Simple Church 2: Back to Basics (8) - "What is Biblical Preaching?"

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We are, for those of you visiting, finishing off a sermon series this afternoon, a sermon series that we've been in for quite some time called
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Simple Church 2, Back to Basics. This has been a series where we've been revisiting some basics about church membership and life in the church and what that looks like.
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This is the final message, like I said, in the series as we consider the subject of biblical preaching.
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If you are still working up there, if you grabbed one of the bulletins, there will be a study guide in there to help you follow along with the message.
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As I wrap up this series, for those of you who've been here through the duration of it, my aim of this series, like I said, has been to remind and to re -establish, as it were, some biblical principles about life in the church.
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What does it mean when we say that we are part of a local church? We started very basic with, well, what is the church?
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We've talked about the mission of the church and we've talked about the means of grace that God gives to build up the church.
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We've talked about the mission. We've talked about all sorts of things as we've thought about this series. I appreciate that at this series, points, excuse me, this series has gotten heavy.
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I won't say I apologize for that. Sometimes, as we'll see even in our text today, the ministry of God's work can be that way.
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But my hope has not been to burden people, but to give you, as it were, a broader perspective of what committed church life looks like, and not just the responsibilities of becoming part of a church, but what the benefits are,
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I hope. And so, as we conclude this series, we're going to think about a subject that I think is integral to the life of the church, as we think about the subject of preaching.
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The subject of preaching. And so, if you have a Bible, and I hope you do, take it and turn with me to 2
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Timothy chapter 3, 2 Timothy chapter 3. And in fact, you might want to keep this text open, because this is going to be the text that we will camp in this afternoon.
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2 Timothy chapter 3, from verse 16, and we're going to be listening in from 3 .16
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through to 4 .5. 2
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Timothy chapter 3, from verse 16, through to chapter 4, and verse 5. And it's our custom here at Redeemer that when we come to our sermon text, we stand in honor of God's Word.
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So, can I invite you to stand with me as I read this portion of God's Word that will form the basis of our time in the
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Word today. 2 Timothy chapter 3, then reading from verse 16.
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Brothers and sisters, these are God's words. All scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
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I solemnly charge you before God in Jesus Christ, who is going to judge the living and the dead, and because of his appearing in his kingdom, preach the
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Word. Be ready in season and out of season. Correct, rebuke, and encourage with great patience and teaching.
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For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, they will multiply, teachers for themselves, because they have an itch to hear what they want to hear.
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They will turn aside from hearing the truth and will turn aside to myths.
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But as for you, exercise self -control in everything, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
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Pray that God will bless the reading of his Word and grant us understanding of it. Allow me to pray, ask for the
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Spirit's help, and then we will get to work in God's Word. Well, Lord, we ask that as we open up your
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Word and we hear you speak to us through it, we pray that you would open our eyes, that we would see wonderful things out of your law.
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We ask that as we think about the subject of preaching, even if the majority of us who are hearing this are not preachers, we pray that you would give us an understanding of this vital and essential task that the church engages in, so that we glorify you in it, and not just glorify you in it, but glorify you through it.
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We ask these things in Jesus' name, and for his sake, amen. Eddie, would you mind turning me down just a little bit on the board?
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I think I'm ringing a little bit. Please, be seated. Well, as I said,
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I want to speak to you from the subject, what is biblical preaching? What is biblical preaching?
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As we get started this morning, I want to begin with a quote. Oh, is my mic still on?
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Okay. I want to begin with a quote. I'm going to ask you not to pull out your phone and Google it, just hear it.
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And as I give you this quote, I want you to try and guess who said this and when.
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More importantly, when. If you don't get the who right, that's fine. But try and guess when this was written. Here's the quote.
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Many preachers indulge habitually in what they call expository sermons. They take a passage from scripture, and proceeding on the assumption that people attending church that morning are deeply concerned about what that passage means, they spend their half hour or more, in our case, probably more, but they spend a half hour or more on historical application to the auditors, the listeners.
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Could any procedure be more surely predestined to dullness and futility?
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Who seriously supposes that one in a hundred of the congregation cares what Moses, Isaiah, Paul, or John meant in those special verses, or came to church deeply concerned about it?
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Who do you think said that? More importantly, when do you think that was said?
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This is one of those moments I'm going to ask you to be Pentecostal for a moment and talk to me. Anyone want to guess?
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When was that said? That's more important than the who. When do you think that was said? Someone said 2020.
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Okay. Any takers on that? You're pretentious.
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Okay. Martin Luther definitely wouldn't have said that.
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He'd definitely be more colorful about it if he did. I'll give you the when first, then
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I'll give you the who. That was written in an article in 1928. 1928.
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The who, some of you who know your American church history will know this name, Harry Emerson Fosdick.
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If you don't know that name, I invite you to go do a little homework on Harry Emerson Fosdick. He was a noted theological liberal.
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Preached a famous sermon in American church history, shall we let the fundamentalists win? There wasn't a conservative thing that he did like theologically.
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He wrote that in an article called What's Wrong With Preaching Today in Harper's Magazine in 1928.
