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Preaching - Lesson 27

Developing Redemptive Messages

In this lesson, you gain an understanding of the importance of developing redemptive messages in preaching, which focus on the work of Christ to redeem humanity. You learn to identify redemptive themes in both the Old and New Testaments, and explore how to develop a redemptive message using proper text selection, exegesis, and structure. As you delve into crafting your message, you discover the significance of providing clear application and illustration to help your audience grasp the redemptive truths presented in the sermon.

 

Bryan Chapell
Preaching
Lesson 27
Watching Now
Developing Redemptive Messages

I. Understanding Redemptive Messages

A. Definition and Purpose

B. Importance in Preaching

II. Identifying Redemptive Themes in Scripture

A. Old Testament Themes

B. New Testament Themes

III. Developing a Redemptive Message

A. Text Selection and Exegesis

B. Structuring the Message

1. Introduction

2. Body

3. Conclusion

C. Application and Illustration


Lessons
About
Resources
Transcript
  • Gain insights into effective preaching principles, covering history, essential components, styles, and techniques, and learn how to prepare and deliver impactful sermons.
  • Gain valuable insights on sermon construction, learn techniques for effective preaching, and understand the importance of continuous improvement for delivering impactful messages.
  • Through this lesson, you gain valuable insights into the process of text selection and interpretation for preaching, as well as learning practical techniques for delivering engaging and relevant sermons.
  • In this lesson, you gain insight into the process of creating a sermon, from text selection to delivery, emphasizing textual analysis and message relevance.
  • Through this lesson, you gain the skills to craft clear, engaging, and memorable sermons by mastering the principles of effective outlining and arrangement in preaching.
  • Through this lesson, you learn to craft effective propositions and main points, enhancing your preaching clarity and impact.
  • By exploring homiletical outlines, you'll learn to effectively develop and structure sermons, understand various outline types, and apply engaging presentation techniques for impactful preaching.
  • In this lesson, you gain insights into crafting engaging introductions for sermons, exploring their importance, characteristics, types, and the process of creating a compelling introduction that effectively connects to the message.
  • Through this lesson, you learn the importance of exposition in preaching, how to develop an expository sermon, and the role of the preacher for effective communication.
  • This lesson teaches you to create captivating sermon introductions using anecdotes, questions, and facts, guiding you through research, structuring, and presentation to maximize audience engagement and improve your overall sermon impact.
  • In order to understand the basic subdivisions of your sermon in expository development, it is important to it is helpful to see what the specific members of your sermon's body looks like in standard development.

  • By completing this lesson, you learn to effectively prepare and deliver sermons while focusing on personal growth, continuous improvement, and dependence on God.
  • Learn to effectively classify and develop sermons into topical, textual, and expository types, enhancing your preaching skills and audience connection.
  • In this lesson, you learn the significance of explanation in preaching and strategies to craft and deliver effective explanatory sermons while evaluating their effectiveness for continuous improvement.
  • By incorporating illustrations into your preaching, you engage listeners, clarify complex ideas, and enhance memory retention while learning effective guidelines to utilize various types of illustrations.
  • Explore this lesson to learn how to effectively use illustrations in sermons by isolating events or experiences, refining principles, and connecting with your audience through human interest accounts.
  • Through this lesson, you learn to effectively use illustrations in preaching to engage listeners, clarify concepts, and draw from various sources, while maintaining relevance, variety, and ethical considerations.
  • Gain insight into the importance of application in preaching, as well as principles and methods for effective application, to create impactful and relevant sermons that resonate with your audience.
  • Through this lesson, you learn to effectively apply biblical teachings to modern life, considering various approaches, overcoming challenges, and utilizing practical tips for context-sensitive and culturally aware application.
  • Through this lesson, you gain insights into crafting effective transitions in preaching and utilizing the dialogical method for increased audience engagement and message clarity.
  • Gain insight into various sermon presentation methods, their advantages and disadvantages, and learn to choose the right method and improve your preaching skills.
  • Through this lesson, you enhance your preaching skills by mastering vocal techniques and purposeful gestures, ensuring a connection with the audience while continually improving your delivery.
  • Learn the significance of dress and style in preaching and how to balance authenticity, appropriateness, and clarity to effectively communicate your message to your audience.
  • You learn to effectively repurpose old sermons, gaining insight into updating them for relevance, enhancing delivery, and managing time efficiently.
  • By studying this lesson, you gain insight into the crucial connection between the Word and Spirit in preaching and learn to balance them for effective and authentic sermons.
  • Through this lesson, you learn how to apply a Christ-centered, redemptive-historical approach to preaching, addressing common criticisms and enhancing your sermons.
  • Through this lesson, you learn to compose powerful redemptive messages that highlight Christ's work and connect biblical themes to modern audiences.
  • Through this lesson, you gain an understanding of redemptive principles in preaching, learning to identify them in Scripture and effectively apply them to your sermons while navigating potential challenges.
  • By exploring the importance of genre in biblical interpretation and applying redemptive interpretation to various biblical genres, you will gain knowledge and insight into the historical and literary context, redemptive themes and patterns, and contemporary application of different types of genres in the Bible.

Description

Dr. Bryan Chapell explores the unifying principle of grace that binds all Scripture together. He outlines and demonstrates the principles and practice of sermon-crafting and delivery to illuminate the message of grace in each passage, and to submit it to God's Spirit for the transformation of lives through preaching.

Dr. Chapell is making these recorded lectures available for you to access at no charge on BiblicalTraining.org. However, there is no personal interaction with Dr. Chapell in this format. The assignments and activities described are for classes that he teaches in person. We left the descriptions in for your benefit, but we do not offer personal or group interaction to participate in these activities. You can, however, sign up for his new preaching classes at BryanChapell.com/courses.

Dr. Chapell is helped in this course by Zachary W. Eswine, Assistant Professor of Homiletics and Director of the Doctor of Ministry Program (BSW, Ball State University; MDiv, Covenant Theological Seminary; PhD, Regent University). Dr. Eswine served as senior pastor of Grace Church of the Western Reserve in Hudson, Ohio, for six years before joining Covenant Seminary's faculty in 2001. He has served as a campus minister with the Navigators, as a church youth director, and as a chaplain-evangelist in retirement facilities. Since arriving at the Seminary, Dr. Eswine has also served as interim pastor for Tates Creek Presbyterian Church in Lexington, Kentucky, as advisory pastor for the Chinese Gospel Church of St. Louis, and as interim pastor for Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in St. Louis. He has taught New Testament in Ukraine and served as a short-term missionary in the Caribbean. Dr. Eswine is a gifted preacher and has authored the book Kindled Fire: How the Methods of C. H. Spurgeon Can Help Your Preaching and numerous articles on homiletics. In addition, as an accomplished musician and songwriter, he has recorded three collections of original songs.

Philosophy and Goals of the Course

1. "Prep and Del" is an introduction to the basics of sermon construction and delivery. This is not primarily a course on the theology of preaching, but rather is a practical introduction to the tools, structures, and concepts that help preachers learn to put a sermon together. 

