Should We Be Judging Sermons? (with Honest Youth Pastor)

Sometimes I feel the weight of the world Fall down on me, so heavy

And I need a friendly voice with some good theology

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It's your Calvinist Podcast with Keith Polsky Beers and boat rides, laughs till sunrise

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And welcome to Your Calvinist Podcast My name is Keith Polsky and as always, I am your

Calvinist I'm so grateful to have you with me for the show today And I'm looking forward to talking to my guest

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One last thing, I'm in the Theo shed today Which is great because I have my movie posters and everything But a fly has followed me in here

So if you see the fly following around Please make sure to comment and say, I saw the fly Because I hate it

But it's a real problem And it's something that I keep seeing in Buzz And I can't fix it

I can't catch him because I'm too slow But anyway, none of that matters But what does matter is my guest

And my guest today is my friend Michael He is also known as the Honest Youth Pastor Michael, I want to thank you for being on the show with me today

Thanks for having me on the show Also, I've got to say this before we get too much further That is an amazing intro

I need to come up with something like that That is such a good intro

Well, I appreciate you saying that That's Hans Feeney, Lutheran Satire Singing that And I was so grateful when he and I worked together on that And he did the music and I did the video

And it all went together really well Always grateful for Hans and his super talent Good deal

Well, again, thanks for having me But I loved it Yeah, absolutely You have been on the show one other time

But the time I had you before I only had you on really to introduce you Because you had me on your show

And I wanted to introduce you and your channel To my audience But we only did like 10 or 12 minutes

And it was really just like a short introduction And so I'm glad we get an opportunity today to talk more

And I want you to tell everyone a little bit about yourself But before you do

I want to kind of give everybody why I thought We could have a great conversation today Very recently, somebody sent me a message

And said, hey, Honest Youth Pastor Which is your channel Is responding to one of your sermons

And I was like, oh, okay And I didn't know if it was going to be a good response Or a bad response I was hoping it would be positive

And it really was And I want you to know something I was super encouraged by the words that you said

Even on the things that weren't You gave me a few critiques here and there And I was grateful for that And I just want you to know

As a person who is always trying to Represent the Word of God well

Preach the Word of God well To hear someone give positive feedback And encouraging feedback

Really meant a lot to me So just right away I want to tell you How much I appreciate that I'm glad you got that from it

Absolutely So tell everybody a little bit about yourself I think you're a Wesleyan Is that the correct way of saying it?

Yeah, well, yes I'm ordained in the Wesleyan Church Me and the Wesleyan Church have a few differences That we're working through But yes,

I'm ordained in the Wesleyan Church Even though I don't hold To all of the stuff currently But anyway, yes

I run a YouTube channel and an Instagram page Called The Honest Youth Pastor It started,

I won't go into the whole long story But it started from a transition Out of a youth ministry position

Into more of a lay leader position For a little bit And then just basically an associate pastor

Not by name, but that's essentially function At my local church And so The channel itself started off As me not having a clue what

I was doing I just wanted to make some videos, comment on Christian culture Stuff like that And then it really started narrowing down When I started,

I asked one day Hey, is anybody interested in Maybe working through a sermon

Because I always did that in my car anyway Every job I've had, I've had to drive a super long way To get there

And so to pass the time It was always listening to sermons Honestly, it started as trying to develop My skill a little bit better And then

I started hearing some stuff Like, I don't like that, I don't like that And then I put it up The first one

I ever did was on Mike Todd And that did really well And people had some really good feedback And so we've just been doing it ever since And that's basically the

YouTube thing With a couple other things mixed in Yeah And you say we, is it just you

Or do you have a co -host Hey, well We do a Babylon Pastor podcast

Where we comment on Christian culture stuff too And my friend Rob does that And I use we because my wife

Is very generous to allow Enough time to do these sermon reviews If you guys ever watch them

They're two hours sometimes long And that is a good portion of the day That I could be doing some other things

But we kind of carve that out To allow for that to happen So Yeah, and I appreciate you giving your time to us today

And that's true Oftentimes I'll say, hey, give us a call Or send us an email I am talking about my wife and I She helps out with the show a lot

And helps me write the little skits that I do And I'm grateful to have a partner in the ministry That I also can call my best friend

And my wife, so that's great That's awesome Well, before we get to the How to judge a sermon portion

Because that is the main part of today's show Because you do come from the Wesleyan background I do want to just ask for Just a few thoughts on what's going on Right now in the

Methodist church Now you're not a Methodist But I've been making some comments

On social media recently About the 2024 general conference The accepting in Of the homosexual clergy

Which was really just another step toward Which we already knew they were going toward It's not a big surprise

But did you have any thoughts about That from a Wesleyan perspective And maybe from Just from that in general

Yeah, well what's interesting Is my mom and dad do go to A United Methodist Well, they used to go to a

United Methodist church Their church actually was part of the Chunk of people that purchased their own churches

And then kind of Some of them went to the new Denomination, which I don't even know what it's called My mom and dad's church just kind of Is their own thing now

So it was interesting to hear Everything that they had to go through In prep for this

There was a lot of steps and everything That they had to go through to do that And it did

What's interesting is the Wesleyans Because we're basically Brother -sister denominations

In all reality It did get a lot of pastors talking Because they're going

I mean they see the trajectory And the reality is Though they're not, obviously the

Wesleyans In certain parts of the country Aren't as liberal as The United Methodist got

They do see that there are parts within the Conference that are And so they started talking about, well what does that mean for us then

And so that got a lot of pastors If any good came out of it It got more conservative

Wesleyan churches thinking If this happens, what course of action Do we have, because our denominational

Handbook pretty much outlines That if you decide to leave, good luck To you, you can't buy the church

You're just going to have to give it all back to us and go Which is interesting too, because a lot Of the people that I talk to That go to Wesleyan churches, that are members of Wesleyan churches, don't realize

