Sovereign Grace Bible Church
These are the sermons and teachings of Sovereign Grace Bible Church in Biggsville, Illinois. We exist to fulfill the Great Commission through the Great Commandment within Gospel Community.
Sovereign Grace Bible Church
Expository Preaching: Letting God's Truth Transform Your Life
What does it mean to truly preach God's Word? In this eye-opening message, we dive deep into the first distinctive of our church: expository preaching. This isn't just a style preference—it's a biblical mandate that shapes everything we do.
We begin by examining different approaches to preaching found in churches today. From entertaining anecdotal messages to biographical sketches, from topic-driven sermons to text-adjacent teachings—each approach carries strengths and potential pitfalls. But expository preaching stands apart by making the main point of Scripture the main point of the sermon, allowing God's Word to speak directly rather than filtering it through human opinion.
Paul's solemn charge to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:1-5 forms the backbone of this message. This wasn't casual advice but a deathbed command given "in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus." The urgency is clear: preach the word faithfully because people will naturally drift toward teachers who tell them what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear.
True biblical preaching requires balance—correcting, training, and encouraging with complete patience. Whether you're a church leader, family shepherd, or simply a friend speaking truth in love, this approach prevents both pride and despair by anchoring everything in the gospel. The goal isn't impressive sermons but transformed lives through understanding God's Word.
The world constantly pulls our attention toward comfortable messages that affirm our desires rather than challenge our hearts. But God's Word, faithfully explained and applied, provides the only path to genuine transformation. Join us as we commit to being a church where the Bible speaks clearly and where we respond with humility and obedience.
Today we start our eight-week series on who we are as a church. We spent 14 weeks preaching through doctrine and understanding the core truths of scripture what must a Christian know in order to be an effective Christian? And now we'll spend eight weeks going over what we'll call distinctives. Now, distinctives are specifically that word. Exactly. They are what make us distinct from other churches or what set us apart, one of the guiding lines that will keep us on track 10 years from now. Because, as we all know, as you see, corporations or governments or entities, churches there is a natural drift that happens over years, it's very easy and it happens everywhere and to everyone. What must we hold on to that? If these are the rules, these are the regulations that we all agree to, that this church will be founded on that 10 years from now, if none of us were here and a whole new lot of people were here, the church would be exactly the same. It would honor God in the exact same way. And that's the intent of having distinctives is that the next generation, the new Christians that are to come, will have these bumper rails on the bowling so that it's easy to make sure that the ball gets to the end safely the bowling so that it's easy to make sure that the ball gets to the end safely. Our first distinctive we're going to go over is expository preaching. Now, expository preaching is again a term you may have never heard of, or you may have heard way too much, and if you're anything like me, knowing a term can almost be dangerous, because then you start slinging it around like you know what you're talking about, when you only have a vague sense of it.
Speaker 1:I'll give you an example. The other day I went to pick up my kiddos and they were at their Mimi's house. And I picked them up and I get in the car, we're driving home and they're talking back and forth in the backseat and they go yeah, you know, that's the good old fashionedfashioned way. And I'm like, where did a four-year-old learn that term? No, no. And then do you that's the good old-fashioned way? Yes, and then one of them finally decides to think and says, hey, what does the good old-fashioned way mean? And the other one goes I think it means you're invisible. And then the other one goes yeah, that's probably how they did it in the olden days. And I'm like there's all kinds of words coming out, but they don't understand the words fully enough to apply them correctly.
Speaker 1:So here's the issue as we go through distinctives, you're going to learn terms. It's going to be very easy to be like going to talk to your friend or another church person. To be like our church is better because we have expository preaching, and they'll be like. What does that mean? And you'll sound just like my children. You'll be like. It means we're invisible.
Speaker 1:So restraint is important when we learn new things and that we learn this primarily for our own edification, for building us up, and then as a guiding principle that we're able to teach to our families and to our community as we go forward. Now we get the sense of expository preaching, or why we do expository preaching, from 2 Timothy, chapter 4, verses 1 through 5. And that's where we'll be at primarily today. So please read with me God's holy word. He says I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke and exhort with complete patience and teaching, for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching but, having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. Now, before we exposit this text, before we go verse by verse and explain the text, I want to give you examples of all the different ways you can approach preaching, so you can understand logically why we, as a church, land on expository preaching being the most faithful and biblical way to approach a sermon.
