Keep sharing good news without ads.
No description available
I want to invite you to take out your Bibles with me this morning and turn in your text to John, chapter 4, verse 24, and then hold your place there and also turn over to 1 Timothy, chapter 4, verse 13.
We have, over the last several weeks, been in a mini-series, as it were, on the subject of worship. Beginning in December of last year, we started working our way through the Gospel of John, verse by verse, and when we got to chapter 4, verse 24, Jesus' interaction with the woman at the well brought up a very important subject.
When he and the woman at the well were engaging on the question of where should they worship, she said, Jews worship in Jerusalem, we worship on Mount Gerizim, and the implied question that she had was, who's right?
And Jesus said, there's coming a day when geography will not define worship. It won't be about where you go, but rather it will be that God will be seeking those who worship him all around the world in spirit and in truth.
And it was that spirit, or excuse me, that text that was the springboard, if you will, even though I don't love that term, it was the springboard for this series, a series on the subject of worship. And each week in this short mini-series, we have asked the question of why do we do what we do when we gather on the Lord's Day?
And we do believe this is the Lord's Day. We believe Sunday is the day that God has called us together to gather in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. We've talked over the last several weeks, we talked about the elements of worship.
And we said that the principle that arose out of the Reformation was the principle of the regulative principle, which means that God regulates worship through his word. He commands us what to do, and we do it.
We don't come to worship for novelty. We don't come to worship with creativity. We come to worship in submission to do what he commands us to do. And so the elements of worship are governed by God himself.
And then we looked at the order of worship. Why do we have an order? Why not do things haphazardly or chaotically? Well, God never does things haphazardly or chaotically. He always has a order, and his word commands us that when we are worshiping him, we should worship decently and in order, 1 Corinthians 14, 40.
And then in week three, we asked about the role of singing, praising God. Why do we do that? Why is that a staple of worship, both in the old covenant texts and in the new? And then last week, we looked at the prayers.
We asked, why do we pray the prayers that we pray? Think of how much time in our worship service is devoted to intentional, specific forms of prayer, invocation, dedication, times of confession, times of reminder of forgiveness, and things like that.
Well, today we get to what I must admit is my favorite subject to speak about, and that is the preaching of the word. And I can be honest and say it is my favorite subject because it is what God called me to do 25 years ago.
It was in 2001 that God called me to pray, so I guess that's 24 years ago. I'm bad at math, but I'm okay at preaching, but I'm bad at math. But about 24 years ago, God called me to do this, and I believe that this is what he wanted me to do with the rest of my life.
So this is a subject that is obviously near and dear to my heart, near and dear to Brother Mike, Brother Andy, who also hold preaching in very high esteem and love to preach. They love to preach. I'm thankful to serve with men who love to preach.
I never have to worry about a sick day.
I mean that.
Like I could wake up at 8 o 'clock on a Sunday morning, and if I were sick and couldn't stand, I wouldn't have to worry at all. Because I know there are men here who love to preach and could preach at a moment's notice.
So that's an awesome and wonderful blessing because not every pastor has that. So with that being said, we are going to discuss this morning why. Why preaching? Why does it matter? And so with that in our mind, let us stand together and read the text.
We're going to read John 4 and 24 first, and then I'll give you a moment to flip in your Bibles over to 1 Timothy 4. So John 4, verse 24. I've already mentioned it, but let's read it again as we stand and give honor and reverence to the word of the living God.
It says, God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. And now over to 1 Timothy 4. Paul, writing to young Timothy, his son in the faith, he gives him this command. He says, Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching.
Let us pray.
Father, I thank you for your word. I pray that even now that as it is preached, Lord, that you would keep me from error. I pray that you would cause the preaching of the word to go out and by the power of your spirit to change hearts.
And Lord God, for the believer, I pray that this message would be for them a time of exhortation, edification, correction, and training in righteousness. For Lord, that is what your word says that it is able to do.
And Lord, for the unbeliever who is here among us today, and I'm sure there are those who have not yet bowed the knee to Jesus, whether they be young or whether they be old. I pray, Lord, that you would, through the preaching of your gospel, do what only the gospel can do, and that is be the power of God into salvation to everyone who believes.