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Now for those who said 2020, that sounds like somebody in 2020 could have said that. Because there are people in, now we're in 2022, there are people in 2022 who say exactly the same thing.
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Who will look at churches like ours, and we are not the only ones, we are not unique in this regard, but churches like ours that say, okay, we want to preach the
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Bible, the whole Bible and nothing. But they will look at us and say, what a, how did
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Fosdick describe it? What a procedure that is more surely predestined to dullness and futility.
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Now, like I said, I think there are people who would say that today, but I don't think that's where most people are. I don't think for most people there is an out and out rejection of biblical exposition.
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I think for most people, it's not a rejection of biblical exposition that we see, it's just boredom with it.
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I think it's perfectly possible to be in a church like ours that practices expository, sequential biblical preaching, and to sit him and think, oh heavens, won't he do something else?
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It's very possible. I've seen it happen. And usually what ends up happening is one of two things.
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Either you've got a preacher who's somewhat perceptive and can see people are getting bored with this.
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And so they just give up on this entirely. I remember hearing a pastor who's doing,
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I went to a pastor's workshop on preaching. And he said, most men don't become unfaithful because they're bad men.
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It's because they're discouraged. After a while, they realize I keep doing this and no one's listening.
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And since nobody's listening, how about I go do something else? Why don't I give people what they want? So either that happens or the man decides to stick to his guns, keeps doing it, and usually doesn't have a job after too long because people don't want to hear that after a while.
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How do you get there? Either that place of just out and out rejection or just apathy.
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How does that happen? Well, I would put it to you that that happens,
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I think in part because we don't really understand what is happening in this event that we call preaching.
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Thankfully, I think this text will give us some insights into what biblical preaching is and why it's important.
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Since we're parachuting into 2 Timothy, a little bit of background might be helpful here. Paul is writing from prison, not an uncommon place for Paul to land.
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But this imprisonment is a little bit different from some of his other ones. Paul is keenly aware as he writes,
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I'm not making it out of this one alive. He knows he's about to die.
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And as somebody who is on the verge of death, this essentially, this letter, 2 Timothy, is
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Paul's swan song. Not long after Timothy receives this, Paul will be dead.
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Tradition says that he was inheaded by the emperor Nero. There's a good reason to believe that. He's about to die, which means that whatever he has to say as he's about to die is critically important.
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As you read both 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy, 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy, one of the major themes that runs through both those letters is the reality that there are people running around out here claiming to speak for God.
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And in fact, even using his book to say things that he never even remotely said.
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That's the world out there. And Paul essentially writes to Timothy both in 1 and 2 Timothy to remind him that yes, there are those people out there, but that's not what you do.
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What you do is, and I don't have time to unpack this. I wish I did. Maybe one day
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I'll preach to you 2 Timothy and I can go in more detail. But for now, just trust me on this.
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The theme in 2 Timothy especially is, Timothy, you are called to endure suffering for the gospel by the power of God.
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That as you minister faithfully, you will meet opposition. But Timothy, you'll be all right.
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You just keep your head down and do your job. That's the overall theme that runs through 2
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Timothy. And as we come to 2 Timothy chapter 3, that's still very much in the background as we come to this passage.
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In verses 1 through 10, especially he's taken time to 1 through 9, excuse me.
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He has laid out for Timothy the kind of spread of things in the church that he's going to encounter.
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Oftentimes people will read 2 Timothy 3 and think it's talking about the world out there. I'm not so convinced because in verse 5, it says that these people of whom
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Paul is writing, he says they hold the form of godliness, but they deny its power.
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I don't think he's talking about the world out there. I think he's talking about the state of the professing church.
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And so he warns Timothy, Timothy, this is what you're going to be up against. This is what all true ministers are up against.
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But in verse 10, he kind of turns the quarter and says, that's them, but as for you, you have followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, and endurance, along with the persecutions and sufferings that came to me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra.
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So you've seen a different pattern for ministry. These people will do this, but you've seen something different.
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And that leads us to our passage this afternoon. Because this afternoon,
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Paul is going to lay out for us the importance of the ministry of preaching in the local church.
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How is it that the church of Christ should view the subject of preaching? How should a local church think about preaching?
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How should you think about preaching? Well, this afternoon, my big idea for the sermon is very simple.
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I happen to believe that the church must be faithful in the ministry of the word of God, despite obstacles and challenges.
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That the church must be faithful in the ministry of the word of God, despite obstacles and challenges.
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That's what Paul has for Timothy, and that's what I believe Paul has for us, as he writes by inspiration in our text.
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For the rest of our time, I want to consider five foundations. Five foundations that promote faithfulness in the ministry of the word of God.
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Paul is going to give his son Timothy, and give us by extension, some foundational principles that Timothy would need, and we will need, if we're going to be faithful in the ministry of God's word.
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Five foundations, I will do my best to be quick. If the preacher is going to be faithful in the ministry of God's word, first of all, he needs to know that preaching should be grounded in the right view of Scripture.
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Preaching should be grounded in the right view of Scripture, verses 16 and 17 of chapter 3.
