Lecture 1.docx

A few years ago, we had an expository conference here. I think we had about 10, 12 guys, Steve and. We had them for a week in an expository institute, really intense, every day for a week. And we just talked about preaching. These were men who\'d been in pastoral ministry for many years, and they wa...

A few years ago, we had an expository conference here. I think we had about 10, 12 guys, Steve and. We had them for a week in an expository institute, really intense, every day for a week. And we just talked about preaching. These were men who\'d been in pastoral ministry for many years, and they wanted to know more about expository preaching. They had not trained in that way. So they were out in ministry trying to figure it out on their own, not being trained in the training that they had to preach expositionally. So we got them for a week, and we unloaded on them. And I was asked to do a message on\... the necessity of expository preaching, the mandate for expository preaching, why we do expository preaching. I sat down and got out my little pieces of paper here, and I started to write reasons why you need to do Bible exposition. And I kept writing and writing and writing, and when I finished writing\... Let\'s see, I think I remember\... I had 50 reasons, finally. I think I even had more. I think I originally came up with 66, and I kind of refined it down to 50. So if you can escape this, you\'re pretty good, because\... There\'s 50 reasons why to do Bible exposition. Do they overlap a little? Of course they do, but these are the things that just hit me one after another. It didn\'t take me any time at all. I think I wrote all of these 66 original ones in an hour. It\'s just this, this, this, this, this, this, and just kept ramming that home. And then I decided I wanted to make it a bit of an indictment, so I flipped it into the negative. Okay? So you\'re going to begin your seminary training with a threat. Okay? I\'m going to threaten you for the next two and a half hours. And I\'m going to threaten you with the consequences of non-expository preaching. The consequences of non-expository preaching. I\'m going to be a little Johannon, you know, John loves to sort of cycle through his arguments. Around and around and around and unlike Paul who\'s very sequential, A to Z, John seems to be going in circles and all of them smaller circles as he digs down. And we\'ll do a little bit of that. But here are the consequences of failing to do expositional preaching. And let me give you the simple definition of expositional preaching, explaining the meaning of Scripture, explaining the meaning of a passage of Scripture. Now. You might want to write this down. The meaning of the Scripture is the Scripture. The meaning of the Scripture is the Scripture. It\'s popular today to ask, what does this mean to you? That is an utterly irrelevant question. I don\'t really care what it means to you. I care what it meant to God, what it means to Him. The meaning of the Scripture is the Scripture. You can have a Bible, but if you don\'t know what it means, you don\'t have the message. You don\'t have the revelation. You don\'t have the Scripture. And of course, it\'s obvious that the challenge is to close all the gaps, the history gap, geographical gap, cultural gap, linguistic gap, philosophical gap, because, and this is something just obviously foundational, and I said it earlier, and I\'ll say it again, explain a bit. whatever the Bible meant to the original author is what it means now. People say we need to bring the Bible into modern times. Dead wrong. Dead wrong. You need to bring the modern reader into Bible times. You have to take the hearer back and reconstruct the original setting. That\'s the only way you can understand the meaning of Scripture. And that, in that one statement alone, eliminates all modern, updated transliterations of the Bible. What you want in a Bible that is in the hand of a believer is the most accurate word-for-word translation of the original text. Because that\'s the purest form of the message, right? Then you have to go back, and you have to recreate the setting. In which that message was given. That\'s how it\'s to be understood, because whatever it meant then is what it means now. So many people think that Bible exposition is archaic, unnecessary, out of date, people don\'t want to go back into ancient history. That, of course, is ridiculous. People study history all the time. They read historical books, historical biographies. They watch historical videos. They watch historical films. And people can be taken back. And that\'s your job. You\'re trying to make an ancient book clear in its ancient meaning. OK? That\'s the hard work. That the science of exposition demands. OK, so we do this. We explain the meaning of the Scripture, its original meaning, authorial intent, what the author intended is what God intended, and there is one meaning that is accurate. Sometimes we can\'t exactly be dogmatic on the one intention of the writer. And maybe we say it could be this, it could be that, we can\'t be actually sure. But that never has anything to do with a very important or cardinal doctrine of Scripture. There are things like baptism for the dead. There was a guy who did a dissertation on that and found 40 different interpretations of the statement about the baptism for the dead in 1 Corinthians. We don\'t know what it meant. Dogmatically. But the people in Corinth knew exactly what it meant. That\'s why Paul didn\'t explain it. So it\'s sufficient to say that they were baptizing people for dead people, whatever it means. Which is ridiculous because once you\'re dead, baptism isn\'t going to help. That\'s sufficient to interpret it. Now let me give you these reasons. Okay, we\'ll just kind of wander through these things. If you have a question, don\'t hesitate to ask it. I don\'t want to just keep droning on past the point of your confusion. Okay? Number one, and this is the first consequence of non-expositional preaching, it usurps the authority of God over the mind and the soul. If you fail to explain the Word of God, you have replaced the authority of God with whatever else you\'re doing. It really is a question of authority. Listen to preachers. Do you hear the authority of God in what they say? Do you hear the divine voice? It\'s a question of authority. Who has the right to speak for God? Only God. Who has the right to define the Gospel? Who has the right? To address the church, only God. This is where expositional preaching finds its foundation