My Pastor Uses Pre-Made Sermons — Should I Be Concerned?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | A female podcast listener who asks to remain anonymous
00:00:09.120 | writes in, "Pastor John, I go to a pretty small church
00:00:11.880 | "with limited resources and over the past two years
00:00:14.340 | "I've noticed our pastor using more and more
00:00:16.540 | "pre-packaged sermon series.
00:00:18.680 | "So much so that I can actually search online
00:00:21.240 | "and find the outline or another church
00:00:23.800 | "that has done the series and listen
00:00:25.680 | "to almost the exact same sermon beforehand.
00:00:29.380 | "What are your thoughts on this?
00:00:30.640 | "Is it biblical or permissible?
00:00:32.280 | "It just doesn't sit right with me, but I'm not sure why."
00:00:36.080 | - Well, I'm glad she asked that question
00:00:38.600 | instead of asking me what she should do about it
00:00:41.080 | because I have very strong feelings
00:00:43.920 | about the questions she asked and find it easy to answer
00:00:46.880 | and I wouldn't have such strong convictions
00:00:50.300 | or clear ideas about what strategy she should take now.
00:00:56.640 | I have tried over the years to imagine a situation
00:01:01.640 | in which I might feel peace or authentic
00:01:05.900 | in using another person's outline or sermon as my own.
00:01:11.020 | And I have never been able to imagine such a situation.
00:01:15.460 | It seems frankly, utterly unthinkable to me
00:01:20.460 | that authentic preaching would be the echo
00:01:25.540 | of another person's encounter with God's word
00:01:29.100 | rather than a trumpet blast of my own encounter
00:01:32.340 | with God's word.
00:01:33.760 | Now, to be sure, my sermon should be an echo.
00:01:38.760 | It should be an echo of the voice of God,
00:01:42.660 | but not an echo of an echo of the voice of God.
00:01:47.660 | So that's my conviction.
00:01:49.320 | Now, here are a few reasons why.
00:01:51.980 | And keep in mind, I'm not talking
00:01:54.900 | about the problem of plagiarism.
00:01:56.840 | That's plainly a sin.
00:01:59.500 | I'm talking about the use of another man's sermon
00:02:03.660 | or outline even if you do acknowledge
00:02:07.700 | that it comes from another person,
00:02:10.180 | in which case it wouldn't be plagiarism.
00:02:11.760 | You're giving him credit for it.
00:02:13.900 | Perhaps it goes without saying, but not really,
00:02:17.900 | preaching in worship is warranted by the Scripture.
00:02:22.900 | It's not just something we thought was a neat thing to do.
00:02:27.260 | And it's warranted by the very nature, I think,
00:02:30.980 | of God's truth.
00:02:33.400 | Right after describing the inspiration and usefulness
00:02:36.460 | of all the Scripture in 2 Timothy 3,
00:02:40.580 | Paul says, first verse of chapter four,
00:02:46.380 | "I charge you in the presence of God and of Jesus Christ,
00:02:50.500 | "who is to judge the living and the dead,
00:02:52.620 | "and by his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word."
00:02:57.540 | So it's right there in the context of the usefulness
00:03:00.100 | of the word in the life of the church.
00:03:02.860 | And the Greek word used for preach is not the same as teach.
00:03:06.540 | It's a word for heralding and exalting in the things spoken.
00:03:11.860 | So my definition of preaching is expository exaltation.
00:03:16.860 | That's E-X-U-L, not A-L, E-X-U-L.
00:03:21.940 | Expository exaltation.
00:03:23.820 | Expository in the sense that there's always truth
00:03:28.820 | and explanation in it, and exaltation in the sense
00:03:33.780 | that the preacher is never indifferent
00:03:37.140 | to what he's explaining.
00:03:38.620 | He's exalting over it, he's glorying in it,
00:03:42.260 | he's worshiping through it and in it.
00:03:45.340 | So preaching is not the same as teaching,
00:03:48.180 | even though there are elements of explanation
00:03:51.140 | and teaching in it.
00:03:53.020 | And the context in 2 Timothy is the church,
00:03:56.980 | not just street corner evangelism,
00:03:59.140 | where you might imagine lifting up your voice and heralding,
00:04:01.660 | but in the church, week in and week out.
00:04:04.740 | So at the very heart of preaching is seeing the beauty
00:04:09.740 | of truth and feeling the value of truth.
00:04:15.380 | Preaching is a heralding of the beauty
00:04:18.380 | the preacher has seen, and it is the exaltation
00:04:23.340 | in the beauty the preacher has felt.
00:04:26.820 | Now, that means that the first reason I have problems
00:04:31.720 | with secondhand sermons is that they seem to expose
00:04:36.220 | a failure on the part of the preacher
00:04:38.740 | to see the beauty of truth and feel the value of truth.
00:04:43.740 | He's having to go to someone else
00:04:46.900 | to see what he ought to see in the Word.
00:04:50.100 | He's having to go to someone else to express the feelings
00:04:54.780 | he ought to feel when he reads the Word.
