Relevant Preaching

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Funeral Preaching and the Peace of Christ

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. Today is Tuesday. Therefore, Pastor Steve Esteban Cooley, welcome. Thank you for having me.

Thank you for having me. It�s such a rough day, though, that you�ve got the curtains drawn. I know.

I can�t see anything out there. Okay, so the other day, it was nighttime, because it gets dark here at 2 .30 in the afternoon. Don�t exaggerate. It�s 2 .45. And I was on the little, you know, whatever that stationary bicycle is, reading some Hebrews commentaries.

And somebody came over to that other window over there and just started knocking. I thought, I don�t know who you are. So I had these down. I thought, I�m not going to go over there and get off the bike, and you�re just knocking.

You could text me, you could ring the doorbell, you could call me, but you�re just knocking at the door. And I can�t see in, out, but you can see in. So if you�re that person, the number to call is BR -549.

Did he brandish a weapon? Yeah, could have, maybe, should have. Anything new in your life, besides your 19th grandchild? 20th, but who�s counting? Yeah.

Anything new? Well, you know, I mean, just the normal, humdrum, regular kind of thing. Although, you know, well, here�s something new. I�m going to California on the 19th, 20th, and 21st to do a funeral for my aunt.

Okay.

And do you have a passage ready for that, or how�s that going to work? Yeah.

In fact, I think, well, it�s from the Gospel of John, and because I just, I used this for Karen Yulo�s funeral. I don�t know that my aunt was actually a believer, but I�m going to use this passage anyway, and just kind of, because I just think, I�ve preached the gospel at a few funerals that my Mormon family members and pagan family members have been at, and I�m like, I never get kind of the conviction that I want.

So I thought, I�m just going to change things up a little bit, and I�m going to use this, which is, �Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you, not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

So I want to talk about what it means, why we would need peace, right? Because from just a general worldview, it doesn�t seem like we are in particular need of peace, but what, you know, what is Jesus talking about?

What�s the difference, the qualitative, quantitative difference between the peace he offers and the peace the world gives?

That�s excellent, and while I don�t like the circumstances surrounding funerals, I always am thankful that I have an opportunity to stand up and tell people the truth at a time where a lot of people are listening, and a time where etiquette disallows them from saying bad things while I�m talking.

Let�s just say, her husband, when her husband died, my uncle, and we were, my brother and I were close to my aunt and uncle. They were just really, I mean, quintessential, you know, if they lived in the Midwest, they would have been farmers, but they lived in Manhattan Beach on the coast, you know, and so they�re just really simple people.

My uncle ran a business, an auto repair shop his whole life, I mean, like 50 some odd years, you know, but they bought this house in the �50s, one bedroom, one bath. What city? Four boys, right, in Manhattan Beach, California.

So that house, you know, the house itself, he expanded it, I mean, I think eventually it�s like three bedrooms and two baths and a big, like, back room that he added on, a garage and stuff like that, but the house itself is going to go for, you know, over a million bucks, and they�re going to knock it down right away.

Yeah, the new people. Yeah, and put up, you know, condos or something there, so.

Bible Study, Free Books, and Church Culture Jokes

Steve, I know there�s other news in your life, and you�re preparing your new Bible study Friday nights and using Andy Stanley�s �Irresistible. How�s that working? It�s been really great so far.

You know, just trying to uncouple the truth from Christianity, so. Couple. That is not what I�m doing on Friday nights.

Steve, you know, we used to go to the CBD book sale in Peabody regularly four times a year, and it was such a, I mean, it was tiring, but wasn�t that a great day? It was fun. It was so good, how the mighty have fallen.

It was like going to, you know, Disneyland, because the fun was, you know, trying to figure out what cheap deals, you know, you could get, I don�t know, maybe with some ICC commentary or whatever for five bucks.

You know, it�s normally a $60 commentary. We never use them ever. Yeah, but it was just the joy of, you know, incredible bargain, so.

