Improving Preaching (2)(1.9.1983) — Nigel Lee

Lord, we don't take these things for granted. We ask for your help and your working amongst us, in Jesus' name. Amen. Between now and the little tea break, later on, coffee break, for those who are not English, I'd like you to do some work.

Christ's Accuracy and Directness in Preaching

Something on the characteristics of Christ as a preacher. And you may throw your ideas, maybe with illustration from particular passages. I will do my best to write on the board. We'll begin to see what we've got.

I might ask you to preach your points a little bit. Not to say a word or two, but let me know why you are making that particular point. I've got a number of things down here that also we will throw in, in due course.

But let's start with your memories of the marks of Christ as a preacher. Or should I say, particularly, the marks of his messages. Am I going too fast, David? That's okay now. It will slow down anyway once we...

Right. Anyone who wants to begin? Yes, Stu? Now, do you think that he would begin a message as he stood before people and say, You are hypocrites! Or do you think there would be any sort of introductory getting of their attention?

But you're saying that in his gunfire he hit the target. He didn't have the bullseye over here to change the metaphor and he shoots over there. He was accurate, as you would expect from the Son of God, I suppose.

He normally got it right, is what you're saying. On balance, he was right. Accurate. Direct. You like the word direct. Now that is a very interesting message because he does actually start with a bit of bridge-building, doesn't he?

Because he acknowledges that he is there as a local boy and he imagines a question that they might ask him. Who is this lad standing up as a local boy? So he actually begins from the thing that is probably in their mind when he stands up to speak.

So can I put down bridge-building as well? We may not have space on the board for everything we're going to need to put up. Bridge-building. Now George uses book reviews superbly for that. He will also talk maybe a little bit about something that happened the last time he was here.

He will ease his way into the message. You find this with almost any preacher. Particularly if they're responding to some national event or disaster. They'll talk about that a little bit, then open a scripture and go into their message.

The building of the bridge of communication. Now in evangelism, I would personally believe it's a wise thing to start where the people are at. To articulate some of their feelings and doubts and convictions and questions.

Some can use humour to get the people on your side and feeling that you are a real man. You're not just a painted cardboard preacher imported by the Christian fellowship. There's a relationship to be built in the early part of the message.

Something or other. How does the Lord do it in John chapter 4? Ah, I'm thirsty. Give us a drink, would you? And then they get to talking about water. And then a different kind of water. And then what it is that's got her thirsty.

He's amazingly deft at it, but he starts with a bridge. Building a bridge. Now, let's put this out for the same reference, because we can see that there. Certainly he's not afraid to finish up with his arrow sticking in the centre of the problem.

Yeah. Good. Another one. No. Illustration. It is a most important thing. Can you think of some of the features of Christ's power of illustrating? Where does he quote from? What sort of allusions does he make?

It looks like a farming community. They could understand everything he was trying to infer.

Agriculture. Fishing. Domestic matters. You know, losing your coins in the house. Sweeping the house out. Business affairs. What was it you said? You used to be who? Construction. Construction. House building.

Yeah. Domestic affairs. Construction. Anything that people would have seen and been familiar with. He'll work from the visible to the invisible, won't he? Now, we threw those down just in a moment or two.

You could probably find some more if you began to think. But these are the sorts of areas that he will immediately catch on to. Now, in a conference like this, there are certain common things that we're all experiencing.

Ah, you see, you're laughing without me even mentioning them. There are areas where we can refer to our common experience. People know what you're talking about because they're all involved in it. Or team life.

We all know what these vans are capable of, in every sense of the word. You've only got to mention some of these things and people are immediately ready to see the point because they're right there. Within OM, we have to do this because we come from so many different backgrounds and cultures that it's only when you get into OM life that you've begun to have common ground, sometimes.

But illustration, very important. Anything else you want to say about that, Noel?

The purpose. A lot of this really concerns nowadays the issue of how much. Or they don't get the fine problem end result. Yes. Yes. It was purposeful.

It didn't detract from the point that he was trying to make. Yes. It wasn't just a sprinkling of pleasant moments in an otherwise stodgy message. A few currants on top of a pudding that you would hardly be able to eat.

It wasn't that. And the art of illustration is something that we need to cultivate and can easily get out of control as well. Yes. We can think profitably about that. Another feature. Yes. Authority. Yes.

