How to Preach Like a Great Preacher

This series of posts is creative, interesting, and instructive.

Here's how to preach like D. A. Carson without sounding like him.

Here's how to preach like Tim Keller without sounding like him.

And, here's how to preach like John Piper without sounding like him either. 

A Changing Landscape

In John Piper's sermon this last Lord's Day, he spoke of how the moral landscape is different now from when he first became a pastor. Speaking of where we were in this land 33 years ago versus where we are now, he says:

It would have been unthinkable to suggest that anyone would seriously propose defining marriage as between two men or two women; and it would have been even more unthinkable that in a mere thirty years America would have lost its soul so profoundly that most Americans would approve of a definition of marriage that no society in the history of the world has ever embraced. And it would have been unthinkable that instead of rejecting the unreality of so-called same-sex marriage, the culture would begin to criminalize the naming of same-sex intercourse as sin — which it is.

And along with this tragic loss of our moral compass has come the increasing loss of freedoms and the increasing compulsion from government to conform to unbiblical views. Freedom of speech is disappearing as the secular consensus grows that our shame is our glory (Phil. 3:19), and that to use biblical language to describe sin is hateful and already in some places prosecuted as illegal. Freedom of worship is disappearing as metropolitan commissions and councils take the prerogative to prohibit worship spaces and activities. And along with the loss of freedoms to act in biblical ways, comes the governmental compulsion to act in unbiblical ways — to fund the killing of unborn children, to endorse the legitimacy of sinful behavior, and soon to participate in it (for example, if you are a military chaplain), and the compulsory normalizing of sin in public institutions that will probably force most biblical Christians out of the public schools.

How then shall we live? We must think soberly about our times and face the facts. We must not act like things are not all that bad, heads in the sand. And we must think about the way forward. Piper faces the facts and answers the how-then-shall-we-live question in this sermon.

The Task of Taking the Gospel to the Globe

Here is some perspective on the task of the gospel going global into all the nooks and crannies of unreached or unengaged people groups.

Let's be praying the Lord will send out some (more) from our midst to unreached and unengaged people groups!

We Have Become the Offscouring of All Things. Or Have We?

Piper on professionalism and the pastorate:

We are afflicted in every way but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not destroyed, always carrying in the body the death of Jesus (professionally?) so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested (professionally?) in our bodies (2 Cor. 4:9-11). 

I think God has exhibited us preachers as last of all in the world. We are fools for Christ's sake, but professionals are wise. We are weak, but professionals are strong. Professionals are held in honor, we are in disrepute. We do not try to secure a professional lifestyle, but we are ready to hunger and thirst and be ill-clad and homeless. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we try to conciliate; we have become the refuse of the world, the offscouring of all things (1 Cor. 4:9-13). Or have we? 

Brothers, we are not professionals! We are outcasts. We are aliens and exiles in the world (1 Pet. 2:11). Our citizenship is in heaven, and we wait with eager expectation for the Lord (Phil. 3:20). You cannot professionalize the love for His appearing without killing it. And it is being killed.  

The aims of our ministry are eternal and spiritual. They are not shared by any of the professions. It is precisely by the failure to see this that we are dying. 

—John Piper, Brothers, We Are Not Professionals: A Plea to Pastors for a Radical Ministry (Nashville: B&H, 2013), 2.

Piper on Professionalization in the Pastorate

What does professionalization in the pastorate look like?

Professionalization carries the connotation of an education, a set of skills, and a set of guild-defined standards which are possible without faith in Jesus. Professionalism is not supernatural. The heart of ministry is. 

—John Piper, Brothers, We Are Not Professionals: A Plea to Pastors for a Radical Ministry (Nashville: B&H, 2013), x.

The Cowardice of Concealing Convictions

Piper on cowardice in the pastorate:

We are surrounded in America by people like [the chief priests and elders in Matt. 21:23-27]. Instead of using their minds to come to strong convictions and let the chips fall where they will and suffer for what's true, they are repeatedly angling to get out of traps. Don't be like this, if for no other reason than because it is bad scholarship! If your mind, in studying the truth, leads you to a conviction that will get you into trouble, believe it! Speak it! There are so many pastors who conceal their convictions from their people because they are so afraid of conflict.

—John Piper & D. A. Carson, The Pastor as Scholar & the Scholar as Pastor: Reflections on Life and Ministry (Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 58.

