Workshop: Preaching Christ from All of Scripture

Pastor Mike Bullmore

WNY Reformation Society

Transcript

Actually, I'm concerned that I once heard the story about a man, a preacher, who
dreamed that he was preaching and he woke up and found out that he was. I hope
that will not be the case here. So let me just do a couple quick things before
we get into this afternoon's topic. So I'll work from the ridiculous to the
sublime. I've been trying to just in various conversations get a feel for sports
allegiances around here. I mean, I have to confess with your sabers where they
are, I just thought there'd be a little bit more enthusiasm. And with the Knicks
in the playoffs and looking really good, and it's just not been people are
rising to the bait I'm putting out. So I know there's some very split loyalties.
In fact, I was warned, don't bring up the Patriots. But I suspect in a crowd of
this size, there's all sorts of fans represented. And I don't want to start, you
know what Paul did between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, I don't want to do
any of that right here. I just want to humbly note that the Milwaukee Brewers
swept the Yankees in the last series. So okay, okay, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. All
right, from the ridiculous to the sublime. I have been so encouraged just in the
space of however many hours we've been together today. Just in little
conversations here and there and looking out and seeing so many young guys here.
I'm thinking about you who are in your 30s and 40s. And I can just speak for the
rest of us guys in our 50s and 60s and 70s, maybe I don't know. We are so
thrilled to see you guys, you younger guys stepping up. And it does us good. Not
that that's the main point, but we're so encouraged to see a next generation
stepping up and say we want to run to give us the baton. Train us, teach us,
show us how it's done. But we want to run to so you know your presence you guys
hope you know who I'm talking to here. I'm looking trying to look at you younger
guys in the crowd. Sorry for you old guys. I'm avoiding you right now. Yeah. I'm
in that camp too. But I just want to tell you younger guys steady on, steady on.
You know what God's called you to it's not always easy. But there is a
remarkable privilege and joy. In fact, if you don't experience joy in the midst
of the heartache, I'd reconsider your calling. God intends you to have joy in
the work that he's called you to. So I just want to commend you for being here.
You old guys, thanks for being here. Commend you for being in fact, we're
watching you. We want to be like you, you know. So you guys too steady on. Keep
going. All right. Let's let's transition to our topic for this afternoon. We
talked this morning about the functional centrality of the gospel. I want to
talk more now explicitly about the preaching task, making gospel connections.
How do we in part operationalize what we talked about this morning? But even
more just in our general preaching, how do we make sure that we are Christian
preachers? How do we make sure that in our preaching, we're not just kind of
doing good exegesis, but we're doing good theological reflection and making sure
that we're connecting wherever we're preaching. That's my argument in a few
minutes here. Wherever we're preaching to the person and work of Jesus Christ.
How do we make a gospel connection? How do we make a connection to Christ? I
want to talk about preaching Christ from all of scripture. And I want to really
emphasize preaching all of Christ from all of scripture. We'll get to that in a
few minutes. So we come to this topic and I suspect that all of us feel, you
know, a particular weight about this. Even though this gets talked about a lot
and sometimes in an unnecessarily sophisticated way. We all feel this sense of
obligation to preach Christ in our preaching. And so my desire is to, I want to
talk about this as simply and as directly as I possibly can. There can be, as I
mentioned just a moment ago, sometimes a tendency on this topic to get
unnecessarily sophisticated. So I just want to be as simple and direct as I can
be. And I'm going to do my best to just answer two questions in this session.
Question number one, why? Why do we preach Christ? Why is there any sense of
obligation for me to preach Christ every time I'm in this pulpit? And then the
second question, of course, how? If we're convinced that we are supposed to,
then the question becomes how do we preach Christ when we're preaching from
Ecclesiastes or 1 Samuel or, I mean, you name your book. And it's not just the
Old Testament. Obviously, the New Testament's a different set of questions, a
different kind of issues that we got to deal with. We'll get there. But my point
is how do we preach Christ from all of Scripture? So first, question number one,
why? Why should we even be thinking about preaching Christ from, let me use
primarily early on here Old Testament examples because I think that's where a
lot of the weight can come. Why should I even be thinking about preaching Christ
when I'm preaching 1 Samuel or Job? Don't those books, now follow my argument
here, don't those books, being a part of holy Scripture, don't they warrant a
preaching of their content completely on their own terms? Isn't it profitable,
as Paul says to Timothy chapter 3 verse 16, isn't it, what is he talking about?
