Monthly Archives: January 2015

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Washed in the Blood

1 John Podcast

–This post is adapted from my recent sermon, “The Light of God,” on 1 John 1:5-10.–1

In 1 John 1:5-10 the apostle’s loving boldness is on full display as he “launch[es] us into,” according to David Jackman, “one of the greatest theological statements of the whole Bible.” It’s a statement we want to feel as the pulsating engine behind the first half of this book, and maybe even the book as a whole. It’s telling us what must be true about our life together if our joy is indeed going to be complete in our fellowship with Christ.

The Foundation of Light

In 1:5 John says Jesus gave me a message to proclaim, a message about who God is. If you could announce to the world one characteristic of God, what would it be? Fill in the blank in this sentence, “God is _______.” What came to your mind? God is love, compassionate, gracious, sovereign, good? Notice as 1:5 continues what Jesus, through John, wants us to know – first and foremost – about God as 1:5 continues, “God is light.” How many people today revel in the proclamation that “God is light”? What does it even mean that God is light?

The Old Testament is full of references to the light of God. And ordinary the light of God refers to His salvation, revelation, and separation. And it’s that third facet John has in mind here, the separation of God from everything in the universe. He is utterly and unalterably holy; “in him is no darkness at all.”

So God is the foundation of a fellowship of light, and now what John is going to do in 1:6-7 is give us a few “Implications of Light.”

The Implications of Light

In studying this passage throughout the week I began to feel like a spectator at a theological tennis match. To follow John in the rest of the passage means our heads must be on a swivel as he keeps bouncing back and forth between the negative claims of the false teachers and the positive realities of a people living in light.

And notice how the doctrinal ball falls in their court in 1:6, where the apostle says, “If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.” The false teachers were like spiritual double agents; they claim allegiance to God, but actively live for the kingdom of darkness. John minces no words here, “A person who lives unreservedly, unrepentantly, and habitually in darkness cannot be in fellowship with the God of light, and are lying if they say otherwise.” It’s a shot across the bow, a warning, to any who would profess to be a Christian while living as if Christ hasn’t changed their life.

We should also see from 1:6 that what we believe about sin shows what we believe about God. Whenever sin is flippantly addressed, you have a God flippant about sin; a God unknown to the Bible. But wherever sin despised and with God’s help put to death, you have a God who seeks the death of sin. In what ways does your view of sin reveal your view of God?

See now how John bounces from the negative to the positive in 1:7, “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” 1:7 gives us two implications for living in the light as God is in the light.

Implication #1: We have corporate fellowship. You’d expect – wouldn’t you? – John to say, “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with Him.” But John says we have fellowship with “one another.” Many commentators call the false teachers the “secessionists” because they broke away from the fellowship; they went to pursue godliness on their own. But John is saying that’s not godliness at all. It’s biblically impossible to have fellowship with God without having fellowship with one another. Do you recognize your need to consistently be in corporate fellowship with God’s people? The world will lure you to think things of earth are more important than gathering with the citizens of heaven. The Worm named Satan will tempt you to isolation, thinking you don’t need God’s people. But consistent fellowship with God’s people reveals the light of God and helps keep us in the light of God.

Implication #2: We have cleansed fellowship. “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light . . . the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” The language here is continually, a more literally translation would say His blood “keeps cleansing us from all sin.” One of my greatest fears in life is whenever Emily wants to get something from Ikea because self-assembly furniture is the bane of my existence. Especially when the set of little boy bunk-beds has hundreds of pieces that go into the construction of the edifice. So we spent one Sunday afternoon putting the beds together and painting them with an oil-based paint. When clean up time came regular tap water couldn’t wash away the point from our hands, something stronger was necessary to cleanse us from the stain. Such is the case when it comes to the stain of our sin.

