How Does John Piper Prepare a Sermon?

Question for John Piper: How do you go about writing your sermon manuscripts?

My pattern is not to be followed by anybody except those who are wired exactly like I am, which is probably no one. We are all so different. When I teach preaching to the guys, I really stress, "Look how I do it and take that into account. But please don't try to imitate me, because it might not work for you."

This is my approach. If I know my text fairly well and it is familiar to me, I don't work on it until Friday. I pick out the title and text either weeks or days ahead of time because I have to get it to the worship guys by Tuesday. But I don't study it, and I don't write or work on a sermon until Friday morning. I devote all of Friday to sermon preparation.

If I need to I will stay up all night. I've never stayed up all night on Friday, but I've stayed up until 2am when I didn't know what I was going to say and needed more time to study. Or I might get an interruption because of a ministry crisis during the day that is totally unexpected, which causes me to stay up late studying on Friday. The nights are always there as buffers, however, I almost never stay up that late.

So I start on Friday by putting the text up on my computer in English-Greek or English-Hebrew. I read through the original language getting all the help I need with my mouse. I will also have a half sheet of paper in front of me on the desk where I write out the text and make comments as I go. As I write out the text I'm praying, "God show me what's here for my people. Show me what's really here, not something in my head that I force inside the text. Let me see new things that I've never seen before."

And as I write, for whatever reason, I see things. The pen, the computer, the Greek, the Hebrew, the writing it out. I circle things and make little comments in the margin. The little half sheet looks like an absolute jumble when I'm done, and I've generally got a whole slug of questions that can be answered. I've got lines drawn all over the place.

Then I step back and say, "Lord, what am I going to do with all that? I could talk on that for three hours, but I've only got 35 or 45 minutes to do this." In prayer and thought some of those circles come together, and I say, OK, I'm going to make those two, three, or four points. And I take out another sheet of paper and try to figure out how those points should fit together. Backwards? Forwards? Should I start in the middle? All of this may happen by lunch time.

Then I go eat lunch, and when I get back I put up my word document and I just start writing. I take my thoughts that I scribbled out and I compose straight on to the computer, editing as I go. As I write I think and preach out loud, feeling it and praying. That takes four, five, six, seven, or even eight hours to get written. And after it is written I print it out and go to bed, or go to be with Noël or whatever.

Then Saturday after lunch, after Talitha and I go to Leanne Chin or Jimmy John's, I come home and I really go to work on internalizing it with all my little markings. What I take into the pulpit on Sunday is about 10 double-spaced pages that are so marked up they look like chicken scratch, and they function as my outline while I'm talking.

It works for me. Most people who hear I do it that way say, "No way can I start on Friday." Or, "No way can I take a manuscript into the pulpit and not have it be canned." No problem. Wear your own armor, not mine.

Resource: http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/2556_how_does_john_piper_prepare_a_sermon/

So You Think You Can Preach...

While Charles Spurgeon is "the prince of preachers," Dr. D Martyn Lloyd-Jones (who preached for 42 years) has been described as "the last of the preachers," & perhaps one of the greatest preachers of the 20th century. He said,

There is all the difference in the world between preaching merely from human understanding and energy, and preaching in the conscious smile of God.

There is a very real danger of our putting our faith in our sermon rather than in the Spirit. Our faith should not be in the sermon, it should be in the Holy Spirit Himself.

You can have knowledge, and you can be meticulous in your preparation; but without the unction of the Holy Spirit you will have no power, and your preaching will not be effective.

What is the chief end of preaching? I like to think it is this: It is to give men and women a sense of God and His presence.

That is what preaching (the Bible) is meant to do. It addresses us in such a manner as to bring us under judgment; and it deals with us in such a way that we feel our whole life is involved, and we go out saying, "I can never go back and live just as I did before. This has done something to me; it has made a difference to me. I am a different person as the result of listening to this."

What is preaching? Logic on fire! Preaching is theology coming through a man who is on fire. A true understanding and experience of the Truth must lead to this. I say again that a man who can speak about these things dispassionately has no right whatsoever to be in a pulpit; and should never be allowed to enter one.