in divine authority. I want God to speak when I preach. I want them to hear from God. I just would encourage you to know that as a pastor you have no authority. You have no authority in the church by virtue of your office. There\'s no such thing as the ruler of the church on earth, Pope notwithstanding. You have no authority because of your education. You have no authority because of your giftedness. You have no authority because of your experience. You have no authority because of your experience. I have no authority in Grace Community Church. I\'ve been here since 1969. I have zero authority to demand or command or tell these people what to do. I have one category of authority and that is delegated authority given to me when I speak the word of God. God is the dominating authority in the church. When I listen to preachers on television, when I listen to whoever they are, the ubiquitous Charismatics or Joel Osteen and the rest of his ilk, these are men speaking their own ideas. This is not the voice of God. Anything less than the exposition of a passage, anything less than an accurate presentation of scriptural truth, usurps the authority of God. People must hear from Him. He alone has authority in the church. Number 2. A failure to do expositional preaching usurps the lordship of Christ over His church. This is such a frightening reality to me. I\'ve preached on that quite a lot in recent years. Christ is head of the church. Some of you may have heard the message I gave on Christ as head of the church. That\'s been a bloody battle through the history of the church. Who is the head of the church? The Pope says he\'s the head of the church, unequivocally the head of the church in all matters. We would argue with that. We would all say Christ is the head of the church. If you asked any evangelical pastor, do you believe Christ is the head of the church, he would say absolutely. Then the follow-up question is this then, how does Christ exercise his headship in your church? How does he do that? Because there\'s only one way that Christ can exercise his headship in the church and that is to be the one who speaks to his church. The one who speaks to his church. I\'m not the head of the church. I don\'t want to be the head of the church. Christ is the head of the church. There is no other head. And the way he exercises his headship in the church is to speak to his church. And that comes through Scripture. There\'s so much power in that when people know they\'re hearing the Word of God. They\'re hearing from the head of the church. That is a very, very strong communication. People need to know that. You need to walk away after you\'ve preached your message. Confidently in your own heart say, they heard from God. They heard Christ speak to His church. And of course, we know there\'s perfect unity in that. It was 17th century Scotland when the battle over the headship of Christ in the church raged. Up to that point, William Blakey in his book on Scottish preaching\... talks about the fact that Christians had always affirmed the personal headship of Christ. That is that he\'s the head over every believer, the lordship of Christ. The no lordship controversy hadn\'t arrived. You know, we hadn\'t get that till Dallas Seminary a few years ago. But there were a few vestiges of it earlier than that. But the idea that Christ was the head of every believer, the Lord of every believer was clearly established. But it wasn\'t until the battles with the Roman Catholic Church and the battles with England over\... If it wasn\'t the pope that was the head of the church, it was the king of England who was the head of the church. And the pope was the Catholic head of the church, and the king was the Protestant head of the church, and you remember all the battles of that. But Blakey writes in his book that it was because of\... those claims from the Pope and the King to be the head of the church, that the church was forced to crystallize its conviction, that Christ was not only the head of every believer, but he was the head of the church. And if Christ is the head of the church, the church must hear from Christ. Must hear from Christ. I become weary to the point of distress, listening to preachers give their own advice to people. When do we hear from Christ? When do we hear from Christ? In His church. I don\'t want to ever be guilty of usurping His Lordship in the church. I have nothing to say but that which He would say to His church. And by the way, all that God wants to say and all that Christ would speak to His church is contained in one book, right? That simplifies it, doesn\'t it? That simplifies it. So we don\'t have to chase the idea that we need to hear from God, which is popular today. Are you listening for the voice of God? How can you tell when God is speaking? You hear so many preachers say that. That started to become very popular with, I think it was Henry Blackaby movement, learning to listen for the voice of God. Charles Stanley bought into that in a mega way. And is always telling people to listen for the voice of God. If you want to hear the voice of God, open the Bible. Because that\'s the only place where he has spoken. And you can know that this is exactly precisely what he has said. And what Christ would say to his church. Thirdly, a failure to do expository preaching not only usurps the authority of God and the Lordship of Christ, but it hinders the work of the Holy Spirit. It hinders the work of the Holy Spirit. It is the word alone that the Spirit uses as a means of salvation. We are begotten again by the word of truth. First Peter 1, we are begotten again by the word of truth. Salvation comes by the word. In this article I was glancing at this morning, my dear friend Ian Murray says that Bible exposition is a bad way to evangelize. I would disagree with that with all my might. The only way to evangelize is to use the Word of God, because we\'re begotten again by the Word. Or if you\'d like Romans 10, faith comes by what? Hearing the message concerning Christ. That\'s the proper translation of the original. Faith comes by hearing the message concerning Christ. It\'s not about manipulation. It\'s not about finding some means to stimulate people. And it\'s hard to even imagine the paradox, if not contradiction, between somebody who was reformed and puritanical in his theology, assuming that the preacher needed a mechanism to activate emotion to cause somebody to respond in an appropriate and spiritual way. The Spirit uses the word as the means of salvation and then as I said in John 