Speaker 1:Our first option is what's called anecdotal preaching. You don't know what anecdote means, because I didn't. I was like I've heard that word and I've used that word, but I have no idea what it means. I'm like my children. It means like a short or humorous story. It really just has to do with the story aspect and something being short, not serious. So an anecdotal sermon is a sermon in which the preacher primarily engages in telling stories with a moral lesson. While many preachers make use of anecdotes as an intention grabber to begin their sermons, an anecdotal sermon is filled with anecdotes and the preacher rarely gets around to a text of scripture. This is one of the more popular options of preaching in megachurches and different things like that today is I want to hear a really good story. I want it to be very short and, if it happens, to have some good moral lessons. So my children grow up conservative, they vote Republican and they don't have to worry about these things and they are a good citizen. That's a win for me. And so we want to get away from that and we want to get to a biblical version of preaching. But anecdotal preaching is very common in our day, but it's not the most common.
Speaker 1:We also have what's called biographical preaching. So a biographical sermon is a sermon in which the preacher traces the life of a biblical character and then draws contemporary moral implications. There's nothing inherently wrong with this type of preaching. There are many examples that we can draw from the lives of biblical characters, such as seeing how David repented or how Paul risked his life for the sake of the gospel can be very, very edifying. So biographical sermons are not, again, inherently unbiblical. However, if all you did were biographical sermons, you would learn a lot about those people, but you wouldn't learn a lot about God's word.
Speaker 1:Specifically Topical preaching this is one of the top two versions of preaching and it's actually what we're going through right now. So a topical sermon is a sermon that has a topic in mind prior to consulting the text and then searches for one or more biblical texts that addresses the topic chosen beforehand. This is quite possibly the most common type of preaching in American churches. A pastor thinks through a variety of topics he thinks would benefit his congregation and then chooses one. From this point he enters scripture to find passages that support his topic. This is again why most churches you go in and they're doing a series on the family and when they're done with that, they're doing a series the family. And when they're done with that, they're doing a series on prayer and when they're done with that, they're doing a series on giving and then, with that, they're doing a series on this.
Speaker 1:And the idea is the American attention span doesn't go that far. So if you say, hey, we're preaching through Matthew and we're going to be there for five years, everyone's like I don't even know what five years means. What is five years of sermons? That's 250 something sermons. What are you going to do? And we can get to the point where we're two years in and we're like, yeah, we're still in Matthew. Yep, you know it's a lot easier to keep people's attention. Six weeks on the family, four weeks on sacrificial service, five weeks on the words of christ on the cross and so on and so forth.
Speaker 1:And we do these things as a way of trying to kind of piece together a quilt. It's like people just they are, they are way too busy, they have a hard time paying attention. So instead of just taking the time to actually build a whole blanket, what we're going to do is get a bunch of those squares and we're going to put them together and we'll be done. People can be like, oh, we're in this square and then we'll be in that square. I can deal with that, it's a natural inclination. But also it's important that we don't dogmatically say topical sermons are bad. Because guess what we've been doing for the last couple months? Topical sermons. I have gone to the Bible and said I am preaching on the Holy Spirit this week. What does the Bible say about the Holy Spirit? And I've put it together as best I can, as faithfully as I can.
Speaker 1:The problem you get with topical preaching is that it's very easy for two things to happen. Number one for the preacher to stay on a hobby horse. And you're like man, if we have a sermon about prayer again, I'm going to lose my mind. I'm not anti-prayer, I love prayer, but if I have to hear another sermon on it I'm going to throw up. I'm not going to make it. Second thing is that what we end up doing is we have a Swiss cheese view of the Bible, where we have a lot of the pieces with these giant holes where someone says, yeah, you know, like in, like Romans 12. And you're like I've never heard a sermon on Romans 12. Actually, what does Romans 12 even say? Is there a Romans 12? How many chapters are in Romans? And we get to this point where we have no idea about giant chunks of the Bible. But we can tell you a lot of lessons from this person's life or from this part of Scripture. Topical preaching is not bad and is necessary at times, but should not be, we'll say, the meat and potatoes of a church.
