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2 CORINTHIANS 5:11-15
As you know, this past week I went to a pastors’ conference called Basics 2009. Somebody saw the announcement up on the slides last week and jokingly said, “Don’t you think you’ve got the basics down already?” I don’t remember how I answered him, but I should have said, no. No, I don’t have the basics down yet. And until the day the Lord calls me on to glory, I never will. You see, we get into the most trouble when we think we’ve got it down. That’s when pride begins to rear its ugly head. 1 Corinthians 10:12 says, “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” In other words, don’t get all puffed up thinking about how tall you’re standing. Because if you do, you’re going to fall down. The very minute we think we’ve got this Christian life all figured out is when we’re going to crash hard. Because we don’t have it all figured out. That’s why we keep reading the Bible over and over again. That’s why we keep praying over and over again. That’s why we come here and listen to me drone on and on from behind this pulpit week after week. We don’t have it down. We don’t even have the basics down. Because the basics are so wonderfully awesome that we can never have them down. The basics of the Gospel are never fully fathomable. God’s grace is incomprehensible. But at the same time that it is incomprehensible, Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3:18-19 asks that we, “May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.” The basics. The incomprehensible, unfathomable basics of the Gospel is what we must be constantly, continually working to comprehend.
See, the wonderful thing about the conference for me was that it reinforced to me why I am here. It reinforced to me what I am supposed to be doing here. It reinforced to me about what preaching is and why it’s so vitally important. And as I listened and as I thought about it, I realized that I need to reinforce that to you as well. For lack of anything better, I titled the message, “What Are We Doing Here?” I think it’s important for us to ask that question every now and again, don’t you? What are we doing here at Brushfork Baptist Church? Why do we exist? Why has God called us to gather here week after week? What are we supposed to be doing when we get here? I’m sure that you can come up with a number of answers to those questions. And hopefully you know what our mission is. Hopefully you know that our mission is the Great Commission, since we talk about it almost every week as we’ve been going through Nehemiah. But think about that for a minute. If our mission is the Great Commission, where do we do it? How does the Great Commission start in Matthew 28:19? Jesus said, “Go.” Literally, “as you are going.” So if our mission is the Great Commission and we do the Great Commission as we are going… why are we here? Why do we gather together in this place week after week? We find the answer to that question in Romans 10:13-15: “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!” Now, even though this passage uses the word “preacher”, it is talking about all of us. We are all called to carry the Gospel to the world. That’s how God saves people. He saves people through the power of His Word being proclaimed to them. How will people be saved unless they hear the Gospel? And how will they hear the Gospel unless somebody tells them the Gospel. And here’s the key to what we’re talking about. How will people be equipped to proclaim the Gospel unless they are sent. That’s what we’re doing here. We’re sending people to proclaim the Gospel to a lost and dying world. We come together as the church gathered in order to be equipped to be sent. Then we leave as the church scattered—equipped to do our mission. That’s how we’ll see people saved. That’s how we’ll see the baptismal waters stirred every week. That’s how we’ll see this place filled to overflowing. That’s how we’ll see our area changed. That’s how we’ll see the revival that we pray for. Where does it start? In here. How does it start in here? By being equipped. How does the equipping happen? When we gather together under the Holy Spirit anointed preaching and teaching of God’s Word. In verse 12 of our passage, Paul says something to make sure that he’s not misunderstood for what he’s saying. He says, “we commend not ourselves again to you.” In other words, “I’m not defending myself or bragging on myself and what I do here.” This isn’t about me. Then he says, “but give you occasion to glory on our behalf, that ye may have somewhat to answer them which glory in appearance and not in heart.” Please don’t misunderstand this message tonight. It’s not about defending or justifying or selling what I do up here. It’s about reminding us all about why it’s important. Not just why it’s important, but why it’s critical. Why we can’t do it any other way. There are plenty of ways to grow a crowd. But there is only one God-ordained way to grow a church. And that is with preaching. Tonight we’re going to look at three aspects of preaching that we had better have if we’re going to grow this church the way God calls us to. The first aspect is the message of preaching.