All Scripture, what's he talking about? Old Testament, all Scripture is breathed
out by God and it's profitable for teaching, for reproof, for training, for
correction in righteousness, so why should we feel any sense of obligation to
preach Christ? Why can't I just preach Ecclesiastes because it's profitable? I
have two answers to that question. Number one, first, because Christ is
essential to the text of Ecclesiastes, 1 Samuel, you fill in the blank, Exodus,
whatever. Or to put it very simply, Christ is in the text. I think we're
familiar with this passage that Jim read for us a moment ago, Luke chapter 24,
you might want to have that open again, I want to really emphasize a couple
things from that passage. It's a famous passage in this regard and it's famous
for a reason. Luke chapter 24, I just want to look at those particularly
relevant moments. You know the setting here, right? After the crucifixion of
Christ, two disciples are making their way back presumably to their home Emmaus,
they're on the road, I mean this is just one of those times you wish you had
video. Wouldn't it be nice to get some close shots of faces in this? They're
walking on the road, they're talking about what's just happened and this third
traveler comes up and we know who it is, but we're told that they are kept from
recognizing Jesus and he just falls in with them and you know they're talking
ardently trying to commiserate, encourage one another, he said, what are you
talking about? This is one of those places where Jesus might have been a little
mischievous. What are you talking about? Are you the only one that doesn't know
what's going on in the city of Jerusalem? What things? And they begin to talk to
Jesus about Jesus. It's marvelous. And then you look at verse, where are we
here? I'm in the wrong chapter. Look at verse, where is it? Verse 25, he said to
them, oh foolish ones. In other words, you should have known. Not only that
there was going to be some suffering, but that he was going to rise. Oh foolish
ones and slow of heart to believe all, please notice the emphasis on the word
all in this passage, all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary
that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? You should
have known. And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, like even Obadiah,
and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things
concerning himself. You should underline that last little phrase in your Bible,
the things concerning himself. They go on, the day is growing late, Jesus
appears to want to be traveling on, they urge him no please come have a meal
with us. And so he does, and he reveals himself to them. And in fact that next
little section, it's all about him doing some things very specifically to
convince them it's him. I mean even to the point of eating, and he makes himself
known to them, and then he disappears. Whatever business they had in Emmaus,
irrelevant. They run back to Jerusalem, they burst in on the other disciples,
they say you won't believe what happened to us. The disciples counter with their
own, you won't believe what happened to us. And so they start talking about
these appearances that they've had, and while they're talking, Jesus appears.
And verse 44, he said to them, these are my words that I spoke to you while I
was still with you, that everything written, please notice this, about me.
Everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets. Notice he
covers every one of the major sections of the Hebrew canon here. Moses, the
prophets, and the writings. And he opened their minds to understand the
scriptures, and he said to them, thus it is written that the Christ should
suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and
forgiveness of sin should be proclaimed in his name to all nations beginning
from Jerusalem. Now please notice this next move, you are witnesses of these
things. Now don't forget who's in that room. John's in that room. He's going to
bear witness. Peter's in that room. He's going to bear witness. And not just in
their public ministry in the book of Acts, how does John bear witness? What does
he say at the end of his gospel? This is the disciple who bears witness. In
other words, this bearing of witness was going to happen, yes, in their public
ministry, but also in their writings. So here's John in that room, and he's
going to write a gospel in three letters and an apocalypse on top of that.
Peter's in that room. He's going to write three letters. Okay, Paul wasn't in
the room, but he has his own personal encounter with Christ. You see the point
here. It's not just the Old Testament scriptures that bear witness to him. It's
going to be the new test. And you know what the bearing witness, you're holding
it in your hand right now. You see the point? All of scripture. All of
scripture. The Old Testament in an anticipating way, pointing ahead, I regularly
tell people the Old Testament is nothing other than a big finger pointing
forward to Jesus. And the New Testament in an explaining, applying, reflecting
kind of way. But it's all organized around the unifying center of all of
scripture, the unifying interpretive center of all of scripture is the person
and work of Jesus Christ. So the first answer to my question is, why preach
Christ? Because Christ is in there. Not in some simplistic way. Your job when
you're preaching is not to add three minutes on the end of your sermon and make
some artificial connection to Jesus to satisfy some homiletical obligation that
you heard at a Reformation Society thing. No, you got to find out exactly how
your passage, I'm going to spend some time talking about that in a minute. How
your passage bears witness. Remember what Jesus said? By the way, Luke 24 is not
the only place he talks like this. John chapter five, he's got this interaction
with the religious leaders. And he says to them, listen, you search the
scriptures, because you think that in them you find eternal life and they are
that which what? Bear witness to me. So at least according to Jesus, the Old
Testament scriptures are I quote, about him, concerning him, they bear witness
to him. Why do we preach Christ in all of scripture? Because all of scripture
has Christ in it. Now your job is to figure out exactly how. We'll get there in
a minute. That's the first answer to the question. Why should I preach Christ
because Christ is in the text. Now let me answer the second question. Or the I'm
sorry, give you the second answer to my first question. The second answer to the
why question, because preaching Christ is essential to your calling. It's not
just essential to the text. If you're going to handle the text rightly, you got
to preach Christ. But it's also essential to your calling no matter where you're
preaching from. So I want you to at least notice here Paul's preaching for a
moment. Now I mentioned this earlier. It's dangerous. It's dangerous to argue
directly from Paul to us. You can make some mistakes there. The obvious one is
you are not an apostle. At the same time, it helps to see some of the patterns
in Paul's preaching. And not just Paul's preaching. I just want you to know
something about the ministry of the word that takes place. So flip over to Acts.
