What Kind of Preaching Pleases God? Part 1

December 16, 2025 Pastor Chris Oswald

Thesis The foundational question for understanding faithful preaching is not methodological but theological: What kind of preaching pleases God, and that question must be answered by first understanding how God himself speaks.

Series

What Kind of Preaching Pleases God?

Type

Topical

Tone

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Method

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What's in this sermon

The shape of the argument

18 units across exposition, application, illustration, theological claim, and conclusion. The pastor's argument is built from these moving parts.

Pastoral correction · unit #14

"The unit applies the biblical-theological observation about performative speech to contemporary preaching. While preaching does not create ex nihilo like God's speech, and while preachers are imperfect, there must be some manifestation of performative speech in preaching—what the preacher calls 'authoritative expectation.' God-pleasing preaching takes up delegated authority with faith that God's word will accomplish its purposes; this authority is declarative and accountable to God, not coercive or autonomous."

Doctrinal loci· 8 surfaced

Pastoral Theology · 11 Bibliology · 8 Theology Proper · 4 Anthropology · 1 Christology · 1 Ethics / Moral Theology · 1 Hamartiology · 1 Soteriology · 1

Bible citations· 10

Theological claims· 6

The foundational question for preaching is not methodological (expository vs. topical) or pragmatic (what grows churches or connects with people) but theological: What kind of preaching pleases God? unit #2
To answer what kind of preaching pleases God requires three categories of data—biblical theology of divine speech, church history, and self-awareness—with the first being most foundational: we must understand how God speaks because we are called to imitate His speech. unit #4
Self-awareness is essential for discerning God-pleasing preaching because what pleases God and what pleases us are often not the same, and without accounting for this gap (caused by sin, culture, and socialization), we will substitute our preferences for God's standards. unit #6
Opinions about preaching should only be taken seriously when they are grounded in careful work across all three categories of data—biblical theology, church history, and self-awareness—and critics of preaching often lack both self-awareness and serious engagement with these categories. unit #7
Preaching occupies a unique place among forms of human speech because it is undertaken in God's name and authority, and therefore should be the most intentionally imitative of God's speech—borrowing authority both from what it says and how it speaks. unit #10
Faithful preaching often unsettles hearers because performative speech, by its nature, does not ask permission but confronts reality and reshapes it, and in doing so produces both life and death depending on the hearer's response. unit #15

Quotations· 1

"Every theological question has behind it a study, a history of study. Every theological question has behind it a history of study and a narrow eccentricity in handling it. The theological question is unavoidable unless the history is taken into account." — J.I. Packer (unit #5)

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Full transcript

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0 · The preacher opens by welcoming listeners back after a hiatus, explaining the origin of the series (a leadership team request for teaching on preaching), and framing what will be covered in the episode

Sam, Greetings and salutations. Long time no pod. Welcome to the Providence Podcast. This is Chris Oswald. I'm the senior pastor at Providence Community Church and. And the long hiatus was due to a number of factors including some dental issues I've been dealing with. But we are back on the horse today introducing a multi part series amongst other things. I've got other podcasts to do as well, but I wanted to get started on this series that the leadership team asked me to produce on answering one, just a series on preaching that was kind of the general. The general request, a series on preaching or some teaching on the nature of preaching itself. And so I started thinking through how to do that. That's what we'll do today.

1 · The preacher reflects on the difficulty of thinking through abstract theological questions that have personal implications, acknowledging the process required to arrive at clarity and avoid teaching from mere agenda

And you know, before we get started, do you know how hard it is to think about abstract things? I wonder if most people realize how hard it is to think about abstract things and then to think about abstract things that have some bearing on you personally and so on and so forth. So this has been, you know, a process for me to even feel like I've arrived, a place of sort of biblical clarity and understanding how I should even talk about some of this stuff because it does hit close to home and I want to be faithful and not teach simply an agenda and so forth. So anyway, all that to say it took me a long time to even know how to frame the question.