Speaker 1:The next option is textual preaching. This is the other most common version of preaching in our day. A textual sermon is a sermon that refers often to a particular biblical text but does not take the main point of the text as its own. The main sermon idea in textual sermons does not come from the text. And the biggest danger in this type of preaching is that the preacher can easily distort the message of the very text he has read, most commonly by placing his own ideas onto the text.
Speaker 1:And so this happens to me. If I did textual preaching, it would sound a lot fancier, I'm here to tell you first off. It would sound a lot more aesthetic, as the word will say, like it'd be pretty. But the problem is that I could very well intentionally teach you something wrong on accident, because what I have done is I've taken my resource, this truth, and I've said I'm going to pull a little bit out of it and I'll give you this. And the problem is that if the Bible is this pure and beautiful fountain of life-giving water and you guys are over here the corroded, awful pipe in between is me Okay. So the less of me we have in between here and there, the better, which is why we say almost every week you don't care what my opinion is, what you want to care about is what God has to say. So textual preaching is very common. Again, it's not unbiblical, but it has risks risks. A good example would be actually last week we were at our sending church and the sermon was a textual sermon. So you want an example of that, you can go back and listen to that. It's a good example of lots of biblical things that were said, but not all of them are found in the text. So that leads us to expository preaching, which is where we land as a church. This will be what you will hear 95% of the time at this church over the years.
Speaker 1:Expository preaching makes the main point of a passage of scripture, the main point of the sermon, and then applies that point to the congregation's life. To prepare an expository sermon, the preacher starts with a passage of scripture, then studies the grammar, the context, the historical setting of that passage in order to understand the author's intent. That's very important. The expository preacher's goal is simply to expose the meaning of the Bible verse, the Bible verse by verse. And so what we have in expository preaching is we've hopefully just gotten rid of the corroded pipe. That's me. Instead, we've just have gone over to the box that has the beautiful water in it and we just open it up and say look in and see. Open it up and say, look in and see.
Speaker 1:And that's the goal of expository preaching is is a Martin Lloyd Jones said it's letting the lion out of the cage, like God doesn't need you to go to bat for him. He doesn't need you to make the Bible sound fancier or better or more trendy. What he needs you to do is to expose his perfect word to his people. And one of the main issues that we see in our day and age is that if a church does not have a foundation on scripture, they might have a good preacher for a while, then they get another one and all of a sudden there's this drift and we look at the church and we say this used to be a really good church, this used to be so alive. What happened? And we have to realize that one of the primary ways that God changes his people is through the preaching of his word. It's when all of his people are gathered together to hear his truth and be changed by it forever. By it forever. It's what unifies us in the greatest way, as we all sit under the authority of the Bible and say he is king, what does my king have to say? So we practice expository preaching.
Speaker 1:Now let's go to the text and hopefully I'll do a decent example of expositing it so that we can understand the text. The goal this is really important. Actually, the goal of expository preaching is that you all don't walk away and say, man, that was a really good sermon. The goal of expository preaching is that you walk away and say, I understand that in a way I never did before those Bible verses. Before I got here I didn't understand as well and now I know God better. That's the intent of the sermon today and for every week from here on out.
Speaker 1:So we go to 2 Timothy, chapter four. It's important to be understanding context. So if you look in 2 Timothy chapter three, verses 16 and 17, paul levels this giant statement about Scripture and pretty much just says Scripture is God-breathed. As much as you breathe out stuff and it's yours, god has breathed out every word of Scripture, our Bible, from beginning to end, genesis to Revelation. Is God himself, our creator, our savior, our champion, speaking? And by golly, if the president of the United States walked in and started saying some stuff, whether you hate him or love him, you would probably listen for a second, just out of respect and the security that's around him. How much greater is God? When God speaks, we all need to listen. So Paul puts this giant foundation of what scripture is, which some people would say which is why we don't need preaching. That's why it's okay if we just sing songs and we just read the scriptures and we're good to go. But off of that foundation of scripture is amazing. It's everything, it is sufficient for everything you need in life.