Christ's Authority and the Preacher's Authority

Because he was God. He made it. He made us all. He made the entire thing. He understands the world. The only areas of his ignorance were deliberate as part of his submission of himself as the son. He says there are some things he does not know.

Because it is implicit in sonship that the son does not know everything. So he says he doesn't know the time, the day fixed in the future for the end of the world. Now his ignorance does not imply a lessening of his deity.

Not at all. It is part of the glory of being truly a son. And he laid aside knowledge in some few areas. Obviously omnipresence is not a feature of Christ on earth. Part of the glory of being a son. His authority.

Now where does our authority come from? The word? The life? Yes. It is complicated because of what I was talking about this morning. The relationship between the gift that you have that God will use and what he sees in your life that may not yet be complete.

But he will still use you as Martin Goldsmith was saying this morning. But the authority of a life filled with God's spirit is God's authority as transmitted through his ambassador. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 6 is it?

1 Corinthians 6, 5, 520. Ambassadors. I am an ambassador. I stand and preach with an ambassador's authority. It is the authority of God. Christ said all authority is given unto me. Go ye therefore. So the men that went were men already under authority.

Our authority comes from the word we are given to preach. And from the fact that in our own lives we are under authority. That is important for a preacher. Because he can very easily become falsely authoritative.

We have to come back to that when we think of the life of the preacher. Is he under the authority of the word that he brings or not? But it was one of the features that people most readily noticed. They were marvelled at the authority with which he spoke.

End of the Sermon on the Mount. So we could put, is it Matthew 7, 58 or whatever? It is the last verse anyway. Another feature. David. He got people to think. Now you have to give me some illustrations of that.

Questions, Parables, and Active Listening

Can we shut the back window? And if necessary, if we need more air, open side windows. Thank you. Questions. Very common. The use of questions. Now how often in our preaching do we hear the preacher questioning the audience?

Not always. Maybe as often as Christ did. Yeah. I counted the number of questions in the Sermon on the Mount. He puts ten specific questions to his audience in three chapters. That gets them to think.

Or another way of getting people to think. Well you suggest me. I have got one more in mind. The ways he made people work as they sat and listened. Paul. Or he uses it as a test case. It is like a litmus test of spiritual perception.

If you are going to understand, that will be the key to all parables. If you are not going to understand, that will effectively cloud the thing forever. To obscure. If I put it like that, you won't misunderstand.

Above. Yes. And they made people question and think. And you remember he came back into the house. And they said, well what on earth was all that about? And he said, don't you understand? Oh dear. If you don't understand that one, how are you ever going to understand the rest of them?

Now look, he says. It was like this. It was like this. It was like this. It was like this. Okay. But sometimes they didn't understand. Parables made them think. Yes. I think it is. Something is like something else.

I mean let's put it under the same heading. David. You have to explain. And you have to speak up too. He made them think by asking them to take particular actions. Oh I see. About themselves. He made them think by getting them dragged.

Supposing you start the message by saying, look I'm going to speak this morning about one of our greatest spiritual problems in OM. I want you to write down on a piece of paper right now your three greatest spiritual problems in OM.

And then there's a rustling of paper and everyone's thinking and then they're writing down. And then if you're actually going to speak about discipline in prayer or something like that, then you ask how many people wrote that down as one of their top three.

You've got them questioning themselves. Doing something. It's important. By inviting action. Yes. Any others?

David. A game of the word. He always used his father's word. You know a game about a man who was seven. You've heard it said an old time. He went back to the war all the time. He decided to come to do away with the war.

The policy came before the pill. But he got them thinking before he went on to illustrate. You know, you're not to, I mean adultery now I'm saying, you're not to hook.

His lust still comes forth. Deliberate contrast with tradition. Pointing out that he was going to be different. Yes. Matthew 7 is actually a very interesting chapter from that point of view because he does another thing.

He offers people alternatives. He says you can go one of two roads. There's a broad way, there's a narrow way. And the next paragraph he says you can produce one of two different kinds of fruit. There's the good tree and the bad tree.

And the next paragraph he says you can build one of two different kinds of houses. That sermon is ending with a series of choices being put before people. Which way are you going to go? Which kind of fruit are you going to produce?

