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You know, it's a changing world. And one of the things that help us understand the changing world is research. And so as churches have been struggling and families may be disconnected and sometimes drifting away from the church, we're kind of dealing with some of the questions of where do we go from here? And the Communio nationwide survey on faith and relationships really kind of points to the family decline and how it relates to faith decline in the United States. Actually, the survey has three key issues that are impacting our society today.
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Go to communio.org/study to download the nationwide study on faith and relationships.
Welcome to the Transforming The Church podcast hosted by Dr. Derwin Gray. We pray that through this podcast, you will be empowered to live on mission with Jesus and lead courageously.
Here's your host, Doctor Derwin L. Gray.
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Hey, here's my promise to you. I want to give you clear, compelling, Christ exalting content that's going to equip and encourage you to serve your local church or your ministry with excellence. When I mean excellence, I don't mean perfection. Excellence as in the ecstasy of Christ, the excellence of the gifting that you have.
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So, thank you for the honor and privilege to partner with you in the Gospel. In return, my ask for you is that you would share the content if you think it can make an impact and difference in other ministry leaders' lives. I want you to think about something that is quite amazing. It is mind-blowing that a person can get on a stage, open up the word of God, and preach and teach in such a way that hearers will be transformed not only in the room but outside of the room because we live in a digital world now. Isn't that amazing?
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Think of the messages that you've heard that have transformed your life. It's mind-blowing. Before I take the pulpit, before I teach, and before I preach, it just overwhelms me that there are going to be people on the verge of suicide who are going to say, no, I want to live because of the Gospel. They're going to be people who don't have purpose, who are going to go; I've got purpose because of the Gospel. They're going to be people who are racked with guilt and shame and condemnation, who are going to say, I'm accepted because of the Gospel.
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When you think about the Gospel, it led people like John Wilberforce to say enslaving black people is wrong. It has led people to do incredible, transformative things. And you and I have the privilege of standing in that reality. And so what I want to talk about is, how do we preach and teach in such a profound way. People ask me this all the time: How do you prepare a sermon?
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So what I want to do is I want to walk you through the process that I go through to prepare a sermon. John Stott. The late John Stott is a great definition of a sermon, or to preach. He says this. “To preach is to open up the inspired text with such faithfulness and sensitivity that God's voice is heard and God's people obey him.”
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And what I would add to that is not only is God's voice heard and obeyed by God's people, but the word also makes people who are yet God's people, his people. The word of God is powerful and beautiful. One of the things that I do to prepare my messages is develop in my mind this concept of dancing to the rhythm of God's grace. What do I mean? Here's dance move number one.
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Before I prepare a sermon, Jesus must prepare me. Within weeks of becoming a follower of Jesus, the Holy Spirit led me to Ezra, 7:10, and it inspired me to pray this. Lord, empower me to study your word, obey your word, and teach your word. So I think there's something powerful about studying God's word, like really understanding God's word. But then, equally important, if not more important, is obeying God's words.
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I think the power of the spirit rests on those who are faithful and obedient to God's grace. And then I. You want to be able to teach God's word in a culturally relevant way, in a powerful way, in the spirit's strength. I like to pray this before preaching. I would like to say, Jesus, I need a revelation from you, Holy Spirit.
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I need your power in my life, Lord. Father, I need you to show up and display your glory. Now, be on guard. Be careful about becoming a good preacher because you stop relying on the spirit's power. So what I'm saying is this: you want your capacity to grow to be equivalent to your intimacy with God because there are people who can be really good at doing things without the spirit's power, but the spirit's power rests on those who abide in Christ.
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So, dance move number one is we want God to pray for us, prepare us, and that is prayer. That's being in the scripture. That's being holy, walking by God's grace to obey him. Number two, the dance move number two, is you want to have Christocentric preaching. What does that mean?
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It means, that all of the Scripture testifies to Jesus. In Luke 24: 13-49, on the road to Emmaus, Jesus is with two of his disciples. And ultimately, he says, I'm going to teach you from Moses all the way throughout, that it testifies to me. In John 5:39, Jesus said this to the religious leaders. “You search the scriptures because you think in them you have eternal life, and it is they that bear witness to me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have eternal life.”
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A person can know the Bible without knowing Jesus. So please understand this. The demons know scripture. The demons know theology. They just don't obey it right.
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So making sure that we're pointing people to Jesus, that in the Old Testament, he is the fulfillment of every Old Testament prophecy, and every Old Testament character is a type and shadow of Christ who was to come. And in every sermon, Jesus is the hero. When you're preaching, when you're teaching, you want to make sure that you're evangelizing and edifying simultaneously. Here's what I mean. The Gospel.
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When I say the Gospel, what I mean is this, is that through the life death resurrection of King Jesus, who rose from the dead, who lived a sinless life, an atoning, sacrificial death on the cross, who rose again and who ascended so the Holy Spirit could descend and create a blood bought multiethnic family, who is now united to Christ, who are empowered by Christ for the mission of Christ, for the glory of Christ. So when I say the Gospel like Jesus is the hero, so we can evangelize and edify simultaneously, if we're only edifying and not evangelizing simultaneously, I would say that we're no longer preaching the Gospel because the same Gospel that justifies is the same Gospel that sanctifies and glorifies so simultaneously, we should be reaching the loss and building the believer, because the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that inclusive and that epic that it reaches both simultaneously. And I know that to be true firsthand here, transformation church, we are bearing witness to that every single Sunday.