2. Because this course is introductory, certain standards of sermon construction are taught that I hope you will consider "foundational" rather than universal. There is not only one "right way" to preach. However, mastering the methods of this course will help you develop the tools needed for many kinds of future sermons. Students from many backgrounds and preaching traditions have found these tools helpful even as they prepare for other styles in the future. Other methods and styles will be taught and encouraged in future semesters.

3. In Dr. Chapell's seminary class, you would be asked to present some short oral assignments to the class in order to: a) begin integrating the information presented in lectures; b) begin honing your preaching skills; c) and, remove some of the intimidation of your first preaching experience next semester.

(At this time, we do not provide personal interaction to evaluate your progress. We included the suggested assignments and activities to give you direction as you apply the principles you are learning to your own sermon preparation and delivery.)

Recommended Books

Christ-Centered Preaching (text only) 2nd(Second) edition by B. Chapell

Christ-Centered Preaching (text only) 2nd(Second) edition by B. Chapell

Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon [Hardcover]Bryan Chapell (Author)

Christ-Centered Preaching (text only) 2nd(Second) edition by B. Chapell
Christ-Centered Sermons: Models of Redemptive Preaching

Christ-Centered Sermons: Models of Redemptive Preaching

Highly regarded preacher and teacher Bryan Chapell shows readers how he has prepared expository sermons according to the principles he developed in his bestselling...

Christ-Centered Sermons: Models of Redemptive Preaching

Dr. Bryan Chapell
Preaching
PR600-27
Developing Redemptive Messages
Lesson Transcript

[00:00:00] This recording is provided courtesy of Covenant Theological Seminary. Ready for Lecture two, which I have identified as developing redemptive messages. So last time we were mainly talking about the rationale, the reasons for doing redemptive messages. And most of today we'll talk about how to do that. But just a quick review of redemptive principles for Christ centered preaching. We talked last time about the necessity of a redemptive focus in all truly Christian preaching. Remember that little thing by Jay Adams is kind of a nice rule of thumb where he said, if it's acceptable in a synagogue or a mosque, there's something wrong with it. You know, there's some if it's acceptable in a synagogue or in Moscow, there's something radically wrong with it. Expository preaching is committed to revealing what the word says. Jesus says the whole word presents his person and the work by revealing the grace that becomes most fully revealed in him. So to say what the text says, that expository ethic is to reflect what it is relating concerning the Ministry of our Savior. Be some identification marks of non redemptive preaching. We kind of learn kind of wrong paths to go down and saw how easy they are, wrong paths are any solid bootstraps, the messages that are only just fix it yourself. And they sometimes are identified by the deadly BS. Be like be good, be disciplined messages. Let me remind you these are not wrong messages in themselves. They're wrong messages by themselves. If they're silly, Bootstraps always said is be more disciplined. If all we've said is be good, it's Rushdoony in one of his early books before a lot of the comic stuff got real strong on the thing on the messianic character of American education. He has a a chapter, actually, it's an appendix entitled The Menace of the Sunday School.

[00:02:07] And what he talks about there is the Sunday school teacher who says with with wonderful sweetness. Now, Sally, if you're just a good little girl, Jesus will love you. It sounds so sweet and it is so foreign to the gospel. If you're just a good little girl, Jesus will love you. He loved us when we were his enemies. It's not because of our goodness that he is our savior. Such messages, all of these deadly BS by themselves inadvertently imply acceptance with God depends on our conduct. They imply that acceptance with God depends on our conduct. But this is contrary to the Scriptures such as Isaiah 64 six. All our righteous acts are like filthy rags. Luke 1710. Jesus said, When we have done all we were commanded, we are still unworthy servants again. If the message is only, you do more good works, you straighten up, you fly right, you be more disciplined. The trouble is the Bible is saying that's never enough. Even when you've done all you were supposed to do, you're still an unworthy servant. So if the message is entire scope is do more or do better. It actually is not. What Christ said can help us at all. So the gospel so far and the way most people think, right. Most people, even in the church, are out there balancing scales, Right. I'm not perfect, but the good work's going to outweigh the bad. But according to scriptures, on what side of the scales to our good works go? They actually weigh against us. They're still filthy rags. They are still that which is tainted with our humanity. The Westminster Confession of Faith puts it this way. In the 16th chapter, our best works cannot merit pardon for sin, but are actually provable by God.

[00:04:05] That's a whole different concept. People out there thinking their good works are going to outweigh their bad. And yet what's actually happening is their good works are weighing against them, are actually subject to God's reproof. And it's why, again, a message simply of be good actually hurts people because we're actually telling people to do more. That would weigh against them unless as the confession continues, nonetheless, God is to be pleased to receive them. That is good works in Christ. I'm a visual thinker and so I think I really like this notion that it's my work's wrapped in Christ, it's Christ righteousness that makes the good works acceptable. So if the message does not inform people how his grace, his working is what makes them acceptable to God, it's actually the wrong message. When I was a kid, I went through a in my adolescence, a rite of passage that everybody, every male in my household had to go through. This is a rite of passage was known as using a two man crosscut saw when you grew up in the rural South. My daddy and his daddy before him at all. Learn how to use a two man crosscut saw. So listen, we knew about chain saws, but it was a rite of passage. You had to learn how to do that. And I can remember one particular kind of crisp fall morning. We were we were sawing through some logs and we got a log on the cutting frame. We didn't know it, but it was rotten on the inside. So we got just a little ways into the log and it it split and it fell off the cutting frame and it landed on the ground and hit so hard it kind of sheared along a face.

[00:05:51] And to my kind of adolescent brain that that rotten piece of horse had log rotted piece of walnut, kind of like a horse head. And so after we got through sawing for the day, I took that rotten horse in my second in my arm and took it home. And a few weeks later I don't remember it was my dad's birthday or Christmas cause they're both in December. I, I took that kind of horse head rotten log and I nailed a two by four to it, and I put some sticks on four legs and I tied on a rope for a tail and I put some nails down the side of the two, much more wrapped in butcher, bought paper, put a ribbon on it, gave it to my dad. He took the paper off of it, looked at it and said, That's wonderful. What is it? And I said, Dad, it's a tie rack. You see those nails down the side you can put your ties on. And for years, my father used that rotten horse, Ed, long as his tie rack, you know, kind of leaning it against the closet wall because it wouldn't exactly stand up straight just yet. Now, listen, when I first presented that work to my father, I thought it was really good. I mean, I thought this is a work of art, ready for a museum somewhere. But I had to get just a little bit older and I would say, Oh, Dad, will you please get rid of that thing? Yet he accepted it not because it was good, because he was good. It was it was what was in him that made it acceptable, not it. And it's what we have to say when we preach to God's people, saying he expects these works, but they're acceptable only as they are received in Christ.

[00:07:50] It's what God has provided that makes them acceptable, not the things in themselves. So when we preach, we're always trying to, as it were, wrap the imperatives in the indicative of the grace of God to remind people it's what he has done, what he provides that makes these things acceptable to him, and then makes them a joy to present to him because we recognize his grace is what makes them acceptable. Now, that's not always an easy step. If you picked up the sheet as you came in the door here and go up or else go all the way back to your lectures, there's some quotations that I gave you, and a key one is the one from Martin Luther. And that's the one right at the beginning. Now, this was from a sermon that Luther preached toward the end of his life. And you see it's called the Sun. You know, everything added up the sum of the Christian life. And yet here is acknowledging some of the struggle to explain this grace thing and work with it. He says this It's exceedingly difficult to get into another habit of thinking in which we clearly separate faith and works of love. Even though we are in faith. The heart is always ready to boast of itself before God and say, After all, I preach so long and live so well and done so much. Surely he'll take this into account. But it cannot be done with men. You may boast, but when you come before God leave all that boasting at home and remember to appeal from justice to grace. Don't ask God to be just the last God to be. You don't want fair. What do you want? You want mercy. You want grace.