That they don't own that building, they don't own the property They take care of it and they pay tithes To upkeep it, but they don't own it

And so that really got a lot of people thinking about Like wow, we didn't know This part about all of the

Ownership, denominational part, what does happen So it's at least If any good came from it, it at least got people

Thinking that direction of like What are we going to do When if this happens, so that's

Been interesting to hear those conversations Yeah, absolutely And one other topical thing

I mentioned to you before the show I was going to ask you about this You had posted about the Harrison Buckner situation

And you said that That you thought it was A product of Feminism making its way

Into the church, and I'm not putting words In your mouth, that was something you said, and I 100 % Agree with you, and that's why

I wanted to just chat for a second About it, because I would say And I wanted to see if you agree with me,

I would Say that part of what we are seeing In the Methodist church is the Feminization of the church in general

And the byproduct of that Of a long period of time Where men have Really not stood in the position of leadership

At least men not being men They're allowing for a feminization And a feminine takeover of their

Denomination, you think I'm out to lunch On that, or you think that's kind of a No, I don't think so I grew up in Depending on where we were at at the time

That my dad had different jobs, we were either in Free Methodist, United Methodist, Wesleyan churches, and I know

Growing up, there was a very Lack, I just Remember as a kid, if Anything was going to happen, the women were leading it

If there was anything that was going to be Built, done, whatever It was going to be the women doing it

And it's not that I have an issue with that There's lots of very strong theologically Sound women that can do things and lead

Things, I don't have an issue with that, but it was Every part of the church, and Every guy was just sort of in the

Back, doodling on their little The kid's bulletin, and You're like, what are you

Just as a teenager, I was like, what are you Doing, like, aren't you

Supposed to be doing something here And even growing up, I remember I remember when I first heard a message

From a pastor that was Very, just strongly worded Like it was just to the point and straightforward

And I thought, wow, I've never Heard preaching like this before, because Growing up in the Denomination, I Not that all of the sermons are effeminate

Or whatever, but none of, they're very Much catered to women, because That's the majority of the congregation 90 % of the women

That went to the churches I grew up with, their husband Either didn't come with them, or if he did He was just kind of there

And so, I remember Whenever I went to college and kind of got out of those Churches, I was like, wow, like There's men out here doing

Things, they're leading things, they're Taking ownership and part in this, and that was Totally new to me, growing up in All of those churches those years, so that's

My point, like I'm not just saying that to be like, oh Feminism, I'm just saying like, I Saw it firsthand, and I saw what it

Looks like whenever that's not what's Going on, so like you said, it's not really a surprise Because if you watch any of the

United Methodist Church Videos, sermons, there's usually Some old dudes there, there's hardly Any ever young guys at all, and they're all

Just sitting back, and they're just sort of like Repeating whatever they're told to do, and That's just sort of their stance, and Yeah, That's just the general sense of Everything I grew up with, so that's why

I said What I said, not to be shocking Or whatever, but just to be like, that's just the reality Of it, is that That's how you get here, and that's

Why I think the reaction In general online From Christian women

And some Christian men, oddly enough Was like, how dare he, it's like, I don't know Guys, like, I think you're

Thinking through a lens that isn't really biblical Here, not that, again, I would agree with everything He said in that speech, but I think

That, you know, that's That was my take, so No, and I agree, and I Think that the, you know,

I don't Neither one of us would say that it's That women shouldn't do anything in the church Or anything like that, or women shouldn't have a

Role to play, and We love women, I love my wife, as I said earlier She helps me a lot with this show, it's the

Issue of Men not doing what men Should be doing, and really

That's the danger Well, Michael, we're going to take just a second I have a quick commercial that I throw in here

This is to remind people about the most important Message, which is the gospel, and then We're going to come back and talk about how

We judge sermons, so be right Back with you. Hey guys, I just want to quickly say Thank you for watching this episode

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Donation. Most importantly, we want To make sure that everybody who hears this podcast Hears the gospel. The word gospel

Means good news, and that Good news has to be preceded by some bad News, and the bad news is this

That we are all sinners Sin is breaking God's law, so we stand Guilty before the Lord of the universe

But the good news is, God Sent his son into the world to pay the penalty For everyone who would believe in him

Jesus came into the world, lived A perfect life, and he died a substitutionary Death for everyone who will believe

And he calls us all to repent Of our sin, to turn from our unbelief And trust in him as Lord and Savior.

And if you've never done that I encourage you to do so today Now back to the show Alright, so When we talk about the subject

Of judging A sermon, right away The immediate thought

Of a lot of people is Going to be, how dare you? Who are you To judge a sermon?

And that's why I titled it the way That I did originally. I said, hey, let's talk about How to listen to a sermon, but I'm being honest to Say I'm using a word that I hope

Stirs some attention, clickbait But But We are, in a sense

Going to talk about how do you judge Whether or not What we're hearing is

What is true And that's kind of what You're doing on your podcast, but it's what

Every Christian does When they sit in the pew Is they have to listen

To what the pastor is saying And come to a conclusion About, okay, is he

Rightly dividing the word? Is he wrongly dividing the word? Is he running off into his own

Pet projects or ideas Or thoughts, pet doctrines? Or is he being faithful to the text?

These are questions that we all Have to ask, and my Initial question to you is

Where do you even start with that? What's your first initial thoughts when I say How do you judge a sermon? What are some of the things that you right away

Tell people are important? Well, we have Three things that we look at in every sermon

Review, in case anyone's ever seen it, and really The reason I boiled it into these Three is because when I started doing these reviews

People were like, I like What you're doing, but there's no metric It all falls back on your preference

I was like, yeah, that's a good point, and so after Kind of workshopping it a little bit To make sure that I wasn't just judging

People based on how I felt about them We got it down to, hey, when I Prepare a sermon, what are the things that are in there?

