Preach The Word #1

So this morning, we're going to be starting into the final chapter of 2 Timothy. We've been in 2 Timothy, I don't know, over a year. We're starting the final fourth chapter. And this is, we're coming, this book is the last book that Timothy ever wrote. Or not Timothy, I'm sorry, Paul wrote. Paul wrote this letter as he sat in a Roman prison awaiting his execution for his ministry. And if you've ever been around people who are dying, the pleasantries and accoutrements and the things that we do in normal conversation and relationships to make things easy and comfortable and palatable, they fall aside. They fall away. Those whose death is imminent say what is in their hearts and on their minds. And that's what we have in this letter.

Sometimes, unfortunately, when we see those at the end of their life, we find them being bitter and angry and vile. But sometimes we find people being sweet and finishing their race and finishing their course. And that's what we find Paul doing as he finishes this letter. You can feel the intensity and the clearness and the boldness of his writing increasing as he gets toward the end. It's about to climax. He knows these are the last words I'm going to say. before I go to meet my Lord and receive my crown of righteousness. And so he's direct. He's to the point because time is short. The sermon title for this section, we're going to be studying verses 1 to 8 for the next couple of weeks. The title for this section is Preach the Word. The overarching theme of this section is serving God faithfully in the midst of trouble or trial. We could summarize Paul's words in this section as God's given you work to do.

And it will be very difficult, but you must faithfully serve him, even as I have. This is the message of these verses in a nutshell. This morning we're going to be focusing on verse 1 and part of verse 2, and we're going to be paying particular attention to the question. The text doesn't ask the question, but it presents the topic. The question we're going to be answering this morning is, what is preaching? What is preaching? My hope is that as we consider this question, we'll all learn to recognize true preaching and that we'll submit ourselves to it, especially where it's costly to us. This is the best protection that we can provide for our souls and the souls of those that we love and care for and are responsible for. Or we could put it another way. Listening to and submitting to false preaching is the most dangerous thing that we can do for our souls.

As I said, our text is 2 Timothy 4, verses 1 to 8. Would you please stand as we read the word of the Lord? This is the word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course. I have kept the faith. In the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all who have loved his appearing. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. I think the first time I realized what Paul was saying in this verse one was before I was in ministry, maybe I was being, no, it was before we were married. I was working with a guy who was a pastor and he'd never been trained and he'd never been ordained. But in the church tradition that he worked in, that was not uncommon. You sort of became a pastor and then you got training.

And so we were working one day and we were talking about, he was talking about preaching and some of the conflict that had arisen as a result of something he had said. And he wasn't sure what to do, what to say. He was feeling the pressure to turn down the conflict. And I just said, I don't remember why I'd been reading this, but I just read it. And I said, do you know what Paul said to Timothy about preaching? I said, read this. He said, I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who's to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word. I said, do you realize what Paul's doing here? Like, can you feel the weight of it? And the reason I said this to my friend was because he was worried about the pressures he was feeling from his congregation. Someone was upset. And I said, do you see what Paul did here? He called God as witness to your work.

and said, I'm charging you. And another way of saying it is, if you have something to concern yourself with, or to worry about, or to be afraid of, this is it. Not your people. This is it. I charge you in the presence of God and of Jesus Christ, who is to judge the living and the dead. Preach the word. And so he reminds him, very forcefully, remind is a bit of a an understatement. He charges him. He commands him to remember. You're going to give an account one day for your preaching, and you're going to give an account to the judge of heaven and earth. So give attention to what you say and be faithful because you will give an account for every word. Often in our confession of sin, I mention the sins of our Our flesh, the sins of our actions, the things we do are sinful. And sometimes I mention the sins of our minds. We think sinful things. But here he addresses the sins of what we say. We say sinful things. And Paul warns Timothy in the strongest words that he can, you better pay attention to the things that you say and you had better be faithful because your job is to speak, not what you want.

not what's comfortable, not even what's popular, which we'll come to when we discuss in season and out of season. You are to preach God's word. And when it's not popular or when it's costly or when it's difficult, you are to preach the word because your words are to be used in service of the kingdom of God. And you will be held to account, pastor, by how faithfully and how well you did your job. Now, to some of you, you might think, that's why I don't want to be a pastor. And what I'd say to those who feel that way is, that may well be a good indication that you shouldn't be a pastor, because the Bible tells us that not many of us should become teachers, knowing as such that those who are will incur a stricter judgment, that they'll be held to a higher standard. When men go into ministry, And they're trained. There's two passages that show up very regularly in that process. One is Ephesians 4, where he gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as teachers to the building up of the body to equip the saints to do the work of ministry. And so it's sort of that God's given some men to do this work. This is the other passage that shows up. And this passage almost always shows up at ordination.