Speaker 1:Off of that foundation comes this Paul, a man who's about to die for his faith, talking to his protege, the man that he trained the most in ministry, that he has trusted with one of his most intimate relationship churches in Ephesus. What are the last things he wanted to say to Timothy? To charge, it's very masculine. I'm on my deathbed, boy, you better listen to me. Here's what you better do. What does he say? I charge you. That's big words, right? And then he just adds like, like everything on top of it. Like we've got a cake, we got icing, we got cherries, we got bacon on this cake, like everything is on this cake. I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who, to remind you Timothy, is to judge the living and the dead, and I charge you by his appearing and his kingdom. This is the whole enchilada. There's nothing left for him to say in this moment.
Speaker 1:What does he command Timothy to do? Preach the word. Dear fellow Christians, how important do you think it is that you attend a Sunday service on Sunday morning, on the Lord's day, and sit underneath the preaching of God's word? If the last will and testament of the greatest Christian that ever lived, one of the final, greatest commands he ever gave, was to preach the word, that emphasis cannot be denied. You and I are changed indefinitely, uncontrollably, by God's word being preached. I charge you verse two preach the word, not preach your ideas. Not preach humorous stories. Not preach so that people will listen really well, not preach the greatest philosophy. Preach the word.
Speaker 1:Then he gives some parameters for that. He says be ready. Be ready for what, be ready in season and out of season. What does that mean? That's very easy. It means preach the word when it's popular and when it's not popular, when people love you and when people hate you, when people act like they're not listening at all and when people are leaning forward, engaged, no matter what is happening around you, no matter how people are responding. You must preach the word. And there's a greater emphasis in this when it comes to family shepherding, my friends, we can take this idea of shepherd of the church and go here for a secondary application to the family and say father, husband, this is you.
Speaker 1:Preach the word. Are you washing your wife in the water of the word? Are you raising your children in the water of the word? Are you raising your children in the nurture and admonition of the lord? That is your job, your responsibility. The bible has given us a perfect definition of masculinity, which is absolutely this necessity given our current climate culturally. A godly man loves his wife and his children by being, first and foremost, a man of God who knows God's word and teaches it. He trains the next generation, he reminds his spouse of the good news. He does not abdicate his role, as is the temptation of Adam. Be ready in season and out of season, when the recliner is comfortable and when it's not comfortable, when you had a long day and when you had a short day, when the children all need disciplines and they're all not listening, and when they're all little angels that are listening to every word you say. When your wife is fully slept and ready to listen and when she's crying hysterically and needs you to comfort her. Not with silly words or anecdotes, not by making light of something, not by pointing to something else or distracting, but by reminding her of God's word. Gentlemen, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season. What does that mean? What does it mean to preach the word? Here's some examples Preaching the word is reproving, rebuking and exhorting.
Speaker 1:Those are all actions. In case you're wondering here, reproving, rebuking and exhorting those first two words are like eh, eh, eh, we don't like any of that. I don't. If you would put the word submit in there, someone might die. Like it's just, like this is, this is all words we don't enjoy. What does it mean to reprove, to rebuke and to exhort? Why is that commanded when we're doing like biblical counseling, discipleship, evangelism, when we're trying to preach the gospel to people? Why is this necessary? Here's why Think of the words reprove, rebuke and exhort, like this To correct, to train and to encourage.
Speaker 1:If you were to break down preaching the word, it is not like small piece, small piece, really big piece. It is one third each year of correcting, training and encouraging. Which is why there are times where we listen to a sermon and we say you know, I really that was, I didn't enjoy that too much Like it just felt like we were just being corrected and I'm an adult, like I'm an adult adult, right, I have grandchildren, I have great-grandchildren. Like I didn't come to church to get corrected. I'm sorry and I understand.
Speaker 1:And the 32-year-old has no authority to look at you and say you listen to me, okay, it's not here, you ain't going to see it, okay, what you will see is, hopefully, god in his word. See the reproof, the rebuke and the exhort, the encouragement, the correction, the training and encouragement. They all come out of what God's word. What God's word? That means that if I don't like the way that your shirt is hanging off to the side, guess what? Unless I got a Bible verse and a biblical principle to give to you, you can say Dan, thank you, goodbye. That would be a nice way to say it. You don't have to listen to that. There's no authority behind that. The authority behind preaching the word, behind teaching it, the father's authority, the husband's authority, the pastor's authority is only and exclusively in God's word, nothing else. Which is again why you don't care about my opinion.