What are the things that should be in there? And so, I mean, the very basics And people rightly comment all the time

Like this is the lowest bar possible, and they're Right, but the idea is you gotta start Somewhere, so do they read

Scripture? And we're not just talking about One verse, we're talking about do they read it Within the context of what's

Happening? And then it goes on to the second point Are they exegeting it? Which, again, is Just, hey, are they bringing out the context

And the culture of what's happening in that text And bringing it out to the modern believer? And then lastly, do they preach the gospel

At all in there? Because we can have a lot of really Cool things that the Bible teaches Us, but if we don't understand the gospel

Why even apply these things? Are they just moral Teachings, or are there things like that? And so the idea is that breaking it down to Those three things is that at least gives us

A good guideline to determine Is what somebody's saying At least decently

Aligned with what Scripture's saying, or Are they kind of going off in a left field? Because it's Really interesting that if you

Don't think about those three things, and you're Just sitting there and listening, it's really easy to Think that somebody preached a real good sermon when they didn't

Really touch any of those things at all It was motivational, and it was really inspiring And it was encouraging, but it wasn't

Really biblical if you actually Dig down to it, so You know, one of the books that I read that I was

Very, that was very useful to me In my early ministry Was by a pastor named

Stephen Kreloff, and he became my friend Stephen and I are friends today He's a pastor in Tampa, Florida And we are in The same church network, well he wrote

A book called Expository Preaching, just simple, little Small book, but he said

Expository Preaching is Read the text, explain the text, apply The text, that was his three

Points, so when I heard you On your podcast, I said, you know, it's Funny that you also begin with read the text

Like, cause, and he has a whole chapter On the value of reading Scripture publicly

And the fact that, you know, The Bible tells us to give attention to the Public reading of God's word

And we see this modeled for us In the Old Testament And we see it, you know, obviously

Commanded in the New Testament, so Do you listen to sermons? Cause it seems like you probably listen to quite a few

I know I listen to sermons, but I tend to listen to Sermons that are

Maybe ones That I'm gonna need for helping Me, or the ones that I'm wanting to learn from So I don't tend to listen to a lot of Bad sermons

I think you might have a more Balance on that, listening to good and bad Do you hear

A lot of guys who don't use the text At all, who don't read the text? Not really

What I find, and this is just Consistent amongst, I would Say the bad ones, is that People are, and I don't want to Ever judge anybody's heart by them being intentionally

Deceitful, so I was gonna say They're just kind of, this is maybe the way they've been taught But what you'll often have

Is people that will read a section Of text, like, most people don't Just do verses anymore

When I started doing this Six years ago, maybe longer I don't know how long

I've been doing this, there was a lot More of like one -liner verses It seems like I don't know who's teaching who, or who's picking up On what, but they seem like they're

Very much shifting to reading a section Of scripture now, and then That being sort of like Oh no,

I did that, I read the bible Like I was supposed to, and then diving into Maybe a verse, or using

That scripture to pivot Or jump into their own point now So it's not like you won't see a lot of people

Read a section anymore, there's a few That will still just do kind of one or two lines But most people that I listen to Both good and bad, will read

A nice little section, it's really What happens after that That's the help to determine

Because I think that's what throws a lot of people off They're like, well they read the bible, so that must be Good, and so I don't think

I don't hear a lot of sermons anymore where people Aren't reading scripture, the real question Is where do they pivot after they read that And what do they do with it

Yeah, years Ago I visited a church They had asked me to come do some music during a Revival service, and it was

It was a Pentecostal church, but it was Related through my mom, my mom Was a member, or had gone

To the church, and So I was doing the music and then After I did the music, the man

Who was preaching the revival came up to the Pulpit, he opened up his bible He took a deep breath

And then he closed His bible, he didn't even read, he just closed His bible, and he said I had a passage

I Was going to read, but God told me That somebody here needs a Touch from the Lord, and this lady

In the back goes Into screams And runs forward, and he

Met her at the bottom of the The chancel steps, and he Grabbed her head, and she

Fell down, and then everybody started coming forward It was really not what I was expecting at all But there was no

Public reading of scripture at all, and I was Just stunned So, it does

It does happen, I guess From my experience, at least once Yeah, well a lot more

I guess online, I don't hear it a whole Lot, when I, there's times when We travel or stuff, and we'll just go

To some random church, or this happens to be Honest with you, a lot in Wesleyan churches Growing up, or like When we visit other churches, where Somebody will go like, you know,

I had a scripture And then the Lord changed it this morning And I'm like, what? And then they just go

Off on this whole thing, and I'm like, well If the Lord changed this this morning, you've not prepared You don't have a clue what's going on, and God help you

Holy Spirit, please help this person Get through this message, because they Clearly don't know what's going on Yeah, that happens a lot

I have a Person to person question, because you Preach, and You've been a preacher for a while So I want to ask if it's ever

Happened to you, because I do I do know That, you know, I've been

Preaching for, you know A full time since 2006, so It's 18 years now,

I do Know that there have been precious few times Where I've ever changed my message Shortly before the service

But it has happened, I know at least Once, but has that ever happened To you, where you were going to preach one

Thing, and then you preach something else? There has been A handful of times where I've been

Working on a sermon, because I always start at the Monday of the Week, the week before the

Sunday And There have been times where it's just Not coming together, like I'm working on it

I'm working on it, I'm working on it, it gets to Thursday and I'm like I don't know what's going to happen And at that point, there's

Again, as you probably know, a lot of working Through the sermon, there's a lot of prayer, there's a lot of Study, there's a lot of digging in, and so By Thursday I'm just like,

Lord This is going to be terrible If this is what we're going for Here, if this is what we're working with, and there have been