17 17 the Spirit uses the word as a means of sanctification. Sanctify them by thy truth, thy word is truth. A few years ago, I did a message called, Sanctifying Shepherds. I don\'t know if you have ever heard that. If you want to download that, of course, everything on Grace 2 is downloadable free now. But Sanctifying Shepherds was a message pointing to the fact that that\'s our calling. Feeding the flock of God, taking the oversight, being given to the church for the perfection of the saints, so they could do the work of the ministry and the body being built up. We\'re\... We\'re set in the church for the sanctification of the church. And that is accomplished by the Holy Spirit through an understanding of the Scripture. The Spirit uses the Word as the means of sanctification. The Spirit uses the Word as a means of salvation. The Spirit uses the Word as the agency of comfort. The comfort of the Spirit comes through an understanding. In the Psalms it says, I have hope in your word. I have hope in your word. I have hope in your word again and again and again. So what am I doing? I\'m taking a Trinitarian approach to the foundation of Bible exposition. If I do not do exposition of Scripture in the church, I replace it with something else. I effectively usurp the authority of God, replace the lordship of Christ, and hinder the work of the Holy Spirit. Now there\'s a formula for success, right? I mean, that\'s really a great approach. And yet you have those kinds of things being advocated today. You don\'t want to bore people with the Bible. You don\'t want to drone on about the text of Scripture. People can\'t handle that. I\'ve been criticized pretty regularly and consistently, not only in print and open conversation, but even in meetings where I\'ve been questioned in Q&As about why in the world I don\'t do more illustrations. Why don\'t you do more illustration and application? I\'ll tell you one event that I was in. I was asked why all my preaching is so void of application. And the answer I gave was simply to say, first of all, my job is explanation, the Holy Spirit\'s job is application. I could pick out of the air an application and say, you know, if you\'re beating your wife, stop. If you\'re not disciplining your kids, start. If you\'re not reading your Bible, do it. If you\'re watching pornography, don\'t do it. And that\'s okay. But in saying that, I might have just left out 80% of the congregation who aren\'t beating their wife, are disciplining their children, are reading their Bible, and aren\'t watching pornography. What I would far rather do\... is make the truth, the principle of the scripture so clear that the Spirit of God can take that and no one escapes. This isn\'t a shortcoming. This isn\'t something that I just forget to put in there. I\'m not in the business of transforming people\'s lives. I\'m not necessarily in the business of motivation. I\'m in the business of clarity. Clearly proclaiming this is the Word of God, this is the message of Christ, this is the truth the Spirit will use to save and sanctify. You can, you\'ll learn to do this, but I would suggest to you, you can find the best illustrations to explain the Scripture in the Scripture. I don\'t know if you\'ve noticed that, but I tend to illustrate the Bible with the Bible, with cross references, Old Testament. because Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, the Old Testament was written as an example to us, upon whom the end of the ages have come. So there\'s a wealth of illustration in the Old Testament. And did you notice that that\'s what the New Testament writers used? There are times when Jesus did not use the Old Testament in the parables. He used familiar things. But once you get beyond the parables, there are rare occasions in the New Testament that writers of the New Testament use anything but an Old Testament illustration. Try to find in the Apostle Paul an illustration of a spiritual truth that isn\'t taken from the Old Testament. That\'s where he goes. Because you\'re using divine illustrations, you\'re using divine revelation, listen, which has not only clarity and interest, but authority. It carries weight. And one thing I avoid at all costs in illustration is personal things. Like the other day I was doing this and felt the Lord telling me to do this and I said to this guy and he said to me, and I misrepresent a conversation because I couldn\'t remember the thing anyway and make it spin it a little bit so it sounds like I want it to sound. I don\'t ever want to be the hero of my own sermon. I don\'t ever want to be the illustration of anything. I\'ve heard preachers say, you need to do what I do. Well, in a general sense, we need to be able to say, that follow me as I follow Christ. But that\'s kind of the fallback position of people who are not prepared. They just grab something out of their mind, and they tweak it a little bit, misrepresent it a little bit. It becomes a fish tail because you\'re unprepared. So learn. To illustrate the truth of God with the Word of God, and then the whole package comes with this divine sort of Trinitarian weight. Okay? And there could be a lot more said about that, but if I said nothing more than that, the mandate is established. God does His work. Christ accomplishes His purpose. The Spirit changes people through the Word, through an understanding of the Scripture. And if I might add one other dimension to that, and this is something that I\'ve learned through the years. The most motivating force. in the life of our congregation, the most motivating force in this church, and I say this after all these years, since 1969, is love for Christ. That\'s the driving force in this church. And so the more you exalt Christ, the more your people will love Christ, the more they love Christ, the more they want to honor Christ. Preach Christ, right? Paul says I\'m determined to preach Christ, Him crucified. To know nothing among you except Christ. Everywhere He went it was about Christ. Lift up Christ, He\'ll draw men to Himself. There\'s a reason why the Old Testament speaks of Christ. The four gospels speak of Christ. The book of Acts is about preaching Christ. The epistles explain the work of Christ, the person of Christ. The book of Revelation. He presents the coming of Christ in all His glory. He is the theme of Scripture. You can never preach Christ too much. He is the most compelling force in the life of a believer. As I was saying yesterday morning, it\'s about loving Christ, and that love increases as the vision of Christ becomes more