Application in Preaching

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, and today in studio live, it's about time, Steve Cooley. Well, I had to be revivified, so... Isn't that part of duplex gratia where it's mortification and vivification?

Yes. Is it vivification or vivification? I think it's vivification. Yes. Oh, all right. Either that or I have a stutter. I'm not really sure. I could always bring back the music if we want it.

Why not? Why not make it a minute long, as a matter of fact?

I was just telling Steve the story. I was in California for the Quad Podcast. Quad Pod? Quad Pod. Uh-huh. And... That's quite a name. The Quad Pods. I was hearing young guys saying, you know, what pods do you listen to?

I'm like, that's how young people talk. They're hip. They're happening. Uh-huh. Pods. Anyway, they said, you know, we like the music, the new introductory music for NoCo, but it's a little long. I said, what do you mean it's long?

It's like 13 seconds. And so they played me. It was one minute long. Somehow, some way, it got to be a minute, but I think we're back down to 13 seconds. All right, then. All right. Anything happening in your life you want to share?

Share? A time of sharing? Yes. Your pilgrimage, your adventure, your journey?

No. I mean, you know, I'm doing a lot of things, but not really doing a lot of things. I mean, we just got back from Fort Myers. Okay, good. Yeah. Tell us about that. We're at the Founders event. We had a really good time down there.

Although I have to say the most sobering thing I've done for a long time is, you know, we checked into the hotel and we said, hey, what's good to do around here? And he goes, well, you know, we had the hurricane 100 days ago.

And I said, okay. And he goes, have a drive down the beach. So we drove down the whole length of the Fort Myers beach. It would just bring tears to your eyes. I mean, you know, there were places, empty lots where there used to be homes, piles of debris.

I mean, it looked like, in many ways, a war zone. And it was just, it was, I mean, you could look into, you know, like a second and third floors of these buildings, because they're all built up on stilts and stuff like that.

And you could see into people's kitchens, you could see their stove, you could, because there's just so much damage. You know, the only thing left of this place is this stove up there or whatever, you know, and it was just, it was heartbreaking.

Did Tom, did the church building that Tom Askel preaches at, I was going to call it Tom Askel's church, but you know what I mean? Did it get damaged?

If it did, I'm sure they had probably some flooding at some point, but you really couldn't.

Tell. It looked really good. How was it, Steve, being a speaker with Paul Washer and Votie Bauckham? When you're up there on the platform there, the stage, how was that?

I mean, to be honest, I expected to be intimidated a little bit, but I really wasn't. It was the oddest thing, you know, sitting in the congregation, I didn't feel intimidated at all.

And they were all at your hotel, right? They put all the speakers in the same hotel, so you were there.

All the same hotel, yep. And we all ate the same food and, yeah, I was not a speaker. They have not gotten that desperate yet, so.

But what if they called you and said, by the way, Votie cannot preach today, but we know Steve is here and we'd like you to get up and preach a message. What would you have done? Pass out. You would have said yes.

Then here's how I teach the guys. Say yes. Say, I'll be ready in two minutes. Go to the bathroom, throw up, open your Bible to Romans, and then get up and give a Romans jet tour.

I just would have hated it because I'll head on with shorts and a polo shirt. So, I mean, I would have been more like, okay, if you can give me an hour, I'll go to men's warehouse, get a, you know, off the rack suit and we'll go.

Hey, by the way, that's a good way to get out of preaching. Yeah. Just dress poorly.

I'll tell you what, seriously, if they would have said, well, we don't care what you're and just get up, I would have said, okay. But, you know, even better, give me an hour and I'll go get some real clothes.

So...

What Application in Preaching Is and Why People Want It

All right. Today on No Compromise Radio, we want to talk about application in preaching. Okay. Root word in application is? Cation. There's a C-A-T in there. Apply, I believe. Uh-huh. So, application.

Steve, let's start off this way. Why do so many people desire application in preaching, do you think? Let's start there.

Well, because I think we're just bent that way. We're programmed that way. We want something to do, right? And I think in a certain way, it's good. When you hear the Word of God, you should want to respond.

And so, you know, application, what is that? Well, in a lot of ways, it's just the pastor telling us, the preacher telling us how we should respond to what he's just preached.

Okay. I love what you've said so far, and that takes us down this path. When God reveals Himself, there should be a response.

Absolutely. I mean, we don't all have to be like Isaiah going...

