Preach the Word - Brandon Scalf

All right, everyone, grab your Bibles and turn with me to 2 Timothy, chapter 4.

2 Timothy, chapter 4, and this evening we will be looking at the first four verses of chapter 4.

The title of today's message is, Preach the

Word. And so if you would, please stand with me for the honoring and reading of God's holy and fallible and all -sufficient

Word. As I have done the last several weeks,

I will begin starting in verse 14 of chapter 3 and read up to verse 8 of chapter 4.

So look with me at this juncture, verse 14 of chapter 3.

This is the Word of God. But you, continue in the things you learned and became convinced of, knowing from whom you learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

All scripture is God -breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be equipped, having been thoroughly equipped, for every good work.

I solemnly charge you, in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom, preach the

Word. Be ready in season and out of season.

Reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and teaching.

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.

But you, be sober in all things. Endure hardship. Do the work of an evangelist.

Fulfill your ministry. For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come.

I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course. I have kept the faith.

In the future, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the

Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all who have loved his appearing.

The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever. Amen. Amen. Go ahead and have a seat and put your eyes on 2

Timothy 4 verse 1.

As we have looked at the book of 2 Timothy up to this point, we have seen that it is no doubt very similar to our very day and age.

There are false teachers here. There are false teachers in the world now.

There are people peddling counterfeit gospels. There are men standing behind pulpits or music stands that are giving shallow expressions of what they call, though Paul would take issue with, preaching.

They are essentially gathering people who want to have their ears tickled.

They are giving feel -good messages that challenges no one, confronts no one, and feeds no one.

More than that, the church has ran rampant with people who are deceived and are deceiving others.

And partly because the shepherds, the preachers, have failed at their task to follow the command that is set before us this evening, and that, of course, is to preach the

Word. This command, found in verse 2 of chapter 4, is essentially the climax of not only the book of 2

Timothy, but especially in the pericope that we find ourselves in.

Everything is aimed at it before you get to it, and everything explains it and rests in it afterward.

And the reason for that is because what was true of Timothy's time is true of our time.

Not just that we suffer the same ailments in the church, but the same remedy must be applied.

No matter what the church faces, no matter what the preacher or pastor faces, he has one mandate, one urgent divine call, and that is to preach the

Word. Not to preach his own ideas, not to preach other people's philosophies, not to preach simply good messages that comfort us in our sin, but the

Word, the whole counsel of God, his revealed truth from beginning to end, from Genesis to Revelation.

So the charge here to preach the Word given to Timothy by the

Apostle Paul is a charge that extends to every preacher of God's Word forever until the

Lord Jesus returns. Why?

Because the Word is what was always meant to and always does the true work of ministry.

If you recall, Paul has found himself in prison where he's awaiting martyrdom.

He's awaiting being slaughtered. In essence, he's riding by candlelight as a knife is essentially pressed to his jugular veins.

And he sees that Timothy is struggling with a myriad of different things.

Some of it, if you look at 1 Timothy, is his timidity. Here you find that he is struggling with false teachers and people looking to take advantage of young women.

People who essentially have defected from the beauty and glory of what once was the

Ephesian church. Remember in the book of Revelation, Jesus says that what he has against the

Ephesian church at that point and that time is that they had abandoned their first love. They had abandoned the

Lord Jesus Christ and his truth, though they were doing apparently good works.

But the reality is here is this charge is one that Timothy must heed. It is one that he must heed.

And Paul is so clear about that, that he has given it this charge, as I said, under the threat of death.

As a mentor of mine once said, this should remind us how urgent, how weighty this message is, because last words are lasting words.

And we see in verse 7 and 8 that Paul is telling us, or telling

Timothy and us by extension rather, that he's about to die.

So this isn't just a figment of my imagination. Church history records this. The Bible is clear about this in many places, but especially here when he says in verse 7,

I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course. I have kept the faith. And more than that, in verse 6, he says,

I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come.

And of course, he meant his departure, not from Ephesus, not from Rome, ultimately, but this earth, where he would meet

Jesus face to face. And so if we are going to read this, we need to read it underneath this umbrella, that Paul, Timothy's mentor and great friend, even under the threat of death, seeing the struggles that he was having in ministry, had one last thing to say, and that was what?