If you aren’t a Christian, what will you do with the sin the Bible says stains your soul? It’s a stain of unbelief that will lead to death if it isn’t washed away. Good works can’t wash it away and superhuman effort can’t wipe it clean. What you need is the cleansing blood of Jesus. Jesus went lived a perfect life and so when He hung on the cross, He was as a spotless lamb led to slaughter. Jesus, the Lamb of God, shed His perfect blood in His death on the cross, to pay the penalty for your sin and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. The cleansing blood of Christ is offered to you, will you take it by turning from your sin and trusting in Jesus?

What can wash away my sin, nothing but the blood of Jesus . . .
Oh precious is the flow! That makes me white as snow.

What do you find most precious? What is most valuable to you? Wherever your mind floats in the free minutes of the day reveals what is precious to you. Oh may we increasingly find like John, and like Peter in 1 Peter 1:18, of supreme value to us! This is the ocean of grace in which our souls must swim as a church, let us jump in with joy. What ocean of power are you swimming in today?

So: a faithful church is a fellowship of light. God’s light is its foundation (1:5) and a corporate life constantly being cleansed by the blood of Jesus is what it means to walk in the light.

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  1. What’s with all the color in this text? See my post, “Colorful Preaching,” on why I color code my sermon manuscripts. ↩
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Study for Sweetness

“Study God’s Word diligently for your own edification and then, when it has become more to you than your necessary food and sweeter than honey or the honeycomb, it will be impossible for you to speak of it to others without a glow passing into your words which will betray the delight with which it has inspired yourself.” – James Stalker, The Preacher and His Models: The Yale Lectures on Preaching, 1891

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Heart Application

Preach the Word 1

I’m working my way through Murray Capill’s The Heart is the Target: Preaching Practical Application from Every Text and it is good. Really good.

Purposeful Application

One excellent point he makes is on the various purposes Scripture gives for Scripture. For example, notice the diverse aims God’s word has for itself according to these verses:

  • “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” (2 Tim. 3:16)
  • “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.” (2 Tim. 4:2)
  • “On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation.” (1 Cor. 14:3)
  • “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” (Rom. 15:4)
  • “What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet'” (Rom. 7:7).
  • “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” (Heb. 4:12-13)
  • “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.” (1 John 5:13)

These various purposes give preachers a variety of ways to apply God’s word. Capill summarizes them under four headings:

  1. Teaching the truth and rebuking false doctrine. (Teaching/rebuking)
  2. Training believers in godly living and correcting wrong patters of behavior. (Training/Correcting)
  3. Testing the state of people’s hearts and bringing conviction of sin. (Testing/Convicting)
  4. Encouraging and exhorting people according to their particular needs. (Encouraging/exhorting)

“So we can ask of any text, ‘What is this text doing?’ Is it teaching, training, rebuking, warning, convicting, testing, comforting, encouraging, strengthening? What teaching is given, what warnings are sounded, what tests are suggesting, what encouragements are provided?” (72)

Questions to Guide Your Way

Sermons that “sting and sing” – a delightful little phrase from Murray – are those whose tone and application stick with the applicational tone of the text. To help preachers discover this Murray offers the following questions as a guide in sermon preparation, particularly in preparing heart-searching application:1

Main question: What is this text doing?

  1. Is it teaching?
    – What truths are taught?
    – What errors should be opposed?
    – What teaching should I give?
  2. Is it training?
    – What behavior is called for?
    – What wrongs ways of conduct need correcting?
    – What “how to” and “how not to” application is called for?
  3. Is it testing?
    – Does the text suggest tests against which we should measure ourselves?
    – In what ways does the text convict us of sin?
  4. It is exhorting?
    – What exhortations are given?
    – What encouragements are given?
    – How does this text spur us on?

If you are in the final stages of a sermon for this weekend try Murray’s little grid on for size, it surely will help. Or maybe your sermon is stuck in an applicational rut? Give your message fresh purpose so it may appropriately sting and sing this coming Lord’s Day.

