Telegraphing the Sermon

Telegraphing the Sermon

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth, Michael Lee Abendroth, and I think this is going into year 15 or something like that for No Compromise Radio. We'll see how many more years we have left.

I doubt it'll be 15. Noco Jr. will take over. By then, and by then, he'll probably pick a different name or something instead of No Compromise Radio. In the old days, we just used to talk about, we used to talk about, we don't want to compromise, and everybody seems to be compromising.

And then it turned into a discussion and a show about Jesus who never compromised. And that makes it a lot better. Right? Right. There's room for improvement for all of us, and there's room for growth as well.

Telegraphing in Sports and Everyday Life

Today, I'd like to talk about telegraphing. Telegraphing. What in the world does telegraphing have to do with theology? That's a very good question. I'm glad you asked. Well, when I was younger and was learning how to play basketball, the coach would say, don't telegraph your passes.

Don't telegraph your pass. So when you're playing basketball and you want to pass to one of your teammates, if you look at your teammate and then slowly pass it, that's called telegraphing, because now the opposing team knows what I'm going to do, and they might take advantage of that and try to intercept the ball.

I don't want to alert the opponents of my intentions. That's called to telegraph. And we don't want them to anticipate what I'm going to do if I could not telegraph and make it more sneaky. Right? Can Christians be sneaky?

Should Christians be sneaky? Telegraphing is not good in basketball. But I also found other sports that I never really thought about before with martial arts and combat sports, boxing. Sometimes there's a tell there.

There's a technique of lowering the shoulder and putting your body in such a way that the opponent will know what you're going to do. With ice hockey, I heard there's telegraphing in ice hockeys. Ice hockey, when if you're going to do a slap shot or you're going to check somebody, there are certain things you might do ahead of time and telegraph your intention.

You wouldn't want to do that. Baseball, you don't want the pitcher to show the batter finger positions as the pitcher holds the ball, because then the batter's going to know possibly what you're going to do.

You're going to, as a pitcher, tip your pitch. You don't want to do that. You don't want to pit your pitches either. I can't even read. Tipping is pitches. What do you call that when you just invert vowels and consonants and all that other stuff?

You call it tired. You can do it in cricket, I heard. American football, the quarterback is looking a certain way and then passes that same way. That's a telegraph of his intentions, and you don't want to do that.

Even a competitive thing that I don't think is a sport, poker, sometimes if you have a bad hand, maybe you're going to blink or do something and you're going to call that a tell. You don't want the telegraph to turn into a tell, tell a graph, tell someone.

It's abbreviated to tell. I never knew that. Did you? Telegraph. But today on No Compromise Radio, I want you to know that there should be telegraphing when it comes to preaching. Boxing, no. Basketball, no.

Football, no. Poker, no. Hockey, no. Sports, no. But I want preachers to telegraph their sermons. They need to let the person know exactly what's happening. So, what do I mean by that? In general, I think to myself, all right, preaching is to be caught and taught.

You are taught something when you are hearing the word preached. If the pastor is in any way, shape, or form faithful, he's preaching the word. And you're learning about the passage in context, who Jesus is, what he thinks about sin, what did he come to do, person, nature, and work, the generosity of God, the severity of God, whatever you're learning, that's something to be taught.

But what's to be caught? And so, I'm trying to tell you today that preachers should be telegraphing a variety of things so that you don't just learn the passage, but you learn how to study the Bible. You learn an attitude of the Bible.

These are things that in today's show, I want to telegraph to you. This is almost like the thing behind the thing so that you read the Bible so that you interpret the Bible the way the pastor does. And so, that's something that needs to be telegraphed where I'm going to go today.

Sequential Bible Teaching at Home

Well, that's why we tuned in to find out where are we going to go. So, here are some telegraphs. So, hopefully your pastor teaches through the Bible verse by verse. And of course, he can do a topical sermon, textual sermon, or whatever as he pleases, as he sees fit.

But in general, we think it's best to do sequential Bible teaching. And so, what do I want to telegraph with that? I want to telegraph that I want you to teach your family the same way. Is there a time to sit around and talk about what's marriage, what is a woman, a variety of things like that, how to think about the world through a biblical worldview and lens.

Of course, the dad and mom can sit and talk about whatever they think is appropriate for their children and their family. But one of the things that you can do, especially early on when you're just trying to put a lot of data into the children's minds and brains, do you put data into brains, more brains, is for you to catch the idea through telegraphing.

