Romans 12:6b - God's Gracious Gift of Preaching

Today with the internet we hear a lot about “algorithms.” You watch a few videos on YouTube; YouTube recommends more videos like those. You listen to certain music; your music app learns what you like. You click on certain stories; your news feed shows you more of the same. This is because of algorithms.

But what exactly is an algorithm?

It’s a set of instructions that a computer uses to make decisions. And online, those instructions are used to predict the content you want to see. The algorithm learns from what you click on, what you watch or skip, and how long you look at something. And based on your choices, it curates what you see and hear.

In other words, your own preferences largely determine what is put in front of you.

The preaching of God’s Word – which is one of His appointed, designated means of both saving and sanctifying His people – is not like an algorithm. Lord’s Day preaching confronts you with content you did not curate. You don’t choose the text or the subject. Depending on when you got here, you may not have chosen the preacher. And you may not even think the sermon is what you need to hear.

But that’s part of the grace of preaching. God knows better than we do what we need to hear. In 2 Timothy 4, the apostle Paul tells the young pastor Timothy, “Preach the word…reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” Paul says people will want to curate their own content.

Today, believers commonly hear that and think, “Yes, society does that today.” But the book of Hebrews warns us that the same attitude can be found in the church. Hebrews 2 says, “We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.” And Hebrews 5, “About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.”

Every single one of us – even genuine believers – naturally presumes to know best when it comes to what, where, when and how we hear from God. Without realizing it, the natural self thinks, “I know the message I need, I know where I need to receive it, I know when I need to hear it, and I know the means through which God addresses me.” We tell ourselves what messages or methods are most relevant or appropriate for us. But, though we have His written Word and can turn to any page, though we have apps to listen to the podcast of our choosing, or the freedom to attend any Bible study that might be offered to us, God Himself has appointed the means through which He ordinarily addresses and nourishes His people.

The sound preaching of His Word in public worship is a principal, effectual means by which He gathers and perfects His people.

And this is at the heart of WLC 160,which we just read. God’s people must approach the preaching of the Word with great care. The proclaiming of Christ from the pulpit is a gift born out of God’s grace, and as such, it fits the criteria we saw last week in the first part of verse 6: preaching demonstrates the generosity, wisdom, and personal nature of God’s grace.

How so? The generosity of God’s grace is displayed in that He speaks to us, the wisdom of His grace is displayed in that He speaks what we need to hear, and the personal nature of His grace is displayed in that He speaks through human instruments. Put differently, God is gracious in that He speaks, what He speaks, and how He speaks.

Now of all the gifts Paul lists, “prophecy” is the one that especially must be explained. Notably, it’s the first on the list. I’ll say more about that in a moment. But to simply move from prophecy to preaching without first explaining their relationship would be to conflate two categories that are related but must be distinguished.

Biblically speaking, “prophecy” is an utterance inspired by God. That would be important to hear, right? Along with the apostles, those gifted with prophecy spoke God’s Word to His people. Prophecy could include predictions of future events, but that wasn’t the primary function. God revealed information to the prophet which was then passed on to the church for a purpose: to build up and bless the people of God. However, their messages didn’t have the same authority as the apostles. And they were always to be weighed against what other prophets said.

During the apostolic era, before the NT Scriptures had come together as we have them, God spoke to and further developed the church in this way. “Prophecy” is listed first because it was right beneath the office of apostle in its foundation role. Ephesians 2 says, “the household of God” is “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets.”

But as we see here, anything a prophet said must align with apostolic doctrine, because notice the rest of the verse. “If prophecy, in proportion to our faith.” This means “in line with the basic Christian faith,” with the teaching of the apostles. Anything said to God’s church should be in accordance with God’s revealed truth.

Now, as time went by in the first century, the apostles of Christ died, and foundational revelation for the church stopped. Jesus Christ, and the explanation of His person and work by the apostles, along with that apostolic-era prophecy, comprises the groundwork of our faith. There’s no need for more groundwork or more foundation-laying.