Speaker 1:When we get into a new building, do you know what color I wanna paint the walls? I don't either, because I don't care. I have one job to do, one job, and that is to focus on God's word and praying for you people, so that eventually God will drag this piece of garbage a little further down the road so I can say I got two more steps. Follow me as I follow Christ. That's it, there's nothing more than that. We correct, we train and we encourage, not because we're mean or because we're bigots. We correct, we train and we encourage, not because we're mean or because we're bigots or because we're authoritarian dictators, but because God has commanded it and he is in charge, he's in control. This is not about me or you, but about him, who gave everything for us.
Speaker 1:Now, there is a heart posture behind this. Right, you'd say I don't like two-thirds of that pie. You said it was thirds. Like, still not a big fan of the two-thirds. Here's the heart posture that's supposed to right, I'm going to put a caveat there. There's a little star okay, supposed to be behind this, reproving, rebuking and exhorting what heart posture is necessary. End of verse two with complete patience and teaching. That's the hard posture.
Speaker 1:Have you ever trained toddlers before? Have you ever been a school teacher? You ever had young kids that you were trying to explain something to you ever done it one time and they got it and they never made a mistake. And everyone said, no, guess what. You and me, we're like toddlers 2.0. We're like a little better than toddlers.
Speaker 1:You and I are made finite and fickle. We don't stay straight, we're not consistent. We need encouragement and accountability to get out of bed and go for a walk in the morning. How many times does someone have to tell you your ABCs before you have it memorized? Dozens of times, most likely, if not hundreds of times. And yet we'll approach the Christian life this way.
Speaker 1:We talked about self-control. Did you use self-control on that point? No, and this is our 10th time talking about this. Do you not understand this principle? And we act like we're not 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, and still needing to learn the lesson of self-control. We have the very much. You get that splinter out of your eye. Don't worry about my log.
Speaker 1:My friends, the heart postures with complete patience. Why is that necessary? It's also necessary not just because we're finite and fickle, so we need reminded of things 18 million times before we got it. It also requires patience because people don't listen all the time. People are not perfect. They get easily offended.
Speaker 1:I'll never forget that At the beginning of our marriage we would try and have communication and it was like speaking Chinese to like Swahili and it was like speaking Chinese to like Swahili. You're like. These have no root anywhere near themselves, there's nothing in common. And you both would look at each other like I'm communicating clearly to you and you're not getting it. And sometimes, even when we understand, we don't listen. We choose to not listen. Sometimes it's a communication error, sometimes it's just a heart posture error. And guess what? We all have the heart posture error on and off for the rest of our lives. That never goes away. It never changes, hopefully by God's grace, degree by degree.
Speaker 1:A decade from now, you'll say, no, I have grown a little bit, I feel a little better. And the young Christian says a decade, a decade and you feel a little better. What do you mean a little better? You say no, no, no. See, the Christian life is not about performance. You can say no, no, no See, the Christian life is not about performance. It's not about growing as fast as possible, performing in all the right ways.