Times where there have been Things that come up, either through devotional Or through, again, maybe

I'm Just listening to a sermon to listen to it And then the sermon just falls Together quicker than It normally does before It doesn't happen a lot, it has happened though And I usually know that that's probably

Going to end up happening if it's just been a Rough Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday And it's just going, this is just,

I can't make This thing, I can't It's just not working It has happened occasionally, never

The Sunday morning of has that ever Occurred to me But yeah, it's happened before A few times

What is your, because I start On Monday too, a lot of pastors I know Don't start, they'll

Take Monday off, you know, Monday's Their day off, but I've always Just felt the need to work on Monday I just like,

Monday morning at 8 o 'clock, I get up I go into the office, but What is your method

Are you a Because I don't know if Are you, do you preach every week

And if you do, are you preaching through books, are you Or do you preach Different times, how does that work for you

Yeah, so for the way we have Our setup, I preach the last Sunday Of every month, or if something happens on that Sunday, it's usually the

Sunday before, so it's once A month, so that's what That's how our schedule works out as far

As at my church, and so we don't Because it is a Wesleyan church, we don't preach through Books, but I do try

To, if I know I'm going to be like back to back Because something's happening,

I'll try to stick in that Same thing, just to kind of keep that consistency To show like, hey, we can do This, but we typically

Don't, but I do preach expository Through a set of scriptures As far as how

Like, what my method Is Yeah, and Just to be clear for people who are listening

You don't have to preach Through books to preach Expository preaching, I think people get that confused

People think expository preaching Means preaching through books, no You can do an expository one -off sermon

As long as it's exposing what the text says As long as it's getting, as long as it's Preaching the thought and the

Idea of the text, rather than Imposing upon the text something that's not There, then it's expository preaching

So that's true So, and you also, you said It's Wesleyan, so you don't do that Is that consistent in Wesleyan churches?

Are you joking? No, Wesleyan churches in general Do not preach through books at all

I've never attended a Wesleyan church that has Typically, it's whatever the Pastor wants to preach on Whenever I found out that Lutherans had a book that told them

What they were going to preach on, I was like, what is that? That's crazy And so, even in college

I went to a Wesleyan college, we were not taught To preach that way, I mean, we were taught basic You know, obviously, hermeneutics, exegetical, all that stuff

But it was never like, you should preach Through books, it was always, it's very Topical driven, so again, when

I talked About coming out of like a Methodist Wesleyan church And hearing other people preach It was insane to me, because I Had never heard somebody, typically

Again, I'm not saying no Wesleyan works expositionally Through the scripture, I'm just saying In general, it's heavily topical

And so, to find out, there was Another way to do this, that I was just completely

It blew my mind, that that was the thing Yeah Interesting, so, alright

So it's Monday morning, and you Have to preach on Sunday, and I Know this is getting a little off topic

Because I know we're talking about how to judge sermons, but Part of judging, I think, comes to the point Of looking at, you know

How's this man put this together, like How did this come together And so, you are starting on Monday morning, you're choosing a text

How do you, do you pray And go lucky dipping, you open Your Bible and point, I'm just kidding,

I know you don't do that But how do you How do you come to the conclusion Okay, this is what

I need to preach Well, luckily for me, like I said I preach once a month, so that gives me a good

Three weeks of me just reading the scriptures Being in the scriptures, you know, just Studying them, and so typically for me

That, that, the text will Come from that, just that practice I don't know what

I would do If I didn't preach every Sunday Well, I would just do books That would be what

I would defaultly do But for me, I'm in the scripture, I'm studying it Something comes up, I've preached a few

Sermons before, based on the fact Of how butchered a text has been In a sermon I've reviewed, and I'm just Doing that one then, and so My method

Is basically that, what have I been Studying, what's come up I have a lot of conversations with people

At my job and at the church, and sometimes If there's something that seems like It needs to be maybe dug into a little bit

We'll do that, so Yeah So, you have a

Senior pastor, does he Does he want to Know what you're preaching on, does he

Does he ever warn you I don't want you to go this direction, that direction, and I'm just curious From the perspective of how your

Relationship is with him, because The year before I became the Preaching pastor, our former

Senior pastor was my Administrative pastor, but I preached every Sunday, so He was still there, and he had

Been my pastor for years, and Every week, I would talk to him About what I was going to preach, and he would even look at my notes

He would sometimes give them back to me With red marks, but it was never theological, he was an English teacher, and he would mark

Through my grammar But that was His way, but How's your relationship with your pastor, does it

Work that way, or how does it So at first, there was a lot Like, again, so when

I came To that church, he knew The church we had come out of, and So he knew I had been the youth pastor there, and he knew

Again, not to get into the big long story, but kind of what Had happened, and so he was very gracious For probably the first year and a half, two

Years, to just let me be there, and sit And just be a part of the church And then one

Sunday, he did ask Hey, would you be interested In preaching one of these Sundays for me

And I said yes, of course Because my thing, kind of, through that whole process Was God, I am not going to seek this out

If you want to do it, you're going to have to Send somebody along to encourage Because I'm not putting myself back in that situation

And so he did, very graciously Through Dave, and Dave doesn't do it anymore, where he comes down And like, hey, what's your notes, what are you preaching on At first, obviously, he did do that Because you're handing somebody your pulpit

You want to know that they're not going to Go crazy on you, and so We have a relationship now

Of just, of trust, of like, okay What are you preaching on, I'll let him know the text And then there's a trust

That you're going to handle this right now, because We've been going there for nearly ten years And so, he knows

Kind of my style, he knows the process He knows all of that, and where I'm really Lucky is that, not only do

I have Dave The church that I came from Again, not to get Into the whole story, but my, one of my

Ex -pastors, the pastor that actually retired From that church, goes to this current church That I'm at too, and then

I have another Pastor that has retired that goes there Too, so I have a lot of guys that Have been incredibly helpful,

I mean Just a wealth of information of like Hey, that was really good, you could have said this may be different Or like, that was great, thanks for digging into That point, like, and so That's helpful,

I don't think a lot of guys have That, and I'm incredibly blessed To have that, to where when I do get down, or when

I Am preaching, I'll look at, like, Steve's one of the guys I'm like, am I a heretic? Okay, I'm not, great, alright And so we'll just go with it

And so it's just really interesting To have that dynamic too, to where you have Just a wealth of Ministry experience there to help

You grow and to get better too, so Yeah So your next, after you've

Going back to the sermon, judging a sermon We want the person to have read the text, then we want Them to exegete the text

When you are doing your exegetical Work, you're in, I'm assuming This is your Monday routine, right?

