Don't preach like Rick Warren (Part 1)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry.

My name is Mike Abendroth, and you can access our shows on iTunes, TuneIn Radio, World View Weekend. Did I say iTunes? Did I say NoCompromiseRadio .com? Did I say you could tweet us at NoCoRadio? Facebook, you can access the things there.

And tell your friends, tell your enemies. Your enemies might really, really like the show. Always biblical, always provocative, always in that order. I'm trying to get you to think about the one who never compromised, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And we, by the Spirit's power, try not to compromise either. Just straight talk. This is just heart-to-heart talk. We're having a conversation. We're having a dialogue. We're having an expressive time.

Well, we are going to Israel in February 2015, and you want to sign up for that, you go to the NoCompromiseRadio .com website. Our new website is almost done. But on the top right it says Israel 2015.

We need your $400 deposit and your registration form sent in by October 1st. And I've still got quite a few slots open. And we are flying from Boston, so get yourself to Boston or get yourself to Tel Aviv.

And we will enjoy ourselves together, love to have you come. All right, eight questions to ask when preparing your sermons. So, if you're not a pastor, you're still going to like this show because we're going to think about part of worship, corporate worship.

So, too often we say to ourselves, well, I don't really like the worship. And what we mean by that is we don't like the music. Now, music and singing is an expression of worship. Come, let us sing, that's Psalm 95, we're going to do some shows on that soon.

And so, of course, singing is worship. But of course, giving is worship. How's your worship when it comes to giving? Is it self-sacrificial or is it last minute thought out? That's not right, last minute or well thought out.

How is listening to a sermon? That's worship. That's most likely if the church that you go to is evangelical, that takes most of the time. The worship service is mainly the preaching, mostly the preaching.

How is the preaching? How is the listening? And so, sermons should be of interest to people who are regular, ordinary, day-to-day lay people, right? Priesthood of all believers. Now, the questions to ask when preparing your sermons.

The reason why I bring this up because it's so fascinating. There's basically two kinds of preaching in my mind. Two kinds of biblical preaching, two types of modern evangelical preaching. I think that's a better way to say it.

And the first type is God's glory is the primary reason to preach. Audience of one, Coram Deo, I preach for the Lord's glory. And of course, I hope people will like it, and the mature ones will, even if it's a convicting sermon, even if it's a sermon where, to use the language of Jeremiah, my words like a hammer, right?

I have a hard heart, so I need a soft mallet to take care of my hard heart. No, if your heart is hard, you need a harder word to confront and to convict and to conform you and your heart to the image of Christ Jesus.

And so, it's interesting. You have immature people, they like soft words from the pulpit. And mature people, they want some harder words from the pulpit. Oh, they like softer words to comfort when they need to be comforted.

But rebuked? Yes. Reproved? Yes. That's just all part of it. So, there's one kind of preaching in evangelicalism that says, if no one else likes it but the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, if they like it, I'm fine with that.

And really, that's the way I try to preach. I try to preach for God. He is my primary audience. I'm glad there are people sitting there listening. But I try to think of the Lord first, and I don't try to exegete my audience first.

And what will they think, and how will they feel? I preach from a living word, an inherent word, an infallible word, an authoritative word, a sufficient word. It is transchronological. It is transcultural.

And surprisingly, wonderfully, awesomely, amazingly, when you preach, when a sinful man, redeemed by the Spirit of God, when he preaches and he's faithful to the text, people change. People think differently.

People repent. They change their minds. They are more thankful. They are less ungodly in their practice. And so, preaching is a great thing. But there's another kind of preaching that basically says, I'm preaching to the congregation.

They're my primary audience. And so, we've got God-centered, theo, versus man-centered, anthro. So, it's theocentric, God-centered or anthropocentric, man-centered. Now, before I get into this, eight questions to ask when preparing sermons or thinking about sermons.

Which one do you think really draws in more people? Well, sadly, more people are drawn to self-centered sermons, self-sermons, anthropocentric sermons, sermons that are, you know, how do you get by another week, some how-to, some principles for living, family.

Now, there's certainly Bible instruction, biblical instruction for family in Ephesians chapter 5 and 6. I won't say there's not. But there's a paradigm shift in preaching today. And the paradigm shift is from the herald who stands in the pulpit and says, Thus saith the Lord.