When you�re studying now for your preparation for sermons, you�re in the Gospel of John when I�m gone, which, do you have like four or five that you typically use, or do you study more? I mean, when I preached through Ephesians, I read 30 commentaries.

That was too many.

Yeah. I mean, I have four, plus I like to read Boyce and, you know, his, because he�s not a technical commentary or anything, but it�s just interesting to see what he says. But, you know, so it�s D .A. Carson and Kistemacher and Kostenberger and who�s the other one?

Anyway. Yeah. Yeah. I have Morris. Yeah. Yeah. That�s exactly right. So I have those four, and, you know, sometimes I�ll look at different ones, especially if there�s a grammatical issue, then maybe I�ll look at Lenski and, you know, some I forgot about Lenski.

Tell me, Steve, the Shepherd�s Conference is coming up March, I think, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th or something like that, four days, and that�d be five days, but 5th through the 8th, I believe. Okay.

Yeah. I�ll take your word for it. Yeah. So we�re going to fly in on the 4th and fly out on the 9th. I know that that booth next to the shoe-shining area and the acai bowls has cost us a lot of money, No Compromise Radio, but what are we going to do there at the booth?

Well, my plan is just to take all the poor graduates of the seminary and just kind of give them a hug and Yeah. Hugs are free. We can do that. All the guys who�ve taken ministries where they�re making $500 a month and stuff like that, give them a hug.

Okay.

That�s good. Congregational rural churches where the pastors have gotten kicked out, hugs? Two hugs. Yeah. Yeah? Yeah. I think I might be gone on those hug days. I wish we had a booth, but we don�t. So do you think we�re going to get any good free books this year?

I don�t know. I mean, I just kind of like and I�m like you. I just sort of I accept the fact that I�m getting free books, that I don�t want to schlep them around, so I just have them mail them to me and then I open them up and there�s always a nugget or two that.

I just have the secretary wrap them up and I can use them for gifts. Sure.

Especially new member gifts. Welcome to the church. Here�s the book. It�s a random Shepherd�s Conference book.

My daughter, Maddie, is home for the holidays and about ready to go back to the university in Los Angeles and she saw this CBD catalog sitting at home and she just kind of flipped through it randomly and she�s like, �Those books in there, they�re awful.

So it�s like, okay.

Yeah. Well, it says it�s the pastor�s resources. They should call it the pastorette resources. Oh, yes.

Uh-huh. I think there�s a whole section in there for deaconettes and elderinas. Uh-huh.

Special. Or, you know, why don�t they call it the prophets of Baal resources?

That would be pretty good, too. Oh, P-R-O-F-I-T-S. Today on No Compromise Radio. See, here�s what we do with Tuesday, Guy. We talk, we chat it up, we laugh it up, and then we do have a particular point we�re trying to make, right?

Sometimes. Sometimes. Occasionally. Usually on Wednesday. Well, that�s true with the guests. Today I want to talk about how to make your preaching more practical and relevant, Steve. And so this doesn�t go just for the pastors who are listening.

We have a lot of people who are not pastors, are pastorettes. How do you teach the Bible in a real relevant and practical way without flannel graphs, essentially? Is that what. That�s what we�re after.

Without flannel. Flannel graphs, which went out of vogue in the early �60s.

You know, the interesting thing about flannel graphs, to me, Steve, I would look at these and think, �David sure looked like Joseph from last week, who sure looked like Daniel the week before. He just had different clothes on.

They all had the same face, even Jesus, in spite of commandments about graven images, he looked like Daniel too.

Pretty amazing, the consistency of the graphics. I know.

That was so wonderful. Yeah. But, you know, I guess what we could do is we could do this. Every one of those Old Testament characters, we could end up talking about who Jesus is, because I think pretty much they�re all pointing a particular direction in the sweep of redemption.

Pretty much?

Pretty much. That�s right. Well, I mean, you know, from what, Genesis 3 on, you basically are, you know, and even in Genesis 1 and 2, there�s the creative power of Jesus and this kind of just laying the groundwork for what is to come, you know, for the fall and everything else.