2 · The unit establishes the controlling thesis of the entire series: contemporary debates about preaching methodology are asking the wrong questions, and the truly foundational question is 'What kind of preaching pleases God?' This reorients the discussion away from human-centered concerns (growth, relevance, effectiveness) toward God-centeredness

The question is almost always, I'll tell you right now, framed incorrectly and way too contemporaneously into questions of what is expository preaching, what is topical preaching, what is textual critical preaching, so on and so forth, all the wrong questions to ask and at least not the most important questions to ask. The most important question to ask is simply this. What kind of preaching pleases God? That's the question for this series. That's the title of this series. What kind of preaching pleases God? Now that question may sound obvious, even maybe pious, but I'm really convinced that it's the right question and the one that we don't ask nearly often enough. In conversations about preaching, we tend to move to the other concerns. What kind of preaching grows at church? What kind of preaching connects with people? What kind of preaching is faithful or relevant or effective or winsome or clear? What kind of preaching has been popular for the last hundred years, and so on and so forth. But those are not unimportant questions. They're just not foundational. I think the foundational question is much simpler and much more demanding, to be honest. And that is, what kind of preaching Pleases God. This question forces a very much needed reorientation on this entire topic. It shifts the center of gravity away from the preacher and the audience and places it squarely on God himself. And then, you know, once we make that shift, we're able to answer the question, all the questions about preaching with a much deeper level of clarity, much deeper than mere instinct, preference, good intentions, and so forth.

3 · The preacher explains his own thought process in arriving at the series' central question, emphasizing the need to go 'upstream' to foundational theological questions rather than starting with downstream methodological debates

So that was kind of groundbreaking for me. As I was asked to talk about this, the first question I had to come to terms with was, what's the right way to frame all this? What questions should I be asking? So many of those questions downstream seem to be the place where people want to think at the level they want to think. But I really think you need to go much further upstream, as Paul tells us in Ephesians, to figure out what pleases the Lord and then do it. And I think the right question to ask here is, what kind of preaching pleases God?

4 · The unit establishes the three categories of data needed to answer the question 'What kind of preaching pleases God?': (1) What the Bible says, beginning not with texts about preaching but with how God himself speaks; (2) church history; (3) self-awareness

So to answer that, I then began to work on, well, what do I need to know in order to answer that? And in spite of all of my chaos in general, I don't appear to be a very systematic guy, I suppose, but I am a very systematic thinker, and I tend to break things down into how to think about things before I go about answering those questions. I learned that approach, I think, largely from, you know, the Puritans that I read. But. So I've realized that in order to answer the question, what kind of preaching pleases God? I need to have data from three different categories. First of all, and most importantly, the most obvious place to begin. What does the Bible say? It's the most obvious place. It's also the most demanding place. And Scripture does not merely give us if what we did. We're going to do this two episodes from now. But if all we did was just look up all the words used for preaching and studied passages about preaching or studied biblical sermons, we wouldn't have asked enough questions or gathered enough biblical data. We need to actually start at a particular place, and that is, how does God speak? We need to start with the grammar of divine speech before the Bible tells us to preach or how to preach. It shows us how God speaks. And as Peter tells us, we are to speak as if we have the very oracles of God. We're supposed to imitate God's speech.

5 · The unit develops the second category of data needed: church history

So in order to answer the question, what kind of preaching pleases God? We need to do some thinking, not only about the way that the Bible talks about preaching, but more directly, how Does God talk? Any answer to the question of God pleasing preaching must be anchored in, like, the patterns and the purposes and effects of God's own word, the way he speaks. So that's one pile of data we need to work from. The second one is, you know, how has the church handled this question historically? How has the church handled this question historically? And this is really interesting and kind of what got me to the question I'm asking. You know, kind of preaching pleases God because as you do a search history, a church history search of preaching modes and methods, they vary greatly. They've varied wildly throughout the centuries. But I think we could say that everybody that was preaching the way they were preaching thought they were pleasing God, and that was the primary aim. And so we need to be able to begin to ask questions like, how has preaching differed throughout the ages, and what can we learn from that? In a book I was reading a couple weeks ago on the atonement, J.I. packer said, Every theological question has behind it a study, a history of study. Every theological question has behind it a history of study and a narrow eccentricity in handling it. The theological question is unavoidable unless the history is taken into account. So the theological question we're dealing with, what kind of preaching pleases God? Packer says you need to know how that question has been handled throughout history so that you don't develop a narrow eccentricity in your own understanding. What he means is that not that tradition replaces scripture, but that scripture is rarely misread in isolation. When we refuse to listen to how the church has wrestled with a question over time, we almost always wind up absolutizing our own moment, our own assumptions, the errors that we're responding to in modernity that are shaping our definitions and solutions. So we need church history, we really do, to help remove our blind spots and so on and so forth, or help us at least to see our blind spots. Church history doesn't guarantee correctness, but it does provide ballast. It helps us distinguish between what is essential and what is merely fashionable.