If you haven't caught on by now, preach. Preach the word. As you see in this ministry help, if you will,

Paul does not focus on how to help him foster some sort of visible success.

He wants him to focus on the excellency of his service. He's not trying to help him understand doors that might be opened, opportunities that might present themselves, but challenging him by divine mandate to consider his commitment.

He's not worried about his personal prominence or how many pats on the back he should receive, but rather Paul wants him to reject those things and focus on the character of his ministry.

In other words, Paul has told him in this charge, fill your pulpit and God will fill everything else.

Paul in this charge is irrefutably clear that he has no concern for Timothy's acceptance or reputation, but that he is concerned for his faithfulness to God, to his

Lord and to the scriptures, because he knew that was the only thing.

That was it. That was the only thing that was going to sustain him and his people when life gets hard.

And so as we look at verse one, the first thing that I want you to see, the first point here is the context of the charge.

Now, over the course of the last few weeks, we have established much context.

Context in terms of what was going on in Ephesus, context in terms of what was going on with Paul while he was in prison, context as it pertains to the relationship that he had with Timothy.

We've established the nature of the context regarding, anyway, false teachers, defectors of the faith, even people who likely even served alongside him in ministry.

And as we get into the coming weeks, we will see that there is a context in which people are desiring to have their ears tickled to garner, as it were, teachers who fit their desires, not their theology, but their passions.

But more on that to come. But there is one context that stands above them all.

One context that dwarfs them all. One context that is held up high as the only context that really ultimately should matter to Timothy.

And that context is colossal. And that context is one before the

Lord Jesus Christ. Look with me here, beginning with these first few words.

Paul says to Timothy, in light of what he has already said about the Word of God, because it is, in fact, sufficient, supremely sufficient for all things, he now says,

I solemnly charge you. And of course, we know that charge to be, preach the

Word found in verse two. But I solemnly charge you. Where is the context?

In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead and his appearing.

And by his appearing, rather, and his kingdom.

The first thing that you ought to note when you're looking at the context of this charge is this solemn nature of the charge.

This word translated solemnly charge comes from a verb which here carries the idea of giving a forceful order or directive.

This is not used often in the New Testament. It's not used often by the

Apostle Paul, but it has been used by the Apostle here in 2nd

Timothy already, as well as 1st Timothy. It is one that he wants to employ in exhorting

Timothy because he needs him to understand the weightiness of the task that is set before him. He says it once in 1st

Timothy, chapter 5, verse 21, when he says, I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of his elect angels to observe these instructions without bias, doing nothing in partiality.

In other words, it's serious that you not show partiality or observe instructions with bias.

In 1st Timothy 6 .13, he says, I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things and of Christ Jesus, who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate.

And in 2nd Timothy 2 .14, before we get to chapter 3 and 4 here, he says, remind them of these things, solemnly charging them, speaking of the congregation and the presence of God, not to dispute about words, which is useless and leads to the ruin of the hearers.

In other words, you're going to want to remind the congregation that when they get to yapping and arguing about meaningless things, they are destroying their soul and the souls of everyone around them because it's a useless thing to do.

It's a useless thing to do. Paul is wanting to get across the reality to Timothy and to ministers everywhere that those who are called to proclaim and interpret the word of God for the people of God have the most profound responsibility that the

Lord places on any man. I want to say that again.

Paul is wanting Timothy to understand that those who are called to proclaim and interpret the word of God, to preach the word to the people of God, have the most profound responsibility that the

Lord places on any man. Does that mean that preachers are better than other men?

No, it means that they have a greater responsibility because they speak for God.

This is why James chapter three, verses one and two says, do not, many of you, right? Do not, that's the first thing.

Do not, many of you, become teachers, my brothers, knowing that we will receive a stricter judgment for we all stumble in many ways.

If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he's a perfect man able to bridle the entire body as well.

And then he goes on to talk about how if you teach people the wrong stuff, then they will be turned like a rudder and woe to those preachers who do not preach the word, but their own ideas and speak on behalf of God and say untrue things about what

God has said. Do not, many of you, become teachers.