When we look outside, we're looking at some snow outside, some blue skies trying to peek through. You look at natural revelation, Grand Canyon. You've been.

There, by the way? I have never been. Do we need to do a shame tour of all the places I haven't been? Niagara Falls? I haven't been there. Mount Rushmore, haven't been there. Victoria Falls? No. Pacific Ocean?

No.

Okay. That is so not true. Anyway, a baby being born? Yes. Okay. When you look at natural creation, the response, especially in those places, is wonder, awe, amazement. God is great. God is big. God is wise, right?

There's a response to natural revelation.

Yes. I mean, right. We see the beauty in things and we say, thank you. Thank you, Lord. I mean, it's amazing.

Right. And even for the unbeliever, their response to natural revelation should be, there's a creator, and I'm going to be held accountable, and I no longer have an excuse.

Or they look at it and go, man, I'm lucky.

That's true. For special revelation, that is, truths contained between Genesis and Revelation in the Bible, there's a response too. Sometimes that response could be conviction, encouragement, and probably everything in between.

Awe, praise, wonder, thanksgiving, right?

You mean Genesis through Revelation? What did I say? Genesis 2?

Yeah. Genesis 2, Revelation. Yeah. I meant through, but like a little dash, an M dash.

Yeah. You said between, I think, actually. Yeah. From Genesis. Yeah. All the way. All the way through Revelation. All the Bible.

Where are you in my sermon prep time? You only tell me afterward. Did you mean this, that, or the other? I'm going to tip my hand. What if I do tip my hand to people?

Well, you know, yeah. Sometimes, you know. You know what? We should set up a system, now that you've got your iPad up there, where I could just send you a text during the sermon.

Seriously. Yeah. And then you've got some little question, you know, please elaborate. You weren't very clear on that. Way to go. You could send me little clapping.

Things. Instant affirmation, right?

Oh, just yesterday, Steve, I was working on my MacBook Pro on a sermon, and I had my iPad there because I'd made some notes on the iPad, and I was transferring them over by manually typing. I moved the cursor too far to the left on the computer, and the cursor moved onto my iPad.

Wow.

What do you think of that? I know. That's like magic.

So, application, if we think generally speaking, God reveals himself, we respond. That part's good, right? Yes. Yes. Tell our listeners a little bit about application that's not doing, but thinking. Not doing, but thinking.

Application as Thinking, Not Just Doing

In other words, people say, I like some application. They mainly mean, tell me what to do. Right. And some of the application is, let me remind you of Jesus so you can think rightly about the Savior, for instance.

Yeah. Or, you know, about the gospel. I think sometimes it's just good because, you know, there are some, I was just saying off air, you know, my last sermon in Acts wasn't explicitly gospel centered.

Peter and John have just been released, you know, and warned, and they meet with their friends. I mean, that's a whole interesting thing there because all the different interpretations of their own. But anyway, eventually they just pray for boldness, and they, you know, the house where they're staying is shaken, and they just pray for boldness.

And then they go on and it says, Luke says that they continue to proclaim the word with boldness. And I thought, okay, it's interesting. Why is boldness? And so, this is how I kind of concluded the sermon.

Why is boldness so important there? Well, because we have to think about the environment in which they're in, where they're going to be increasingly facing persecution. And it's going to take some guts, dare I even say on the radio, and I will, chutzpah, you know, to complete what Jesus has commanded them to do.

And I said, why? Because they're preaching to enemies of God. And I went to Romans 5, and I just explained, you know, from Romans 5, and like, maybe 8 to 10, just kind of concluded with that and just said, these are the people that they're preaching to.

And, you know, just kind of concluded there. But I think it's good for us to think, well, why do we get persecution? Because the world doesn't think the way we think. We love Christ, they hate Christ.

You know, so it's just kind of this whole, how do we think about things? Well, sometimes we have to think in terms of why are things so difficult? And, you know, why do people hate Jesus? And why is there such opposition to the gospel?

And I think those are all valid applications of the passage.

Peter. So, what you're saying is some application can be just the way you think. What if we work through the lens of the two great commandments, loving God with heart, soul, mind, and strength, loving your neighbor as yourself.

It's almost as if, Steve, we have those categories, and it breaks down into application. Just tell me how to love my neighbor. Tell me how to do things better without trying to tell me how I can love God better, how I can know God better, increase in the knowledge of God.

That's certainly application,.