Hypocrisy Defined

"If you try to do deeds 'for the glory of God' without treasuring the glory of God in your heart, it is a sham. The word hypocrisy was created precisely for the effort to say with deeds what we do not feel in our hearts."

—John Piper & D. A. Carson, The Pastor as Scholar & the Scholar as Pastor: Reflections on Life and Ministry (Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 47.

Musing Over the Word of God

John Piper on the practice of Christian meditation:

What does meditation involve? The word meditation in Hebrew means basically to speak or to mutter. When this is done in the heart, it is called musing or meditation. So meditating on the Word of God day and night [Ps. 1:2] means to speak to yourself the Word of God day and night and to speak to yourself about it—to mull it over, to ask questions about it and answer them from the Scripture itself, to ask yourself how this might apply to you and others, and to ponder its implications for life and church and culture and missions.

—John Piper, When I Don't Desire God: How to Fight for Joy (Wheaton: Crossway, 2004), 124-125.

Building in Disciplined Bible Reading and Prayer

Piper on reading the Scriptures:

If your longing is to be spontaneous in the way you commune with God, then build discipline into your Bible reading and prayer. . . .  

. . . plan a place and a time when you will read the Bible and think about it each day. There can always be more times during the day. There should be. But let there be one sacred time and place. Put it on your calendar. Treat it the same way you would an appointment with a partner or friend. If someone asks you to do something during that time, say, "I'm sorry, I already have an appointment then."

—John Piper, When I Don't Desire God: How to Fight for Joy (Wheaton: Crossway, 2004), 116.

Thankful for Pastors Who Work Hard in the Word

"The pastor's job is to look at the Bible and work hard to understand what's in it, and then work hard to make it understandable and attractive and compelling to our people."

—John Piper & D. A. Carson, The Pastor as Scholar & the Scholar as Pastor: Reflections on Life and Ministry (Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 61.

Relativism Commits Cosmic Treason

Piper speaks to the cosmic treason of relativism:

Relativism is a pervasive rebellion against the very concept of divine law. Therefore, it is a profound rebellion against God. It is a treason that is worse than outright revolt, because it is devious. Instead of saying to God's face, "Your word is false," it says to man, "There is no such thing as a universally binding divine word." This is treason against the King of the universe.

 —John Piper, Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God (Wheaton: Crossway, 2010), 106.

A Fight for One's Life

I'm not a pastor. But I still find this to be an important word about guarding time to read. More to the point, it is an important word about finding time for unhurried, unbroken communion with God over books. It is literally a fight for one's life!

The Supremacy of God in Preaching

In Part One of his book The Supremacy of God in Preaching, John Piper unpacks four elements in making God supreme in preaching:

(1) The Goal of Preaching: The Glory of God
(2) The Ground of Preaching: The Cross of Christ
(3) The Gift of Preaching: The Power of the Holy Spirit
(4) The Gravity and Gladness of Preaching

On the cover, J. I. Packer says this: "A powerful tonic for tired preachers—a book that digs deep into the theology, strategy, and spirituality of pulpit ministry." A powerful tonic alright.

Consider reading it, if you haven't, even if you're not a tired preacher. You may find it to be a jolt to your soul like it's been to mine, not unlike the first time I heard Piper preach in person about ten years ago in Chicago at Moody. It was like an electric shock went right through me and electrified my soul for God. But before being electrified for God, that shock wave left me struck and numb for hours that evening with awe at the glory of God in the Gospel.

Preacher: What to Strive For

"Don't strive to be a kind of preacher. Strive to be a kind of person!"—John Piper

—John Piper, The Supremacy of God in Preaching (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), 63.

Cleverness in the Pulpit?

"No man can give the impression that he himself is clever and that Christ is mighty to save."—James Denney

—Quoted in John Piper, The Supremacy of God in Preaching (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), 59.

Dependent, Desperate Preaching

John Piper on the preacher's dependence on the Holy Spirit in the work of preaching:

All genuine preaching is rooted in a feeling of desperation. You wake up on Sunday morning and you can smell the smoke of hell on one side and feel the crisp breezes of heaven on the other. You go to your study and look down at your pitiful manuscript, and you kneel down and cry, "O God, this is so weak! Who do I think I am? What audacity to think that in three hours my words will be the odor of death to death and the fragrance of life to life (2 Cor. 2:16). My God, who is sufficient for these things?"

—The Supremacy of God in Preaching (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990), 41-42.