What sort of house are you going to build? The three illustrations do the same job actually. Setting alternatives before people. Asking for some crucial decision in life. Some fresh commitment. You must lay out before people the two roads.

And then say no, move. Alternatives. Add them to a tradition. We've got a number. But his preaching was intended to make them, isn't it easy, just to sit in meetings and let it all wash over you. The same old words, the same old stuff.

And you never think a new thought from the beginning of one conference to the end. Another feature of Christ. Let me ask someone who hasn't had a go yet. Love. Love. Love in his heart. Yes, I'm going to have to move on a little bit.

Love and Compassion in Christ's Preaching

Love. He never preached a message that didn't come from a loving heart. Have you ever heard messages preached that you thought perhaps were short of love? Occasionally? Possible, isn't it? Think of Jeremiah though, preaching with the tears running down.

Whitefield. Preaching. I mean it was said of Whitefield that it was impossible for him to preach about hell without crying in public. The depth of love born out of a man's prayer and so on was tremendous.

And although he wouldn't ever, Christ I'm talking about now, force people into his kingdom, they knew even if they walked away that they had been loved by that man while in his presence. Wasn't it interesting this morning, Martin Goldsmith taking us through, no no sorry, Jonathan McCroskey, taking us through Matthew 23, he talks of the tough words that Christ brings to the Pharisees.

Some of you weren't there but it was an outline of seven aspects of Phariseeism that are common dangers among leaders. It was penetrating stuff. But even at the end of Christ talking such tough language, calling people names the like of which one wouldn't dare.

Yet still in those last three verses, oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem how often have the prophets come? How often would God have wanted to gather you? How often have I called? The love. They were left in no doubt of the love of God that had come through each of these various ministers.

Yes, that's a good thing now. Noelian? We haven't, but it also does come out of the passage that Stuart read to us, didn't it? Because he does quote Isaiah 61, 62, I can't remember. Use of Old Testament, OK?

Happy? To include the New. Yes. Many of these will be locked in together, you see. I'll very close it in. Now you had a point. What did I tell you? Simplicity. The sheer simplicity of it. People didn't have to be PhDs in Chinese philosophy to understand what he was talking about.

Simplicity, Christ-Centeredness, and the Unexpected

Simplicity. No one has yet suggested the thing that I put down as my number one. Or my number two. At the back, yes.

Absolutely tied together with that. Yes.

The authority, the kingdom. Yes. Now how do you learn from that? Because you're not going to go around preaching about yourself. Yes. Christ-centred. Yeah. Yeah.

Can you hear at the back? You'll have to speak up. He did the unexpected. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And in his miracles he used the spectacular to draw the crowds as well.

I think the unexpected comes in here, doesn't it? Making them think. And his miracles, you were going to make a point about miracles.

The spectacular goes to telling people. Now there's an interesting question. Why did Christ do miracles?

Simply to get a crowd. Like one of the teams in Belgium might do an event in the street. In order to get a crowd so that we can then preach to them. Is that why he did miracles? Love primarily for the person healed or raised up or whatever.

To show that he had authority. We must speak up because in spite of the egg boxes. Mark 2 you see. Interesting isn't it? It's a complicated thing. Because he healed a man because he loved him. He wasn't so callous as just to use this man as a visual aid.

You know, let's have some poor cripple brought in. So that people will really understand. The cripple doesn't matter. No, he loved the cripple. And one of the man's needs was for healing. But he did then use it to enforce his message.

And John in writing his gospel says, I have picked out a number of signs that he was the son of God. These signs I have written to you for two reasons. That you might know that Jesus is the son of God.

So those signs were manifestations of his glory and his deity. And in believing in his glory and deity. We do find life. It is as if we had observed the miracle ourselves. And it had been effective as a visual aid in our life.

So it's actually a combination of all these things. But we must beware of using people merely as visual aids. Because they matter. He avoided publicity. Yes, sometimes. Sometimes he refused to do miracles.

When there were a lot of miracles waiting to be done. When all the sick were lying outside the front door, Jesus was tiptoeing out the back door. It is a complicated question this, isn't it? He was saying, I must go preach in some other places.

And there were times when he just took off into the hills. For fellowship. And didn't keep responding to the need for miracle. Miracle obviously wasn't the most important thing. And, it's very difficult.

