Application in Sermons

With the growing rediscovery of expository, Christ-centered preaching, many believers—and pastors—are falling in love with the Bible again. It’s not a handbook of “how-to” principles. Jesus is a Savior, not a life coach or personal therapist. 

I’ll be the last person to take issue with these sentiments! Yet still, faithful believers will often ask, “So, um, ahem, does the Bible have anything to say also about raising my kids, having a good marriage, and being a good neighbor?” 

At this point, it’s easy to take one of two ways out. The first is simply to say that the Bible isn’t about these things. Sure, there are a few verses here and there in Proverbs and the Epistles, but that’s not the point. The second easy way out—far more common in evangelical circles—is to say, “That’s what the application part of the sermon is for!”

I’d like to suggest another way of looking at the question.

1. Application as Law

First, it’s helpful to identify what sort of “animal” we’re talking about. Stated in technical categories, the question is, “What’s the third use of the law and how do we preach it?” “Gospel” is “good news”: specifically, the announcement of what God has done to save us from the guilt, tyranny, and eventually the very presence of sin through Christ’s life, death and resurrection. “Law” is anything that God commands. It reaveals God’s righteous and holy will. In its first use, the law exposes our guilt, leaves us without any hope in ourselves, and drives us to Christ. In its third use, the law is our guide. Having “quenched Mount Sinai’s flame,” as John Newton’s other famous hymn has it, the gospel frees us to cherish the law as the loving will of our Father rather than fear it as the basis for the Judge’s sentence.Continue at Michael Horton