[00:09:36] We have to appeal from justice to grace. But let anyone try this and he will see and experience how exceedingly hard and bitter it is for a man who all his life has been mired in his work, righteousness to pull himself out of it, and with all his heart rise up through faith in the one mediator. And this is very interesting. I myself have been preaching and cultivating grace for almost 20 years, and still I feel the old clinging dirt of wanting to deal so with God that I may contribute something. So I have to give me his grace in exchange for my holiness. Still, I cannot get it into my head that I should surrender myself completely to sheer grace. Yet I know that this is what I should and must do. I had an amazingly candid statement. I want to contribute something and let it count for something for my merit. And yet to get it into your head. No, it's entirely his goodness. Nothing in you entirely has, and to depend upon his grace. And of course, if we're teaching people that's the gospel, it becomes imperative for our preaching as well that they understand that role. If we talk about the the distinctive then of what Christ in your preaching is, if we have to get grace on the scene of any message, then we should also say what Christ centered preaching is not. And I'm indebted to Sidney Adonis here in his book Sola Scriptura. For some real quick definitions of what Christ centered preaching is, not the first. He says. This question of preaching is not allegorical. Preaching Christian preaching is not allegorical preaching. Krishna preaching does not attempt to make the person of Christ appear in every Old Testament mud puddle and camel track by allegory or analogy through paralleling Old Testament accounts and New Testament experiences of Jesus.

[00:11:38] We did this last, I remember, rehabs red cloth and Moses meeting the women at the well, you know, that is Ram's cloth about the blood of Christ. Or is it about the fact that she was a scarlet woman? Well, you can kind of make it mean anything you want it to mean if you're just going by allegory. Also, not what Gordon is called leapfrogging to Golgotha. That is something in the Old Testament reminds you of something in the life of Christ said this Christ. Her preaching shows how God's grace operates throughout history to enable God's people to understand and depend upon his provision alone for their salvation. That's pretty good. It's saying, How is God's grace operative? So. God's people are depending on him rather than themselves. Second good, honest, second banana, said Krishna, Preaching is not an Tanzanian preaching now. You know, we just have to say, as we did last time, when you talk about grace focused or Christ in a preaching, the greatest fear and evangelical reform circles is that you'll become A.A. Milne. And so we just have to be clear here. We are not talking about Antonioni and preaching. Christ centered preaching does not negate the necessity of law in believers lives, but teaches instead that our obedience has no power to redeem or to grant merit before God. Christ, in her preaching, reveals the grace in all of Scripture to motivate God's people according to Christ precept. If you love me, you will obey what I command. It's not wiping out the law. It's giving the proper motivation for obedience. And by the way, the obedience is not to gain merit. It's to walk in safety. It's to walk in glory. It's to do that which is not only best for us, but most glorifying to the one that we love.

[00:13:40] So the grace focus has it's an attempt not to justify us, but to inspire us to do what God requires. Now, next pages, we say what redemptive preaching is, not we also about what redemptive preaching is. First, it is recognition of all Scripture as one organic history of God's redeeming work. That is the revelation of His grace. And then, of course, again, the progressive principle is a progressive understanding of the organic principle. It's all tied together. And the redemptive principle. It's all tied together in revealing what God is doing to to redeem his people. So be it. Redemptive preaching is relation of all persons and events and teaching to the revelation of grace as it is ultimately made known in Christ. This is from her Dionysus book again. He says this in opposing the fragmentary interpretation which reads the Bible as a collection of biographies. You all have this lecture. I'm just thinking most of you have that. Okay, good. Some I could go on in opposing the fragmentary interpretation which reads the Bible as a collection of biographies. The redemptive historical side stresses the hermeneutical significance of the unity of redemptive history. The unity of redemptive history implies the Christo centric nature of every historical text. Redemptive history is the history of Christ. He stands at its center, but no less at its beginning and end. Scripture discloses its historiography. That is the purpose of its history. Right at the beginning, Genesis 315, Genesis 315 places, all subsequent events in the light of the tremendous battle between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent between Christ coming into the world and Satan, the ruler of this world. And it places all events in the light of the complete victory which the seed of the woman shall attain.

[00:15:57] In view of this, it is imperative that not one single person be isolated from this history and set apart from this great battle. The place and both opponents and coworkers can only be determined. Christological. Now a lot of words going by, but what's he saying? He's saying that the thing verse of the Bible is not John 316 He's saying it's Genesis 315 because what's happened there? God speaks to the serpent. I'll put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed in her. See, you will strike his heel, but he will crush your head. And now all events, all of human history that unfolds from this point is is unfolding. That first gospel, that explanation of what Christ knew. Everything is about the great battle that is engaged between state of the woman Christ and the serpent and all his see. So everything when you're talking about the judges or the kings or whether you're talking about our life today is still the battle that's being engaged until Christ will hold full sway. I sometimes think of it this way. It's almost as though we've been given the privilege of standing on a hill overlooking a vast Napoleonic battlefield. And some of you may have been to Waterloo or something like that. You stand up on a hill and you can see where the armies engaged. And it's almost as though you could say, like on that hill back there, there's the artillery and there in front the infantry and back behind the cavalry and their supply trains further back and spies on both sides. But you can't explain any particular without relating it to the battle. Everything has a role in the battle. And the same thing is true. We we kind of stand on Genesis 315 and say, there's Sampson, there's Paul, there's David.

[00:17:55] And and we begin to understand, in light of their role in the great battle, the victory of the king. Everybody's got a place, everybody's serving a purpose. And the goal in redemptive historical preaching is to say, what is the purpose? What is the place of that in the overall battle that's being engaged, The small print there, that's just about Genesis 315. Our goal is not to make every passage mention Christ, but to show where every passage stands in relation to the grace ultimately revealed in Christ. Now, that's important. Yes, we get allegorical, right? If you're looking at every passage saying, where does this mention Jesus versus what's the function of this passage in revealing the nature of grace that's ultimately going to be manifested fully in his work? If we just say, I got to make this text mentioning Jesus in some way, we'll get we'll get very allegorical. So here's what we're we're trying not to do. And this is just kind of visually representing what Gordon US was talking about. We're not doing this imaginative leapfrogging to Golgotha. This is where you're walking along in the Old Testament. And the preacher sees something like the women around the the well of Jacob or something like that, and says, this passage reminds me of something in the life of Jesus. That's that kind of leapfrogging thing versus what we're actually trying to do, which is this. We are identifying where wherever we are in history, whether Adam and Eve or the Flood or the patriarchs or the law or the kingship or any aspect of the New Testament, Christ coming Resurrection Church are coming again. Where are we in the Battle of Christ to crush Satan so that as we're moving historically along, our goal is to say, where are we engaged in the battle and what is the function of this text or this person in the overall says there at the bottom of the page, the preacher explains the role of any epic event person and passage within the divine crusade of redemption.

