Jesus The Preacher

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I'm glad to be back here at my home church, Bethlehem Bible Church. We had a great week. The Shepherds Conference, probably one of the highlights, was having 3 ,400 men singing, and singing a cappella, and pastors, and deacons, and elders.
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It was really just a great joy to listen to the preaching of Dr. MacArthur and Mark Dever, C .J.
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Mahaney. We got to hear a little bit Dr. Mohler, R .C. Sproul, Egan Duncan. It was just great.
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When you think of Jesus Christ, what are some of the names you use to describe him?
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Master. Jesus Christ, Master. He's Christ, the Messiah. Son of God.
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Son of man. Savior. Can you think of others? You can say them out loud if you'd like.
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Wonderful. Rose of Sharon. Prince of Peace. Mighty God.
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Lamb of God. Lion of the tribe of Judah. You have more than I thought you'd have.
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Good for you. How about this one? I don't think we think of Jesus like this very often.
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Jesus, the preacher. Jesus, the preacher.
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For the last 11 weeks, I've been absorbed in the Sermon on the Mount, watching and observing and trying to learn about Jesus Christ and how he preached.
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Maybe his most famous sermon in Matthew 5, 6, and 7, commonly called the Sermon on the
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Mount. And I think Jesus alone is the Prince of Preachers. He's the greatest expositor.
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He is the preacher. I have a question for you this morning, congregation.
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Do you love preaching? Do you love preaching? Do you love long sermons?
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Lots of preaching, in other words? Do you love convicting sermons?
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Encouraging sermons? I love preaching so much,
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I'll pay to go to a preaching conference, just like some men did last week. The old days, I had to pay.
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You guys as a congregation paid for me to go last week, but I would pay to hear preaching. I pay to buy
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CDs, cassettes. Reel -to -reel was before my time, but maybe some of you would.
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MP3s. I have thousands of tapes that I've listened to, that I want to listen to.
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Mark Dever preached John chapter 12 in the conference, and as he was praying after the sermon,
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I began to cry, thinking, Lord, there are lots of reasons I know I'm a Christian, but one of the reasons
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I know I'm a Christian is that I love Bible preaching. Before I was saved,
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I didn't want Bible preaching. Don't preach to me. Get that out of my face. Who are you to tell me anything?
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That's fine for your truth, as long as it's not my truth. But now, with the work of God in our hearts,
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He's turned our hearts to listen to Bible preaching, and we love Bible preaching.
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Sadly, like Amos 8, we live in a day that there's much famine, but not for bread or for water, but for hearing of the words of God.
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I love preaching. It doesn't bore me. By the way, if you don't like preaching, I'm not trying to run you out.
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I'd like to convince you that preaching is for you, but at the end, if you don't like preaching, this is the wrong church for you.
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The words of life, of salvation, of sanctification, about Jesus Christ. I love to hear
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Bible preaching. I love to hear Jesus Christ proclaim the truth.
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Some say, well, I like the person, but I don't like what he said. Yet, it's a package deal, the proclamation of Jesus Christ, the
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Son of God. God had one Son, and He made Him a what? Preacher. Any idea what
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I'm going to talk about this morning? You say, well, you've just been back from the Shepherd's Conference, so you're going to talk about preaching.
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Not necessarily. Nothing changed at the Shepherd's Conference in terms of a new philosophy, or a new methodology, or a new kind of theology, but what has been secured, and what has been taken like a rivet and punched into my brain is the preeminency of proclaiming
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Jesus Christ, the risen Savior, from the pulpit as long as we live.
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Martin Lloyd -Jones, I learned last week, the first thing he did at Westminster Chapel is he bolted the pulpit down into the center of the church so everyone would know we sing yes, we give yes, we have the
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Lord's Table yes, we have baptisms yes, we pray certainly, but the proclamation of the
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Word of God is central and will stay central in this church. So this morning what
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I'd like to do is just kind of give you one of my spleen sermons. This is kind of from the heart.
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This is, we'll take a break from the Matthew exposition, and I want to talk to you this morning about lessons that we can learn as a congregation from the preacher
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Jesus Christ. I'll be in Newtown, Connecticut next Sunday, and so I wanted to take a little detour before we get into the seventh beatitude, blessed are the peacemakers, and so let's look together, lessons we can learn both as a congregation and as a pastor, our elder board, and we even have preachers in the congregation, from the preaching of Jesus.
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I believe when you preach, you need to preach with a verdict, right? You learn information so that you can respond properly, and so you have to answer the question when you preach.
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You have to ask it, so what? And then you have to answer it. So there'll be implications for both you and for me as we see
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Jesus Christ the preacher. Lesson number one, Jesus Christ placed a high premium on preaching.
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That is to say, he ordained preaching. For Jesus, preaching was a very high thing in his ministry, a high priority.
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Did you know preaching was Jesus's idea? He came up with it. Sadly, what attracts people to churches these days would be friends, family, relationships, programs, music.
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There's a place in Illinois you can get a free car wash if you go. And preaching has fallen on hard times.
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Who wants to be preached to? I'd rather have kind of a pep talk, feel good message, kind of a dialogue.
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You know, having one guy up in front, thinks he's better, kind of speaking down to the congregation, that's out of style.
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That's not in some man up in the pulpit preaching away. Yet Jesus ordained preaching.
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He had his apostolic messengers say, when you're in the public assembly, you preach the word of God.
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Is it foolishness, as 1 Corinthians 11 says, 1 Corinthians 1, or is it the wisdom of God?
