Expository Preaching Blog #17 – “It’s Not About Me or You!”

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When I preach the Bible (which is the only thing I have ever preached for the past 50 years by the way) I am preaching what God says. I am not preaching to make anyone feel guilty. I am not preaching to make application to your life or to my life. Now the passage that I preach may make direct application to our lives. For example the Ten Commandments found in Exodus 20 are direct commands and we can make direct application. These directly tell us what we should do. Well at least they told Moses and the Israelites what they should do. Jesus Christ repeats 9 of the Ten Commandments in the gospels. He leaves out the Sabbath Day one. He talks about it but He does not command us to follow it in the New Testament. I have some Seventh Day Adventists who disagree with me on that point and that is fine. I have my beliefs, they have theirs.

Recently I was attending a Sunday school class where we were studying the Book of James. One Sunday to start the class the teacher asked, “What have you learned about yourself so far from the Books of James?” My wife spoke up and said “Nothing. The Book of James is not about me!” I fully agree. We might find things in the Book of James that we can apply to our lives. We might find the Holy Spirit taking things from the Book of James or any other book of the Bible and making application by His power to our life, heart and soul. But it is not for me to do on my own.

The Bible is not all about me. The Bible is not all about you. The Bible is about God and the story of redemption of mankind through Jesus Christ His Son. It is about the work of the Holy Spirit both in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Almost every “Bible Study” book that is published has a study guide. (See a previous blog about Follow the Money.) When you have a matching study guide you sell two books instead of one. It a pretty ingenious business plan. These books often have some legitimate study questions. But then every one of them has “Practical Application Questions.” They are leading questions to get you to try to apply the passage somehow directly to your personal life. These questions are dangerous because they are leading questions. They are manmade. They are not from God. They are not inspired. They do an end run around the Holy Spirit.

The Bible is what God says not what man says. The Bible is supernatural. God speaks to us through His Word. God speaks to us through the preaching of His Word. The Holy Spirit teaches, guide and convicts through His Word and the preaching of His Word. Why do we need to interfere, add to and change that? Just preach the Word and nothing but the Word. Do that and see what God does. I have seen it work miracles and do things I never planned. I have seen souls saved, people baptized and added to the church. That is what it is all about.

 

Rev. David Johnson

Former Pastor

First Baptist Church of Austin, MN

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