Let's just look at a couple examples. Acts chapter 17. There's dozens of
examples of this. I'm just going to point to a couple. Acts chapter 17 and look
at verses 2 and 3. Paul went in as was his custom and on three Sabbath days he
reasoned with them from the scriptures. What's he talking about? Your Old
Testament, right? He reasoned with them from the scriptures explaining and
proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer to rise from the dead and
saying, this Jesus whom I proclaim to you is the Christ. He's not the only one
to do it. Apollos, recognize that guy? Look at chapter 18 verse 28. Chapter 18
verse 28. For he, this is Apollos, powerfully refuted the Jews in public showing
by the scriptures that the Christ was Jesus. You remember this passage we
referred to earlier today, 1 Corinthians chapter 15. There's so many little
connections in that passage that we can't miss. 1 Corinthians chapter 15. Look
at verses 3 and 4. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also
received, that Christ died for our sins, what's the next phrase? In accordance
with the scriptures. What's that talking about? Your Old Testament. That he was
buried and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the
scriptures. You see what's happening here? Based on the Old Testament scriptures
alone, Christ is being preached by Paul, by Apollos. You see how that
corroborates what we saw in Luke chapter 24 and what we saw in John chapter 5.
I'm not going to argue from the book of Acts directly to us. I'm just showing
some kind of interesting observations about the ministry of these men. What I
will argue from, however, is the pastoral epistles. Because those are in your
Bible specifically as a mandate for you in your pastoral ministry. They include
very specific instruction about the ministry that we're all kind of engaged in.
Look with me at 1 Timothy chapter 4. 1 Timothy 4. Sorry I'm making you do some
work. I'm just trying to keep you awake. 1 Timothy chapter 4 verses 13 through
16. Again a very familiar passage, right? 1 Timothy 4, let's start at verse 13.
Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of your Old Testament. To
exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have which was given you
by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. Practice these
things. Devote yourself to them so that all may see your progress. Keep a close,
you'd almost think Paul had something on his mind here. Practice this. Devote
yourself. Keep a close watch on this. Persist in this. For by so doing you will,
look at the language here, save both yourself and your hearers. Salvation
language with reference to the ministry of the Old Testament. It's remarkable.
Look at 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 15. 2 Timothy 3.15. Again, very familiar
passage. How from childhood you've been acquainted with the sacred writings.
That's just another way of talking about your Old Testament. Which are able to
make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. Totally apart from
your New Testament. So I'm arguing not just on the basis of your understanding
of how the text is working, but I'm arguing on the basis of what your calling
is. And all of that by the way is confirmed by Romans chapter 15. Flip over
there for a minute. This is a great verse. Romans 15. Just as an aside, you
should have a growing list of verses from the Bible about the Bible. To
strengthen you in your understanding of scripture. Deuteronomy 29.29 should be
on your short list. The secret things belong to God but that which has been
revealed belongs to us and to our children. In other words, God means you to
understand it and teach it to your kids. That's a great verse. Deuteronomy
chapter 8. Man lives, man does not live by bread alone but he lives by every
word that proceeds out of it. You see what I'm suggesting here. This is a short
list going of passages from your Bible about your Bible. This verse ought to be
on there. Romans chapter 15 verse 4. For whatever was written in former days,
what's that a reference to? Old Testament. Whatever was written in former days
was written for our instruction. Now notice this, that through endurance and
through the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope. Okay, so there's
instruction, there's encouragement, great. But when you get to that word hope,
that is a profoundly eschatological category. So we're not just talking moral
instruction and, you know, encouragement. We're talking about the sacred
writings capable of producing in people this profoundly redemptive, salvific
thing. Alright, let me try to summarize all that. Essential to your pastoral
calling. I could broaden that up. Essential to your ministry of the word is
preaching the message of the gospel. This message of redemption and hope from
the scriptures. I'm just arguing on the basis of the Old Testament right now.
But can we go back to, I think we already did this, remember back in Luke, Jesus
didn't stop with talking about the Old Testament scriptures. He says, oh y'all,
y'all here in the room, you're going to bear witness to this. And you're going
to write some things too. And they are going to bear witness. You see now the
basis of my argument. All of scripture and your calling into ministry requires,
the answer to the question why is because you're going to be faithless to God's
word if you don't preach it, and you're going to be faithless to your calling if
you don't preach. So that's the answer to the question why. I hope you're
convinced. Now the question how. How do we preach Christ from all of scripture?
Well in one word, legitimately. And you understand why I say that. Because there
is so much illegitimate connection to Christ, to the gospel in our preaching.