[00:20:12] That is the sovereign victory, the seed of the woman over Satan. Now, it's kind of easy to see in a description that's kind of hard to do sometimes, Right? And for that reason, we're going to talk about other approaches than just a redemptive historical approach that we will value. That one. The top of the next page gives the essence of what we're trying to do. Top of page three says this Christian preaching is simply the proclamation of the divine crusade of redemption, of God's way out of the human predicament. Now, that's Simon Blocker in 1955. I think if he'd said set predicament, fallen condition, I would have been in trouble. I could have never written a book. But it's kind of the same notion in it. It's to make it Christian preaching. You're saying, What's God's way out? How is God the hero here? What's he doing more than making some allegorical connection? A basic process that we could follow for Christ in preaching. And again, this is more of a halting portion of the lecture. How do you do this? A three step process for preaching Christ, that is God's redeeming work from every text would be this. You start with what is the the FCF? What is the following condition that's going on here? What what was wrong that the Holy Spirit wrote this? We said if we were Lutheran, we'd be talking about what's the burden of the text, What was wrong that this needed to be written for that generation in succeeding generations? What's what's the burden of the text or the fallen condition that requires God's intervention and rescue? A true FCF requires a divine solution and thus exposes the inadequacies of legalistic, moralistic messages. I mean, if your target is clear that you're dealing with this, then simple human activity is not going to fix it.

[00:22:12] So by identifying the FCF, what we're doing is we're requiring God's intervention and that's why we're avoiding man centeredness, as well as Anton's mannerism where we're saying, here's the problem that God must answer, and we're showing how that is being addressed first, by identifying the FCF. Number two, we ask what redemptive you can almost do or grace what redemptive or grace principles are evident in the text. So having identified the burden, what's God doing about it? What redemptive or grace principles are evident in the text? We try to examine historical context. Now, this is important, right? Because you can say where the various places that you can get the grace, as it were, where various ways the text might be showing it to us. Historical context, genre narrative features, doctrinal statements, divine actions surrounding passages, all these things that underscore the necessity and presence of God's redemptive work or grace on behalf of his people. In essence, we're asking the question. We look at the text and we say, What does it tell me about the nature of God providing redemption? What was it? Tell me about the nature of man requiring redemption. Now, you've heard those questions before, right? Those are the two lenses. Was this tell me about God. What's this? Tell me about me. And by asking those two very fair questions of any text, what does it tell me about the nature of God providing redemption or the nature of man requiring redemption? You're automatically to start dealing reductively It can't just now be about, you know, human activity. You see the little note at the bottom there. Remember, context is part of text be expository, not fanciful. Grace principles may be found before, after, or throughout the immediate text. I mean, you'd have to say some of the Pauling epistles are nothing.

[00:24:26] But if you get to those paramedic portions, which are just the imperatives, right, here's how you live in the world. You see there's nothing there but imperatives, but it's got a context. Before he gave the content that imperative, he said in view of God's mercy, present your bodies as living sacrifices wholly in pleasing to God, which is your spiritual in before he began to list all the acts of spiritual worship, he said in view of God's mercy to these things. And he's just spent about 11 chapters saying what the mercy is before he then began to list the things to do. So sometimes we'll have to say, if you just if you just kind of deal in isolation. Yes, there may not be grace in evidence, but context is part of text context as part of text. So it may be something set after or before or woven through that is revealing the grace principle. Also in play. My notes say number two again, but it should be number three, right? One, two and three. In the light of how these great principles fit into the overall plan of redemption, how should we respond to these principles in our lives? So as we saw Grace being taken to struggle back then, how is truth being taken to our struggle today? How are we to respond to it? This, in my mind, is is the joy of redemptive preaching. Why? QUESTIONER Preaching is is that which helps the preacher along as well as the people? I mean, what I mean, why did you go to seminary? Why did you think about doing ministry? Something you said, I want to help people. I want to be a part of bringing Christ, mercy and grace into their lives.

[00:26:06] So if what I'm doing in preaching is not just saying you need to know more doctrine or you need to do additional behaviors, which is what I think most people approach the text thinking, that's all I'm up here to do, tell you more doctrine or more behaviors. Instead, what I'm saying is there's some struggle that you're going through, and it's like the struggle of those people for whom this was written and the grace of God is telling you how to deal with that struggle. So we take truth, do struggle, and suddenly we become those positions of souls that we want to be, rather than those who are just pestering people to do more every week. Now, I'm not saying you want to take these pills. You know, there may be some you know, you got to have the shot off your butt, but your goal is this healing, this this idea of bringing help to people that this grace centered and Christ centered approach helps with. Now, if you say, where do we get the grace? There are various interpretive approaches for Christ in preaching. The first two are the less authoritative kinds. The first is a topical approach. A topical approach. Which we're not going to emphasize this semester. A topical approach creatively adds redemptive truth to the topic at hand. You know, it was set off. SPURGEON No matter where he began in Scripture. He always took a shortcut to the cross. Well, we're talking about shortcutting, right? Although I like the ethic, you know, he knew he wanted to get to God's work before he ended. But it was if you read a lot of Virgin's work, Christ kind of rode in on a white charger at the end. I mean, there was really nothing in the text that provided a basis for what was being said.

[00:27:48] Now, a tapas approach is one way to get it in. Another is a textual approach, a textual approach, including redemptive truth by analogy or illustration or addition. I can remember when I was a kid growing up, going to really a wonderful church one time, a very large Baptist church where I sometimes attended an in an evening service. A pastor gave a tremendous message on not procrastinating. You know, it's God's time. It's not your time. You should be a steward of time as well as treasures. Don't put off till tomorrow what you can do today. It's God's time. Be responsible. And at the end, there was an altar call. Now you know nothing. You know, in in the in the message or the text had been pointed out, which would lead you to Christ. Now, I was still thankful for the notion of Christ is still the answer. You know, if you're not being a good steward of time and not doing God's, you should. There's still a reason, but it was just a textual addition. It was nothing that had actually come out of the text. As you might guess, The thing that we're going for is the next the next category, and the next category is going to be those messages which are expository in nature. The expository approach finds the actual redemptive focus of a passage in. First the text that is there, some text that will actually mention the work of Christ. If you're in Matthew 26, which is the crucifixion and you don't see redemptive truth. If you look, just say what the text says. You know, there are there are one way to expound grace principles is to say what the text says. If it's actually mentioning Christ or his messianic work, a gospel account, a messianic psalm, an epistle reference in his own body.