Isn't it? Steve. Yeah, well, to get back to the first one, how do I love my neighbor better? Well, I can give you a list of six ways to help your neighbor.

Peter. Right. I think there's 50 ways to leave.

Your neighbor. Steve. I mean, offer to mow their lawn, you know, scrub the top of their trash cans. I don't know. You know, I mean, there are a lot of different things that we can come up with. Peter.

That's a new ministry, by the way.

The old trash can scrubber. I have taken my power washer to my trash cans in the past, though.

Steve. Well, especially if they're inside trash, you know, like the kitchen trash can, every once in a while it needs a good rinsing out. I don't care if you use plastic liners, I don't care what you do.

You know, sometimes they just need rinsed out. But yeah, all that to say that we could give people a list of things to do, or we could preach the text and say, just love your neighbor. And, you know, you're going to figure that out on your own.

Peter.

Steve, I look at Galatians 5, the fruit of the Spirit, love and joy and peace. I call that attitude fruit. And then I look at chapter 6, bear with other people who are struggling with sin, kind of the action fruit.

So, I see in scripture, we've got the ways to think, and we've got ways to do. And I think the reason why this podcast came up today is because lots of complaints come from people, not any particular from our church today or last week or the week before.

I like more application in the sermon. And I think what they're saying is, correct me if I'm wrong, I just tell me what to do. The text, I know you explained to me, husbands, love your wives like Christ, love the church, sacrificial love of Jesus at his expense, etc., etc.

But could you give me three practical things to do? I mean, buy candy, take her out on a date that you plan, and something else? Isn't that what they're kind of after?

Peter. And you know why that is? Because it's like, okay, once I fulfill the pastor's checklist, I fulfilled the letter of the law, right? I am a law keeper. Or maybe it's even, I just want to know what the boundaries are so I can go that far, but not go any further or, you know, whatever.

And I think what we do, if I could use this terminology, is there's a tendency, I think, in giving application to almost kind of quench the spirit. Pete. Uh-oh, here we go. Peter. And here's what I mean by that.

If I give you a list, here are five ways to do this and that and the other thing, and I make that kind of the end all and be all. Pete.

Let's use that for love, you know, love your wives. Here's five ways to love your wives.

And if I just say that here are five ways, I ought to say something like, men, you are not limited to these five ways. These are just five examples, things that I've done that are simple to do, you know, that you could do or whatever.

Pete. Examples of sacrificial love. Good.

Peter. Because if I say, here are, you know, the five ways, or even if I just say, here are five ways, and I don't kind of limit it in any sort of way, then it can become a checklist. And here's what I mean by quenching the spirit.

If I don't give any examples, if I give no practical application, I know that's a shocking concept, I'm going to posit to theorize that the Holy Spirit is able to convict you of areas in your life where you need to improve based on the scripture that I've just taught.

Pete. Including but outside of those five examples you gave. Peter. Yes. Pete. Because if you learn the truth, husbands love your wives, and why, and the power that you can do it, and Christ loved the church, then He, the Holy Spirit, can help you in these areas where you think, I mean, maybe our wives, they, I mean, my wife could care less about flowers.

Pete. Right, mine too. Pete. It's like kind of the stone song, you can send me dead flowers in the morning or something, they don't, she doesn't care about flowers. And what if I get up there and I say, okay, make sure you buy your wife flowers on Valentine's Day, and then other times that aren't Valentine's Day, just that special day you're thinking about her, my wife would say, why spend the money?

So, it's almost like I don't know that person's wife, they're the one supposed to live with her in an understanding way, with knowledge, 1 Peter chapter 3. Therefore, I don't want to restrict ways to love your wife, like you talked about just a moment ago.

Pete.

That's such an interesting one, though, too, because the puzzled look that I sometimes, not to really go down this whole wife thing, the road, but the puzzle looks I get from husbands when I say that they're supposed to know their wives, you know, they've been married to their wife for 15, 20 years or whatever, and they don't know, you know, whether she wants flowers or candy or, you know, a gift certificate, they have no idea.

And I'm like, dude, who's been living with your wife? I mean, this is what we're here to do is to learn her, you know, so that we can, I don't want to say make her happy, but so that she is happy, right?

Yeah, I think that's peculiar. But anyway, the overall point is this, any passage of scripture, when we start giving, and I'm not saying all, you know, points of application are wrong, because sometimes I'll just put them right in my sermon, right?

