What Ever Happened to Expository Preaching

"For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." (Hebrews 4:12)  

Granted it was a long time ago when we attended Bible college. At that time, we were told in homiletics class, approximately 80% of preaching should be expository. Expository preaching broadly means to expound or explain the meaning of Bible verses. We were taught and encouraged to study the Bible in such a way as to be able to understand and teach the meanings of the verses under consideration according to their original intent. To that end we took basic Hebrew and Greek classes and studied the scriptures diligently. Expository preaching was, we were told, to be preferred to either textual or topical sermons.

We are at a loss to remember the last expository sermon we heard. This is not an indictment against any particular church as we have been to many different churches recently. Expository preaching seems to have been lost in the race to be relevant somewhere in the past few decades. In the church's haste to be relevant in society, we seem to have lost sight of the concept that the Bible has been and is always relevant. "All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16) Speaking of Timothy, he was told to, "Preach the word..." (2 Timothy 4:2), not "Tell the people what you think."

The mode du jour for preaching seems to be the topical sermon. The preacher chooses a topic, from daily life or from the Bible, and searches out other Bible verses to validate his or her opinion on the topic at hand. Interestingly, we have had weeks when the Holy Spirit has put things together in such a way, that we have heard a recurring theme several times in the same week. These occurrences have come via Sunday sermons, Bible studies, morning devotionals, and materials that have been given to us personally. That kind of thing cannot be all bad. So what is the big deal about expository preaching if the Holy Spirit is weaving together topics that Christians should know? Were our college professors wrong? Perhaps expository preaching has simply run it's course and is no longer relevant?

Review the scripture verses in italics above. Now let us look at what they do NOT say. Neither of them says anything remotely resembling "The word of the Sunday morning speaker, small group leader or Bible study teacher." Nor do they include writers of devotionals, books about the Bible, etc. God is the sole author of truth. Any truth that is spoken, written or taught is simply a reiteration of His truth.
It probably would not be so bad that we have done away with expository preaching, but most churches have also done away with Sunday School and have replaced Bible studies with "fellowship groups" under whatever name they have chosen for them. Not having either of those times of teaching the Bible has created a generation of Christians that is largely ignorant of basic, Bible doctrines (teachings) and their application to daily life. As a result, there is little sound, consistent doctrine throughout the church. Many Christians believe anything they hear from a pulpit on Sunday morning because they to not have the understanding and discernment to know whether the preacher is telling them the truth.

Most all preachers endeavor to tell the truth, and even go to the Bible to validate their version of it. A large percentage of the time they are correct, but the times they are not could mean the difference between spirit and soul, truth and error, life and death, heaven and hell. (Sorry to be quite so blunt there.) This is why Christians generally do no better at living the zoe, the God kind of life, than do unbelievers. That is also why The Church in Santa Maria has failed to recognize the insidious affects of the religious spirit that rules in this valley. As Pastor Jack Hayford has often said, "A diluted Gospel has produced deluded Christians."

I am guessing I probably get a C for effort in shortening these posts. Still some room for improvement there. I am working on improving that mark and still saying everything I am hearing. God bless!

Serendipitous Coincidences

In the previous post, we discussed a chat on Face Book that we considered to be almost random. I particularly enjoy randomness. We all have stories of things that just seemed to happen out of nowhere and for no apparent reason. We variously refer to them with words such as chance, luck, good fortune, serendipity or coincidence, among others. The question is, are they really any of those things?

Let us quote a couple world-class Theologians as we begin this discussion. The late Dr. Harold in his 1974 book, How to Live Like a King's Kid defines coincidence as, "When God performs a miracle and chooses to remain anonymous." Television detective Barnaby Jones, played by Buddy Ebsen, said, "I find the harder I work, the luckier I get." Of course we see the truth in both those statements, but again, do things really just happen or is there a creative intelligence behind everything? We choose to believe the latter. That, is in no way, intended to advance the idea that we do not have a part in what happens in our lives and in the lives of those we touch as we tread this sod. It is interesting that, depending on which translation of the Bible one is using, either case can almost be made.

