Sermon of the Month

This Month's Sermon

Why Expositional Preaching Is Particularly Glorifying to God

John Piper, T4G Conference 2006

In April of 2006, John Piper took a break from his six-month sabbatical to preach this message at the first Together for the Gospel (T4G) conference. It was obvious that Piper had not preached in months as he came out like a lion set free from his cage. The theme of T4G this year was expositional preaching with Piper bringing the fifth message titled, “Why Expositional Preaching Is Particularly Glorifying to God.”
In this sermon, Piper emphasizes the need for preaching to be likened to a plane upheld by two wings: exposition and exultation. There is a lot of lead up to this emphasis as Piper divides his sermon into four parts, with the final part being the application for expository preaching. Nonetheless, the first three parts are extremely crucial, for without them the listener will not understand why exposition and exultation must go together in faithful preaching.

As Piper builds up to his main point, he cites examples from George Whitfield and Martyn Lloyd Jones as men who believed and preached as those who were dominated by a sense of the greatness, the majesty and the holiness of God. For the theme of all the Scriptures is the glory of God and when the preacher is taken in by this theme, he can’t help but be overrun by a great desire to preach from the treasure of eternal joy that now fills his heart.

Essentially, according to Piper, the goal of preaching is to awaken others to the same glory that has captivated the preacher. How do men and women awaken to this glory? Through faith. How does faith come? Through hearing. Then through hearing, the listener begins to behold the glory of the Lord, transforming them from one degree of glory to another (2 Cor. 3:18). Therefore, exposit the truth of the gospel, but to rightly communicate the value of that truth, the preacher must also exult in the glory of God.

-Dr. Michael Nelson