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In today, our chats, sharing, story time, my ministry, feel good stuff.
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You know, preaching might offend, so we just better back off a little bit. We'll get them into the church with kind of the nice warm fuzzies, but then, you know, later we'll get them on a
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Wednesday night study. But we can't preach to people these days. Plus, if the guy does preach, then you can just throw everything out the window with this little retort.
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That's your own, what? Interpretation. Two weeks ago, there was a pastor's conference in California, and these were some of the titles of the conference seminars for the pastors.
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This is not the shepherd's conference, by the way. Designing emergent worship gatherings that go beyond preaching and singing.
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Here's a good one. This is for pastors, how to minister to people. Encountering God in solitude and silence.
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How to read the culture. How to lead the artists, including your worship leader, in your church. Because they're the most difficult.
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Worship leader? That's not, by the way, that's not Charlie Crane. And I am only in the position because it's a
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God -ordained position. The worship leader is the pastor of the church. It's the elder board. They're the worship leaders. They preach the
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Bible. The seminar, No Perfect People Allowed.
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Creating a come -as -you -are culture in your church. By the way, they interviewed these pastors on a side note. Here's what happens when you don't preach.
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They were asked, pastors of this convention, are you familiar with the doctrine of imputation? 33 % said they were familiar.
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67 % said they were not familiar. What we just talked about here, where God takes our sins and counts them against Christ.
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God takes Christ's righteousness and counts that to our righteous account.
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Our account to declare us righteous. But of the
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Bible, God says this of preaching. Romans chapter 10. It saves. How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed?
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How will they believe in Him without having heard? How will they hear without a what? A preacher.
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How will they preach unless they're sent? Just as it is written. How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of great things.
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However, they did not all heed the good news. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our report? So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
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On the flip side, one man said, what is the function of a clergyman in the world? Answer, he gets his living by assuring idiots that he can save them from an imaginary hell.
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It's a business that is similar to snake oil salesman for rheumatism.
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Another man said, it's an outmoded form of communication in our postmodern age. After all, do you use medicine techniques from 2 ,000 years ago?
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When's the last time you've been to the barber to let some blood? But let's turn our
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Bibles to Mark chapter 1, and let me show you Jesus and how He had a high priority on preaching.
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In a sense, this is a topical message I'm talking about preaching today, but I want to show you expositionally each point so we can see the context and see the authorial intent of the passage.
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Mark chapter 1, Jesus the preacher. Mark is known as the go -gospel. It shows much about Jesus, certainly not less than God, but focusing on His servant heart as a man serving others, coming to seek and save those who are lost.
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And Mark chapter 1 is one of the most amazing chapters in all the Bible to me to talk about Jesus the preacher.
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And typical, two out of every three verses, Mark starts with and. And He healed many who were ill with various diseases and cast out many demons, and He was not permitting the demons to speak because they knew who
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He was. Demons, you will not be my messengers of truth.
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Verse 35, very early in the morning. By the way, that's a very vivid time designation.
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It could be anywhere from 3 in the morning until 6 in the morning. It was early. Two adverbs, at night, very much.
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While it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went off to a solitary place where He prayed.
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Now, if we backed up a little bit in Mark, there's been a healing ministry, a lot of commotion, certainly a lot of sick people back then.
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They all want to talk to Jesus, be healed by Jesus. And Jesus gets up early. He leaves most likely the house of Peter and goes off to a solitary or a lonely, uninhabited, remote place.
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Crowds earlier, now contrasted with very quiet alone. Busy day,
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He needs now refreshment with the Father, as it were, and fellowship with Him. He did this very often, and He prays.
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And what would you think you would do if you woke up in the morning, you were at the house with Jesus that night, you went to sleep,
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He was sleeping right over there, He heals, He can do all kinds of things. There's a crowd gathering. You wake up, and Jesus isn't there.
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What would you do? You'd go find Him. That's exactly what happened, verse 36.
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Simon and his companions went to look for Him. That doesn't really do much good for the real
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Greek sense. Emphatically, at the beginning, is the words hunted, are the words hunted for Him.
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They got up, and they were hunting for Him. With sweat and toil, pursuing, tracking. It's kind of like my initial reaction when you're walking someplace, and I kind of have two things that I look for all the time, besides my children.
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As one, I put my hands here to make sure I have my keys in my front pocket. And the other one, I put my hand back here to make sure
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I have my wallet. And when you feel for your wallet, when you're supposed to have it, there's that sense of kind of panic.
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I've got to go find that. Once I lost Luke at Riverside Water Park, I think it's
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Six Flags now, could not find the young man. I was off dumping buckets of water on some other unsuspecting four -year -old kid and lost my kid.
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Just that feeling. Jesus was in our house. We wake up in the morning, and He's gone. They went out to hunt for Him and track
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Him. Same words where Christ's enemies were seeking to destroy
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Him. Verse 37, And when they found Him, they exclaimed, Everyone's looking for you.
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Everyone's looking for you. You think that's what they did? We don't have any kind of intonation here, but I don't think this was blandly said.
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I think this was with disdain and with emotion and with exasperation, hands on hips type of thing, saying everyone is looking for you.
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Everyone's looking for you. What are you doing? A la Peter rebuking Jesus. Surely you're not going to do that,
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Jesus. The people at the door, they're coming back. Everyone's looking for you.
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All the people of Capernaum, present tense, they keep looking for you over and over and over. What are we going to tell them?