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In verses 14 and 15, Paul has already reminded Timothy of the power of the Scripture in his own life.
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So, look there at verse 14 with me. He says, But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed.
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You know those who taught you, and you know that from infancy, you have known the sacred
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Scriptures, which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
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Timothy knew that the Scriptures possess power for salvation. He knew that in his own life. And now,
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Paul is going to remind Timothy that the Scriptures possess power for service.
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Really, preaching starts with your right view of the Scripture. You cannot faithfully preach, and you cannot faithfully hear preaching, if you don't have a correct view of what this book is.
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In particular, Paul lays out three facets of a right view of Scripture that we should consider.
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First of all, he tells Timothy that a preacher must preach all the Scriptures. All the Scriptures.
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So, again, look at verse 16. All Scripture is inspired by God.
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We'll come to those words, inspiration, in just a moment. Now, in context, Paul is referring primarily to the Old Testament.
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At this point, yes, there are some pieces of the New Testament floating around. But by and large, when he says the
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Scripture to his audience, he's primarily talking about the Old Testament. And Paul says to his audience, to Timothy, you need to be convinced about the totality of Scripture, not just parts of it.
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Now, this especially fits in the context of this book, because the false teachers who were floating around that Paul has in the back of his mind as he's writing, they were known for cherry -picking parts of the
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Bible. They liked the law, especially, the genealogies, the more obscure parts, as it were, because they were easy to twist and easy to advance an agenda from.
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And Paul essentially says, they might do that. But Timothy, over on this side, we believe in all the
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Scriptures. Can I pause for a moment before I go on? Doesn't that sound not too different from the day and age in which we live?
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The reality is, no matter how advanced man gets, the problems of man remain the same.
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Aren't we constantly being told that the Bible needs some editing for our day and age?
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So the Bible's teaching on the nature of man has made the image of God too controversial. The Bible's teaching on the nature of God, too impersonal.
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The Bible's teaching on salvation, too exclusive. No, we've got to edit some of that so that it's more palatable for people today.
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And here's the thing, I can understand non -Christians feeling that way. I can understand non -Christians feeling discomfort when it comes to the
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Word of God. But what do you do when that discomfort puts on church clothes and sits in a pew?
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The professing church, and I use that word professing very importantly, I don't think the true church cares, but the professing church has an edit button that it would like to install too, doesn't it?
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Not too long ago, it was a prominent preacher who said that we needed to unhitch from the Old Testament. Get rid of that stuff.
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It's way too much work trying to defend all of that. Let's just get rid of it. It's long, it's boring. No one needs all that bad news.
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And we all, those of us who are conservative theologically, like I am, we heard that and we thought, that's horrific.
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But you all know me, I like to be self -critical towards people in my own camp. How often do we do that in our circles?
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Let me give you an example that I'm sure you've all empathized with on some level at some point. How many of you have heard the advice not to talk about last things,
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Bible prophecy, those sorts of issues? How many times have I've heard it time and time and time again in our sort of camp?
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Oh, that's too difficult. That's way too divisive. We can ignore that, even though up to one third, everything from one quarter to one third of your
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Bible is composed of that stuff. 26 out of 27 New Testament books refer to Jesus coming again.
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Kind of a big deal. But we don't talk about that because it's too difficult.
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Just focus on all the stuff we can agree on. I, again, allow me to be controversial for a moment. How is that any different than trying to edit some of the plain stuff in the
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Bible? Nowadays, it's popular in culture to try and say that, you know, creation and any sort of idea of original design for the home as designed by God.
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Yeah, the Bible says that stuff, but that was then and this is now. And now we think differently.
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We're more enlightened. Hold on, hold on. You mean we're way more, we're way too enlightened to believe that marriage between a man and a woman is good, that husbands are the heads of their home, that wives are called to submit to their husbands as to the
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Lord, and that children are best raised in a committed home with a mother and father? That needs editing.
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Unfortunately, there are professing Christians who would say that even that needs editing. And I hear these things, and here's another idea
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I have. Forgive me for a moment. I'll move on. How about we just smash the edit button to pieces when it comes to God's Word?
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We say, no, we're not going to do that. After all, if God thought that every word mattered enough to say it and to preserve it, the least we can do is believe it.
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And for the biblical preacher, not just believe it, but preach it. That's one reason that since I've been here at Redeemer, I've made a conscious effort right down to planning my sermon series in advance to preach through as much of the whole
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Bible as possible without sacrificing depth in the process. I got curious this week, and I looked at my preaching calendar for the last couple of years.
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We covered the book of Jude, the book of Habakkuk, Romans 14 and 15, a long series on the personal work of the
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Holy Spirit, Haggai Galatians. We did a Christmas series last year on the three offices of Christ. We did the means of grace in January, Genesis 1 through 11,
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First Peter, this series on membership and church life. Oh, and next week we'll be back in Genesis 12 to 25.
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I don't say that to pat myself on the back. I don't think I did a good job with half those sermons. But I say that because at least there is a commitment here.