In the long line of heralds, going back from the prophet Moses all the way to the prophet Jesus. And there's this, well, I'm just one of you all. And we're just in this together. And I've got some things I want to share with you.

And that brings me to my article today on No Compromise Radio. Eight Questions to Ask When Preparing Your Sermons. This is from Pastors .com. Who's in charge of Pastors .com? Well, Rick Warren is. And he writes this article, Eight Questions to Ask When Preparing Your Sermons.

I believe the best model to follow in the history of preaching is Jesus. And then after he says that, similar to his book, The Purpose-Driven Life, The Key to Purpose-Driven Life, or whatever his opening statements are, it's not about you.

It's about God. And then he goes on for the next, wherever, how many ever pages, 100, 200 pages, to undo what he's just said. Rick Warren is a smart man. He's an organizer. He's a leader. He understands motivation and all these kind of things.

But preaching, not so much. It isn't John the Baptist, he said, Paul, or any contemporary speaker alive. Jesus was the master communicator. The Bible says in Matthew 7, 28, the crowds were amazed at his sermons.

Why? Because the content and delivery came straight from the Father. When I'm preparing a message, I ask eight questions to help me prepare. The first two are about what to say, and the final six are about how to say it.

Now, this is very intriguing for me, because I did write a book on Jesus the preacher, and what we could learn from Jesus the preacher. He was the master communicator. But communicators, capital C, he was many other things before that.

Scriptures, of course, don't say that he was a great communicator, although he was. It talks about other things about the Lord Jesus Christ before communicator. Now, I want you to just notice and ask yourself the question with each of these statements.

Theocentric or anthropocentric? Is this God-centered or man-centered? And so, I think you'll quickly find out, and you already know by now, if you listen to No Compromise Radio. If this is your first show, maybe go listen to my Ruth series at bbcchurch .org.

You'll find a kinder, gentler, less discernment type of thing. Number one, to whom will I be preaching? Jesus always started with his audience. He even knew their thoughts. So, the first question in my mind is about the audience to whom I will be speaking.

I try to picture them in my mind, and there's always three ways to get people's attention with a message. Speak about things people value. Speak about things that are unusual. Speak about things that threaten us.

This is already so wrong. For whatever reason, I have the privilege of teaching seminary class at Southern Seminary. It's at the adjunct campus up in Northboro, outside of Boston, a ways. And I teach preaching classes.

And so, I've taught several preaching classes. Men, masters, and divinity classes on preaching. Both the preaching class, that is the philosophy of how to, and then the practicum, where they have to stand up and preach in front of us.

This is exactly the wrong way to do it. This is the man-centered way. I start with a people, right? My first question is about the audience. Friends, that's my last question. At the very end, I've prepared, I've thought about authorial intent, I've thought about exegesis, I've thought about context, I've thought about genre, I've thought about what is the main point of the passage, I've thought about how the text, if it's an epistle, gives its own outline, I've thought about the big picture in redemptive historical context.

I've thought about 25 things before I ever think about the audience. In one sense, I don't really care who the audience is. Now, eventually, I'll get there, because if it's junior high students, or if it's a seminary class, or anything in between, I have to teach at the appropriate level.

Now, I'll still say propitiation. I'll just explain it more than I normally would if I'm speaking to younger people. The illustrations might be different, but the content is still the same. And so, do I ever consider the audience to whom I'm preaching?

Yes, but if I do, it's at the very end. It's not at the very beginning. This is number one for a reason, because this is the man-centered approach to preaching, and the people love it so. Of course, think about me and then craft your message with me, and then to say this is how Jesus did it?

I mean, please. Number two, eight questions to ask when you're preparing sermons. Now, by the way, when you're sitting there listening to preaching, I hope you say, I want to learn about Jesus today. I hope you don't say, well, how will he draw me in, and how will he talk to me, how will he address my felt needs?

No, I'd like to hear about Jesus today. I've had enough of me all week, and what I saw I didn't really like, so give me Jesus. I hope that's the way you think of preaching, and I hope that's what you pray for regarding your pastor and his sermon on Sunday.

Lord, help him to be faithful to the text and proclaim Christ Jesus with crystal clarity, the great forgiver of sins, sinners who are bad like me. I just was in a hospital meeting with some family members, and it was a very somber time, a very sober time, and I was talking to a person who I don't know if they know the Lord or not, but I basically was telling them when they asked me how I became a pastor, I was talking to them about my sin, and how I'm wicked, and I have wicked thoughts, and I have a black heart, and I have all these things that the Lord showed me, so then I needed to flee from those things to the cross, to the Savior.