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There's only so long we can do the song and dance routine, Jesus. Everyone's looking for Jesus. Those that had demons in their children, they wanted them cast out.
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Others who had heard the news, they're all converging for a healing service. Everyone needs to be healed.
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Everyone needs to have their children, have demons cast out of them. And what does Jesus do? One of the most amazing verses in all the
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Bible, verse 38, Jesus replied, Let us go somewhere else to nearby villages so I can preach there also.
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That is why I have... It's shocking, isn't it?
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Healing, demons cast out. And Jesus, with amazement to me, it's astonishing, it's stupefying even.
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Everyone's looking for you. Well, I'm going to go, and by the way, the tense is, this is not going to be a night trip.
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This will be a protracted, extended preaching trip that I'm going on. Why would He do that? Well, lots of reasons, but do you know you can be healed from any disease and still die and go straight to perdition?
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Jesus is here to preach about how to have sins forgiven, and He has the message, repent.
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This is about souls. This is not necessarily about healing. Certainly, Jesus was kind and loving, so He would do that, but God's justice demands payment, demands punishment.
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And so either you will be punished, people, or there will be one to look, the Messiah of which I am, that I will bear your punishment.
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It's amazing. He said in a parallel passage, Luke 4, 43, He said to them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also, for I was sent for this purpose.
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If you love Jesus, you love it that Jesus was a preacher. I loved
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Dick Lucas when he insightfully said, how to ruin your ministry. One, get the power to heal all sickness.
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Two, get a large crowd of sick people. Three, turn away and tell them you're going on a preaching trip.
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Jesus knew the priority of the word of God and the proclaimed truth. Miracles certainly have a place, but if you have a healing ministry and you don't have the proclamation of the word of God, your healing ministry isn't biblical.
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The love of God for sinners is the message. Mark 1 earlier had said in verse 14, after John had been taken into custody,
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Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God. Jesus is a preacher. So what happened in verse 39?
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In Mark 1, so he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.
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Luke 4 .44, it said, Jesus did this with persistence and thoroughness. He kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea.
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Well, what's the so what question? Let's do this. Jesus loves preaching. There's a so what for me and there's a so what for you.
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The so what for me, the preacher is, I'm going to preach. We're going to preach from this pulpit.
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It is, as G. Campbell Morgan said, the supreme work of the Christian minister. I cannot imagine standing before God one day and having him examine my ministry and said, you know what,
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I didn't think the preached word was that good. I didn't think, you know, it was really that big of a deal. And so I just kind of told them what
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I thought I should tell them. It's like if you have a dog and you can't control your dog.
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You don't want the dog to bite somebody else or bite you or bite another animal. You just put that muzzle right on top and strap one strap here and strap one back here and that dog can't bite.
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People jam towels in other people's mouths so they can't talk. Prisoners. Preachers need to preach.
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God has spoken. God has spoken with authority. And God says you can't offer anything else so preach the word.
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Remember what Jesus said to Peter? At the very end, after he'd been raised from the dead, you know I love you, Lord. Okay, do you love me?
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Then I've got a job for you. And what is that? Feed my sheep. I want to be like John Bunyan.
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They said, you know, you can come out of jail anytime you want. Just don't preach anymore. If you let me out of prison today,
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I will preach again tomorrow by the grace of God. Well, back to prison then. Bunyan said,
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I will go back and stay there if need be till moss grows on my eyelids but I will never deny my
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Master. Preachers need to preach.
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What about congregations? If Jesus is a preacher and He puts a high premium on preaching, how should you respond? I think number one you should respond by saying, this is relevant.
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This is good for me. This is not some kind of old, antiquated, culturally not up to speed, kind of an
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Amish Mennonite deal where I don't need to hear preaching. It's 2 ,000 years old, you know. It's not relevant anymore.
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Is the eternal Word of God relevant? Is sin relevant? Forgiveness of sin is relevant? Hell and heaven, are they relevant?
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The holiness of God, is that still relevant? How to be right with God? Psalm 19 says, the fear of the
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Lord is clean. The Word of God is clean. It endures forever. It is eternally relevant, the
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Word of God. God has something to say in every area of our life.
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The Word is sufficient. When you're hurting, Psalm 119 .25, my soul cleaves to the dust.
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Revive me according to Thy Word. When you're heartbroken, Psalm 119 .28, my soul weeps because of grief.
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Strengthen me according to Thy Word. When you need comfort, Psalm 119 .76,
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O may Thy loving kindness comfort me according to Thy Word, to Thy servant. When you're afflicted, the
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Word is sufficient, Psalm 119 .107, I am exceedingly afflicted. Revive me, O Lord, according to Thy Word.
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The fallacy of giving the congregation some band -aid, may you never accept that. How about you when you evangelize?
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When you evangelize, what should you be saying? You should be saying, the Word of God says, the
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Bible says, and you should be proclaiming the preached Word. You should be preaching and proclaiming the Word. I've told you this many times,
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Barnhouse said, if Satan were really to take over a city, the following would happen. The bars would close, no alcohol would be sold, there would be happy marriages and well -behaved children, no crime, and everyone would be in churches on Sunday where Christ is not preached.
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If we ever stop preaching at this church, I implore you, I command you, I beg you, you kick us all out.
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You say, well, it's elder rule, then you vote with your feet then. You rise up, throw the bums out and get somebody else in here who will preach.
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Jesus placed a high premium on preaching. Do you? Secondly, Jesus, the preacher, preached
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God -centered messages. High premium on preaching, number two, he preached God -centered messages.