when men are going to formally take on the work of the ministry, and they're warned. And I remember when I was being trained for ministry, it's like this passage loomed out on the horizon like a storm cloud that I knew was coming. And it's one of the things you just don't really want to square up to and face because it's quite terrifying if you're coming into this work and if you take the Word of God seriously. And so then comes the day of ordination. And you could probably bet this will be the text that will get preached from. And that's when all of the training and all of the preparation and all the testing comes to its climax, and the man's ordained. And when he's ordained, these become his marching orders. Preach the word. That's your job.

Paul writes these words as one who's about to die for doing this very thing. Preach the word. Give your life. And so men going into ministry anticipate this mantle coming on their shoulders. And it's quite a burden. And yet it's necessary that those who would speak to us, those who would dare to stand up and speak for God. You realize we just came from the passage right before this. All scripture is inspired by God and is profitable. And you say, look at the kindness of God. He gave us his word. He wrote down for us everything he's done, everything he's created, everything we need to know to be saved. And the question is, is that enough? Is that all we need? Would we be sufficient if all we had was the word and we read it? The answer is no, we wouldn't be.

Because right on the heels of saying all scriptures inspired by God and profitable for rebuf correction, for training in righteousness, so the man of God will be adequate, equipped for every good work, then he says, we need preaching of the word, not just reading of the word. We need men charged in the presence of God to stand up and teach us, but not just teach us, reprove us, rebuke us, exhort us. And I want you to see that The preaching of God's word is no small thing. I hope you feel it as you think of the greater judgment that preachers and teachers fall under. They have a great responsibility. And it's difficult work that they're supposed to do. We're not life coaches. When I look at life coaches, I think, your job is so stinking easy. It's so easy. Because you never have to tell people no. Or at least when you do, you tell them, there's a better way.

But we leave aside all of the destruction and the sins and any shame or guilt. You just don't have to do that anymore. Here's a better way to become who you want to be. But with preaching, it's not that way. I'm not a life coach. My job is not to come to your house and say, there's a better way to have a happier marriage. There's a better way to teach your kids. There's a better way to make more money. There's a better way for you to... That would be easy. Pastors would be a lot more popular if that's what they did, but they'd be far less useful, and our souls would be harmed by their abandonment of their duty. When pastors go AWOL, the sheep suffer. You suffer. And so God's given us his word, come directly from his mouth, and then he, of his own wisdom and his own...

decide what I'm going to do is I'm going to organize my church in such a way and I'm going to minister to my people. I'm going to apply my word to them through sinful men. And you think, where's the wisdom in that? Where's the wisdom in that? Well, one of the ways we find wisdom in that is that we think of pastors as being the most holy people. We should all try to be like the pastor. Everything he says, everything he does, that's the way to do it. And so in some circles, the pastor becomes this, like, the definition of holiness. But what about when he fails? What about when he sins? Then what? Swap him out for somebody else. That's what happens. Because we don't know what to do. Many, many, many churches don't know what to do with a pastor who's not perfect or who fails or who has to come and say, I'm sorry. I sinned against you. I'm sorry. I did something wrong.

I think pastors aren't supposed to do anything wrong. Because we feel as though if I have to listen to this man, he can't fail. And his wife can't fail. And his kids can't fail. Everything has to be just right. And so if the failure becomes apparent, we either ignore it or we get rid of it. And I think we do all of that because we think if he's supposed to speak for God, he has to do it the right way. The only way I could possibly learn from somebody is if I can't see their sins. If that were the case, we would not have, at the very least, Paul or Peter. Peter's sort of an interesting story, you know. He came after Jesus, and he followed him, and he says, I'll go with you even to death, you know, right before Jesus gets arrested. And Jesus just says, before the cock crows three times, you're going to be hiding in the bushes. And what happens? Peter lops off the guy's ear.