When you're preaching and you're doing your Monday, Tuesday Routine, I don't know how long you spend on your Sermons, you know,

I Preach multiple times per week, so I have To measure out my time Usually Monday and Tuesday is when

I'm studying And preparing for Sunday, so It's, you know, two days of that So what does your exegetical

Work look like? I mean, do you, I know what I Do, I begin with a piece of paper, I write the text

Out, then I go back to the original language, write the original Language out, and that's sort of my method What is, what's your method

For that part? So, mine is going to be probably really weird To almost everyone listening, like I said,

I First of all, I drive really far to work, but I'm Also a driver, I'm a delivery driver Just as far as vocation goes

And so, I don't have the luxury of being Able to sit down to write, so I've had to Kind of adapt my method to What can

I do as I'm driving here And so, typically if I Have a text, let's say it's Let's just say it's

Matthew 7, 8, or whatever And so, what I'm going to do, because I do have the luxury Of having a lot of time on my hands

I'm going to listen to Matthew 1 through 7, so I'm Just listening to that a whole bunch, a few

Times through, just because, again, I'm not reading I'm having to listen to it, and so I'm listening a few Times through, what's popping out

I'm just trying to make mental notes of What, hey, I want to go back to that, I'm Screenshotting a lot of verses on my phone just to Make sure, hey, that's a note, go back to that And then

I listen to what comes after that And so, that way, I'm just Getting the general, quick layover

Context a lot of Monday, just Listening, listening, listening, listening And then usually Tuesday, those notes, those

Screenshots, those things that stuck out, like I need to Dig into that a little bit more, I'm probably going to need to explain That a little bit more, that would

Be when I kind of probably get into logos, go through the Languages, go through the context a little bit, is there Anything that, I mean, as you probably know

When you go through this a lot, eventually you Just have sort of that, sort of knowledge Already in there going, okay,

I know what that's talking About, you're not doing it for the first time And so a lot of it, you kind of have that Built -in knowledge of context, what's going on Where this is happening, and just sort of piecing

That together, because for me, when I'm preaching to These people, I can't just assume

That they're going to Know what I'm talking about and where These places are and who these people are

Or any of that, so I'm going to have to kind of build This story out a little bit so that they are Caught up on what's going on, especially

If I'm starting five, six chapters in And so that's Monday process, listening Tuesday, really digging into what do

I need To draw out here, what needs to be Said so that they kind of understand why Whatever's happening in this passage

Is happening, whatever's being said is being Said, and so we can build this story up A little bit for them so that when we get to this text

Not only are we going to Dive into these words or this Situation or this correction or this encouragement

Or whatever's happening, they Have an understanding, a lot more Robust understanding of, like,

These words just aren't words on a Page, like, this is an entire world That's been built here that these are being

Said, so whether it's the psalms and we Kind of have to build that out or whether It's, like, Colossians and just The whole, like, how did that letter even get there?

Just giving them that, like, the word of God is alive, it's active, like It got here in a certain

Way, and if you know that story, like, for me Like, that makes it so much more More interesting, and so whenever You do read parts of, like, we

Two sermons ago I did Colossians Chapter 1, verses 1 through 13

And getting there, so when Paul's Telling them, hey, we're praying for you, we love You, like, we want you to be able to build up Like, where's he

Coming from when he says this to a people That he doesn't know, like, he's Just sending them back and he's

Talking to, you know, the fact that You even have Philemon kind of In there in that whole mix and it ties

Into what's said in, I mean, it's just so Interesting, so that's the whole, I know it's a long Long answer, but The idea is to build that out

So that when we get My ideas, how do I build this story Up so they understand what's happening

So that when we explore this text Like, we know Why it's being said

And that's the heart of exegesis, right? So when A person is sitting in the

Pew I think that in many ways No matter their level of Maturity or education,

I think They can know whether or not that Work has been done I think there's at least some sense

In which they can hear a person Begin to talk about this Text and they can hear

Okay, this guy knows this text Or he doesn't, I'll give you an example Very early on in my ministry

I had the opportunity, it's when I met Steve Kreloff, I mentioned him earlier, the book that he wrote And the first time

I met him Was at a Founders Conference, I think it was 2006 So it was Very, very early

And I remember hearing him preach I think it was the book of Ephesians I think it was in Ephesians chapter 4

And the first 10 minutes Of his sermon, which was about a 40 -45 minute Sermon, the first 10 minutes of his

Sermon was walking through Ephesians 1 -4 to show us How he got to chapter 4

How you get to this Argument that Paul's making Or this point that Paul's making In chapter 4, because he's made this point

And he's made this point, and he's made this point And this is how we've gotten here And if you're not preaching verse by verse, book by book

Which you're not if you're at a conference You know, that was his method Like this was to bring you up to speed

And that sounds kind of like What you were just talking about In the sermons that you listen to Do you find that that's often missing?