Pray that you would open their eyes to see the glory of Christ, open their ears to hear the word of God, and open their heart to receive it. And Lord, by the power of your spirit, give them new life. And Father, as we preach the word today, I pray, O Lord, that we would be reminded of the blessing that we have, the wonderful blessing that many of our ancestors did not have.
To hold the very word of God in our hands, to have the oracles of God in our cars, in our homes. Often, many of us having multiple Bibles anywhere we want them. Lord, this is something that our ancestors could only dream of.
Lord, may we not forget the abundance of riches that we have. And we pray all of this, Lord, in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. Why do we preach? Why do we preach? There is no higher authority in the church than God's word.
And its proclamation is to take precedence on the Lord's day. In two weeks, we're going to be celebrating the Reformation on the Wednesday before October 31st. October 31st is Reformation Day. On the Wednesday before October 31st, we're going to have a Reformation meal and a Q &A with the elders.
And we're going to have a wonderful time of fellowship around talking about what happened back in the 15th and 16th century and what God did in the Reformation. So look forward to that. But on that Sunday following, I'll be doing a special Reformation message.
Because, again, we here uphold the value of that particular event in history and why it matters both historically and doctrinally. And I bring it up this morning in today's message because one of the great doctrines that came out of the Reformation was the doctrine known as Sola Scriptura.
Now, Sola Scriptura is Latin simply for scripture alone. And I want to define what Sola Scriptura means because I think it's often misunderstood. I think oftentimes people think that what Sola Scriptura means is it's just me and my Bible on an island alone.
It's just me and my Bible doing my thing. And this is why so many people get to the idea, well, why do I need church? I've got the Bible and I've got myself. And, you know, if I'm saved, I've got the Holy Spirit.
I don't need you and I don't need this and I don't need any of this community stuff. I can just go be on my own with my Bible alone. That is not what Sola Scriptura means. Sola Scriptura, just like all of the other Solas, and there are five Solas that came out of the Reformation.
I'll be talking about this more in two weeks. But Sola Scriptura is shorthand for this phrase. The scripture is the sole infallible rule for faith and practice for the Christian. That's the longer version of what Sola Scriptura means.
It means that the Bible is the only infallible rule for faith and practice for the believer. That does not mean that there are not other things that we can learn from. We proved that earlier when we read from our confession.
We read from a confession because why? It's able to instruct us. Also, we read from our catechism, which our children are diligently taught every Wednesday night. And the catechism is designed to produce within our children a vocabulary of faith.
That's what catechesis is. It's introducing, through rote memorization, the vocabulary of faith. I know many people in many churches have never... They don't know what the word sanctification means. They don't know what the word justification means.
They just know they saved. But we want to introduce and inculcate and teach these important truths. And we use the catechism for that. We use the confession for this. This is part of how we teach them the language of our faith.
But neither the catechism nor the confession are to be elevated to the position of the scripture. Neither one is even to be put on the same shelf.
Now, I mean, maybe not literally.
I mean, if you have a Bible on the same shelf as your copy of the confession.
But you understand what I mean.
In our minds, we do not put the scripture on the same level as anything else. And the reason why this was so important in the Reformation is because in the Roman Catholic Church, it is well understood that there are actually three authorities.
And they call it a three-legged stool, if you will. The three authorities in the Roman Catholic Church is first what's known as the magisterium of the church. Or the teaching authority of the church.
Which is the pope, the bishops, the cardinals. They make up the teaching arm of the church. That is called the magisterium. And it has authority. And they have holy or what is known as sacred tradition.
And sacred tradition holds a leg of authority. And then, of course, scripture holds a leg of authority. And so what happens when you have the magisterium of the church holding authority and the traditions holding the authority?
What happens to the scripture? Well, the scripture becomes subject to the tradition and to the papacy. The scripture itself becomes subject to the tradition and to the magisterium. And so the reformers said, no.
There is nothing to which the scripture is to be subject to. But rather everything else is to be subject to the scripture. There is no higher authority. There is no other standard. In fact, there is a phrase I want to introduce you to.
It is this phrase in Latin. And I know Latin is not a language we use. But it is something to remember because these terms have meaning. And the phrase is norma normans non normata. Norma normans means the standard of standards.
It is where we get the word normal. What is normal?