clear through Scripture. Let\'s see. Two years in the Gospel of John, which I may redo because I think I need to give more time and attention to the detail. Two years in the Gospel of John, eight or nine years in the book of Matthew, ten years in the book of Luke, and two years in the book of Mark. So right there you have over 20 years going through the Gospels, step by step, piece by piece. Two journeys of several years through the book of Revelation, trip through the book of Hebrews. The book of Romans is about Christ and the glory of His sin-bearing sacrifice. I just went through Isaiah 53, 10 messages on Isaiah 53. And Christ just shines in majestic beauty through Isaiah 53. And I told the people, now I\'m going to do the Old Testament, and we\'re going to find Christ in the Old Testament. So whatever time I have in the future, I want to focus on Christ in the Old Testament. He\'s the main theme, the Rodeo Emmaus series, you know, beginning at Moses and the prophets and all the holy writings. He spoke of the things concerning himself. So where did he go? Well, there are lots of places. I started at the Pinnacle, Isaiah 53, but there are plenty more starting in Genesis 1.1. That\'s the first place Jesus appears in the Old Testament. In the beginning, God created, and John 1 says that nothing was created without him. And it\'s about Christ from then on until the end of Malachi, when the forerunner to Christ will come and the Messiah will follow. So, you know, I\... I cry out in my heart about certain preachers that I watch on television. I just say, preach Christ. Please preach Christ. How can you possibly not preach Christ? How can you possibly not explain the meaning of Scripture? And at the heart of Scripture is Christ and His person. His majesty, His glory, His work, in all its magnificent. How can you avoid this so consistently? All right, number four. A failure to do expositional preaching demonstrates pride and a lack of submission to Scripture. It demonstrates pride and a lack of submission to Scripture. This is pretty obvious, right? I can tell by listening to someone what his view of Scripture is. If I were to say, and I can think of many pastors through the years, that I\'ve had this conversation with, tell me your view of scripture. I believe scripture is inspired, you believe it\'s inerrant, I believe it\'s inerrant. That would be pretty much the standard evangelical answer, right? I mean, nobody\'s going to, there might be some who would question inspiration or want to redefine inspiration. We\'ve lived with that with Fuller Seminary in our background. They\'ve equivocated on inspiration for decades and decades and decades, and of course that sucked the life and power out of the institution. But for the most part, people would say, I believe in the authority of Scripture, but when I hear them preach, that\'s not what they preach. So the only thing I can conclude is that whatever they think about Scripture, they think more about themselves. That they think that what they have to say is more important than what Scripture has to say. Talk about brash. Talk about pride. My dad used to tell me when I was a young preacher, never be the hero of your own stories. And watch out for all those preachers, all those preachers who are the heroes of their own stories. I don\'t always know how these work. Maybe that\'s the break bell, huh? But watch out for men. Watch out for preachers who are the heroes of all their own stories. I don\'t ever want to preach the opinions of John MacArthur. I just want to preach the truth of God, and there\'s only one way for me to do that, and that\'s to do the due diligence I need to do to explain the meaning of Scripture as accurately as I possibly can. And I just want to encourage you guys that it starts with your view of Scripture. If you were to back me to the wall and say what\'s the most important thing that you believe? If you were to ask me what is the one doctrine that is the most important doctrine in your panoply of convictions, I would tell you this, the authority of Scripture. That has to be it. Because if I equivocate at all on the authority of Scripture, then anything in the Scripture is up for grabs. The most important doctrine that you will ever hold is your conviction that the Bible is the Word of God. And if you don\'t believe that, you\'ll never be able to motivate yourself to the disciplines of exacting out of that Scripture what it teaches. You\'ll equivocate. You\'ll take shortcuts, you\'ll spin off your own ideas and sanctify them with random Bible verses. What keeps your rear end glued to the chair hours and hours and hours, even to this day? I\'ve been doing this for a long time. And what does it take to come up with a sermon on a Sunday? For now, for me, 10 hours, 11 hours? What does it take to\... write chapters in a commentary, I\'m working on volume 3 of Luke. What does it take to do that? Hours and hours? What does it take to produce a book? What does it take to write an article, to confront an issue? It just takes the discipline of study. What drives me to do that? What is the compelling drive that causes me to discipline myself to do that, when it\'s not always easy to do that? It is this overwhelming reality of the authority, the inerrancy, the accuracy, the inspiration of Scripture. And I\'ll tell you guys, I\'ve put it to the test now. I\'ve put it to the test for 50 years. This is how long I\'ve been doing this. I started preaching over 50 years ago. And it will stand the test of the most intense scrutiny. And it will survive the most intense criticisms. Its accuracy is mind-boggling. Its supernatural character is stunning, even to this hour. It is a marvel. It is the one miracle that you will hold in your hand. You\'re never going to hold a dead man that came to life in your hand. You\'re never going to hold somebody who was dying of cancer in your arms, and they\'re clean. You\'re never going to pick a paraplegic out of a wheelchair. That\'s not going to happen. But you will hold in your hand the greatest, most far-reaching, expansive, and extensive miracle that God ever did, and it\'s this book. This is a miracle book. This is supernatural. I\'ve tested it every way possible. And digging down in every single passage, I never find inconsistency. In searching the range of Scripture for comparatives and contrasts and illustrations and expansions and better understandings and elucidation, I find that its sole authorship by God is stunningly clear. I bow to Scripture. I bow to this miracle. I have, I think\... even