Yes I do, and that's why I really want to I see part of what

I'm doing in here Is trying just to train people to listen for things And hopefully for pastors that are

Learning to preach or Trying to get better or refine their method Like, hey, if you don't do this, consider it

Because it often isn't done Most of the sermons Fortunately, that I listen to Are often

The whole big point is about You and you applying something And that's fine, and that's great, because there is

This application to be had But if we just skip right to that Like, I could get that from anybody

You could tell me to do something that's good And this is why you should do it, and here's the benefits of doing it And that's great, that makes

Anybody can do that, but to understand Like why the word of God says to do that And how it ties into you

Specifically as a Christian needing to do this Really Can only be

Kind of taken out of the huge well Of information you have Of why this was written in the first place

And I think that's where we kind of get off on doctrine And things like that If you're just jumping in With your opinion on here, and you're not

Bringing in the wealth of information That brought us this letter to begin with It's really easy to go left field

Real fast, because you're not You're not asking the questions That really should be asked, and unfortunately that doesn't

Happen a lot in the sermons I listen to Yeah Yeah, absolutely

So, for the Person who is in the pew And they're hearing the person

Not do this And maybe this is their pastor Maybe this is somebody who

They're preaching You know, I want to be careful What I'm about to say, because I normally

I don't I don't encourage people to go running and leaving churches Because I'll have people message me

Hey, this is happening in my church, should I leave the church? This is happening You know, should I Should I be looking for a better church?

And my answer is usually no I mean, unless there's sin going on Sin being promoted If you're in a church that God has led you to And there's people there who care for your soul

And the pastor who cares for your soul You know, he wants to be better You know, he wants

To do well I know very few pastors who I don't think care You know

And most guys, especially pastors of small churches Are doing it because they love the Lord They're not doing it for the money

They're not doing it for the glory They're doing it for Jesus And they're doing it for the people who are sitting in the pews

Whether it be 25 or 35 or 55 or 105 They're doing it because of the people that are in front of them

Is there a way To encourage somebody And I'm thinking about this for my own self

Is there a way to encourage somebody If that's not what they're doing To, without sounding overly critical

Is there a way to say Hey, you know, could you tell us more about this I don't know, have you ever thought about that?

Yeah, so I've had people Message very similar messages And I, when I first started getting that I thought, oh wow, okay

I do not want to stand before Jesus one day and be like I made these people leave

And so I think what I usually tell people Is like, hey Basically what you said, I think a lot of the times

And I can identify this again Coming out of the Wesleyan church Not hearing any other messages And then hearing these other

I think a lot of the time It's the way people have been trained They don't know that there maybe is a different way to do it

Like, even if they, again I went to college, did the exegesis, hermeneutics Preaching classes, all that, homiletics

And then You go to the local church And usually you start mimicking The people that you admire

And you try to develop your own thing And sometimes you just fall into a certain way And a lot of the pastors that I talk to They're younger, they're really trying to develop their voice

That's one of the things I tell them Eventually you're going to get your own voice But just make sure

It's not missing these things And I think the best way That I've seen this happen, to be honest with you

Is pastors that maybe Don't do this, listening to pastors That do do it that way

And going, oh wow I maybe do need to incorporate this And I don't know if there's a gentle way

To nudge people into doing that But I've seen, I know pastors I won't name them all, obviously here

But I know pastors that I'm very close to That preach a certain way And when they started hearing, oh wow

Okay, you're adding this, or this person's adding that Or I'm hearing this And then, without even having conversations

With these people You start noticing that they're working it into their sermons And again, like you said, they're not bad preachers

They don't hate, they love these people And they're using the tools they've been given And so I think when you're introduced

To these other tools that you see Are helpful, that do enhance The message, that people do

Seem to be able to learn a lot more from You just start naturally Sort of adding that To your toolbox, saying like, how can

I Incorporate that in what I'm doing And I think that's the best way, is you just see somebody else Do it and you go like, I don't do that And I probably should do that Because there's benefit in that Now if they don't do that,

I think Because again, there have been people that have messaged me Like, how do I talk to my pastor? Because I don't want Him to think that I'm being

Offensive to him And I think a lot of it is just asking questions Like, hey, you mentioned, you know, we preached

Out of, you know, Philippians today Like, I had a question, like, why did Paul write To the Philippians, right? Just asking those questions

Because I think, again, as pastors I think we're all looking for feedback We're all looking to get better We're just not sometimes thinking

The way the congregation is thinking And so we know Why Philippians was written, we know what's going on We've done all that background work

And maybe sometimes pastors don't include it Because they're like, that's going to take too long But if we understand that our congregation actually needs

Like, they don't know, like, we're putting a lot Of assumption that they know a lot of the things We're talking about when they don't

And so if congregations start going like Just, hey, tell me a little bit about that That plants some seeds there

In a very non -confrontational way Of just like, you are interested, you do want to know And that sort of Builds in over time,

I think This development of thought of like You know, people keep asking I think I should probably maybe just put that in there too

And so I think there's a lot of ways to do it That's not like, you're bad, you're terrible, we're leaving I think there's just nice To come alongside somebody and be like I'm interested in it,

I know these people are too And just asking those questions So I think there's a lot of wisdom in that And certainly, yeah, don't go to your pastor and say

You're not as good as John MacArthur Don't do that, that's not helpful That's not going to be encouraging

You've wrecked the man's whole week That's right But I tell you,

I'm always Encouraged when I get people Asking me questions, like you just said If somebody came up after the sermon and said

Hey, you know, in this text today You said this, what does this mean? Or can you explain this more?