And so, when we hear preaching, we have to be careful to guard even our regenerated hearts that still have a sin hangover. Preach for me. I mean, let's say it is on the family, and let's say you're single.

Well, that doesn't apply to me. Well, if you're to love your neighbors yourself, shouldn't you automatically be thinking, there's a lot of young families at the church, and this will be good for them to hear.

Biblical view of parenting and marriage would be very good for them. Yes, I'd like to be married. I'd like to have a family. I don't, but what's good for the church, I should rejoice in that. And so, this will give God glory as the pastor talks about marriage, and the bride of Christ, and Christ, and how marriage reflects that eternal truth.

And so, number two, eight questions to ask when preparing your sermons. Basically, this is how not to. This is, you do the flip around. You do the opposite. All right, there's a coffee break. Two, what does the Bible say about their needs?

Warren said, I searched through the Bible for everything I can find on the subject using every reference tool I can get my hands on, including tools on the internet and even my mobile devices, including a paid subscription to pastors .com.

Your understanding of the Bible's purpose will determine your preaching style. The ultimate purpose of the Bible is not to teach Israel's history or even doctrinal facts. It's to transform our character.

That means preaching must be always related to life. Preaching is bringing the truth of the text and people's needs together through application. Really? See, they should have told me this in seminary.

I've been to three theological seminaries receiving education, and I've taught at two, one in Europe and one here. And so they don't tell me these things. I feel like with the 60 books I've read in the last several years on preaching, if I only would have got this nugget.

Warren, my feeling is that both verse by verse, verse with verse, that's what he calls it, which is topical, and verse by verse, expository preaching can produce a healthy church. The point is to truly dig into the text once you're there.

Now, well, that last statement I agree with, but the ultimate purpose of the Bible, not doctrinal facts. We don't want to know truths about God. We don't want to know about substitution and atonement.

We don't want to know about the deity of Christ. We don't want to know about ex nihilo by divine fiat creation. We don't want to know about any of those doctrinal facts. Doctrine is just a truth about God.

Don't you want to know about God? Don't you want to know about his omniscience? To think that he knew every sin that you would ever commit, past, present, and future, and he had the son die for you. That's amazing.

Doctrine is practical and practice is doctrinal, as I believe Thomas Watson used to say. The ultimate purpose of the Bible is to transform our character. Really? Number three, what is the most practical way to say it?

See how everything is man-centered. What's the most practical? What's the way we communicate with the people? Now, I'm all for communication. To this day, nobody has ever convinced me that if you have a proper doctrinal, biblical, exegetical, authorial intent-based message, that you should try to say and communicate what you're trying to say poorly.

No, we should communicate well. We should speak well. We should use good grammar. We should use adverbs and clauses and have thought and logic and rhetoric. There's all of that, and I'm for that. But you've got to start with God's glory first.

That's what you've got to start. Most practical way to say it, according to John 10 .10, Christianity is a lifestyle. It is? Christianity is a lifestyle. Now, I just was in the hospital reading John chapter 10 to someone who was dying, and you know what?

I just kind of missed that. That just came, that just zoomed right by me. It's a lifestyle. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they might have life and have it abundantly.

Christianity is a lifestyle, according to John 10 .10. See, I didn't learn these things. That's why the Southern Baptist Pastors Conference, to have Rick Warren come and speak, I don't know what they're thinking.

John Piper having Rick Warren speak and defend him, I have no idea what they're thinking, because this is a different language. This is not the language of the Bible. This is turning everything wrong side up.

That's what this is doing. Jesus was always practical with his doctrine, because his purpose was to change the behaviors of his hearers, starting at the level of their beliefs. See, he tries to rescue himself there with the belief part.

But this is not good for you. If you listen to Rick Warren on the radio, you shouldn't listen anymore, because there are nuances that you'll just get drawn into, that you shouldn't think. This is not the way to think.

This isn't biblical thing. This is thinking. John 10 .10, Christianity is a lifestyle. Really? So Christianity is law, is what you're telling me. Christianity is a set of rules. Christianity is the way we live our lives.