6 · The unit establishes the third category of data needed: self-awareness

And then finally. So we've got two buckets of data that we need. We need the biblical data. Not only how does the Bible talk about preaching, but how does God talk, which is the main thing we're going to deal with today in the next episode. And then we need to have a sense of church history. What is, how has this question been answered throughout the ages? And we can see that by studying sermons and sermon form and sermon type from Centuries. We have sermons going all the way back pretty much. And we can also study it by creeds and confessions in particular, as they've discussed what preaching is and what it ought to do. And then there's a third category of data, and that is you've got to have some self awareness as you enter into this. If we are going to discover what kind of preaching pleases God, we've got to come to terms with a deeply unfortunate reality. And that is just more broadly we have to say this is true. What pleases God and what pleases us are often not the same thing. What pleases God and what pleases us are often not the same thing. And unless we account for that disparity and understand what drives that disparity in general, we will quietly substitute one for the other. The gap exists for multiple reasons. Sin distorts our loves. Cultural pressures shape our tastes. Socialization trains us to reward certain kinds of speech and prefer those over others. But over time, we can become very adept at calling good preaching whatever reassures us, flatters us, or aligns with our desires or preferences, and not whether or not it pleases God.

7 · The unit issues a challenge regarding who should be listened to on matters of preaching: only those who have done serious work in all three categories of data—biblical theology, church history, and self-awareness

So that's kind of what we're going to be doing in this series, is we're going to be trying to understand what kind of preaching pleases God and we're going to look into all these data sets. And I would say that right from the beginning you can see, I would want you to see at least that anyone who's not really taking it seriously enough to have good information from all three data sets, self awareness, church history awareness, biblical awareness, biblical theological awareness, how God speaks. I don't know why I would listen to anyone's opinion about preaching unless it's well earned and seriously devoted into these various categories, particularly the third one. I find that many people who are the most critical preaching are the most diuretic in their own speech, the least self contained and self controlled in their own speech, and frankly have way too many opinions considering the number of calories they've burned, to understand all the information we've talked about from these three categories.

8 · The unit signals the transition from establishing the three-category methodology to beginning the actual work of the first category: examining how God speaks

So that's kind of what we're going to do today is we're going to start by asking what, how does God speak? That's our first level of way to evaluate this. What kind of preaching pleases God? It would be the kind of preaching fundamentally that speaks in a way that he speaks.

9 · The unit establishes the methodological approach for understanding God's speech: biblical theology rather than systematic theology or lexical study

So before we move into a more systematic or lexical or categorical study of preaching, which we will do, I want to Begin with something more foundational. And that is just how does God speak? Rather than starting with definitions or methods or homiletical categories, I want us to take a biblical theology of speech, tracing the way that God uses speech from the very beginning of the Bible all the way through. And the assumption driving this approach is simple, but I think it's weighty. And that is, before we should ask what preaching ought to be, we ought to ask how God uses speech. Because God doesn't treat God's word. Scripture doesn't treat God's word as mere information. When God speaks, things happen. Reality is created, ordered, judged, redeemed. That divine grammar deserves special attention.

10 · The unit establishes the unique status of preaching among forms of human speech

Now, I'm about to take a break, get my and gather my wits for the next section. But it's true that all human speech, in some sense, this is important. In some sense, all human speech, this is from first Peter, ought to be patterned after God's speech, right? All human speech ought to be patterned after God's speech. Christians should speak truthfully, clearly, lovingly, courageously, blah, blah, blah, etc. Preaching really rightly occupies a unique place in the category of speech. It's not casual speech. It's not merely instructional speech. It's speech undertaken in God's name under God's authority, for God's purposes. And for that reason, preaching really ought to be the most intentionally imitative form of human speech. It ought to be the most imitative of God's speech in certain categories anyway. And if any kind of speech can reflect the way God speaks, it should be, I think, obvious that in some sense what we're doing when we preach is we are imitating God's speech and also giving instruction to the congregation on how to speak. And these are standards, by the way. As I've worked on all this, I see places where I feel like I have succeeded in that and in all this, and places where I've failed. So I'm going to keep myself out of a lot of this. Preaching does not invent its authority. It borrows it. And it borrows it not only by speaking what the Word says, but also speaking the way God speaks.