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And again, we are not unique in this. I praise God for my brothers in the valley. Some of you were here last night for our
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Reformation celebration. Those are two brothers that I know are committed to the same thing. We're committed to preaching all of the
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Bible, all of the time, as God intended. And that's what Paul tells
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Timothy. He says, listen, all Scripture is inspired by God, not just part of it. So the preacher must preach all the
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Scriptures. But secondly, the preacher must preach the God -breathed Scriptures. The God -breathed
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Scriptures. See, Timothy's reliance on all the Scriptures was to be rooted in the fact that Scripture is inspired.
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So look back at our text again. All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for, we'll get to that in just a moment.
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I would draw your attention to that phrase, inspired by God. That word inspired is made, inspired by God. That phrase is made up of one word in Greek.
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The word literally means God -breathed. It's like some of your translations will say God -breathed. And it's interesting,
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Paul, as far as we can tell, pulls this word from the non -Christian world.
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It's the only time this word appears in the New Testament. But it was used in other contexts to speak of people who spoke the message of the gods and the message being breathed out, as it were, by the gods.
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While the concept might be unique, the word, excuse me, might be unique. It's only used here. The concept isn't.
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Keep a finger in 2 Timothy 3. Turn with me to 2 Peter 1. Real quick, 2
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Peter 1. 2
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Peter 1 and verses 16 to 21. Listen to what Peter, different author, different time.
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Listen to what he says. For we, verse 16, did not follow cleverly contrived myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our
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Lord Jesus Christ. Instead, we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
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For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the majestic glory saying, this is my beloved
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Son in whom I am well pleased. We ourselves heard this voice when it came from heaven while we were with him on the holy mountain.
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We also have the prophetic word strongly confirmed. And you will do well to pay attention to it as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.
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Above all, you know this, no prophecy of scripture came from the prophet's own interpretation.
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Here's what I'm trying to get to. Verse 21, because no prophecy ever came by the will of man.
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Instead, men spoke from God as they were carried along by the
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Holy Spirit. This Bible that sits in your lap or you have on your phone or your device, that Bible is the product of the
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Spirit moving men along like wind moving a sail along to speak
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God's very words. As one of America's great theological minds, B .B.
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Warfield in his seminal work on this noted, he said, quote, What this term God breathed affirms is that the scriptures owe their origin to an activity of God the
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Holy Ghost and are in the highest and truest sense, his creation. It is on this foundation of divine origin that all the high attributes of scripture are built.
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This is why some refer to inspiration in terms of verbal, plenary inspiration, verbal, the words of scripture, not just the men, the words of scripture, plenary, all of them, inspiration, that all the words of scripture are the product of God speaking.
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Now, I trust you can see already why that's foundational for biblical preaching. If you think that the
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Bible is anything less than the word of God, you will lack the confidence to preach it, all of it.
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It doesn't surprise me that Harry Emerson Fosdick, if you know anything about the man, would say what he said as I read it to begin our sermon.
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He had a terribly low view of the Bible. So of course he would say what he said. But if it is
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God's word and all of it is God's word, then what should that do for confidence as we preach that word?
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We must preach the complete scriptures. We must preach the God -breathed scriptures. Thirdly, the preacher must preach the sufficient scriptures.
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He must preach the sufficient scriptures. Paul not only describes the Bible as inspired, but he describes it as profitable, as being useful for the benefit of something.
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And what exactly is it beneficial for? Well, turn back to our text, 2 Timothy chapter 3.
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He says all scripture is inspired by God and is profitable.
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And he notes four things. Those of you who sat in my Bible classes before, you know these four things because I've mentioned them before.
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But once again, let me review them. Number one, teaching. Teaching can be described as the right way to believe and the right way to behave.
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That God in his word lays out for us particular things that we are to believe and particular ways we are to behave.
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And that forms the teaching, the doctrine of the scripture. So the Bible is good for teaching.
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But not only is the Bible good for teaching, pointing out the right way to believe and the right way to behave, it's good for rebuke, rebuking.
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Rebuke is calling wrong belief and wrong behavior to account. Can I pause and say this trend that we have seen in the last 40 to 50 years of preachers who try to edit all the tough stuff out the
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Bible, all the rebuke out the Bible doesn't work because Paul says that's what the Bible is there for. Now that's not all the
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Bible is there for. And we've all heard preachers who are experts at rebuke and terrible at encouragement.
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That's not what Paul is getting at. But he is saying that there will be times where rebuke is necessary from God's word.
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So teaching the right way to believe and behave, rebuke, calling wrong belief and behavior to account.
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Third, correction. Setting us back on right belief and right behavior.
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Because let's face it, all of us as human beings will have moments where we kind of veer off path a little bit.
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We kind of get off course. And at moments like that, it is good for us to be reminded by God's word.
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No, no, no, no, no. You've gotten off the tracks. Let's put the train back on the tracks. This word carries this idea of restoration, of setting something right.
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There's something there. It's kind of fallen apart. And now you are setting it right again. You're restoring it.
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And finally, he says training in righteousness. So teaching the right way to believe and behave. Rebuke, correcting wrong belief and wrong behavior.
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Correction, setting us back on the path of right belief and right behavior. Fourthly, training in righteousness.