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  1. These questions are found in Appendix B of the book. ↩
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Another Arrow

imageKnox Andrew Stone made his long-awaited debut yesterday. We are praising God for His blessing of a fourth arrow in our quiver! (Psa. 127:3-4)

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Liberate Your Soul

9781581349740There are many books a pastor should consider reading, but only a few – outside of Scripture – I’d say he must read. One such book is Kent and Barbara Hughes’ Liberating Ministry from the Success Sindrome.

This book saved my pastoral soul back in 2009 when the waves of worldly wisdom dominated my church network. I remember one brother saying, “If you can’t plant a church and grow it to over 100 people within a year you should get out of ministry.” Another said, “You’ve only baptized seven people this year? You should pray about not preaching anymore.” Sure, such counsel is probably on the far end of the wisdom spectrum, but it was quenching my joy in a powerful way.

And so it was one day, while putzing around on the computer, I somehow come across the Hughes’ book. After reading the blurb I ordered copy, rushed the shipping, and three days later finished it while tears flooded my eyes. Here was counsel that comforted, not condemned. And while you may not be on the brink I was, I venture to say this book will still serve you in untold ways.

Don’t want to spend the money or time on the book? Carve out an hour to watch Hughes speak on the book’s message at the 2013 Desiring God Pastor’s Conference. May you be encouraged today!

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Time to Intrude

The Great Intrusion

Satan’s wormy deceits are rarely little more than efforts to get us to believe the same ol’ thing: that we are autonomous. He wants us to believe we aren’t accountable to anyone but ourselves, that we are the only sovereign over our soul.

And prayer is the great intrusion upon Satan’s self-sovereignty campaign. It’s one way to whip the Worm.

Here’s how it works.

ANNOUNCING HIS GLORY

Although it can’t properly be called “proclamation,” prayer does preach. It announces to our souls and to the cosmos that God is the only Sovereign in the universe. He alone lives in total self-sufficiency and independence. He is not served by human hands as if He needed anything, but He gives life and breath to all things. He created all things and sustains all things, thus He is able to provide all things.

He alone is the sovereign God of all, so we announce His all-knowing, almighty character by bowing down to pray.

RENOUNCING OUR GREATNESS

Prayer not only announces, it also renounces. It is the ordinary work of renouncing our own self-sovereignty project. We are weak, needy, and utterly helpless to change any of the spiritual conditions we face. Great knowledge and power is beyond our grasp. The treasures of wisdom and knowledge are not in us, nor is unimpeachable goodness or justice.

So we pray to renounce any purported ability to govern or rule our lives.

THE GREAT INTRUDERS

I long to see a generation of pastors come to be known as The Great Intruders, brothers who storm the gates of hell each day in their prayer closets. Our daily intrusions on the Dark Kingdom prepare us to skillfully marshal the Lord’s army each Lord’s Day for that week’s offensive assault on the Worm’s castle.

Will you join me today and intrude upon the Dragon’s designs?

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Learning to Live

1 John Podcast

An excerpt from my recent sermon, “A Message of Light and Love,” on 1 John 1:1-4.

THE CENTER OF FAITH

John writes, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life.” So this prologue is all about “the word of life,” but what is the word of life? Look at how in 1:2 John gives a parenthesis of sorts to describe the word of life, he says, “the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us.” It seems right to say in light of 1:1-2 that the word of life is a message and a man.

For those of you who’ve read John’s gospel you can’t help but see the similarities the two prologues have, for they focus on the man of Christ and the message of Christ, Him who was “from the beginning.” And that which was from the beginning, John says, “was made manifest.” The word of life came. I want you to see a couple things from these verses about Jesus’ coming.