Speaker 1:The Christian life is one where we patiently, humbly wait on God to do the work. And that doesn't mean that we just don't do anything. Right? That's a guy named Keswick, he had that theology. I call it the Jesus take the wheel theology. Right? That's a guy named Keswick, he had that theology. I call it the Jesus take the wheel theology. Right? It's a let go and let God Like, god will do it. You're like are you reading your Bible? No, but God will do it. Are you praying? No, but God will do it. You're like no, no, he will not. God has means through which he will change you as a man, as a woman, as a child. If you do not engage in those, you have no hope. But by the grace of God, we go. Now I will say there are exceptions to that rule. I feel like I am an exception to that rule because before Bray and I met, I was not this amazing Christian that was just doing all the right things and, by God's grace, somehow we got from point A to point B and now I'm a pastor and I'm just like I feel sorry for you guys, but we are here nonetheless. God can do whatever he wants, but he primarily wants you to engage in the means that he has given you, which is why I've said this before and I'll say it until I'm blue in the face the only superpower human beings have is consistency. That's it. There's nothing else you got. You're not strong, you're not resolute, you're not super serious. You, at the best, can be consistent. So, my friends, again our sanctification we learned that word our Christ-likeness is 100% of God and 100% of us. And, as we've said before, you never got to worry about God's 100%. So if you're not growing, look at your own level. And that's why we need each other, that's why we need open communication. That's why, when I stub your toe or you stub my toe, we got to say, okay, look, dude, come on, let's talk about that. What we have to get from point A to point B, but okay, so not only is there a heart posture of patience, but a heart posture of teaching. That means we're not coming down to condemn. Right, you can like preach something to somebody or tell them something, and all you're trying to do is just like I'm gonna tell you something. Okay, sick of your attitude. We don't want that. That's not the right heart posture. The right heart posture of a family shepherd, of a shepherd of God's church, is to desire to teach. That means you want people to grow, to mature, to learn. That's the heart posture. Why is this absolutely necessary, other than God said it. Well, god's kind, and he gives us more reasons. Verse three for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but, having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions Verse four and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. Why is it so important that we preach expository sermons? Why is that necessary? Why is it necessary, as a family shepherd, as a mom, as a brother or sister in Christ, when you're encouraging someone in God's word? Why is it so important that it's rooted in God's word? Because the natural inclination of the human heart is away from God and while you and I, as Christians, are made new from the inside out, we don't have a new flesh. I don't know if you know that or not. I woke up this morning and I think I've already repented a couple of times. Okay, we have something that drags us away from where we're supposed to go. And guess what you and I were? The eyes are the easiest one, right, the eyes are the easiest one. You're like in a dark room and guess what? There's a light over there. Guess what? You're looking at the light. I'm going to look at the light, right. What is all of the entertainment industry trying to get you to do? To look at the screen and don't look away. So what have we done? We've made videos that are 60 seconds long and 30 seconds long and 10 seconds long and they're just like, like it used to be. Uh, there was a standard for tv shows that was, I think it's, five seconds per clip. It was five to seven seconds was the expectation. If you did that, you have this quick jump where the human eye is not bored, it can't get bored. It goes from jump to jump. We've actually lowered that now, where the goal is like three to five seconds. Why? Because we want to keep people in zombie mode. We want to keep people engaged and have them not do what they're supposed to do. And we act surprised when the ruler of this world, satan himself, has devised a world system that's so effective at distracting us or discouraging us. We're like how does that happen? And it's like well, he has been studying humans for thousands of years and he's been pretty successful at tempting most of them all the time. So by now it's like a fine wine. The world system is just like effective and efficient. You ain't never. If you went back 2000 years from now and said no, no, no, you understand, temptation to have sex with somebody else is on my phone in my pocket. They wouldn't even know what to say to you 50 years ago. You said that they'd have been like you mean, you're going down to the red light district, you're going down to the wrong part of town, like no, no, no. I don't even have to get in my car and drive anywhere and risk someone seeing me. I can hide in my bathroom or bedroom and get away with terrible things and nobody know that's the world we live in. Nobody know that's the world we live in. And yet you and I will be surprised that we. Why? Why is it hard to listen to a sermon sometimes? Why, when someone's saying something biblical to me, is that so much harder than watching my favorite show? Or, if some of the men in the room, why is it so much harder than going fishing by yourself? Oh, my goodness, peace