Jesus says, don't do that. If I wanted to fight a war, I could do it with a much better army than you. He heals the man's ear. He is taken away. Peter runs away scared. Then the little servant girl says, you're one of those Nazarites. You were with that Nazarene. No, I'm not. No, I'm with curses. No, I'm not. Then he goes out and he's grieved in sorrow, you know, guilty of his sins. Then Jesus is raised from the dead. Peter books it to the grave. Comes back. And he preaches at Pentecost. And the Holy Spirit's poured out as a result of Peter's sermon. Peter's beyond all of his sins. There's Peter, that rock that we're going to build the church on. There's Peter. Until the Gentiles and the Judaizers are together having a meal. And then what's Peter do? He starts going, I think I like those Jews over there. I'm one of you. And what's Paul do? Rebukes him to his face in public. What you're doing is wrong.

You guys understand that there are no perfect pastors. And that it's God's wisdom to give us men who are not perfect to preach to us. John Calvin says that God could have given us angels to preach to us. He could have given us sinless beings to communicate his word to us. But that it was his wisdom that he didn't. And he said, here's the reason. You need to be humbled. And the way that I will humble you is to put my word in sinful men so that you have to learn to submit to men who are not perfect. That's what Calvin, I'm paraphrasing, but that's what Calvin says about preachers and the pride of God's people. He says, you need to be humbled to listen to a man who is not your superior, but many times maybe your inferior. And you, if you want to feed in my pasture, you'll feed from his hand. Now that's humbling.

that we have to have our souls cared for, and we have to listen to preaching and submit to it from sinful men. And this is God's plan. Here's my word. Here are sinful men, and their charge is to preach the word. And if you feel like me, you feel like sort of a ping-pong ball. On the one hand, you have all this respect for pastors because of all the work and the pressure and the weight, and on the other hand, you kind of... think they're idiots for signing up for it. And on the other hand, you kind of despise them once you get to know them a little bit and you see that they have real sins. What do we make of all of it? That God's given us men to preach the word and that they're to do their work in the full knowledge that God is watching everything they do and that they'll give an account for every word that they say. Solomon was the wisest man that's ever lived. Also the wealthiest. And he wrote a book, Ecclesiastes.

And that's sort of his summary of his life. It's not a biography, but it's his understanding and conclusions after having lived a life. And one of the things he says in the book of Ecclesiastes is, I didn't deny myself anything I wanted. He had the money. He had the position. He had the ability to get anything he wanted. And he said, that's what I'm going to do. And then he comes to the end of his life, the end of his book, and he looks back and he thinks, well, what was it all about? What's the conclusion? What is to be said when it's all done? And he says this at the end of the book of Ecclesiastes, the conclusion, when all has been heard, is fear God and keep his commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.

And so the man who had access to everything we could ever want, who enjoyed every comfort we could imagine, at the end of his life says, fear God and keep his commandments, for God will bring every act to judgment. And so you see that this charge that's given to Timothy applies to pastors in a particular way, but it's not exclusive to them. It applies to you too. Well, this passage doesn't say to believers, God's watching everything you do, and you will give an account for it. It is nevertheless true that God does see everything you do and everything you say. And even if your work's not to preach the word, you will give an account before Jesus Christ, who is to judge the living and the dead for everything. And so Solomon's words are life to us. Fear God and keep his commandments, for God will bring every act to judgment. Everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.

So live your life remembering that God's watching you and that you're going to stand before him someday and any of your excuses or any of your thoughts, any of the lies you've believed or comforted yourself with aren't going to pass his bar. You say, well, I don't want to feel that way. I don't want to think that way. I don't want to live that way. And I say, that's not your choice because God made you. And Solomon says that it applies to every person, this judgment. Jonah didn't want that. He wanted to run and he wanted to hide. And his prayer in the belly of the fish at the bottom of the sea, where it was, there's nowhere I can go where you don't see me. And so it's inescapable. And so instead of spending any time or energy running from it, we ought to spend our time and energy preparing for it. That's the message that Paul's getting across as he charges Timothy with his work, which is to preach the word. Do it knowing that God's going to see you and you're going to give an account for it everywhere, every.

word. So what is preaching? What is it? It's not a life coach. What is preaching? It's God's chosen method to fulfill the great commission. It's how we get saved, okay? And not only that, we'll talk about that, and then we'll see it's not only how we get saved, it's how we grow. In Romans 10, Paul says, the word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart. That is the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. For the scripture says whoever believes in him will not be disappointed. For there is no distinction between Jew or Greek. For the same Lord is Lord of all.