  • His coming was historical. Twice John says the “life was made manifest.” Jesus, God of very God who has existed from eternity past, came to be born of a virgin. John says in his gospel prologue’s primary verse, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory” (John 1:14). Jesus appeared in history. Our faith is not based on mystical truth, theoretical belief, or subjective intuition, but on the actual – historical – life and ministry of Jesus Christ. This fact is oh so important in the letter because we will soon hear how the chief error coming from the false teachers among John’s flock was their conviction that Jesus didn’t really come in the flesh. He’ll say in 4:2, “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.”
  • His coming was experiential. John says he and the apostles “have heard . . . seen with our eyes . . . looked upon and . . . touched.” John’s experience of Jesus is a foundation for his authority in this letter.
  • His coming brings the eternal. At the end of 1:2 John writes we “proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father.” Jesus came from eternity in order to bring people into eternity. If you’re in here tonight and are not a Christian, I hope you will keep coming back for this series. Jesus brings eternal life, John says. Your sin will lead to eternal death, but if you trust in who Jesus is and what Jesus did – He will bring you into eternal life with the Father.

These three dimensions of Jesus’ coming not only mean Jesus is central to faith, but also that our faith is personal and is a proclamation. Notice how John gets to the heart of the matter at the beginning of 1:3, “that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you.” A proclaimed Christ is the center of true faith and fellowship. Do you long for, pray for, and rejoice in the proclamation of Jesus? If you are a Christian, do you have increasing delight in hearing about Jesus? Are you more captivated with Christ this year than you were a couple years ago? Our weekly gatherings are where we rally around the announcement of a crucified King.

Which gets us then to a couple purpose statements we find in the last two verses of our text, the truth that Jesus is “The Center of Fellowship.”

THE CENTER OF FELLOWSHIP

Look at the end of 1:3. John says, we proclaim this word of life, “so that you too may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.” Now, we need to accurately get our heads around this idea of fellowship. In most circles today when Christians and churches talk about fellowship it normally doesn’t mean much more than church members hanging out while eating food. But the fellowship John desires is so much deeper in its spiritual soul. G. Campbell Morgan said the word “fellowship” is “a rich and spacious word, full of suggestiveness, almost impossible of full and final translation.” This is not the fellowship of shared identity like you might have with someone who went to the same university or college. It’s not the common association you have with people who root for the same sports team, no matter how emotional that unity could possible be. No, this fellowship is the living communion of people who have a shared, living experience of Jesus Christ. This means, when church members meet together and no one can speak of the way Jesus is moving, mending, and leading in our lives than we shouldn’t call it fellowship at all. When you meet with other Christians, what subjects dominate your conversation? The degree to which your conversations are Christ-centered is the degree to which you are experiencing real fellowship.

We need to recognize from the outset of this book that John is telling us true fellowship is more about corporate experience than personal experience. This letter is going to beat that drum until its truth pounds its way into our hearts. The Christian community is one where the force and energy of collective celebration in Christ supersedes personal preference about Christ. Jesus is the center of faith and fellowship.

THE STARTING BLOCKS OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

The movie I watched, more than any other, in my childhood years was Chariots of Fire. Have you ever seen it? It’s tells the story of two sprinters competing at the 1924 Olympics: Eric Liddell a devout Christian from Scotland and Harold Abrahams, an English Jews who runs to overcome prejudice. Many scenes from the movie are indelibly inked on my brain, but for whatever reason one shot I thought about this week was when Abrahams takes a little handheld shovel to dig two holes in the track for his starting positions. Starting blocks didn’t come into popular use until 1937.

We know from the rest of the New Testament that the Christian life is a race, and I think our text gives us the two starting blocks for our race. If we are going to start well and thus run well, I believe our text is telling us we launch from two particular things.

Learn about Jesus rightly. He came from the Father to take on flesh in order to give us eternal life. AW Tozer once famously said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” I think John is saying, “The first thing that comes into our minds when think about Jesus is the most important thing about us.” Who is Jesus to you? Who is Jesus to us? Oh, may He be everything to you, to us! Furthermore, this tells us our faith is a thinking faith. Thinking rightly about Jesus is, literally, a matter of eternal life and death. And 1 John tells us our learning ought to lead to living. Which leads to the second starting block . . .