Again because we know we're supposed to. And so we come up with something. Can I
just say very clearly, don't do that. Don't do that. You are mishandling God's
word. You're tampering with God's word. If you feel out of some homiletical
obligation, you know, I've got to preach Christ some here and so I'm going to
import something into my text. Don't do that. Instead do the hard work of
figuring out how, exactly how, does my text bear witness to Christ? How is it
concerning him? How is it about him? And that can be hard work. So in one word,
how do I preach Christ? Legitimately. So let's unpack that a little bit. In
other words, in accordance with exactly how the particular passage that you're
preaching makes its contribution to the unfolding of the redemptive story. What
I'm going to do is just spend a little time thinking about how we do this in the
Old Testament and then I'm going to get us to the New Testament and hopefully
that'll be a helpful way to kind of cover the territory. By the way, I should
mention this. Whether you're preaching, I've got preaching, the primary
responsibility of preaching in my mind, but whether you're doing that or you're
sitting in a Sunday school class with eight third graders, same obligation.
You've got to rightly handle God's word. I often encourage people to imagine
God's face looking out at them from behind the page of scripture and he's got a
look on his face like, I'm saying something here. You are not free to do with
this what you want to do with this. This belongs to me and your job is to
represent. I love that word represent, to re-present what I'm not just saying
here, but what I'm trying to get done here. So friends, listen, teaching,
preaching is not just coverage of biblical material. It's the accomplishment of
a biblical intention. What's God trying to get done here? There's some greatly
desired effect that God is seeking to accomplish through whatever little passage
you're preaching. Your job is to make sure your sermon is completely controlled,
completely controlled, not just somewhat informed by your passage, completely
controlled by the content and the intent of the passage. We love that word
intent in our evangelical hermeneutics and homiletics. Don't ever let that word
intent be reduced to author's meaning. No intention is what the author is trying
to get done. What am I trying to accomplish? And your sermon must be completely
controlled by the content, yes, you say what it says, and the intent, you get
done what it's trying to get done in your preaching. So not only do I imagine
God's face looking out at you from behind the page of scripture, but you should
imagine God sitting in the congregation while you're preaching or sitting in
that Sunday school room with those six third graders. And every now and then you
should kind of check in with him. And you don't want the expression on his face
to be, where'd you get that? No you want the expression on his face to be,
that's it, that's what I meant. Say it again. That's what I was trying to get
done. Say it again. You see what I'm suggesting here? You are absolutely bound
by what God is trying to get done. And I've argued that what God is trying to
get done is necessarily related to Christ in some way, the person and work of
Christ. So now we got to ask a question how, in what way? All right, so let's
just, I'm going to move through these pretty quickly. But I just find these
helpful. I'm going to suggest four or five ways that the Old Testament, let's
talk about the Old Testament first, bears witness to Christ. I'm emphasizing
that word ways, different ways that it bears witness to Christ. So let's talk
about them. Number one, sometimes explicit reference. Don't you love it when you
get these? You know what comes to our mind are places like Micah chapter five
verse two, where there's an explicit prediction of a coming Messiah going to be
born in Bethlehem. Okay, you preach Christ that way through that explicit
reference. Sometimes you're helped by the New Testament, when it quotes some Old
Testament scripture and tells you that's what was going on. So we have some
explicit connection that enables us to preach Christ because of the explicit
reference. That's the easy one. Number two, typology. This is such a rich field.
We just sang some of it. Beautiful. Typology. This is when, let me define this
for you. This is when a person or a role or an object or an event concretely
prefigures Christ. A person, David. A role, king, priest, prophet, judge. An
object, temple. An event, Passover. Sometimes typology can even take a fuller
form in something that we might call narrative prefiguring. So when you read in
the opening chapters of Exodus about a pagan king who wants to kill all the male
babies because he's threatened by the possibility of one of them rising up to be
a deliverer, does that remind you of anything? You see what I'm saying? Or when
you read about a barren woman who's going to give birth to someone who's going
to anoint the chosen one. Does that remind you of anything? You see this
narrative prefiguring that's happening. It's a subset of typology, so that's our
second major category. Explicit reference, secondly, typology. Third, what we
might call thematic, thematic connections. This category is as big as all
outdoors. Thematic connections. And so we could subdivide that into two parts,
kind of what we might call systematic theological thematic connections, kind of
static categories growing out of systematic theology, things like redemption,
judgment. Or we could have biblical theologically defined themes, like the
Davidic kingship, the temple, the garden, those kinds of things. So these
thematic connections made to Christ and his work. And then a last category,
something that we could just call kind of the redemptive trajectory of the
Bible. So you've probably heard this before, you know, creation, fall,
redemption, consummation, this trajectory. And now you ask the question, where
does my text fit on that trajectory? How does it contribute to the forward
motion of that trajectory? You see what I'm suggesting. You can go from very
specific, small, like explicit connections, to a little bit bigger typology, to
much bigger thematic, to huge redemptive trajectory. All of those are different
ways in which the Old Testament can bear witness to the person and work of
Christ. And your job is to figure out what is the particular way my passage
connects to, bears witness to Christ. I know it all sounds simple, you know,
this is like you in your office working hard, thinking, studying, praying. I
should just add another thing here. The entire process of your sermon
preparation or teaching preparation should be, it should be an experience of
unbroken communion with God. You over your Bible praying, God, help me
understand. Give me light. You thinking about the people that you're going to
preach to or teach to, praying to the chief shepherd of the flock. Lord help me
to bring this to bear. You when you're putting your thoughts, your notes
together, and even when you're up here standing praying to the God of all
communication, God help me to be clear. Listen, preaching is an act of love.