If you take these two realities in tandem, it must be said and it must be said with fervor.

If you can do anything else, do it. In fact,

Charles Spurgeon in his pastor's college would make it an aim to talk every single person out of actually being a preacher of God's word for two reasons.

One, greater strictness, harsher judgment, and it's a weighty and profound responsibility.

And secondly, because if you can talk a man out of preaching, he was never called to preach in the first place.

A man who is called to preach, a man who must preach the word will preach the word.

This was the devotion of Paul himself. Paul was much like John Knox.

John Knox, if you know him, was a Scottish minister during the

Reformation and he was a bold type. History allures, goes that he would give people swords when they became members of his church.

Whether that's true or not, I'm not so certain, but it does sound like something that John Knox would do.

One of his favorite quotes that is repeated quite often is, give me Scotland or I die.

He was not content, not pressing the crown rights of King Jesus on all of Scotland and the world, if the

Lord would so honor. Here's what you need to understand about John Knox. When he was a younger man and he was first compelled to preach, he locked himself in his room and wept for days because of the fearful seriousness of such a calling.

As a matter of fact, I have a board above my computer chair in my office.

And on that board is a quote from John Knox after he became a minister and he was being led to his death and there was a lot said and people were inquisitive and they wanted to know if he was afraid to die, if he was afraid of what the devil had done, so to speak.

And what he said is plastered throughout history books and it's plastered on my wall because it captures so perfectly what is being said in this moment.

And it says this, I never once feared the devil, but I tremble every time

I step into the pulpit. The reason that Timothy is solemnly charging this man

Timothy is because it is weighty. It is a responsibility with the weight that I can scarce even articulate.

When I opened this Bible, when any preacher opens this Bible and he begins to speak forth the oracles of God as God has said them, showing

God's people what God has said by what he has written, it better be the right thing because he will have to stand in front of the

Lord Jesus and he will have to answer for every idle word that he ever said.

This is why he continues on. He charges him in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is the savior.

No, the judge. Yes, of course, Jesus is savior and we preach him as such, but his eye is ever on the preacher.

His gaze is ever on the preacher. Judging, scrutinizing, examining every single bit of his work and of his words.

And so Jesus here is acting as a divine witness.

It is before God that preachers stand and preach. It is not before the congregation, though it is for the congregation.

But a preacher who reverses this is one who is going to be tossed to and fro by what people want to hear.

When their ear tickles, he will think, how do I itch? Or scratch that itch rather, not how do

I please God? In fact, if you look at the Greek here, it could really be translated in the presence of God, even

Christ Jesus. So you have God the father, potentially in Christ Jesus, or just in the presence of God, even

Christ Jesus. This wording here seems especially appropriate in this context, because Paul here has been referencing

Christ as judge. And not only that, but he has given judgment to Christ.

So even if it's split, it doesn't really matter, right? Because in John chapter five, verse 22, it says, for not even the father judges anyone, but he has given all judgment to the son.

The idea here is that Christ will in fact judge, as we continue on here, the living and the dead.

He was to judge the living and the dead. He is the one who will return and will judge.

Which means for Timothy and everybody who opens their mouth and proclaims the word of God, is that every sermon will either be a faithful offering to this judge, or that person will stand condemned under the scrutiny of this judge's righteousness.

In other words, he will judge the ministry of every preacher. So Paul is saying here, Timothy, I'm gonna tell you something.

And that something is this, that you need to preach the word. But before you understand that you need to preach the word, you need to understand that you're preaching the word before God.

The God who wrote the word, sustains the word, accompanies his word, and changes lives.

And he will judge you if you do not preach the word. He will judge you if you do anything else, if you make anything else to summon substance of your ministry, and it's the son whom will judge.

Every minister who is called by Christ, Jesus, the son, constantly ministers under the omniscient scrutiny of his divine presence.

But not only is he preaching under the eye of this judge, he's preaching to others under the eye of this judge.

And what you hear and take away is going to be the difference between life and death.

It's gonna be the difference between heaven and hell. It's going to be the difference between right and wrong. It's going to be the difference between sound doctrine and foolishness, truth and error.