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High view of God, and that meant what? Low view of man.
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I found some actual sermon titles this week. Low view of God sermons.
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What would Jesus say to Madonna? How could I make that up?
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How can I feel better about myself? How can I get more time for myself?
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How can I be a better parent? I am caught in an adult children of alcoholics
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ACOA pattern. How can I like my job? How can I handle my money? How can I have a happier marriage?
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That'll pack a church. Except it's not really a church. Strikingly, Warren Wiersbe said this, listen, when worship becomes pragmatic, it ceases to be worship.
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Did you get that? When worship ceases, excuse me, when worship becomes pragmatic, it ceases to be worship.
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Worship is not God, we're here to extol your praises. And by the way, I need to figure out all these things on how
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I need to do them. Oh, God tells us, that's for certain. But he tells us in his own way.
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The sermons that Mike Horton calls, how to get up when life's got you down. Very, very low view of God.
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Have a very low view of God. Last March, Ladies Home Journal, Rick Warren's column says, learn to love yourself.
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Quote, self -esteem still wobbly after all these years? These are five simple truths, we'll show you that you don't need to be perfect to be priceless.
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Five points, accept yourself, love yourself, be true to yourself, forgive yourself, believe in yourself.
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You know what you call that? As we even observe with our own eyes, as he preached last Sunday. We call that, man -centered blasphemy.
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That's blasphemous. To preach who men are, to exalt them to that kind of place.
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He denies sin, he denies the substitutionary atonement, and he ends with this, you can believe what others say about you, or you can believe in yourself as God does.
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Who says you're truly acceptable, lovable, valuable, and capable. A little different than this.
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And as he was saying to them all, if anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, Luke 9. Take up his cross daily and follow me.
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For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake, he is the one who will save it.
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For what does a man profit if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the
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Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.
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That will clear out a crowd. Turn with me, if you would, to John chapter 4.
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And I want to show you that Jesus, when he preached, he had a high view of God. He talked about God the
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Father's will, God the Father's glory, God the Father's work, God the Father's purposes. It was all about the
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Father. And secondarily, it was the souls of the people. Certainly, he talks about trials that we're in and our own need of salvation.
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But it's all through the lens of the glory of God and how great God is. He preaches a high view, that is to say, of God.
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His focus is on God. And we're just going to take a survey through John, so we'll look at several chapters.
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God -centered survey in the Gospel of John as Jesus, the incarnate preacher, preaches.
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John 4 .34 Jesus said to them, My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.
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It's all about God. Chapter 5, please, verse 19 and following. Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to him,
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Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son of Man can do nothing of Himself unless it is something He sees the
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Father doing. For whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. For the
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Father loves the Son and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing. And the
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Father will show Him greater works than these so that you will marvel. Just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the
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Son also gives life to whom He wishes. For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the
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Son so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. The Son does not honor the
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Father who sent Him. See where the focus is? It's on the Father, on God. He keeps going.
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Look at John 6, verse 39. For this is the will of Him who sent me, that of all that He has given me,
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I lose nothing but raise it up on the last day. John 6 .40 For this is the will of my
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Father that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I myself will raise
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Him up on the last day. It is all about the glory of God. Why do we eat?
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Why do we drink? Why do we preach? Why do we listen to preaching? For the glory of God. It's about God. It's not about us.
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And when you flip it around, you've got a problem. Think about a telescope, kind of like one of those,
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I wish I knew what you called them, a long telescope that captains on the ship used to look and they would try to see if there are any pirates on the horizon.
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And they would look at those things. And here we have God -centered preaching where you have the eyepiece next to your eye and you have the expansion of things that are far away and you see them the way they should be seen, great and high and exalted and honorable.
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And then you take that with the man -centered ministry and you flip it around where the audience should be small and God great.
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And now you've got the big lens right here. You see a small little kind of children's
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God and the only thing you really see is if you look far, you see small, but if you look close, you see a reflection of what?
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Your own big eye. It's a spyglass.
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Okay. When you listen to Jesus preach, it was all about God. It was all about the glory of God.
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That's what we want to do. Did you notice the songs we sang today? I'm so great and I'm so lovely.
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Skip to the loo, my darling. All this kind of stuff. No. I want to see God. Frankly, I haven't loved
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God this week very well. I haven't honored Him. I haven't loved Him with all my heart, soul, mind and strength.
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So when I come to church to worship with you, the saints, I want to talk about a God and sing about a
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God and listen to a God and preach about a God who's high and who's great and who forgives.
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I've already contemplated on my own navel too much this week. It's time to look out.
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It's time to look up. And all our life throughout the week, we just kind of start off on Sunday looking up and then kind of down, down, down, down, down.
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Before you know it, it's the navel experience. And then I want to come to Sunday and say, I want to see God high and lifted up.
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That's how Jesus preached. But people want to hear about themselves, and that's why you'll kill a church if you want to talk about God and how great
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He is all the time. But I thank God that there are a couple hundred people in Massachusetts that want to hear God. I want to hear what
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God said. I want to have an exalted view of God. And that is the work of God, by the way, in your hearts because we wouldn't normally do that.
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Why are we different than the people down the street or over the hill or someplace else? Because God has opened our mind to realize, yes, we want to hear the
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Bible. It hurts, yes, at times. It convicts. It rebukes.
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It reproves. But that is all with the Father's love. And God loves me enough to make me like His Son.