Teaching is an act of love. It is. Invariably it is. The only question is,
what's the object of your love? Is it just about you wanting people to think
highly of you, self love? Or is this you loving God's word and loving God's
people, loving the things of God and now serving them. And one of the best ways
that you can love your people is to be clear when you preach and when you teach.
And so you ask God, God help me, help me to put this together in a way that's
helpful to them. All right. So I've walked through four ways, four and a half, I
kind of lumped two together, ways that you can in your preaching of the Old
Testament can answer the question, how do I faithfully preach Christ? In what
way does my text? Now let's go to the New Testament and I want you to look at
this little drawing. You've had some chance to look at it maybe and wonder what
that's all about. Some of you, how many of you have seen this before? Those of
you have been to Simeon Trust have seen this before. So you guys can't play. The
rest of you, tell me what you think that is. What is that? I've kind of given it
away, given our topic, but anybody want to take a stab? The most interesting
answer I've heard to that question is it's a skate park. No, that's not a skate
park and it's not the skyline of Rochester or your favorite hometown or Buffalo,
I should say. That friends is a diagrammatic representation of the life history
of your Lord. Please notice the arrows on each end. Maybe it'll help to put some
numbers on this and then we'll fill it out together. I should have put a cross
right there, that would have helped you maybe. So four, five, six, seven, eight,
nine, and ten. So let's fill it out, okay? Number one, what does that represent?
Eternal pre-existence, right? In the beginning was the word and the word was
with God and the word was God. We sang it a moment ago. Dave, thanks for letting
us sing that. Holy God, we praise your name. No, that's not how it goes. Holy
God in love. That song traces this almost entirely. So eternal pre-existence,
what's number two? Incarnation, good. Holy God in love became, what's number
three? Go ahead, say it. His earthly life, right? But let's not miss the
sinlessness of that earthly life. The flawlessness. So his perfect earthly life.
Number four, death. Five, burial. Isn't it interesting that Paul says in 1
Corinthians, he died and was buried. That's an important part of this.
Resurrection, thank you. Seven, ascension. Eight, session is present session.
Nine, second coming and depending on your eschatology, do you know how far down
this comes? Second coming, I think we can all agree on that. Then 10, future
reign, right? We will reign with him. And notice I put this line a little bit
lower than this line just to represent the new heavens and the new earth. Now
here's the question that my chart is trying to raise. Where's the gospel? Say it
louder, Kurt. All of it. Where's the good news? Every single component of the
person and work of Christ. You could do a biblical theology of every one of
those entries and find out, discover how essential it is for your salvation. You
don't have an eternally pre-existing God. You don't have infinite value right
here. This is necessary. You don't have an incarnation, obviously. You don't
have, if you don't have a sinless life, he's got to die for himself. But a
sinless, infinitely valuable life now provides salvation for all who believe.
You can see the argument here. Every piece of this, every piece of this is good
news. Every piece of this is gospel. Now you understand why I said before, I'm
not afraid to say the heart of the gospel is Christ died for our sins, but let's
not be, it almost sounds blasphemous for me to say this, but let's not be
reductionistic and say the gospel is the death and resurrection of Jesus. No,
the gospel is the fullness of the person and work of Christ. All that God is for
us in Christ. And you know what the issue is? We don't preach, we don't preach
this nearly enough. We do not preach the present session of Christ nearly
enough. And you don't think that's good news for your people? Like right now? We
do not have a high priest who's unable to sympathize with us in our weakness,
but one who has been tempted in every way yet without sin, who is now at the
right hand of God. How does the rest of that passage go? Therefore, let us draw
near to the throne with confidence that we might find grace and mercy to help us
in our time of need. You see what I'm suggesting? We don't preach the second
coming of Christ enough. So here's what I'm saying. Here's the point. Now here's
the payoff. When you come to your particular passage, especially now in the New
Testament, and your passage is foregrounding some specific aspect of the person
and work of Christ. If you, because you've been trained to go to the death and
resurrection of Christ too quickly, you deprive your people of the good news of
the incarnation or the good news of some other dimension, you are actually
depriving your people of the dimension of the gospel that God intends for them.
So when you're preaching Philippians chapter two, what's that foregrounding?
Incarnation, and especially with the ethical implications of the incarnation.
Now, interestingly, he gets to death. He who existed with God did not consider
equality with God. It's exactly right. So in other words, one of the
implications of this drawing is to recognize it's one line. It's all connected.
So we shouldn't be surprised in Philippians chapter two that Paul gets to the
death. But what he emphasizes, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ
Jesus, who though he existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with
God something to be grasped, but emptied himself, took on the form of a servant.