Romans 8:28 tells us, "And we know all things work together for good..." (KJV), or "And we know that in all things God works for the good..." (NIV) The first translation almost suggests randomness while the second shows God actively working. The position one takes on this point will determine how one's life is lived. One either goes about life hoping God will be working everything out or lives life intentionally partnering with God in doing His work. The second position here is the one that demonstrates Jesus is Lord of one's life rather than simply an actor in it. This is a critical distinction because Jesus said, "He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him." (John 14:21) If we want to experience God in our lives, we must do what He says.

Yesterday, we were deciding where we would attend Sunday services. Since we lead and teach on Saturday evenings, and since Jesus has not yet placed us in a local church, we have been fellowshipping at various different places on Sunday mornings. I had already decided where we should attend when I remembered they were having a different kind of service that I was not entirely thrilled to be a part of. My wife suggested another church which we had visited before. I was only slightly more thrilled to return there. My being less than thrilled had nothing to do with the fellowship, teaching, worship or the people at that church. I just doubt that is where we will be attending long-term.

Off we went. When we found our seats, we noticed the pastor was not the person wearing the microphone for the service. In fact, we recognized the man who was wearing it as Tom Demaree of Pentecost Walk fame. We had become acquainted with Tom and his wife Deanna when they were in the area leading a prayer walk. We have mentioned him previously in these pages. If you would like more information on Tom's ministry you can find some at www.pentecostwalk.org.

I have no doubt the pastor of that church would have delivered a good message, but we both knew we were in that service because Tom and Deanna were there. (Be sure to read the next post. We will mention a couple things Tom told us personally.) We were experiencing a serendipitous coincidence. I would have believed my wife had the mind of the Holy Spirit when she suggested we attend there, but for a statement I had heard Dr. Jack Hayford make many years ago. He said. "Everyone knows God cannot talk to you through your wife." (Need I tell you it was obviously a tongue-in-cheek remark? And by the way, so was the last one I made.)

One thing I have learned fairly recently is that we can do things intentionally or accidentally. There is a creative intelligence behind everything we perceive with our senses, and all the things we do not. Everything in the universe, from creation to the present, has been done with intention and purpose. Perhaps you have been "tossed around" (Ephesians 4:14; James 1:6) either by bad teaching, a lack of faith, or both. It is time for that to stop! If things are not going the way you would like, seek the wisdom of God to discover if you have either not been intentionally doing the right things or perhaps even intentionally doing the wrong things. Either of those will stifle your maturity, mitigate your growth, and reduce you to living a life where you do not recognize the hand of God at work. In short, you will not be able to live the abundant life Jesus promised you. (John 10:10) Any good things that happen will look like serendipitous coincidences.

Leaders Are Not Always Right

There have now been too many interrelated events this morning for me to not write this post. I was way more productive yesterday than I had intended to be and I am a little tired from all that. If that is too cryptic, I spent way more time than I would have liked to at two home improvement stores, maintained the fireplace, organized part of the garage, and for good measure, replaced a leaking garbage disposal. So I thought maybe I could get a bit of a day off today. And then...

The Holy Spirit said, "Leaders are not always right." I had not even finished mulling that when my wife asked, "In Romans 12 it says that we are to do what is right in the sight of everyone. Wouldn't that make us man-pleasers?" I gave her the best answer I could, but at that point I was still not making any connection. Then I opened my email. The last headline on the list was the notification of a comment by "Anonymous" on my blog. I was still okay. Of course I had to read the comment. You can read it for yourself, (I do not seem to be able to get the link in here right now, but the comments are on the post entitled, "Heart of a Warrior") but my understanding of the sense of it is that there is more than one way to pursue spiritual warfare and he/she (?) is not sure I am using the correct approach. Okay. No problem. I appreciate the input. Were that as far as it went, I can live with that. How many of you know, the Holy Spirit is not going to let something like that rest?

Let me put those things together for us. Please read the whole context before deciding I am wrong or even being a little harsh. I am just reporting. Wherever a religious spirit has any measure of control, the leaders are the problem. We cannot live our lives to please people who are themselves problems, or participants in the problems. The clear teaching of Romans 12 (and various other Bible passages) is that we each have our own jobs to do if the body of Christ on earth is to be victorious over our enemies. I obviously cannot speak for anyone else, but I am confident I am doing what I am supposed to do.