abounding in riches for all who call on him. For whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved. And at that point, we're going, this is good news. And then Paul asks a series of questions. How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in him? He's working backwards. How will they call on him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in him in whom they've not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they're sent? Just as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things. However, they did not all heed the good news, for Isaiah says, you remember it says, in season and out of season in our passage. And here Paul's pointing at that and saying, it's not always easy work. However, they did not all heed the good news, for Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our report? Who's listened to our preaching? Who's believed us? Who's said yes?

So faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. But I say, surely they've never heard, have they? Speaking in reference to the Jews. Surely they've never heard. They believe if they heard. Indeed, they have heard. Their voice, the voice of the preachers, has gone out into all the earth and their words to the ends of the world. And so preaching is how God purposes to save his people. That's it. And you realize that's a bit provocative in our day and age to say that preaching has such preeminence in the salvation of our souls. I don't get to sit and listen to as many sermons in person as you do, because I'm up here every week. But sometimes I get to listen to sermons. And I often find myself, when I listen to sermons, I was at a funeral yesterday, and I listened to a sermon, and it was good. And I just thought, this is strange. He actually preached from the last few verses of my text.

about finishing the race and fighting the good fight and that. And I thought, this is just a strange thing. This is an acquired taste, to sit and listen to somebody talk for 45 minutes or an hour or however long. That's just weird in our day. And maybe in times gone by, that would have been popular. We only do that sort of thing today with entertainment. And even then, we listen to it on 1.5 speed or 2 speed, because we're like... We just got to get it in, you know? We have to like chalk all the entertainment we can into the time we've got to waste on it. You understood what I said. He caught it. All the time we have to waste on it. That's funny. Preaching in real time. You just have to sit there and listen until I decide I'm done. And you have to trust what I say generally. You say, I don't have to trust what you say. And I say, yeah, you do.

Why would Paul charge Timothy if you weren't supposed to actually listen and actually believe? You're not supposed to sit there as a congregant and be like, well, I'll go home and think about it. I mean, be a Berean. Go home and test the Scripture. Search it and say, if I say something that you're like, whoa, yes, go home. See if what I said was in line with Scripture or not. Absolutely. But you have to listen. I don't know, is it strange for me to say I expect you to listen to me and believe what I tell you? I do. Yeah, the Bereans accepted. Once they went, they're like, oh, we found out these things were true, and they were filled with joy. That's what makes preaching a strange thing. Here I am, supposed to stand up with the responsibility of God watching, and I'm supposed to tell you the way of salvation. And I'm going to be held to account for every word I say, and you're going to be held to account for whether you listened or not. I mean, seriously, you didn't come here not to listen, did you? Well, I think too often we do come and we don't intend to listen.

And we don't pay attention. We think, oh yeah, I got the footnotes of it. I often ask my kids at lunch after a service, what do you remember from the sermon? And they're just kids. Do I expect them to remember everything? They remember the stories. They remember the funny parts, especially the younger kids, and that's fine. But what am I asking them for? Because I want to see how good of a communicator I am. Maybe. I mean, if no one's paying attention, then it's possible that I should do a better job. No, I'm trying to teach them that they're supposed to listen to preaching. They're supposed to think about what gets said. They're not supposed to go, okay, I came, and we sat through it, and it's almost noon, so lunch is coming. Like, I'm trying to put that out of their head and say something's going on here. Okay? The pulpit. It's like a portal into the mind of God. Do you understand?

That's pushing hard. Calvin would say that. Calvin called the pulpit the throne of God. And he said, you come and you sit at the throne and you listen to God speak. And he would go so far, and I didn't find the quote, I looked for it. But somewhere Calvin says, preaching is the word of God. He doesn't distinguish. I mean, oh, it's the exposition of the word of God. No, he just says, it is the word of God. That's how serious, that's how big of a burden the preachers have on them, is that they are the mouthpiece of God and they're supposed to speak for him.