I want you to be like that. So if you in your zeal want to go to the death and
resurrection of Christ, you've just deprived Philippians chapter two of the
dimension of the person and work of Christ that he wants to emphasize, which is
gospel and ethical implications of gospel. Are you are you hearing me? So like
we did with the Old Testament now in the New Testament, here's the questions you
should ask. Number one, to what dimension of the person and work of Christ is my
passage addressed? Ask that question. To what aspect of the person and work of
Christ is my text speaking? And then say, and what is my author doing with it?
Like Philippians chapter two. So. I'll give you an extreme example. What time we
go until? When I'm done? Oh, that's dangerous, Reed. That's dangerous. I'll give
you an example. Luke Chapter four, the temptation narratives. How many of you
have heard a sermon from Luke Chapter four that preaches it as strategies of
overcoming temptation? How many of you have preached that sermon? You know what
I'm saying, right? Now, the fact of the matter is that that strategy is actually
true. It's biblical, but that's not that text reason for being. You want to
preach that message? You go to Psalm 119. Thy word have I hidden my heart that I
might not sin against thee. It's a good principle. It's just not Luke Chapter
four. What's Luke Chapter four in your Bible for? To what dimension of the
person and work of Christ is Luke four addressing? What is it? The sinlessness
of your savior. He was tempted in every way, yet without sin. Now, you don't
think that matters for your people? It's on that basis that you're able to tell
them, oh, by the way, that savior now sits at the right hand of the father, and
he's able to help you in your time of need, which is much better than a little
strategy over here. I've got a savior who's promised to help me in my time of
need. You see what's happening? You're giving your people a little stone. They
can rub it, put it in their pocket like some good luck charm. And you're
depriving them of the bread of a sinless savior who now makes intercession for
them in their time of need. I think I'd rather have that. So you see what I'm
suggesting, and I hope you feel a little bit of a bit of passion towards this.
The fullness of the person and work of Christ. The fullness of the good news and
your faithfulness with reference to particularities in scripture. So you are
always obligated by God's word to what dimension of Christ's person and work is
my text being addressed. Old Testament, in what way is my passage bearing
witness to the person and work of Christ so that I preach Christ legitimately?
And by the way, every time you preach, you're teaching your people how to read
their Bibles. So if you do stuff like this, gymnastics, you're telling them, oh,
I can do that with my Bible. All right, I'll end with two little words of I hope
pastoral encouragement. And then we can take some questions. I hate to say this,
but you're going to preach a lot of heresy in your day. Try to keep it to a
minimum. There's only one person who understands the Bible perfectly and you are
not him. And so what God has called us to do, 2 Timothy 2.15, work hard, work
hard to show yourself to be a workman. Isn't it interesting? Unashamed, rightly
handling the word of truth. There is such a thing as a right handling of the
word of truth. I heard a little phrase many years ago, so helpful to me.
Scripture will yield to believing study. God means us to get it. Now, there's
some parts of it that are hard. Remember what Peter said about the writings of
Paul? Some things are hard to understand. You got to work. So you do your work,
work hard. But please recognize you will never achieve 100% confidence in your
understanding of the text. Let's be sober. We're going to do really good work.
We're going to do our best work, but you will never achieve 100% confidence. I
shared this. I don't know if I shared this. Did I share this the other day with
you or somebody? The Lincoln thing? Yeah, yeah. One of the best principles I've
ever heard on leadership ever anywhere comes from Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was
so frustrated with his generals because they would not act in the absence of
absolute assurance of victory. And so guess what? They didn't act. And the Civil
War just dragged on. That's why Lincoln brought Ulysses S. Grant into the fight.
Because if I can quote Lincoln here about Grant, I like this man. He fights. And
Grant was willing to engage even in the absence of absolute assurance of
victory. And so guess what? The war, the tide turned and the war was ended
pretty quickly after that. Here's the principle. You will never have absolute
assurance in any decision that you're going to make in your life. Any decision.
You're never going to have absolute confidence. Now, guys, when it comes to
asking someone to marry you, you want to get close. But I usually tell people
you get about 70%. 80%. That is enough confidence to enable responsible
preaching. You want to get enough confidence that you can responsibly stand in
the pulpit and say, this is what God's word is teaching us. You understand my
point here? So all of this work that we did in the last hour to do our best
legitimately is do all of that. We're still going to come short of absolute
assurance and God still calls us to step up. So you know what we're like? I'll
end with this. You know what we're like? We're like the little boy, you know,
with his loaves and fish. Is what I got? Is what I got? Now here, Lord, would
you please multiply it and feed the people? And guess what? He does. So, all
right, let's do some Q&A. All right, this is touching on the heart of what a lot
of us are doing week in, week out. So I'm sure there's lots of practical
questions here. Just super quick, you gave us three questions to ask of the
text. Can you repeat the second, what you said? To what dimension of the Gospel
is this text addressing? That's the first question. What was the second
question? Yeah, second question, Brandon, right? Yeah, second question is, and
what is the author doing with that? So to what dimension of the personal work of
Christ is this text addressed? And then what is the author doing with that? I
gave the example of Philippians chapter two, and what Paul is doing with it is
giving ethical calling. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.