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And He makes me like His Son by the preaching and the proclamation of the Word of God. I could read
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John 8, John 10, John 12, John 13, John 17. It's all about God.
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Forget hiring preachers who are dynamic leaders, who are team builders, who are problem solvers, who are administrators, who are entertainers, who are coaches.
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These are all things that I've learned that people try to hire their pastor because they want him to do such and such.
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We want pastors, one guy said, who are innovative, progressive, change -initiating, team leader, builder, someone who can relate well to fast trackers, approachable, catalytic.
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Man, I would be fired yesterday. Only reason you keep me around, and rightfully so, because I'm going to proclaim the truth.
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I hope you say, well, you know, he's just kind of a regular guy and not too impressive, and why is he here? But at least by the grace of God, when he preaches in that bolted -down pulpit, he's going to preach the
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Word of God. Degrees in music and business and audio -visual, leading worship through drama and dance.
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When I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or wisdom, proclaiming you the testimony of God, for I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him, what?
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Crucified. The person of Christ and the work of Christ. Raised, certainly, but the work of Christ, epitomized by the death of Christ.
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Paul knew it, 2 Corinthians 4. We preach not ourselves, but Christ. If the preacher preaches
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Christ, shouldn't then the preacher not do this? We preach about you, so you can feel good.
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No, we preach about Christ, and we preach about how He forgives and how He sustains and how He governs and how
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He will be exalted. Implications for me to preach the
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Word? Implications for you? Please, beloved, come to this church, saying, I'm coming here in worship today to give to God.
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It's not about how I feel or what I expect, because we're gonna give you God. You know, on a side note, it amazes me, someone will come in, and they've gone through a horrible trial in their life, and I know what the sermon's about.
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And I know that sermon is not gonna have anything to do with their trial, and I would love to give them a trial about God comforts you,
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He's the God of all comfort, in Isaiah chapter 40 or 1 Peter chapter 5, and how
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He comes alongside of you. And those people who struggle will come up after the sermon and say, that word ministered to me today.
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How could they do that? Because it's the Spirit of God working through the Word of God to say, yes, I got to see
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Christ high and lifted up, and that's what I needed today. I didn't need to know four easy steps to get rid of my trials, because frankly, if you get rid of those, more are coming.
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It's worshiping God and trusting in Him even though everything's not right. Just waiting for the next hammer to fall.
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God can make me faithful when that hammer falls. Jesus placed, number one, a high premium on preaching.
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Number two, Jesus preached God -centered messages. Thirdly, the third lesson from Jesus the preacher is that Jesus the preacher preached
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His message from God. He preached only the words from God. He preached the mind of God, as it were.
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If you'll turn your Bibles to Matthew chapter 4, let me give you a little survey that Jesus, of course, it's a little different for Jesus because everything
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He spoke was the Word. And we're going to get to we need to be proclaimers of the Word and listeners of the
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Word. But Jesus often, even though He could just speak the Word, He quoted what?
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The Old Testament and affirmed that very book. Often, 22 times in the
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New American Standard 95, these three words are found when Jesus was preaching. It is what?
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Written. Very interesting, the Greek students will tell you. It means it is written and it stands written forever and ever and ever.
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The words were uttered and in a perfect tense, it just continues throughout all eternity. It stands written.
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A sampling from Matthew's Gospel to show you that Jesus preached the mind of God and often the
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Old Testament, Matthew 4, 4. But He answered and said, it is written.
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As He is rebuking Satan, man shall not live on bread alone but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.
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Verse 7, Jesus said to him, on the other hand, it is written. You shall not put the
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Lord your God to the test. Verse 10, then Jesus said to him, go Satan, for it is written.
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You shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him only. Let's jump ahead a few chapters, Matthew 11, verse 10.
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Matthew 11, 10, where we see again that Jesus came preaching certainly the mind of God because He was
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God but just trying to incorporate this idea that Jesus often preached the Bible and certainly we do not have the mind of God in terms of we are
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God. We only have the mind of God as it's revealed to us so preacher, preach it. Congregation, demand it.
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11, 10, this is the one about whom it is written, speaking of John the Baptist, behold, I send my messenger ahead of you who will prepare your way before you.
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You don't have to turn there but Matthew 21, 13, it is written, my house shall be called the house of prayer. Matthew 26, 24, son of man is to go just as it is written of him.
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Matthew 26, 31, Jesus said to them, you will all fall away because of me this night just as it is written.
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Jesus preached the mind of God and often the Old Testament. For us, we have no other choice. What's my job as a pastor?
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To preach the word. Paul said, inspired of the spirit of God, Jesus Christ's spirit that we are to what?
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Preach the word. We are to preach the word of God. I solemnly charge you in the presence of God even of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead by his appearing by his kingdom.
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Preach the word. We are word preachers. Military language, sharp, hear ye, hear ye, proclamation of the good news that Jesus saves.
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Noah, turn away your sins, away from your sins. Jonah, yet 40 days and none of us shall be overthrown.
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John the Baptist, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. The healed demoniac, God has done great things for me.
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Paul, Jesus is the Christ. The 12, Philip, Peter, and it goes on and on.
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No alterations, no subtractions, no additions, no opinions, no book reviews, no politics, no economics, no current topics of the day, no science theories of the day.
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Preach the word. That's what preachers are supposed to do. I think I've told you the story many times.
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Haley was a little tiny kid. She was about four. We were at Grace Church. And I had told her, when you see a pastor, you go up to him and you say, preach the word.
