Preach The Word #2

Those lights went out during the prayer. I don't know what happened, but I think we should just go without them. Does that work? You guys look entirely different without spotlights shining in my eyes. So this morning, we're going to be picking up our study in 2 Timothy chapter 4, verses 1 to 8. Last week, we started this study. We saw how Paul charged Timothy to preach the word in the presence of God, knowing that he was going to give an account for how he preached the word. which is an intimidating thing. As I was preaching last week and thinking, preparing, I just thought, man, being a pastor is... And I also talked about your responsibility. It's one thing to say to the pastor how he's to preach, and it's another thing to say to the people how they're to receive it. And so that's what we studied last week, the question of what was preaching. What is preaching? That is what Timothy was supposed to do, preach the word.

And so this week we're going to be moving on from the question of what is preaching to the question of how is it to be done. We can say that's preaching. He's supposed to do this thing. He's supposed to preach. But Paul gives us more than simply the directive of what to do. He does then tell us how it's to be done. How should a pastor preach is our question this week. And my hope is that God will help us to discern the true characteristics of preaching and help us to receive it by faith and submit ourselves to it in every area of our lives.

Our passage again is 2 Timothy 4, verses 1 to 8. I invite you to 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 with 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. So last week we got through verse 1 and just the very beginning of verse 2, preach the word. And so when we come to the rest of verses 2, we see how preaching is to be done. And the first thing that Paul tells Timothy is that he's to be ready in season and out of season. If you were to look at this in a different translation, it would say be instant. And I think that that may give us a better picture of what he means by this. Some of you guys like coffee. Some of you who know me know that I don't. But those of you who do like coffee probably despise instant coffee. Why do you, you know, what's, you know, what's a good cup of coffee probably takes 20 minutes of your time to drink, to make.

You have to grind it, and you have to press it, and you have to get the right kind of water to the right temperature, and then you do all this work, okay? That's the opposite of being ready, being instant, okay? When you think of instant coffee, what do you do? You put a cup of water in the microwave, and then you pour a packet of powdered something, coffee in there, and you stir it up, and you have coffee. And it takes 30 seconds, minus the time in the microwave, right? It's instant. It's right now. I have it right now. I don't have to make a plan about it. I don't have to think about it. I don't have to prepare for it. I just have it. And so when Paul tells Timothy, be ready, be instant, that's the sort of thing he's talking about. You as a pastor, as a minister of the word, need to be ready at every occasion to preach the word right now. I was talking with my boys, I think yesterday, some of them, and they were talking about preaching and how in preparation I was feeling them, the unspoken question of like the time it takes to prepare a sermon.

And I was telling them, I said, you know, historically, pastors preached a lot more than they do now, a lot more times a week. They would preach at least twice on Sunday, different sermons, not like two of the same service, but a morning sermon and an evening sermon, and they would be completely different. Sometimes they'd work sequentially through the same book. Sometimes they'd be preaching in two different books at the same time. So they had to prepare two sermons. And that was just on Sunday. Throughout the week, they might preach three more sermons that week. So it wouldn't be uncommon for a pastor to preach anywhere from four up to even seven sermons a week, and that was normal. And so you understand if a pastor had to preach that much, what it would mean for him to be instant. And you think of what preachings become today and how long it takes to prepare a sermon. Maybe you don't know, but the pastors I've asked or been a part of this discussion, they say, well, how long does it take you to prepare a sermon? How much of your time is devoted to study and these sorts of things? And I think that it...

the context is always to make the guys feel bad who don't spend like all of their time preparing sermons. It just seems ungodly. It's like, shouldn't you spend 35 to 40 hours a week preparing your sermon and writing it and memorizing it and going over it and over it and perfecting your illustrations and all of this stuff? And so the men who come back in and they're like, I'm bivocational and I, you know, it might get like eight hours. They're like, well, you poor thing, you know, you, You have other work to do. But I'm not convinced you poor thing. What does it mean to be instant or to be ready except that a pastor should be ready to apply the word of God wherever and whenever he is? Which is not to say that preparation for sermons is not important or that pastors shouldn't give themselves to that work. And it's true that different men take different amounts of time to prepare. But you think if a pastor had to preach,

five sermons a week, how much time could he spend preparing? Presuming he had a wife and children. Five hours? Maybe? Maybe? But I suspect many times it was less than that. I suspect that their preaching was the fruit, not of their preparations to preach, but that it was the fruit of their labor in the word and with their people. And that when they stood up to preach, They relied on the Holy Spirit and the preparations and their own knowledge of their people and of the Word of God to make application based on the text they were preaching on. They were instant. In a moment, they were ready. I think the thing that is most terrifying to new pastors is this looming question of whether they will ever get called upon Sunday morning and said, we need you to preach today in 20 minutes. Have you elders ever felt that pressure?