Well, it is the standard. It is the baseline. It is the standard.
Do you know that?
What is the word we use for the Bible? The canon? Well, what is canon? It means a measuring rod, a standard of measurement. It is the thing against everything else is measured against.
It is the norma normans.
It is the standard of standards. But then it is the non normata. It is not itself subject to any higher standard. Is there a standard against which God must meet? Is there a standard above God? We talk about this in our ethics class when I teach in our academy.
I say, how do we define goodness? God himself is the standard of goodness. God himself defines what we mean. When we say good, we don't say that here is good and God must rise to the level of goodness.
No, we say God himself is the standard of goodness. And his word is the standard of truth.
Norma normans non normata.
The standard that measures all other standards which itself is not subject to any higher standard. Let me give you an example of how this works out practically. A couple of weeks ago, the new pope made this statement publicly.
He said, you cannot be pro-life and believe in the death penalty. Now, historically, the Roman Catholic Church has been pro-life. That's one area where we can say we are grateful. They have stood for life and of all the theological problems we have with them, we should be able to at least admit when something good is done.
And they stand for life and that's good. But the Bible also declares that the government does not bear the sword in vain. And there are times when, especially on account of capital murder, that even as far back as Genesis chapter 9, it says that when the blood of a man is shed, so must that man's blood be shed because in the image of God, he was made.
When you kill a man in cold blood, what do you deserve? You deserve capital punishment because the scripture says you have attacked an image bearer of God. Well, the pope comes out and says, you know, if you believe in pro-life, you can't believe in the death penalty.
Well, scripture says you're wrong, sir. Scripture also gives you no authority to make such a claim because you hold a false office. The papacy is, as the reformers said, the papacy was the capital A Antichrist.
I won't say he's the capital A Antichrist, but I'll say he is a form of Antichrist because he receives the titles of God himself, Holy Father, Vicar of Christ, which means vicarious or one who stands in the place of.
He's also called Pontifex Maximus, which means he is the great bridge builder between God and man. All of these titles belong to the Trinity and not to the pope. So when he says you can't be pro-life and believe in the death penalty, guess what we say?
Yeah, there's a Greek word for that baloney. It's baloney. You have no authority here, sir. Rome has no jurisdiction here. What has jurisdiction over us? The word of God. The word of God has jurisdiction over us.
This is why when Martin Luther stood before the Council of Worms in 1521 and he was demanded that he recant what he had written, which had opposed much of what was taught by the papacy in the Roman Catholic Church, when he stood at the Diet of Worms and he was asked, Martin Luther, do you recant of your teachings?
He said, unless I am convinced by Scripture and reason and not by popes and councils who have often contradicted one another, my conscience is captive to the word of God. And to go against conscience is neither right nor safe.
Therefore, I cannot and I will not recant. God help me. Here I stand. Amen. Beloved, that we would all have such conviction, that when the world and even the most powerful in the world say you can't believe that, we can say I stand upon the authority of God's word.
The norma normans, the standard of standards. This is why I don't like apologetic methodologies that tell me that I can't use my Bible when I'm defending my faith. There are apologetic methodologies that say don't use your Bible, get on a neutral ground with the unbeliever and share from a neutral ground.
The problem is there is no neutral ground. There is no neutral ground. Romans chapter 1 says all men know that God exists and they suppress that truth in unrighteousness. When I'm speaking to an unbeliever, I am not speaking to a neutral person.
I am speaking to a rebel against God. And the only thing that is going to melt the heart of the rebel is the word of God, not my science tricks and not my clever philosophy. But the word of God melts the heart of stone.
Sola Scriptura. The only infallible rule for faith and practice is the word of God. And may our hearts be captive to it. So on the Lord's day, when we gather for worship, the scripture is to be read and it is to be taught.
If you have your Bible still open, I want us to look again at 1 Timothy 4. If not, please open them back to that passage because I want to walk through this text. As I said, John 4 is really just the opening for this series, but 1 Timothy is our text for the day.
And of course, if you're unfamiliar with the New Testament construction, the books of Timothy, which are 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, make up what are known as the pastoral epistles. They're called pastoral epistles because these are writings from the Apostle Paul to pastors and churches and he's writing, instructing them on how to raise up leaders, how to govern the church, how to manage.