So yeah, I think Scripture definitely points to Christ.

Christ-Centered Preaching over Merely Practical Application

Well, let�s bring this back to the practical and relevant preaching. We�re going to kind of do this critique of this particular article, but this is the pre-critique, and if you talk about Jesus in your message, I think that�s going to be practical and relevant.

That�d be a good way to do it, on the positive side. Yeah, but how can you. Yeah, but.

Is that one word? Yeah, but. Yeah, but. Forget you. Yes, but how can I get rid of stress in my life? Uh-huh. You know, how does Don�t understand how talking about Jesus is going to help me with that.

How�s my marriage going to improve? I don�t understand how talking about Jesus is going to improve that.

Well, what if I were to say to you, that�s probably why your marriage needs improvement, because you�re thinking that the Lord God doesn�t have anything to do with that. What about my kids?

You know, they�re out of control. How does talking about Jesus help me with that?

Well, I�ve got more questions than you�ve got questions for, maybe. Let�s just go back and forth. How do I meet new friends and have more relationships? How�s Jesus going to help me with that? Yeah.

How? How do I stop getting dogged on social media?

How does that� Steve, I like to have a successful life. How can I have a successful life? Jesus is going to help me with that? Yeah. What about overcoming stress? That�s a big one. Didn�t you just talk about that?

Overcoming stress is very huge. How about the stress of social media?

And my poor image on social media, yes.

I think we should have a battle. Steve�s the Facebook guy, I�m the Twitter guy, and we could have a battle. You know what I could do? I could give you the reins of the NoCo Facebook site, and then you could just appease all the ones that need appeasing, because I�m on the Twitter site, right?

I politely decline.

Not even if you double my NoCo salary. Whoa!

What Makes a Sermon Practical and Relevant

So, today we want to talk about practical and relevant preaching. Here�s my question, Steve. Should we even ask the question, �Shall I make my sermon today, my Bible study, my devotion for the kids, shall I make it practical and relevant

Should that be the goal, a goal? No.

I think, you know, along the way, you know, during your study, you think, �Well, here�s an obvious application of this, you know, that I would almost be, like, stupid not to mention. Well, then, yeah, you know, especially if it�s, you know, if it�s a valid application.

But if it�s in the text, too, you know, then obviously, you would, you know, I mean, �Husbands love your wives. If you don�t, if you don�t in some way talk about husbands loving their wives, then you didn�t preach the text.

So some texts are going to be more obviously practical than others.

Steve, how about using that as an illustration, �Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church. How, do we give them, like, five kind of applications and what that might look like and buy the teddy bear and put it in a secret spot and with a little note there and record the voice in the teddy bear so when she picks up the teddy bear, it�s you saying, you know, �You�re my, you know.

You sound like you�ve heard this message. Well, Steve, I�m all about incarnational preaching. I am that message. By the way, that�s one of my pet peeves of all time. I�m really into incarnational ministry.

I think that job was already taken and done well enough that you don�t need to do it. There�s been one incarnation, thank you.

We don�t need another. You travel in different circles than I do. I don�t hear people say, �Nobody ever has. If anybody ever did walk up to me and say that, it would probably take some restraint.

Steve, it�s the whole crowd that says, �This is really intentional ministry. This is really incarnational ministry. This is really missional ministry.

If somebody looked at me and said, you know, �It�s intentional ministry. I�d go, �As opposed to what?

Accidental ministry? Throwing it up on the wall and see if it sticks like pasta I think they�re supposed to do that, right? Pasta�s good if you throw it up against the wall and it sticks. Is that true?

Or is that just MasterChef Junior? Many things I do know.

Let�s put it this way. You throw it up against the wall. I ain�t eating it. So, you know, throw it as much as you want.

But do you know what? I came home last night from the Celtics game, and my wife and daughters made homemade bagels, which, you know, that�s interesting to me. They were good. And they also made the cream cheese.

Well, they didn�t make the cream cheese, but they bought the cream cheese, let it set out, and they put in a variety of other cheeses and jalapeno peppers for a jalapeno cheese spread on homemade bagels.