Like, what if Dave gets sick and can't come and we can't call somebody? What are we going to do? Well, what's going to happen is one of you is going to stand up here and preach. That's what I think should happen. And poor Timothy, I don't see him. I don't know where, there you are. He's probably the one that sweats the most bullets because he's in pastor's college and he figures, well, that call is going to come to me. And if he's honest, he probably wonders if I'm going to do it to him even when I'm not sick. Is this going to be the week he just walks up to me and says, you're on?

And yet Paul says, preach the word. Be ready. Be ready. I had a black friend when I was in pastor's college. He was a pastor in the black church. And we have different cultures and different things. And it was not uncommon when he would go visit at another church, you were considered a fool if you didn't come with a sermon prepared. Because if they found out you were a pastor, the very least they would have you do was come sit up on stage. They didn't have to know you. They just had to know you were a pastor and you would come and you would sit up in one of the chairs up on stage and it would not be uncommon for them to say, the Lord has sent you to us, bring the word. That's a different culture than what we have. That's a very different set of expectations. But they did understand this idea of being ready, that pastors needed to be ready in whatever context they found themselves in. You need to be ready to preach. And Paul describes where they need to be ready.

both in season and out of season. And in the verses that follow that we'll study next week, verses 3 and 4, he describes what out of season looks like. He says, Now that's what we'll focus on next week, those verses and what's going on there. But that is Paul's description, in a nutshell, of what it means to preach out of season. Have you ever talked to somebody that didn't want to listen to you? Has your spouse ever been disinterested in what you have to say? Or your children, you're talking to them and they're going, uh-huh, yeah, okay, uh-huh. Your words are out of season. What are the temptations you face when your words are out of season? I think one of two things. You will either intensify, you will get angry, you'll get more loud, you'll get more severe in your words to gain their attention or to make them scared.

or you'll just shut up. They're not listening. I'm wasting my time and my energy. I don't have anything more to say. Go do it, figure it, whatever. Neither one of those are acceptable responses simply because what a pastor is saying or a parent is saying is out of season. Just because people don't listen, aren't interested, or even are opposed to what you're saying, this is no reason for a pastor not to preach the word. Tying this idea together with our sermon from last week, we could say, you pastor will be held accountable for the things you say to the people who don't listen to you. If they don't listen, you will still be held accountable to whether you were faithful to preach to them. And I think in our day, many pastors, I at least feel this temptation myself, is that we want to feel sorry for ourselves and go, well, the people don't listen. They punish me and they make it difficult for me if I tell the truth. I praise God that that's not the case in our church.

At least I don't feel as though it is. Though I'm sure some of you get upset with me from time to time. I was talking with Timothy this last week and he informed me that he and his wife didn't like my sermon last week. It's a bit of an overstatement. But that's what Timothy told me about Paige. He was half teasing her. But I said some things. She was like, I don't like that. And it wasn't like I don't agree with that and I think that's wrong and he shouldn't have said that. It was, that's intense and I don't know that I like feeling the tension that he said we have to live in.

And I don't think that Timothy and Paige are unique in feeling from time to time like, why'd you have to say that? And so I'm aware, though I think to a lesser extent, I'm aware of what it is to preach when things are out of season. There are times when I've talked with people in our congregation, and I know that what I'm going to say is not going to be received well. I don't anticipate that they're going to say, oh, thank you, but rather, how dare you? And this is the way. with God's people. And ministers can't use the receptivity of the people as an excuse. In Ezekiel chapter 3, as Ezekiel's being called into ministry, he's told that he's going to go into ministry, and he's told what it's going to be like and what the people he's going to minister to will be like. And it's not a glowing commendation of the people.