[00:29:50] He took our he took our sins in his own body on the tree that we might die, descends and live for righteousness. You know, it's just clearly a reference to Christ work in our behalf. But now here's the problem. If you're only going to preach redemptive truth where the text explicitly talks about the crucifixion or Christ redemptive work, how much of the Bible are you going to miss? I don't I don't know the answer to my own question, but for what, 90%? You know, I mean, if you're just waiting for some specific reference to Christ redemptive work, you're not going to preach redemption very often, or else you're going to narrow quite a bit what you're going to talk about. So while a textual expository approach may get you to redemptive truth, it can't be the only way. A second way to get redemptive truth may be by looking at type not only text, but type. You're going to read Clowney a little bit this semester, and he does some discussion of typology with a lot of the flowering of discussion right now about the nature of Hebrew narrative. Lot more discussion going on about typology these days than a decade or so ago, but more to go. This is where Christ redemptive work is represented in an Old Testament type and kind of for reform people. The rule of thumb is a type is only a type if the New Testament represents it as such. Okay. Something in the New Testament is saying that this is a type of something that was done. Like what? The temple, the kingship of David. I mean, there are things that are identified as types. Now, whether or not it's going to be the Bible specifically saying these things were done as an example, a tip off for us, a type for us is a big question.

[00:31:36] I tend to think that the way the narratives of the Old Testament are structured sometimes are indicated. We tip illogical by the paralleling that's happening in the New Testament narratives that that sometimes you see. I can remember when I was a kid just just laughing at a preacher one time who who said, Now here's what happened when when Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac, they went up the hill. The son put wood on his back, get it, hear it. And I just thought, how silly. Well, I'm not sure. I think it's silly anymore. I mean, if we were reading Moby Dick and, you know, in chapter three, there was some description of Queequeg Spear and way around chapter 52, there was another mention of another spear, but it had the same description. You know, I would say the same author. Uh, Melville was doing something here. Now, what we tend to do is I know this authors, Luke and that author is Moses, so it must. Well, that's true, too. But there's another author in play, too. Who is what? The Holy Spirit. If it's the same canonical authorship, then there may be other things going on. Now, what I just said is highly controversial, and I wouldn't urge you to make that your first step in preaching today, you know? But there's no question that when you get to Clowney, you're going to have to think about typology. But let's still go there. If you're only going to preach redemptive truth where the texts specifically mention some aspect of Jesus redemptive work or there's some type of logical reference to it. Now, how much of the Bible are you going to skip? Again, I don't know the answer to my question, but what, 80%? 75% you're still going to miss.

[00:33:28] So what's our last piece? If we said, how do we get redemptive truth is not represented in text or type? Then the last piece has to be context. Context. We identify where this passages, events, persons or instruction fit in the overall revelation of God's redemptive plan, or where this passages imperatives stand in relation to the grace principles evident in context. Now, how is context revealing things to us in its content just down the page a little bit in its context? Every passage is either a predictive of the work of Christ. One way that passages are revealing Christ to us is by predicting Him. These are, of course, things like the prophecies, right? Or the proto Evangelion that I read a little while ago. Genesis 315. These are things that predict who Christ is or what He will do. Okay, so all forms of prophetic material are predictive. A second way in which context is revealing the work of Christ to us as it may be preparatory. There are things that are preparing us preparatory for the work of Christ. They prepare us to understand Christ person and or work sometimes even negatively. How did the Lord become our schoolmaster to lead us to Christ? By ultimately pointing out our inadequacy to keep the law, Paul said. Through the law, I died to the law that I might live for Christ. It taught me the negative about me as a way of pointing me to Christ. So it's preparing me right. It's preparing me to understand another. I must depend upon even what he would do. There are certainly preparations that we're understanding for the work of Christ in the sacrifice system of the Old Testament. Writer Hebrews uses that over and over again. Right. You're going to understand what Christ was doing because of the sacrifices of the Old Testament and the fact that we have a greater high priest.

[00:35:37] Now, certain passages are reflective of the work of Christ. C is reflective. Certain passages are reflective of the work of Christ. That is, we see Christ character or nature being reflected in what he does for his people or what they do for one another. We see Christ character a nature reflected in what he does for his people or what they do for one another. Finally, some passages are resultant of the work of Christ. That is, we see something that applies to us as a result of what Christ redemptive work has accomplished. Like the fact that you can pray. The only reason that you can pray because you have someone interceding for you. Your prayer, your ability to pray and be heard is a result of the redemptive work of Christ. Your ability to worship is a result of what crisis on your ability to be treasured by God is a result of what Christ has done. So there are many aspects of our lives that are a result that are being described in various text as a result of the work of Christ. Now I'm going to turn this off and just tell you where we are here. But what I just did is kind of classic redemptive historical method. Okay. We say, here's the big picture, Genesis 315 and forward, Right? So from Genesis to Revelation, everything is revealing the battle between the seed of the woman and Satan and the various ways that are being revealed or things like text are predictive of the work of Christ, prefatory resulting to reflection. You know, we get this. So somewhere in this large scheme of literary history, that's how this or that text is functioning. Now, I taught that for, I'm guessing about ten or 12 years before I kind of listen to myself preach.

[00:37:35] And I recognize, though, I talked about fitting things into their large historical context. That's hardly ever what I did, and I'm beginning to think that I still think I'm preaching grace. I still think I'm preaching redemptive. But I'm not always kind of doing this, you know, Genesis to Revelation masterpiece, you know, of everything, including the kitchen sink being thrown in. And I began to recognize there are other approaches to doing this redemptive preaching that are not just this macro, all of world history kind of approach or find the context of it. And that's what you see on page four is about. It's it's kind of telling you what your options are. I don't in any way want to negate or even belittle these redemptive historical methods. I mean, they're absolutely essential for kind of navigating where you are in the text. But the macro approach is always number one. See, one, the redemptive historical that is finding out what place or function of the text, what is the place or function of the text. In redemptive history, that's kind of the macro approach. And lots of ways in which this functions. We're kind of Western thinkers here, so we're we're working in a linear way. So we think, you know, this historical event led to that historical event, led to that historic event led to Christ. And that's one way of thinking about it. Another way of thinking about kind of the macro scheme is to recognize the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, is more of an Eastern mind document. And Eastern thinking doesn't often work linear, but often takes an idea and circumscribed it to make the point, right? It kind of talks around it to say this is the point. And that's another way of thinking about the Bible.

[00:39:26] If you thought, all right, how are people going to approach God? Well, they've messed up early in life in Eden. So ultimately, you know, what we'll do is we will have a law. And if everyone obey the law of God, then they'll be okay with God. So we'll try that. So that work? I don't work. Okay. Well, let's let's have a period of judges where everyone will do what's right in his own eyes. How's that work? I don't work either. All right, well, let's. Let's choose a human king Let's get the best of. Right is the biggest, the handsomest, and will let that person make the decisions for us. And when we have a human king is really the best of all people, then things will be okay for us. How well does that work out and work either? Well, we get the profits to come and the profits will come and they will give us the word of God that will correct us and we'll have the the correct understanding and they will identify the right things that we should have the right way. Sure. We just get enough profits to help the people of God that will hang together as a people will be the kingdom of God, and then everything will be okay. How well does that work? And work. Okay. Well, if it does that things, we're going to have to make it up to God. So we better have some kind of a temple system. We will sacrifice that. God will give enough sacrifices. He'll be happy with us. That work. I think what just happened. We're going to have to have a better lawgiver. We're going to have to have a better judge. We're going to have to have a better king.

