Why Do I Preach?

Introduction

Illustration: Calculating how long the congregation listens to me talk in the course of a year. An average of 25 minutes per sermon 52 weeks of the year means you’re hearing me talk for 1300 minutes, or 21 hours, over the course of the year. And that’s if you don’t come to Sunday School or small group in the fall.

So what’s with all that talking? Besides singing songs the thing we spend the most time on on Sunday mornings is on my preaching. So as we continue our summer series called “Why?” where we question the things that we do as a church it feels natural to ask the question, “Why do I preach?” Hopefully I can give you all a satisfying answer to that question, since it’s a big part of what the church hired me to do.

It shouldn’t be surprising that in my research I found the answer to this question in Paul’s second letter to Timothy. After all, Paul’s letters to Timothy are his passing on instructions on how to lead a church, and preaching is a part of the role that Timothy was filling. So what does Paul tell Timothy about why he should preach? Let’s take a look at 2 Timothy 3:14-4:8 and see what Paul has to say to us as well about the purpose of preaching.

2 Timothy 3:14–4:8 CSB

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed. You know those who taught you, and you know that from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures, which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. I solemnly charge you before God and Christ Jesus, who is going to judge the living and the dead, and because of his appearing and his kingdom: Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; correct, rebuke, and encourage with great patience and teaching. For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear what they want to hear. They will turn away from hearing the truth and will turn aside to myths. But as for you, exercise self-control in everything, 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 for my departure is close. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. There is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me, but to all those who have loved his appearing.

Paul has a lot to say to Timothy about why and how he should preach. I only have a certain amount of time, so we’ll only cover a few things in detail, but briefly we’ll say a few things about some important aspects of Paul’s instructions. For instance, the discussion begins and is routed in the centrality and importance of “the Scriptures” aka the Bible. Paul describes the Scriptures as able to give wisdom and salvation and as inspired by God, able to fully equip believers for the work God wants them to do. So when he follows up this description of the Scriptures with “Preach the Word,” the Bible is the word that Paul means.

Therefore before I say anything else about why I preach I want to emphasize that all preaching should be based on the Bible. That doesn’t mean we can never start with a topic, I’m doing that right now, but what I say from this pulpit should never be what I think about something, or what some other smart guy says about something, but should be built on the strong foundation of the very words of God recorded in the Bible.

The other thing I want to cover only briefly is Paul’s warning in verses 3-4 of chapter 4 about how people will leave the teachings of scripture in order to listen to whatever they want to hear from other teachers. His charge to Timothy is to stubbornly hold to endure this hardship and continue to fulfill this ministry. In other words never compromise to the changing winds of what the world is saying but hold true to the word of God instead.

With those things in mind, which aspects of the reason for preaching will we focus on today? Well Paul tells Timothy (in this order) the purpose of his preaching is to offer correction and rebuke when the believers go astray, to offer encouragement to believers to help them continue in what is good, and to teach right doctrine so that disciples of Jesus will know what they need to know to live according to God’s will. So let’s look at those three things and explore more deeply what that means for us as disciples of Jesus.

Correction

Illustration: Have any of you ever had your gps stop without warning? This is what it’s like to go our own way without correction.

So who is to offer correction when the disciples of Jesus wander astray? What do we do when we take a few steps off the narrow way and need to find our way back? This is part of the role of a preacher in the church, to offer biblical correction and rebuke when the people of God get lost. We read this in 2 Timothy 4:2-5

2 Timothy 4:2–5 CSB

Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; correct, rebuke, and encourage with great patience and teaching. For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear what they want to hear. They will turn away from hearing the truth and will turn aside to myths. But as for you, exercise self-control in everything, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

This is the part of the job no one really likes to talk about. I put it first in the list because it’s the first thing Paul lists in verse 2, and in part to get it over with and move on to the more fun stuff. But there is a heavy weight on the shoulders of those who stand up to speak on behalf of the Bible in our churches. It is our responsibility to ensure that the disciples of Jesus know the Scriptures and how to live by them. This is a dangerous calling. This is why James says in James 3:1

James 3:1 CSB

Not many should become teachers, my brothers, because you know that we will receive a stricter judgment.

