Archives For Preaching

Sermon Audio: Bold Intercession

Aaron Armstrong —  October 12, 2010 — Leave a comment

On October 10, 2010, I had the opportunity to preach at Gladstone Baptist Church in Gladstone, Ontario. Sunday’s message was preached from Genesis 18:16-33:

Then the men set out from there, and they looked down toward Sodom. And Abraham went with them to set them on their way. The LORD said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.” Then the LORD said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.”

So the men turned from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the LORD. Then Abraham drew near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” And the LORD said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

Abraham answered and said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking. Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?” And he said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.” Again he spoke to him and said, “Suppose forty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of forty I will not do it.” Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak. Suppose thirty are found there.” He answered, “I will not do it, if I find thirty there.” He said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord. Suppose twenty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it.” Then he said, “Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again but this once. Suppose ten are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.” And the LORD went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place.

The original sermon notes follow: Continue Reading…

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Lessons from Listening to Other Preachers

Aaron Armstrong —  October 8, 2010 — 4 Comments

As I’ve been continuing to accept new preaching opportunities, I’ve been following Don Carson’s advice to young preachers which is listen to other men.

Lots of them.

Thanks to podcasts and the internet, this is easier than it’s ever been.

I’ve got an interesting mix of guys I’m listening to right now. Driscoll, MacArthur, Chandler, my own pastor Norm Millar, Joshua Harris, Josh Howerton, and a few other preachers. And it’s been really interesting to discover the things I’m learning from listening to other preachers. Here are a few:

A man’s arrogance comes through in his tone and grates against the spirit of his hearers. I was listening to one man recently (who is not on the above list) who—I don’t know what it is, but his tone just grated on me. I felt like I was being berated just listening—and I wasn’t even in the room. It truly grieved me. He came across as a man puffed up without reason.

What I am learning from this man is that my words must be heartfelt and honest and my spirit must be broken by the Holy Spirit before I get in the pulpit.

When Scripture is used only to prove a point, it cripples the power of the truth we speak. Listening to the same man, I noticed that he rarely ever used Scripture outside of an allusion or just to back up something that he was saying. It wasn’t that much of what he was saying was bad—in fact, some was quite good and true—but it lacked power because it wasn’t rooted clearly in the Scriptures.

What I am learning is that my ideas and opinions—even if they are true and align with Scripture—do not carry the weight and power of Scripture. Therefore, I must rely on the words that God inspired, rather than my ideas that may have been shaped by them.

A man’s love for his congregation is most apparent when he is speaking hard truth. The last thing I noticed listening to this same man was an appeal to have a personal relationship with Christ… without an explanation of why we need to have a relationship with Christ. The gospel was not present; our hopeless state as sinners, the Father’s appointing of the Son to accomplish our redemption and sending the Holy Spirit to apply it… none of it was there.

What I am learning is that if I love the people to whom I am preaching, I need to speak this hard truth—that we are far worse than we ever feared, but God is far more amazing and gracious than we could ever imagine.

These are some of the lessons I’ve been learning from listening to other preachers.

What lessons are you learning?

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Think Hard, Stay Humble: Francis Chan on the Life of the Mind and the Peril of Pride

Aaron Armstrong —  October 7, 2010 — 2 Comments

Audio:

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Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.

1 Corinthians 8:1-3

Francis Chan’s message at Desiring God’s 2010 National Conference, Think Hard, Stay Humble, is incredibly challenging and more than a little convicting for me as one who is very much a “love the Lord with all your mind” kind of guy.

A few standout remarks from the notes:

Some of you in this room think really hard through the Scriptures. My challenge to you is, How hard do you think about people? About the lost? When was the last time you wept for the lost?

It’s so easy to seclude ourselves from the world of lost people. We step out of it for a season to think hard about the Scriptures and keep going on in school to learn more, and we eventually get to the point where we realize that we don’t love the lost like we should. The point isn’t that we shouldn’t pursue learning, but we ought to be able to do both, to love people and know the Bible better.

John MacArthur wrote years ago, “Knowledge is essential, but it’s not sufficient.” Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:2, “And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.”

Some of you could be brilliant and worthless. You could be like a great basketball player that never misses a shot but always shoots at the other team’s basket. He’s a great shooter, but he’s killing the team.

Why did God gift you the way that he did? It’s for us, not for you. We should constantly be thinking, How can I build up other people?