And if he preaches in such a way to cause anyone to take away anything else but the word, then it would be better had he never, ever been born.

So here, there is an eternal accountability. Every sermon, every exposition, and every application falls under the eternal accountability of Jesus Christ, the judge.

And it will be weighed by him whether or not it was faithful.

Very practically, this means this. A preacher's ultimate accountability is not some board.

It's not even the local church. It's not a denomination or any other human institution.

No matter how doctrinally sound and godly it may be, it's not his ultimate accountability.

But his ultimate accountability is to the Lord. And that supersedes all of it.

And this Lord is the same Lord who calls and empowers preachers, who has called and empowered

Timothy, and who will one day judge him, and one day judge me, and one day judge everyone who stands behind a pulpit, and we will either be judged for the deeds that we did in the body and be sent away, or to hear, well done, good and faithful servant.

Now let me pause here and just ask this question. Do you listen to sermons with that context in mind, with that eternal perspective in mind?

Every message I preach, every message Timothy preached, every message that is preached, is preparing either me, not either, both, right?

It's preparing me and you for judgment, or it's leaving us unprepared.

And so I know. I know that as commercialism goes, this month is dubbed

Pastor Appreciation Month. And people want to do nice things for pastors, and that's awesome.

But the best thing you can do in light of this text, if you're thinking about that sort of thing, is to pray that your pastors would continually be saturated with the reality that when they stand behind this sacred desk and open up this sacred word, that they are understanding the weight of what it means to stand before God and to preach to the people of God with the word of God.

Because if that ever begins to fade, then there is no hope.

That has to be at the forefront of our minds at all times. So now that we have seen the context of the charge, the second thing, this is my second point,

I want you to see is the charge itself. The charge itself.

And now that we've established who is judging and overseeing this charge, now let's see what the charge is itself.

Well, of course it is, verse two here, preach the word. And here we have a divine imperative, a command.

This is not a suggestion. This is not a lighthearted encouragement.

This is not him offering up some good ideas that he got from a how to grow a church book.

This is a divinely inspired, you must do this.

You must preach the word. If God is watching you, then the only way to honor him while the world is blowing up around you, and as I sit in this cage awaiting my death is preach the word.

And Paul is understanding that when he says this, he's not telling him new information.

He should have already been doing this. He's watched Paul do it. He also understands that he's gonna see this as something that's going to bolster him and not scare him away.

There's nothing a real preacher loves more than being told it's time to preach the word.

I would preach 300 times a day if you would let me. Because this is what

God has called preachers to do, to open their mouths and proclaim in the presence of God, for the sake of God's people, the word.

This is why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9, verse 16, for if I proclaim the gospel,

I have nothing to boast. For I am under compulsion. For woe is me if I do not proclaim the gospel.

So this is not just something that I enjoy to do. It is something I must do. And it's something that Timothy must do.

And every preacher must have this same feeling. They must be obligated.

They must have, as Jeremiah did, fire in their bones. If they do not, they will fall.

They will crumble. And when they are challenged to change their sound doctrine, to tone their message down, to yell a little less, they will cower.

But not real preachers, not this Timothy. To preach the word, he says.

The same word that saved you, the same word that sustained you, the same word you watched me and your family live out, the same word that is

God -breathed and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be equipped, having been thoroughly equipped for every good work.

So Paul's command here, his divine imperative, the charge itself, is authoritative in nature.

Now, this command here is forceful. And it's rooted in the

Greek word charusa, which literally means to proclaim as a herald.

So if you're ever wondering what in the world preach means, it means to herald. The idea here is like an imperial messenger that would have existed in olden days before,

I don't know, Facebook, before email, before text messages. And a message would need to get across to the land.

And a king would send a messenger. And that messenger would go about.

And he would have usually a person that is sent with him to make sure that he actually said what it was that the king told him to say.

Because if he didn't say what the king told him to say, he would be killed by the person who was sent with him. And the person who was sent with him would then take over and proclaim that thing which he was supposed to say.

These heralds were to go into the streets and to announce victories of war. To announce special events.

To announce the appearing of a coming king or emperor or even duties that the public needed to engage in.

New laws or government policies and actions. Or even as simple as dinner requests to very, very important people.