Here's what it says in Ezekiel 3. It says, Then he, the Lord, said to me, Son of man, eat what you find. Eat this scroll and go and speak to the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth and he fed me the scroll. He said to me, Son of man, feed your stomach and fill your body with this scroll which I am giving to you. Translating that simply, get my word into you and digest it. Get it into you. Then I ate it and it was sweet as honey in my mouth. And so you have Ezekiel loving what God said. Then he said to me, son of man, go to the house of Israel and speak with my words to them. For you are not being sent to a people of unintelligible speech or difficult language, but to the house of Israel, nor to many peoples of unintelligible speech or difficult language whose words you cannot understand. And so he's saying, these are my people. They should understand and appreciate my word because they're my people.

You're not going to go speak to them and have them go, huh? You're going to go speak to them and they're going to have knowledge of what I've said. They're not going to misunderstand what you're saying. They're going to know what you're talking about. But I have sent you to them, carrying on, but I have sent you to them who should listen to you. Yet the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you since they are not willing to listen to me. Surely the whole house of Israel is stubborn and obstinate. Behold, I have made your face as hard as their faces and your forehead as hard as their foreheads. Like Emory, harder than Flint, I have made your forehead. Do not be afraid of them or be dismayed by them, though they are a rebellious house. Moreover, he said to me, son of man, take into your heart all my words, which I will speak to you and listen closely.

Go to the exiles, to the sons of your people and speak to them and tell them whether they listen or not, declares the Lord. Now that's a tough post. That is a tough job. They're stubborn. They're hard-headed. They're obstinate. And the Lord's answer is, I'm going to make you more stubborn and more obstinate and more hard-headed than them. So that when there comes conflict between the two of you, you'll be more difficult than they are. That's how you're to be with my word to them. You're to prevail against them, whether they listen or not. Go, preach. They should listen, but they won't. And you're to speak my words to them, even if they don't. That is what it means to be ready in season, or more particularly, out of season. And we might look at the people of Israel at that time and think, why were they that way? But in the next verses in our passage in Timothy, Paul tells us the time will come when the people

will be just like the house of Israel that Ezekiel went to. They won't tolerate or put up with the truth anymore. And when they don't, says Paul, you are to preach to them and you are to tell them the truth. This is what it means to be a pastor, a minister, a preacher out of season. I think we can all look around and we could make a judgment of times maybe in history, or in our society where we could say, this is when the word was in season. The people hungered and thirsted for it. They wanted the truth, and they received it by faith and with joy, and they sought to obey it. Do we live in such a time? I think we would all say, no. And I don't think you have to be a pastor or have excess discernment to figure that out. I think you can look around at our society and look around at what the Bible says, and you can go, this people does not.

It's not in season. The word is not popular with them. And too often, I think churches and pastors' response to that dilemma or that difficulty has been to try to make the word more palatable, to take something that's in season and make it, or take something that's out of season and make it in season, make it more acceptable or agreeable so that the people won't spit it out of their mouths. And what I would say simply to all of that effort is that it's not necessary or appropriate. God's word is to be proclaimed, not muzzled. And if the people don't listen to it, won't listen to it, spit it out of their mouths, then woe to them. The destruction will be great for them, having heard the truth and rejected it. And Ezekiel, this same man who was told to go to this obstinate people, he was given these marching orders chapters later. Go to them and warn them.

Like a watchman, warn them of what's coming. If you go and you warn them and they don't listen to what you say, then their blood's on their own heads. But if you see danger coming and you don't tell them, then their blood will be on your hands. And so the destruction or the harm that those who reject the word incur for themselves is their fault, not the pastor's fault, as long as he told them the truth. As long as he was willing to preach out of season the truths that were necessary in their situation. I've thought about the next couple of verses and what preaching them would be like in a different context. For the time will come where they will not endure sound doctrine. I thought, man, if I could go to some big conference and preach those words to those people, it would be terrifying. Because I would be constrained to say to the church at large, this is you.

And I would show all of the ways in which the church at large has hated and become ashamed of God's word. And if I could speak to the pastors, I would tell them that it's their fault that the sheep have gone astray. Because they refused to preach when there was a cost. And they thought, better for me to have peace in my day. And the man after me can come and clean up what needs cleaning up. But if I were preaching to the people, I wouldn't say it's all your pastor's fault. I would say, you have your heart's desire. You've wanted men to lie to you. That's what you've wanted. And you've gotten your desire. And they shouldn't have lied to you. They shouldn't have gone along. They shouldn't have traded a comfortable life or popularity for your souls. They shouldn't have done it. But you shouldn't have put the proposition to them in the first place. There is an abiding reality that many people don't like the truth.