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That's all you say. Preach the word. And when I would look around, I'd find a pastor. I'd say, that's a pastor.
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And she would just waddle right over there. And so this time, we were at Grace. I said, John MacArthur, that's our pastor.
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She just walked right over there and she just went over to John and to the bunch of people around him and she just looked up at him and she goes, preach the word.
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Maybe she was two. I don't know her age. We do not have liberty to invent our message.
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John did say, I'm convinced that even in the most sound and solid Bible churches today, much of what is labeled preaching is not that at all.
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Turn off the overhead. Eliminate the PowerPoint presentation. Stop passing out the fill in the blank outlines and let the man of God proclaim the truth with genuine heartfelt fervor, energized by the
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Spirit's unction. That's exactly right. For you, number one, as I've said before, demand
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Bible preaching. Number two, don't desire new and novel things. We are preaching the old, old story, right?
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You come to church looking for something new. Well, that's the wrong attitude. Number three,
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I would like you to, and it's almost hard to talk about because it's me, but I want you to properly assess the pastor or the elders.
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I'll talk about this next week when I'm helping a church down in Connecticut. Hire a new pastor. Spurgeon said, may
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I beg you carefully to judge every preacher, not by his gifts, not by his speaking powers, not by his status in society, not by the respectability of his congregation, not by the prettiness of his church, but by this.
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Does he preach the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation? If he does, your sitting under his ministry may prove to you the means of beginning faith in you.
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But if he does not, you cannot expect God's blessing. And then lastly, don't get sucked into all this fleshly stuff, multimedia presentations.
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We went to the Saddleback on Saturday night and what's up there on the screens? Waves, mountains.
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The weirdest one of all was a little squirrel running over getting a nut. Just kind of felt good. Look at that little squirrel.
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General revelation sings the praises of almighty God. Yes. But when we come to the worship service, we come to hear specifically the mind of God found only in his word.
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You say, well, I feel more worshipful when the little squirrel's up there hiding its little nuts and stuff.
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It just looks nice. I don't know what to tell you because what are we going to do next week?
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It's the beaver making his dam. I feel more worshipful. Well, what the issue is you don't understand worship.
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Worship is saying, God, you have worth and I'm ascribing worth to your person and I'm ascribing worth to your name and to what you do.
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And typically in the Old Testament, worship was on your face. Well, time is going so fast.
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The fourth lesson. Jesus, number one, placed a high premium on preaching. Number two,
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Jesus preached God -centered messages. Number three, Jesus preached the mind of God and it could easily be said that Jesus commands his preachers to preach nothing but the word.
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And number four, Jesus, the preacher, focused on the cross. Jesus was cross -centered in his preaching.
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Turn with me to John chapter 3 and let me give you an overview in John alone so you can see the pattern of our
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Savior that he is the preacher of the cross. J .C. Ryle said, the victories of Christianity, wherever they have been won, have been won by distinct theology, by telling men roundly of Christ's death and sacrifice, by showing them
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Christ's substitution on the cross and his precious blood, by teaching them justification by faith and bidding them believe on a crucified
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Savior. John chapter 3. Let's just give you an overview of Jesus' focus on Calvary.
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And if he focused on it before the cross, certainly we must after the cross. In John alone,
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John 3 .14, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so the
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Son of Man must be lifted up so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.
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John chapter 10, please. Let's look up several verses. Certainly with the cross, that's going to include grace and forgiveness and discussion of sin and repentance.
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But what Jesus does is He focuses on the pinnacle of the universe, and that is
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His substitutionary atonement where He procured and secured salvation for those that the
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Father had chosen. John chapter 10, verse 15. Even as the Father knows me and I know the
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Father, and I will lay down my life for the sheep. Skip a verse. Verse 17.
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For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life so that I might take it up again.
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No one has taken it away from me, but I lay it down on my own initiative. I have the authority to lay it down, and I have the authority to take it up again.
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This commandment I receive from my Father. Jesus preached the cross.
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Chapter 12 of John. He does the same thing with the same lifted up language that was indicative of John 3 with Moses.
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John chapter 12, verse 32. John 12, verse 32.
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And I, if I am lifted up from heaven, will draw all men to myself. But He was saying this to indicate the kind of death by which
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He was about to die or by which He was to die. John 15, verse 13.
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Greater love has no one than this that one lays down his life for his friends. And friends, beloved congregation, if Jesus preaches the cross, we must preach the cross as well.
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That's why we have the ordained means of doing that even with non -preached word.
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We're preaching the cross even with the cup and with the bread. It's going to mean we're going to have to hear about sin, isn't it?
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Did Jesus need to die on the cross if we weren't sinful? Like last Saturday night, we learned as a group that Jesus came to restore our self -dignity.
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He died to make us feel better. He also didn't die as a substitute in a penal substitutionary sense where the penalty of God was placed on Him.
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He died kind of just to show His love for everyone. When you preach the cross, you have to preach about sin.
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I was just thinking yesterday, I can't believe all the sins I've committed in my life. Not just number, but kind and types.
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Not always with my hand, our hands, our body, but some of the sins
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I've committed in my mind, I should be banished forever. I would be ashamed to be having a lie detector test, having the person say, have you ever thought about such and such?
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We preach the cross because God's grace is greater than all our self -dignity. No. We preach the cross because His grace is greater than all our sins.
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That's what I love about the cross. The cross isn't just for old ladies and old men who led pretty good lives.
