Christ-Centered Preaching by Bryan Chapell

Author:Bryan Chapell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Preaching;Bible—Homiletical use;REL080000
ISBN: 9781493414420
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2018-03-27T16:00:00+00:00

The Attitudes of Application

Application focuses the impact of an entire sermon on the transformation(s) God requires in his people as a consequence of his Word. This is not the aspect of exposition to mince words or abandon care. From the pulpit, say exactly what you mean exactly as you would say it to a loved one. The spiritual welfare of others requires that you not obscure your meaning in abstract idealism that disturbs no one and has no potential to get you in trouble. If the young people need to stop seeing violent or pornographic movies, tell them so. If the church will not heal until gossip stops, say so. If political differences are dividing believers, address the problem. Speak with tact. Speak with love. But do not fail to say what the situation requires and what the Bible demands.

In application, preachers pour out their hearts. Without application, preachers have difficulty preaching with fervor. After all, who can say with heartfelt conviction, “Paul went from Iconium to Lystra”? The need of the people of God to sense the impact of his Word draws feeling from preachers’ own hearts. Exposition not powered by application usually falls flat and robs a message of serious consideration. This is because there is something fundamentally irrational about paying attention to persons who say they have something important to proclaim but who speak without the passion that signals its importance.

Passion comes naturally to sermons when preachers speak as though they are addressing a real concern with a loved one. If a friend or neighbor were to come to our door one evening and confess that his teenage son is destroying his family, we would invite the friend to sit at our kitchen table, and we would talk plainly. The hurt in our friend’s eyes would dissuade us from pompous idealisms, the need to offer real help would make us turn to the Bible for practical aid, and our friendship would keep us from speaking without love even if we had to say hard things. The best preaching offers no less. Application presented as though we are speaking to a friend or family member across a kitchen table has more spiritual potential than a dozen sermons designed for delivery from Mount Sinai. When Jesus spoke, the Bible records, the common people delighted to hear him because he spoke so plainly about their concerns. Preaching that represents him should still speak as he did.

Our messages will fail, however, if we do not maintain a final attitude in making application: forgiveness. A mark of naive or inexperienced preaching is the expectation that, because the preacher says the right thing, the people will do the right thing, right away. Some sins are corrected in a conversation, and some require faithful preaching over a generation—or more.57 Faithful preachers must be able to tell people what the Bible requires and still love them when they act as though the words were never spoken. Frustration, anger, and despair are the sure companions of a preacher who cannot forgive the regular failure of God’s people to apply his Word.

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