They hate it and they despise it and they do everything they can to cover it up and bury it and get rid of it and tear it down. In John 3.19, just a few verses after John 3.16, right? It says, this is the judgment that the light, referring to Jesus, that the light has come into the world and that men loved the darkness rather than the light for their deeds were evil. And I'm convinced that what has to be said to you and to me as a receiver and a recipient of God's word is that if we are out of season, it's our own fault. If we hear the word and we say, huh? No? Then we've become the architects of our own destruction. Our pastors ought not to put effort into making the gospel attractive or acceptable. And we oughtn't to put pressure on them to do the thing, to do the work. So what are you? Or rather, Where does the word of God stand with you in your heart? Is it in season or is it out of season? We can talk corporately and say, oh, well, the church in our society, the word's out of season. We could come into the church and say, big picture, the word is out of season in the church generally. But we can come to an individual and say, with you, is it in season or is it out of season? Do you want to hear? Do you want to be taught? Do you want to be disciplined?

Have you submitted to it when it's come to you in the past? Too often, I think, we've been taught in our society that our own account of things, our own opinion of things, is way, way, way too important. What I mean is, I don't know that I said that the right way. What I mean is our society has taught us that our opinion of things is the measuring stick for whether we have to listen or believe or obey. If we don't agree, we don't have to do it. And so someone can come to us and say, you should do this. And you go, yeah, I don't think I should.

I don't agree. And when those situations come up for me in pastoral ministry, I'm comforted by the words that Ezekiel's given, which are that if you warned them, you've done what you can. It's to them now to whether they'll listen. And if they won't listen, then their destruction will be the result, their own consequence. It'll be their fault. So is the word in season with you? Is it out of season? Is it possible for it to be in season with an individual or with a church when it's out of season in society? The answer is yes. In fact, I would argue that it's always in season with some people because God maintains a group. He maintains people. He maintains a witness. Whatever troubles and whatever difficulties, whatever sufferings or persecutions that come, he will maintain a remnant, a witness. There will be those who hear his voice and say, that is the truth. In John 10, Jesus said, you do not believe because you are not of my sheep. My sheep hear my voice.

And I know them, and they know me. And I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. And again, in Elijah's day, where Elijah's hiding in the cave, scared of death, the Lord comes to him and he says, I alone, I'm the only one left. And what's the angel say to him? No, you're not. No, you're not. I've kept 7,000 who've not bowed the knee to Baal. Now, they're not hiding here in a cave with you, but they're faithful ones. And so God preserves a remnant where his word is in season, even if it's out of season with the rest. And so we ought to strive to ensure that the word is in season with us and not succumb to the pressure from outside. What's that look like? Well, it looks like if one of the elders or small group leaders or deacons comes to you and says, hey, I saw you doing blank or you wrote this thing online or whatever. And they say, I don't think you should do that.

Did you listen to them or did you blow them off? And you think, well, but they're not always right. And I say, I know, I know. I was never making the case that they're always right. In fact, they know they're wrong even as they're talking to you. Do you listen to them? Do you give heed to what they say? Or do you just go, well, that's interesting. I'll think about that. If an older woman comes to a younger mother and says, hey, you need to pay attention to this. Do you listen? Or do you say, no, no, no, you can't tell me how to do that.

And I realize when I'm using these examples that I'm getting into really tough places because we're all like, you can't tell me what to do. And I'm like, well, but we do need to be told what to do, actually. Not every little thing. But the important things, like you're facing in the right direction, like you need to go west to get where you're going. Like if you're going east, somebody needs to say, you got to turn around, go that way. We don't have to tell you the route exactly, though sometimes that is necessary and helpful. But we do have to be told, you need to turn around.

You're going the wrong direction. You're not headed where you think you are. And so pastors are to preach the word, whether the people are willing to listen or not, and here's how they're supposed to do it. Reprove, rebuke, and exhort. These are the things, reproof, rebukes, and exhortation, that tend most toward the salvation of our souls. They're the things that are the least comfortable, the least enjoyable. And yet these are the things that possess the most power or help or are the best resources or tools we have to actually grow in godliness. You know, with athletes, they understand this, that their best coaches were the ones who at some point, they smelled their breath because their coach was right here. And they remember it. They remember the smell of their breath. They remember what was said. They remember what their failures were. There was a memory created.