Now here’s the big question that Chan’s talk has left me with:

Does my knowledge of God my study of theology lead to an increased love for God and for His people?

Am I “puffed up” by my knowledge of God—or does it break me?

Watch the message and leave your thoughts in the comments.

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Sermon Audio: Do You Trust Me?

Aaron Armstrong —  October 4, 2010 — Leave a comment

On October 3, 2010, I had the opportunity to preach the above message from Genesis 18:1-15 at Gladstone Baptist Church in Gladstone, Ontario.

My original notes follow:

In March of 2009, I was rushing to the hospital, chasing an ambulance that was carrying my wife. She’d lost a lot of blood due to complications related to a miscarriage. So I’m driving and I’m kind of freaking out and praying, “God, please let my wife be okay.”

So I got to the hospital and I wasn’t allowed to see my wife for about 20 minutes. They were trying to stabilize her, I learned later. But those 20 minutes may as well have been an eternity. For a while a number of things were running through my head—Am I going to go home as a single dad? How would I explain something like that to a two-year-old? Will work give me the time off that I need to take care of everything that needs to be taken care of?

And as I prayed and pleaded with God, I had got this distinct impression that God was asking me a question, “Do you trust me?”

That’s the big question, isn’t it? Continue Reading…

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Don't Be Who You're Not

Aaron Armstrong —  October 1, 2010 — 5 Comments

As I’ve been continuing to develop as a preacher (albeit slowly), one of the great temptations I’ve come across has been imitating other men. I mean, seeing these guys who are extraordinarily gifted by God to preach His Word—guys like my  pastor, Norm Millar, and guys like Driscoll, Chandler, Francis Chan, Piper, MacArthur, Platt—and it’s really tempting to want to be like them.

To say things the way they would say it. To act the way they would act.

But isn’t that dishonoring to God?

The other day, I came across this video where Matt Chandler reminds us of the danger of trying to be who you’re not:

As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. (2 Tim 4:5)

Fulfill the ministry God has intended for you, not for someone else. Don’t be who you’re not.

HT: Zwinglit

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The Bible’s Not About You…

Aaron Armstrong —  August 26, 2010 — 3 Comments

 

…so who’s it about?

This excerpt from a message by Tim Keller (quoting from Sinclair Ferguson’s Preaching Christ in the Old Testament) was a great reminder for me as a writer, and occasional preacher:

If Jesus isn’t at the heart of the message, it’s nothing worth saying.

HT: Jared Wilson

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Where and How Piper Learned to Preach

Aaron Armstrong —  August 25, 2010 — Leave a comment

Preaching is incredibly difficult; it’s something far different than simply speaking or communicating… and learning how to do it has been challenging.

Seasoned preachers, including John Piper, understand. In the following video, Piper shares where and how he learned not only to preach, but how he developed a passion for communicating God’s Word:

The edited transcript follows:

Where and how did you learn to preach?

I don’t know. Watching my dad when I was six, eight, ten, twelve. Watching how not to do it in lots of places. Being unable to speak in front of a group from grade five to my sophomore year in college. I think I was learning to preach during that time because I was so hurt, so wounded, so discouraged, and so desperate that I had to go way down into God, and way into Scripture, and way into pain, and God was making a preacher by shutting my mouth.

You don’t become an effective preacher by becoming a loquacious and effective communicator at age sixteen. You become a clever communicator, but you don’t become a preacher of the holy things of God. So that was a piece.

I don’t know. The courses that I took on preaching were marginally helpful. I got the lowest grade in seminary in my preaching class. I think I got a C minus in James Daane’s preaching class at Fuller Seminary. We never agreed on anything except the principle that every sermon should have one point, he said that over and over again. So I made a terrible grade there. But there were other teachers that…

I think the way that I became a preacher was by being passionately thrilled by what I was seeing in the Bible in seminary. Passionately thrilled! When Philippians began to open to me, Galatians open to me, Romans open to me, the Sermon on the Mount open to me in classes on exegesis (not homiletics, but exegesis), everything in me was feeling, “I want to say this to somebody. I want to find a way to say this because this is awesome, this is incredible!”

