A Peculiar Act of Worship — John Piper

Prayer for Faithful and Clear Preaching

Let me pray. Father, come and help me be faithful to your word. Help me to be clear. Grant us communion of understanding and heart. Teach us from your word about the nature of preaching, I pray, and how glorious the calling is.

In Jesus' name, amen. So our focus is on preaching, and specifically preaching understood as expository exaltation. So that's what I call preaching. And so my point for these next 45 minutes or so is to just explain what I mean by that phrase, expository exaltation.

Expository Exaltation as Exulting Over Biblical Truth

And we were talking in the car on the way down that there's a translation problem with the word exaltation, because in English it's a problem. There are two words in English, exaltation spelled with an A, exaltation, and exaltation spelled with a U, exaltation.

Those are not the same words in English. And I am using the word exaltation, and here's the difference. When you exalt someone, you praise them. You make them great. You build them up, exalt. You exalt somebody by saying good things about them.

That's not the word I'm using, though it's a great word, especially in relation to God. When you exalt with a U, you don't do it to anybody. You do it over something. I exalt over this singing. I'm exalting over your singing.

I'm exalting over God's grace. I'm exalting over my wife. So I do the exalting, and I don't do it to anything. That's the word I'm using. And here's the reason it matters. Because I'm arguing that preaching should be an exaltation in me, in the preacher.

He's doing an exalting over what he sees in the Bible. He sees great things in the Bible, and his heart exalts over them. And in doing that, he exalts them. He makes much of them. So my Christian hedonism that I preached on the past few days, that God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in him, is built right into this definition of preaching.

When the preacher is satisfied in what he's seeing, he's loving it, he's enjoying it. And in that way, he makes much of God. He makes much of the truth, makes much of scripture. So that's the end of my definition problem.

Expository Preaching Explains the Meaning of Scripture

So let's see if we can just get into it. What do I mean by expository? That one's pretty plain, I think. I mean that all preaching should be the explanation of the meaning of text in the Bible, the explanation of passages of scripture.

And by that, I mean, what did the biblical authors originally intend to communicate? What did they intend to communicate? And since I believe they were inspired by God, that's the same as saying, what did God intend to communicate?

Which means a preacher is not preaching his own ideas. He's trying to shape his ideas by what is intended by these original words. That's exposition. We are explaining what is in the Bible. And I would add this, good preaching shows the people how he got the meaning from the text.

Like you might close your Bible and say, the Bible says, like Billy Graham, the Bible says, and then state your doctrine. Well, how do they know? How do they know whether the Bible says? You say the Bible says, how do they know if you don't show them?

So I think good preaching takes people to the text and explains the text in such a way that the people can see the meaning in the text. Otherwise, you become the authority, not God. The authority is here, right?

The authority is not here, not here. This is not the authority. This is the authority. So the people, when they hear words coming out of my mouth, they need to see that those words have been shaped by this.

So that's what I mean by expository. You say what the Bible intends, and you explain it in a way that the people can see it's really there because the authority is here. That's what I mean by expository.

Exalting Over the Beauty of Biblical Truth

Now, what about exaltation? The preacher, when he's preaching, should exalt over the beauty of the truth that he sees in the text. The text does not just have meaning. It has beauty. It has worth. It has value.

It has greatness. And the heart of the preacher should correspond to the beauty and the worth, the value, the greatness of what he's seeing in the text. That's exaltation. Now, I know that not all biblical truth is beautiful.

Sin is not beautiful. Death is not beautiful. Hell is not beautiful, and they must be preached. So here's how I put those together. When a preacher preaches on sin, preaches on death, preaches on hell, he does so precisely in the service of the beauty of the gospel.

He takes up hell. He takes up sin. He takes up death in order to make God look glorious, God look beautiful, the gospel look great, which means that even though he will, in his heart, groan over sin, groan over hell, groan over the death of someone in the congregation, that groaning in the context of the sermon is going to serve the exaltation over what a great God we have, what a great gospel we have.

I love to preach at funerals. I would rather preach at a funeral than a wedding any day. People are in need of help at a funeral. They want you to say something, help me deal with this. At a wedding, they just want you to be finished, like, get out of the way.

We got other things to do. Although, I just preached at my daughter's wedding Saturday a week ago. It was 10 days ago, whatever. And I loved it. I preached from Isaiah 57, 15. The Lord is high and lifted up and dwells with those who are of a lowly and contrite spirit to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the hearts of the contrite.