11 · The unit identifies the hermeneutical tool needed for understanding God's speech: biblical theology

Now, that data set, it requires a special tool called biblical theology, where before we talk about techniques or categories or even texts that deal explicitly with preaching, we look at this question of speech through the lens of how God's story begins, progresses, and ends. And we'll develop some conclusions based on those observations. Quick break.

12 · The unit begins the biblical-theological analysis of God's speech by examining Genesis 1 and identifying the first characteristic: performative action

Okay, I'm back. These breaks won't appear as real breaks to you. I realize this. But I'm taking a little moment to get some other work done. And also I had these two teeth extracted and my jaw just gets sore from talking too much. But anyway, let's get into this discussion of God's speech and understanding that preaching should be the ultimate imitation of God's speech patterns. And so in how God speaks. So when we. It shouldn't just be preaching, should just not be preaching, you know, God's word. Because then that we'd just be reading God's Word. But in addition to reading God's Word, we're explaining it and making application to it. But all of this needs to be done in a way that is aligned with God's speech, the way he talks. And to get that information, you want to start at the beginning because you've got this marvelous section at the very first chapter of the Bible where we see God speak. And what I did was a study on his speech there and then pulled what I found there throughout the whole Bible. That's kind of what you do with biblical theology. And I've come up with a couple of markers of God's speech. And the first one is something I'm just calling performative action. And what I mean there is something kind of similar to. Maybe you've heard of speech act theory. But what I mean here is just that when God speaks, things actually happen. It's not just that he's talking, he's talking things into existence. And that's obvious, right? And Genesis chapter one, when he speaks, things just happen. God said, and it was so right. So God's words in Genesis 1 are not descriptive commentary on an unfolding process. He's not describing what's happening apart from Himself. His words are actually producing reality. When God speaks, reality conforms to His Word. Light exists, waters divide, land appears, life emerges. And once God has spoken reality into being, he then renders judgment on what His Word has accomplished and God saw that it was good. This is the most basic biblical claim about God's speech that I could get to and a first principles approach. God's Word does not merely describe reality, it creates it. Divine speech is inherently active, authoritative, effectual.

13 · The unit traces the pattern of performative speech from Genesis 1 throughout Scripture

And the creational pattern of God's speech becomes, I think, foundational for how we understand God's speech throughout the Scripture and by extension to some degree, what preaching is. And a preaching that pleases God is supposed to be rooted in. It's not an isolated deal, this idea of God speaking reality into existence. It's not even confined to the divine. I mean, it certainly is articulated concerning the divine, like Isaiah 55:10, so shall my word be that goes through my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose. That's what I mean by performative action. God actually, his speech actually makes things happen. But then of course, we see an example, for instance, in Ezekiel 37, where God makes a diagnosis. And we're going to get more into that in a moment. But look, these are dead bones, right? Right, Ezekiel, these are dead bones. Ezekiel agrees, yeah, these are dead bones. And then he says, speak, prophesy over to the bones, over the bones and flesh appears, breath enters, life returns. The text goes out of its way to show that resurrection does not occur apart from the spoken word. The word is the instrument of the restoration. That's, that's key. The word is the thing that is making action happen, happen. That's the Genesis 1 logic applied. In Ezekiel's instance, Jesus often will say things like I say to you. This is from Mark 22:11, rise, take up your bed and go home. And the sense of the text is that he speaks a command that creates the obedience it demands. The man walks because Jesus spoke. This is that idea of performative action in the New Testament. In Mark 7:34, Jesus looks at a man who cannot hear or speak and says, a word be opened. You know, no technique, no explanation, no delay. The word itself, there is just a echoing of the Genesis 1 performative speech, performative action, speech. He says a thing that makes a thing happen. Perhaps one of the clearest examples of performative speech in the Gospels is when Jesus stands at Lazarus tomb and says, Lazarus come out. In John 11, another example, Jesus rebukes the storm, peace be still. In these instances, Jesus is not describing what is about to happen in advance or predicting it. He's speaking and a thing happens. Now that is a well established pattern in Scripture and not only for God. He will extend that kind of authority into his chosen vessels to speak in this way from Genesis to the prophets, from Jesus, apostles, you've got the Bible consistently presenting God's speech as performative action. God's Word creates and restores and commands and judges and saves. And it doesn't wait on anything. It just does what it wants to do.