So for preachers today that go everywhere but the Bible to find something interesting or something scintillating and passionate, I say, “I don’t get it. I don’t get that at all!” Because I have to work hard to leave the Bible to go somewhere to find an illustration, because everything in the Bible is just blowing me away. And it is that sense of being blown away by what’s here—by the God that’s here, and the Christ that’s here, and the gospel that’s here, and the Spirit that’s here, and the life that is here—being blown away by this, I just say, “That’s got to get out.”

And then I suppose how it gets out. What is that? I don’t know what that is. That’s just the way I’m wired that I would say it a certain a way. It’s owing in part to me being a lit major, you know, I studied language a little bit. Goodness, a thousand things go into your life and nobody can copy anybody else. I don’t know. God makes us who we are. I don’t think there is much you can do to become a preacher except know your Bible and be unbelievably excited about what’s there. And love people a lot, that is, you want to make the connection with people and what’s in the Bible.

By John Piper. © Desiring God.

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Sermon Audio: Be Heavenly Minded, It Only Leads to Earthly Good

Aaron Armstrong —  August 23, 2010 — Leave a comment

On August 22nd, 2010, I had the privilege of preaching a message titled Be Heavenly Minded, It Only Leads to Earthly Good, at Brussels Community Bible Chapel in Brussels, Ontario. Sunday’s sermon looked at Colossians 3:1-4 and the necessity of keeping our focus heavenward.

Here’s the audio:

You can also download an MP3 here.

The original sermon notes follow:

The last time we were together, we looked at Psalm 63. And we learned what David’s inspired prayer teaches us about the heart of spiritual abundance—that as we seek God, as we worship Him, we become satisfied by Him and because we are satisfied by Him, we can rejoice in Him, regardless of our circumstances.

The key to all of this is being Christ-centered in our worship and our lives. That everything is to be focused on Him.

But since the last time we were together, I’ve not been able to stop thinking about one thing:

Do we really understand how important it is to be focused on Christ? Continue Reading…

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The Art of the Illustration

Aaron Armstrong —  August 9, 2010 — 6 Comments

As I’ve been going down this road of substitute preaching, there’s one thing that’s become obvious:

I’m not good with illustrations.

I know that there are some, like Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who are staunchly anti-illustration. Then there are others who are of the opinion that illustrations will, to a limited degree, make or break your sermon. Personally, I really appreciate good illustrations, but don’t find it terribly interesting when a message is basically a long series of them that don’t really have a lot to do with the text being preached.

Probably one of the best illustrations I’ve heard is one that Mark Driscoll used a while back to talk about the power of forgiveness. My paraphrase of the story is this:

Just before a couple from Mars Hill got married, the wife committed adultery. She kept it hidden from her husband for years until finally she couldn’t any longer. When she told him, he left the house, got in the car and left; she wasn’t sure if she’d ever see him again.

A while later, he came home. He asked her to undress and he put on her a white nightgown that he’d gone out to buy for her. And all he said to her was, “I choose to see you the way Jesus does.”

That was an extremely moving example; in my mind it’s one of the best that Driscoll’s come out with.

Matt Chandler’s “Debt is Dumb” illustration is genius:


 
as is “Jesus Wants the Rose”:


 
While I’m sure a lot of it is just that I need practice, a problem for me is I’m not always sure where to look. Despite writing a blog filled with my opinions on theology, I don’t actually like talking about myself (I’m not all that interesting), and I’m not always comfortable talking about work (particularly since I wouldn’t want to say something that could be misconstrued). Plus, my wife has mentioned how much she dislikes it when preachers talk about their wives in sermons excessively, so out of respect for her, I am cautious about family remarks.

So I’ve got a couple of questions:

What’s an illustration you heard in this weekend’s sermon that brought the message home for you?

Do you have a “favorite” sermon illustration?

And for the preachers out there:

Do you find it challenging to find appropriate illustrations? Where do you look first?

How do you use an event or conversation involving another person without it coming across as defaming or dishonoring of the person talked about?

How are you doing on mastering the art of the illustration?

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Sermon Audio: Spiritual Poverty and the Worship of God

Aaron Armstrong —  July 26, 2010 — 2 Comments

On Sunday, July 25, 2010, I had the privilege of preaching a message called Spiritual Poverty and the Word of God at Brussels Community Bible Chapel in Brussels, Ontario. This message from Psalm 63 looks at our need to be satisfied and comforted by God’s presence as we seek Him in His worship.

An MP3 of this message is available here.

The original sermon notes follow: Continue Reading…

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