a bizarre affection for this book. I surround myself with Bibles. I want one at fingertip length everywhere I am. If you go anywhere in my house, I can extend my arm halfway and there will be a Bible. If I\'m at the kitchen table, there\'s a Bible. If I\'m at my chair in the den, there\'s a Bible. If I move to the couch, there\'s a Bible. If I go to my bedroom, there\'s a Bible. If I go up to my study, there are Bibles all over the place. My office, here at the college, wherever it is. This is the only miracle I hold in my hand. This is a miracle that is alive. And I bow to this book. And that\'s my great grief with what I see in the church today. I just sometimes want to scream that you\'re not the man with all the answers. Give me the Word of God. Stop and give me the Word of God. It is pride and a lack of submission to Scripture to ramble on about your own insights. Well, we could say more about that. That\'s what your pastor always says when he\'s just run out of material. Number five. The consequence of non-expositional preaching, let\'s put it this way, it severs the preacher personally from the regular sanctifying. Work of Scripture. Did you get that? It severs the preacher personally from the regular sanctifying work of Scripture. What I mean by that is, if you\'re not an expositor, you\'re not in the study of the book. And you have just been cut off from its sanctifying power in your life. And let me tell you something, you put yourself in a dangerous spot. Look, as we said from James, you don\'t want to be a teacher unless you\'re ready to face the music. Stop being so many teachers, that is a greater condemnation. I mean, if the enemy could bring down anybody in your church, who would it be? It would be you. To discredit you is to discredit everything. That\'s a favorite strategy of Satan. We all understand that. Your sanctification is critical for the integrity of the Gospel and the church and its testimony. Look, we all are sickened by the immoral pastors, aren\'t we? Sickened by them. Or the money-hungry ones. Or those who assault little boys. I read about another one in the LA Times recently. There\'s a molesting young man in this church here. A church that bore the name of Christ. So how do you protect yourself from that? You think you\'re going to do that just because you went to seminary? You think you\'re going to do that just because you\'re a pastor? No. What is going to sanctify you? Well, what\'s going to sanctify you is the only thing that sanctifies anyone, and that\'s the work of the Word in your heart. So I would say to you, look, I\'m no different than any person. I\'m as human as anybody else with all the impulses that anyone has as human. I\'m sure I\'ve been a target. I could tell you stories about amazing events in my life where I was literally put in positions of shocking compromise. I found myself in situations where\... One might succumb to some temptation, whether it was financial or whatever. So what guards me? Well, I have only one source that guards me, and that\'s the sanctifying work of the Word. What did David say? Your word of a hit in my heart that I might not what? Sin against you. I\'m not surprised. When prominent, popular, non-biblical pastors fall, what do you expect? It\'s inevitable. When they\'re corrupted, if not morally corrupted, you know, in the sexual area, where they\'re corrupted in the financial area, which nowadays is okay, you know, you can have your own jet and live high off the hog, flaunt your money. Because the gospel has been married to American consumerism. It\'s an interesting marriage. So how do you protect yourself? I would say if I never preached a sermon, I would thank the Lord forever for the life that I\'ve been able to live every week of my life studying His Word, if I never preached a sermon, because of the sanctifying work of the Word of my life. Can I tell you the benefit of it? Four children that love Christ, who married four who love Christ, fifteen grandchildren who love Christ and profess Christ all the way down to nine years of age. All of them in our church, all of them, I\'m baptizing my way through them, down the ranks. Why? Because there\'s a confidence that what grandpa preaches is what he really believes and it\'s the truth. And it\'s undergirded by a mass of people at Grace Church who have influenced their lives. What makes for a happy old age? That. The grace of Christ manifest invisible in the people who are most intimately connected to your life. I hate to hear stories about pastors who lose their kids to the world and to Satan. I mean it\'s a heartbreak, it\'s a terrible tragedy. I certainly have prayed and continue to pray for the salvation of my family and families of those around me and the families in our church. But one thing I know for sure is this, that I have to be the standard because they\'re going to follow my faith. They\'re going to follow my faith and they should, right? That\'s what the church is told to do in the book of Hebrews, to follow the faith of the elders. So the sanctifying work of the Word, if you never preached or if your preaching was never heard by many people, and some of you will end up in a wonderful, blessed ministry with a small group of people, and you may wonder as you go along, It seems as though this was a meager amount of folks. But if you live a life in the Word of God, and you work diligently to prepare the best that you can with the depth that you should, to give even to a small flock of people, the sanctifying grace of Christ will make your life joyful and fruitful. And you may not have the numbers that some others have, but who knows what one or two people might come out of that church. That God will use in ways you could never even imagine. It\'s never about the number, it\'s about the individuals. Some of the greatest and most faithful preachers in history preach to small congregations in very obscure places. And you can\'t chase that illusion of popularity as if that\'s the validation of your ministry. It really isn\'t. And somebody came to Moody one time in Chicago and said I have a complaint sir and Moody said what\'s your complaint? He said well my congregations too small and Moody said well, maybe they\'re as large as you\'d like to give account for in the day of judgment That\'s the right answer so wherever God places you take the opportunity the privilege To be in the Word of God for the sanctification of your own life and God I promise you will use a sanctified life What is worse is to be an unsanctified quote-unquote pastor