14 · The unit applies the biblical-theological observation about performative speech to contemporary preaching

If preaching is to please God, it has to figure out the appropriate human derivative of that particular exercise. It has to be, at the very least, if not creational in the same sense, because I don't believe that that's the case. And certainly we've got ex nihilo conditions with God that aren't true of man. And also God's perfection and man's not perfect. And no preacher is perfect and understands the will of the Lord perfect or so forth. But there has to be some sense in which this performative speech is manifested in the life, in the preaching of God's Word. And it has to be something united by faith that expects that God's word will accomplish its purposes. I would say that there's almost something like maybe authoritative expectation. The kind of preaching I think that pleases God is that it takes up the authority God has delegated to accomplish his intended purposes. That authority doesn't create, and it's not coercive or autonomous, you know, but it is declarative. And it is, you know, really ultimately accountable to God.

15 · The unit makes a theological observation about the inevitable effect of performative speech: it unsettles hearers because it does not ask permission but confronts and reshapes reality

And by the way, we're getting way ahead. But that reality alone explains why faithful preaching so often unsettles hearers. Performative speech does not ask permission. It confronts reality and reshapes it. And whatever God speaks, whenever God speaks that way, some experience life and others experience death.

16 · The unit applies the concept of performative speech to the preacher's required posture: the preacher must view his words as potent and filled with potential for life and death, with a simple expectation that things will happen as a consequence of preaching

So one of the fundamental things I think we have to talk about with performative speech is just that the preacher must be in a particular posture in his heart and in his mind, where he views his words as really potent and filled with potential life and death. There should be just a simple expectation in preaching that things are going to happen as a consequence. And I've got a ton of proof texts that show this, and I'll put those in the show notes.

17 · The preacher synthesizes the episode's argument: (1) the right question is 'what kind of preaching pleases God?'; (2) that question must be answered by starting upstream with how God speaks; (3) Genesis 1 establishes the pattern of performative speech—God's words do things, create reality, order existence, and render verdicts; (4) the next episode will examine the second characteristic of God's speech: division and taxonomization

So we're going to wrap up for today, but before we stop, let's just pull the threads together, remind you what we've gotten so far. We started by finding the right question to ask, which is what kind of preaching pleases God? Tried to make the case that you can't answer that question responsibly by starting with technique, style, sermon structure, or audience response. You have to start further upstream with the way God himself speaks. And then instead of jumping immediately into texts and the scriptures that talk about preaching, we're going to begin asking this question, how does God talk? And we're using Genesis 1 as a sort of pace setting or pattern establishing passage that we then move out throughout Scripture and see the same effects happening downstream at various levels of dilution. I suppose you might say we looked at Genesis 1 not necessarily as a sermon, although I would argue that the whole Bible is just a sermon from God to man. But we looked at Genesis 1 not necessarily explicitly as a sermon, but as a window into what we're calling divine grammar. How does God talk? When God speaks, His Word is not merely informative. It does things. It brings reality into being. It orders what exists, it renders verdicts, so on and so forth. And so we're going to move from there into something, into the next thing we see in God's speech, which has to do with division. You could probably, if you think about Genesis 1, imagine where we might go with this. But in addition to creating things with his speech, God divides and taxonomizes. I suppose you might say things as well. So we'll get into that in the next episode. Thanks so much for listening. Really do appreciate your attention to these matters.

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December 16 · This sermon

What Kind of Preaching Pleases God? Part 1

The foundational question for understanding faithful preaching is not methodological but theological: What kind of preaching pleases God, and that question must be answered by first understanding how God himself speaks.

Take it further

Discuss · apply · pray

Small groups

6 discussion questions

The sermon argues that the foundational question for preaching is not methodological or pragmatic, but theological: What kind of preaching p…

Daily readings

5-day reading plan

This week we examine what kind of preaching pleases God—moving from the theological foundation of God's own speech, through the preacher's call to imitate it, to the self-awareness required to speak His word faithfully and the consequential nature of that speech.