[00:40:53] We're going to have to have a better priest. We're going to have to have a better sacrifice. We need Christ. We've had a bunch of dead ends, a lot of things that didn't work to point to the thing that must work and that we must have. It's more than a linear history, although it's still taking the encompassing view of history and saying certain things have been bridges, you know, like the sacrifice system, we kind of bridge to understanding what Christ would do. But there are other things that are kind of dead ends, like doing what's right in your own eyes or trying to be good enough for God by keeping the law. That's a dead end. So by these various forms of dead ends and bridges, history is functioning to show us what God would do in Christ. Now. Now all of that are just those are just various forms of the macro interpretation. But there are micro interpretations, too, which I'm going to guess you'll often feel more comfortable with, like this. Number two, sometimes in a historical passage or narrative passage, there is doctrinal instruction. That is, there is redemptive doctrine or understanding grace that is exemplified or stated or taught. If you're reading an account from Abraham and it says Abraham believed God and it was counter to him for righteousness. Is there any grace principle in there? You know, and you don't have to go from Genesis to Revelation to say right there, just right there is a dark role statement that shows the grace of God. It's its nature, how it functions. Faith leads to God's blessing rather than what we do. And sometimes looking in biblical narratives or other portions of scripture, like the Prophet saying what doctrinal statement is right? There is just a micro way of finding grace in the text as well as well as the broader scope.

[00:43:01] The third, and it's what I find, candidly, I use the most, is what I call relational interaction, that is identifying what redemptive truth or grace principle does God demonstrate toward his people or in their dealings with each other. So, all right. Is there any place in which God is dealing with an awful key and yet still provides him mercy? Like David, Like Manassas, we see. We see God providing mercy to a people who do great evil. Is there any redemptive truth there, any grace, principle? Sometimes it's just looking at the narrative and, if you will, having on your this side of the cross perspective. I think sometimes people think in order to interpret the Old Testament properly, I have to just go blind to what Jesus did on the cross is something. No, I live the side of the cross and I know that what was happening, the Old Testament was preparing people to understand what Christ would do. So now as I look back and see it, this side of the cross, I understand what truth was being prepared for them. And it may be things like this is their strength that God is providing and weakness, faithfulness, despite unfaithfulness, provision for need, forgiveness for sin protection and danger, discipline for correction. Now, because I must say, I think this is what you'll feel the most comfortable doing. And again, I don't want to negate the redemptive historical large scope. But if what you're doing is you're saying, I know that God is preparing his people sometimes in very simple ways for what He's going to reveal redemptive in Christ. Then I look at that text and I say, How is God showing his mercy? And that grace principle in evidence is going to, I think, come to a very quickly.

[00:45:05] If you're putting on your lenses and you're saying, what does this tell me about God? What's this? Tell me about me. And it's going to show you aspects of God's grace in revelation. And as the item at the bottom of that page, the redemptive lenses therefore to use in approaching all texts. Are the two key questions that are always applicable and always fair. That is, what does this text reveal about God's nature or attributes which provide the work of Christ or our nature and attributes which require the work of Christ. The note at the bottom, revealing aspects of the necessity and provision of grace rather than mention of Jesus is what makes a sermon redemptive. Now, don't take it to mean I'm saying don't mention Jesus. What I'm concerned is that we do not say this word means Jesus, you know, or this event means Jesus, where it obviously doesn't and leads us to allegorical errors. But rather to say this text is revealing grace. I can always say we know that this aspect of grace is more fully revealed in Christ. I'm not saying this text means Jesus. I'm saying I understand its bearing, its relation to what ultimate grace is provided in Christ. So I may still be mentioning Jesus in the message, but I'm not making the text mentioned Jesus where he really doesn't appear. I'm showing how the grace of God is being exposed as a way of understanding the ultimate work of Christ. That leaves the paragraph on the top of page five. This reminds us the term Christ centered is syntactically as part for the whole. There are lots of other similar terms like grace focused or simply you hear me use the word redemptive preaching a lot, right? Redemptive or grace focused or gospel oriented.

[00:47:09] Here people refer to it different ways. The term Christ centered is saying the key for all of God's redeeming work that makes us know and depend upon His grace ultimately provided in Christ. A Christ centered sermon does not attempt to make Jesus appear where the text does not speak of him, but rather demonstrates the relation of the text to his person and or work. It says person and or work may not just be his person. Often biblical text are not directly revealing the person of Jesus, but are revealing a dimension of God's gracious nature that will be most fully revealed in Christ and must be grasped by us to know, to know Him and to reflect him. I think of how Paul said it in in Acts 20. You remember how he's explaining toward the end of his ministry. Here's what I did. Here's what I was about. He said this I consider my life nothing. If only I may finish the race and complete the task. The Lord Jesus has given me the task of testifying the Gospel of God's grace. I consider what I've done nothing if I don't finish my task. And my task is testifying of the Gospel of God's grace. So He gives us this great, gracious context to everything that he's about. And do we say that part of imperatives in his letters? Of course he did. Did he give instruction that he sometimes say discipline had all those things? Yes, But it was always in the context of so people will understand the grace of God. That is their ultimate hope. Now, what you're doing this semester is you are particularly going through historical narratives and it is often harder to follow this theme. You know, if you're if you're in the book of Ephesians where you're learning by grace, you're safe through faith, it's kind of easy to see Grace there.

[00:49:15] It may be harder to see Grace, you know, where where David slays Goliath or is it there? You know? But where is it there? How did David slay Goliath? You come with sword, javelin and spear. I come in the name of the Lord. Even in the narrative, David is reminding himself and God's enemies that his strength, his power is not his own. It's what God provides. He comes with the authority, with the name. And for the purposes of His God. Always there's this redemptive context. So as you're going, the narratives, let's talk about just things to use. What are you going to use as you go to narratives? How do you use these redemptive lenses to identify grace principles? Again, I think a good way to start is whether it's David and Goliath or David in the Fellowship or Samson Delilah. What does this text reveal about God's nature or attributes which provide the work of Christ, or our nature, or attributes which require the work of Christ? And using those questions and Rick, as those are kind of the relational interaction questions, often to identify the grace principles or patterns evident in the text. Come to the patterns in just a minute. But his idea is this God is the hero of the text. If you keep going back there, you're kind of on safe ground. How am I showing how God rescues? How is God the hero? In this account and we're unfolding the story of his rescue. You're going to read an article by Tim Keller toward the end of the semester. Well, maybe not toward the end. Maybe the middle in which he says this. He says one of the reasons that Christ centered preaching so appeals to a postmodern mind is that this is a generation that so loves narrative.

[00:51:14] And he says, when you're doing redemptive preaching, God always comes to the rescue. There's always that implicit story going on. How is God rescuing his people? He's always the hero if we're understanding how the text is functioning. So here are various grace principles or patterns that you might look for in historical narratives. One Deliverance before Obedience. When is the exodus happened relative to the giving of the law? Before. And even then, God gives the law before. He says, Here's what you ought to do. He says, I'm the God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of a house of bondage. Therefore, do these things. He didn't say do these things and then I'll rescue you. So the pattern was deliverance came before obedience. Number two, a covenant is made before conditions are met. God abrogates himself before the conditions are met by the obligation, as it were, by the one who is being obligated humanly, God obligated himself. Law is before and beyond performance. Before the performance. There is love. And beyond the failure to perform adequately, there is still love from God patterns. If you were looking for principles of grace, they would be things like the We see mercy for guilty strength for the weak, love, for the unlovely provision for the needy, rescue for the helpless, justice for the oppressed, punishment for enemies, discipline that is redeeming discipline, for the wayward warning, for the negligent faithfulness for the. What is God doing that is gracious or what are those who represent him doing that is gracious, giving something undeserved, providing something that could not be provided by human strength alone? How is grace in evidence then? Having done that, we motivate obedience required by this text with its grace.