And the people ought to receive it as words from God. Do you know the penalty in the Old Testament for a prophet who prophesied falsely? What was it? Death. Now, why would there be such a high bar for a prophet? Because of everything I've just said to you about speaking for God. If a man were to stand up and say, I'm speaking for God, and to tell you lies, he had committed a capital offense. He had done such harm. that he was worthy of death. So does preaching matter? And are we supposed to listen to it and pay attention? Yes, because it's how God purposes to teach us the way of salvation. Preaching is not meant to entertain you, and it's not meant to make you feel good. It's not meant to tell you you're okay or to reassure you that God loves you just how you are.

Preaching is not meant to make you feel superior to others or even to make you take pity on others. Preaching is not meant to make you rich or healthy or popular or poor and destitute or sick or a martyr. Those aren't the ends of preaching. That's not why we come. That's not why I speak. The purpose of preaching is to show you the way of salvation. and to compel you to give up your sins and come to Jesus Christ. I remember when I was first getting into the ministry, I often presented as though I was timid, which is very unbecoming of a big guy. And that's all that was told to me is they said, Dave, you're big and you're tall and you're loud. And if you be anything other than that, your people won't know what to make of you. God's given you this size.

and this strength and this voice and whatever, use it. And so I have to be very aware of how much pressure because of how big and how pushy I can come across. Vanessa often tells me, she's like, people are scared of you. And I know that somewhere in my head. I don't think they should be, but they are. At least I hope until they get to know me some. And she says, you have to be careful how hard you push on people because what seems like a little, you know, to them, it's like, and yet. A pastor's job is to put pressure on you. Do you realize that? It's my job. It's your elder's job by extension to put pressure on you. You should feel them looking over your shoulder from time to time. The thought, what will Dave think? What will Dan say if I do this? Oh yeah, you should think it. Every kid thinks that about their dad, don't they? Or sometimes their mother. What will they say? What will they do? What will happen to me if they find out?

That is a good, good thought. And you ought to have those thoughts about the men who keep watch over your souls. I'm not going to do that because I don't want to have to tell them. That's God's kindness to you that you would have that thought. That's some indication that you realize that God is at work in his church through the leadership. Now, I can say this here, and everyone's like, yes. And I realized that I was thinking about this. If I went and preached this sermon in a different church, What would happen? I was just wondering, you know, what would happen? I wonder what would happen to me. Would they throw eggs at me? Would they turn off my mic? Would the security team come escort? I don't know what would happen. Would everyone get up and leave? It would be too bad. The pastor's job through the preaching of the word is to impress upon us our need of salvation and to compel us to put enough pressure or fear into our hearts to bring us to where we will relinquish our grip on our sins and this world.

And so whatever the topic is that's being preached on, the subtext, the question underneath it, the background is, do you actually believe that God said this, and will you submit yourself to it? Will you bend your will to the will of God or not? Leave aside the pretense and all of the excuses and all of the wheedling and cajoling about how, yes, yes, no, that's good, and yeah, I want that, but over here, you're not going to do it. What is that except the son who says yes but does no? Let your yes be yes and your no be no. As you listen to the preaching of God's word, you should be thinking, am I going to do what is being said? Do I believe God said it? Does it bear on me? What should I change? What sins am I struggling with in this area that will lead me to hell if I don't repent of them? These are the thoughts that you should have as you listen to a sermon, no matter what the topic is.

Now you realize you never think those thoughts if I was a life coach, if I never cut across the grain of your sensibilities. You would never have those thoughts. And a lot of preaching today has succumbed to that pressure. And it does us damage. It harms our souls. Will you confess your faith and live like a Christian at the point at which you're receiving God's word? That's the question. It's always the question. It's what I'm driving at. It's what I'm trying for. in my preaching and in my life, and I don't always make good contact, whether it's in my preaching or if it's in my life, but I do try. You ought to as well. And so preaching is how we come to faith. Preaching is also how we grow in holiness. In the Great Commission, Jesus sent the disciples out, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, into all the nations, baptizing them and teaching in the name of the Father and Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe.

all that I have commanded you. Go out and preach my word, my good news, my truth to the ends of the world and teach them every bit of it, every bit of it, all of it. It's all my word. Go teach them all of it. And lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age. And so preaching is how we come to faith and preaching is how we grow in faith. It's how we grow in holiness. There are some things in your Christian life, it'll be like you have training wheels on for a time. And eventually you'll set aside the training wheels and you'll be able to ride the two-wheeler. And you may even learn to stand up and ride wheelies. But there are some things that are not training wheels that you will need the rest of your life. And preaching is at the top of that list. You'll never outgrow your need of being preached to. Never. And so I have job security because you have needs. I think many times preaching gets put in with the other means of grace.