Live in Jesus joyfully. 1:3 tells us John is writing this message for fellowship, but notice he give another reason in 1:4, “And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.” Do you find an other-worldly joy when you are with the people of God, celebrating and exalting in out fellowship with the Son of God? Learn about Jesus rightly so you may live in Jesus joyfully.

These then are our starting points: learning about Jesus rightly and living in Jesus joyfully. For Jesus is the center of faith and fellowship.

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Recent Reads

I love to read. By God’s grace I am a pretty fast reader; I usually read a couple books each week. I find it helpful to summarize my thoughts on each book and I offer those thoughts in the hope that you will be encouraged to either read or pass over the given title.

It’s been a long while, 28 days to be exact (a record for me), since I did a Recent Reads post. Although my posting has been more infrequent my reading hasn’t. With quite a few titles this time around my thoughts will be shorter than normal, but I hope they will be useful in some way nonetheless.

9780310517375mOrdinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World by Michael Horton. A needed book for our restlessly radical age. Ordinary is often brilliant and occasionally redundant. In other words, it’s typical fare for the good doctor from Westminster Seminary California. Not everyone will be convinced he strikes the appropriate biblical balance between ordinary and risky faith, but I think he succeeds. This one is well worth reading.

EYPLEnjoy Your Prayer Life by Michael Reeves. One my reading maxims is: “If Michael Reeves writes it, read it.” Enjoy Your Prayer Life is more a booklet than a book, but that’s not a disadvantage at all. With his usually color and pithiness Reeves illuminates the struggle of prayer in wise ways. The treatment largely expounds Calvin’s conviction of prayer being “the chief exercise of faith.” I could see this one being a great resource for pastors to continually – and freely – hand out in their churches.

HCMHabits of the Mind: Intellectual Life as Christian Calling by James Sire. Like Guiness, Noll, and Moreland before him, James Sire wants to rescue the mind for the glory of God. We are, after all, called to love the Lord will all our minds. Sire effectively and winsomely argues for pursuing an intellectual life unto the glory of God. Some of his counsel is curious, such as his rapturous affection for the lectio divina method of reading, but anyone concerned with the life of the mind would do well to consult this work.

TSISThey Say, I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein. All academic writing, Graff and Birkenstein say, is “argumentative writing. . . . And we believe that to argue well you need to do more than assert your own position. You need to enter a conversation, using what others say (or might say) as a launching pad or sounding board for your own views” (3). To help writers engage in this kind of conversation They Say/I Say is built around a series of templates designed to help the writer understand and employ “the deep, underlying structure, the internal DNA as it were, of all effective argument.” The templates are really, really useful. I imagine I’ll be returning to this resource often int he future.

RSResearch Strategies: Finding Your Way Through The Information Fog by William Badke. “Everyone does research. Some just do it better than others,” so says William Badke in the first sentence Research Strategies. Learning in “the information age” presents boundless opportunities for learning, but “faced with a humongous number of Internet sites, not to mention academic and commercial databases of increasing size and complexity, knowing how to navigate through the information fog isn’t something you can pick up easily on your own” (xvii). This textbook is no page turner (what textbook is?), but it abounds in up-to-date strategies for research students.

indexStylish Academic Writing by Helen Sword. Sword’s mission in Stylish Academic Writing is clear from the outset, “In this book, I argue that elegant ideas deserve elegant expressions; that intellectual creativity thrives best in an atmosphere of experimentation rather than conformity” (vii). Her agenda then is “transformative,” one she hopes will result in improved reading conditions for all. Her research into the writing styles of academics is fascinating and undeniably useful. One of the better works I’ve read on the subject.

QRSQuality Research Papers: For Students of Religion and Theology by Nancy Vhymeister. Catching on to a theme with these last few titles? Yep, these are all textbooks for an upcoming doctoral seminar on theological research. Quality Research Papers was originally written in Spanish for South American graduates students in 1980. Edits and additions were made throughout the years and in 2014 Zondervan published the third edition of Vhymeister’s work. Its purpose is simple: “to put several aspects of research writing – bibliography, search techniques, organization, and form – into a balanced perspective” (ix). Straight forward and simple.