We're telegraphing right now. Here's my intention. I want you to teach the Bible the same way. You say, oh, that makes sense. Right? What's done on Sunday morning could be done for family worship hour.

Now, it doesn't have to be as detailed, and I don't want dads especially, or maybe it's a single mom or something like that, or your husband's out of town. I don't want you to be paralyzed by, I can't study for 40 hours, so I can't put this together.

But here's what I mean by sequentially. Grab your Bibles, kids. We are going to study a great book called Exodus. Tonight, we're going to read chapter one, and we're going to ask ourselves questions like, who is God and what does he think about sin?

And we're going to read chapter one. And then the next night, maybe you're busy, you didn't get a And the following night, you say, what did we learn in Exodus chapter one? And now we're going to say, well, what are we going to learn from Exodus two about God?

So, sequentially, and reading through your Bible just verse by verse. And so, one of the things I want you to understand that I'm trying to telegraph is teach the Bible at home like the Bible's taught to you sequentially.

Slow, Careful Exposition and the Uses of the Law

Another one is slowly. The Bible, sometimes we want to get through passages really fast. And of course, as you probably sit underneath a good Bible teaching pastor, if you listen to this show, that's probably your MO, and they just take their time going slowly.

They don't have to speed through and rush through. It is done asking a lot of questions. So, when the pastor says, is this passage that we're looking at today, law or gospel? Is this a passage that says to do something?

Or is it a passage that said God has done something or God will do something? Showing your family if the passage is a command or a promise. Is it a declaration or is it imperative? Pastors do that. And then you should as well, because we're trying to telegraph to you, not just teaching you the passage, but you can catch it and then you do the same thing.

Is this law that we're looking at here in the passage, exposing sin in unbelievers? That's the first use of the law. Or is it guiding the saints? Third use of the law. And you'll hear pastors talk that way.

Maybe they don't say first and third use, but you'll understand what they're saying. The law is holy and good and righteous, and it shows forth the character and nature of God because law is not abstracted from the lawgiver.

And then you realize, oh, this is the law that helps unbelievers see their sin and misery so that they look for a savior. And the same law now for believers guides us because the pastor has been very clear to tell me that this law is coming from a father now because of the work of Jesus.

We are adopted in the family of God. And therefore, this is law from the hand of Christ. This is law from a father, not a judge. And when the pastors talk that way, I want it to be caught. I want to telegraph that to you so that you can realize what's going on.

Christ-Centered Preaching and the Fatherly Tone of Proverbs

What does the pastor say about Jesus? Well, Jesus really isn't in this passage per se, in this little pericope, this little paragraph, but he is talking about Jesus because this is a Christian service, him we proclaim, Colossians 1 .28, 1 Corinthians 2 .2, about the proclamation of Christ Jesus and him crucified.

And he ends up talking about Jesus, even if he's teaching a proverb. And therefore, if you're in Matthew, excuse me, Proverbs 5, my son, Proverbs 2, my son, Proverbs 3, I think my son, Proverbs 4, my son, 6, my son, 7, my son.

One of those is my sons. But when you see that, you realize, oh, this is a father's guidance to the son for the son's good, because the dad knows better and the father's honor. And then you can just turn that into the exact same thing when it comes to spiritually with our Father, our Heavenly Father, our Father who art in heaven, he gives us these rules for our good and for his glory.

You can say to yourself, the pastor seems to regularly talk about encouraging weak believers. And his tenor tends to be more comfort and encouragement of the weak and frail Christians versus challenging people's faith all the time.

There's nothing wrong with challenging faith, 1 Corinthians 6, 9 and following, obviously. But overall, I think what we need to do as pastors is we are feeding the flock of God. Feed my sheep. Now, there are people in there that say they're sheep, but they're not.

That's true. And we can call them out and we can challenge them. And we can use the first use of the law. But over and over and over and over, a pastor should not be assuming everybody in the family, everybody in the congregation is not saved.

And so, too, you begin to teach your family and you see their struggles and their weaknesses and your 16-year-old professes Christ, but still does some sins. And you, what? No, you sin? How can you call yourself a Christian?