And I looked in their eyes and I said, He will revive you a thousand times. He will revive this marriage a thousand times. So, expository exaltation. We faithfully preach when we make the meaning of the scriptures clear so that people can see the meaning that's really there.

And we preach when that meaning moves us. We love what we are seeing in the Bible. We rejoice over it. We exult in it. And when those two come together, expository exaltation, you have preaching. That's my understanding of preaching.

Avoiding Intellectualism and Emotionalism in Preaching

So, if biblical truth is clear from our mouths, but the preciousness and the sweetness of the truth is not clear from our hearts, we're not preaching. We're lying. We're lying about the truth. If we explain something perfectly, the meaning is crystal clear and our whole demeanor, our whole countenance and voice and heart communicates, that's of no significance to me.

That has no value for me. We're lying. We're not telling the truth about the beauty and the truth and the value. Preaching cannot just be accurate interpretation. It's not preaching. It's lying because the truth is so valuable.

Or, to turn it around, if our excitement abounds, our hearts are full, and the truth is not in our mouth, we're preaching some other god, a misinterpretation of the Bible. We're not preaching. We're performing.

Just lots of energy, lots of waving your arms around, and no truth coming out of the mouth. That's not preaching. So, you can make a mistake over here with emotionalism, and you can make a mistake over here with intellectualism.

Get your meaning precisely right and have no feelings. It's blank, dull, dead, nothing. That's not preaching. That's lying. Or, you can be all excited, and you're not saying anything worth hearing. You're not telling the truth.

You're not taking people deep into the riches. That's not preaching. That's just performing. So, I'm pretty picky about what I think preaching is. Now, here's my question. That's my definition, my effort to explain what it is.

God's Glory as the Purpose of All Things

Why does expository exaltation exist? Or, to put it another way, why did God plan that expository exaltation should be an essential part of Christian worship? Why? To answer that question, I want to go all the way back before creation and ask, why does anything exist?

I don't think you can answer why preaching exists in worship without asking the question and answering it, why does anything exist? My answer to that question, why does anything or everything exist, is that God has created, God governs, God redeems, God consummates everything for his glory.

Isaiah 43 .6, bring my sons from afar, my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone whom I created for my glory. Creation is for the glory of God. The heavens are telling the glory of God, Psalm 19.

Or, Isaiah 48 .9 to 11, for my name's sake, I defer my anger. For the sake of my praise, I restrain it for you. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it. How shall my name be profaned, my glory I will not give to another.

I think that's probably the most God-centered three verses in the Bible. Isaiah 48 .9 to 11. Or, Ephesians 1 verse 4, God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. He predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace.

So, not only did he create all things for his glory, he chose and predestined and redeemed through Christ for the praise of his glorious grace, or the praise of his, the glory of his grace. Or, Colossians 1 .16, all things were created through Christ and for Christ.

That sentence, all things were created through Christ and for Christ, is the banner or the motto over the little school that we started at our church. It's an amazing sentence. Everything, computers, pianos, lighting, woodwork, floors, walls, trees, air, human beings, clothes are for Christ.

If that gets a hold of your congregation, things will be amazing. Romans 11 .36, from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever and ever. So, those are just a few passages.

There are dozens and dozens of passages to the effect that, why does everything exist? Everything exists for the glory of God. Everything is to him, everything is for him, everything is for his glory, everything is for his namesake, everything is to the praise of the glory of his grace.

So, the ultimate purpose of everything, everything, no exceptions, Satan included, the ultimate purpose of everything is the glory of God in Christ communicated to the world as great and beautiful and valuable.

So, God created all things, sustains all things, guides all things, controls all things, redeems his people, brings everything to consummation in order to communicate the greatness, the beauty, and the value of his glory.

God's Glory and the Biblical Meaning of Love

Until you get that big picture, you can't really answer the question, why preaching? Why is there such a thing as preaching in the world and in worship? God's communication of his glory as the highest value in the universe is what love is.

Now, I say that just because I don't know how it is here in Holland, but in America, most Christians have been raised on the love of God as the central reality in the universe and the central reality in their experience, the love of God.

And so, they will ask me, well, you just spent 10 minutes explaining that God's ultimate purpose in all things is to display and communicate his glory. Where's the love of God? Well, why haven't you mentioned the love of God?

Isn't that central to why things exist? And my answer to that is God's communication of the greatness, the beauty, and the worth of his glory to us for our everlasting enjoyment is what love is. And that's shocking to a lot of people because they don't think of love as primarily God giving God to us for our enjoyment of God.