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Ongoing instruction in right belief and right behavior. The word of God doesn't just tell us the way.
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It continually instructs us how to stay on the way. This is one of the great texts, not just about the inspiration of scripture, but also the sufficiency of scripture.
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That the scripture is enough for the people of God and in this context for the man of God to do the work that God has called him to.
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A generation of earlier Christians described it like this. Quote, the holy scriptures are the only certain, excuse me, sufficient, certain and infallible standard of all saving knowledge, faith and obedience.
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The light of nature and the works of creation and providence so clearly demonstrate the goodness, wisdom and power of God so that people are left without excuse.
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However, these demonstrations are not sufficient to give the knowledge of God and his will that is necessary for salvation.
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For that, leave this book right here. And before I move on,
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I simply want to ask, how far are we willing to go with that? How far are we willing to accept that?
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Is the Bible only good for salvation? Is it good? Okay, maybe for salvation and our sanctification.
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Okay, we'll agree that. But when it comes to now ministry and service, no, we need something else. Well, is the
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Bible sufficient for that? Is the Bible sufficient to give us the mission of the church? Is the
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Bible sufficient for helping us to deal with matters of the soul even? Before you answer that question,
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I won't answer the question. I'll leave you to answer that question. But before you answer it, just make sure your answer sounds like Paul's.
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Look at verse 17. So that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
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Paul's point to Timothy's, listen, everything you need for your task is found right here.
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Well, he probably had a scroll, but you get the general idea. Like this Bible contains everything that you need.
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For the faithful minister is not Bible plus something else. Either it is adequate for his task or not adequate at all.
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I took a little long with that point, but it's so foundational that we need to camp there for just a few moments. The rest of these,
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I hope will move a lot quicker. So preaching should be grounded in the right view of scripture. But here's the second foundation we need.
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Preaching should be grounded in the right view of Christ. Preaching should be grounded in the right view of Christ.
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Now in our English Bibles, chapter four starts a new chapter, but the thought continues. He's still on the same theme.
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One of the reasons that chapter divisions aren't always the most helpful. This is one of those times. He's still carrying on the same thought.
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So chapter four, verse one, he starts by saying, I solemnly charge you. You can render that.
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I charge you on pain of death. This isn't what happens when, and I've done this before.
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Like your wife asked you to take something out the freezer and then you forgot, but it's no big deal. This is not that kind of charge.
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This is not that kind of instruction. This is the, listen, I'm putting this on you, on God, on everything you love.
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You had better get this right. Ultimately, Timothy and all faithful preachers are to discharge their duty.
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Not because Timothy was tasked with keeping Paul happy or ministers are charged with keeping their congregations happy.
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No, Paul reminds his son. And by extension, he reminds all gospel ministers that while ministry is done before many, it's ultimately done in the presence of one, the triune
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God. And Paul here, especially focuses in on the Lord Jesus with three very simple truths.
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First of all, he says, remember Jesus, he's the judge. Remember Christ, he's the judge. Jesus is the one who one day, as Paul describes it, will come and judge the living and the dead.
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Because of time, I won't read the references I have in front. You have them there in your study guide. This was a repeated theme in the preaching of the apostles.
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The fact that Jesus is appointed as God's judge for that final day. If Jesus is the judge, then we will give an account for the work that we are called to.
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If that is true, then we can't treat faithfulness to the assignment as an option. Remember Jesus, he is the judge.
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Remember Christ. Secondly, remember Christ, he's coming back. So he says, and by his appearing and his kingdom, that word appearing is the unveiling, the full demonstration, the fact that Christ will one day come back and his power will be made visible to all.
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Again, another constant theme in the Bible. Now, there's a wrong way and a right way to read that.
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It can sound like Paul is basically threatening Timothy and saying, now, Timothy, Timothy, you've seen the bumper stickers or heard people say it before.
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Jesus is coming, look busy. That's a wrong way to read this passage.
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First of all, if you weren't busy before Jesus came, he knew that you weren't busy. So you acting busy because you know he's coming doesn't change anything.
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But putting that aside for one moment, that's the wrong way to read that entirely.
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This isn't supposed to scare Timothy. It's supposed to encourage Timothy. It's supposed to encourage
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Timothy because if Timothy rightfully understands that Jesus is coming back one day, well, if Jesus is coming back and he's the judge, then
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I look forward to that day if I've been faithful because that's when I receive the reward. You see, for the
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Christian, the return of Jesus isn't a matter of condemnation. It's a matter of comfort on this side of eternity.
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Yes, God and his goodness allows us to experience a thousand joys, but there's also toil and labor for the
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Savior. But on the other side, eternal joy. And Paul wants
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Timothy to remember that. Remember Christ, he is the judge. Remember Christ, he's coming back. Thirdly, remember
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Christ, he's coming back to reign. Paul invokes the reality of Christ's future kingdom.
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Yes, Christ rules and reigns right now in the hearts of his people and he obviously has universal sovereignty overall, but the full manifestation of that is still waiting a future earthly kingdom,
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I believe. And for the minister, that kingdom comes with glorious reward.