in a mega church That\'s a contradiction That\'s a disaster So number five then is a Warning that if you don\'t do expositional preaching through the years of your ministry you will sever yourself from the sanctifying work Or sanctifying grace of Scripture in your own life. Number six. A failure to do expositional preaching, and this is a very important one, removes spiritual depth and transcendence from the people. Crippling worship. A failure to\... Teach the Bible with depth. Removes spiritual depth and transcendence from the people and cripples worship. Now a lot of talk about worship today. That\'s kind of a buzzword. Everybody\'s talking about worship. We have a worship leader. We have a worship band. If you were to look at it and take a contemporary interpretation of worship, worship would be what a group of people do musically on a stage. That\'s not worship. That\'s music on the stage. So you could say, we\'re the stage band. We do the music. Worship is something else. Let me just give you a little principle to kind of work with. Superficial understanding of Scripture produces superficial worship. Shallowness produces superficial worship. And that\'s what we have. I\'ve been reading a book called The Juvenilization of the Church. An interesting book, The Juvenilization of the Church, or The Juvenilization of Christianity. Actually, it\'s the title. Juvenilization of Christianity. Hmm. When Junior Church has taken over. I grew up in an era when we had what was called Junior Church. When we were in the fourth grade and fifth grade, we went to Junior Church. Well, we now have Junior Church in the auditorium. That\'s right. It\'s designed for elementary kids or junior highers. You know, the preacher gets his clothes from Abercrombie and Fitch. He tries to look as much like a teeny bopper rock star as he can. The music is the kind of music that appeals to the junior high kids and the high school kids. And so we have the juvenileization of the church. What we like to say here is if you come to Grace Church, we do adult church. We do adult church here. We think deeply, reverently. We dress like adults. We act like adults. We think like adults. We reason like adults. We sing hymns that have depth and historical value and sound theology and richness. Not 7-11, seven words 11 times. This is adult church for thinking people. We don\'t want to take adults and turn them into junior hires. Which is what churches do and drive the mature people in their church right out the back door to try to bounce around town and find a church where people act like adults. I know it\'s cool to have a black t-shirt with skull and crossbones on it. That\'s junior high stuff. That\'s kids stuff. I know it\'s cool to talk about dudes in the pulpit. I get all that lingo and that language. I know it\'s cool to have a rock band because that\'s what the kids like. This book, The Juvenilization of Christianity, traces the juvenileization of Christianity from World War II, the 1940s, when the churches decided that we had to save the country. And the only way to save the country was to save the teenagers because teenagers were starting to develop a culture. So along came Youth for Christ and they created sort of Teenage Church. Then came Young Life, which was a sort of less gospel-oriented version of Youth for Christ. They had Teenage Church and then came Youth Ministry, then came bouncing volleyball and beach parties and hoopla. And that\'s the era that I kind of grew up in. And that\'s come all the way to the point now where it\'s taken over the main church and now the main church looks like a junior high rock concert. It\'s the juvenileization of the church. We don\'t think deeply, we don\'t think historically, we don\'t think theologically. It\'s all about a feel-good experience and a mosh pit kind of environment. Think carefully now when you think about how you conduct your worship in your church. And I will tell you this, that is a dead giveaway that the theology is superficial. Because superficial theology leads to superficial worship. Immature juvenile theology leads to immature juvenile expressions. That\'s what I\'m saying. When you take your people down deep into the Word of God, when they go down deep into the Word of God, the depth of the Word and the depth of their understanding of the Word leads correspondingly to a transcendent expression of worship. You can\'t get away with that kind of stuff here. Because our people think too deeply, too reverently. Their understanding is too rich and too full. and too lofty. If you don\'t let them sing great hymns, if you don\'t let them hear Bach, if you don\'t elevate them with Handel, they\'re unable to worship at a level that their understanding takes them to. So that\'s one of the benefits of preaching that is profound. I don\'t mean by that that it is obscure, but that it is profound, but people are grappling with\... at what Steve likes to say, the gravitas of divine truth. And you can\'t deal with them in expressions of that on a superficial, shallow way. I can walk into church and I will tell you in five minutes by what I hear what the level of that maturity is. And the sad thing is, when you design the church to be as juvenile as possible, then the people who are mature in that church will leave. And in many of those churches, you can\'t deal with them in expressions of that. And I think that\'s the most important thing. And I think that\'s the most important thing. And I think that\'s the most important thing. And I think that\'s the most important thing. And I think that\'s the most important thing. And I think that\'s the most important thing. And I think that\'s the most important thing. And I think that\'s the most important thing. And I think that\'s the most important thing. And I think that\'s the most important thing. And I think that\'s the most important thing. And I think that\'s the most important thing. And I think that\'s the most important thing. they want them to leave. Can you believe that? They look at them as blessed subtractions. We want them out of here. They\'re standing in the way. They\'re against what we\'re trying to do. This is the 1945 effort to reach the now increasingly self-defined youth culture, gone to seed at its worst level, and now it\'s taken over. So now you have, for example, look at Mars Hill Church with Mark Griscoll. Is that spiritual maturity? Is that spiritual depth? Is that profundity? Is that elevation? Is that gravitas? Is that seriousness? Is that reverence? Is that a sense of the holiness of