What's my point? My point is, what you see the pastor do well, you should model that in your own teaching when you teach Sunday school, when you teach a Bible Institute class, when you preach, when you teach your children, when you teach family Bible time, when you go to the rest home and preach, whatever that is, what you see the pastor doing, I want you to do.

Of course, if he does something dumb, if I do something dumb or when I do something dumb, well, we don't mimic that, obviously, but there's the thing behind the thing, right? So, you see the pastor, he's teaching verse by verse.

He's understanding that the Bible is sufficient and authoritative and the final authority. And therefore, you do the same thing. You just teach the Bible and you show them that while wisdom that you have is often very wise, but it is not biblical verity.

It is simply derived from Bible principles, but the Bible is the Bible and it has final authority. When you hear the pastor talk about different genres that are in the Bible and you have to interpret them differently, poetry needs to be interpreted rightly.

There's going to be some parallels and you just can't make the poems walk on all fours. And what's the point of the poem? It's different than apocalyptic genre. Then you too do the same thing. You're catching that.

The pastor should be telegraphing that once in a while. Here's how you study these different genres. When the pastor talks about cross referencing, what is he trying to do? He's trying to say that scripture interprets scripture, the analogy of scripture.

And you can go to other passages, especially passages that speak of the same thing. Let's say in the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and you can see, oh, there's these similarities with these cross references and sacred scripture is interpreting itself.

Right? Remember what that's called? Scriptura, sacra, sui, ipsius, interpress. Good night. You hear the pastor, he's talking about confessions and systematic theology and what does the Bible say about this topic from Genesis to Revelation?

You think, oh, that's the way I should talk. That's the way I should do it. Right? I should be thinking theologically. Now, of course, there are people in this world that say you should interpret the Bible in a literal, grammatical, historical way.

Grammatical, historical, that's it. And they think grammatical, historical, theological is wrong. Well, what I would say is grammatical, historical, theological, if you think that's wrong, Mr. grammatical, historical, will you do it though?

So, you should be after your own self, not me. If I say to you, Mr. grammatical, historical, when you read the word God, how do you read it? Well, you say, well, it's in the Old Testament, it's Elohim, the New Testament's Theos, and I just have to interpret it right as it discusses itself in that passage.

And I can't read any theology into that. Really? No, no, we have progressive revelation and we know more about the word God than just having it used one time. And it's a transcendent, invisible being.

He, of course, not it. What's my point? My point is, do you believe in the Trinity? Yes. Then you read the Bible in a grammatical, historical, theological way. Because you don't go back to square one every time you see the word God, you should be thinking about triune God.

When I see the word God, I think of God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit. When I see Yahweh, our all-caps Lord, L-O-R-D, I think of Yahweh the Father, Yahweh the Son, Yahweh the Spirit. That's how he has revealed himself.

And he didn't become that as progressive revelation progressed, as revelation progressed. No, no, he was that, and we just learn more about who he was. And therefore, it is my conviction that everybody has a grammatical, historical, theological reading of the Bible.

And how can I ignore what's been taught about all the Bible when there's one author, God, one divine author, excuse me, and then a human author, but I'm not going to put the human author over God. I'm going to say there's one divine author, so there's going to be this unifying theme, unifying systematic theology in the Bible.

When I come to the passage and I say, what am I learning about God and sin and the Savior, so that I can proclaim that to the congregation on Sunday, then I think to myself, when you, dear congregation, hear me talk that way, you too should be saying, this is how I should read the Bible.

What can I learn about God, the Savior, sin, how he relates to people, etc. Does that sound right? Does that sound right to you? This is what I call telegraphing. When it comes to preaching, we're telegraphing.

We're trying to let people know, all right, even if I don't say it every week, I want you to model this, not as in-depth as 40 hours a week study or 25 hours, but I want you to model it and how Bible teaching is important.

The Value of Preaching and Christ the Prince of Preachers

The world says, don't preach to me. Liberal churches criticize it. If you're going to get up and teach the Bible for 45, 50 minutes, you're probably going to be called sheltered or a cave dweller, dinosaur, obscurantist, probably, and other things.

And that's because for many, the church has exchanged her birthright for a watered-down stew of PowerPoint presentations, drama, slideshows, movie clips, felt needs, psychological techniques, and programs designed to what?

Fill the pews. And that's not what we need. When you look at preaching, you'll see the high priority of preaching in the Bible, the value that the Bible, the Word of God, God himself puts on preaching.