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If Jeffrey Dahmer, on the day that he died, had a true saving faith in Jesus Christ, where's
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Jeffrey Dahmer going to be? He's actually in heaven now singing the praises of his
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Savior who paid the penalty at Calvary for all his homosexuality and cannibalism et al.
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You've got to preach sin if you're going to have to preach the cross. They just go together.
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So when you say, well, he's up there preaching about sin again. All I hear about is sin all the time. If it's only sin and no cross, you have a right to say that's wrong.
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But if it's sin and the cross, then we rejoice. One of the guys at the Shepherd's Conference said, when you preach the high view of God and the low view of man, the grace that has to span those two is great and it will make you sing.
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But if you preach a low view of God, He's not that holy, and man's pretty good, those people that preach the low
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God and the high view of man are emasculating the great grace of God found in Scriptures.
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We don't have to go around cutting ourselves. Woe is me and we're horrible and we can't do anything.
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But we do have to remember, even as Paul said, I'm the least of the apostles. I'm the greatest of all sinners because that magnifies my
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Savior for what He did for me. Let's do a couple of real quick ones.
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Number five, Jesus preached knowing that persecution would come.
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He has a high view of preaching. He preached God -centered messages. He preached the mind of God. He focused on the cross.
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Number five, Jesus Christ preached knowing that persecution would come. They killed Him for His preaching.
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They didn't kill Him for healing, for giving food. They killed Him for preaching.
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And if you preach the truth today, you will be known as rude, you will be known as arrogant, and you will be known as unloving, won't you?
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Whether it comes from me or it comes from you to your friends as you preach the Gospel. Brian McLaren calls this a hermeneutic of humility.
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How could we know what the Bible means? How could we understand it? You mean to tell me that you know and there can't really be a hell, and on and on and on.
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You know, this whole objective, propositional truth, right and wrong, antithetical, this is heaven, this is hell, this is sin, this is the cross.
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You know, it just divides. It's all doctrine that divides. Do you know what about doctrine? It does divide. It divides wrong from right.
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It divides truth from error. And if you don't want to preach doctrine, Machen used to say, then don't preach the
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Bible because it's... I mean, if you don't want to divide people, don't preach the Bible because it's going to divide all the time. What's the so what for me?
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This is not a popularity contest. This is a stewardship. I want to be an ambassador and be faithful to God.
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If you all leave, you all leave. I'm sorry about that, but we are going to preach the Word of God. I've already been slandered and defamed, and anybody who gets close to me has been slandered and defamed, and are you sure you want to stay close to me?
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For you, the so what, knowing persecution will come. One, know that it is
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God who will be close to you when He does allow persecution.
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Two, know that you are in good stead if Jesus was persecuted, and we'll learn this in the Sermon on the Mount. What a blessing it is that we would be allowed to be persecuted.
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John the Baptist, Jeremiah, Isaiah, what a good long list of people to be persecuted with. But we pray for our pastors to preach with boldness and as they ought to, as Ephesians 6 says.
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I have a friend, and this is his letter that he wrote in California.
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His name is Bruce, by the way. He's looking for a job. I wish I had the money to hire him because this is the kind of guy I want to hire. On August 28th,
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I resigned my position at First Baptist Church, and it may come as a surprise to some. Old news to others and an answer to prayer for those who have an ongoing knowledge of the struggles we have been facing.
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My life's been a whirlwind since making this decision a month ago. My financial friend, Jim, summarized our situation with his brief note to me early this summer.
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This is the kind of situation that breaks your heart, Jim said, but unfortunately is becoming all too common.
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Churches say they want preachers who preach the word, but when they get one, they fire them because they want someone who will tickle their ears. The Bible -believing church today is under attack from within.
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We'll pray for you, Bruce, and keep us informed, and I'll keep my eyes open for a church. The new pastor at Faith Baptist Church in Bingingham, New York, had a similar experience and summarized his situation with these words.
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People convinced against their will are of the same opinion still. While there are some wonderful sheep at FBC, the majority did not support expository preaching, newthetic counseling, elder model of leadership, and the doctrines of grace that transform a life.
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The ministry they told me I was hired to do. That was another problem. Most did not see the pastorate as a calling but a job.
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I was just an employee of the church. Additionally, my character has been maligned and my ministry reduced to ashes by many who cause division and strife with their lies, slander, and unbiblical attacks from within.
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Even the former pastor got into the spirit of maligning the man who replaced him by questioning my integrity and calling various points of doctrine strange.
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All this and more and no church discipline. Unfortunately, the leadership feared man more than they feared God and several leaders who would soon replace them did not even have a genuine testimony of salvation.
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Yes, despite all this, we believe God has His purposes for our being here and He has certainly refined us through the fires of testing.
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We know God has a place for us but we do not have clear direction just where that will be. The candidating process is slow.
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Please pray for our youngest daughter, Kimberly. She's the only child presently still at home and all the changes the past two years have been extremely difficult on her social, spiritual, and academic life.
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The other kids are either happily married, struggling through seminary, or content at the master's college. We covet your prayers.
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We're asking for God and His wisdom. We do sell the home now. We put everything in storage and live in our trailer.
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How long do we wait for the right church to call on us? Should I seek some other kind of future employment? There are many questions and so many unknowns.
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Trust in Him and He will also do it, Psalm 37 says. God has been faithful and good all these years.
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I do not expect His grace to fail now. In the meantime, please pray that we may rest in His grace and goodness until He finds a new home for the
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Parkers. God bless you all. Are you willing to lose friends, ministries, everything for the sake of preaching?