Now of course I have to clarify the previous paragraph. All the leaders are not the problem. I am not indicting your pastor or my pastor or the leaders of any of what we call "paraChurch" ministries in the Santa Maria valley. I am only writing about the ones who are participating with the religious spirit by seeking their own and controlling and/or otherwise keeping the flock of God from "...attaining the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." (Ephesians 4:13) Listen, even the ones who are causing the problem are doing it ignorantly. They are good men and women. If they understood what they were doing, they would not do it. Do not let anything written here inspire you to ignore Hebrews 13:17, "Obey those who rule over you, and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls, as those who must give account..." (Hebrews 13:17)

As for the question, my wife posed, our responsibility as Christians is to do the right thing. The only people we are required to please in any endeavor are those who, "...see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." Matthew 5:16)

That would have been all I had to say except that there is a fourth occurrence today that probably set the three we have already mentioned in motion. Tom Demaree, whom we have mentioned before, is relaunching Pentecost Walk in Santa Maria. The culmination is a prayer walk this very afternoon from the Foursquare Church to City Hall. (I really hope I have all that right. Do not make your plans to attend until you check with someone else to be sure.) Tom is a man we greatly respect and support prayerfully and financially. Tom is doing spiritual warfare a different way than we are. When I worked at FedEx, we would have given him an award called, "Bravo Zulu" for fulfilling his call to ministry with all his spirit, soul, and body. You go Tom!

I am about to hit the "Publish Post" button knowing that I might have to un-post and re-post this. We are almost out the door to hear Pastor Jack Hayford speak at a local church. Jack was our pastor for several years, quite a few years ago. He is a giant among pastors and theologians. He always has a word from God. He might say something today that needs to be stated or clarified here, but for now...

Denial Cuts Both Ways

My current occupation is program coordinator of a residential, substance abuse, treatment program for men. As you might imagine, I am confronted with some form of denial at least a few times a week. The most common of those, of course, is that the addict is not addicted. They are not addicted to street drugs, prescription drugs, or alcohol. I am currently working with one man who unabashadely tells me the only addiction he has is to women. Of course he uses a different term. Our larger organization inplemented a tobacco free policy for all our facilities and program participants effective January 1, 2010. When that policy was announced around December 1, 2009, there were very few complaints. Maybe it is the addictive mentality, I do not know, but not a one of our smokers seemed to even consider quitting before January 1. Then a few of them hurried to find nicotine substitutes to help them quit or just went underground, so to speak, with their addictions. Yes, that word is carefully chosen. The primary way one can tell if he or she is addicted is to turn away from the addiction and see what happens. In an addiction, the addictive substance will be constantly in the forefront of the mind.


We do not talk too much about addiction in our program. It is our belief that the only way to really overcome an addiction is to have our minds renewed toward addictions. It is not really an oversimplification to say God can take away any addictions we have. We generally have no problem identifying some addictions as bad. The aforementioned drugs and alcohol are considered to be bad things to do. Of course, we have just lumped illegal substances together with one which the law considers legal until it is abused and/or causes the person using it to perform illegal acts, such as driving a car while intoxicated.


There is, however, a totally different sort of denial we can fall victim too. Again, we are choosing our words carefully here. A person who becomes addicted to any substance is not a victim. He or she is a willing participant in the addiction, at least in the beginning. We do have a propensity as human beings, to inadvertently fall into the other sort of denial. This one occurs when the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is watered down or diluted. One of my former pastors, Jack Hayford, wrote, "A diluted gospel, produces deluded Christians." A deluded Christian is one who is in denial about how the Christian life is to be lived. (I think I just heard a few people get smacked in the forehead with that one.)


There is absolutely no way to justify being unloving toward anyone. Period. My current pastor, Rob Litzinger, often says, "We have to move from the idea that it is all about me to the idea that it is not about me at all." Is there anything more selfish than spending God's resources on substances to abuse? We are simply trying to broad-brush stroke the idea that we are permitted to do anything we think we would like to do. That concept does not apply if we have made Jesus Lord of our lives. Lordship means He is the boss and we do what He says.