Prayer

Prayer for God-Pleasing Proclamation

Father, we come before You in awe of Your power and authority. Your word goes out from Your mouth and accomplishes all that You purpose (Isa…

Family table

Words That Do Things

This sermon emphasized that God's words don't just describe reality—they create and change it. Use this prompt to help your family grasp tha…

Couples

Words That Do What God Does

The sermon challenged us to ask what *pleases God* rather than what pleases us—what conviction or question did that stir in your own heart a…

Memorize

Isaiah 55:10-11

This passage embodies the theological foundation of the sermon: God's speech is inherently performative and accomplishes its purpose with certainty. The preacher must adopt this same posture of 'authoritative expectation,' trusting that God's word spoken through faithful preaching will not return empty but will accomplish God's purposes.

Small-group discussion

6 questions for your group this week

The sermon argues that the foundational question for preaching is not methodological or pragmatic, but theological: What kind of preaching pleases God? Why do you think we are so tempted to answer that question based on what *we* prefer or what *works* rather than on what God prefers?

→ Can you think of a time when you've heard preaching that seemed to please the congregation but left you wondering if it pleased God—or vice versa?
Chris argued that we need three categories of data to discern God-pleasing preaching: biblical theology of divine speech, church history, and self-awareness. Of these three, which are you most likely to neglect, and what happens when we do?
In Genesis 1, God speaks creation into being—His words don't merely describe reality; they *accomplish* reality and *reshape* what is. How does this picture of God's performative speech reshape what we should expect preaching to do in our lives and in the world?

Genesis 1

→ Have you ever experienced preaching that actually changed something in your life, not just informed you—and if so, how?
The sermon suggests that without self-awareness about our own sinfulness, cultural conditioning, and personal preferences, we will unconsciously substitute our standards for God's standards when it comes to preaching. What are some hidden preferences or blind spots you suspect you might have about what 'good preaching' looks like?
According to the sermon, faithful preaching often unsettles hearers because performative speech 'does not ask permission but confronts reality and reshapes it.' Why might this confrontation be essential—and uncomfortable—for us?

Ezekiel 37; Mark 4:39

→ How do you typically respond when a sermon makes you uncomfortable rather than comforted?
The sermon calls preachers to adopt 'authoritative expectation'—a posture that views their words as potent and consequential, expecting that God will actually accomplish things through preaching. How should this reality affect not only how we listen to preaching, but how we respond to it during the week?

Isaiah 55:10-11; 1 Peter 4:11

Draft · pending review

Daily readings · Monday–Friday

5-day reading plan

Monday Genesis 1

God's creative speech in Genesis 1 establishes the pattern we must understand—His words do not merely describe reality; they performatively accomplish His purposes ("Let there be…and there was"). When we ask what pleases God in preaching, we are asking what speech imitates this pattern of divine authority and efficacy, not what strategies grow audiences or feel culturally palatable.

Tuesday Isaiah 55:10-11

Isaiah reveals that God's word accomplishes its purposes like rain that falls and makes the ground bear fruit—it is inherently performative and never returns empty. Our preaching must borrow from this reality; we cannot separate what we say from how we say it or from our expectation that God's word will actually work. This is not our accomplishment but our participation in His.

Wednesday 1 Peter 4:11

Peter calls speakers to speak as those "speaking the very words of God" and reminds us that God should be praised through all things—a call that cuts against our natural instinct to reshape the message for comfort or applause. Without brutal honesty about our own preferences, our fears, and our cultural conditioning, we will inevitably substitute our judgment for God's, domesticating His word to fit our comfort rather than His glory.

Thursday Mark 4:39

When Jesus rebuked the storm with "Peace, be still," His words did not ask the wind's permission—they confronted chaos and spoke reality into submission. True preaching carries this same performative weight; it does not consult the congregation's comfort but speaks with delegated authority. Some hearers will receive life; others will resist and experience the judgment of rejected grace.

Friday Ezekiel 37

Ezekiel was commanded to prophesy to the dry bones expecting them to live—not because his words possessed magic, but because God's word works through human speech undertaken in faith. We are called to preach with the same expectation: speak declaratively, trust God's promise, and watch for resurrection. This posture of authoritative expectation, grounded in God's own performative nature, is what transforms preaching from mere human opinion into the means by which the Spirit moves and transforms His people.