And of course, 2 Timothy is him preparing for the ending of his life as he's looking forward to going and being with the Lord. So we have these three pastoral epistles, which are instructive on the role of the ministers in the church or the elders or pastors.
And we come to chapter 4 in 1 Timothy. And Paul tells Timothy, Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. So there's three terms here that are important.
The reading of Scripture, the teaching of Scripture, and the exhortation from Scripture. I know it's not in that order, but in a moment I'm going to go in that order for a reason that I will hopefully explain.
Martin Lloyd-Jones, in talking about this particular text, he says, The primary task of the church and the Christian minister is the preaching of the Word of God. The primary task of the Christian minister is the preaching of the Word of God.
Because what is preaching? Preaching is this, it's very simple. It's not easy, but it's simple. You say, what's the difference? It's not easy because it is work. It takes study and diligence and time and effort.
But it's not a complicated system. The system is you read the text. You teach the text. And you exhort from, or another term could be, apply the text. That's all preaching is. So what is the center of preaching according to that outline?
The text!
The text is where the sermon comes from. The text is what the sermon is based on. The text is the focus of the sermon. And I would say it is even the focus of the worship service. We are to read the text.
We are to teach the text. And we are to exhort from the text. Let's talk first about reading the text. Why do we want to focus on reading? Well, public reading of Scripture was actually something that was part of the Old Covenant system.
There was reading of Scripture under the Old Covenant among the people of God. And it became part of the Jewish synagogue worship in the intertestamental period. And the early church drew this into its practice as the church began to be planted and grow in the New Covenant.
The reading of Scripture ensures that everyone will hear God's Word. Because remember, what I said in my prayer a moment ago, you may not have heard me. But we are of the very few in church history that have actually been able to hold the Word of God in our hands and take it home with us and keep it with us.
Throughout history, it might be possible that Christians would have a letter, like one of the letters of Paul or one of the writings or something like that. But to have the entire Word of God accessible to us at any time in various forms is a relatively new aspect of Christian living.
In fact, I would say it's an abundance of riches that we should never, ever take for granted. You understand how many men in history gave their lives for us to be able to have the Word of God in our hands?
When John Wycliffe was excommunicated and put out of his teaching position, he went to Lutterworth and he was the first man to translate the Bible into English in the 14th century. And his disciples, known as the Lawlords, went out and disseminated his handwritten copies of the Word of God.
Think about how precious... Mike, imagine if we had to... if for everybody in our church to have one of these, you and I would have to sit down and Brother Andy would have to sit down and write these out by hand.
Think how precious that would be. Think how expensive and valuable it would be. You don't want it in my handwriting, so we'd have to hire a scribe. Someone whose job it was to write and do so legibly or train someone to do so.
The public reading of Scripture when all the people of God did not have the Scripture in hand was the opportunity for the people of God to hear the Word of God and to unite them around shared faith and teaching.
We see a picture of this in the Old Testament. You don't have to turn there, but you might remember this. In the book of Nehemiah, chapter 8, it says,. And all the people gathered as one man into the square before the water gate.
And they told Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the Law of Moses that the Lord had commanded Israel. So Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly, both men and women, and all who could understand what they heard.
And on the first day of the seventh month, he read from it, facing the square before the water gate, from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand.
And the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the Law. He wasn't even preaching. He was just reading the Word. And the people stood and listened. And Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform that they had made for that purpose.
And beside him stood a group of men with long names. And we'll just jump past that. I can say them, but we're going to move on. And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was above all the people.
They built a platform, what we call the chancel. They built so that he would be elevated and be able to speak and the people could hear. For he was above all the people, and as he opened it to all the people, the people stood.
And Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people said, Amen, Amen. You know what Amen means? It means we agree. So let it be. It means that is the truth. That's what Amen means. That's the truth.
Lifting up their hands, and they bowed their heads, and they worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground. And then verse 8 says, they read from the book, from the law of God clearly, and they gave the sense.
That's an important part I want to point out. Not only did they read it, but they gave the sense of it. They actually helped them understand it. So that the people understood what was read. So we see preaching, it's not just a New Testament concept.