They think of love as God helping us do what we want to do. I want to get married. If you help me get married, I feel loved. I want to get a job. If you help me get a job, I feel loved. I want to get well from this sickness.

If you make me well, I will feel loved. And all that's true. It's true. It's just not the main thing. The main way God loves people is by giving himself through Jesus Christ to people so that people can enjoy what satisfies, namely, God.

Health doesn't satisfy. Marriage doesn't satisfy. Jobs don't satisfy. God satisfies. If God doesn't give me God, he doesn't love me. You have to have a God-centered view of the universe even to know what love is in the Bible.

So my answer, where is love in this picture? It's everywhere. And you add to that that in order to give himself to us so that we could see and enjoy his worth and his beauty and his greatness, when we're dead in trespasses and sins, his Son died for us.

So in this is love, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So God has not only given himself to us to see and enjoy, he has removed every obstacle, his wrath and our sin, so that we could see him and enjoy him forever.

Christian Living for the Glory of God

So now the question becomes, okay, if the reason everything exists is for the glory of God, that is God's communication of himself to us for our enjoyment, what does that have to do with Christian living and then finally Christian preaching?

Just a word about Christian living. If this was a different conference, we would do the whole conference on what difference does that make for Christian living. But the answer, of course, as you know, is 1 Corinthians 10 31.

Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, that's very sweeping. Whatever you do, nothing is left out. Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. So if God created everything for his glory and you exist, you exist for his glory.

And if you think or feel or act, you should think for his glory, feel for his glory, act for his glory. That is, think and feel and act in such a way as to make him look more valuable than anything. Did you get that?

We should think and feel and act in such a way that God appears to be more valuable than anything. That's what glorify means. Make God look more valuable than anything. So very practically for everybody in your church and you, it means eat, eat in order to show that God is more valuable than food.

Drink to show that God is more valuable than drink. Earn your money and spend your money in such a way that shows God is more valuable than money. Treat sex, deal with sex in your own life and in the world.

Treat sex in a way that shows God is more valuable than sex. Wear clothing, dress, teach the men and the women in your church to wear clothes that show that God is more valuable than clothes. That's what it means to do everything for the glory of God, which requires a good deal of thinking, a good deal of thinking.

Is the way I'm dressing drawing attention to the supreme value of God in my life? Is the way I'm eating drawing attention to the fact that God is supremely valuable in my life? Or am I giving the impression that I'm in bondage to this food?

It's really practical that God made the universe for his glory. It's very practical. So that's enough on that. We could, that's a whole conference. Do that another time, come back to Holland for another conference.

Preaching as a Unique Act of Worship

Let's talk, let's finish up on preaching. Why preaching? In view of the fact that God does everything for his glory, why is there expository exaltation? So I'm clearly arguing that preaching is expository exaltation and that belongs in your stated weekly worship services.

Preaching as expository exaltation belongs in those services because it is absolutely unique and peculiar in the way it brings glory to God. God is glorified in the preacher. God is glorified in the people.

Now to get, to explain this further, let's open our Bibles to 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 16 to chapter 4 verse 4. I'm going to read 2 Timothy 3 16, 3 16, chapter 3 verse 16 and then we'll read down to chapter 4 verse 4.

And you should pretend that the chapter division does not exist because it didn't originally. And chapter divisions trip us up very often by making us think Paul took a vacation between chapter 3 and 4 and he didn't even take a breath in fact.

2 Timothy 3 16, all scripture is breathed out, inspired, breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

I charge you in the, so don't don't even pause, I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead and by his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word. And I'm going to argue the word that I was just talking about.

Don't make up some new word, I just, I'm just talking about the God-breathed word. That's why the chapter division is a problem. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching. Hmm, interesting.

So preach the word because the time is coming when people won't endure sound teaching. So we got to wrestle with how teaching and preaching relate to each other. But having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

So I have four observations from this text to bring, to bring us to a conclusion. And you can ask questions later about this. I hope you do. Observation number one, the setting of preaching. So in verse two, preach the word, preach the word.

Preaching to the Gathered Church

The setting of preaching in this text is not the market square where evangelism happens. It is right to preach in public to unbelievers. That's good, that's right, happens all through acts, right? That's not what this text is talking about.

And the reason we know that is because in verse three, the argument for why he gives to Timothy why he should preach the word is because professing Christians are going to be turning away from the word, right?