By standing up here and preaching and teaching I have opened myself up to a stricter judgment from God. Why? Because if I fail to do my job people’s souls could be at stake. If I allow the church to stray from God’s teaching than people who might have repented may not. That’s a pretty big deal. Yet still it takes courage to stand up here and preach boldly the word of God, because the word of God makes strong demands on our lives.

That’s why it’s important that I started this sermon off, and Paul started his advice to Timothy off, on the importance of preaching the word. Because when I stand up here and preach correction or rebuke it should never be coming from my opinion or judgement if I am correctly preaching the word of God. Any conviction anyone feels in this congregation should be the conviction of the Holy Spirit not of Josh Elliott. After all I’m just some guy that God is hopefully using as a tool.

So how does this change what we do as a church? It’s an important caution to me as the preacher to resist the urge to avoid those places in scripture that are hard for us to hear and offer correction to the ways we might be lost. It’s a call to all of you to pray for me that God would give me the courage to stand firm on the foundation of His word. It’s a call to you to hold me accountable if you see me avoiding confrontation and becoming a people pleaser instead of boldly preaching the word. I hope and pray that if I ever say something from this pulpit that seems harsh or like a rebuke that it will be the true word of God and not my own opinion, and that the Holy Spirit will do the work of conviction in all of our hearts.

Encouragement

Illustration: Teaching my son that he has what it takes by encouraging him instead of doing things for him.

Similarly, as the preacher of this church one of the main ways that I help you all as disciples is in reminding you that you have what it takes. There’s a fundamental difference in what I mean by that in both cases though. For my son I mean that he has the physical or mental capabilities already to do what he is trying to do. When it comes to living by the words of Scripture though, we actually don’t have what it takes in the natural. We do however have access to prayer and the Holy Spirit, meaning that we do have what it takes if we have the Holy Spirit.

But when we read the word “encouragement” in the scriptures, it’s not just the idea of encouragement as we tend to use it in English. In verse 2 when Paul tells Timothy to “correct, rebuke, and encourage” the word the CSB translates as encourage is παρακαλέω, which is the word call with the prefix meaning beside. To call to ones side literally, which Strong’s defines as “to call near, i.e. invite, invoke (by imploration, hortation or consolation):—beseech, call for, (be of good) comfort, desire, (give) exhort(-ation), intreat, pray.”

So in a way the thing that I do which we call encouragement is a lot like the battle cry that prepares us for the spiritual battle that we are all fighting together. Like the speech William Wallace gives to the Scottish rebels in Braveheart, or that Aragorn gives to the men of Gondor and Rohan before they charge the gates of Mordor against impossible odds. That one always gives me the chills.

Now maybe I’m not up to the level of inspiration that those speeches give, but part of what I am called to do is to help give fresh motivation and drive to the church when we assemble so that we can face the week ahead with passion and do everything that we can to live our lives the way that Jesus taught and to reach the whole world for His kingdom.

But again, on our own we cannot do this. It’s not about telling ourselves that we have what it takes, that we’re good enough, that the power was inside us all along or some other Hollywood slogan. It’s a response to the amazing work that Jesus did for us on the cross which motivates us to good works and evangelism. In the words of

1 Thessalonians 5:9–11 CSB

For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. Therefore encourage one another and build each other up as you are already doing.

The “therefore” in that last sentence means that what precedes it is the reason Paul is giving for why we should encourage and build each other up. And what reason is that? The reason is because Jesus died for our salvation and to give us life with Him. That’s our motivation. Our encouragement. It’s nothing that we bring to the table but all what Jesus did on our behalf. This is good because if it was up to us it would be so much smaller and weaker and unable to endure the hardships of this world.

