but three times "Feed my sheep." Lastly, in Matthews Gospel (28:20), Jesus instructs His disciples to "teach them all that I have commanded you." It is unfortunate that in most churches today, our pastors think that the congregation would like to hear more about news stories, personal philosophies and other such nonsense instead of doing as Christ commanded, which is to "feed His sheep." In order for the sheep not to starve to death, this requires the full reading and exposition of the scriptures. We feed on the Word of God, not on anything else. All too often not only does the preaching lack any real scriptural reading or application, it is a time for evangelism. Evangelism is what is supposed to happen during the week, by the congregation to a lost world, not by the pastor on a Sunday sermon.
Expositional preaching involves going systematically through the Word of God, one verse at a time. This enables the entirety of the Gospel to be proclaimed, for the hard sayings of Christ to be read and understood in the context of the Gospel message. By doing this, pastors are forced to address all issues that the Bible speaks about, not being allowed to pick and choose topically those subjects which are much more politically correct or easier to preach due to less emails and hurtful comments. This allows the work of the Holy Spirit to convict the flock of their sin, for the flock to repent and return to Him. The Holy Spirit can help the sheep in worship and encourage the flock to keep following their Lord. If the sermons are centred around stories or philosophies rather than the Word of God, the sheep will starve, or never grow in their understanding of the Gospel. At best they will forever remain babes in Christ. This does not mean that there is no room for illustrations to help in our understanding of the message, but they need to remain illustrations, and not become the focus of the message. At Hill Country, expositional preaching will be the norm, every Sunday, every message.
Questions? Email us at hillcountryreformed@gmail.com or call us, 403-932-0519.
It seems odd that sermons have been broken into two categories: Evangelical and Equipping sermons... I like how Driscoll puts it that if we just preach the Gospel, the saints are equipped and the non-believers have the opportunity to hear the Gospel message. Two birds with one stone.
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