The time is coming when, you see this in verse three, the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching. So who's that talking about? That's not talking about unbelievers passing you on the street.

That's talking about a gathered group of believers who over time drift away, fall away. They reject sound teaching. So this is a setting in which Paul is saying, preach the word among Christians. When you gather, let there be preaching.

Now, in every generation, I haven't lived in Holland. I don't know how it is here. I'll just tell you my experience and then what I see in history as well. I've been more or less a public minister about 50 years or so.

And in every generation, I would say every 30 years or so, there's a new wave of opposition to preaching, new kinds of opposition. Like, we don't need that anymore. We don't need preaching anymore. That's old.

That one-way communication from one male human being, especially a white male human being, to another group of people who just sit there, that's just so out of date. And so let's replace it with dialogue and conversation and discussion and drama and dance and movie clips and so on.

That's just so predictable, so predictable. And it'll happen. If it isn't happening now, it'll happen in 10 years and you'll have to be ready for it. So for 2 ,000 years, I think, especially since the Reformation recovered the gospel power of preaching, there have been obstacles and objections to it.

But my argument is, and we'll try to see it in the rest of these three points that I'm going to make, my argument is there is something God ordained and God designed about expository exaltation over this inspired Word that cannot be replaced by anything.

Now, don't make a mistake. I think preaching is only one place in the church where Bible-saturated ministry happens. I think there ought to be small groups saturated with the Bible, counseling saturated with the Bible, evangelism saturated with the Bible, Sunday school classes saturated with the Bible.

I'm not calling any of that into question. I'm saying if you think those can replace preaching, then you're not grasping this text, I would argue. Paul says, preach the Word. So let's go to that one. Observation number two, in verse two, when you see the phrase, preach the Word, that's a command to Timothy, the pastor, preach the Word, the Word is keruxon, all right, from kerusso, keruxon ton logon, an imperative of kerusso, and the Word is not teach, it's not discuss, it's not share, kerusso has a particular meaning, it's the work of a herald, that word, you know that word in English, herald, a town crier, hear ye, hear ye, hear ye, the king has a message, he opens his scroll like this, you know, this is before internet, before television, before radio, you've got to have a way of communication from the king in Rome to all over, how do you do it?

You send town criers, they're called heralds, they're called kerux, they're called people who do this preaching, the king has a message, all the rebels who will lay down their arms and accept the terms of the treaty will be forgiven by the king, that's preaching, keruxon ton logon, you're announcing, you're declaring the news from an authority, from the king, and by implication, here's my argument, now you, this is a little bit of a jump, so you can reject this without rejecting the Bible, I hope you don't reject it, I'm arguing that a faithful herald, a faithful town crier, a faithful preacher cannot be indifferent to the worth of his message, if he's indifferent, if he communicates that the worth of the message is small, this is not very important folks, but it's my job, I'm supposed to do this, you know, the king paid me to travel and read this to you, if that's what the people are seeing, you're not a faithful town crier, because you're dishonoring the king, you're not honoring the king, if you say, well, my job is to tell you what he says, but I think frankly the message is boring, and there are a lot of preachers who preach that way, it's sad, some of them are broken men, they're just emotionally broken, they don't have, they didn't grow up in homes where there was any exaltation, their fathers never said anything positive about them, they're just discouraged people, making a living trying to tell you what's in the Bible, that's just sad, that's sad, and if you know preachers like that, or you are one, get some men around you and ask for help, you need help, we're all broken, okay, we're all broken people emotionally, there are no perfectly whole people, and cultures are different, good grief, I'm watching this Dutch culture and thinking, hmm, that's different, that's a different way to do Sunday morning than we do it for sure, so I want to take that into account, you got cultural issues, you got family issues, you got personality issues, all kinds of issues, mental health issues that govern how you come across as a pastor, and I'm pleading with you, if you are communicating that what you are explaining is not very precious, not very beautiful, not very valuable, you need to take a break.

The Preacher's Soul and the Worth of the Message

I took an eight-month break, I asked my church for an eight-month leave in 2010, I said I just need to do a soul check, s-o-u-l, soul check, I want to check my motives, I want to check my marriage, I want to check my parenting, I want to check my whole life, and I need to step back to make sure I'm not being driven by the world, by books, by notoriety, and so it's okay, it's okay, I mean I hope you have elders and a church that would give you a break and let you search your soul, because if the soul isn't right with God, it's going to be very hard to be a faithful town crier, a faithful herald of the Word of God.

