• I was once at a major conference—a high profile speaker was given the topic “What the church needs today”
  • He tried to bite more off than he could chew and answer it all in 40mins
  • it was so general that it was almost useless
• So I am going to limit myself to just four suggestions, together with an example we’ll work through

• Back in my early 30’s I was a University Lecturer in England
  • I enjoyed lecturing—it was fun and interesting
  • I was also doing some preaching
• One Sunday evening I preaching the sermon in my home church—I can’t remember what it was on
  • But the next day a lady came and told me that she had been planning to leave her husband
  • But after hearing God’s word, she decided not to
• Wow! that was infinitely more worthwhile than the university lecturing
  • I knew that I would never again be satisfied with teaching computer science

• A few words about preaching and teaching
  • We tend to use the words teaching and preaching differently
    • Teaching is about conveying facts from my head to yours
    • Preaching is about getting you motivated enough to change your lives
  • No difference in Scripture

• A dry classroom teaching of the truth of God is offensive to God
  • His truth should always be on fire
  • There must be a response
• But preaching that is reduced to motivational speaking and has no teaching content is just as wrong
  • Jesus says it is the truth that sets us free, not a pumped up speaker
• So real preaching is real teaching and real teaching is real preaching
  • I think the key thing missing from some teaching is the call for a response
  • We must never read God’s word or teach it without responding to it

• You have a huge responsibility to hear God’s voice accurately
  • but with accuracy comes certainty, and with certainty comes passion
  • So how can we be certain
  • I’m going to highlight four principles
    • and four ways of achieving them

• 1. The Big Picture: Two Creations
• God Created the world
  • Sin entered and the perfect creation was corrupted
  • God promised Eve that one day he would destroy Satan permanently
  • The Earth became increasingly rebellious against God
  • He destroyed it with the flood

• God made a new start with Noah
  • After a few generations it was as bad as ever

• So God made a new start with Abraham and his descendents
  • The descendents grew into the nation of Israel

• So God made a new start with the next generation of Israel
  • That conquerored the promised land under Joshua
  • He gave Israel the promised land, but they became increasingly like the corrupt nations around

• So he chose a man, David, to lead them back to him
  • he promised David that one day a totally new start would be made with one from his line
    • David made a new start in the worship of God, and established the “tabernacle of David”
  • God’s presence in their midst had purifying power
    • But they did not value his presence
  • But throughout this time the prophets start to whisper about a totally new creation
    • Particularly Isaiah

• God made a new start with those who returned from captivity
  • Eventually groups like the Pharisees and Saducees replaced true worshipers
  • But things were now ready for an entirely new creation in Jesus Christ

• But what Jesus did was totally unexpected
  • He began the new creation before the old one was ended
  • One of the words he used for it was the “Kingdom”
• This Kingdom is invisible to the old creation, but they can see its effects
  • love, truth, justice, faithfuless
  • but also healing, restoration, victory over darkness
• It would invisibly grow like yeast in bread
  • and seemingly small and weak like a tiny seed would grow into a great tree
• Jesus, with his resurrected body, became the first full new-creation being
  • But all people had to do was to believe him and they would receive the seed of this new life
  • Soon it was rapidly spreading over the whole world
  • Nothing can stop it eventually reaching every nation

• Then the old creation will finally be destroyed
  • and we will receive new creation bodies, like caterpillars turning into butterflies

• Going to apply suggestions 1. and 2. now:
  • The Big Picture
  • Sensitivity to the form of the writing

Notes on eye of needle

• Story of trying to find a text for the subject I wanted to preach on
  • I could find another text/preach this one/or force this one
• Suppose I was concerned that people in the church were living sinful lives
  • 1 Thess 4:7 “For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness.”
  • I could preach a very condemning sermon from this verse!
    • Who here is pure? Why don’t you shape up?
  • But if I were to carefully examine the who passage I would see two things
  1. that holiness is defined as loving your brother and sister,
     • and unholiness is false love: self-centred lust
  2. That holiness is achieved by the gift of the Spirit, not the law
     • In other words, it is God who teaches you how to love
  • So instead of preaching “Shape up and stop sinning”
  • Listen to God when his Spirit whispers love into your heart:
    “for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another,”
  • We tend to have a grid, that stops us learning, stops us hearing
  • for 1000 years the church treated it as a magic book and stopped listening to it
  • grammatical-historical,