I can forgive a man for a bad sermon, I can forgive the preacher almost anything if he gives me a sense of God, if he gives me something for my soul, if he gives me the sense that, though he is inadequate himself, he is handling something which is very great and very glorious, if he gives me some dim glimpse of the majesty and the glory of God, the love of Christ my Saviour, and the magnificence of the Gospel. If he does that I am his debtor, and I am profoundly grateful to him.

Be natural; forget yourself; be so absorbed in what you are doing and in the realization of the presence of God, and in the glory and the greatness of the Truth that you are preaching, and the occasion that brings you together, that you forget yourself completely. That is the right condition; that is the only place of safety; that is the only way in which you can honour God. Self is the greatest enemy of the preacher, more so than in the case of any other man in society. And the only way to deal with self is to be so taken up with, and so enraptured by, the glory of what you are doing, that you forget yourself altogether.

To me, the work of preaching is the highest and the greatest and the most glorious of callings to which anyone can ever be called.

The most urgent need in the Christian Church is true preaching; and as it is the greatest and most urgent need of the Church, it is obviously the greatest need of the world also.

Avoid cleverness and smartness. The people will detect this, and they will get the impression that you are more interested in yourself and your cleverness than in the truth of God and their souls.

The big difference between a lecture and a sermon is that a sermon does not start with a subject; a sermon should always be expository. In a sermon the theme or the doctrine is something that arises out of the text and its context, it is something which is illustrated by that text and context.

Love, Joy & Peace from the Spirit (Galatians 5:22),
Ben (312) 363-8578

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To Prosperity Preachers: Commend Christ As Gain by John Piper

My biggest concern about the effects of the prosperity movement is that it diminishes Christ by making him less central and less satisfying than his gifts. Christ is not magnified most by being the giver of wealth. He is magnified most by satisfying the soul of those who sacrifice to love others in the ministry of the gospel.

When we commend Christ as the one who makes us rich, we glorify riches, and Christ becomes a means to the end of what we really want—namely, health, wealth, and prosperity. But when we commend Christ as the one who satisfies our soul forever—even when there is no health, wealth, and prosperity—then Christ is magnified as more precious than all those gifts.

We see this in Philippians 1:20-21. Paul says, “It is my eager expectation and hope that . . . Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Honoring Christ happens when we treasure him so much that dying is gain. Because dying means “to depart and be with Christ” (Philippians 1:23).

This is the missing note in prosperity preaching. The New Testament aims at the glory of Christ, not the glory of his gifts. To make that clear, it puts the entire Christian life under the banner of joyful self-denial. “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). “I have been crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20).

But even though self-denial is a hard road that leads to life (Matthew 7:14), it is the most joyful of all roads. “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field” (Matthew 13:44). Jesus says that finding Christ as our treasure makes all other possessions joyfully dispensable. “In his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”

I do not want prosperity preachers to stop calling people to maximum joy. On the contrary, I appeal to them to stop encouraging people to seek their joy in material things. The joy Christ offers is so great and so durable that it enables us to lose prosperity and still rejoice. “You joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one” (Hebrews 10:34). The grace to be joyful in the loss of prosperity—that is the miracle prosperity preachers should seek. That would be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. That would magnify Christ as supremely valuable.

John Piper

Resource:http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/2447_to_prosperity_preachers_commend_christ_as_gain/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DGBlog+%28DG+Blog%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

A Pinnacle of Old Testament (and New Testament) Faith

In the last chapter of Genesis, Joseph was the Prime Minister of Egypt, second in command only to Pharaoh in all the land. Many years ago, Joseph's brothers had sold him into slavery. But Joseph became Prime Minister. The tables had turned. Joseph could have "legally" taken matters into his own hands to repay his brothers for the evil that they did to him. But he did not. He said, "Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good... I will provide for you and your children" (Genesis 50:19-21).