Paul said in Ephesians 3, 8, to me this grace was given, and I think all you pastors should be able to say this with Paul, to me this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles, the nations, all the people, to preach them the unsearchable riches of Christ.

What a summary of his job. My job is to unroll the scroll of the king's book and make these people see the unsearchable riches, which means if you don't have capacities to feel them, you got a problem, because how are your people going to know there are riches here?

It's better than money, it's better than sex, it's better than fame. How are they going to know that? How are they going to feel that if their preacher doesn't look like that's true? I visit churches when we're on vacation, and Noel and I go to churches, and we walk out, and I just think, why would anybody go back?

He just beat them up. He gave them some moralistic advice. There's nothing glorious, nothing beautiful, nothing big, nothing enriching, nothing ennobling, nothing powerful, nothing. It was just, you might as well go to a secular how-to person, and that's really sad.

So, unsearchable riches is what we handle, and we are responsible to preach it. Kerouxon ton logon. Third observation. Right there in verse 2, it says, preach the word, the word, ton logon. Now, my argument is that in the context, if you ignore the chapter division, that is referring to the scriptures of verse 16, chapter 3.

Preaching the Whole Counsel of God

All scriptures are inspired by God, they're profitable for all this equipping, because he said, preach the word, and he said, preach the word, that word. So, that's my argument, which means... Now, Paul's referring to the Old Testament, right?

New Testament hadn't been written yet. He's writing it. So, when he says, preach the word, he means the first two-thirds of your Bible. Now, you guys are good at singing that. I get you sing psalms on Sunday.

That's good. We can talk in the Q &A whether you should only sing psalms on Sunday. I have my opinion. But wouldn't you all... What we can agree on is that when he says the scriptures are inspired, he means the whole book, because by implication, Jesus was making provision for his apostles to preserve the whole counsel of God.

So, we've got a book, and when he says, preach the word in the context of the inspiration of the scriptures, he means preach the whole word. So, there's a whole counsel of God here. Now, I know the book is too big.

It's really too big to preach carefully on every phrase in the Bible in a 50-year ministry. You can't do it. It won't happen. So, you have to be selective and do overviews for some places and dig down deep into other places, but the whole book is important.

The whole book equips. I try to read through the whole Bible every year. I have done that for 30 years at least. The whole Bible every year. I'm on pace as of yesterday. I've got an app on my Bible, Logos Bible Software.

It's a discipleship journal. It tells me exactly how much I need to read every day, so I read it on my iPad, and I love it. I love it, and I cannot overemphasize the effect it has, whether you understand all the particularities of Leviticus or all the particularities of Obadiah, the effect that the whole Bible has on your mind and heart to make you a faithful interpreter of its parts is simply enormous.

It's huge, so I would encourage so much reading through and immersing yourself in the whole Bible, but this third point is simply that the focus of your preaching is the Word, and let me say one more thing before we look at our last point.

Words as Windows into God's Glory

When I say the Word, I mean to draw attention to the fact that it is a remarkable thing, an amazing thing, that God has chosen to communicate the riches of His glory through words, Dutch words, English words, Greek words, Hebrew words, which means that we have to take those words really seriously and be good students.

How do these words become phrases? How do the phrases become clauses? How do the clauses fit together logically to make a paragraph that has an argument? How do the paragraphs fit together to make a flow of arguments so that I can show the people how it makes sense?

That's amazing that God...it's like the incarnation, isn't it? That God would become a human being and that God's Word would become prepositional phrases, verbs, nouns. It's just amazing, which means it may feel when you're studying Greek or just doing a very serious Bible study in Dutch, it may feel, oh, this is so ordinary and nitty-gritty and it's like going to school again, you know, and you're handling infinitely valuable things.

And so I think of words as windows. When they are rightly understood, words are windows through which we see unsearchable riches, and that's what your people have to experience. That's why I think a lot about expository exaltation.

They have to see the words with you. With your help, they have to see how those words are communicating a glorious, life-changing truth, and then they have to see that pastor really believes this. He really feels the value of this.

I'm going to come back just to watch him next time. I'm going to watch him enjoy this. Remember, you don't know this story probably, but Benjamin Franklin, who wrote our Declaration of Independence from England, what, 250 years ago, Benjamin Franklin was a good friend of George Whitefield.

Franklin was a deist. He didn't believe anything about the Bible, except that it wasn't true. Whitefield was a glorious gospel minister who preached the gospel, and they were friends. And somebody asked Franklin, why do you go hear him?