Not wait to the end, here are three things to do or whatever. But, you know, I'll say, well, this kind of makes me think, you know, of this and that or the other thing and sort of make the application point along the way.

But what I would say is, I think when people are asking for application, what they're really saying is, I don't want to be open to what the Holy Spirit might do in my life. I don't want Him messing around in my head.

That, how about this, Steve, in addition? I want you to tell me the application of husbands love your wives like Christ love the church, because I don't want to have to figure it out.

Right. Oh, yeah. Bummer. And, you know, like I said, Lord forbid that he should, you know, make me think of things that I really ought to have been doing or that I've been failing to do or, you know, anything else.

I mean, imagine if the Holy Spirit could give me a list of five things instead of Steve, would that be better? I think it would be way better.

The Holy Spirit, Conscience, and the Limits of Checklists

Right. Part of this, I think, Steve, it's the genre of the Bible as well and what's being communicated and its purpose. For instance, if you're reading Proverbs, well, if you've got an enemy, then you pour coals on their head.

And we understand this figurative speech to be X, Y, and Z. But what if you're in Luke? And... Theoretically. Yeah. And Luke describes Jesus healing the lepers. And we are so hankering to tell our folks about something to do.

See, nine didn't say thank you, one said thank you, you ought to be thankful. If you want that as a secondary application, fine. When Jesus does something for you, you ought to be thankful. But earlier in Luke, in chapter 7, how do you know that Jesus is the Messiah?

Answer is he heals people from leprosy. Who does that? And now what the reader is supposed to say is Jesus is the Messiah.

Yeah. And he ought to be saying, the listener ought to be saying, wow, who is this who could do such things? Right? I mean, that's the point. Totally. And you know how I would apply that.

Verse in terms of the passage itself, Steve? I would say the whole world is telling you that Jesus is another prophet, just a man, a lunatic, a liar, something else, an emanation, an eon producing, whatever they want to say.

But I want you to know, dear Christian, there's only one person that can heal lepers, and it was Jesus. And so, you're worshiping the right Messiah. Don't take your eyes off of Jesus because he actually is the right one to worship.

And that'd be a great application point, right? And you know, and I would also say, I mean, it's, we don't want to preach the whole message here, but I think even in the mundane things, I mean, here we're talking about miraculous intervention of God, the God-man, Jesus Christ.

But even as we look about it, we were talking about creation and other things, just everything, the fact that we are breathing, everything is such a gift from the Lord, right? And so, would it be wrong for us to say, even in the rudimentary, regular day-to-day living things, all the things that the Lord provides to us, we should be saying, thank you.

And no, it wouldn't be wrong, but that's not really the point of the passage, right? I mean, we could find a lot of ways to make application there, but the ultimate application, even as you said, is Jesus Christ is divine.

He is God.

There's nobody like him. Do you think, Steve, as we talked about before the show, people have a really, really hard time with this truth? Here's the truth, colon. When you focus on Jesus, his person, his work, who he is, what he has done, what he's doing, and what he will do, God changes you.

You become like who you worship. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed in the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 3, 18. We're just built doers. We have to do.

Yeah. I mean, you're almost getting into the sanctification wheelhouse here. I mean, what is it that God uses to sanctify us? Is it our works, or is it our beholding of Christ, you know, and maybe even laying hold of Christ, if we could put it that way?

And I think it's that one, you know.

Good. Well, that was Hebrews 3, 6, hold fast. So, that's good language. Steve, as we're talking about application today on No Compromise Radio, next question. Whose job, whose responsibility, whose prerogative is it to apply the text that's being proclaimed by the redeemed sinner called the pastor?

Well, I think it's clearly his. Well, what if your congregation is 300 people? How in the world are you going to apply that to.

All these people's lives? And see, that drives back to the original problem, which is to me, you know, I, as a pastor, I am limiting, I mean, as much as a human can limit the divine, I'm limiting the human spirit or the Holy Spirit by giving a list of applications.

And if I just, if I don't provide that list, those 300 people, assuming there are 300 believers, they could come away with 300 different applications, all of which are perfectly valid and all of which, let's just take best case scenario, they're biblically informed consciences being shaped and molded by the Holy Spirit.

He is using my teaching of scripture to transform them, right? I mean, isn't that what we're talking about, ultimately, is the Holy Spirit transforming, changing lives by the preaching of the word. Isn't that what we think happens?