This goes back even into the Old Testament. The word of God is the authority among the people of God, and it is to be proclaimed. It is to be read before the people of God. But not only read, it is to be understood.
And this is why I say the second in line is teach. We read the word, and we teach the word. Teaching is the systematic instruction in the doctrines of the faith. Timothy, from Paul's own words, is to ensure that the church is grounded in sound doctrine, countering false teachings that were prevalent in Ephesus.
And this aligns with the great commission of Matthew chapter 28, which says what? Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Teaching them to observe all the things that I have taught you.
Understand this, teaching is part of preaching. People will say sometimes, I think you're more of a teacher than a preacher. I've heard that probably in all my years here. I've heard that probably more than any other.
And I'm not sure it's a complaint, it's just an observation. Maybe it's a complaint. But people will say, you're so much more of a teacher than you are a preacher. And I say, well, that's probably true.
But teaching is part of preaching. We must teach the word of God. It must be instructed. And I think about it like this. If there is no instruction in the word of God, then that means there will be ignorance of the word of God.
The people may hear it but not understand it. Or even worse, may understand it improperly and apply it improperly. Think about the story of Philip and the eunuch. Do you remember when Philip in Acts chapter 8 saw the eunuch going by?
And he was reading from the scriptures. He was reading from Isaiah chapter 53. And in Acts chapter 8 verse 30 it says, So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and said, Do you understand what you're reading?
That's an important question. And the eunuch said, How can I, unless someone guides me? That's a great answer. Yes, I'm reading it, but I don't understand what it means. And Philip came to sit with him.
And of course it goes on to say that he explained the word of God to him, pointed to the Lord Jesus Christ. He believed and was baptized that very day. That's the teaching of the word of God. By the way, just to mention, we read so much scripture on Sunday morning.
Our services last a while. I was in West Virginia this week and I was talking to the guys, some of the elders at their church. And I said, Yeah, our service normally goes about two hours. And they were like, Ah, that's a lot.
And I said, Well, we do a lot. This is only one day a week. We don't have an evening service. So we come together on the Lord's day. And we pray. And we confess. And we read. And we study. And in a few moments we take communion.
Yeah, it takes a while. Not quite as long as a Marvel movie. So put that in your mind. But it does take a little while to do all the things that we're called to do. Mike comes up and reads a whole chapter of the word of God every week.
And you know what I like that he does? He doesn't preach it, but he does give the understanding of it often. He'll just say, This is what's happening here. Because if he didn't say that, we might not have the context.
And we might not understand at all what we're reading. Context helps us understand what we're reading. The situation of what's going on helps us to understand what we're reading. If we don't have those things, it may just be words falling on our ears.
We need to understand. As John MacArthur said, The meaning of the scripture is the scripture. Therefore, if we don't have the meaning, have we really understood the word of God?
No.
So we need to understand what we're reading. In fact, the Second Helvetic Confession, which is one of those confessions that came out of the Reformation, it says this, The preaching of the word of God is the word of God.
That may sound weird because it's the way, Are you saying that your preaching is inspired?
No, it's not.
What it's saying is the word of God is when it is preached, it becomes the word of God as we understand it. It becomes, that's how, it's not, when I say it becomes the word of God, it's always the word of God.
I don't want anybody to make that unclear. But the point is, when we understand it or are able to apply it, that is when it really is connecting to our lives. Therefore, the preaching of the word of God is the word of God.
And so we have the reading of the word, the teaching of the word, but then this last one, to exhort. What is exhort? Exhort means to encourage or to urge. I like the word urge. And this is where when people say, You're a teacher, not a preacher.
If anyone ever says that to me, I say every time I preach, I urge the people of God to obey it. That's what preaching is. I can teach you a lesson without ever encouraging you to believe or obey. I can give you facts and figures and timetables.
But preaching is when we look to say this, the word of God says, and therefore we are commanded to obey. It's the urging, the exhortation to obey the word of God. This is the pastoral role that Timothy is fulfilling, guiding the church in growth, spiritual and moral.
Exhortation is linked to the work of the Holy Spirit, because guess what? I can call you to obey, but who empowers you to obey? The Spirit of God within you. This is why when we speak to the unbeliever, we cannot expect the unbeliever to obey the word of God, because they're not empowered to do so.