So then, what about this spiritual gift of prophecy? Is it still being given and still being used today?

Well, not in the revelatory sense in which it functioned in the early church. Now we have the NT Scriptures. But that doesn’t mean that the ministry of the prophetic Word is no longer going on. What was at that time being supernaturally revealed is still being dynamically and powerfully proclaimed. And that’s where prophecy and preaching are closely related, without being the same.


The early church prophet received the Word of God and spoke it to God’s people. Since the end of the apostolic era, preachers have taken up the already-given Word of God in Scripture and proclaimed it through faithful explanation and application. The preacher doesn’t receive new revelation. He proclaims that which has already been given.

This connection between prophecy and preaching has long been recognized in the Reformed tradition. Many historic theologians, including John Calvin and various Puritan commentators, applied the New Testament instructions regarding prophecy to the ordinary, ongoing work of preaching and teaching. Calvin wrote, “Prophecy at this day in the Christian church is hardly anything else than the right understanding of Scripture, and the peculiar faculty of explaining it, inasmuch as all the ancient prophecies and all the oracles of God have been completed in Christ and in His gospel.”

Revelatory prophecy has ceased, but the ministry of proclaiming and explaining God’s revealed Word continues. Preaching, along with the other gifts listed here in Romans 12, continues perpetually. This is why Paul told Timothy to preach and train others to carry on that work. That helps us understand why prophecy stands first on Paul’s list. Before Paul speaks of all the different ways Christ’s people build up His body, he addresses the way in which Christ builds up His body for the work.

Think again about the human body. Every part has a function, but the body moves at the prompting of the head. The same is true of the church. Christ is the head of the church. And so Christ must be proclaimed. He must be lifted up high. 2 Corinthians 3, “We all…beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image, from one degree of glory to another.”

God’s people must behold Christ. We must see and hear and touch and taste Him.
He is the bread of life, He is the living water; the way and the truth. Christ is the life. He is our life.

Before an orchestra plays, it first receives the sheet music. Before a construction crew builds, it first receives the blueprints. Before actors perform, they first receive the script. And before God’s people act for Christ, we must first receive from Christ.

So how do we receive from Christ? How has God said that Christ will be given to us and formed in us? If we look to the NT, special priority is given to preaching and teaching by ministers lawfully called and ordained. In Ephesians 4, Paul writes that Christ “gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers” to His church.

Following the ministry of the apostles and prophets, these men preach, teach, and pastor the church as undershepherds of the Chief Shepherd, Jesus Christ. These ordained ministers rightly administer the means Christ has appointed.

And foremost among these means is His Word. Romans 10 says, “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” That Word is not merely placed before us for private reading or study. Paul says it is through the Word preached. Christ has given to His church men gifted to proclaim it.

Understand that preaching is not meant to be simply informative. It is formative. We are actively being transformed within by Christ Himself as His Word is faithfully preached. In Colossians 1, Paul says, “Him we proclaim…that we may present everyone mature in Christ.” How do we behold the glory of Christ? Nowhere as we do through the faithfully preached Word.

Look again at WLC 160. Compare how you approached the preaching of the Word. Do you listen to Christ proclaimed from this pulpit with diligence, preparation, prayer? Do you examine what you hear by the Scriptures? Do you seek to receive the truth with faith, love, meekness, and readiness of mind? Do you think to yourself, “It is not just that man there who speaks to me, but it God speaking through the explanation and proclamation of His apostolic, prophetic, living and active Word?” And will you determine to – Lord’s Day after Lord’s Day – put aside your vocation, and your imagination, and thoughts of recreation, so that you might hide in your heart the preached Word and bring forth the fruit of it in your life?

Friends, some go their whole lives with a diminished view of the preached Word, and they do so to their detriment. By diminishing the preaching of Christ’s Word to us, we stand to diminish one of the foremost means by which God has promised to graciously bless us. By doing so, we stand to forfeit one of His precious spiritual gifts. A very generous, very wise, and very personal gift. In what way?