And while the world doesn't like preaching, God loves preaching. Did you know that? God loves preaching. And when you think about even the Lord Jesus, I mean, we could talk generally in the Bible about preaching.

I think I'll do that in just a minute, but even specifically Jesus Christ, he's a great, he was a great preacher. He's the prince of preachers. Luke 4, he said to them, I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well, for I was sent for this purpose.

Of course, we know Jesus with wonderful titles, with rich titles, Savior, Lord, Messiah, King, Judge, Son of God, Son of Man, Alpha, Omega, Holy One, Lamb, Advocate, Author, Finisher, Captain, Lion, Mediator, Prophet, Priest, King, Shepherd, Redeemer, Emmanuel, Angel of the Lord, the Word, First and the Last.

I mean, just those are great. How about preacher? Do you think about Jesus as a preacher? Well, if you do, you're not going to denigrate or desecrate either the office of preacher or preaching itself.

You're not going to think it's antiquated or out of date or somehow wrong. Thomas Watson said, and he was a Puritan writer, Jesus alone is the prince of preachers. He alone is the best of expositors. And that's how we need to look at preaching, that preaching is important.

God had one son and he made him a preacher. And then just generally, you know what preaching does to a local church and why it's called one of the means of grace and how 2 Timothy 4, I charge you in the presence of God and Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word.

Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching. The Bible speaks a lot about preaching and how it's important. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of scripture, to exhortation, to teaching, 1 Timothy 4 .13.

So, we use that often to say there should be scripture read in a worship service, but also there should be exhortation and teaching. What did Paul say in 1 Corinthians 1? For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

He goes on to say, for since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. And then verse 23, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and a folly to Gentiles.

Preaching in the Bible is important for many reasons. And the one that I wanted to talk about today is so you see how it's done, you see how it's put together, and then you, maybe in a mini version, maybe it doesn't have to be in such a well-constructed version or well-crafted version, but you take those same things that you caught from the sermon and then you do the same things.

I mean, when I first started doing family Bible time, Kim was a more mature Christian than I was. And I'm like, I don't know what to do. I mean, I have to come up with a sermon to do this? No. You just say, well, the pastor, he's been teaching me that the Bible is authoritative and sufficient and powerful, and therefore it's going to do the work and you just explain it.

And I'm just going to explain this chapter the best I can. I'm going to read it. Even if I can't explain it, I'm just going to read it and ask some questions about who God is and what He's doing and His nature, His character, His essence.

And then we think, okay, fine. So, that's the point. What's the point of No Compromise Radio's message today? That is, yes, learn from your pastor as he preaches through books of the Bible. But then ask yourself the question, what's the thing behind the thing?

What are the assumptions that he has about preaching? That preaching is powerful, right? How will they hear without someone preaching? There's means to the end, right? God saves the elect through preaching, right?

That's the means, hearing the Word of God. You say to yourself, oh, the gospel that was preached by Paul, delivered to us of first importance, Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried and he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, that he, Paul, had an object that he preached, 2 Corinthians 4, 5, for what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ is Lord with ourselves as your servants for Christ's sake.

BBC thankfully believes that preaching is important. No Compromise Radio listeners thankfully believe that preaching is important. And I'm very thankful for that. And it's hard to go back on to bad preaching once you've set underneath, not even brilliant preaching, but just faithful, right?

Stores are to be found faithful. Week in and a week out, you know, the pastor will get up and proclaim the truth. What does preaching do? What does it accomplish? What are some of the methods behind this sermon?

And when you start to ask some of those questions and you think, oh, I'm going to see the Bible the same way. I'm going to see preaching the same way. I'm going to see, I don't have to come up with all kinds of great illustrations.

I'm just going to proclaim the truth. That's what I'm after today. I want to telegraph that to you. I want you to know my intentions when I'm going to preach that what's going to happen when I'm proclaiming to you the truth.

Closing Announcements and Conference Information

Well, my name is Mike Ebendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. You can always write me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com. I will be Lord willing in Omaha, Nebraska at the Pactam Conference this October.

I want to say it's October 7th and 8th with Michael Beck, Patrick Ebendroth, and D .G. Hart. And you can go to pactam .org or pactam .com to get information on that. Thanks for listening. Mike Ebendroth, No Compromise Radio Ministry.