And I'm like, man, I'm glad Somebody's listening, I mean, out of the people That are in the church, you know

How many people are tracking? And if they're tracking enough to ask questions That's encouraging, for real

So yeah, that's very pastoral, that was a good thought So When it comes to the last

Part, your last part Is making sure that the gospel Is preached, and that sort of goes

With the third in Kreloff's book, which is Read the text, explain the text

Which is exegesis, and then Apply the text, which should Always, at some point, bring us back to The exaltation of Christ Which is in the gospel

So, I find And I know when I teach hermeneutics I find that One of the things that people want

They want the application first, without doing The exegetical work They want to jump right to application

And their sermons tend to be application heavy But where do you find The biggest issues in application

Other than maybe An overemphasis on me, me, me Yeah, I think

Sometimes The There's obviously usually an overemphasis

On me, me, me, but I think the why Is a huge thing that's usually missed Like you're telling me, for example, that I should

Be kind to people, or I shouldn't Gossip, or this, that, or the other thing And I think the why is missed out

Like you're saying the Bible says so, great Like, and I know I shouldn't But the emphasis on Why is usually missed

And the why is because you're a believer changed by the Gospel, and you Ought to live in a certain way in light

Of the gospel, and I mean, within the Wesleyan tradition We talk about, well

The good churches talk about sanctification all the time About how you're just being, you're continually being Sanctified, and this idea of like, if that's

An issue, like this is a sanctifying process For you, like you're recognizing it, you're Going to the Lord with it

And I think the why, that's The why part, if you don't include the This is why you should be doing this

This is why you should care, and the why is always The gospel, and usually And one of the reasons I always say preach the gospel is

Because my assumption is there's going to be somebody In there that either, A, doesn't believe And is open about that, they don't care, they don't

Believe that they're here because somebody invited them, or they're Interested, or two, they think They're saved, and they're really not, they've not

Actually, they've just grown up in church, or they've done The thing, and they think they are Or three, they're genuinely

A believer, and they're in there, and the idea is If I'm preaching the gospel, at some point Either through the text, or I know pastors

There's actually somebody that Is part of our Patreon, and part Of that is like, you know, listening to sermons, how can we

Get better at preaching, some of the pastors That subscribe to that, and so he always just Put the flat out gospel on the end, like He always just did, and he just pops it at the end

Every time, not that everybody needs to do that But I appreciate that, because it's one of those things like If it doesn't come out in the text defaultly

Here it is, right, so It's one of those things where like, if you don't Know Jesus, if your life doesn't reflect

This text at all, here's the gospel But a lot of the times I think the gospel Is just sort of, like you said, if it's done well

It's sort of interwoven with That application, because now you're Understanding why does this matter

To me, why should I do, live In this sort of way, it's because, again The gospel, you've been changed by Jesus, so I think we just And I know

Even early on, as Learning to preach, and I don't want to say that They taught us this way, because I honestly don't know

It's been so long, but There was a huge emphasis on, you have to Apply the tag, like you have to tell them

You know, do this, do that thing And there was an under emphasis on like Because Jesus changed you,

I think sometimes we just Assume they know that, and they don't So It's interesting, because I've seen two extremes

On that, there's the extreme On one side that says, application Is the Holy Spirit's work, therefore

I just have to preach the text, and the Spirit Will apply it to each person as He sees fit, and I've heard that I've heard that, so application

Is very narrow, and then of course You know, there's where everything is Application, and very little

Exegesis, so I do think I think application has its place And I think as you said, it's a, you know

It's a very important part of Of the preaching process It can be the hard part though It can be, you know, some text

I know one of my elders and I were talking about this Recently, you know, sometimes Sometimes the application of the text

Is God is great, like Or God is, you know, this Is what we learn from this, is

Something about the nature of God, and it doesn't Necessarily apply in your Immediate go and do

Life, but it's something About the greatness of God, which should Affect how we go and do everything

Is that we serve a great God Yeah, well I call that sort of the pregame Thing a little bit, what

I mean by that is like I just preached on Psalm 42 and 43 Knowing that there's people in my church that are not in deep

Sorrow, do not feel far from God And what I try to explain in a lot of sermons Is like, this may not be for you now

But you better be prepped for when it Is you, and so I think like you're talking about Like God is good, like you hear that And I try to really, whenever the text

Is just God is good, back up and be like, you know That now, you're gonna really Need to know that later, and so like I think that that, like you said

Even if it's just God is good, it's Like, but remember that for later Because you're gonna need it later

Absolutely, well I have One other question for you, and this Is just sort of how the

Sausage is made, oh, I said I have one more question I also have my Fast Five at the end, there's a Fast Five fun that we do at the end, those

Are fun questions, and this is How we close out the show, but one more Serious question before we get to the

Fast Five And that is the question Of when you're preparing Sermons, and let's say you're preaching on You said

Matthew 7 or whatever In your prep For the week, is there ever a time

Where you listen to other people preach That text to Not to, and I know the danger

That people are gonna say, oh, that can lead To plagiarism and things like that But do you ever listen to other people preach that text

For the purpose of helping you In your understanding of that text And what are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, so that I do do that occasionally if the sermon Has come together well enough and fast enough that I have

Time to do that When I first started preaching, that was like Unfortunately my first step

And that was a terrible thing to do I've swapped it towards my very last And so like, and it has been helpful

At times, because there are times Where I'll get to the end, I'm done I think, alright, I've got this thing pretty well

Buttoned up, and then I'll listen To, because again, I drive a lot And so I'll just, I'll search, you know

Whatever one comes up, and I try not to be Like, oh, these are my favorite pastors, what'd they say I just try to say, hey, Google, here's this

Let me see it, and sometimes That reaffirms that I definitely went the right way Because this one kind of went a little weird, or That like, oh, wow,

I didn't Pull out that point there, but I Definitely see it, and it Can be beneficial there,

I'm not gonna make it my main thing But I'll probably add it as sort of a Sort of a, you know, a Note at the end, or a note, sort of a subtext

There, and I think it is Helpful, again, I think the danger is Real, that you can let it