Is that the essence of Christianity? Excuse me if I prefer the triumphant indicatives of the cross and who Jesus is and what he's done. Mike Ebendroth, No Compromise Radio, number four. Eight questions to ask when preparing your sermons.

If you want to preach wrongly, what is the most positive way to say it? What's the most positive way to say these things? It's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God. Let's see, how could I spin that a little bit?

What would be a better way? How could I say something a little bit nicer? Now, there are ways to say things. I think scolding people from the pulpit is not a good thing, but that's not what he's talking about here.

Can you believe this? When I'm abrasive, I'm never persuasive. I mean, I'm basically speechless today, is what I am. Sadly, the gospel, Warren says, often has a negative image because it's communicated in negative terms.

Like don't, like do not, like Paul in Galatians. These are the first three words in the Greek text translated by me in Galatians. Paul, apostle, not. No. No, Peter. No adding things to the gospel. No, no, no, no, no.

Even the words preach and sermon have negative connotations to them. Even in our culture. So now I don't preach because the culture thinks preaching's bad? Don't preach to me. Well, excuse me. I'm told by Jesus's apostolic messenger, Paul, to preach the word, to herald it, to raise my voice a little and say, I have some news from God.

I've got bad news and I've got good news. What do you mean there's no negative news to give? I believe that a constant diet of negative sermons are detrimental to the health of the church. Yeah, I think that's such a lie.

Ask Isaiah. Now I know he's not talking to the church, but his message was here, you can't understand. See, you can't perceive. That's his message. Repeat and you preach till their hearts are hardened.

Now there's a little seed left, a little remnant left, a little stump left, but his message was similarly received to Jeremiah's message, to John the Baptist's message. The most destructive kind of preaching, Warren says, is when a sermon is merely a release of the pastor's pent-up frustrations.

Oh, I get that. I would agree with that. Where did we get the impression that a good sermon must make the people feel bad? If your preaching is just a weekly highlight of the sin of the week, go back to the drawing board.

Go back to the biblical gospel of truth and grace, of hope and redemption. Yeah, go back to Romans. Chapter 1, sin. Chapter 2, sin. Chapter 3a, sin. And then we'll get to the good news. Once your mouth is shut up regarding the sin in 319, then there's finally good news.

I guess we just want Romans 8 then. No condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. Forget that wretched man that I am stuff. Who's going to deliver me from the body of death in chapter 7? We only want chapter 8.

Let's skip 7. 7's not for Christians. According to this kind of malarkey, is it okay to say bogus on the radio? What is the most encouraging way to say it? Every week, that's number five, when people listen to you preach, they have three fundamental needs.

To have their faith reinforced, to have their hope renewed, to experience love restored. I'm just like on a different planet. This is Wahoo Dory land. Wahoo Dory, Wahoo Dory. This is like a different planet.

It's in some fictional tale. When you stand up to preach, anticipate that people listening have had a tough week. Your role is to encourage them to not give up. That's not true. If you preach to the broken, you'll always be relevant.

Don't pride yourself on telling it like it is. Tell it like it can be. Oh, yes, I forgot. I'm a word-faith teacher. And can it be? Oh, sorry, that doesn't apply. This is what's wrong with evangelicalism.

And then you have publishers and denominations who back this kind of wrong-headed thinking about preaching. You say, well, this is exactly the kind of preaching I like. Well, I'm here to tell you that you wouldn't like the preaching of Jesus.

You wouldn't like the preaching of John the Baptist. You wouldn't like the preaching of Paul. You wouldn't like the preaching of Stephen. You wouldn't have liked Luther's preaching or Calvin's preaching.

What kind of preaching do we want? Of course, I don't want people to berate me and tell me I'm only a sinner and that's all I am and there's no hope and there's no gospel. There's no indicative triumphant discussion of the gospel truths.

But this whole approach is just so people feel better and you do get more people in. This approach to me sounds like we should just pick the richest place in the area and start a church there and tell the people what they want to hear and encourage them and have them come back.

Because you know what? What we need to do is go back to the drawing board and we don't want to make people feel bad. That's the last thing I think. How will this make the people feel? How about, let's start with, what will this make the people think about?

About their own sin? About their own Savior? About who Jesus is? I'm glad I have a Savior. I'm glad I have the risen Savior who sought me and bought me with his precious blood. Hallelujah! I'm glad I have a Savior.

My name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio. Run from this kind of preaching of Rick Warren.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

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