HAPHistory of the American People by Paul Johnson. I bought History of the American Peeople on sale at Amazon several months ago for $8 and it might be my best ever use of eight greenbacks. Johnson’s tome is, in every sense of the word, magisterial. This is history at its finest. The story is told with compelling verve, the analysis is objective, and the research is immense. Johnson leaves no stone unturned in his account of our fine nation – politics; business and economics; art, literature and science; society and customs; complex traditions and religious beliefs are all given adequate space. An astounding accomplishment!

TEThe Escape by David Baldacci. Of all the various Baldacci series John Puller one is my favorite. Baldacci consumed much of last spring’s popular fiction reading and after several months with the author I knew I needed a break. The plots were becoming increasingly predictable which robbed joy from my pleasure reading. My expectations were thus quite tempered when I started The Escape, the third Puller title. Yet by the end I thought to myself, “This is the best Baldacci book I’ve ever read.” Enough said. Moving on . . .

BBrilliance by Markus Sakey. I don’t remember how I came across this title – I probably was mindlessly perusing Amazon – but oh! how glad I am that I did. When I saw Gillian Flynn call Sakey “the master of the mindful page turner,” and Michael Connelly write say he’s “one of our best storytellers,” I said, “I’m definitely in.” Creativity and thrills abound in Brilliance; Sakey clearly has talent to spare. This book is soooooo good. Once I put it down I turned to my wife and said, “I can’t remember the last time I had this much fun reading a fiction book.” I’d be surprised if you’d be able to start this and not race your way to the end.

BSA Better Life by Markus Sakey. I didn’t think my delight towards Brilliance could increase, but when I found out it was the first of a trilogy (“The Brilliance Saga”) the happiness multiplied exponentially. A Better Life picks up the story three months from where Brilliance left off and Sakey in no way disappoints. The story is full of texture, suspense, and roller coaster rides of fun. I can only hope the brilliant Mr. Sakey is racing to finish the trilogy’s final volume. Can’t wait!

MSGMy Sister’s Grave by Robert Dugoni. My holiday binge of mystery/suspense novels continued with Dugoni’s story of Tracy Crosswhite, a Seattle detective who’s been consumed for the last twenty years with the disappearance of her beloved sister. I must give Dugoni credit because two-thirds of the way through I was convinced I had his endgame all sorted, but he threw me an unexpected curve ball as the book ramped up to its conclusion. A breeze of a read, if it is a bit dark at points.

TCTerminal City by Linda Fairstein. Sometime last summer I watched an interview with Daniel Silva (author of the great Gabriel Allon series) and he recommended Terminal City as a wonderful summer read. Well, I got around to it in the winter, but it was wonderful nonetheless. This is the seventeenth (!) book in Fairstein’s series centered on one Alexandra Cooper. While Terminal City isn’t a work of historical fiction it still manages to pack in a stunning amount of history. All of it surrounding New York City’s Grand Central Terminal. The historical asides will undoubtedly stilt the narrative for some, yet I think they add peculiar flavor to the story. I did find the ending less than satisfying, but I can forgive that for a suprisingly informative work of fiction.

Click here to find other entries in the Recent Reads series.

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The Kind of Preaching We Need

Preach the Word 1

Mark Twain once wrote to a student, “When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them—then the rest will be valuable.”

Now, I’m not one to argue with good Mr. Clemens (Twain’s real name), for he is right on the whole. Yet, there are indeed times when adjectives are not only useful, but vital. For instance, it’s a glorious thing to be called a preacher, but what kind of preacher do you want to be? This is where modern man’s adjectival tendencies can help.

WHAT KIND OF PREACHER ARE YOU?

As I listen to modern evangelical sentiment I hear two dominant descriptions for good preaching; descriptions many a pastor long to embody. These are desirable at a certain level, but they are – I believe – ultimately found wanting.