He had a sense that in the long run the loving thing to do. For some of these people is that the gospel be preached. In their villages here and around. Because then they will be saved for eternity. Even though in some cases there must have been people whom he could have healed and didn't.

No easy answer to that one. John 2 .11 says, Jesus performed his first miracle in Cana in Galilee. There he revealed his glory and the disciples believed in him. The increased glory of Jesus. That was his first one.

There are many aspects to this. There are many aspects. Many aspects.

The people in the wedding. It doesn't say that they did believe particularly. But they were delighted that the social disaster that was about to happen. I mean, it was the bridegroom's job to provide the wine.

And this poor little bridegroom had got it wrong on the very first day of his married life. All the in-laws and auntie Flo and everyone had come. And this chap had seriously under-calculated. And they'd run out after one go-round.

Oh, it was excruciatingly agonizing. And Mary came to Christ and said, I didn't know why. And Christ says a very interesting thing, doesn't he? He says, woman, woman, what have you to do with me? What has all this got to do with me?

Literally, I'm not the bridegroom yet, you know. One day I will be. One day I will take responsibility for the provision of wine at my wedding feast. But it's not my wedding feast. Now, don't come to me.

But he was, after all, the one who dreamed up the whole idea of marriage in the first place. And the one who created every grape that ever existed. It's an amazing thing. To have the one whose idea marriage is sitting in your own wedding, you know, quietly at the back.

Observing how things are going. This is all his scheme. And the one who knows how grapes get turned into wine. And so, of course, even though it's not his wedding, he turns water into the best wine that those dear people had ever tasted.

He wouldn't do less than that. But one day we're all going to be at the occasion when he is the bridegroom. Yes. But they saw something of his glory in that. The disciples. And believed on him. But the couple who went off on their honeymoon, if they had honeymoons, I don't know.

I rather doubt it, essentially. But the couple must have had a fantastic experience. You know, their old auntie Maud, she was about to chew me off. And then we... You know what he did? He rescued us. He brought the joy back into our whole married life.

So they were very happy. But the disciples, for them, it had been a manifestation of glory and it led to deep belief. Hmm.

Preparation, Prayer, and Truthfulness in Preaching

Yeah. Can we just add to that point before we leave? You said, my time has not yet come. Although he was the son of God, I always understand he was always prepared, fully prepared before he preached a message.

Again, at the outset of Matthew, chapter 7, when he was set, his disciples came to him and then he taught them and preached. He was always well prepared.

Now how do you envisage Christ's preparation taking place?

Well, from day one up until the age of, what, around about 30, before he started his public ministry, what sort of... God was always preparing him, wasn't he?

Reading the books and working it out and scribbling notes and throwing stuff in the wastebasket and trying again like we all have to. How would it have been?

Well, he still had knowledge when he was a boy, didn't he? Yes.

I don't imagine Christ going through the agonies of preparation that I go through. Wife's gone to bed two hours ago. I'm still stuck with these books and this passage and I've got to preach on it tomorrow and why did I ever agree to do this in the first place?

And it won't come clear. And, oh God, help me. Struggle, struggle. I don't imagine Christ going through that. But the preparation of life... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was just going to bring up the point of prayer. You know, when he made decisions even before he chased his disciples, it was all lined in prayer.

And that's when he's still part of it. The preparation process. Now, we'll talk about that when we talk about the preparation of the man. Here we're talking a little bit more about the message itself.

David, one last shot and then I'm going to throw in some of the things that I've got down as well. Yes?

He really stuck to the truth and wasn't scared to...

Now, is this connected with the very first point that we had? The directness. The bluntness that Stuart was talking about. I could even call it confrontation. Do you want to be happy with that word? Calling people vipers and things like that.

Telling them they stink like graves that have accidentally got broken open. You pong, you lot, he said. There's a stench of sin in on you. I mean, calling a Jew who wouldn't even touch a dead body. Calling a whole lot of them.

A load of dead bodies. Every one of them. He was blunt. This is our problem now. He spoke the truth. As we would expect. I'm going to presume that in our preaching we will do likewise. We may have to struggle and wrestle a little more because we are not ourselves the truth.

But we convey it as best we know it. Now, let me bring out one point. The sense of appropriateness of what he was saying to the group that he was ministering to. He knows when he's talking to his disciples, they need a different kind of ministry.