The message of preaching. Look at the first part of verse 11. “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.” The message of preaching is two-fold. Preaching must know the terror of the Lord. And preaching must persuade people. I have had people ask me if I get nervous speaking in front of people. I don’t. Before God called me to be a pastor, I used to speak regularly in front of 400-500 people. Speaking in front of people bothers many people. I’m weird—it doesn’t bother me. I don’t get nervous speaking in front of people. But here’s what makes me nervous. There is hardly a time that I stand behind a pulpit that I don’t tremble. You might not see it because I do most of the trembling in the privacy of my office at home or here. Do you have any idea the responsibility that comes from preaching God’s Word to God’s people? The Old Testament prophets often referred to the burden of the Lord. I don’t think they were talking about God’s Word being a burden because of the heaviness of the message. I think they were talking about it being a burden because of the responsibility. For some reason, God has chosen to speak His Word authoritatively through men called preachers. And for some reason, He has chosen me as one of them. God has ordained that He will reconcile lost and rebellious people to Himself. He has ordained that He will do that through His people sharing His Gospel with them. And He has ordained that His people will be equipped to do that through the preaching of His Word. God has ordained that His people will be equipped no other way. That is His plan—to use frail vessels like me to preach His Word to frail vessels like you. In order that you might scatter and take the good news of the kingdom of God to a lost and dying world. What a responsibility. If that doesn’t make me tremble, nothing will. Not in fear of crowds. Not in fear of what you might think of me. But in fear of the terror of the Lord. He has ordained that His plan will be worked out through preaching. And He has called me to preach to you. But what has He called me to preach? Something that will persuade you. “Knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.” Knowing the terror of the Lord, if I had to persuade you with my cleverness, I wouldn’t just tremble—I would collapse. If I had to persuade you with my ability to manipulate, I would crumble in fear. That’s not to say I’m not good at manipulating. I had 20 years of formal training on how to manipulate people. People ask me the difference between the way the Army and the Air Force treats people. The Army forces their people to do things by intimidation and fear of punishment. They yell a lot and give a lot of orders to get people to do what they want them to. The Air Force doesn’t do that. The Air Force manipulates people into thinking that they want to do what you want them to do. They use things like motivation and psychology to sell the idea to you. That’s what I was trained in for 20 years. I’m good at it. But knowing the terror of the Lord, if that’s what I had to rely on, I would crumble. Why? Because there’s no power in it. There’s only human will. And if you’ve ever tried to stop a habit, you know how weak human will can be. So, if preaching doesn’t use human will and emotions to persuade people, what does it use? The Bible. The inerrant, infallible, unchanging, all-sufficient Word of God. Not preaching about the Bible. Not preaching around the Bible. Not finding a text somewhere to support whatever it is that I want to talk about. But preaching the Bible. Systematically, consecutively, expositionally. Systematically because I am equipping you to see the Bible as a rich, unfolding narrative of who God is and who you are in light of who He is. Consecutively because I am equipping you to be able to see the Bible as a complete book that is sufficient for everything. Expositionally because I am equipping you to see texts in their context and understand that each word and thought and book is God’s Word. Not just a series of proof-texts or magic sayings to make things better. The message of preaching must first know the terror of the Lord. And from that, it will persuade people. But we’re not only concerned with the message of preaching, we are also concerned with the audience of preaching.