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It's like what Jesus says in Matthew 6, 33. You've quoted it before. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.
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The knowledge that there is an ultimate goal for the faithful preacher ought to encourage him, not discourage him in his work.
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Keeping our eyes on Christ as we engage in the ministry of God's work provides grounding when times get hard and things get tough.
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More on that in a moment. So preaching must be grounded in the right view of the scripture, the right view of Christ.
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There's a third foundation that the church needs if it's going to be faithful in preaching the word. Right view of scripture, right view of Christ.
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Thirdly, preaching should be grounded in the right view of the task. Preaching should be grounded in the right view of the task.
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So far, we've been kind of dealing with stuff that are in the background. They're preparatory for preaching.
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Now let's talk about preaching itself. You probably noticed that in this command, in this section, excuse me, there's not been a command to Timothy yet.
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Kind of implied. Here now is the only stated command in this passage. Verse two, Paul says to Timothy, preach the word.
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That word preach there, it's the word that was used for heralding, for making a formal announcement.
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This isn't having a conversation. This isn't having an open -ended discussion. This isn't a performance or a self -help motivational talk.
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No, for Paul, Timothy had one assignment and all faithful ministers have one assignment.
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They are to preach, to declare the truth. Preaching is declarative in nature.
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It's the proclamation of the truth with authority. It's sounding out the word as God's very word with no room given for argument or for debate.
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And in a culture where we have turned truth into a wax nose meeting Mr. Potato Head, this might not be popular.
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One of the big accusations I've gotten in the past from non -Christians about preaching is, you sound way too certain.
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Well, how can I not be certain when God has spoken and spoken clearly? It might not be popular, but it's the method that God has chosen for the salvation of sinners, for the building up of his people and the glorifying of his name.
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So if Timothy was to preach the word, what does that look like? First of all, he was to preach the right source material. Preach the right source material.
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So he says, preach the word. Don't preach your ideas. Don't preach what the culture tells you to say, preach the word.
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Now, in all fairness, the word that's referred to here is a general reference just to the message, the gospel.
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But we can't divorce that from Scripture because where else was Timothy going to find this gospel to preach?
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He would only find it in the Scriptures. He knew that from his own life and he knew that from Paul's teaching. Paul's application is very simple.
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Preaching that is done well is fundamentally biblical and fundamentally gospel -centered.
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It starts with the text, it proceeds with the text, and it ends where the text ends.
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So I'm not here to preach religious theory. I'm not here to preach political strategy. I'm not here to preach moral niceties.
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I am here, and any faithful minister exists to preach this book. Straight up, no chaser.
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So what does that practically mean then? If we should write source material, two things. It means that we give pride of place to biblical exposition because if this is what we preach, well, we preach it all, respecting even the very form that God gave it in.
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And even when we aren't being expositional, we bend over backwards to ensure that whatever we say is rooted in this book.
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The preacher must use the right source material, but secondly, the preacher should preach at the right time. Well, what's the right time?
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Well, according to Paul, it's always the right time. Did you catch it there in chapter four, verse two?
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Chapter four, verse one, excuse me. He says, be ready in season and out of season when it's opportune and when it's not opportune.
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When it's the good time to do it and not a good time to do it. I've been preaching in some form since I was in my late teens.
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Oh, how I wish every time I stepped into a pulpit, it was the opportune time. People wanted to hear it. It was great.
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It went well. People were thankful, pat me on the back. To be fair, most of the time, some variation of that happens.
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But every now and again, I find myself in a situation where I'm speaking to a hostile audience.
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Like I'm glad they don't have tomatoes or rotten fruit or something to throw at me because I know this ain't going to go well. Regardless of the moment,
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Paul says, whether it's great and everyone loves you and it's not so great and people don't like you. Regardless of the moment,
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Paul says essentially, just take a deep breath, open that Bible and preach. There really isn't a room for,
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Lord, this isn't really a good time right now. Going into the Lord, no, every time is the right time.
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Preach the right source material. Preach at the right time. Thirdly, he's to preach with the right attitude. Preach with the right attitude.
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Paul stacks three terms on top of each other in our text here that speak to the attitude that a preacher is to have.
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So you see it there again in verse one? Verse two, excuse me, he is to correct, to rebuke and to encourage.
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Correct and rebuke have already talked about because they came up in chapter three. This third word for encouragement carries the idea of coming alongside someone to speak words of help and assistance.
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That's why I said not all preaching is basically... I grew up in a tradition like this. Where good preaching was when the pastor preached hard and you felt terrible.
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No, a good Sunday was when you walked out thinking, man, I suck. That's... And I pause.
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I was gonna chase a rabbit, but you know what? I'm not gonna chase that rabbit. I'm gonna behave myself. Suffice it to say, Paul says, not only do you correct and rebuke, but you also encourage.
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And how is he supposed to do this? He says, you do this with great patience, first of all.
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This is the work of months and years, not minutes and hours. Reminded of a text that my pastor back home loved so dearly.
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First Thessalonians 5 .14, we exhort you brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle. Idle means out of order.