In the Tyndale Old Testament Commentary series on Genesis, Derek Kidner, Old Testament scholar, wrote that Joseph's 3-fold reply to his brothers is a pinnacle of Old Testament (and New Testament) faith. He writes on page 224:

1. To leave all the righting of one's wrongs to God
2. To see His providence in man's malice, and
   
3. To repay evil not only with forgiveness but also with practical affection
   

are attributes which anticipate the adjective "Christian" and even "Christlike."

How easy it might have been for Joseph to make right himself the wrongs done to him by his brothers. But he left all the righting of wrongs to God.

How easy it might have been for Joseph to be bitter toward his brothers for what they did to him. But he saw God's goodness in man's malice.

How easy it might have been to repay evil with revenge. But he was genuinely forgiving and kind toward his brothers.

We live in a world where we wrong others, and others wrong us. We could subconsciously justify the motto, "An eye for an eye" (which would soon make the whole world blind). But Joseph who experienced an unjust unbearable wrong saw the transcendent and immanent God who was with him. Thus, he revealed the goodness of God in the very midst of the badness of men. Ultimately, Joseph's faith anticipates and mirrors precisely and exactly the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross.

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Prophet of Purpose: The life of Rick Warren

Acclaimed author Jeff Sheler's Prophet of Purpose is an insightful biography of Rick Warren based on three years of research. Sheler observed Warren in contexts from training pastors in Africa to conducting Saddleback Church staff meetings. Warren Bird recently interviewed Sheler about his unique access to Rick Warren, Warren's staff, and Warren's family:

What does the Rick Warren story teach others, especially other church leaders, about the idea of innovation?

Rick's story certainly tells pastors and church leaders that they can be committed and faithful to the gospel, to spreading a timeless message, while remaining open to new approaches and methods of ministry. Warren talks about the five purposes that drive his ministry and his church: worship, service, evangelism, discipleship and fellowship. While those purposes never change for Warren, his programs and his methods do change. In fact, he would say that they must change as needs and circumstances require. So he's always looking for a better way, a more effective and innovative way of reaching people for Christ and ministering to their needs.

How would you describe the way he handles his staff as you observed it?

I have found him to be a delegator. He's definitely not a micromanager -- he is not detail oriented at all. People who work with him say, "Rick soars at the 30,000 foot level. He likes to look at the big picture and he leaves it for the people on the ground to work out the details." His staff know that he trusts them, he respects their abilities, and he respects their ideas. At the same time, sometimes in unexpected situations he will step in and shake things up. He'll say, "Let's stop this plan, let's change and go in this direction." And that can be very disturbing to people when their routine gets broken. His staff sometimes refers to him as "the chief disturbing agent."

Was he always a delegator with his staff?

I think he's certainly grown in empowering others. He has always been one to learn from others. He's always been one to recognize his own strengths and weaknesses and to have people around him who are strong where he is weak. And he takes pride in the fact that he doesn't do it all himself and that he has needed the help of mentors over the years and continues to seek out mentors. I think he has demonstrated this aptitude from the very beginning and continues to demonstrate it.

How does he allocate his time between church responsibilities and other initiatives?

Rick has felt called from the very beginning of his ministry to be the pastor of one church for his entire life and he has never lost that vision. He's stuck to it very carefully. He still sees himself primarily as the pastor of Saddleback Church. That remains his number one priority. But over the years, he and his staff have learned to have less of Rick Warren. When The Purpose Driven Life took off, and certainly after starting the P.E.A.C.E. plan, Rick found himself being pulled in directions that he had never been pulled before, in terms of demands on his time and his energies. Initially that did cause some problems for him and his staff. After a while, they got together and sat down and really hashed it out. His staff told him, "Rick, you've got to let go of some of this."

What would the pastor of a church of 100, of 1,000, and of 10,000 learn most from Rick Warren?

Warren has been in all of those positions. Right out of seminary he captured a vision of building a church for the unchurched: people who hate going to church. So he did research in order to learn about his target audience: their needs, their motives, the reasons why they stayed away from church. His first service had about 120 people, but each step of the way he continued to learn, he continued to do research, continued to try new methods. He was willing to let go of ideas that didn't work, and willing to try something new. He was eager to learn from others. He didn't have a lot of pride in 'this is my idea and we're sticking with it." He was willing to use other people's creativity and to recognize his own strengths and weaknesses. That's a useful attitude for a pastor of a small church or a large church.