[00:53:29] Principles were motivating obedience with the grace principles that are evident. Remember that we said application has four questions. Remember those? What to do, where to do it? Why to do it and how to do it? What? Where, Why? How to prep and deal. And the elementary practicum. We're getting you familiar with what to do and where to do it. Instructional specificity. Where's the text? Tell me what it tell me to do and where does it tell me to do it? We're now doing these. This is Christ centered. We are saying how is Grace motivating and how is it providing strength? Now our next lecture, next time we're going to really focus here on the how. But for now, we're looking at the text and we're saying, why should I do that? How is the grace of God? How is my love for him being generated by the grace that's in the text so that I will desire to do long to do those things that please God. Again, for those who think that question you're preaching as Anthony Domin, again, there's just an understanding of the process. We've never excluded these questions. They always stay on the page what to do and where to do it. But this is what makes it Christ centered. We have said, Why do you do what you do in the places that you live? And that has to be not for merit, not for personal gain, but out of love for him. And the grace principles that are being excavated are the attempts to make us and God's people understand their love for him. On page six at the top, it says things you're now familiar with. So I'm going to go quickly as we look at the narratives to examine with redemptive lenses, we are looking for, number one, relational interaction.

[00:55:32] Number two, Dr. Oz statement. And number three, redemptive historical methods. All those are tools now for excavating the grace that's in the passage. Relational interaction, doctrinal. And again, remember the list that was on the preceding page looking for those grace patterns or principles. At the end of it saying redemptive. There you see their little parallelogram or that little diamond says Remember? Text may function as dead ends or bridges. Text may function as dead ends or bridges. So you looking at those narratives this semester, as you look at the narrative, you're saying what grace principles are evident there, maybe in the macro setting. It may be in doctoral state, it may be in the way people are relating to one another or that God is relating to them. But what grace principles are in evidence now as you go about organizing a narrative for a sermon? And that's a little bit different than we've done the Epistles. Right. Which are just a paragraph. I mean, sometimes the narratives are, what, three or four chapters long, you know, if you're in person or something like that, you know, these these big chunks of narrative material at times. How do we organize narratives? Number one, remember, exploding a verse or distilling a passage are both legitimate cosmological movements that may affect how an outline is formed. That is, often when we're in didactic or piece of material, we're taking a little portion of scripture and we're exploding the implications, right? In narratives, often we're going the other direction. We're taking big chunks of material and we're pulling it together. You know, what is it? What are the principles that we see in operation in this narrative? Christ, in the Lord's Prayer, for instance, explodes the implications of Proverbs 30, verse eight nine.

[00:57:29] But in Matthew 12 3341, he summarizes for chapters of Jonah in only four verses. So you see both patterns going on, sometimes exploding, sometimes distilling. The key thought for you, I think today is this as you're preparing the narrative passages that you're working on, here's the key thought. Number two principle lies. It's a made up word principles, main points and sub points. That is, identify the truth. Principles that are supported by the texts, features and facts do not state tax facts as main points or sub points that will leave you with no truth to illustrate or apply. All right. Now, there's just a lot of words go by and you were so nice to nod your heads, but inside you're going, What in the world is that mean? Here's the notion. It's very tempting when you're explaining a narrative simply to retell the facts of the narrative. First, David took out his sling. Second, David through a rocket Goliath. And for my third main point, Goliath hit the ground. Now it's all true. And basically what you've just done is you've you've catalyzed the narrative. You know, you can say this happened and that happened and they happen. And then you come and you start trying to do application. And so you say, All right, now what should you do? Well, David took out a sling. And you should take out your slings. Whatever they are in life, you should take them out and slay your john. And you're kind of looking for you know, you can't work with that. You know, what you're looking for is you're looking for the principle that a main point is supplying that is proven by the facts of the text. Like God's servants trust him even when they face adversity.

[00:59:37] How do I know that David, when he went against Goliath, called out for the name of God? The fact supports the principle. Here's some examples on the page in front of you. Not this. This is not what we're going to do. Just a restatement of text facts merely describing the text. Israel confronted Jericho. Israel marched around Jericho. The walls of Jericho tumbled down. So you're just kind of finalizing the text is going through it there that this here's where you formulate biblical principles as main points. These are in the old homologs language. These were called universal truths. So what universal not just what texts fact, what universal truth is being proven by that text. Fact like faithfulness requires facing God's enemies. Well, Israel had to go against Jericho. They did ultimately confront Jericho. Faithfulness requires facing God's enemies, too. Faithfulness requires obeying God's Word. Like God said, march around. And they marched around three face. First result in seeing God's hand. The walls of Jericho tumbled down the way. You know, we've been taught, at least at this institution, that sermons are often formed is with the double helix that goes this way. Right. Explanation. Illustration. Application. Also what you're doing in a narrative. And this is even called a narrative structure. And some of you I know may begin experimenting with it this semester is the helix goes this way. Here's what happens. You get a principal. Like faithfulness requires facing God's enemies. That's the principle. That's the main point. And then you'll tell some of the narrative. You know, the Jericho was a major town, and it was where the enemies of God would have kept kind of watch over anything that was entering into the land of Canaan. And therefore, it was necessary that it be confronted and God's people were told to do it.

[01:01:59] And they did, at least this generation did not the generation before how difficult it was. But ultimately, I'm saying the principle I am giving the facts, kind of retelling the story that supports that principle, and that's going to lead to another principle. Right. Like faithfulness requires obeying God's word, not just confronting enemies, but obey and talk about here's what God told them to do and here's what they did, etc.. Now, these principles themselves may have some points. All right. That are also principles, sub principles. They're not just text facts, but the text facts in here are always going to be supporting the principle that's at these different nodes. All right. It's not good. If you're putting as an outline on paper, it won't look any different. Right. You're saying I have a main point. I just want to make sure that your main points are not simply text facts. All right. Because then when you get to application, you're going to be lost. But when you talk about a principle, faithfulness requires facing God's enemies. Now you've got a principle that you can apply and it will work for you. Question. I'm not hearing it all. That's a great question. Do you need to use illustrations? And the answer is yes, though at times the narrative, if it's told with a lot of live body detail, may be the illustration. So you're still using it. If you're asking, there's always have to be an external illustration. The answer is no. The illustration may be an aspect of the narrative itself retold. And remember, it's not just an allusion to the narrative. It's a retelling of the story in a way that it can be engaged. That was kind of a wishy washy answer to your question.