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Comfort the discouraged, help the weak, be patient with everyone. I need to say, everybody's in one of those four categories.
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They're either idle, out of order, they're discouraged, they're weak, and if you don't know which one of the three they are, well, they're everyone.
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So be patient. He's to do this work with great patience. Secondly, he's to do this with teaching.
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With teaching, the idea of instruction, of guidance. Timothy was to conduct his ministry in the right spirit and in the right attitude, with the right goals in mind.
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And it's this kind of mindset that helps when challenges come, which is Paul's next point. Preaching is to be done with the right view of Scripture, a right view of Christ, a right view of the task.
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Foundation number four, preaching should be grounded in the right view of its challenges. Preaching should be grounded in a right view of its challenges.
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Verses three and four. Just because God's Word is being preached, that doesn't mean that things will be hunky -dory and everyone loves you and everything's fine.
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Sometimes you'll meet some challenges. Paul highlights three of them. First of all, people will reject the truth.
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Why would Timothy need to view his task in terms of patience and careful instruction?
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Because the reality is, even with the hard work of study and even harder work of delivery, some will hear what he had to say and will not listen.
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And I wonder that Paul, knowing his Old Testament, knew that this wasn't just a problem in the New Testament church, that this was a problem going all the way back to days of the
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Old Covenant. So God calls Jeremiah, Jeremiah 119. He actively tells his young man,
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Jeremiah, they will fight against you. That's encouraging. God tells you, go speak my word.
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Oh, by the way, they're going to fight you every time you do it. How about Ezekiel, Ezekiel 33.
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But as for you, son of man, your people are talking about you near the city walls and in the doorways of their houses.
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One person speaks to another, each saying to his brother, come and hear what the message is that comes from the
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Lord. So my people come to you in crowds, sit in front of you and hear your words.
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They don't obey them. Their mouths go on passionately, but their hearts pursue dishonest profit.
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Yes, to them, you are like a singer of passionate songs who has a beautiful voice and plays skillfully on an instrument.
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They hear your words, but they don't obey them. Put that on a motivational poster.
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It's a sad reality that all the good preaching in the world won't make those who are determined to reject the truth, accept the truth.
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Paul describes it in terms of an unwillingness. You see that there? Verse three, he says, for the time will come when people will not tolerate sound teaching.
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Not an unwillingness to hear it or to believe it. He says, they're not even willing to put up with it.
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How dare you talk about that? Now, here's the thing.
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Since you, Timothy, you can just picture Paul saying this, you're going to say stuff that people don't want to hear.
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Since that is true, challenge number two, there will be a multiplication of false teachers. Sure, you won't tell them what they want to hear.
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That doesn't mean that somebody else won't. So look at the end of verse three. He says, for the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, they will multiply for themselves, teachers, excuse me, for themselves, because they have an itch to hear what they want to hear.
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False teachers are more than happy to use God's name and not speak for God. They will tell you all that you want to hear.
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And Paul's point is, this is what people want. Jeremiah 5, 31, the prophets prophesy falsely and the priests rule by their own authority.
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My people love it like this. This is God speaking. He says, the people out there claiming to speak for me aren't speaking for me.
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They rule by their own authority, but people love it. It sounds good to them.
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Have you ever wondered why it is that people will pack out arenas to hear the worst kind of teaching, but will ignore church after church which proclaims the truth?
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Have you ever wondered why it is that the YouTube channels that proclaim utter and complete nonsense, and there are many of them, have tons of subscribers, tons of comments, tons of followers, and the guy who is faithfully trying to expound the scripture and encourage people to get into the
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Bible, not so much. It shouldn't surprise you if this passage is right.
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If people will, the term, the CSB kind of cleans it up a little bit. It says multiply. Literally, they will heap up, just pile on.
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They'll find every kind of person to tell them what they want to hear. Personally, I've lost track of how many times in various settings people tell me, oh,
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I was so thankful for your preaching. Oh, thank you, appreciate that. Oh, I listened to this person and this person and this person and this person, and all four of them contradict each other.
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And every time I listen to them, they all just make me feel so good. And I mean, those people mean well, and I always try to be gracious with that.
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But it is a reality that as human beings, we naturally gravitate towards people who tell us what we want to hear, not always people who tell us what we need to hear.
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Truth is a hard pill to swallow. And for some, they're more than happy to take the sugar -coated pill of some lies, as long as it makes them feel good.
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That leads to a third challenge. Which is that those who reject the truth will, and you can include a word here, automatically embrace falsehood.
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You see, when all is said and done, there's no such thing as a spiritual neutrality.
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Well, I don't like the truth, but I don't like error either. No, if you reject the truth, the way the language is structured here, in the original at least, is that this idea of as they're, you see it there at the end of verse four?
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Verse four, he says, they will turn away from hearing the truth. And in the act of turning from hearing the truth, they're turning aside to myth.
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It's not two different actions. I turn, here's the truth. I'm turning away from that.
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Action one, action two. No, it's one smooth action. And he says that they will turn aside to myths.
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Paul calls these things that they hear, these false teachings, he says they're myths. Ideas with no basis in reality.