That was pretty good. That was a nice little midnight snack after the Celtics victory.

I call those no-sleep bagels because that�s what I�d be doing.

And by the way, last night when we were at the game, you know, they usually have celebrations, and, you know, let�s celebrate fireman night, or let�s celebrate, you know, policewoman night, or whatever their celebrations are, because it�s a community, right?

It�s the Celtics community. And so, last night, I looked up, and I thought it was another celebration of the Noahic Covenant, because there were rainbows everywhere. And I thought, �Praise the Lord. God will promise not to flood the world again with water.

And He makes a promise and keeps it, and the bow is not pointing toward us in anger. The bow is put up, and it�s a nice rainbow.

It�s great when even the Celtics can get involved in practical and relevant preaching. Do you know what?

Out of all the nights for me to go to a Celtics game, I had a friend give me some free tickets, and I go there, and it�s celebrating the Noahic Covenant. I was blessed thoroughly.

I would be heartily cheering against the rainbow-loving Celtics.

I thought, �What is this all about But anyway, back to practical and relevant. How much do you need to understand the culture before you�re able to preach to them? Do you have to understand them at all in order to preach to them?

No. In fact, I�m pretty certain that you don�t even have to like the culture, right? You�re a-cultural, anti-cultural. I think, was Jonah really digging the culture of Nineveh?

Yeah, how much did he understand about it? Well, I guess he understood enough that he hated it. Yeah, he knew they were awful and didn�t want him to get saved. Hey, that�s a good point, now that you bring up Jonah.

All this kind of practical and relevant preaching and everything else, here�s a guy, an awful guy, who doesn�t want anybody to get saved. He�d rather have them go to hell. God forces him to preach, and he preaches, and the people repent.

You know what bothers me the most about that whole thing is how he treated Jonah�s free will.

Well, you know, I�ve had kerfuffles in my life and enigmas wrapped in riddles, but that takes the cake. How about know your audience? Do you have to know your audience in order to preach to them? Do you have to know your audience?

Yes, you do. In some regard, I don�t mind this general statement, because if I�m preaching to fifth-graders, I�m thinking, I got to preach to fifth-graders. Sure, and it�s a whole different thing. You�re going to go do the funeral, you got to know your audience.

Yeah, but you also need to know your audience in this respect. You always have to keep in mind that they�re a lot worse than they think they are, just like you are a lot worse than people think you are, right?

I mean, at the heart of it, every person in your audience is a sinner in need of salvation. They either have it or they don�t, which if they don�t have salvation, if they�ve not received Christ, there is an urgency because we never know.

Yeah, but on Some Compromise Radio, we like to call those people pre-Christians.

Yeah, because in our church, we have Christians and pre-Christians. We don�t have any unbelievers, right?

I got taken to task when I arrived here and said to the secretary at the time, Lanita, could you please put in the bulletin, we�re having an outreach concert, please bring your unbelieving friends. And so I was not supposed to do that because what if an unbeliever came?

And they saw that in the bulletin.

Well, no, just for clarification, it wasn�t Lanita that took you to task? No.

No, she wouldn�t do that. She wasn�t an elder until the next year. No, Lanita was my first secretary here, and they have since moved to Florida, she and her husband, Mark, and her daughter, Melissa. I believe she�s a drill sergeant now.

Yeah, she is. Yeah, yeah. And so I said to Lanita the first week, she said, �Do you want me to put these inserts into the bulletin I said, �What�s the insert And she said, �It�s the Focus on the Family, James Dobson one.

And in a lot of areas, I didn�t make changes. They tell you in seminary, don�t make changes the first year or whatever. But I said, �Do you like them And she goes, �No, hate them. I said, �Let�s leave them out and see what happens.

And nobody said anything until two or three years later when they tried to get the ammo, right? And you took those things out of the bulletin and James Dobson, and you said things against promise keepers and Congress and all these other things.