God? No. That\'s junior church for the immature. So, when you do not teach the Word of God with depth, and consistency in all of its glory, you will remove spiritual depth, and you will then remove transcendent worship. Worship can only go as high as it goes down in understanding. When it goes down in understanding, the deeper the understanding, the higher and more elevated the worship. Your people should be able to do it. To understand the nuances of what they sing. You know, when we sang on Sunday morning, the power of the cross. Were any of you here yesterday morning? Yeah, we sang that. I mean, you were singing really great theology. You could take any line in that and say, boy, they really thought that line through. And we understand enough of our theology to see the nuance there, right? You don\'t have to say it all for us. We get it. Even when we were singing about crossing\... into Canaan land, we were understanding that the writer was speaking metaphorically about entering heaven. We understand that because we have a richness in our understanding of Scripture. We don\'t need the flat, one-dimensional kind of music. Because people can think deeply about what they are singing. It\'s not about whipping up their emotions. I\'ve been in events like that, where the musicians were doing everything they could to turn the crowd into an absolute frenzy. Which is mindless and meaningless. So I say to you men, you know, to have real transcendent worship that comes from the heart with a depth of understanding and gravitas and reverence and adoration and love and praise is a long-term project. Because they have to have a deep understanding of the Word of God. And I pray for you guys that when you\'re done here and you go out, that you find a place, whether it\'s the first or second or third place, that you find a place where you can stay long enough to see this happen. Okay, by the way, if you think we\'re going to get to 50, think again. And that\'s okay. These were the first ones that came to my mind, so they\'re probably the most important. Number seven, the failure to do expositional preaching prevents the preacher from fully developing the mind of Christ critical to his work. Whose church is it? Christ Church. Then it is most critical that I understand the mind of Christ. People say to me, they\'ve said this through the years, what periodicals do you read to help you understand the culture? None. I think I get it. Sort of out there, isn\'t it? I\'m not really confused about the culture. Pretty apparent what it is. I\'m not really concerned about the culture in leading the church. I remember being in Washington, D.C. I was in a large church, a well-known pastor, and he said, my life is completely different. I have now read a book that will give me direction the rest of my life as to how to lead the church. And he named a secular book on leadership. I didn\'t know what to say. We were sitting in rocking chairs on his porch, and I just, I don\'t know, I mumbled something, because he was my host. But I think what leaked out was, have you tried Ephesians? Maybe there might be a few suggestions there. What are you talking about? Stephen Covey has nothing to offer the church. Tom Peters has nothing to offer the church. No secular book has anything to offer the church. Look, I have to be the representative of Christ in my church, right? I\'m an under-shepherd of Christ, true? So all I want to know, one thing I want to know, what is the mind of Christ concerning His work, His church? What does He want for His church? What does He want His church to be? This was a frustration for me when I was in\... I\'ll stop and we\'ll take a break. I was frustrated in seminary because my dad was a pastor, but the way the churches that he was in, when he was in Baptist churches, I knew that the way they were organized was fraught with problems. I didn\'t always know why as a kid. Then I saw him start a church, and he organized that church in a way that had nothing to do with the Scripture. He was a wonderful, faithful, precious father to me, and a faithful preacher of the Word, and a consistent man of integrity. But it just seemed like it was kind of willy-nilly when you sort of put a church together. Then I went away to seminary, and I went to Talbot Seminary, and I heard various approaches. We had professors who were from the Grace Brethren Association, and we had professors who had a sort of a\... kind of a Baptistic background, and there was some Presbyterian influence, and sort of all canceled out in my mind. I just\... I couldn\'t figure out how to do church. So I began when I was in seminary to study, and I just chased around everywhere to try to find a book that I could kind of lean on and give me some guidance, and I found a funny little self-published book called The Order for Church and Missionary by Alexander Rattray Hay. You won\'t find it. It was some self-published thing, and it was so badly done that the sections of the book were in the wrong place. So it went from page 34 to 180, and some of it was upside down. So I went---that is a very familiar book to me. So I started to read this thing by this Plymouth brethren guy named Alexander Hay on the New Testament Order for Church and Missionary, and I began to discover, first of all in his book, that there was a New Testament order. That Christ had given an order for his church and established it in the New Testament. And then it became my goal and my purpose to discern that down to the finest point that I could find. And so I said, I\'m going to start in the New Testament where the message concerning the church begins. And where does the message directly concerning the church begin in the New Testament? Matthew 18, tell it to the church. So I said, well, here\'s something very clear. If they\'re sinning in the church, you go to the person. If they don\'t repent, you take two or three witnesses. If they don\'t repent, you tell the whole church. If they don\'t repent, you throw them out. So I remember this was right after I came to Grace Church. That\'s what we\'re going to do. And I kind of tested that idea with a few pastor friends, and they said, you\'ll be out of there in months. I can\'t do that. No one ever heard of a church that did that. Did you hear me say that? No one ever heard of a church that did that. I had never heard of a church, and I\'ve been raised in a church. My grandfather, my father pastors, they were associations of churches. I never heard of any church that did that. None. They said, you\'ll empty the church. You can\'t