So what do we say to the unbeliever? Repent of your unbelief and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, that he may fill you with his Holy Spirit and empower you to do his will. As I've said before, don't get surprised when unbelievers act like unbelievers, because wretch is going to wretch.
That's what they do. We should be surprised when believers act like heathens, and we should do what? Pray for them, call them to repentance, and recognize that all of us do, and therefore show grace and mercy.
But the unbeliever is called to repent and believe, to turn from their unbelief and trust, and that's the exhortation. I try in every message to remind you all that we have unbelievers here. We have unbelievers here, some of them are children, who by their time in life yet have not bowed the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ, and we pray for the day that they will.
And we're glad that they're here, and we will instruct them, we will catechize them, we will teach them the vocabulary of faith, so that when God opens their heart to believe, they will walk in knowing what they believe.
But there are also people here who have never really been a part of a church, and maybe you are just hearing some of this for the first time, and I urge you to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.
And there are always the danger of those who have made a confession without a possession, those who say they believe and yet have not truly trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ. They're the most fearful because I truly believe it is one of the works of the demons is to convince believers that they're not and convince unbelievers that they are, because believers who don't know if they're saved and struggle with assurance are often very ineffective, and people who believe they're saved and are not are under deception.
And both are difficult. You ever read The Screwtape Letters? If you've never read The Screwtape Letters, it's written by C .S. Lewis, and The Screwtape Letters is a fictional account of two demons. The one demon who's the sort of superior demon who's training the younger demon, Wormwood, and Screwtape is training him and is giving him instruction on how to best affect the lives of people and how to bring destruction and disorder and chaos.
And honestly, every time I read it, I say this is too real. Lewis was just too insightful because it's especially the part about the church. Make them go to church and look at one another and think themselves better than the one next to them.
Therefore, they will have a sense of pride in their worship and they won't bow the knee. I mean, honestly, the truth is in that, and I think that that's honestly... Mike and I talked about this last week.
I don't think the devil, or I know the devil, is not universal. The devil is not universal. He does not have universal ability to affect all of us, and he may not even know our names because he's not omnipotent or omniscient either.
But the world is full of, as we sing the song, though this world with devils filled, we talk about the demons and those who are... We fight what battle? Not a flesh and blood, but a spiritual battle. And I believe it's, again, this going back to the fact that I believe there are people in churches who believe that they're saved that are not, and people who are saved and struggle.
And I think both of these are just that spiritual battle that we fight. So, we have the exhortation. The exhortation is the calling of the people of God to hear the word of God and to believe it,.
To obey it.
And the element of worship, you remember going back to the elements of worship, the element of worship which is given the most time in the worship service is the preaching of the word of God. And that is because when the Bible is read, God's word is spoken.
And when the Bible is preached, God's word is explained. Therefore, it gets the lion's share of our time because God is speaking through his word. Again, people ask about time. How long should a sermon last until it's finished?
That's how long a sermon should last. I have been told by many, many people that sermons shouldn't last longer than 20 minutes. I can't clear my throat in 20 minutes, but that's been... A 20-minute sermon is a sermonette.
And so, you're not going to get 20 minutes here. But the reality of it is, is there's no specific length. You preach the text, you read the text, you explain the text, and you exhort from the text. And what are the exhortations that we get from this text?
What are some of the things that we get out of this text? Which simply says, until I come, give yourselves to the public reading of Scripture. Well, the first exhortation is we should be publicly reading the Scripture, and we are.
And we are. Every time we gather together, we publicly read the word of God. We should, and we do. Praise the Lord.
You want to know why we do what we do?
Because it commands us to do so.
It commands us.
It doesn't tell us how much to read, but think about our service. A few weeks ago, I said our service has seven specific prayers that structure our worship. We have the invocation, the dedication, the supplication, the illumination, all these prayers that we have.
But in all of them is the word of God. We have the invocation, and we have the call to worship, which is the word of God. We have the dedication for the offering, and then we read 2 Corinthians. Often, we didn't do it today, but we often read 2 Corinthians 9, which says that, Give as the Lord, or as you've decided in your heart to give, not under compulsion, for God loves a what? Cheerful giver.
It was mentioned, but not read, but specifically mentioned. The word of God instructs us in worship. We come together for our time of supplication. What does the Bible say? It says to pray for one another.
