John Newton on Sanctification

"A Christian is not of hasty growth, like a mushroom, but rather like the oak, the progress of which is hardly perceptible, but in time becomes a deep-rooted tree."

-- John Newton, quoted by Iain Murray, Heroes, p.99

The Priority of Preaching Christ

Martin Luther: "I preach as though Christ was crucified yesterday, rose from the dead today, and is coming back tomorrow."

Richard Baxter: "If we can but teach Christ to our people, we teach them all."

Charles Spurgeon: "A sermon without Christ as its beginning, middle, and end is a mistake in conception and a crime in execution.... When we preach Jesus Christ, then we are not putting out the plates, and the knives, and the forks, for the feast, but we are handing out the bread itself.... [Let us] preach Christ to sinners if we cannot preach sinners to Christ.... I wish that our ministry--and mine especially--might be tied and tethered to the cross."

-- Quoted by Joel Beeke in "God-Centered Theology in the Ministry of the Word," The Puritan Reformed Journal. Mentioned by Pure Church on 08/20/2009

Danger to the Church

The church's worst enemy is the man of little faith within its membership, not the faithless man of the world.

-- D.M. Lloyd-Jones, in Murray's biography, vol. 1, p.185

Piper on Preaching

Some of you may have little or no experience with what I mean by preaching. I think it will help you listen to my messages if I say a word about it.

What I mean by preaching is expository exultation.

Preaching Is Expository

Expository means that preaching aims to exposit, or explain and apply, the meaning of the Bible. The reason for this is that the Bible is God’s word, inspired, infallible, profitable—all 66 books of it.

The preacher’s job is to minimize his own opinions and deliver the truth of God. Every sermon should explain the Bible and then apply it to people's lives.

The preacher should do that in a way that enables you to see that the points he is making actually come from the Bible. If you can’t see that they come from the Bible, your faith will end up resting on a man and not on God's word.

The aim of this exposition is to help you eat and digest biblical truth that will

• make your spiritual bones more like steel,
• double the capacity of your spiritual lungs,
• make the eyes of your heart dazzled with the brightness of the glory of God,
• and awaken the capacity of your soul for kinds of spiritual enjoyment you didn’t even know existed.

Preaching Is Exultation

Preaching is also exultation. This means that the preacher does not just explain what’s in the Bible, and the people do not simply try understand what he explains. Rather, the preacher and the people exult over what is in the Bible as it is being explained and applied.

Preaching does not come after worship in the order of the service. Preaching is worship. The preacher worships—exults—over the word, trying his best to draw you into a worshipful response by the power of the Holy Spirit.

My job is not simply to see truth and show it to you. (The devil could do that for his own devious reasons.) My job is to see the glory of the truth and to savor it and exult over it as I explain it to you and apply it for you. That’s one of the differences between a sermon and a lecture.

Preaching Isn't Church, but It Serves the Church

Preaching is not the totality of the church. And if all you have is preaching, you don’t have the church. A church is a body of people who minister to each other.

One of the purposes of preaching is to equip us for that and inspire us to love each other better.

But God has created the church so that she flourishes through preaching. That’s why Paul gave young pastor Timothy one of the most serious, exalted charges in all the Bible in 2 Timothy 4:1-2:

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word.

What to Expect from My Preaching and Why

If you're used to a twenty-minute, immediately practical, relaxed talk, you won't find that from what I've just described.

• I preach twice that long;
• I do not aim to be immediately practical but eternally helpful;
• and I am not relaxed.

I standing vigilantly on the precipice of eternity speaking to people who this week could go over the edge whether they are ready to or not. I will be called to account for what I said there.

That's what I mean by preaching.

-- John Piper, What I Mean By Preaching, Desiring God Blog, 5/13/2009.

Why Many Churches are Weak

Ignorance of God -- ignorance both of his ways and of the practice of communion with Him -- lies at the root of the church's weakness today.

-- J.I. Packer, Knowing God, 1973

When Pastors Compare Churches

I know the vanity of your heart, and that you will feel mortified that your congregation is very small, in comparison with those of your brethren around you; but assure yourself on the word of an old man, that when you come to give an account of them to the Lord Christ, at his judgment-seat, you will think you have had enough.

-- John Brown in a letter of paternal counsels to one of his pupils newly ordained over a small congregation, quoted by Mark Dever, in an interview with CJ Mahaney, Feb 3, 2009

Nothing In Us

There is nothing in us or done by us, at any stage of our earthly development, because of which we are acceptable to God. We must always be accepted for Christ's sake, or we cannot ever be accepted at all. This is not true of us only when we believe. It is just as true after we have believed. It will continue to be true as long as we live. Our need of Christ does not cease with our believing; nor does the nature of our relation to Him or to God through Him ever alter, no matter what our attainments in Christian graces or our achievements in behavior may be. It is always on His "blood and righteousness" alone that we can rest.

-- B. B. Warfield, quoted by Jerry Bridges in The Gospel for Real Life, p. 102