“He’s an entertaining preacher.” This is good to an extent; no preacher should aspire to be boring. Yet, the preacher is not fundamentally an entertainer, he’s a herald. Piper is classic on this when he says, “Laughter seems to have replaced repentance as the goal of many preachers. Laughter means people feel good. It means they like you, it means you have moved them. It means you have some measure of power. It seems to have all the marks of successful communication – if the depth of sin and the holiness of God and the danger of hell and need for broken hearts is left out of account.” “Entertaining” is normally synonymous with humor-filled, anecdote-saturated sermons. Comedians and thespians are entertainers, we preachers are not.

“He’s an authentic preacher.” Amen, let’s be authentic. Hypocrisy has no place at the sacred desk. My problem, generally, with this moniker is that by “authentic” most people seem to mean “he’s honest about his struggles.” I have many thoughts on this matter and might write more about it one day, but for now I must simply say the pulpit is not the pastor’s confessional. To ordinarily use the sermon as an occasion to reveal your brokenness can be wise. But it seems to be more often, unintentionally so, a way to put the messenger – not the message – in the spotlight.

If these two popular advertisements are not ideal, what heraldic description should we preachers desire? Many possibilities exist, but let me suggest one worth your consideration: “He’s a weighty preacher.”

How often do you hear preachers celebrated for their spiritual, sermonic girth?

SPIRITUAL WEIGHT-LIFTERS

Now I have heard, on occasion, a man described as being “a deep preacher.” While, on the face of it, “deep” seems akin to “weighty,” I don’t think they are actually close in meaning. In my experience “deep” preaching is normally layman’s code for, “That preacher, he’s really smart.” Preachers ought to be smart, but “smart” isn’t the adjective we want to reign supreme.

But “weighty”? That’s a word we ought want to fly over our preaching. Weighty means much more than “smart,” “erudite,” or “profound,” what people usually associate with “deep” preachers. “Weighty” is a God-praising, Christ-exalting, and Spirit-empowered adjective. Here’s why I feel I can say that with such certainty: our God is consumed with weight. Any Hebrew 101 student can tell you the Hebrew word for “glory” is kabod. And what does kabod literally mean? You got it; “weight.” Like Jonathan Edwards said, God’s glory is the weight of all that He is, the fullness of his understanding, virtue, and happiness.

So then, weighty preaching is glory-filled preaching.

Have you ever walked away from a sermon feeling the majesty of God and magnificence of Jesus  p r e s s i n g  on your soul? If so, you’ve sat under weighty preaching.

The preaching event, and I mean this reverently, is not unlike spiritual weight-lifting. A preacher is like a personal trainer who puts weights in the hands of his trainees. In this analogy weight isn’t a barbell packed with 45lb. plates, it’s the fullness of God – which comes through His word and spirit. And the trainee is a church member who, with the preacher’s help, finds his or her spiritual strength increasing over time. The preaching event is spiritual weight-lifting.

All this to say, just like a weightlifter experiences the heaviness of a squat or bench press, weighty preaching is something a congregation feels. And that happens when the following two things are true about a preacher and his sermon.

IT’S A WEIGHTY FEELING

His matter is weighty. Oh, how I wish we could take this for granted! But we dare not. Wherever the text is in sacred Scripture, it is part of the unsearchable riches of Christ. It has been breathed out by God for the exaltation of His name and the edification of His people. God’s truth is happily heavy. Every word of it. Our sermons then must reflect this in their matter. We don’t enshroud the weighty word of God with an airy atmosphere of light anecdotalism. We trim off sermonic fat in order to give ’em red meat for their soul.

And that which is heavy must be handled is a specific way. Here then is the second thing essential to weighty preaching.

His manner is weighty. The enemy of weightiness, clearly, is lightness. The people of God will never feel the weight of God if the preacher floats around like a leaf during delivery. We are heralds of the Holy, not simple hucksters of the happy. Let us be men rooted in reverence and full of fear – the soul-gripping, heart-panting fear of God. In our ascent to the sacred desk may we be like Moses in his descent from the sacred mountain: aglow with the glory of God.