Some of you may be familiar with that term. Some of you may not, and that's fine. All means of grace are is a list of ways that God communicates with us, that we interact with God, that we communicate back and forth, that we grow. And so preaching is one of them. Prayer is another. Bible reading. Fellowship. These are means of grace. This is where we communicate with God. We serve God. We grow. But preaching is at the very top of that list. It is number one. Some people would say that the sacraments are means of grace. And I'd say, yes, they're means of grace with a physical action associated with them. You actually eat during the Lord's Supper. You actually get wet in baptism. And so they're means of grace. But more important than even the sacraments is preaching. It is the most important thing to your soul. The most important. And that's why preaching...

The sermon is the high point of our worship service and not the Lord's table. And you'd go into some Reformed circles and it would be the other way around. The Lord's table would be the climax. It would be the thing that was preeminent. It would be the thing that everyone looked forward to and says, now we have reached our cruising altitude. We have come to our full height when we partake of the Lord's Supper. And I say, no, no. The word of God preached to us is what we need. How else can you process Paul saying things to the Corinthians like, I'm glad I didn't baptize any of you. I'm not saying it to denigrate the sacraments or to make you think that they're unimportant. They are important. If you're a believer, you must be baptized. And if you're a Christian, you must take the Lord's Supper. But you must, over and above that, you must have preaching. You must have it. We need reminding. But more than reminding.

We'll come to this next week, in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, and exhort, and all that stuff. That's next week's sermon, okay? We need pressure put on us. And the most regular pressure that you should feel is during the sermon. Have you ever felt like, I think the preacher's talking to me. I think he wrote that sermon just for me. Would it surprise you to say that I think about you guys while I preach, and I preach things in our church that if I was somewhere else, I would probably say something different. because I do know you, and I do think about you, and I do preach to you. I got a text after last week's sermon. I think I was one of the intended targets of your sermon. Thank you. That's basically the text. And I've told a couple of other people, and they said, yeah, I felt the same way. And to me as a pastor, I don't go, oh, no, I wasn't tired. I think, honestly, I think, good. I'm glad you were listening and thinking about that I might actually be talking to you. We do need pressure exerted against us.

in the preaching of the word. And I can tell you as a pastor, the reason that Paul tells Timothy, calls God's presence, brings it to the forefront is because of the incredible pressure that pastors feel not to exert pressure. And we might want to think, well, it would be better to be able to grow in holiness without having to have pressure put on us. But the reality is we don't grow like that. Very, very few people. are capable of learning something and putting it into practice without something else giving them a deadline, giving them a test, tying something to their proficiency at it. Many people confuse learning about something with putting it into practice and think, well, if I learn about something, I have accomplished the goal. No, you haven't. No, you haven't. I don't care if my kids can tell me how to ride a bike.

Well, you have to do this, and there's all these physics going on with the balance and the turning and all these forces. Someone could be so sophisticated in talking about learning how to ride a bike that you wouldn't even know they were talking about learning how to ride a bike, but it doesn't mean they know how to do it. They may well have done all that learning because they're afraid of riding bikes. And so they need someone to say, Honey, we're taking the training wheels off, and you're going to learn to ride a bike. I don't want to, Daddy. I fell down and skinned my elbow. That's okay. It does happen, and I'm sorry.

We're not out to have every knee and elbow skinned in our house, but you'll heal. You've got to learn to ride a bike, honey. Our kids need pressure, don't they? Do you parents, do you not put pressure on your kids? Do you not have expectations for them? In our society, that's like, no, no, no, you can't do that. You can't expect your kids to. Yes, you should. You should have expectations for your children. Reasonable. They take into account their age and their ability, for sure. And you need people around you to help you figure that out. But the principle stands, you should expect things of your children. And they should know you expect things of them. And if they've displeased you, they should know that too. You don't know anything about that, do you, Lucas? Lucas is back there just... I have felt pressure. Do you know how Lucas learned to catch a baseball? Some of you haven't been here. I'm going to tell the... I'm telling the story.