and quiet, just what? Why? It's because we have itching ears and the world is controlled by their itching ears. And we fight our itching ears daily, hourly. The time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves that. That verb in the Greek means to heap on top of heap, so it's like heaping and then heaping again and then heaping again. It's not this idea of like grabbing a couple and like I like these. It's like have you ever seen someone that's eaten like one chip? You ever seen that? I've never seen that. It's kind of weird. If you did that in my house, we would have a conversation. One chip's weird. Everybody grabs at least a big handful and it's not like a little handful. Like you use three of your fingers, you're're like let me just grab a couple. Like it's like you, just like you manhandle it. You like destroy half the chips, grabbing your handful to make sure you got a good one. In the same way, the world feeds on teaching that is not primarily biblical but primarily makes me feel good. There was a conversation I had with somebody in our house I don't even know, a year ago, maybe nine months ago, and this person's super, not a Christian, and they say oh no, no, I like Christians, I listen to. And they said the name of a very popular pastor down in Texas called Smiling Joel. We'll call him, okay Now, smiling Joel. This lady loves Smiling Joel and she hates Jesus. So I remember trying to talk to her and she was like, no see, I like Smiling Joel. And I was like, yeah, everybody loves Smiling Joel. That's not Christian. That's not going to get you where you're going. That could be a TED Talk. If a sermon can be a TED Talk, you didn't make it. You haven't gotten from point A to point B. It's so easy to fall for that though. It's so easy to be lulled into it. And see, here's the problem is that the pressure on me every week, the spiritual, emotional exhaustion of having to go to God's word and study it every week I mean, I'll be very honest with you, if I was not called to this, I would much rather go be an arborist again, and being an arborist is awful. In case you're wondering, it's like physically. It's just like physically terrible. I would much rather do that. It is so much better. You know how many people you make mad when you're fixing a giant tree. They can't fix Nobody. You did it. They're so happy. You just make everyone's day and it's like really like really rich people too, because, like the poor people are just like, yeah, that tree is going to break our garage. And so you have these very like well-to-do people that are paying you lots of money and they're just happy with you. It's the best job ever. Feel accomplished. You go home and guess what? No one's calling you at eight o'clock at night to come fix a tree. The pressure, pastor. Your sermon's too long. Pastor, you used too many illustrations. Pastor, you didn't use enough illustrations, pastor. Why did you do that? Pastor? Can we have a nice sermon? Pastor? Can we have a happy sermon, pastor? Pastor. And the list goes on and on. And don't get me wrong, I have no problem. If I say something you don't like, you tell me. Okay, I promise you. I promise you, I promise you, I've heard worse. I promise you, you bring the truth to me, I'll take it, I'll eat it, we'll talk, we'll work it out, okay? There comes a point in time where a pastor has to look at himself in the mirror and say am I called? And if I am, then no matter the consequence, no matter how many people hate me, no matter if I lose my job, no matter if I lose my home, I will do this and, as any man can tell you from any situation in life. The true grit is proven. In the moment, lots of guys are like, yeah, I would do that. And then testing time comes and you're like you didn't say it to the boss. What are you doing? Like you said you're going to. You said you're going to talk to him about that big issue and then you just. The real test of a man is when he's under pressure, suffering. Does he still stand the test? Because the world wants to accumulate for themselves teachers that suit their own passions? Don't tell me that pornography is bad. Tell me it's okay, it's understandable. Everyone's doing it. 75 plus percent of men in america are actively watching it on a regular basis. Tell me that and tell me like it's okay. Don't tell me that I'm committing adultery by doing that. Don't tell me that God hates that. Tell me that it's normal to just let all my emotions out with my girlfriends and tell them everything about everyone. Tell me, tell me it's okay, it makes sense. Don't tell me that my job is to protect the honor of those people. Don't tell me that I need to restrain my tongue. Don't tell me to give away my money or my time or my energy, my money or my time or my energy. Tell me that it's all mine and that God wants me to have more for me. Don't tell me that my extra money and time and energy are for someone else. Tell them they're for my enjoyment in life. You see, we love a sermon that makes us feel comfortable in our sin, that makes us feel accepted in our sin. Let me tell you something this church will be defined by love. Whether we all die on that hill or not, we're gonna make it happen. This church will be defined by love that is, an accepting love. In this sense, anyone can walk through that door at any stage of life and come and hear god's word. To be loved by god's people. Part of being loved is having the truth spoken to you. So when people are in their sin, and they continue in their sin non-stop for months and no one says anything, have we loved them? You see, people will follow their own passions, but when they do, they turn away from listening to