So, yes, strive to be engaging and authentic in your preaching. But strive ever more for the weight of God to mark your matter and manner in preaching.

Our God is a consuming fire and He wants His shepherds to preach as those consumed . . . consumed with His glory. He wants weighty preachers. May He makes us all into such men.

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Rejoicing in Christ

9780830840229Our main avenue for discipling men at Imago Dei is the weekly gathered worship service. But it’s not the only avenue. Another road is something we call The Upper Room.

On the second Sunday of each month a few dozen men from our church get together to eat BBQ breakfast tacos and encourage each other in Christ. In 2013 our gatherings revolved around a particular book I had the men read each month.  Vaughn Roberts’ God’s Big Picture was the first title to step up to the plate. I remember feeling great joy as men, for the first time, were getting a sense of God’s unified movement throughout redemptive history. If you’ve ever read Roberts’ book you know it is gloriously accessible. It thus seemed like a safe bet for the men, many of whom hadn’t read a Christian book cover to cover in a long time.

INTO DEEPER DELIGHT

So it was with some trepidation I announced the second book to the brothers, Michael Reeves’ Delighting in the Trinity. Would the men enjoy a dive into deeper theological waters? Or would it stifle the excited momentum we were experiencing? I had read Reeves’ book the year before and it opened new vistas of wonder in my understanding of God, and I longed for it to do the same with my flock. The book is short, but it does demand some level of serious attention. I waited with baited pastoral breath as I watched more than thirty men buy the book that day. Would it help them delight in the Trinity?

I didn’t take long to find out.

Within a few days I began to get texts and emails saying things like, “I’ve never understood God in this way!” “This may be the best book on knowing God I’ve ever read!” “The Trinity finally makes sense to me!” “I love God more than I did before I read this book.”

As the next few weeks went by I noticed the men kept buying up additional copies to give to family members and friends. Reeves’ clearly struck a chord of soul-satisfying joy in the souls of our men.

I have sense sat with great anticipation for Reeves’ next publication.

So it was with peculiar excitement I recently saw a publication date for Reeves’ next book to be published in America, Rejoicing in Christ. IVP is putting it out on March 13th of this year.

I have no doubt the book will lead countless lives to do exactly what the title says.

STARE AT THE SON

IVP’s summary says,

If we want to know who God is, the best thing we can do is look at Christ. If we want to live the life to which God calls us, we look to Christ. In Jesus we see the true meaning of the love, power, wisdom, justice, peace, care and majesty of God.

Michael Reeves, author of Delighting in the Trinity, opens to readers the glory and wonder of Christ, offering a bigger and more exciting picture than many have imagined. Jesus didn’t just bring us the good news. He is the good news. Reeves helps us celebrate who Christ is, his work on earth, his death and resurrection, his anticipated return and how we share in his life.

This book, then, aims for something deeper than a new technique or a call to action. In an age that virtually compels us to look at ourselves, Michael Reeves calls us to look at Christ. As we focus our hearts on him, we see how he is our life, our righteousness, our holiness and our hope.

Yes, let’s stare at the Son together. To whet your appetite even more, here’s an excerpt from the introduction. Oh! this book is going to be good.

Michael Horton writes, “If you want to love Christ more, you need a better view of him. Rejoicing in Christ gives you a front-row seat.” “This is a scintillating treatment of a vital subject,” says Robert Letham.

Like Reeves’ other popular works, this book is short (137 pages) and to the point, containing only five chapters:

Introduction: Christianity Is Christ
1. In the Beginning
2. Behold the Man!
3. There and Back Again
4. Life in Christ
5. Come, Lord Jesus!
Conclusion: No Other Name Under Heaven

Set aside some of your church’s book budget to buy multiple copies Rejoicing in Christ. The financial investment will surely reap an untold spiritual reward.