Lecture #3 Preaching the Heart of Worship

Introduction

Review: The church gathers for worship as the body of Christ, the temple of God in the Spirit. Ephesians 2:20-22 In that body of Christ are set, by Christ through the Spirit, the offices and the ministry of the Word, I Corinthians 12:28; Ephesians 4:11 It is also as a body that the church worships, preaches, and is built up in the faith.

Biblical worship: The worship of God is a spiritual dialogue in which God speaks to us by His Word, in which we draw near to Him in prayer and praise by faith, in which we have communion with God. Ecclesiastes 5:1 At the heart of that worship is God’s Word to us which is found in the preaching of the gospel, the means by which God works grace

(9) What is preaching?

Preaching is the proclamation of the Word of God. The content of preaching is the Word of God set down in the Scriptures. That it is the Word of God is the testimony of scripture, II Timothy 3:16, 17; II Peter 1:20, 21. Unless we approach the Scriptures as the inspired, inerrant Word of God, there is no foundation for preaching. That it is the Word of God means that God addresses us in the Scriptures with divine authority

The calling to preach is the calling to set forth that Word of God. “Preach the Word” II Timothy 4:1-2. Negatively, we do not preach human feeling/experience, human wisdom, psychology, philosophy, or politics, I Corinthians 2:4, 5; I Thessalonians 2:2-5. The Word must be proclaimed as truth, “Thy word is truth,” John 17:17. It must not be proclaimed as mere human opinions about the truth, subject to doubt, or as matters of opinion, as lacking clarity, or as something to be taken or left

That Word must be proclaimed in its organic unity. The truth is essentially one. There is one God and one Mediator, and essentially one work of grace in history, There is one promise, one salvation, one way of salvation, and one hope of our calling, I Timothy 2:5; Deuteronomy 6:4; Acts 4:12. That truth must be set forth in its systematic unity out of the whole of the Scriptures. “For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.” Acts 20:27. “Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.”Matthew 28:20. II Timothy 3:1.

At the heart of the preaching is the gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified, to which all the truth stands related. I Corinthians 2:2; Galatians 3:1. Preaching must set forth sound doctrine, contending for the faith. To this belongs the church’s witness to the truth as the pillar and ground of the truth. I Tim. 3:15. The church in history receives the knowledge of the truth and doctrine from the generations preceding it, II Tim. 1:13, 14; II Tim. 3:14. It is led by the Spirit into the truth, John 14:26; John 16:13. The church sets forth that truth in its confessions. The church does not reinvent the truth in every age or start from scratch. The church stands by faith in those things received, believed, and confessed out of the Scriptures, II Tim. 2:15. Preaching must declare all the counsel of God, keeping back nothing profitable, Acts 20:20, 21, 27 and teaching all that God has commanded in sound doctrine, Matt. 28:28; Titus 2:1