First of all, the generosity of God’s grace is displayed in that He speaks to us. In 1 Thessalonians 2, Paul told the church at Thessalonica, “We also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.” God generously speaks that which gives life through the Word preached. Through preaching, He speaks that which saves and sanctifies.

According to Genesis 1, how did God create the universe? Moses writes, “And God said.” By the divine Word the triune God made all things. He spoke. And He still speaks. Our God has not left us in the silence. In the proclamation of Christ, you may not hear the answer to your exact question. You may not get the precise direction you desire. But Christ will form faith in you, and He will transform your inner being, and He will give to You His mind that you may discern God’s good will for your situation. God generously speaks.

Also, in preaching, the wisdom of God’s grace is displayed in that He speaks
what we need to hear. God always knows exactly what to say.

If you go to a doctor, you don’t expect the doctor to ask you what you want to hear. You hope that the doctor will know what you need to hear. If you say, “Doc, here are my symptoms. What’s my problem?” you don’t want the doctor to say, “Well, what do you want the problem to be?” That would be absurd.

The living God knows us better than we know ourselves. God not only speaks generously; He speaks wisely. His Word is timely, though in the moment, you may not immediately see the connection between what is on your mind and what Christ is saying to you through the preached Word. This is why we ask God to illuminate our minds and give us hearts to receive.

There’s a fascinating additional phrase after what I read from 2 Corinthians 3 before. “We all…beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” The Holy Spirit is at work through the preached Word.

This is why Calvin and the others connected prophecy and preaching as they did. James the brother of Jesus wrote, “Receive with meekness the implanted word.” In those who are born again, the seed has been planted, so to speak. Through the preached Word, that which God planted within you will grow. You need Christ proclaimed to you weekly. You need Christ proclaimed to you weekly!

Do you know what it really takes to listen attentively to the preached Word? It’s not a dynamic speaker, though that helps. It’s not the most educated or studious preacher, though that helps. It’s not digital presentations or clever illustrations or poignant quotations, though any of those might help.

What does it really take to listen attentively to the preached Word? Faith. It takes faith. It takes faith to put whatever else is on your mind aside. It takes faith to believe that Christ has appointed preaching and that here and now my Redeemer speaks to me out of the generosity and wisdom of His grace.

God is gracious in that He speaks, in what He speaks, and finally, in how He speaks. God’s grace is generous, wise, and personal. He has graciously given these spiritual gifts to us, His church. And the personal nature of His grace is displayed in that He speaks through human instruments.

At the end of Ephesians 6, after Paul instructs the church to continue in prayer, he says pray, “also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.”

The preacher is God’s chosen way. It might not seem to you like the best way. It may seem like a foolish way, or a weak way. But keep in mind, as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 1, “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.”

No one – not even the preacher. Any sound preacher – one who is rooted in Christ – knows that no matter what he plans or prepares, and no matter where or by whom he was trained – any preacher rooted in Christ knows full well that what Christ is doing during the preaching of the Word is far beyond the mortal man behind the pulpit.

In the wisdom of God, it pleases Him through the foolishness and weakness of preaching to save those who believe, and to then transform them into the image of Christ. Some demand supernatural works, others thirst for philosophy, but His preachers just keep on preaching the seemingly foolish and weak message of Christ crucified.

Whatever your concern today, whatever your trouble, Christ crucified will change your life. Scripture tells us that for those who love God – those who have been called into union with Christ – all things work together for good.

Scripture tells us that because we are in Christ, we can be sure that He who began a good work in us will bring it to completion on the Last Day.

Scripture tells us that God will supply every need of ours according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

And Scripture tells us that “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”

God generously speaks to us. He does so wisely and personally. Nowhere more clearly than in the person and work of Christ. As we go to His table now, we come to feast with and on Christ –Him not only of whom we have heard, but from whom we have heard.

Let’s bow together in prayer.