Because of the correction that was given. The coaches that came to you and said, we know you tried your hardest and we know you did your best, never produce good athletes because they never correct the problems. Can a coach fail in the way that he is aggressive with his players? Yes. But he can also fail by never correcting them and by trying to be their friends. We could say the same thing about parents. We could say the same thing about musicians or businessmen. No one's ever been successful in business by refusing to say no. The successful men that you would look up to and say, those guys have built a successful business, they built it on two little letters, no. And then the words that followed, do it again, do it better, there's the door, reproof, rebuke, and exhortation. But the reason these things are left undone so often is because they hurt. They're not enjoyable things. They're difficult.

Hebrews 12 tells us that all discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful. And it's like, if there was ever a direct word from God, and you're like, I think that's true. This is it. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful. It is not enjoyable to be disciplined. When you discipline children, what do they do? They cry. Why do they cry? Because it hurts. You understand. If you discipline your child and they don't cry, You didn't discipline your child. Unless you've got one of those special children who is stubborn and unwilling to cry. And then we can talk about that. But most of the time, with the vast majority of children, if you spank them, they should cry because it hurts. And if you spank them and they go, we done? Like, you missed it. It didn't work. They didn't get the message. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful but sorrowful.

Yet to those who've been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. So discipline is not enjoyable because it involves rebuke and reproof and exhortation. It involves pressure, and it is the only way that we will grow, actually. If you had a father or maybe a mother or a coach that you look back on your life and you say, I grew, I got better under their tutelage. Wasn't it because they pushed you and made you uncomfortable at times? They could be very sweet. I'm not saying you have to be, you know, we'll get to the way he moderates this with gentleness and instruction, but to begin with, reproof, rebuke, and exhortation. It's the only way we grow. We wish it were another way. We think, well, if you would say it nicer to me, or if you were kinder, or if you had more resources, or if you gave me more of your time, then I would grow. And I say, no, you won't.

You'll grow when you feel the tension of the pressure of the displeasure of those over you. That's when we grow. When they say, that's not good enough and you need to do it again. I love you and I want you to do better and you need to do better and you can't go to bed tonight until you do. We need constant provoking, pushing, if we're to change and to grow. And those often come in the forms of rebuke and reproofs and exhortations. You getting pushed and told, do it again. No, that's the wrong answer. Go work on it and come back with the right answer. And so reproof and rebuke and exhortation often cause sorrow in us. And in case you think, Dave, I think you're pressing this point too hard, and sorrow is really not a part of all of this, I want to read to you from 2 Corinthians, and then we'll come, and then an example by Paul of causing sorrow on purpose with the people. Okay? In 2 Corinthians 7,

Paul says in verse 8 and following, he says, So that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation. But the sorrow of the world produces death. For behold, what earnestness this very thing, this godly sorrow, has produced in you. What vindication of yourselves, what indignation, what fearing, what longing, what zeal, what avenging of wrong. In everything you demonstrated yourselves to be innocent in the matter. And so you realize that when he's writing this, he's saying, I said something to you before. That was very difficult. Very difficult. And it made you sad. And not just a little sad, but a lot sad. And not just a lot sad for a little while, but sad enough that you changed your behavior as a result of it. He leaned on them hard. Don't you want to know when, where, and what is he talking about? Well, he told us in 1 Corinthians. This is his response to what was going on in his first letter to them. What were they doing? What was going on that he had to write?

Such strong words to them that cause them such sorrow. This is what he wrote to them in 1 Corinthians 5. It is actually reported among you that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not even exist among the Gentiles, that someone has his father's wife. Now I'm going to read further on, but stop there. And he's writing to a Christian church about their incest. And he shames them with the strongest words saying, people who have never heard of Jesus Christ know that what you're doing is wrong. And you're proud of it. You, going back to the text, have become arrogant and have not mourned so that the one who has done this deed would be removed from your midst. For I, on my part, though absent in the body but present in the spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this as though I were present.