The audience of preaching. The second part of verse 11 says, “we are made manifest unto God, and I trust also are made manifest in you consciences.” What does that mean? It means that preaching is known to God. And preaching is known to the people’s conscience. It means that when I preach, I have two audiences—God and you. And let me tell you something. You can be perfectly happy with my preaching and think that I’m the best preacher in the whole world. But if God isn’t happy with my preaching, then it doesn’t really matter what you think. Alistair Begg talked about a book by Neil Postman called “Entertaining Ourselves to Death.” Postman was not a Christian. He wasn’t writing about the church. He was mostly writing about education in America. He talked about the decline of education in America and blamed it on the Sesame Street generation. That’s me. I was raised on Sesame Street. But what he talked about was how we had crossed the line between education and entertainment. When you teach children with a puppet and you take the puppet away, they don’t miss the teaching. They miss the puppet. The sad thing is, we’ve bought into that lie in the church. We have said that you can’t teach people from the pulpit. We have to entertain them instead. Postman said that when you teach people by TV, you have three rules that you can’t break. You can’t have any prerequisites. In other words, you can’t teach fundamental principles that build on each other day by day or week by week. Then he said that you can’t have any perplexity. In other words, you can’t teach anything that is difficult or really makes you think hard for yourself. You can’t make people go and have to figure out things on their own. Finally, he said that you cannot under any circumstances have any exposition. In other words, whatever you do, you cannot have explicit, line-by-line, precept-by-precept explanation and teaching. Churches throughout our country have bought into that thinking hook, line and sinker. And as a result, drama and singing has replaced preaching. You know that I don’t have anything against drama and singing. Drama is an excellent tool inside the church to point to the preaching of the Word. Outside the church it is one of the best cultural bridges we can build to reach the lost. But here’s the point. Drama or singing or whatever can never take the place of preaching the Word. People say that people’s attention span can’t handle anything more than 15-20 minutes of preaching at a time. Really? The new Star Trek movie made over 70 million dollars in its opening weekend. I don’t know for sure, but I imagine it’s over 20 minutes long. We can pay attention to what we want to pay attention to. Granted, I like good preaching. But these guys at the conference pushed the limits of endurance. But Begg preached for an hour and 15 minutes on Wednesday and cut it short. And as we were leaving the sanctuary, I heard people all over the place saying that they wished he would have kept going. Don’t get me wrong. Some people preach for 15 minutes and that’s too long. But good, faithful biblical exposition takes time. Anybody can give a quaint little talk in a short period of time. But it takes time to be faithful to the text in explaining what it means and drawing application from it. I like the way Paul puts it. He says that what he’s doing in the way he preaches IS known to God. Then he says that he TRUSTS that it’s known to the people. That’s the right view of the audience of preaching. You need to understand that. And you need to help me to understand it also. We’re concerned with the message of preaching, the audience of preaching… we’re also concerned with the motivation of preaching.
The motivation of preaching. Paul talks about that in verses 12-15. The motivation of preaching isn’t selfish. It isn’t self-centered. In verse 12, Paul says that he’s not commending himself to them. He’s not trying to justify himself or build himself up to them. He’s not motivated by doing eye-service or being a people-pleaser as Ephesians 6 talks about. He’s not motivated by what his preaching looks like to other people. In verse 13, he says that he’s willing to look like a crazy person for the sake of what God’s called him to do. And how crazy does what we do look? What does the world say that it takes to attract an audience? You have to be cutting edge. You have to be entertaining. TV shows keep your attention by changing the scene at least every three seconds. You have to keep things moving. How does God say to do it? He says, “explain my Word to people.” Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:2-4, “Preach the Word—be instant in season, out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers. Having itching ears—and they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned unto fables.” No, the motivation of preaching isn’t to please people. If it was, we could always instantly build big crowds. We could always fill the house. Just tell a bunch of jokes and give a bunch of illustrations. Do it in 20 minutes and then we can go home with a smile on our face. How could I do that when there is a world out there that is lost and on its way to hell? How could I do that when I hold this Word in my hands that tells of the love of Christ. That tells of who He is and what He has done for you. That’s why Paul said what he did in verse 14. He said, “The love of Christ constrains us.” In other words, he is compelled by the love of Jesus to do something that seems crazy in the world’s eyes. It won’t work! You can’t build a church like that! But I’m not the one who is building this church, am I? Jesus Christ is building this church. And because Jesus is building this church, the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. That’s what constrains us. That’s what compels us. It is the love of Christ that is on display in the Gospel. That’s where Paul got to. He thought about what compelled him to look like a crazy man to the world. Then he broke out in a spontaneous proclamation of the Gospel in the second part of 14 and 15. As a matter of fact, he carries it on down through verse 19. He can’t help it. He’s got to preach. He is driven and compelled and constrained to preach the gospel. When I talk to you about preaching, I’m not commending myself to you. I’m giving you occasion to glory in this wonderful plan that God is allowing us to be part of. For some reason, God has called me to preach His Word. By His grace, I will remember the message, the audience and the motivation of preaching. And if that seems crazy to the people outside these doors, that’s okay. Why? Because it is for your cause. It is for your edification. It is so that you will be built up in the Gospel. It is so that you will be equipped to accomplish the Great Commission mission that God has called us to. “And He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again.” You’re not living for yourselves anymore. You’re living for Christ. Now go. Scatter and accomplish your mission.