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Like I said, I wish I had an opening for a man like that. Lastly and quickly,
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Jesus ordains preaching through weak vessels. Aren't you glad? Jesus can use weak people to preach.
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He ordained preaching through weak vessels. I love that. We have this treasure in earthen vessels,
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Paul said, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves. We're afflicted in every way, but not crushed.
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Perplexed, but not despairing. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down, but not destroyed. God can use all kinds of people to preach.
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Who said this? I have often been surprised at the mercy of God to myself. Poor sermons of mine that I could cry over when
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I get home have led scores to the cross. And one or more still, words that I have spoken in ordinary conversation, mere chance sentences, as some men call them, have nevertheless been as winged arrows from God and have pierced men's hearts and laid them wounded at Jesus' feet.
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I have often lifted up my hands in astonishment and said, how can God bless such a feeble instrument like me?
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Charles Spurgeon. He preached a sermon one time that thought it was so bad.
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He thought it was so bad. He was ashamed and he walked away from Metropolitan Tabernacle and thought, Lord God, do something with nothing.
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Bless that poor sermon. The account goes like this. In the months that followed, 41 people said they had decided to trust
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Christ as Savior because of that weak message. The following Sunday, to make up for his previous failure, sermon had prepared a great sermon but no one responded.
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Unless the Lord builds a house, the labor's in vain. It's the Lord building. We preach. Your job is not to save souls.
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Your job is to glorify God as you talk about the greatness of Christ. He saves. We don't save. When I'm weak, then
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I'm strong knowing that it has to be God doing that. I think of Moses and all the objections.
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I'm not adequate. Well, I would say the same thing if I was Moses. Wouldn't you?
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You ever think about getting these 500 ,000 men, let alone wives and children, 2 million people maybe through the desert?
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According to the U .S. Army's quartermaster general, Moses needed 1 ,500 tons of food a day filling two freight trains each a mile long.
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Just for cooking, this took 4 ,000 tons of wood and a few more freight trains each a mile long and this is for one day.
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What about water? If they only had enough to drink and wash a few dishes, it took 11 million gallons each day enough to fill a tanker train of cars 1 ,800 miles long.
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Then you've got to get across the Red Sea, of course. If you have a narrow path, double file, the line would require 800 miles long, 35 days a night to complete the crossing.
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So God had to make the Red Sea potentially even 3 miles wide so that they could walk 5 ,000 abreast.
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At the end of the day, the campground, the size of Rhode Island was required, or about 750 square miles.
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I can't do it, God. Let's just say that's only half right to take care of all those people.
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That's why I love it when Jesus says in the Great Commission, and lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age.
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It's about God. What will they say, Moses said? Tell them God sent you. What if they don't believe me?
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That's not up to you. Here's my power through the word. I'm not eloquent. Amen to that. How about that?
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Did I ever tell you the story just to show you how great God is? I was an A student in college, excuse me, in high school, in junior high, but I got my worst grades in speech class because I was too vain to get up in front of people because that's too hard.
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So I'll get A's in everything, and then if I get an F in speech, then that'll kind of lower me down to about a C, and that'll be fine.
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I thought, you know, I'll go to seminary, but I don't want to preach, and I don't want to get up in front of people, and I can't speak, and I get so nervous.
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I'm paralyzed to get up in front of people to speak. It paralyzes me. So what happens?
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I'll take 97 credit hours of seminary, and the last six hours for preaching class, I'll just quit, go about my way, do some kind of behind -the -scenes ministry of the church.
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That'll be fine. Well, God had different things in mind, and whether I can preach or not still may be debatable, but I will tell you the
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Word of God. I'm still nervous. You know, I'm preaching to people. It's not about me, and it's not about you when you evangelize.
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It's about God Himself. God will enable. Moses said to the Lord, Please, Lord, I've never been eloquent, neither recently nor in time past, nor since Thou hast spoken to Thy servant, for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.
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Literally, in Hebrew, I'm not a man of words. The Lord said to him, Who has made man's mouth?
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Or who makes him dumb or deaf, seen or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now then go, and I, even
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I, will be with your mouth and teach you what you are to say. But then he said,
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Please, Lord, now send the message by whomever Thou wilt. Send somebody else. Jesus ordains preaching through weak vessels, so He gets all the glory.
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It's not coercion. It's not salesmanship. It's not persuasion. It's not superiority of speech. It's by you preaching the
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Bible. Would you to someone this week say, Here's what the Bible says, and love them enough to tell them the truth.
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And thank you as a congregation. Today was not a blast or a slap or a backhand. How could you not like preaching?
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You love preaching, and I rejoice in that. And my message is, keep loving preaching, because if you love
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Jesus Christ, you'll love preaching. Anybody want to be a preacher?
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Let's pray. Father in heaven, You are extolled, and You are magnified, and as J .I.
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Packer said, The Bible is God preaching. Father, would You resolve in our minds and to be like Charles Simeon said,
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Would Your Spirit take the words of the Bible and screw them to our consciences, lest we forget.
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And Father, thank You for saving us. Thank You for redeeming us. Help us to now tell people the good news, and people will rise up and call our feet beautiful, all on account of what
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You have done. Thank You for letting us be part of the ministry. And would You give us an opportunity this week to be obedient, to proclaim the truth to someone else that Jesus Christ died for sinners and has forgiveness of sins proclaimed to those who will repent and turn from their sins.