Steve, I was reading Colossians 1 this morning, and Paul introduces himself, then he begins to pray and to thank God. And he talks about bearing fruit and growing. And he has this prayer that they're filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.

So, it's just this, I pray, I mean, Paul doesn't have application prayers in terms of specific things to do. His application is, I'm praying to God that you might bear fruit. Now, that bearing fruit is going to be different in everyone's life because they have different spiritual gifts, they have different needs, the Spirit of God, he helps them in all those situations.

It's the answer to the question I asked earlier, whose job is it to apply the word? And I thought that was the Holy Spirit's job.

Last time I looked, I mean, it's his word, right? He uses, I mean, we sometimes act almost like it's our word. We know it's not, right? But I mean, when it comes to application, we somehow expect the pastor to have a keener insight than the Holy Spirit.

And I can't really claim that.

Wisdom, Pastoral Examples, and Not Stepping on the Text

Okay, Steve, it just popped in my mind as you were saying this. We have wisdom that we learn the hard way through the years, right, from the Bible, and then knowledge applied, etc., etc. I think we could say to our folks, this is how this works out in my life.

I'm giving wisdom now, pastoral, parental, right? If the Bible says don't, you know, foolishness is bound in the heart of a child and the rod of reproof will drive it far away. It doesn't tell you how to spank, what to use to spank, etc., etc.

But you could give some wisdom. I just don't want to step on the word and confuse it somehow with my wisdom, because if I get up and tell the people, do this, this, and this, I'm in the pulpit, I'm teaching the Bible, they almost think that's from God.

Pete. Right. I mean, have you ever said anything like this? You know, just as I've been studying this passage this week, you know, I've become convicted of X, Y, or Z.

I've never done that, Steve, because you never show weakness, frailty, or sin from the pulpit. You're a herald. You're a K. Rooks. We don't do that.

Steve. Because you discredit yourself, right? People aren't going to take you seriously if you admit you have a flaw.

Pete I'm at a higher level. I come out from behind the curtains and I deliver and then I walk back.

Steve I descend with the tablets from the mountain with the Shekinah glory.

Oh, brother. Well, today on No Compromise Ready, we're talking about application in preaching. Is it right for a person to attend the Lord's Day, Steve, and say, Lord, please use that frail minister to preach your word so I might learn more about Jesus, and then Holy Spirit, would you please help me think differently and or behave differently in light of the message?

Please help me do that.

Pete. No, I think that's exactly right. You know what? Sometimes if I could just compact what I pray on Sunday morning before I preach, I pray something along these lines. Would you help me to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ and to edify and equip your people today?

That's what I want, right? I mean, if I preach a sermon and I'm not exalting the Lord Jesus Christ, I'm failing. And if it's not in any way, shape, or form edifying or equipping the people, then I feel like I failed as well.

Pete. Right. Last comment, Steve, let's talk about this briefly. I think we as pastors have failed and probably fail sometimes now, but especially when we were younger, we were so concerned about what the text says and means, what this word means, how many times it's used, what's the grammar, what's the lexical, what's the syntactical syntax for this whole thing, that sometimes we just give a running commentary and never preach to the people that are in the pews today, and maybe we have to own.

Well, that wasn't very applicational because it was just a Greek exegesis class.

Yep. Forests, trees, you know, I mean, we can get really lost, you know, mangling metaphors, lost in the weeds. We just kind of, we become so concerned with explaining all the myriad of details that we forget that we're talking to people who just want to hear about Jesus Christ, who just need to hear about Jesus Christ, who need to hear about the truths of scripture, but in a language that is easy to understand.

I, you know, just going back to the founders thing for just a minute, being down there, and I am encouraged when I hear pastors who can take big pieces of scripture and break them down in ways where I just go, A, it's helpful, B, it's new to me, and C, it's just right on the money.

I like that. I like that. Well, Steve, today on No Compromise Radio, we talked about application in preaching. We should do this more often. Okay. You got any new series coming up on Saturdays that are going to be online here soon?

Well, I mean, yeah, going through Machen Man, we're getting towards the end of that, Christianity and liberalism, and then I think we're going to do the Horton book, Christless Christianity.

That's good. All right. Well, see, you started talking and I'm like, oh, do I start putting the music on? Does he think he has to fade out a little bit?

Yeah, is that a full minute long? How long is that? Can I talk over it?