In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled and I with you in spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus, I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of our Lord Jesus. Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Now that's the kind of stuff that never gets said publicly. If it even gets said privately, that's not the kind of thing that gets published in the minutes of any But here it is in the pages of Scripture. Shame on you for the whole world to see into the future forever. Do you think they would have repented if he had come to them with less intensity? I think we'd like to think they would. I would have listened if you hadn't been so mean. Don't lie to yourself about yourself. No, you wouldn't have. We always want to walk right up to the line. We're just like, just be just enough, just enough pain to bring about the change.

And it's impossible to discern where that is. We can never know. When is enough? How much is enough? What's too much? Paul was not concerned with overwhelming the Corinthians. He was concerned with their repentance and with their faith and with their perseverance. And he saw what they were doing as a knife to the throat of their life, their spiritual life. And so he treated it as such. At the very beginning in 2 Corinthians, he says, for though I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. And what he's saying here is, I'm not sorry that what I said caused you problems and difficulty and shame and sorrow. I don't regret it. I'm not sorry that my words hurt you. Then he says, though I did regret it, and you're left being like, okay, you don't regret it, but though I do regret it. And what he's saying is, I'm not sorry that I caused you pain, but I am sorry that what you did brought us to this point.

where I had to cause you pain. Though their pain was only for a moment. They got the message with this guy that had his father's wife. They kicked him out. And then he came to repentance. And then they were like on pins and needles about whether to let him back in because of his past sins. And so in 2 Corinthians, later in the chapter, he writes to them and says that they ought to receive him back so that he's not overcome by grief. Like they got the message and they're like, we shouldn't do this. We screwed up. There was a memory created in their minds about the way they had handled this. And then Paul came to them again and said, if he's repented, receive him back with joy. And don't despise your association with a man who has such a notorious sin in his past. And so pastors ought to preach the word in season and out of season. And their preaching ought to be marked by their reproof and their rebukes and their report and their exhortations. And it's to be moderated by these two things, patience and instruction.

These are the governing factors for a pastor's work. Great patience. I don't know how to describe it to you other than to appeal to your experience and say, have you ever had somebody push you really hard, but you knew they loved you? Even as they pushed you really hard and that they were being patient with you, even as they were disciplining you, they were being patient with you. They weren't giving up on you. And you set that in comparison to someone who just says, I'm done with you. And then they just let you have it. But they're correcting you and rebuking you and just grinding you into the dust. But there's no love in it. You remember I said earlier, there's two temptations that pastors face when the word's out of season. One is that they would give up. And I've spent a lot of my time talking about the impressing upon them and on you not to give up. And then we come around and say the other thing that they would do is that they would just get angry. And they would just grind on their people up into dust.

And Paul says that's not what they should do. Even as they rebuke and they reprove and they exhort, they should not grind them into the dust. They should be patient with them. And the reason is because God's been patient with them. Romans 2, 4 says, Do you think lightly of the riches of his kindness and his tolerance and his patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? God is patient with us when we fail. Some of us think, no, there's no more patience in the well for me. I've gone to the well too many times. I've failed too much. And yet God is kind with us and tolerant and patient with us. Not that he excuses sin and says it's no big deal. But he doesn't say, I'm done with you and get out of here. I have no more mercy. You've run the well of forgiveness down to the bottom. Pastors ought to be patient. Elders ought to be patient. Fathers and mothers ought to be patient. Even as they correct their kids. So many times people want to know what to do with their kids. Like, well, am I supposed to get angry about it? I mean...

Depends on what you mean by angry. Yeah, I mean, there's a sense in which you should get angry about it. But there's a sense in which your anger should not be a dismissive, spit you out of my mouth sort of anger. And it's very difficult as parents. You know, some of you are thinking, well, pastors have this really hard job. And I think, well, if you get married and have kids, you have this work. It's just in a different context. And you'll realize how hard it is to rebuke without being so angry that you're like, I don't care if you listen or not. I'm just going to tell you what I think and be done with it.

with great patience. There are times you'll find as a parent, you may even be angry and you'll go to your kids and you'll just give a wide berth to your anger. And the result of it will be that your kid will actually be sorry. And they will apologize and they will ask you to forgive them. And you'll realize that's not what you were aiming for. None of the words you said were meant to lead them to repentance. They were just meant to be hurtful. And they'll repent and they'll say, I'm sorry, mommy. I'm sorry, daddy. And you'll think, am I going to forgive them again? How many times? Apparently now it's my turn to confess to them the ways that I've disciplined them and how angry I got and how I lacked patience with them and wasn't like God is with me. And so pastors that have preached the word in season and out of season, rebuking, reproving, exhorting with great patience. I hope that you felt the patience of your elders.

