More on Practical Preaching

It's Saturday morning, new snow has fallen outside (so what else is new?), and soon my honey and I will be walking through the pleasantly crunchy streets of our town to have breakfast at one of our local fine dining establishments. So what the heck am I doing blogging?

Well, I'm thinking about the discussion about practical application now in progress at Dan's place and also Jared's. And thinking about practical application of the Gospel makes me think of the early part of Romans 6, where Paul says, "Look, here's what has happened to you: you have died and risen with Christ. Therefore, here's who you are: slaves of righteousness rather than slaves of sin. Therefore, here's what you should do: instead of submitting to slavery again to sin, submit yourself (your "members," everything you're made of) to God as slaves of righteousness."

That's a fair summary of the passage I think. Note: the imperative flows from the indicative, as usual. Or, as I mentioned in another post, the doing flows from the being. Note also, the application is kind of open-ended. It seems that "righteousness" is going to have to be "worked out" in different ways by different people. Paul seldom gets to the nuts-and-bolts level in his letters.

But what makes the passage difficult, I think, is that it speaks of a reality, a reality about myself, that I don't often feel. I died with Christ? I rose with Christ? Do I consistently grasp that reality. Perhaps I have not consistently felt that way since the early days of my faith, and sometimes I don't feel that way at all. The indicative part of Paul's little equation here has to be grasped by faith, apparently, and friend, my faith is weak.

That's why it's probably good to remember often with John Owen, "The duties that are required of us are not proportioned to the strength residing in us but to the supply laid up for us in Christ."

At the end of the Romans passage Paul restates the basic indicative upon which his imperatives are based. He says:

"...for sin will not have lordship over you."

Douglas Moo, in his great commentary on Romans, says of this verse, "Without this promise . . . the imperative would be futile." I think it's interesting that Paul circles back to a statement about our spiritual condition in Christ. Sometimes it may seem that sin has lordship over me, but that is simply never so for the believer. Again, it may seem so, but the truth is that in that instance we have once again submitted our members to that old boss. We didn't have to, but we did. That really sucks, but there it is.

So Paul circles back again, throughout his writing, to a restatement of the way things are. He expresses it in many ways. Here are a few of my favorites:

• But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. Rom. 8:10
• To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Col. 1:27
• Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.... Eph. 4:15
• I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Phil. 4:13
  

The point is, the muck and mire of daily living can easily distract us from these heavenly realities. In the heavenlies, we are seated with Christ. But in the earthly, well, it ain't pretty. In most cases, the "already" ain't yet.

Which is why, I think, that Paul says elsewhere, "set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth." You notice how so many of Paul's imperatives bring our attention back to the indicatives? I think that Paul would say that there is something very practical about setting our minds on heavenly realities. That in fact, from heaven we get the most truly realistic perspective on ourselves and our world.

This is not to argue against practical application in sermons, but I do think that the highest and correspondingly most difficult task of the preacher is to remind people and drive home to their imaginations the realities of the new birth, because all the practical advice in the world won't help if this is not first understood and grasped by faith.