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Tag Archives: Sermon Introduction

Romans 12:1, First Sermon, Introduction

06 Thursday Jan 2022

Posted by memoirandremains in Romans, Sermons

≈ 1 Comment

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Obedience, Romans 12, Romans 12:1, Sermon, Sermon Introduction

I previously posted some essays for a study on Romans 12 (currently, I am part way through “body”, but have stalled a bit to read a couple of books on the Incarnation since it is relevant to “body”). In addition to the explanatory essays I also intend to prepare sermons. I think of the essays as prose and the sermons as poetry; one as explanation, one as persuasion (although both contain both elements, the emphasis is different.)

Below is the introduction to the sermon. The most common introduction in the circles with which I am familiar involves some sort of story which introduces the main point. So if I wish to emphasis self-sacrifice for a greater good, I may tell a story about soldier who risks much for his companions. This can be quite effective, because it can make an abstract idea concrete for those who are listening. Also a story, well told, gets the attention of the listener. It also provides a porch for the listener to enter the house. Since the sermon will always be coming after something else, getting attention and preparing the listener are valuable aims.

But that is not the only way to introduce a sermon. Below, rather than introduce a story, I seek to introduce a question. In this case, why did Paul chose a particular word? The sermon then acts to answer the question.

Romans 12:1–2 (ESV) 

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. 

Paul is writing a letter to people, many of whom he had never met; a letter to a church he had never attended. Throughout this letter, he has been very bold telling them what they must know; explaining to them how they are to think about the work of God in Jesus Christ. Paul is writing with the confidence and authority of an apostle of Jesus Christ. 

The first 11 chapters have been development of doctrine. It is the most detailed, sustained explanation of the Christian life from a state of nature to glorification which appears in the Bible. He explains sanctification and answers questions about the deep things of election. 

The final section of the letter, beginning here, sets forth practical instruction on how to live a Christian in the world, and with other Christians—which is often a far more difficult matter. He will give very precise and direct commands. The commands are often profoundly difficult, such as bless those who persecute you. 

But here, when opens up this second he makes an interesting word choice. There is no word in English which has the same connotations as Paul’s word. When the word is used as a noun, it is used to the Holy Spirit, who is a Comforter in John 14. In 1 John 2, Jesus is said to be an Advocate; same word. There is also a verb with the same general meaning, and it can be translated exhort, or encourage, or beseech, or entreat.

It is not quite a command, but it is more than a suggestion. Paul is not offering opinions; he is an apostle and is giving direction. But he opens this series of direction with this interesting word. If you’re curious, it sounds something like this, parakalo. 

Peter does the same thing in his first epistle. In chapter 2 and verse 11, we read

Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. 

1 Peter 2:11 (ESV) Peter is using the same word as Paul uses here. There are a few other uses of this word in Paul which we will have a chance to consider. Why would an apostle, such as Peter or Paul—the “greatest”, if we can use such a word in this case—of apostles; why would they begin their most urgent instructions as an appeal and not as direct requirement?

They will both follow up this introduction with direct requirements: You must do this, you must not do that. They know how to issue direct commands. Nor are they timid men. They both showed themselves to have uncommon courage. They were both willing to face the threat of certain death with great poise. 

Nor were they unintelligent men who used words without thought. These were men who turned the world upside down by merely speaking. They brought no armies; they used no force. They had no political power. They did not command tremendous wealth. They were both Jews, who—to the Romans who knew about Jews—were strange people who would not eat pigs and who would not work on Saturday and who were circumcised.  Their strangeness would certainly not increase their persuasive appeal.  And yet, by merely speaking they transformed the world. 

Their words are such that people in China and Chile, India and Indiana, Laos and Lagos, adhere to what they said and wrote. That is astounding. So, we cannot simply ignore their decision when they make a choice of words which may surprise us. 

Why then does Paul, and Peter, use this word when it comes to a critical juncture. I believe there are two answers. The first answer: They are explaining to us, the nature of the obedience which a Christian should render to the command of God. The second answer: They are modeling for us, the type of leadership which should mark a Christian leader. Each of these ideas will need space to move and so there will be two sermons, one for each.

As to the nature of Christian obedience, there are three parts. The obedience of a Christian should flow from faith, hope, and love. Paul uses the word entreat, urge, beseech, because he was us to hear and see that our obedience flows from faith, hope, and love. He does not need to demand such obedience but merely stir-up our hearts and obedience will follow as a delight.

And so to the first point, The obedience of a Christian must flow from faith.