And if those men were to be judged harshly and strictly for getting this king's message right, how much more should the message of the herald get the message right?

This is why he tells Timothy in 1 Timothy 3 to be absorbed in the scriptures. If you don't have time to be absorbed in the scriptures, you don't have time to preach.

You just don't. Because you must understand that heralding the word of God is done bearing the weight of divine authority.

This is why the Heidelberg Catechism, for example, says, of course, if the word is correctly interpreted and applied, the preaching of the word of God is the word of God.

Not that pastors speak the word of God. They're not fianustasing

God's words. But they're preaching God's words.

In other words, Paul was wanting Timothy to be like John the Baptist who came preaching in the wilderness of Judea saying, repent for the kingdom is at hand.

And who then proclaimed the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. It's not just transformation of information.

It's urging. It's heralding. It's speaking the beauties of the truth of the gospel.

It's demanding repentance. And it's pointing to the beauties and glories of Jesus Christ and the gospel therein.

His perfect atoning death and sacrifice on behalf of sinners as he absorbed the wrath of God on their behalf.

And as he extends the spirit then to change and regenerate hearts. It is the only thing that saves the sinner and sanctifies the saint.

So it must be heralded. It must not just be taught. All preaching has teaching in it.

But you can teach without preaching. Preaching is not teaching. It's not a one for one correlation.

And as Martin Lloyd -Jones has said, if you have to ask the difference between preaching and teaching, it's evidence you have never heard preaching. Preaching is heralding.

It's proclaiming. It's urging reality.

But it's not just heralding anything.

It's heralding the word. So he's to have, Timothy here, a singular focus.

What is he to herald? The word. The word.

In other words, the scriptures. Everything we have just spent the last three weeks talking about.

The Old and New Testaments. All of God's revealed truth.

The Sacred Writings, according to verse 15. That Theanistos, God breathed scripture, according to verse 16.

The sound doctrine found in verse 3 of chapter 4. It is the very breathed out word of God.

His complete revealed truth. Which interestingly enough, the Apostle Paul calls in Acts 20, verse 27, the whole purpose of God.

Here's why you don't need any other revelation. It's why you don't need dreams or visions or promptings or so on and so forth.

Because in the scriptures is laid forth the whole purpose of God. Not part of the purpose of God, but the whole purpose of God, which is why preachers are to proclaim it.

This is why he is just referred to it, as I said in verse 14, as the Sacred Writings and the very scriptures themselves.

So it is the preacher's task to take this word and to herald it. To proclaim it.

To expound it. To explain it. And here is a word that I want you to take home.

Exalt it. Exalt the word.

Exalt in it and exalt it. Because it's everything.

It's God's word to us. And God's preachers,

God's herald, are not to dilute or deviate from the word. When it comes to preaching, there is no room for personal opinion.

No room for cultural conformity. No room for compromise.

No room for flinching.

And if you are the flinching type, it's okay. The Lord sanctifies everyone. Just do not pick up a Bible to preach it.

Because the reality is enemies, critics will come at you with haymakers.

They will look to tap you out. And if you are unwilling to stand on the word of God and the word of God, no matter the consequence, then you are simply a hireling.

You are not a shepherd. You are not a preacher. You are not a Timothy. And you are not a

Paul. Stand firm. Come what may.

No matter how many friends you lose, no matter how many knives you have to your throat like the Apostle Paul, no matter how many people turn on you in the church like Timothy, you preach the word.

And the good news behind all of this is that the spiritual power and effectiveness of preaching the word does not rest in the skill of the preacher, but in the truth, but in the word.

As I have said since this series began and as I have said since this church began, the word is what does the work.

The word of Christ is what is preached to the people of Christ as it is applied by the spirit of Christ.

By all accounts, it is easy to essentially assume that Paul was not considered a great preacher.

There are parts of 1 Corinthians and other letters where he seems to be defending the fact that everybody's like, dude, you're on the bottom of the totem pole.

Orally speaking, and Paul says on many occasions, so what?

It's all about the word. It's all about Christ. It's all about the word and it's all about Christ.