Finish the Mission Conference Messages

The audio and video from "Finishing the Mission" are now available at Desiring God. Sessions 2, 4, and 7 are particularly worth watching or listening to. Em, Ruslan, and I were agreed, I think, that these were the best messages and worth listening to again and again.

Piper on his Return from Leave of Absence

I enjoyed reading Piper's thoughts about the leave of absence the Pipers took for eight months. But the portion that left me most encouraged, and even in tears, was this word which says so much about who John Piper is, and why he differs so much from so many other leaders today, and why his example is truly exemplary and worthy of imitation:

Eleven days after I return to ministry, I turn 65. One could look at this two ways: 1) it’s the age most people retire, or 2) it’s the age Winston Churchill became Prime Minister and led England and the Western World to victory over Hitler’s aggression. I find Churchill much more inspiring than retirement.

The whole update may be found at the DG blog.

Thinking for the Sake of Loving God and Others in God

The Desiring God national conference turned out once again to be invigorating.  My wife and I needed to be stirred out of dullness (especially me), needed to rethink thinking as a means of loving God more, needed to be reminded of some basics in this God-centered cosmos.  All of the speakers convicted us with their messages.  Even Rick Warren, to my pleasant surprise.  For instance, he said (as did my hero John Owen long ago in different language), you only know what you practice, only believe what you practice.  If we say we believe something and don't act on it, we don't really believe.  Sounds like James 2, doesn't it?  Faith without works is dead.

The highlight of the weekend was, oddly perhaps, the presentation of John Piper with a Festschrift by editors Justin Taylor and Sam Storms.  It moved me to tears.  John Piper is, by God's free grace, a truly great man.  Yes, warts and all.  (If we know how to value greatness, that is, in relation to the object of one's love.)  His influence under the sweet, mysterious movement of the Spirit is incalculable.  The man's God-centered, Christ-exalting, man-abasing, soul-stirring and soul-satisfying preaching has fed thousands upon thousands upon thousands.  It has slain God-belittling pride and man-centeredness millions of times over.  And it did so again for me this past weekend. 

As Piper approaches his last days of preaching and leading as a pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, we would do well to listen carefully to him.  He is one of the greatest preachers, not only of our time, but doubtless of all time.  And this, not because he has mastered all the books and advice and how-tos of the preaching sages (I doubt he even reads them), but because God in Christ has been supreme in that holy act, not the sermon.  The structure of the message, the expositor's prowess in navigating a passage, the rhetoric of the message, the hearers of that message, and so on—these have not been supreme.  God has!  God himself in Christ by the Spirit has been supreme.  Gloriously supreme!  And for this above all else John Piper has been a great preacher.  For this he is among the greats of all Christian history.  For this I love this man whom I've never met, to the bottom.  For it is in this that I and thousands upon thousands have been led to love God more.  So for this I bless and thank and praise and exult in God—from whom and through whom and to whom are all things.  To him be glory forevermore!

May God be pleased to raise up generations of preachers in the wake of Piper's legacy of God-centeredness to carry on and forward, without shame and without apology, openly and boldly, Piper's vision of God's supremacy in all things for the joy of all peoples.  The Church and world need nothing more than God-glorifying, Christ-exalting, man-abasing, soul-satisfying preaching.

Be Happy or Else . . .

In my regular reading through the Scriptures with my wife, we've come to Deutoronomy.  This is one of my favorite OT books on account of the robust monotheism and grandeur of God set forth there (not to mention the devotional quality of instruction inculcated by Moses, which typically stirs my heart, or the gospel of grace held forth, which comforts my sin-sick soul).  And at Deut. 28:47-48, in a section that recounts the blessings and the curses for covenant fidelity or infidelity, respectively, I was reminded of an important word from Jeremy Taylor that John Piper records in Desiring God. 


But first, the text of Deut. 28:47-48:  "Because you did not serve YHWH your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies whom YHWH will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking everything. . . ."


Now, Taylor's word of warning that throws some of the shock of Deut. 28:47-48 into bold relief:  "God threatens terrible things, if we will not be happy!"


Yes, God commands that we be happy in him.  And no, of course it is not a chipper or light-hearted happiness in view.  Weighty joy, joy with gravity, rooted in the everlasting goodness and grace of God, bought by Jesus' blood and freely offered from his exalted throne, is commanded. 


Paul put it like this:  "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!"  A command to be happy in God.  So familiar we miss it.  So for all those who love to make a big song and dance about the ten commandments in schools and the like, add this one: "Rejoice in the Lord always!"