George Whitefield Sermons, Walking With God.1

25 Wednesday Nov 2015

Posted by memoirandremains in Genesis, George Whitefield, Hebrews, Preaching

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

George Whitefield, Introduction, Preachers, Preaching, Sermon Introduction, Sermon Strucutre, Sermons

This will be an analysis of the structure and content of Whitefield’s sermon “Walking With God” based upon Genesis 5:24, “And Enoch walked with God; and he was not; for God took him.”

The Introduction:

Whitefield begins the sermon by posing an issue, which the sermon will resolve:

Various are the pleas and arguments which men of corrupt minds frequently urge against yielding obedience to the just and holy commands of God.

He then restates and narrows the issue:

But, perhaps, one of the most common objections that they make is this, that our Lord’s commands are not practicable, because contrary to flesh and blood;

He then narrows the point further by turning it into an accusation in the mouth of those who refuse obedience:

and consequently, that he is ‘an hard master, reaping where he has not sown, and gathering where he has not strewed’. These we find were the sentiments entertained by that wicked and slothful servant mentioned in the 25th of St. Matthew; and are undoubtedly the same with many which are maintained in the present wicked and adulterous generation.

Notice that at the end of this section he puts the complaint into the mouth of some who are hearing him. Whitfield knows the objection presented and he allows the one who would reject the message Whitfield brings. Whitefield effectively says to such a one, I’m talking to you.

Whitefield does not something which would not perhaps be the first move of a preacher. Rather than try to argue with them on the basis of some shared value, Whitefield states God knows and has answered this objection in the Scripture:

The Holy Ghost foreseeing this, hath taken care to inspire holy men of old, to record the examples of many holy men and women; who, even under the Old Testament dispensation, were enabled cheerfully to take Christ’s yoke upon them, and counted his service perfect freedom.

Whitefield then begins to lay out the persons who prove his point:
The large catalogue of saints, confessors, and martyrs, drawn up in the 11th chapter to the Hebrews, abundantly evidences the truth of this observation. What a great cloud of witnesses have we there presented to our view? All eminent for their faith, but some shining with a greater degree of luster than do others. The proto-martyr Abel leads the van.

At this point, Whitefield slows to consider Enoch. First, he notes the extraordinary thing about Enoch.

And next to him we find Enoch mentioned, not only because he was next in order of time, but also on account of his exalted piety; he is spoken of in the words of the text in a very extraordinary manner. We have here a short but very full and glorious account, both of his behavior in this world, and the triumphant manner of his entry into the next. The former is contained in these words, ‘And Enoch walked with God’. The latter in these, ‘and he was not: for God took him’. He was not; that is, he was not found, he was not taken away in the common manner, he did not see death; for God had translated him. (Heb. 11:5.)

Next, Whitefield considers what little can be surmised about Enoch.

Who this Enoch was, does not appear so plainly. To me, he seems to have been a person of public character; I suppose, like Noah, a preacher of righteousness. And, if we may credit the apostle Jude, he was a flaming preacher. For he quotes one of his prophecies, wherein he saith, ‘Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them, of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches, which ungodly sinners have spoken against him’.

However, Whitfield does not allow his imagination to stray, and contents himself with God’s commendation of the man:

But whether a public or private person, he has a noble testimony given him in the lively oracles. The author of the epistle to the Hebrews saith, that before his translation he had this testimony, ‘that he pleased God’; and his being translated, was a proof of it beyond all doubt. And I would observe, that it was wonderful wisdom in God to translate Enoch and Elijah under the Old Testament dispensation, that hereafter, when it should be asserted that the Lord Jesus was carried into heaven, it might not seem a thing altogether incredible to the Jews; since they themselves confessed that two of their own prophets had been translated several hundred hears before.

Rather than running to some anecdote from 5,000 sermon illustrations, Whitfield has spent the opening section raising an issue directly and then looking to the Scripture for an example which illustrates and answers the issue raised in the first sentence. Too often, the introduction to the sermon is merely a time for bad story telling or jokes.

Having introduced his subject Whitfield then closes the introduction and sets out what he will develop at length:

But it is not my design to detain you any longer, by enlarging, or making observations, on Enoch’s short but comprehensive character: the thing I have in view being to give a discourse, as the Lord shall enable, upon a weighty and a very important subject; I mean, walking with God. ‘And Enoch walked with God.’ If so much as this can be truly said of you and me after our decease, we shall not have any reason to complain that we have lived in vain.

Whitefield has done a great deal in this introduction. First, he has raised a topic which the sermon will answer. Second, he has provided some general Bible knowledge, by using the Scripture as the basis for his illustration and discussion. Third, he has shown that walking with God is a laborious or painful thing. Fourth, he has set out the hope of the Gospel as illustrated by Enoch’s example. In the remainder of the sermon, Whitefield will set out how both a believer and one who is not yet a believer may walk with God.

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