Sidestep. I know. That is a sidestep. Steps for more practical and relevant preaching. What do we need to know in order to be able to preach to people? Steve, do you ever profile your typical attendee?

Yeah. What I�ll do is I�ll study Ephesians chapter 2, and I�ll go, hmm, our typical attendee. Child of wrath. Yeah.

Dead in his sins and trespasses. So here�s what this article says that is written by Rick Zell, and he says, in other words, regarding profiling, �Take the information you have gathered about the culture and the community and develop a profile of the typical attendee of your church.

Paint a picture of them in your mind. Identify their age, education, likes and dislikes, recreational preferences, money issues, expectations, salary, and family status. In fact, try to know them better than they know themselves.

Now, that�s a hard job. How do you do that?

It takes a lot of time. Well, you know, we just put our cultural awareness team on that, and yeah.

Now, when I�m preparing a message, Steve, I don�t primarily exegete the congregation, because that�s not what I�m called to do. I�m supposed to preach the Word. In order to preach the Word, I�ve got to do exegesis and hermeneutics and stuff like that.

But I do say at the very end of the process, not at the beginning, but at the end of the process, I�m going to be preaching to people who are five years old, people who are 85 years old, men, women, not slave and free.

They�re pretty much all free here, saved, unsaved. And so I�m just thinking, okay, and so-and-so just got diagnosed with cancer, and so-and-so just lost their spouse, and so-and-so. And so I want to make sure I present this to real people.

This is not a laboratory. And so in some senses, I do think about the people, but I don�t think about their salary and their money issues and their recreational preferences. Do I really care about their recreational preferences?

That might very much play into your exegesis, I think. What do they do?

I mean, I guess it�s enough in New England just to know that people love Dunkin� Donuts and the New England Patriots, right? Red Sox. I think that�s plenty. What if the Red Sox win, the Patriots win, the Boston Bruins win, and Dunkin� Donuts always wins?

How is that for a year?

You want to know what it would mean? It just means insufferable people around here. How about them Patriots? How about the Boston? Something in the air.

So when I was at the game last night, the Celtics game, it was pretty impressive to look up and see all the banners, the Celtic banners. Even though I was a Lakers fan and I�m a Lakers fan, we had a little minor deviation there for a couple of years in Lakers land, but now that we were on the uptake, and then to see all the Boston Bruins banners, and then to see all the retired Celtics, it was impressive, I have to tell you.

Tommy Heinsohn. Well, of course, the most impressive Celtic to me is always going to be Bill Walton, but.

That�s. Oh, they had a little thing last night that said, who was the first Celtic to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated? And they give you four options. Bill Russell, Sharman, Kuzi, or some dude I didn�t know his name.

What would you have picked? I mean, the default would be, oh, probably Russell. Some dude I didn�t know his name. Yeah, it was actually the man from Worcester, Bob Kuzi. Yeah. Bob Kuzi. The Kuz. Do you think Kuzi could have played basketball today?

Would he have been any good today if he played?

You know, here�s the problem. I mean, anytime you�re comparing eras, you know, you just. So it�s impossible to say.

Well, see, here�s the thing that Kuzi would do, though. He would understand the culture. He would know the audience. He would profile the typical player, and he�d ask the right questions, and he�d play from the heart.

I think he�d be good. I mean, it�s just like, you know, could Stockton play? You know, yes. I mean, it�s about being clever and, you know, all these other things. So what we failed to think about is, you know, what difference would training and those kind of things make?

And I think all today�s players have much better training. That�s right.

And food, too. They don�t have to have Salisbury steak every day. That�s right. It�s hard to be a good player when you eat Salisbury steak daily. That�s right. Was there a fifth one here? Preach from the heart to the heart.

Uh-huh. Oh, that�s so good.

From the heart to the heart. Well, that�s my problem, because I typically go from my brain to their toes.

Your brain to their toes. If you preach the Word of God, I think your preaching will be relevant, and then all the rest, to me, Steve, is kind of gravy.

Amen. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible-teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God�s Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We�re right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.