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I don't need to name them, but you know the ideas that are out there, not just in the world, but in the church.
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Ideas that have no basis in the word of God. And yet people believe them.
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I'm not talking things that evangelical Bible believing Christians disagree on. That's one thing. There's out and out falsehood that people are willing to accept.
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You can see how that would be a challenge to the faithful preacher. If those are the challenges that the faithful preacher of God's word faces, can you see why
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Paul starts by charging him in the presence of God and of Jesus? He's encouraging him. Why?
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Because you need as much encouragement as the challenges are out there. This is hard work, but Paul isn't done.
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He's got one final foundation that he wants Paul to have. One final truth for the faithful preacher of God's word to bear in mind.
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Needs a right view of scripture, a right view of Christ, a right view of the task at hand, a right view of the challenges finally.
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Preaching should be grounded in the right view of ministry. Chapter four, verse five. Preaching might be the cornerstone of a faithful ministry.
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And maybe this is a rebuke to our conservative evangelical, if we want to use the term reformed camp. Preaching might be the cornerstone of a faithful ministry, but it's not the sum total of a faithful ministry.
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Paul highlights four qualities of a well -rounded preacher. In verse five, he says, number one, you are to exercise self -control.
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The faithful preacher is to keep a close watch on himself. He looks at himself, he looks at his life before the
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Lord and ask the question, okay, where are the potential dangers for me? Where are the potential dangers for me to go off course?
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And he exercises self -control in light of that. Secondly, a faithful ministry is marked by keeping your head.
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Do you see that there? Verse five, exercise self -control in everything, endure hardship.
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It's going to get hard, but he doesn't say run from it. He doesn't say go crazy, he says endure it.
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Literally the idea is to bear up under it. Thirdly, a faithful ministry is marked by an evangelistic posture.
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Third command there in verse five, he says, do the work of an evangelist. Be faithful in the proclamation of the gospel.
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And finally, his ministry is to be marked by excellence. See that there at the end of verse five, fulfill your ministry.
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Discharge all the duties of your ministry and discharge them all well.
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And with that, Paul ends his very basic charge to his son, Timothy. Kofi, this is a lot.
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It's great and all, I appreciate it. But this sounds like it's more for you than it is for us.
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You're the preacher, we aren't. Well, two thoughts as I land the plane this afternoon.
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Two thoughts and I'll be done. First of all, you need to know what faithful pastoral ministry looks like in the area of preaching.
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You can't know what it is if you don't know what it is. And here's why.
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Second thought, you need to know what faithful pastoral ministry looks like in the area of preaching so that you can ask that this church or any church that you decide to be a part of, you can ask, are they being faithful to the assignment by biblical standards?
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No, he doesn't talk about the stuff I like. I'm sorry, that's not the biblical assignment. Or his sermons are too long,
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I apologize. But his sermons are too long. Well, that's not the standard per se.
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The standard is, is he being faithful to the word of God? Is he discharging his ministry of opening up the word of God and proclaiming
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Christ from all the scriptures? Is he doing that by Bible standards? Well, if you don't know what the
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Bible standards are, you can't ask that question. So a message like this becomes actually very important, even if you never, ever, ever want to preach a sermon in your life.
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Ultimately, as we conclude this series, like I said, we kind of made a swap. We were supposed to do this last week.
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But as we conclude this series, this is really an appropriate place to end because we kind of start with the question that I put to you at the beginning.
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Do you remember it when we started nine weeks ago now? Remember what I said? I said that the aim of this series is not just to ask the question, what is a church and what is a faithful church?
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But to ask the question, is this a faithful church? I had someone ask me that first week.
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They're like, that's a bit of a bold question to ask people. Aren't you scared they'd leave? I was like, well, if we're not being faithful, they should leave.
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Take your Bible and run. Don't look back. But again, you can't answer that question if you don't know what
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God's word says on the issue. You can't answer the question, is this a faithful church? Or I'm thinking of another church. Is that church faithful?
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You can't answer that question if you don't know what God's word says about a faithful ministry.
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And so my hope is that as we round out this series, that these things would give you something to think about. And my challenge remains, if you think we are not being faithful in this,
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I will not take it personally if you come and say, listen, I don't think you're being faithful in, from an open Bible, here's why.
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Because at the end of the day, I think I've said this before, but I'll say it again. Life is too short to be in a bad church. Life is too short and eternity is way too long.
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And my prayer is that as we thought about these things, that the spirit of God will give us a renewed love for the church, a renewed love for fellowship with his people, a renewed love for seeing the church built up so that the church can turn around and reach the world for Christ.
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Father, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you for it's simple truth that rings true in every age.
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We thank you that you have given us your word to proclaim. We are not called to edit it. We are not called to create our own message.
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We are called to simply and effectively proclaim the message that you have given.
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Father, help us that as a church, we would be faithful in the hearing of God's word. That we would not be like those people in Ezekiel's day to whom this is just like someone singing beautiful songs, playing an instrument, but that we would be active listeners to your word.
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That as we hear your word, your word would shape us and mold us and transform us for Jesus' sake.