The Georges used to like to play baseball. This is your elder, okay? This is Dan George. We love him, and this is why. This is why you should love him and his wife, okay? Dan likes baseball. His boys play baseball. Lucas didn't like to catch the ball. I'm right. If I remember, he'd turn his head away. He didn't catch the ball. That, the graciousness expired in Dan George. And one summer day, he took his son, and how old were you? Ten? No. No, you were older. I think he may have been eight or ten, something like that. It's since our church started. And he took his son outside, and he duct-taped him to the basketball pole and put a glove on his hand and threw baseballs at him. Right? Yeah. So they just threw the ball at him. The brothers threw the ball at him. And Wendy, you would think a mother would just never stand for that. You know what Wendy did?

She came outside and sprayed bug spray on him, if I remember correctly, and went back in the house so that he could catch the ball and not get stung by, you know, bit by mosquitoes. And that's how Lucas learned to catch a ball. Now I tell you, is that pressure? That is pressure. Now I ask you, did Lucas learn to catch a baseball? And that's what it took. Lucas would say, I wouldn't have taken that. And I say, well, it is what it took. That's pressure. That's a good father. That's a good elder. They weren't blazing the ball in his face and trying to hurt him. But he thought, you're going to learn this. You have to learn this. I want you to learn this. And he exerted great force in teaching his son to catch a ball. That's what preaching should be like. That's what you should expect. That's what you should feel. And I'll tell you, there's a responsibility on me to preach in such a way that you can feel that pressure. But there's a responsibility on you too. If you harden your hearts,

And if you don't pay attention, and if throughout the week you give yourself to sin and you don't pray and you don't read your Bible, you'll come in here hard-hearted and dull, and you will not feel the pressure that you should feel. And so you have a responsibility in this pressure as well as me. And together, through God's kindness and his mercy and his patience dealing with us, we might grow and produce good fruit. And so we need faithful preaching. done in the fear of God. We need faithful listening, done in the fear of God. Not every word that I say will be perfect. I wonder if the people who listened to the perfect sermons that were preached and recorded for us in Scripture knew they were listening to a perfect sermon or not. You will not hear a perfect sermon, and yet you will hear the truth. As much as I'm able, you'll hear the truth. Submit yourselves to it. Not to me, just me.

You want to say something, Dan? No. It's much funnier the way I told it. What was the story? The qualification. Yeah. But then all that expired. That's what I meant when I said the grace expired. He tried to teach them other ways. We need faithful preaching. Not perfect preaching. You won't get that. Don't be so proud as to think you deserve that. God's decided you don't need perfect angels to preach to you for you to be saved and for you to grow in godliness. And yet you need to listen to it, prioritize it, and submit to it by putting it into practice in your life. There's so much that passes for preaching these days. You ought to be discerning about whether or not what you're listening to is the truth. And if it's not, don't say, oh, well, they say some helpful things. Throw it away. It's not hard to say the easy true things. Look for someone who says the hard true things. Listen to them.

But too often we settle for, well, they've got some helpful things to say. You should expect more of those who endeavor to speak for God. Not perfection, but more than some helpful things. If you think that I've said something wrong, you should. I would go as far as to say you're under obligation to come tell me that I've said something wrong. Shepherd the people, not into green pastures, but into the briar bushes. But if your quibble or your gripe or your frustration is with the pressure that you feel or the tone in which you heard it, it's likely that your problem isn't actually with what I said and that it was unclear. Your problem is probably with the fact that what I said was too clear and you wanted the pressure put off of you. And so you come to me and say, I don't think you should say it like that.

That's always the middle ground that people take is they say, well, I agree with what you said, but I don't agree with the way you said it. And I wonder what you would have thought of Jesus preaching or Paul's preaching. How offended we would have been. If you think that I say something wrong, untrue, dangerous, come to me and tell me. And there have been times that that's happened. And as a result, I've come to the church the next week and said, I said something last week I shouldn't have said. And I'm sorry. And that's happened on more than one occasion. But there are other times when people have come to me and I've said to them, I don't think your problem is with what I said. I think your problem is actually with what God said. And I'm just the stand-in that you're diverting your frustration to. And if that's the case, then I cannot apologize. I can tell you that you have to submit yourself to what God has said, at the point at which it's costly, for the sake of your soul.

I haven't prepared next week's sermon yet, but I could preach it, but I've got to be done. So we'll wait for next week. Let's pray.