[01:03:52] You still have to do this semester. Explanation. Illustration, application. Still got to do that. But sometimes the illustration will have a little larger component in a narrative sermon as you're explaining the narrative and telling it. And we're going to talk more about this in the fourth lecture where we listen to Clowney but still have to do explanation, Illustration Application. Last page piece seven. Says, in essence, what I just said to you, We use the text facts to support the main and sub point principles in didactic passages epistles, which we've done in the past. The raw material that was available to support the main points and the sub points where stated truths, propositional thought flow, where we exceeded the thought of a paragraph. So our resources were in the force of the paragraph, but in narratives, the raw material available to support the truth or truth claims or applications be in stated truths, but maybe in exhibited truths. What what do we see happening between God and His people? What happened to David after that? What is be exhibited that will prove the truth that you just said? It may be in dialog. Character development, context. The cultural setting. The flow of the plot. The story patterns. Those of you who've done Hebrew narrative here already know that a lot of story patterns are occurring in where Hebrew narrative is written. You know, in an epistle, we're executing thought in a narrative, we're executing actions. What do these actions prove? What do these actions prove? Regarding a principle that we can say this principle can be proven out of this narrative. Now, I know the nerves may seem a little but scary to you because it's so much easier to execute thought. When I was probably about seven or eight years out of Sumner, I went to visit a friend of mine who was a preacher in Wyoming, and I just did a kind of a series of evening messages for him.

[01:06:03] And he said to me at the end, he said, he said, You're doing narratives every time. He said, So I don't know how to do that. He said, I've been here for seven or eight years. He said, I've never yet preached on a biblical narrative because I don't know how to do it. Now you have to think 75% of the Bible is historical narrative. So you're excluding a lot if we don't get accustomed to the news. What I think you'll find is when you get accustomed doing narratives, you will love doing it because people just kind of readily engage with the story features of the Bible. And then when you begin to say, I can I can preach these profound truths out of how these narratives are unfolding, showing people the grace of God toward his people and how it's ultimately revealing. Because I mean, it I mean, it's very, very enlightening to you and I think often engages people in very powerful ways. You'll love doing it once you get accustomed to it. I am for in a narrative passage, you test whether you are preaching an expository message by examining whether you have a proving your sermons, point and principles. All in this text is the truth you just stated provable from this text. They have you covered the scope of the text that is the narrative unit selected. Now, a couple of things here. A common approach is to use the Scripture introduction to prepare for and summarize lengthy passages. Now, some of you already asked me questions about this because you've started working on your narratives and you recognize you've got a narrative that's 45 verses long, you know, and you're saying, Do I have to read the whole thing? I mean, it's going to take 10 minutes.

[01:07:43] You know what I do here? Often when you're preaching narratives, that Scripture intro that we've been using to kind of get into text is a place where you're given a few words of explanation or even a large summary of that text and then read the portions most pertinent to your sermon. Okay. So if you need particular phrases or interactions, you might summarize a lot and then read a little. Some guys will find out that what they want to do is they want to read a little summarize, read a little more, summarize more, and then kind of read the end of the text so that they they can cover large amounts of material, but they're using that scripture intro to kind of help people navigate through the longer narrative. So often the scripture intros where you're going to say, Now here we are dealing the life of David and he's in the desert fleeing from the Philistines, and nonetheless he's still looking to God. Now he's got some men who are going to defend him here. Let's let's read what they do. So you might read that Now, when they came back, they might explain again. They honored David, and David seemed to honor them, but they did something awful. Let's read what it was. Okay. Now what I just did was I summarized a very long chapter, and that's fine to do. So the scripture intro becomes your great friend when you're preaching narratives, right? That you can get a lot of material in front of people by summarizing and reading key portions. So let me just stop there and say, Do you have questions about what I just said, how to use this? The Scripture intro Yes, dear, How do you how do you keep from fostering the notion that he only read the portions he wanted to and or formed it in such a way that it's fitting his text? Candidly, I think if you're doing that every week, you're you can't avoid the suspicion if that's in fact what you're doing.

[01:09:37] But if people are regularly seeing how you handle the text fairly, I think they learn to understand what you're doing. And they and they say you just can't read that much in that length of time. It's almost like you're you're letting them see your compassion, you know, by by not reading what would become unwieldy in the message. But granted. And what's going to be the next one that I cover right here, If you don't do this, you will create distrust. I mean, what makes it expository for C is you've demonstrated, if necessary, that other features of the text do not undercut your points and principles. I mean, you know, you take that that occasion where the prophet confronted David and he said, you know, you're the man, you know, who has sent. And David said, I repent. And the prophet said, you're forgiven. And so you say, you see, folks, as long as you confess, you're saying you're forgiven and everything's okay. Sounds very nice. But what happens next in the narrative? God says, I'm going to take your first son. Now there's something that very clearly undercut what you appear just to say. So if there are pieces in the narrative that will not support the principles you've said, then it's not going to be expository and in fact will undercut your expository concerns. So I think a matter of consistency will help. Note There is not as high an obligation to cite verses as to cite passage content when preaching from a narrative passage. Now, maybe that sounds strange because we made such a big deal in the Epistles, you know, main points and sub points from the texts. Show me where the verse says that, you know, but in a narrative, you know, if people know the story, you say and at that point, Goliath hit the ground.

[01:11:30] Look with me at verse 14, be it says Goliath hit the ground. You know, you can they know already. You know, they know there's not. Now, granted, if you need specific words or a phrase, you know, but sometimes in a narrative, it's sufficient to to work off common knowledge. Right. And that's a judgment call. Right. But it can become redundant at times if everybody knows. And you're just kind of keep pointing out things unnecessarily. Little bit different than didactic passages. Last big hint here, Item five in narrative Miracle passages show how the event demonstrates God's authority or Christ status rather than promising a repeat. Nothing scared me more in preaching early on than the miracle passages because I wondered, Now what am I supposed to do with that? You know, do I tell people? And in your life, if you just And then I began to see and others explain to me that what's happening. Remember, there are vast portions of Scripture where there are no miracles, these long historic periods where there are. But when the miracles come, it's because God is establishing the authority of his word. So He's showing his prophets who they are, what their authority, or he's showing the status of the Savior. Okay, so we have Christ, you know, in that mark series of events, he has control over the physical world, the spiritual world, death. You know, we have this Christ status is being established. These miracles are not being promised as repeats. They are being shown to demonstrate either the authority of Christ, the authority of God or Christ status. We don't have to fear them. We simply have to show the purpose of the miracle in the way that we preach them. Remember, there are long periods of no miracles, even in Scripture.

[01:13:28] Thus, if God is not always promising a miracle, should we in the answers? No. What are we promising or promising God's grace by showing or demonstrating the truth Principles of the narrative. The preacher takes truth to contemporary struggle and thus fulfills the joy and the purpose of a biblical message. Now, here's my expectation. Right now you're picking out narratives that you're going to be preaching on. And as you kind of look over this lecture, my main goal is that you will be saying, all right, what grace principles are there? It was tell me about God was tell me about me. Just just identifying grace principles and then beginning to look at the text and saying what universal truths are here that the facts of the text will support. And that begins to form your outline. All right. Now, what we're going to do next time is this. We are going to say, I don't have up on the board more not only why we are identifying these grace principles, but ultimately how they provide power for Christian sanctification. So, so far, we've been talking about why redemptive truths, some exegetical methods. Now, next time, we're going to very much get to how does this empower the Christian life and why is it necessary for all preaching that will really motivate God's people to holiness?