I have mentioned the opposite of love is selfishness (or self-centeredness if you like) have I not? It is still amazing to me how many Christians do not understand that concept. When asked what the opposite of love is, the almost universal answer is "hate". That would be true if love were an emotion. (Incidentally we once heard the pastor of a large, local church say exactly that.) Hate is an emotion. Love is a fruit of the spirit. They cannot be opposites. To be sure, there are forms of love that are emotional. Is it any wonder that we are in denial about being able to walk in love when we do not even know what love is? Wait! What did I just say? We are in denial about being able to walk in love. You may remember that one of the symptoms of a religious spirit is that people have a form of godliness, but deny its power. (2 Timothy 3:5)

I cannot is simply not acceptable, but it is a place to start because it is true. At least we are being honest. We cannot. God can. Is it not amazing how those two, two word sentences clear away the fog? Knowing we cannot is the place to start to leave that denial behind.

I know people who are in denial about being able to walk in freedom from addictive substances. Frequently I see hope start to grow in some of them, as in, I hope I never go back to abusing (fill in the blank). We all have to start somewhere. Any spark of hope will help us at least see the right direction to go. The way to start loving is to act lovingly. The door to acting lovingly is to quit acting selfishly. That is probably enough of that for now.

Our Salvation--Yours and Mine

My wife reminded me the other day, of a verse of scripture that had come to mean a great deal to me in the early '90s at a time of great financial stress and lack of suitable employment. Without going into a lot of detail, suffice it to say the economy was nearly as bad in this area as it is now. The space shuttle Challenger had been lost in 1986 and the United States Congress had subsequently decided to shelve Space Launch Complex 6 at Vandenberg AFB which was to have been the West Coast Shuttle launch facility. Many people who had been working on the project found themselves unemployed by 1988 and were looking for any kind of employment so they could keep their homes and stay in the area. That was not the best time for us to have returned to Santa Maria, but we still feel it was the right time. We humans learn a lot from stress as we work our way through it and come out the other side in victory.


The verse she reminded me of is Isaiah 30:15, "...In returning and rest you shall be saved; In quietness and confidence shall be your strength..." Returning, of course, means coming back to the Lord. That does not necessarily mean we have turned away from God. It is any area in which we are not pressing in as we once had been. In our case it meant giving all our challenges and stresses over to God. We had been operating in our own strength, thinking we could solve those challenges on our own. Of course we knew better, but times of stress sometimes cause our emotions to take over for our good sense and keep us from hearing our spirit. The meaning of the word returning is to turn and go the opposite direction from that which we had been going, to repent. Rest is to rest in the Lord. Come back and rest He says. Give him the trials and challenges and rest in the assurance that He is handling them. The promise He gives when we do that is salvation. Turn from the way you have been going, handling things you cannot handle anyway, and give them over to Jesus. Trust Him to be Lord of your life. The result of that is salvation.

Salvation is so much more than being born again. In fact, being born again only gets us going the direction of salvation. We discussed this recently, but in case you missed it, the new birth is salvation from the guilt of sin. The process that begins there is called sanctification. That is the process of being made holy, having our sin fall away from us as we progressively walk with God and press into His way. It is the process of becoming free from the power of sin in our lives. Ultimately, salvation is being saved from the very presence of sin when our mortal bodies are miraculously changed and we go to live with God. Those are the things we are saved from, but even then we have only discussed part of salvation. The other side of salvation is what we are saved to. We are saved to having access to all the riches of God, all His power, and all His authority. It is true! God has placed all those things under mankind's authority on the earth. We live so far below His resources, most of us do not have a very good idea just how much more there is.

In one of his early books, perhaps even his first one, Prayer is Invading the Impossible, Dr. Jack Hayford had original quotes at the beginning of each chapter. The one I think I will never forget said, "When sub-normal is considered normal, then normal is thought to be abnormal." Normal for the Christian should be the envy of the world. We should be examples of love, happiness, security, fulfillment, and rest, just to mention a few. Our normal should look abnormal to the world.

When God handles things, they get handled. Sometimes we do not even understand how they got handled. It is almost like things just happened, almost as if miraculously. There are no miracles in heaven. Most people do not realize that. We rarely think about such things. God works in heaven. His works look like miracles to us because we do not know how they happened. Oh, sure, we might be able to follow the process from point to point to point. We know what happened, but we do not know how or why it happened. That is the work of God and it looks miraculous to us.

