The Heart of Local Church-Centered Preaching

God desires to be glorified in His local churches, and He is most glorified when they are biblically and spiritually healthy. While expositional preaching is foundational, it is not sound preaching if we are not guided by the Spirit to make strong application of the text for the local church family we shepherd.

We must purposefully and prayerfully strive to follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit as we study and preach. This ensures we’re preaching personally and practically to the present issues facing our church. The practical truths that come out of expositional preaching must continually inform church structure and practice. The sound doctrine of the pulpit must become shoe leather for the church. Biblical expositional preaching without a fervent desire to continue the reformation of the church is simple disobedience.

The Challenge We Face

In my opinion, expositional preaching through books of the Bible should be the mainstay of any local church pulpit. As pastor of Grace Life Church of the Shoals, I’ve preached through 28 books of the Bible, not including numerous expositions of particular Bible sections. However, looking across the church horizon, I’ve observed a lot of what I would call improper expositional preaching. Just like anything else, if we lose the proper purpose and practice of expositional preaching, we can make it an idol, treating it as an end in itself. A strict, cold, academic exposition of the text may be excellent from a classroom perspective, but it can become a superstitious practice if we’re not careful. That is the belief that merely dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s in exposition will magically please God and build His church. This is likely an explanation for why there are many weak, unhealthy churches that have sat under years of “biblical exposition.”

A Biblical Example

The New Testament is exhaustive in the use of personal and practical applications for particular local church congregations. The Pastoral epistles provide a key example of “local church-centered preaching.” In First and Second Timothy and Titus, Paul reproves and rebukes, both personally and practically, a myriad of issues in the Ephesian and Cretan churches. Being local church-centered, I often uncover a truth from my exposition and feel it must be expanded upon because it is critically important for my church at this particular time. It may even develop into a mini-series on that truth as I systematically use the entirety of the Scriptures to address the issues therein. A good example would be my recent preaching through the book of Titus. In Chapter 2, as Paul instructed the older women, younger women, older men, younger men particularly in the context of marriage and the home, I felt I had to camp here since this area is one our culture is presently so viciously attacking. One could argue I could have done a proper exposition and only preached one sermon on that text from Chapter 2, but I felt impressed to expound further on this topic, requiring several sermons instead of one. The goal is not to be a slave to textbook, academic exposition, but to use our exposition and the truths it unfolds to help the bride of Christ as the Holy Spirit guides.

A Pertinent Example

Think of it this way: if we had a troubled son or daughter going through a difficult season, we wouldn’t simply give them a cold, academic exposition of a text. Instead, we would find a text, interpret it with sound exegesis, and give practical applications to their personal situation. We would speak to their specific struggles, problems, or sins. This same approach should guide our preaching to our local church.

Our Eternal Perspective

As far as we know, there will be no expositional preaching in the coming eternal state—when you have the Living Word physically present, why would you need the written Word explained? But while there won’t be expositional preaching in heaven, there will be the church in heaven! She will be there secured, perfected, and glorified! So, let’s be on mission with God to be a useful tool in His hand as He wins His children, secures them in local church congregations, and matures them so that He might get the most glory through His church (Ephesians 3:21).