Audience Awareness and Appropriateness

He knows when he's talking to the crowd. A mixture of half-believers, unbelievers, Pharisees, Roman soldiers, fishwives, anyone who happens to be standing around. And there's a great difference. He knows when he's talking to his disciples, perhaps after a particular problem.

You see? His message is different in different circumstances. Remember him walking alongside the two on their way down to Emmaus? Just gets into the road beside them. Very different from talking to his disciples in John 13, 14, 15, 16.

He says, oh, you two, you do look down. And he waited a bit. Do you want to tell me about it? Why are you looking so sad? And he gradually opened up the Old Testament for them to show them that it was necessary for Christ to suffer.

Very different message, I believe, from what we have in Matthew 5, 6, 7, the Sermon on the Mount. That is a sermon for disciples preached in the hearing of a larger multitude. Because it says at the beginning of Matthew 5, he called the disciples, he came down, sat down, preached to the disciples, but at the end of the whole thing, the multitude who've overheard were astonished at his authority.

He knows when he's talking to disciples who've been quarrelling, like dealing with kids, you know. What were you talking about in the back of the car as we were driving along? Question. Well, actually, she was talking about...

Gentle, but penetrating. He knows when he's talking to people who are completely bewildered. Who are upset and fearful and worried. A sense of appropriateness. An awareness of the situation he was speaking into.

Now, in Deuteronomy 6, you remember those verses that talk about our Bible study? Deuteronomy 6, if you want to turn to it, verse 4. Tells us the times in the day when we should study our Bible and talk about the Bible with one another.

These words, verse 6, let's take it from there. Which I command thee this day shall be upon thine heart. Evidence of that, you will teach them diligently unto your children. Well, that doesn't concern some of you, yet.

But then you will do four things. You will talk of the word of God when you sit down in your own house, and when you walk along the road, and when you lie down at night, and when you get up again in the morning.

Four occasions when the word is to be in our minds and on our lips, if appropriate. Now, we can see Christ doing all four. He talks Scripture as he walks down the roads. He talks Scripture early in the morning when they come out and chat to him.

He talks sitting down in the house. You get the impression that the supper, they call it in the Gospels, was a late night affair. And they talked, and he taught into the night. Christ fulfilling his own word with these different occasions of Scripture.

So there was a sense of appropriateness about what he said. Secondly, something that I think you implied, Bill, a highly organized structure in what he says. A beginning, a middle, an end. He knows what he's doing.

Organized Structure and Purpose in Christ's Teaching

A clear sense of direction. Now, scrambled eggs are very nice to eat on occasions, but supposing you were fed with scrambled eggs every day, or every time you ever had an egg, it was a scrambled egg. There are other delightful ways of eating eggs.

Slightly more organized ways, instead of just blalalalala, and then let it go, you know. Now, Christ's beginnings, middles, ends, his progress, his sense of where he was heading, is incredibly acute. Can I give you an illustration of that?

I've used it in some places once or twice before. John 15. Turn with me to John 15. We're in the middle of that big discourse with the disciples before he physically departs. John 15, verse 11. These things have I just spoken unto you, the ones I have just said, are for this reason, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full and overflowed.

I want to have my joy centered in you, is what it means. And I want your joy to overflow. The things I've just said are so that that will take place. And then he goes on a few more verses, and in verse 17 he says, now these things do I say, have I just said, so that you may love one another.

Quite different purpose. A few more verses, but they contain the key to us loving one another. Beginning of chapter 16, these things have I spoken to you, verse 1, so that you should not be made to stumble.

In other words, I'm not now talking about how you love one another, and I'm not now talking about the problem of joy in your Christian life, I've just now said things that if you take them to heart, will stop you stumbling as a Christian.

You can trace the same in chapter 16, verse 4, chapter 16, verse 25, chapter 16, verse 33, and so on. Christ knew why he said things. Some preachers ramble on, you feel they didn't know quite why they just said that.

But if you have problems with joy in your Christian life, maybe the answer is a deep pondering on the first 11 verses of John 15. And if you have difficulties loving one another on the team, maybe the Lord knows that he has put the answer to that between verses 12 and 17 of John 15.

Let's move to another illustration. Take the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5. He speaks first of the character of the person in the new kingdom of God. The Lord has come preaching the kingdom of God. The kingdom, God's authority has come, OK?