Write your whole sermon if you're not careful, or you Put it too early in the process, but I think it is helpful It's been very beneficial to me a number of times

Where I'll get to the end and go, I Just did not, I didn't, maybe I didn't Focus on that specific verse

And they did, and I'll sort of steal that, a little bit Of that wisdom there, just to kind of put

Some sprinkles on top of something I've already done, so. Yeah, and I'll tell you my thought,

I'm in a similar Situation, I don't drive like you do, but I Have an hour round trip every time I go To the church, it's 30 minutes there, 30 minutes back

So I do, I go to the church 4 or 5 Days a week, at least, sometimes 6 days a week, you know, I'm at the building

And I have to redeem that time, I mean that's An hour a day that I'm gonna be driving

And so I tend to listen To either sermons, or I listen To books,

I do a lot of Books on audio, which is nice Speechify has become My best friend,

I don't know if you've ever heard of that, but Speechify Is really cool. I had to pick it up, whenever I started doing these

Video essays, I could not Read all these people's books, so yeah, it was Yeah, that's helped a lot.

Yep, not a sponsor But I would be happy to sponsor them if they wanted to Sponsor the show But Speechify is a great program

But I have found Like I jokingly say Sometimes, like John MacArthur, I have all of John MacArthur's Commentaries, but his commentary

Is just his sermon written down, I mean like If you listen to his Sermon, it's almost the exact same thing that you're

Gonna find in the commentary But like you, I don't do it at the front end All my commentary

Stuff is later, after I've done the Exegetical work, because I don't want to be I don't want to be influenced

Before I've had the chance To study for myself, and then I go to the commentaries, or to the sermons, or Whatever else, and you know

I say, what's the difference between reading a sermon from Charles Spurgeon, or listening to a Sermon from R .C.

Sproul, right? It's still somebody else's sermon And so But like I said

The goal is to do the work And I think when you do the work yourself, it comes Out in the work, it's yours

Yeah, people will see that Yeah, well brother I want to give you a few fun questions

Because I just enjoy talking to you, and we're gonna Wrap it up with these These are more, like I said, these are more for Fun, don't have to take it too seriously

But, number One What story from the Bible Do you think would make the best

Movie? But it has to be one that hasn't Been done yet A story from the Bible that would make the best movie

Just off the top of my head, for some reason Balaam and the talkie -talkie is coming To mind, I don't know Oh, okay

Do you think I was just going kind of Shrek, maybe

I mean, I guess that's sort of been done A little bit I was going to ask you, do you think that that's where The talkie -talkie came from for Shrek?

Because I don't know any other fairy tale that that's Based on Not that Balaam is a fairy tale

But I wonder if that's where the idea came from Because every other fairy In Shrek is a fairy story

You know, the seven dwarves And all that Maybe, I don't know, yeah

There's some church kid somewhere that were like I got an idea Well, I tell everybody

Not that you have to know my answer But my answer to that is always I would love to see A John Wick version of the story

Of Dinah in Genesis When she was mistreated

And then her brothers went and killed The men I think a

John Wick version of that would be Yeah, yeah It would be like dark with like these shadowy

Overtones happening, yeah Yeah, yeah So, anyway, that's my weird answer to that one

Alright, do you have a favorite Sermon that you've ever heard? A sermon that would change your life

The one that comes to mind is And I don't even know the guy's name I know he had a book, he wrote a book

I heard it in college, it was during a chapel He wrote a book, I think it was called something along the lines

Of the one thing you can't do in heaven And it was about evangelism

And that one Again, I don't remember the dude's name Or even his points But I do know that really got me thinking

It was like, oh wow His whole gist was if the gospel is this thing That saves people's souls

And they're either going to be on the path of life Or the path of death The one thing you can't do in heaven Is tell them about it because now it's too late

And it was all about evangelizing and telling people about Who Christ is and what he's done for you Again, I don't even remember the sermon

I just remember that That really deeply affected me in college Amen Alright, the best 80's television show

Co -starring a vehicle Best 80's television show co -starring a vehicle There was one with the talking car, right?

I don't even know How old are you? I'm 40 Yes, there were a bunch

I don't know It shows my parents didn't let me watch a lot of television

When we were little You were talking about Knight Rider There was also Dukes of Hazzard, Airwolf A -Team, all these had a co -star

That was somehow a vehicle Chick -fil -A or Popeyes If you had to eat a chicken sandwich,

Chick -fil -A or Popeyes Chick -fil -A I think the only other chicken sandwich

I've had from actual chicken is Zaxby's I don't think I've ever had Popeyes So we're going to go Chick -fil -A

Last one, would you rather fight one horse -sized duck Or a hundred duck -sized horses? The first one

At least it's only one But have you ever seen how mean ducks are?

Can you imagine a horse -sized duck? Oh, yeah My brother

Made a goose mad one time So I do have this really vivid memory Of being chased by a goose

So I don't know The size of a horse would be terrifying So like a Pegasus I'm essentially fighting a

Pegasus Is what I'm fighting at that point I don't think either way is going to go well for anybody

I can hide from one animal It would be harder to hide from a hundred animals That's right

Well, Michael, thank you for being on the show today As we close out, please tell everyone How they can get a hold of you

How they can find your stuff And if you have any projects coming up Tell us all about it

Just Google Honest Youth Faster And you'll find either the YouTube page Or the Instagram page And then hopefully within the next month

We'll have the next Making of a Minister up I can't tell you who it is yet But I think you're going to find it really interesting So that should be up by hopefully

July All right, buddy Well, thank you again for being a part of the show

Thanks for having me I want to thank you guys For being a part of the show today

I want to remind you again That you can find us and everything you need To get in touch with us at KeithFoskey .com

Thank you again for listening To Your Calvinist Podcast with Keith Foskey My name is Keith Foskey I said my name three times