Lewis Allen - The Preachers Catechism

Q.What else did God ordain?

A.God ordained that all things should be preached as being under the headship of Christ.

Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?

Luke 8:25

Those who are called to preach must be sure that God has called everything else into his purposes. Its no good being convinced that the Lord wants you in the pulpit if youre not really sure about his involvement in the world beyond your allotted few square feet of activity each Sunday. Jesus rules from the pulpit, and he also reigns over doing the dishes, health scares, financial markets, and struggling marriages. The people we serve, the mistakes we make, the wins and the losses of ministry, the tragedies and sins we face in our churches and familiesthese are all equally under his sovereign control. You are preaching into a universe ruled by King Jesus . This life - changing truth must be the solid ground for all your preaching. Believe it, and preach it.

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me, Jesus said (Matt. 28:18). The winds and sea recognized that (Mark 4:39). So did disease, death, the demonic, and heaven itself. It took the disciples far longer to understand. It still does. Our default belief is that God is involved in the brilliant but is far from the tragic. There is more than a little whiff of paganism about that, isnt there? And if we give that conviction any ground, we will be anxious and discouraged preachers.

Yet again, we must preach the gospel to ourselves. The gospel is the declaration that there is a King. All claims to authority in this world that do not acknowledge and submit to the kingship of Jesus are imposters, rebels, and enemies. All fears we may have that our ministry is melting because God isnt really ruling our circumstances are the signs of a dangerous unbelief. We must shock our fears by saying that there is another king, Jesus (Acts 17:7). This King is as much for us as he rules in loving and effortless power over us. And so we take heart.

Our calling is to speak gospel words in what often appears to be the chaos of our lives and the lives of our congregations. Our God reigns must never sound trite. It must always be heard for what it is, a uniquely hope - filled and peace - bringing claim. Our world is not purposeless, but deep down most of the hearts of those we preach to fear that it is. They look at their own lives, scarred with failure and tragedy, and many are nearly broken with sorrow. How can this mess serve any purpose? How can God be both powerful and good, given the lives believers have to cope with?

We literally cannot survive as Christians without making and believing the confident assertion that Christ is still ruling the winds and the waves. Kevin Vanhoozer says it well: He is the divine Son in and through whom all things have been made (Col. 1:3). Everything is under his command; nothing escapes his lordship.

Believing that Christ is Lord is the work of all of our hearts, for all of our lives. As John Owen explained, Believing is an act of the heart; which in the Scriptures comprises all the faculties of the soul. Pause and reflect on that: do we preachers really get how demanding and difficult faith is? Yes and no. No, we probably dont, on many levels. The Spirit has gifted us with a confidence in the gospel (however shaky that faith sometimes gets) so that we feel compelled to preach. They wont tell us, but many in our churches would quite frankly feel I could never do that as they watch us, because they rightly see that preaching is a business that stretches faith, sometimes to the limit. Preachers are, by most measurements, believers with a good deal of faith. Because of that, its all too easy to fail to appreciate the struggles many of our hearers have in believing.

There again, time spent with fellow Christians who suffer, or time spent in our own trials, brings home the fact that faith is anything but natural or straightforward. Ours is not a simple or an easy reflex to trust in Jesus when life is horrible, and sometimes even when life is wonderful. Doesnt a glance at your own life as a preacher actually show you how hard you find faith? Our fluctuating moods and occasional spectacular emotional collapses might just be pointers to how hard we find faith to be. We preachers are heavy lifters, bearing our own problems and the difficulties of those we serve through preaching. Faith is hard for us. Our whole souls need to be fixed on Christ.

Faith is a hungry business, and true faith must be continually fed. The undershepherds need a diet of good food just as the sheep do. Key to that diet is a robust confidence in Christs lordship. We must believe through constant meditation on the Scriptures, and we must make sure that it has a high place in the preaching we bring to those we serve. All thingspreachers, disciples, disasters, and joysreally are under his wise and loving command.

Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord . (Jer. 9:2324 )

This is true theology, which alone can kindle the fire of faith and devotion.

Q.Will we pray ourselves into a glad submission to God?

A.Our preaching will never satisfy us. It isnt meant to. Lets give our hearts to God.

Yours, O Lord , is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord , and you are exalted as head above all.

1 Chronicles 29:11

When we close the Lords Prayer, we give honor to God, recognizing his kingdom, power, and glory. We do that, but the best Greek manuscripts that make up our Bibles dont actually contain the familiar ending of the prayer. There is no harm in praying that way, of course. That is essentially the same declaration as Psalm 103:19 and 1 Chronicles 29:11, that God really is the King enthroned in glory and might. He is the great reality for all of our praying, as well as our preaching. We must learn to declare to heaven that we submit our hearts to Gods greatness in Jesus . We must learn to declare the same to our hearts. When our hearts bow joyfully to the King, then, and only then, will our preaching have any integrity and impact.

Hes beautiful. Every page of Scripture tells us of a God who is holy and righteous. Ever page of gospel promise urges us to believe that this holy, righteous God gives himself entirely to us in the offer of the gospel. I will be their God, and they shall be my people (Ezek. 37:27) is the language of encounter, of love, and of experience, if it is anything. God loves us with a holy love. He wants us to know his love and to respond with the same to him.

Sometimes we preachers miss this. We lose hold of this love, the burning center of our commission to preach. And when we do, a tragedy starts to play out in our hearts. The tragedy is that we see God as a Master only. He is the Boss, while we are busily engaged (and often exhausted) in his work. We lose sight of the liberating truth that he is also lover, friend, encourager, comforter. This Master calls us to know him, and to share not just the work of the gospel but also the rest and the fellowship the gospel opens to us. What could be more tragic in the preachers life but that he would wear himself away to skin and bone, starving himself of the very grace he seeks to proclaim to others?