In fact, Paul says that in many ways, he did that on purpose because if he came in there and he just wooed everybody with his ability to get them to drink whatever

Kool -Aid he wanted to give them, then he would empty the word of God of its power. He would empty the gospel of its very power and he wanted to take away nothing from that reality.

So a silver tongue is not qualifies you to get behind a pulpit. That's good news for me.

What qualifies you to get behind a pulpit is a radical and complete trust in this word that must be preached.

And ultimately, one who stands before God and from God.

So why? Why is preaching the word so necessary, especially in the context of the local church?

Why is faithful and full proclamation of the word the only right way to preach?

And let me just lay my cards on the table. There is a right way to preach and a wrong way to preach. The right way to preach is to preach the word.

The wrong way to preach is to preach everything else. Got it?

And what I mean by that is you're preaching the context of the word.

You're preaching the word in its context. You're preaching the word as it is. You're not coming up with an idea and saying, oh, that verse will prove that thing.

Right? You're saying, this is what this word meant in this context to these people at this time.

And this is what it means for you. And it's all of it. Why? Why is that?

Well, there are five things that I want you to consider. Firstly, when you preach God's word and not just words about God or words influenced by God's word or your word that God's word helps.

When you preach God's word, God speaks and not the preacher. When you preach the

God's word, when Timothy preaches God's word, God speaks and not the preacher. In other words, if I am preaching the text as it is here, not just reading it, but expounding it and applying it correctly, you're hearing from God, not me.

Now, of course, my personality is wrapped up in it to some degree and God uses me. But the spirit is using the word to chisel and mold you into the image of his son.

He's using the word to save and to sanctify. He's using the word to do the work of the ministry of heritage.

Secondly, when you preach God's word, you preach the whole counsel of God. Here's what I mean by that.

When you preach the whole word, you're not getting off the hook. You're touching things that otherwise would not get touched.

For instance, when I got to Ephesians chapter four, verses seven through 10, when it talks about Christ descending into hell, well,

I gotta be honest with you. If I could have preached something else that weekend,

I would have. And the reason for that is because there's so many landmines there. And man,

I gotta be sure, which means I didn't sleep that week because I can't stand in this pulpit and tell you something,

I think this means this. No, I've got to mine the caverns of scripture in order to be of help.

Or when you get to passages, for example, in first Corinthians that speak about homosexuality, today's culture, it's an easy one to want to skip because you might get bludgeoned on the internet.

You might get bludgeoned in the back, depending on who's in the congregation after the service. You'll be thrown up on the internet as a bigot.

You'll have hometown newspapers write fake stories about how horrible of a human being you are.

I know that happened to me when I preached on homosexuality a couple of years ago. These things happen.

But it delivers a more robust diet for the people of God when you preach the word of God.

And they get to hear the things that you would otherwise want to skip over, not just because they're hard, but also because maybe they're not your pet projects.

How many times have you heard preachers who literally just talk about the same thing over and over and over and over again? And I don't mean just because we're in that section of scripture, right?

Because we've been talking about the nature of the church in Ephesians 4 for quite a while, but that's because that's where we're at. But if I, for instance, opened up the

Bible and I said, hey, we're going to go through Exodus and I'm going to start talking about the nature of the church, well, that wouldn't make any sense at all.

You preach what's in Exodus. You preach what's in Leviticus. You preach what's in Romans. You preach what's in Ephesians when you're in Ephesians.

And when you're looking at 2 Timothy, you're preaching what's in 2 Timothy. So when you preach the whole, when you preach

God's word, you're preaching truths that many believers might find hard to learn or accept.

And that's helpful. It produces a non -shallow pulpit. Third, when you preach

God's word, it promotes biblical literacy in the church. One of the things that I say repeatedly over and over here at Heritage is that I am trying to work myself out of a job.

And what I mean by that is, I want to show you not just what the word says, but what

I want to do is show you how I got to the answer. So that you don't just rely on me, but you actually see, oh, that's where he got that.

That's why he said that. That's why we talk about grammar and syntax.

And that's why we talk about cross -references and background and context and these sorts of things.

Fourthly, when you preach God's word, it carries with it ultimate authority. If I'm just telling you things, it really doesn't matter all that much.

