PREACHING-WORSHIP
The highest form of worship is the
preaching of God’s Word..”
Martin Luther
[The Puritans
believed in] the supreme importance of preaching. To the Puritans, the sermon
was the liturgical climax of public worship. Nothing, they said, honours God more than the faithful declaration and obedient
hearing of His truth. Preaching, under any circumstances, is an act of worship,
and must be performed as such. Moreover, preaching is the prime means of grace
to the church.
A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan View of
the Christian Life, Crossway, 1990, p. 281.
The Word of
God tells us that Christ’s church is glorious... [But] today the glory of the
church is thickly veiled. It is no exaggeration to assert that in the main it
presents a picture of advanced decadence and extreme feebleness... Let it be
said emphatically, the church is where the truth is. Sound doctrine always has
been, is today, and ever will be the foremost mark of the true church. But who
dares to assert that there is today in the churches a rising tide of interest
in doctrine? By and large people do not go to church to learn about God from
His infallible Word, but to be tranquilized. And that the glory of God is both
the beginning and the end of common worship does not seem to occur to them.
Worship in
the pulpit is exercised by those who know the saving power of Christ, and
express that power through the spoken word, molded by the written revelation of
God in the Bible… The preacher, in his act of preaching, communicates the Bible
(the knowledge he has gained of God) to the hearers. His worship becomes their
worship. Preaching is worship.
C. Matthew McMahon
The Pastor and the Pulpit, www.apuritansmind.com.
[The
preacher] appreciates the fact that he is simply the vessel that has been
prepared to pour forth Christ into the mouth of those waiting for rivers of living
water. In that instance and that act of preaching he worships God with all his
heart. His heart is poured forth and every fiber of his being screams forth the
majesty of Christ and the holiness of God as He addresses the saints. The
explanation of the Excellencies he is depositing into the ears of the hearers
is the immediate fruit of his personal ownership of those sublime truths.
Preaching, for the preacher, is worship.
C. Matthew McMahon
The Pastor and the Pulpit, www.apuritansmind.com.
Here the
preacher rests in a quiet assurance. He
is backed by the promise that God is at work while he is about worship. In this
he knows he is a planter. Seeds are sown and fruit will result. Yet, the fruit
may not be seen for weeks, months or even years. Still, the preacher rests
confident in who God is and what He has promised. God is at work and the
preacher glories in that work like a vessel that is
used by the hand to be lifted to the thirsty mouth. The preacher is worshipping
in all of this. He is experiencing the
pleasure of God upon himself as the Word of God rains down upon the people.
C. Matthew McMahon
The Pastor and the Pulpit, www.apuritansmind.com.
Word and
worship belong indissolubly to each other. All worship is an intelligent and
loving response to the revelation of God, because it is the adoration of His
name. Therefore, acceptable worship is impossible without preaching. For
preaching is making known the name of the Lord, and worship is praising the
name of the Lord made known.
John Stott
Between Two Worlds, Eerdmans, 1992, p.
82-83.
To worship
God…is to “glory in His holy name” (Ps. 105:3), that is, to revel adoringly in
who He is in His revealed character. But before we can glory in God’s name, we
must know it; hence the propriety of the reading and preaching of the Word of
God in public worship… These things are not an intrusion into worship; they
form the necessary foundation of it. God must speak to us before we have any
liberty to speak to Him. He must disclose to us who He is before we can offer
Him what we are in acceptable worship. The worship of God is always a response
to the Word of God. Scripture wonderfully directs and enriches our worship.
John Stott
The Gospel and the End of Time, BST
Thessalonians, Intervarsity Press, 1991, p. 124.
People have
the idea that the preacher is an actor on a stage and they are the critics,
blaming or praising him. What they don’t know is that they are the actors on
the stage; he is merely the prompter standing in the wings, reminding them of
their lost lines (and God is the audience)!
Soren Kierkegaard
Quoted in: MacArthur, The Ultimate Priority, Moody Press 1983, p. 23.
Since
expository preaching begins with the text of Scripture, it starts with God and
is in itself an act of worship, for it is a declaration of the mighty acts of
God. It establishes the focus of the
people upon God and His glory before any consideration of man and his need.
Alistair Begg
Preaching for God’s Glory, Crossway,
1999, p. 33.
James Stewart
used to say, “Be yourself, but also, forget yourself!” Self-forgetfulness is of
vital importance. We cannot make much of ourselves and much of the Lord Jesus
Christ simultaneously. If people leave worship saying, “What an amazing
preacher!” we have failed. Instead we
must long for them to say, “What a great God, and what a privilege it is to
meet Him in His Word, as we have just done.”
Alistair Begg
Preaching for God’s Glory, Crossway,
1999, p. 44-45.
I should
think myself in the way of my duty, to raise the affections of my hearers as
high as I possibly can, provided they are affected with nothing but the truth,
and with affections that are not disagreeable to the nature of what they are
affected with.
Jonathan Edwards
What do we
think preaching is but the central act of Christian worship? As a matter of
fact, everything else ought to build to the preaching of the Word, for that is
when the God of whom we have been speaking and singing speaks to us from His
eternal and perfect Word.
R. Albert Mohler, Jr.
Feed My Sheep, ed. Don Kistler,
Soli Deo Gloria Ministries, 2002, p. 17.