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Ultimately, in every one of my sermons, it's ultimately about what Jesus has done to redeem humanity and bring his kingdom to earth through his redeemed, glorious, beautiful, multiethnic church. And that's from exegeting the scripture, no matter where you go. So we've got Adam in a garden, and he blows it. We've got Jesus, the last Adam, who's in a garden, who reverses the curse. We've got Noah on a boat that had pitch on it to make the ark.
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The word pitch in Hebrew is the same word for atonement. Noah saved people on a big boat made of wood. Jesus saved people on a big cross made of would. So all of those types and shadows testify to him. People need more and more Jesus.
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Dance move number three, preachers must understand the content and context of scripture. I think I heard my buddy Ed Stetzer say that, and it's really profound. It's not enough to know the content of scripture. We also need to know the people we're preaching to. And the culture that's situated in the Gospel never, ever changes, but the culture does.
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Therefore, we must be like an artist who has a paintbrush, and Jesus blood colors our lives so his redemptive work can take place in the everydayness of life. So, dance move number three. We need to know the content of scripture and the context of culture. Dance move number four. I call this head, heart, hands, head, heart, hands.
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Upward, inward, outward. Head, heart, hands. After I do my exegetical work to pull out the meaning of scripture, the Christo-centric work, I ask myself three questions. What do I want people to think about Jesus and his redemptive work? Head.
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What do I want people to feel about Jesus and his redemptive work? Heart. What do I want people to allow Jesus to do in their lives as a result of his redemptive work? Hands. Head.
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Heart. Hands. So we want people's minds exploding with the glory and the beauty of God. We want people's hearts exploding with the grace of God. And we want people's hands moved by the love of God.
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Dance move number five. Less simple. Passionate. Less simple. Passionate.
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The younger of a preacher you are, the shorter you should be. Trust me. I know, I know. You're like, no, what are you talking about? Trust me.
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My professors when I was young would say, listen, preach shorter sermons. They will be better. The younger you are. You tend to want to do more to impress people. Preaching isn't about impressing people.
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Preaching is an act of worship. It is about connecting with Jesus. It is about the transformative power of the Gospel. So less simple and passionate. When I say simple, I don't mean simplistic.
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We can say deeply complex things, but in a simple way. True genius is making the complex simple and understandable. Preachers remember, less is more. Focus your sermons on one big idea, one big theme. True genius is the ability to communicate the complex in a way that is understandable.
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One of the greatest blessings that have formed me as a preacher is this. Our church is multigenerational as well as multiethnic. So if you're in 6th grade or above, you're in the main worship service with the adults. So when I'm preaching and thinking, I have to think about an eleven year old and a 70 year old, an unbeliever and a believer. A person who's been churched, a person who's unchurched, a person who is spiritually curious, a person who's in rebellion.
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Not only that, but also ethnicities, also ages. And that forces me to pray. And to be super clear, we've seen the fruit of that for 14 years. It's been epic. Preaching to young people simultaneously, while preaching to older generations have made me a better preacher and a better disciple, because it's made me more dependent on the Holy Spirit's power.
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Lastly, dance to the rhythm of your own sermon. It is good to learn from others, but you don't want to be a clone of them. Listen, only you can be you. No one can be better at you being you. And if the Lord Jesus wanted you to be somebody else as a communicator, he would have made you somebody else.
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But he made you to find your unique voice. So, dance to the rhythm of God's grace. Dance, I say. Dance to the rhythm of God's grace, so others can dance to the rhythm of God's grace. So in conclusion, here's how I dance to the rhythm of God's grace.
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Before I prepare a sermon, Jesus must prepare me. Dance move number two. Christocentric preaching. All of scriptures about Jesus. He is the hero of the story.
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We want people leaving our sermons going, I never knew Jesus was that beautiful. I never knew the Gospel was that incredible. I never knew redemption was this amazing. Dance move number three, know the content of scripture and the context of culture. Dance move number four.
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Head. Heart. Hands. What do I want people to think? What I want people to feel, what I want people to do in response to exegeting the text.
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Dance move number five, less simple and passionate. Less is more true. Genius is taking the complex and making it understandable. And there is something about passion. I think it was John Wesley who said this.
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“When a man or a woman is preaching and they catch on fire, people will come everywhere to see them burn.” And my hope and my prayer is that you and I would burn for the glory of God and set everybody ablaze. Why? So that we would be lit up with love. When the church is transformed, the world will be transformed.
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This is Pastor Derwin Gray. Marinate on that.
You know, if you listen to the podcast, you know that I love research used to lead to research companies. So I love when research helps to illustrate a question we have. And one of the questions a lot of people are having is how do we look to the decline of the family, maybe the relationship around fatherhood and issues of faith and church?
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Well, again, the Communio nationwide study on faith and relationships actually points to the collapse of marriage, where resident fatherhood fits into that, and how they all point ultimately to a relationship to Christianity and decline in the church. So visit communio.org study to download Communio's nationwide study on faith and relationships thanks for listening to today's episode of transforming the church. If you found this episode helpful or encouraging, please subscribe. Leave us a review and share this with someone in your life. For more resources, head to transformationchurch.tc/podcast.