do that. You can\'t confront sin. You can\'t tell your people that if they see another believer in sin, they have to go to that person, confront the person, and if the person doesn\'t listen, they have to go get some people to gang up on them, and then come and tell the authorities, and the authorities in the church, the leaders, the pastors of the church, tell the whole church. I said, but this is what Christ said. This is not optional, right? He\'s the one who said this, and it\'s the first instruction to the church. First. So I said, we\'re going to do it. So I said, I told the people, if you know somebody in sin, confront them. If they don\'t repent, take two or three witnesses. And if they still don\'t repent, come and let the elders know, and we\'ll tell the whole church. And if they still don\'t repent, we\'ll throw them out, and we\'ll make those announcements on Communion Sunday. Well, you know, people were gasping for air. But I said, I believe that Christ wants a pure church. And I believe that those who are Christ\'s want a pure church. And that rather than drive people away, this will drive unbelieving people away, but it will become a haven for the true believer who longs to honor Christ, and who wants that accountability. Well, that was when we had a few hundred people, and in two years the church doubled. And in two years it doubled again, and in two years it doubled again, and it doubled again, and it went to 2,000, it went to 2,500, and we did it continually, continually the same way. I never heard of any church doing that, but I didn\'t have an option. I didn\'t have an option. I can\'t edit Christ. So, that\'s kind of where it started for us, and then I had a\... elders in the church, we had people in spiritual leadership who were totally unqualified, many of them unbelievers here. They weren\'t even Christians. This church had started as a Methodist church with a doctrinal statement about charity, and nothing much else. And so, it became apparent that we had people in leadership who weren\'t even Christians. You know, one guy came to me one day, a friend, and said, he said, He said, what? Yeah, the guy over by that, he\'s drunk every week. He\'s happy. He\'s loving it and knocks us over with his alcohol breath. So we had a lot of issues like that. He was right. That actually was going on. We had Sunday school teachers that weren\'t converted. We had elders that weren\'t converted. So I said, look, we\'ve got to establish the standards for elders and for those who serve in the church, because that\'s clear. So we went there. And There was a guy who was teaching a large class. He was an elder in the church, and he was a church pianist. Really nice guy. And his daughter was getting married to a divorced guy from Las Vegas. He was not a Christian. So they came to me and said, we want you to do the wedding. I said, you want me to marry your daughter to a divorced non-Christian in the church? He said, I can\'t do that. I can\'t do that. Your daughter shouldn\'t be marrying that guy. He went to the leaders of the church and said, you know, he won\'t do it, he won\'t marry us. So they asked for an explanation. I said, okay, we can\'t be unequally oak with an unbeliever, I can\'t do that. They said, okay, we\'ll let somebody else do it, but we\'ll do it in the church, and that\'ll be a good compromise. I remember the meeting. So I said, whose church is this, by the way? Is this your church or is this Christ\'s church? This guy swallowed hard. And he said, no, this is Christ\'s church. He said, then maybe we don\'t do it at all, right? So that guy, his family, everybody he was connected to bolted the church. That was okay. A bunch of the unconverted elders got mad at me and left, and we were on the way. But, you know, what I was doing was just drilling down into the Word of God and finding out what Christ wanted in His church, and we\'ve just tried to do that. We still try to do that to this very hour.. And that demands some hard work. Now you all know way more than I did. I\'m discovering this as I\'m doing it. Now we can teach it to you. We got it all down. You can buy the book Shepardology and read about it. Or Pastoral Ministry or whatever. You know, it\'s fascinating to me. You understand the history of what we call the progress of dogma, the progress of doctrine, that historically there are eras in which doctrine is crystallized. You know, it starts out with Trinitarian controversies and Christological controversies and gospel controversies, and eventually, you know, it gets to things like ecclesiology, and you know the Reformers didn\'t get that right, for the most part. And that I think even in a more modern era has finally become crystallized in maybe the last 20 or 30 years what a biblical ecclesiology really looks like. And in all honesty it has contributed immensely to the independent church movement because there are no such things as denominations in the New Testament. There\'s only local assemblies. We hope that guys will finally get on board on the eschatological side of doctrine, wake up and embrace. pre-millennialism. I\'m working on them. I\'m trying to inflict as much pain on them as I can. But in the progress of dogma, I\'ve lived through this era when I think a biblical understanding of the church has taken shape and\... and I\'m grateful for that and there are lots of other guys that have made a great contribution to this not the least of which but maybe at the top of the pile in many ways is my friend Mark Dever who has with his nine marks ministry really gotten serious about the nature of the church and making it as biblical as it can be uh\... that solves a lot of problems because there\'s integrity in that if your message about the gospel is accurate but you\'re indifferent about what Christ wanted in his church you\'ve got you\'ve got a split personality going there so it\'s important then to dig into the Word of God, teach the Word of God, not only for your own understanding, but for the understanding of the people. How are you going to bring them to living out a biblical ecclesiology if they don\'t understand it? So you have to teach it to them. Don\'t be in a hurry to do that. Be patient with them because sometimes when you go into a church, things aren\'t the way they should be ecclesiologically, and if you just try to overturn and change everything immediately, you\'re going to get yourself thrown out of there. So be very patient. You want to know what Christ wants in His church, and you want His church to be the way He wants it to be.