But if I'm telling you God's things, well, that makes all the difference in the world.

Man just has opinions, but God, when he speaks, he has truth.

He has decrees. He has promises that will never break.

And fifthly, and lastly, when you preach God's word, the preaching transforms both the preacher and his hearers.

You see, when I study the word to preach for you, that's like an extra Bible study for me, right?

I'm in the word all the time for myself, and then I'm in the word for myself and for you. And so it is always chiseling my heart.

It is always laying me bare before the Lord. It is always transforming me and sanctifying me.

But it also does the same to you. My opinions can't transform you.

It can't sanctify you. But God's word accompanied by his spirit, as it is preached faithfully, will.

So preaching the word is something that must be urgently obeyed.

And as we see here, Paul is underscoring the very reality that this is an urgent need.

It's not just preach the word sometime. It's a now kind of a thing.

The Greek here stresses immediate action. It is not simply a suggestion, but a duty to be done.

A job to be exhausted. It is to be done without delay or hesitation.

Paul says in Colossians 1, 25 through 29 to this end, I was made a minister.

Speaking of the word, according to the stewardship from God given to me for you, so that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God.

That is the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to his saints to whom

God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of the mystery among the

Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom so that we may present every man complete in Christ.

You guys know that that's the purpose of preaching. And we're gonna get into that more next week, but it's so that we can present all of you to the

Lord Jesus as complete in Christ. Not that you will be perfect, but that you would be made ready to stand before him and to be received by him.

And Paul continues on for this purpose, I also labor, striving according to his working, which he works in me in power.

It is the prerogative. It is the duty.

It is the command of every preacher in light of this command given to Timothy to preach the word because he stands before God and for his people.

It is a under physician proclaiming the remedies that the great physician has bestowed on them in the written word.

Now, I want you to imagine in closing a doctor who has a cure for a terminal disease, the worst disease, one that will leave you dead if you do not have his cure.

But instead of giving these patients in dire straits this cure, this vial of goodness, he offers them quaint messages and motivational speeches.

And he does so in the name of Jesus. We wouldn't say that that man was mistaken.

We wouldn't say that that man tried hard enough and he loved his people.

No, we would say that man was evil and he hated those people.

It would be a tragic betrayal of the worst kind. And in the same way, preachers who are entrusted with the very word of God, and that is every preacher, at least who lives in America, you can get a

Bible. And if not, find me the person who doesn't have one and I will get it to them. Everyone entrusted with the very word of God, with this life -giving message that they have been charged to herald must deliver it faithfully and they must give them the cure.

And if they do not, they are not a preacher. They are not a good man.

They are evil men. They are not mistaken or goodwilled. It is important for every minister of the gospel.

And this is what Paul is trying to get across to Timothy. No matter what, preach the word, which means for you, the hearer, you must receive the word with reverence, knowing it is

God's own voice speaking to you when it is interpreted and applied correctly.

And once again, the best gift you could ever give any of your pastors is to pray for them to be faithful heralds of the truth, no matter what comes their way, no matter what hate, no matter what.

And by the way, we're living in a time where the internet is so crazy and that this church could very easily be attacked verbally, who knows, physically, and it will all start right here.

And you want a pastor, you want a preacher like Timothy, like Paul, what

Paul is saying, Timothy, be this type of preacher, who will stand his ground, who will not waver in the face of pressure and compromise, but who will take the beatings, even to the point of death, even to the point of a jail cell, even to the point of being discounted.

Because at the end of the day, preachers labor for an audience of one and his name is

Christ Jesus. It is that important.

Pray with me. Father, we thank you. We thank you for your word and we thank you for the preachers of your word and we thank you that you've given them this mandate to preach the word.

And we ask that as we engage the rest of this series and as we engage the rest of our life here on this earth, that we would, whether we're a part of heritage or not, that we would so prize the preached word and so prize preachers of the word, not because they're better than anyone else, but because they have been given a weighty task that requires all of them and that you would help us.

To rest in the preaching of your word. And we ask that the spirit would do his work through the word.

We ask this in Jesus name, amen. If you want to be a preacher of God's word, as it has been said by other people, and I'll say again, it doesn't take much.

It just takes every fiber of your being.