00:04:57.620 | This is a symptom of something gone deeply wrong
00:05:02.620 | and in need of quick remedy in the preacher.
00:05:06.800 | Second, I have problems with secondhand sermons
00:05:11.460 | because I think preaching and teaching
00:05:16.460 | is the pastor's calling.
00:05:19.320 | It's his job.
00:05:21.000 | He's supposed to spend whatever it takes
00:05:24.680 | to know the scriptures and to make them plain
00:05:27.280 | for his people, and as a pastor of a local church,
00:05:31.200 | his job is to read the scriptures
00:05:34.960 | and understand the scriptures specifically
00:05:37.800 | in relation to the needs of his flock.
00:05:40.460 | He's not supposed to be a generic preacher.
00:05:43.360 | He's supposed to guard this flock and feed this flock
00:05:47.880 | because he knows and loves this flock.
00:05:52.280 | Paul says in 1 Timothy 5:17,
00:05:56.240 | "Let the elders who rule well
00:05:58.160 | "be considered worthy of double honor,
00:06:00.540 | "especially those who labor in preaching and teaching."
00:06:05.540 | Now that last phrase,
00:06:07.160 | those who labor in preaching and teaching,
00:06:09.620 | defines the calling of the preacher.
00:06:12.420 | This is his work.
00:06:13.640 | He should labor in the study of the scriptures
00:06:16.720 | until he sees God's Word for his people
00:06:20.520 | and feels it with joy.
00:06:23.040 | That's the second reason.
00:06:24.160 | Here's the third reason that I stumble
00:06:27.880 | over this whole issue of secondhand outlines
00:06:30.560 | and secondhand sermons.
00:06:33.320 | 1 Timothy 3:2 says that an elder should be apt
00:06:38.320 | or able, gifted to teach.
00:06:42.120 | In other words, it's not just our calling
00:06:44.680 | to study and preach the Word, it's our gifting.
00:06:49.080 | And if it isn't, we should not be in this role,
00:06:52.800 | the Bible says.
00:06:53.880 | The gifting for teaching means
00:06:57.200 | that you don't have to be a secondhander.
00:07:00.360 | That's what the gift means.
00:07:02.680 | If you have to be a secondhander,
00:07:05.720 | then you don't have the gift of being a firsthander.
00:07:09.200 | Seeing and savoring and saying what God said,
00:07:14.200 | not what someone else says God said,
00:07:17.280 | that's the gift of preaching and teaching.
00:07:21.520 | So in conclusion, God is not calling pastors.
00:07:26.080 | Maybe pastors labor under this expectation.
00:07:29.760 | God is not calling pastors to be eloquent.
00:07:33.880 | He's not calling for the best preaching in the world.
00:07:37.120 | He's not calling for the most clever turn of phrase.
00:07:40.720 | He's not calling for the most relevant reference
00:07:44.200 | to the news or the media or some profound insight
00:07:49.440 | into the text that only somebody else can have.
00:07:53.040 | What God is calling to every pastor
00:07:56.960 | is that every one of us be faithful, authentic
00:08:01.960 | in our encounter with the meaning of the text
00:08:07.360 | for the sake of our people,
00:08:10.160 | delivered with heartfelt passion for God and for the people.
00:08:14.720 | I just think that the people want their pastor
00:08:17.800 | to be their pastor.
00:08:19.880 | See what's in the text for us, pastor.
00:08:22.600 | Love us with the word, pastor.
00:08:24.720 | Teach us what you've seen in the word, pastor.
00:08:27.640 | We don't want your canned borrowings from other people.
00:08:31.480 | We want you to get on your face
00:08:33.040 | before the living God over his word.
00:08:35.160 | Plead with him, wrestle with the text
00:08:37.040 | until you see what we need to hear from his word.
00:08:40.440 | So yes, I am very, very concerned about secondhand sermons.
00:08:46.800 | And I pray that God would give fresh life
00:08:50.600 | and fresh gifting and fresh calling
00:08:54.400 | and fresh eyes to every pastor
00:08:57.520 | who's using other people's outlines
00:08:59.520 | and other people's sermons.
00:09:01.060 | - That's gold.
00:09:03.440 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:09:04.480 | And we've been tackling topics like this one
00:09:06.840 | on the podcast for over 800 episodes now.
00:09:09.060 | And all of those episodes are available online right now.
00:09:12.400 | For more information and to download our apps
00:09:14.760 | and to search our entire archive of all those past episodes,
00:09:17.440 | find us online at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:09:22.440 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:09:24.320 | I will return tomorrow and we will hear from a listener
00:09:26.240 | who wants to know if John Piper would ever consider
00:09:28.200 | using his look at the book technology
00:09:30.400 | of marking up a Bible text.
00:09:32.300 | Would he ever use that during a sermon?
00:09:35.000 | We'll find out tomorrow.
00:09:36.460 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast
00:09:38.400 | with author and longtime pastor, John Piper.
00:09:41.240 | (upbeat music)
00:09:43.820 | (upbeat music)
00:09:46.400 | [BLANK_AUDIO]