Sometimes he's, you know, this is a helpful question, Brandon, because I don't
think I talked about this earlier. When you think about bringing your passage to
bear on your audience, what we typically think of as application, you got to ask
the question to what dimension of human being is my text addressed? Is my text
addressed simply to the mind? Got to think about things this way or believe
things. Is it addressed to the will? Is it addressed to your behavior? Is it
addressed to the deep existential centers of your being? In other words, you got
to figure out what is the author doing with this? Where is the author aiming
this? So for example, if I'm going to preach on Ephesians 4 29, let no
unwholesome word come out of your mouth, but only that which is helpful for
building others up. What's the application of that sermon? Let no unwholesome
word come out of your mouth, but only that which is helpful for building. You
see, that's addressed to the behavioral volitional centers, if you will. But
what if you're going to preach on the transfiguration? What do you want your
people and go do that week? What is that calling for? Exactly, worship. When
you're preaching Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of God. To what center
of human being is that text addressed to? Worship, praise, you know. So you've
got to answer the question. In addition to these other questions about how bears
witness to Christ, you got to answer what is the center of human being that's
being addressed here? And therefore, what kind of response? Did I just get way
off on your question? What was your original question? Oh, yeah, the second
question, what is the author doing with it? And that's what brought that up. So
where is the author going with it? Maybe that's another way to ask the question.
Yeah. I'm not in charge here. OK. Yes, Brandon, but hold it. Yeah. Real quick.
Yeah. Can you talk a little bit more about the connection with evangelism as we
talked about how deep the gospel goes, the fullness of Christ to benefit the
Christian? But how do you see that or how have you seen it affect the non-
believer or opportunity for evangelism? Yeah, no, that's wonderful. There's two
things that I would say you need to regularly when we talk about gospel
preaching, I've been today primarily talking about preaching for Christians, but
you need to be you need to be regularly providing a sufficient amount of gospel
for, I'll just speak very kind of bluntly, enough for a person to know what to
do to be saved. Because there's there's unbelievers in your congregation. Some
of them know they're unbelievers. Some of them think they're believers and
they're not. And you need to regularly be presenting the call to repent and
believe. Don't leave that out of your preaching in your zeal to do what we're
talking about today. So that's one dimension. However, as you're doing the kind
of preaching that we're talking about today, you're painting a picture that's
extremely attractive. There is a longing in every human heart for hope. For
freedom. For rest. Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest. You don't think that sounds attractive to unbelievers? So as you
paint this picture of what it looks like to live in the good of the gospel,
unbelievers are going to overhear that and they're going to be drawn. So there
is an evangelistic effect. I mean, Paul talks about this in First Corinthians
14, right? When he says, you know, this is happening in your church life and an
unbeliever comes in and he says, surely God is in your midst. Same thing with
our preaching. They're going to say something's going on here that I don't have,
even though they're talking like an insider. I want that. So both explicit
evangelism and this holding up of something beautiful for them to say, I want
that. Yeah. Great question. Yeah. More questions. Brandon had a second one
there. Yeah. I read Old Testament scholar Daniel Block, and I know I've come
across in other places the argument that the text there in Luke 24, when Jesus
says, well, when the text says he taught them everything from Psalms and from
the law and the prophets and the Psalms, everything concerning himself, that
that's not actually saying everything. It's just more particularly everything
concerning himself. Do you think there's an element to which the two
perspectives are sort of talking past each other? Because as I hear you
describing what you're saying, I don't know that there's a lot of in the end, in
the practice, there's a lot of disagreement. Yeah, that's interesting. There's a
little bit of pushback in Old Testament scholarship right now to this this point
that I'm trying to raise, which is a little unsettling to me. Sometimes it's
along these very specific lines. Yes, he he talked about all that was concerning
himself. So what part of the Old Testament was concerning himself? Well, you've
dodged the first stone in the avalanche, but you can't dodge all of Luke 24 that
way. That's why I emphasize that word all, all of the prophets. You know what
that means? All the prophets have to do in some way with Jesus and the fact that
Jesus is very intentional about saying it's in the law, it's in Moses, it's in
the prophets, it's in the writings. He's purposefully doing that to say it's
everywhere. So I think there's too many properties of that Luke text to dodge
and say, well, there's only, you know, 22 percent of the Old Testament is about
Jesus. And that's when we're in that 22 percent. That's when we preach Jesus. I
don't think you can get away with that in in Luke 24 and then add the other, you
know, the other the John 5 passage is, in my mind, even more compelling, it's
just not as spelled out. You search the scriptures because you think that in
them and they are that which testified me, so. In some way, and we've got to ask
the question, we can make the mistake. Here's a great way to look at it. There's
a there's a path, it's a narrow path. It's enough room to walk on. There's a
ditch on this side and there's a ditch on this side. And you can make the
mistake of making everything about Jesus. Oh, there's a tree in this passage.