And so we do. And so we come before God, and we intercede for one another. So everything we do is tied together through prayer and through the word of God, together in our worship service. So we publicly read the word of God, and we teach the word of God.
I wonder, and this is just a thought, how many of us are seeking to understand the word of God better when we come? How many of you, that is your goal? I want to come and understand the word better, so that I might serve God better.
Not just so that I have a huge intellectual theological brain, or that I'm able to beat the atheist in my latest ex-exchange on social media, but that I want to grow closer to my God, that I might know him better.
You've all heard this illustration before, but I think it's a good one. When a man and woman meet one another, their very first interactions are usually interactions which are intended to learn about one another.
And if a man and a woman met and began to see one another, and one of them said, I really don't care to get to know you any better, what would that say of the relationship? Richard Taylor was one of our elders for many years, and a man I admired greatly for one particular reason.
He loved his wife with a love that was so genuine and so precious. She was in a wheelchair, and up until the time that she passed away, and I did both her funeral and his, up until the time that she passed away, he picked her up and put her in the seat of her car.
He never got one of those vans with the lift gate. I'm sure he could have. I'm sure he could have gotten a lift, but he didn't do that. He would pick his wife up and put her in the car. They had a love that was so genuine and so precious, and he would often tell me the stories.
Richard loved to tell stories, and he would often tell me the stories of how they met. She was in a wheelchair from the age of 12, so they met when they were young, and he went into Vietnam. He was a medic, or was it Korean?
He might have been Korean. I may be getting that wrong. He was a little older, but he was a medic in a war, and while he was away at war, he would write to her, and she would write to him, and that's how they grew to love each other, because they would read what the other had written, and that's how they knew when he got back it was going to be a lifelong love.
Imagine if Sybil and Richard had written letters to the other, and the other said, You know what? I don't really want to read this. It doesn't matter what is said. What would that say of the relationship?
How often do we really seek to understand what God has given to us? God has given us 66 letters. This is the Word of God. All Scripture is theopneustos. It is God-breathed. God spoke His Word so that we would have it and that we would understand Him.
This is why we teach, because we want to know our God. We want to love Him because He loved us so much that He gave us His Word. And so the Word of God is to be taught, and it is to be exhorted among the people of God.
During the time of the Reformation, church architecture changed. Many people don't realize this, but medieval church architecture and modern Roman Catholic architecture is different than what you will see in most Protestant churches.
And you know what the main difference is between medieval church architecture and Protestant church architecture? It's that the pulpit is in the center of the chancel. In medieval church architecture, what took the center stage?
The communion, because it was the belief that the priest was reinstituting the sacrifice of Christ, representing the sacrifice of Christ. That was the high point of worship. And it is a high point of worship, and I will say next week I'm preaching on the supper, and I will preach the importance of the table, but I will say this.
One of the things the Reformers did that I hold in great regard is they moved the Word of God to the center of the room. And they said, this is our standard. This is the norma normans, non normata. The standard of standards against which it is never put again.
Nothing can come against it. Beloved, my friends, we must unashamedly admit that we are a Bible-centered worship. It's focused on the Word of God and the God of the Word. And my encouragement, my question for you today, is hearing and reading and living the Word a priority in your life?
It is certainly a priority in worship, and we make it so. But is it a priority in your life? What have we said worship is? Of all the things that we do, what else have we said worship is? We've said it is basic training for life.
We come here and we receive training so that we can go out into the world and live for Christ. We train here in worship, and we train with the Word of God at the center of what we do. Is the Word of God in the center of your life?
If you're not a believer yet, then I would say it's not. And I would urge you, encourage you to recognize your need for Christ, to turn from your unbelief and trust in Him. But if you are a believer and the Word is not central in your life, then I would exhort you and urge you to consider why not.
Let's pray.
Father, I thank you for your Word. Thank you for your truth. And I ask you even now, Lord, that you would apply this truth to our hearts. Lord God, why do we preach? Because you've commanded us to read the Scripture, to exhort from the Scripture, and to teach the Scripture.
May it be, O God, that we are faithful to that call. And Lord God, may you bless us as we seek to be Bible-believing Christians.
In Jesus' name, amen.