or your parents in dealing with you. Not that they've never said hard things to you, but that you knew they were being patient with you even as they said it. Our God is slow to anger, and he abounds in loving kindness, and so his ministers must be too. And in addition to great patience, they're not to give up instruction or explanation. Many times when people are struggling with sin, it's very easy to say what not to do. Don't do that! They're like, I already knew I wasn't supposed to do that. Why'd you do it? I wanted to. There's a whole bunch of answers. I don't know. Okay. Correct them, but also instruct them. What to do instead. You'll find that it's very easy to say no, but it's much more difficult to say do this instead. Here's a thing. Sometimes you think, well, they already know that. They know what they should do instead. Have you never felt the feeling of like, I know I'm not supposed to do this, but I don't know what I'm supposed to do instead.

Ministers, as they work, ought to say, do this instead. You struggle with purity. Instead of giving into it, call me so we can pray. That's instruction. Then the man has to decide whether he wants to do that or not. An older woman says to a younger woman, you angry at your kids? You're ready to flip out? Go in the bedroom and pray. Go in the bedroom and call me. These are like, well, duh. When you say these things, it's like, well, these are the simplest things to tell people to do. And I'm like, yeah, but these are the things we need to be told to do. Call me when you're struggling. Go pray. It doesn't work. It doesn't work because you haven't done it. You haven't persevered in it when it didn't flip a magic switch inside of you. With great patience and instruction, what should we do instead? And this is where pastors' work must get practical.

I think too often pastors only want to talk about ethereal and theoretical and spiritual things. Like here's how you should see and think and believe. But they fall short when it's like, well, then this is what you should do because of all of that in your life. Here are some steps you need to take. And they think, well, that's just, that's not spiritual work. And I say, that's absolutely spiritual work and essential. That pastors and elders and older women do this work with us. That they tell us what to do instead. And that we not put it off by saying, well, I'm not like you and I don't have the same desires or interests or gifts or time or whatever. That we actually would be instructed, do this instead. And that we'd listen to it. If you won't listen to it, then there's nothing more your pastor, your elder, your Titus 2 woman can do. They can't do anything else. They can't come in and fix you. They can't come in and take your temptations away. They can't come in and create an environment where you won't have to deal with it.

They can pray for you. They can instruct you. They can give you words of wisdom, correction, rebuke, exhortation. But when it's all done and you're left alone, is the word going to bear fruit in you or not in the form of their instructions? And so reproof and rebuke and exhortation are necessary. And yet they ought to be marked with patience and positive instruction. Sometimes you'll say to your kids, you know better. And they do. Sometimes they don't. But you should say to them what you expect of them. Just as a pastor or an elder or a Titus 2 woman should say to you what they expect of you. And so in application, three things. Preaching is disciplinary. It's meant to upset you sometimes. It's the most common form of discipleship that you'll receive in your life. That's why preaching is important. Good preaching is important because it is the most common form of discipleship you will receive. Even if it's only once a week in person.

You go to church your whole life, you will listen to thousands and thousands of sermons. Preaching has sharp edges, and our job is not to get rid of those sharp edges or those uncomfortable points, even if they're out of season. Our sensibilities are not the measuring stick of what's right or what's appropriate. The Bible tells us those things. And finally, preaching must not be without hope. Preaching without patience or preaching without instruction is preaching without hope. It is simply meant to just tear everybody down. And in the moment, it can sometimes feel like you've just been torn down. And sometimes that's what has to happen. If you move into a house and it's like the wall needs to be torn down, there is a season where the wall is missing. It has been torn down. But over the course of time, it gets built back up. And the same is true in our lives. That sometimes there will be sermons or there will be counsels that you receive that feel like this was just a demo session.

and it may have been. But over the course of months and years, if that's all there is, is a demo session, it's not good preaching. It needs to have hope, and it needs to be building up, and it needs to say, here's where we're going, here's where you need to be going, and here's some of the steps you need to take with God's help to get there. Next week, we'll pick up in verses 3 and 4. Let's pray.