The reason we are telling you all this is because we are asking and believing God right now for something that will look like a miracle. (I almost made a BIG boo boo. I almost said it would look like a miracle if it happens.) It is going to happen. We are believing for a house where we can have a sort of on-site discipleship program. We expect people to come and live there for some period of time while they learn the lessons the Lord has for them to learn. After that, they will simply go wherever the Lord calls them to do whatever He tells them to do. We expect to have space available for itinerant ministers who need a place of rest or refreshing themselves. This has been a longtime vision that has looked more like a dream for years. Now the Lord is putting it together and it is exciting. In fact we already have a couple people interested in living with us and the Lord is speaking about some others as well. We will be interested to see how that all works out.


We already know where the house is. The problem is, we have no ability to possess it physically at this point. It is for sale so that is not the issue. The asking price is more than we have ever conceived of being able to spend for a house. Thankfully, the how to of the situation is not ours to worry about. We are working on possessing the house in the spirit and we know when we do that it will be ours in the physical realm.


What we are really asking you to do is to combine your faith and your prayers with ours. Looking at it naturally, we need to have the house by around the first of the year. Of course this is also one of those sooner is better things. That, of course, could cause us to take off in our own strength and really mess things up. We do have a considerable amount of experience in doing that. Please join your faith with ours and pray as the Lord directs. As always, let us know if you know something we need to know. God bless.

A Sense of Destiny

Is it just me or is there something afoot in the spiritual realm? For the past couple or three weeks it seems every time I have the chance to ponder what is going on, I have a sense of something going on behind the scenes that I cannot quite put my finger on. It is as though something is approaching that will make an impact on the way things are in our lives. We pray it is something good and not something God will have to turn for good. Whichever way that goes, we know it will be an exciting, growth experience. Were we to take a guess, God is about to put the next step in place for our victory over the religious spirit we are battling.

Eight days ago there were two minor earthquakes in California in the same day. We say they were minor because neither of them caused any apparent damage and were not even considered newsworthy events. They were each in the 4 point range on the Richter Scale, but were in less populated areas. The only reason we even know about them is the first one hit almost exactly 5:30 AM and shook our bed. We looked it up on the internet and sure enough, it was the first of two that hit that day.

Pastor Jack Hayford says that when there are things happening in the spritual realm, they are often accompanied by seisimic activity. It is as though the creation is in travail, groaning with birth pains. (Romans 8:22) For the time being, we are pondering the earthquakes and being attentive to what the Spirit is saying and doing. We all know spiritual insight is sometimes better than at other times. It seems like something is happening, but the what of that is still hidden. In the meantime, we must be about our Father's business as best we can.

It seems almost daily some kind of distraction comes along that seeks to change our direction. Some of those things are minor and some not so much so. Taking a day to attend meetings at headquarters is a minor, expected distraction, but a distraction nonetheless. I certainly did not do much blogging that day although I did get home with some new material as stated in the previous post. We also had two sets of out of town guests and two one-time functions to attend this week. Those are good things, the kinds of things that add the variety and spice to life. There was also the distraction of a friend being admitted to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation after some kind of episode in which she trashed her apartment in the middle of the night. That kind of thing is not expected nor enjoyable. We have also been solicited for three business opportunities in the past few weeks. These are things that may or may not lead anywhere, but would definitely require some investment of time. We were close to losing our focus in each case and pursuing something that might have been good at the possible risk of not continuing to do what the Lord has called us to do.


I really never have liked the idea of destiny. It just sounds too much like someone has already planned out our destination and there is nothing we can do to avoid it. Where is the free will in that? I think I am learning that having a destiny is similar to a football player taking a kick off and trying to run it into the opposite end zone for a score. The goal is set before us. All we are trying to do is get there the best way we know how. Thankfully as Christians we do not have to get there the best way we know how. We have a coach high up in the sky, as it were, with a view of every obstacle to our success. It is He who can and will guide us moment by moment and step by step to our destiny. We have trouble seeing the goal line because of the monsters between us and it. (Still sticking with our football analogy here.) We have already shared in previous posts about some of the times we have been knocked off course. That is why it has taken so long for us to get to this place, wherever we actually are. The good news is, we are still standing! At this time we have a sense that our destiny is in the process of manifesting itself for good or for better. The battle is about to be joined in full force. We have been assured in our spirits of ultimate victory. It simply does not matter what comes between now and then. We are already winners. All of us are already winners. The battle set and we already know the outcome.