You don't believe anything he says. He said, but he does. That's really significant, man. People will come back who don't believe what you say because they've never seen anybody that really is serious, humble, serious, and passionate about something.

And they start to feel like, yikes, this may be true. Okay, one more observation. I said we needed to talk about the relationship between teaching and preaching. So here we are now in chapter four, and I'm going to argue now that preaching, as I've tried to describe it, includes teaching.

Teaching as an Essential Part of Preaching

It's more than teaching, but not less than teaching. And the reason I say that is just because of the way Paul argues here. Isn't it strange? He says in verse two, preach, that's keruso, preach the word.

And the reason he says we must faithfully preach the word is the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching. That doesn't even make sense unless teaching is in preaching. Preach the word, because if you don't preach the word, people are going to leave sound teaching.

So didosco, teach, would be explain it. Make sure they understand it. Do the hard work of explaining, illustrating. You've got to help your people understand hard things. They weren't born understanding justification.

They don't have a clue what that is, or sanctification, or glorification, or redemption, or atonement, or propitiation. They don't know anything about those things. Explain, explain, explain, and in the explaining, exalt, exalt, exalt.

So don't hear me making a hard distinction between teaching and preaching. Good preaching, since I call it expository, has teaching in it. It's like the town crier who opens his message from the king, that would be the bible, and he reads, the king declares that there will be an amnesty for all rebels who will lay down their arms and trust the king's provision.

And the little boy in the front row says, I don't know that word amnesty. It's the job of the town crier to make sure they know what he just said. I said there's an amnesty. Well, little fella, it means that he won't count your dad's rebellion against him if he would come and lay down his sword here and swear allegiance to the king.

He won't, he won't punish him. He'll let it go. He'll, he'll make peace. So you gotta explain things. And boy, we need to be good at that. We need to be good explainers. I think your people, there's so many people who think that people need to be entertained.

You know what? People know that churches cannot entertain them as well as YouTube can entertain them. Churches can't compete with television. Churches can't compete with the internet, and they don't expect you to.

If they're coming, if they want to visit, if somebody invites them to come, they want to know, now these people say they believe in God, and they say this book has value. Show me. Tell me. Explain it to me.

They want to hear God. What does God have to say? And they, when they read something, they say, I don't get that at all. That makes no sense to me whatsoever. And you're looking right at them, and you say, I get that.

I know you don't understand that. Let me take five minutes to unpack that and illustrate that for you so you get it. I just think there's thousands of people who want to do that in your church. They want to, they want to come and say, come on, show me something glorious.

Show me something beautiful. Make it crystal clear to me. Treat me as a person with a brain and a person with a heart and a mind and hands, and I just might wake up to the truth. So teaching is involved in expository exaltation.

Clarifying Truth and Magnifying Its Worth

So let me conclude. The heralding of God's Word should happen in such a way that it includes exaltation and exposition. So exaltation over the beauties of the King's message and exposition that labors to make the King's meaning clear.

So the message has beauty and worth, value, greatness, and exaltation manifests that. And the exposition is helping the people understand it in their minds. So we clarify the truth and the reality of the King's meaning, and we magnify the beauty and worth of the King's message.

Now let me circle back where I was at the beginning. How has God designed preaching to glorify God? How has He done that? How does preaching become worship that helps other people worship? Become God glorifying in a way that helps other people glorify God?

And it boils down to something very simple. See if I can put it like this. God is glorified by His truth being rightly known. Okay, that's my first step. God is glorified by His truth being rightly known.

And secondly, His worth being rightly felt. Those two things. So in preaching, your people have minds and your people have hearts. To glorify God in the realm of the mind, truth, rightly understood, God rightly understood.

So we got to have our doctrine clear and faithful to the Bible. And then they have hearts. And they don't glorify God if their hearts don't cherish the worth of what you have just shown them in their minds.

If our knowledge of God is big and our affections for God are little, we don't glorify God the way we should. And if our affections, our emotions for God are big and overflowing, but the God we communicate is small or unbiblical, then we don't glorify God the way we should.

So God is glorified. God is worshiped when the preacher sees the truth about God and feels the preciousness of God in the biblical text. And he'll help his people live for the glory of God if he explains what he sees and exalts over what he feels.

That is faithful biblical preaching, expository exaltation. Amen. Let me pray and then we'll make a transition to the Q &A. Father, if I've said anything that is wrong or unbiblical or out of proportion, I pray that you'd protect these brothers from it.