the truth and they wander off into myths and to pretend fairy tales. Yes, it's okay to cheat on your wife, don't worry about it. It's okay to gamble all your money away. Who cares? It's your money. It's your right. Do what you want with it. Don't let anyone tell you else what to do with your money. My friends, this life is not about you guess what? The next one's a lot better. Act like it. Look at your life and say god, whatever you want is yours. That's the christian life. The christian life is not about getting the next Mercedes Benz or getting a bigger, nicer house or expanding your portfolio. It's about sacrifice. Can you imagine Jesus coming, living a perfect life and being like I could die on the cross? But I think instead I'm going to build my own kind of kingdom here. I'm going to have people come and I'll heal them for a profit I think about a million dollars for a life-changing healing is good. And he just built a giant Mecca and there was Jesusville where Jesus lived, and he lived for himself and you could come and, for a price, get what you need from him. I fear sometimes we look at the Christian life like that Our brother, our sister in Christ are dying, hurting, desperately, in need and we're like, if they come to me and if they do the right things and if I don't have too much on my plate and if we have plenty of, then I'll yeah sure okay on my blade. And if we have plenty of, then I'll yeah sure okay. My friends, who are you sacrificially loving? Today, the preached word is supposed to change us into a community defined by god's word. God's word is defined by love. Verse five paul says to tim as for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist and fulfill your ministry. Fulfill your ministry is summarizing what he just said. As for you, always be sober-minded. I find it fascinating that the opposite of drunk is sober and that we actually got that word because it meant to be clear-minded. So we're like, okay, to be drunk is to be the opposite of clear-minded. What does a sober-minded person look like? They have right priorities, they think clearly on things. When people bring a problem, they're able to think about it in a logical way, in a biblical way, and give a biblical answer. A sober-minded person is so essential in a world that is inundated with news and social media and gossip and slander. We need sober-minded people, endure suffering, because guess what? Family, shepherds, moms, brothers and sisters in Christ, if you preach the word, if you speak the word to your fellow believer, to the world around you, you're going to suffer. And here's the issue is we can tell, as a rule of thumb, if we are speaking God's truth to the people around us by. If we're suffering at all Doesn't mean you have to be suffering a lot. You don't have to be like a missionary. That's like his whole family died and you're still preaching the gospel. But if you have nothing, you look back at the last year or two of your life and there's no suffering attached to your beliefs, to your communication of God's word. That would be an exhortation, an encouragement that it's time to speak. Ask God for a door, faithfully walk through it. Time to speak. Ask God for a door, faithfully walk through it. Do the work of an evangelist is pointing to the centrality of the preached word, the entirety of God's word, from Genesis to Revelation. What is the pinnacle of it? What is the point? Well, we see that on the road to Emmaus, jesus comes back and he takes him through the whole Old Testament and he speaks of himself. The point of the Bible is the gospel. All preaching should be tied to the gospel, and this is so important. This will be our last thing. I want you to hear this so important attach the gospel as the root, as the anchor for our biblical counsel, for our discipleship, for our evangelism, for our preaching, for our teaching. If we don't do that, we are guaranteed pushing people either into the ditch of pride, where they will build themselves up as they accomplish whatever it is you put before them, or the ditch of despair as they accomplish whatever it is you put before them, or the ditch of despair as they look in woe at how on earth am I gonna possibly do that? Everything must be centered and grounded on Christ. If you're parenting, if you're marriage, if you're counseling, if you're discipleship, if anything is not grounded in the gospel, you're just leading people to a burden they can't bear under. So, my dear friends, this is expository preaching, and here at Sovereign Grace Bible Church, we go verse by verse, through God's word to understand what God has said, what he means by what he said and what you and I must do in light of it. Let us pray, father. We come before you just asking that you would do a mighty work through your word. Lord, words cannot fathom, we can't bear to even explain the depths of your beauty, of your mercy, of your grace, of your love, of your perfect word, and we're so easily tempted to think little of or less of your word. Lord, please help us in our weakness to keep our hearts and our minds focused on you, to be a people of your word, to be a flock of family shepherds who love their wives and their children by speaking the truth and love who point them to Jesus. Let us be a congregation of brothers and sisters in Christ who encourage each other and lift each other up in your word. And Lord, when we stray, when we fumble, we ask that you would hold us, that you would keep us and you would lead us on. Help us to go forth and to love each other and to love you more each day. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
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