Article: http://www.pursuantgroup.com/leadnet/advance/may10s1a.htm

Piper's Pastoral Accountability-LTG group

I saw this post on Piper's site. I'm reminded of the verse we studied on Tuesday. 2 Corinthians 7:1 "Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God." It is very important we become accountability partners in the Gospel. We are all weak and sinful. We need prayer partners and friends we can talk to. Practically, it shows how important it is to establish and create LTG groups (Life Transformation Groups) within the Church. The blog also includes a PDF questionnaire. Please let me know your thoughts.


Piper's Pastoral Accountability
May 23, 2007 | By: Abraham Piper | Category: Commentary

Hearts can harden fast. The writer of Hebrews drives this point home: "But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called 'today,' that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin" (3:13).

So for pastors—and for all of us—yearly or quarterly or perhaps even monthly accountability is dangerously rare. The hardness that creates "an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God" (Heb. 3:12) can happen in a day.

John Piper and the other pastors of Bethlehem Baptist Church know this, and so, among their other strategies for sanctification, they hold each other accountable with a simple questionnaire (PDF) that they each fill out weekly. It addresses issues from days off to diet, personal devotions to pornography.

They would all agree that filling out the form is not what matters; what's important is the heart behind it—the desire to be pure and holy.

I think they would also all agree, however, that committing to answer these simple and straightforward questions each week is an invaluable tool in the fight of faith.

Update: A reader offers a challenging reminder about sexual accountability.

http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/642_pipers_pastoral_accountability/

Is salvation only for past sins & future heaven? What about the present?

Blog post: Our tendency is to articulate justification by faith alone morally, for the past (conversion) & future (entrance into heaven), without applying it (justification/salvation) emotionally & psychologically, for the present. We embrace Christ for forgiveness of sins but move on to other ideas & strategies when it comes to our emotional life & the daily pressures that do not lie directly in the “moral” realm. This is a great mistake & a recipe for worried, half-hearted Christians, dabbling their toes in an ocean of grace, thinking they’ve hit bottom.

When sinners are justified (saved), however, 2 liberations wash into their life. The 1st & more obvious liberation is moral. The 2nd liberation is emotional & psychological, which is more subjective & more slippery. Rescued sinners bring to their new life in Christ a host of latent emotional lifelines onto which their affections have latched—relationships, skills, bank accounts, sexual stimulation, a reputation, a salary, a sense of humor, an education, affection from children, affection from parents. These have provided psychological stability. Often one lifeline in particular is the lifeline of all lifelines (the ultimate). As long as we have this, we know we’re okay. “If all of life unravels around you, at least you’ll still have _________.”

We must continue to clarify in our churches and books and preaching and conferences and blogs how alarmingly easy it is, operationally, to swallow the first liberation without the second. We embrace God’s free forgiveness of sins yet go on funneling our affections and emotions into our old felt securities—what the Bible calls idols. We rest assured of our ultimate destiny; but the internal restlessness & insecurity continues in the meantime.

This miserable half-liberation manifests itself in any number of ways—students finding their emotional security in academic performance; businessmen finding psychological stability through profits; pastors assuring themselves of the legitimacy of their ministry through congregational favor; mothers undergirding their sense of worth with obedient children; church planters silently validating themselves through growing attendance.

The knife that severs these functional lifelines onto which the heart is latched is the gospel, returned to daily, tenaciously. For Jesus is the one person who ever lived who was, from the womb, “okay.” “Justified.” And on Calvary he allowed himself to be made un-okay, to be condemned, so that you and I can walk into every class, every business deal, every pulpit, every parenting endeavor, every church plant, every anxiety-generating real-life situation, already justified. Not only morally, but emotionally. Not only for the past and the future, but for the present.

Slightly adapted & abridged from Dane Ortland, PhD candidate, Wheaton College: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2010/05/05/justification%e2%80%99s-double-liberation/

For Jesus' fame,
Ben (312) 363-8578

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