Now, you fishermen, you follow me. I will make you able to fish other people into the kingdom. To bring them in under the authority of the control of God. Then the Lord did three miracles. It's about verse 24 of chapter 4.

Three miracles. He healed a man who was demon-possessed, he healed a man who was epileptic, and he healed a man who was paralyzed. Those three diseases all involve loss of control, don't they? Control in the spiritual area, demon-possessed.

Control in the mental area, you become epileptic. Control in the physical area, you are paralyzed. All three the same. All symptoms of the same problem in fallen man at the three levels of man's being.

And the Lord very quickly demonstrates his control in each of these areas. And he's then going to talk to the disciples, to make them sons in the kingdom. But the moment we get into chapter 5, and he's outlined in the first twelve verses the characteristics of the sons of the kingdom.

What do you think the disciples are feeling? Oh dear, I can't be like that. I'm not poor in spirit, I'm not meek. I don't hunger and thirst after righteousness. I've got problems in my personal life. Problems with my tongue, problems with anger, problems with lust, problems in my family.

Oh, I see. I lose control, don't I? I lose control over my temper, over my anger. I lose control over my lust. It breaks out in me. I lose control over the way I speak. I say things I wish I didn't. I lose control in relationship to my enemies.

I become a revenge taker so easily. Now, do you see what the Lord starts to talk about? From verse 21 onwards. That paragraph, 21 to 26, is about the problem of anger. Losing control. From verse 27 to 32, it's about the problem of lust.

Losing control in the area of lust. Verse 33 to 37, it's about the problem of integrity of speech. You lose control. The Lord is going to say to these disciples, I will make you fishes of men. But first you've got to let me take control in these hidden areas of your life.

What about your problems? Have you let the Lord take control in these areas? I sometimes wonder why we don't hear the Sermon on the Mount preached more often. I suspect it's perhaps because we get too near to the bones sometimes.

The Lord, in chapter 5, talks about the character of the person in his new kingdom. And then, I'm giving you Bible study material. In each of these paragraphs, he gives you just one thing to do. Are you bothered by the problem of anger?

There is one instruction in the relevant paragraph. Do you get troubled by the problem of lust? There is one simple instruction. Follow that, and you're on the road to victory in that area, if you want God's control.

Trace it through every paragraph of those five, in chapter 5, where he's dealing with control problems. It's all to do with the character. Chapter 5. Once he's moved from the character in chapter 5, he'll then start to talk about the things we do.

Key areas of spiritual activity. Giving. The way we spend our time, particularly in prayer. And our attitude to our body, as evidenced by our willingness to fast. Chapter 6. But then, in chapter 7, it's incredibly interesting.

Wrong Reactions to the Sermon on the Mount

He begins the chapter by talking about three possible ways in which we may wrongly react to all that he's said up to now. He's moving towards the end. What's one wrong reaction to hearing the Sermon on the Mount?

It's to start judging other people, isn't it? I know a chap, he's not right on those material things. I know someone else who's uncontrolled in his tongue. Yes, I can just see how that applies to that brother and all his problems.

Don't judge other people as a result of what you hear, says the Lord. Secondly, don't throw this material just in front of anybody. Don't put pearls in front of swine. That's the second paragraph in chapter 7.

And then don't lose heart in your own life. Ah, and it shall be given you sweet and usual signs, he says, the third paragraph of chapter 7. And then those three things that I spoke about earlier, the two roads, the choices to be made.

They're very carefully organised. You know, where he sat down and he decided the way in which it needs to go. Now, the Apostle Paul is a saint. Why do some people get Romans 8 all screwed up in their mind?

They get it all wrong about the Holy Spirit and what he does in our lives and our bodies. Why? Because they haven't grasped what Paul is saying in chapter 7. So long before. But there's tremendous controversy about chapter 7.

What does chapter 7 mean? But it seems to me that the answer to that controversy lies in a right understanding of chapter 6. But 6 depends on 5. The thing is written in the pastoral order in which we need to understand it.

Oh, God is so clever. You know, Paul doesn't just get a few ideas and throw them all down. Well, that'll do. Send that off to the Romans. There's a few good things in there. Right down to the position of every verse, every paragraph, it's structured as it needs to be.