Let's go right to the cross, you know, don't do that. But on the other hand, you
can fall off on the ditch of I'm just going to deal with this passage on its own
terms and not see a larger. It's the big difference. There, not go there. Go
ahead. Next question. Yeah. Maybe just answer this. Do you go so far as to say,
like every every verse, every is it possible that you have in your the way that
you've divided out your preaching in a particular book that you've you've
sectioned out a sermon that has no no gospel connection? All of this assumes
that scripture is rational discourse. It proceeds as rational discourse
proceeds. It's not random. It's not nonsense. God has accommodated himself to
the structures of human consciousness through humanly recognized literature.
It's the way we rational discourse. That means and by the way, rational
discourse proceeds in rational units. That means in your preaching, you've got
to identify a rational unit. You've got to you can't be picking up things just
to serve your own purposes, if I can put it that way. So you can preach the
whole you could you preach the whole Book of First Corinthians? In one message?
Absolutely. It's a rational unit. There's something that holds it together, but
it's made up of smaller units. And by the way, I use First Corinthians because
it's so helpful. Paul says, oh, now concerning such and such first chapter
seven, now concerning the things you ask about marriage. And so you could preach
Chapter seven as a sermon. It's held together by a unifying theme. It's a unit.
Oh, and interestingly, the first five verses of that chapter are all about
something peculiar within marriage, sexuality. So you could preach the first
five verses. That's a unit conceptually defined. So you see what I'm suggesting?
There's units within units within units. What you can't do is straddle a unit.
You're violating the rationality of scripture. So as soon as you identify a
rational unit, then I would say in some way, that unit is contributing to the
advancement of the redemptive story in the person and work of Christ in some
way. You've got to figure out in what way? Yeah. Great. Mike, I would be curious
in the experience that you have now traveling around among people that
essentially agree with your framework and are trying to preach Christ from every
text, what do you see as the most common weakness or mistake that's getting
made? Yeah. Unwillingness to do the hard work. Because we all think in some
direction, some dimension or another, we all feel this pressure, we're supposed
to do this, but I still hear, I still hear guys doing the too easy connection,
you know? OK, this is where I was going to go before and I stopped myself short
and now you drew it out of me, Matt. There is an explosion of biblical theology
in our time, all sorts of stuff being written. Can I just caution you? In a
couple of ways, number one, your people are never going to be as interested in
that as you are. You can sometimes wish they were, but don't go up there and now
unload on them all of these discoveries you've made. You're going to lose them.
They're number one, they're not going to be able to follow. They don't have the
background you have. So in order to make that work, you've got to provide so
much stuff and you don't have enough time in your sermon to get all that stuff
done. So number one, number two, because of the impulse. Now, I recognize
there's beautiful connections through your whole Bible garden. Oh, my goodness.
But you can't go back to the garden every time you preach. You can't go to the
temple every time you preach. That's why I say, what is the specific, unique
contribution of your text? Stay there and don't feel an obligation to give us
the entire biblical theological map. We can get so geeky about biblical theology
these days, and I just it's a corrective map, to be honest with you, that I feel
like we need to make you're going to have to exercise some restraint, guys, not
just some hard work, but some restraint. Let me add one other little thing
there. Did you want to add? There's something that I call the shopper's fallacy.
So. Matt's going to buy. Laurel, it's her birthday tomorrow, so it's not just so
you know. I mean, I don't know that it is, but I'm not I'm not trying to wait.
Let's just say it is. He's going to go to the store. He sees a beautiful red
sweater, a beautiful blue sweater, a beautiful yellow sweater, like he's a guy.
I don't know. He grabs the blue one, has it wrapped up, brings it home, Laurel
opens it, and she says, I love it. Thank you. She doesn't say I would have liked
the yellow one better. She doesn't know the yellow one existed. Matt's the only
one who knows what got left out. It's the same thing in your preaching. You're
the only person who knows what you didn't put in your sermon. And those those
lovely things that you wanted to include, some of which you wanted to include
because they were going to make you look smart. You know, I'm speaking truth
right there. You got to pay attention to your heart and preaching. Nobody's
going to come up afterwards and say, hey, why didn't you make that particular
connection to the whatever? You're the only one who knows what got left on the
cutting room floor, unless unless it was essential to the advancement of the
argument in your text and you left it out. Or there's something in your text
that's going to make your people ask a question. You got to anticipate the
questions or the objections of your listener. And so if there's something in
your text, you're preaching Ecclesiastes five, guard your steps when you go into
the house of God. And then there's some little offhand comment about the
messenger. You know, don't don't say to the messenger, people are going to read
that. They're going to go, who's that? And if you don't say anything about it,
it's going to be like a fly buzzing around in their head. So, yeah, you've got
to say something about that. But don't let it occupy too much time. Don't let it
steal the show. So my point is you're going to have to how did Spurgeon say
this? All of the little things you collected during the week, you got to kill
your little darlings. Because you really want to get them in somehow, but if
they don't contribute to the advancement of your sermonic claim, your sermonic
argument, cut them. So I.