Notice also though that the passage in Thessalonians is not addressed to the Elder or Preacher of the church. It says to “encourage one another” meaning that it’s the work of the entire church to do their part to encourage and build one another up. As the Pastor I do have a unique calling to do this but I know we all know that it’s not all up to me. We all have a role to play in helping one another to keep up our courage and will to press on for the prize as Paul put it in Philippians.

So the question is will we be a church that encourages? Will we be so focused on building each other up that it shows? It is my sincere hope that we can all do our part to live up to this calling, but especially through these words I share each Sunday.

Teaching

Illustration: You know what they say, give a man a fish you’ll feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and he’ll never be home.

All kidding aside, as disciples of Jesus there are a lot of things we need to learn. In fact in John 17:3 Jesus says

John 17:3 CSB

This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and the one you have sent—Jesus Christ.

Of course we believe that knowing God isn’t just knowing truths about God, but is about knowing Him relationally. That being said though it is more than knowing about God, it isn’t less than knowing about God. If it were not important to know what God is like and what His atributes and character are, than it would be hard to explain why so much of scripture is dedicated to explaining these things, and Paul tells Timothy in our very Scripture this morning,

2 Timothy 3:15–16 CSB

and you know that from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures, which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness,

And while Paul lists a few very practical applicational things the Bible is good for like rebuking, correcting and training, the first thing is teaching. As a pastor it is part of my job to teach what the Bible says about who God is and who we are. This is part of why the apostles thought it was necessary to delegate the feeding of the widows to the first deacons in Acts 6:2-4

Acts 6:2–4 CSB

The Twelve summoned the whole company of the disciples and said, “It would not be right for us to give up preaching the word of God to wait on tables. Brothers and sisters, select from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and wisdom, whom we can appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”

The ministry of the word here means teaching what the Bible says. Yet though there is a special calling on pastors and elders to teach what the Bible says it is not exclusively the job of the leadership of the church. The Great Comission is given to all disciples in Matthew 28: 19-20

Matthew 28:19–20 CSB

Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Teaching is a part of the great comission. We cannot neglect this important ministry to each other and to others. Now a lot of the time the process of teaching leads naturally to applications, practical things we should do differently because of what we learned. But because it’s my duty to preach the full council of the word of God to the best of my ability that means sometimes I will preach on things where the application is simply to know what the Bible says and worship the God it describes. For instance I’m going to be starting a series through the Gospel According to John in the fall and it might be a stretch to try and make the opening paragraph about the Word into a three step application for Christian living.

Conclusion

So I feel like I’ve done a bit of a dangerous thing here, basically giving everyone in the church a rubric for how to grade the content of my preaching. Of course you’ll have to come up with your own rubric for grading the delivery, the Bible isn’t specific about that. Now this sermon felt a bit strage because it’s so much centred on what I am doing as the pastor and not on what we’re all doing as a church, though I’ve tried to keep that in mind as well. But it’s important as we continue our “why” series to take this time to make sure we’re all on the same page about the reasons why preaching happens at church at all and what sort of preaching we should expect from this stage. I want to know that you’re all equipped to call me out if and when I stray from the Biblical vision of what preaching is supposed to be.

So what have we learned about why I preach this morning? We have learned that I preach to offer correction to keep us all walking on the path the Bible gives us and help build guardrails against straying from God’s way. We have learned that I preach to offer encouragement to come beside you and help you to live boldly and passionately for the Kingdom of God. We have learned that I preach in order to teach what the Bible teaches so that we can know God and the eternal life that He is offering to us. With those things in mind let us revisit our guiding text this morning.

2 Timothy 3:14–4:8 CSB

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed. You know those who taught you, and you know that from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures, which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. I solemnly charge you before God and Christ Jesus, who is going to judge the living and the dead, and because of his appearing and his kingdom: Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; correct, rebuke, and encourage with great patience and teaching. For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear what they want to hear. They will turn away from hearing the truth and will turn aside to myths. But as for you, exercise self-control in everything, 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 for my departure is close. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. There is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me, but to all those who have loved his appearing.

Let us pray.