Draft · pending review

Pray together this week

Prayer for God-Pleasing Proclamation

Father, we come before You in awe of Your power and authority. Your word goes out from Your mouth and accomplishes all that You purpose (Isaiah 55:10-11). When You spoke creation into being, You did not ask permission but declared reality, and it was so. We tremble at the majesty of performative speech—words that reshape the world. We confess that we often reduce preaching to technique, strategy, and human preference rather than asking the foundational question: What kind of preaching pleases You? We have substituted our comfort for Your standards, our cultural intuitions for Your theological voice. We have been shaped by sin and the world's expectations in ways we scarcely recognize.

Yet in the gospel we are humbled and redeemed. You have sent Your Son to declare our forgiveness with authority—to speak to the dead and raise them, to command demons and be obeyed, to proclaim the kingdom and reshape reality itself (Mark 2:11; John 11; Mark 4:39). In His name and by His Spirit, You have entrusted preaching to mortal men, calling us to imitate Your speech and wield delegated authority with faith that Your word will not return empty.

We ask You to grant our preacher—and all who proclaim Your word among us—a deep self-awareness that guards against substituting personal preference for Your pleasure. Give him courage to speak with authoritative expectation, knowing that his words are potent and consequential because they carry Your authority (1 Peter 4:11). Free him from the fear of unsettling hearers and from the temptation to make preaching comfortable. Shape us, his hearers, to receive his words as performative speech—truth that confronts reality and reshapes our lives—and to respond with obedience and worship.

May our proclamation of Your gospel bear the marks of Your own speech: truth-telling, authority, power, and the confident expectation that You will accomplish Your purposes. To You alone be the glory in all our preaching.

Draft · pending review

Sunday-evening family table

Words That Do Things

For the parent

This sermon emphasized that God's words don't just describe reality—they create and change it. Use this prompt to help your family grasp that when God speaks, things actually happen, and preachers are called to speak with that same kind of authority and expectation.

In the sermon, we heard about how when God said 'Let there be light,' light actually appeared—His words did something real. Can you think of a time when someone's words actually changed something in your life or in the world around you? What happened?

works for ages 6+ — younger children may need help thinking of examples, but the core idea of 'words doing things' is concrete enough for early elementary

Draft · pending review

Couples · three questions over coffee

Words That Do What God Does

The sermon challenged us to ask what *pleases God* rather than what pleases us—what conviction or question did that stir in your own heart about how you listen to preaching, or how you speak truth to one another?
Our words carry weight in marriage the way preaching does in the church: they reshape reality, comfort or wound, give life or death. Where do you sense we're speaking with true authority and faith that God will work through our words, and where might we be hedging our bets or speaking without real conviction?
What's one thing you'd like to ask the other to speak into your life with that kind of faithful authority—a truth you need to hear declared, not tentatively suggested?

Draft · pending review

Memory verse this week

Isaiah 55:10-11

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

Why this verse: This passage embodies the theological foundation of the sermon: God's speech is inherently performative and accomplishes its purpose with certainty. The preacher must adopt this same posture of 'authoritative expectation,' trusting that God's word spoken through faithful preaching will not return empty but will accomplish God's purposes.

Draft · pending review

Where this was preached

About the church

Providence Community Church

Lenexa, KS
Sundays · 10:00 AM
About us · What we believe

Plan a visit →

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# Providence Community Church

A church preaching expository sermons through the books of the Bible.

## Sermons
- [Romans 5:12-6:4 (2025-12-07)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2025/12/romans-5-12-6-4)
- [The Final Adam: Recapitulation and the Restoration of Humanity (Romans 5:12-6:4, 2025-12-07)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2025/12/the-final-adam-recapitulation-and-the)
- [Christus Victor Does Not Need Help (Colossians 2:1-23, 2025-12-14)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2025/12/christus-victor-does-not-need-help)
- [What Kind of Preaching Pleases God? Part 1 (2025-12-16)](/ProvidenceLenexa/sermons/2025/12/what-kind-of-preaching-pleases-god-part-1)

## About
- [About the church](/about)
- [Plan a visit](/visit)

The page itself ships with Schema.org Article + Church markup (with real geo coordinates), Open Graph + Twitter cards for share previews, and a canonical URL. Transcripts are server-rendered HTML — no JS dependency for the readable body.