my life and my doctrine

I read this book in December or January and was convicted about what it is that I preach. Sure, it’s 20 years old. And sure, the font size in my copy is big, so it seemed easier to read and fast to finish.

John Piper is incredibly shaped by the Puritan Jonathan Edwards. It felt at points that he was summarising and paraphrasing Edwards on preaching. The result is a book which challenged me to reconsider what is the content of my preaching and how I think about it.

The content of preaching, Piper argues, ought to be the supremacy of God. His incredible sovereignty as the creator and sustainer of this universe. This is not to be a philosophical reflection on the other-ness of God. Rather a recognition of how holy he is and how sinful we are before him. This is helpful for a number of reasons:

1. We take the focus off ourselves.
   It is all too easy for my sermons to be addressing myself and the congregation as individuals, encouraging us to godly thinking and living and yet, not reflecting the worth, the glory or honour that God deserves. The danger I see is that a person-centred ministry could easily become moralistic, legalistic or this worldly.
2. We see the grace of God in his gift of Christ on the cross.
   As we refocus on our great and supreme God, we will appreciate the depravity of our sin, our helplessness before God and our utter dependancy on Him. This will turn us once again, back to the gospel, back to the message that Christ died for sinners and that we are saved by grace through faith.
3. We thank God for His Spirit, that enlightens our hearts and minds to know him.
   Therefore, the privilege that it is to preach is not due to personal merit, but the gracious gift of God working through his Word, by his Spirit.

This book also encouraged me to think differently about preaching. It is important to work on the ‘common graces’ of communication, eg how I speak, eye contact, facial expressions (or lack of in my case) etc. But being more dynamic doesn’t make up for lack of depth in content. The challenge for me is to keep working on the content, that I may be continually plumbing the depths of God’s character and then teaching this to others. If I haven’t learned anything in the preparation, I imagine not much will be taught.

It’s my goal to keep reading books on preaching. As I do, I am more committed to preparing better and often that means less time for blogs.