Heartbeat: Gospel Centrality & Expositional Preaching

Pre-Introduction

Great singing

[Casual transition from last week’s announcement, restate the announcement for those who missed it]

Explain the plan for the next 6 weeks (Heartbeat: Core Ministry Priorities)

Explain the Pastor Profile booklet

Encourage people to reach out to get together to answer any questions you might have, text me or email me so we can find a time

If you’re interested in reading through my personal doctrinal statement, reach out to me and I’ll get you a copy to go over

I’d love to get together over these next couple months.

Let’s pray

Introduction

1 Corinthians 2:1–5 (ESV)

1 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.

2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling,

4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,

5 so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

2 Timothy 3:14–4:5 (ESV)

14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it

15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

1 I 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:

2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.

3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,

4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

5 As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

Outline

In many ways I feel similar to Timothy in Paul’s letters.

Timothy grew up hearing the Bible as his mother and grandmother faithfully taught him the Scriptures.

After Timothy came to Christ he became something of a spiritual son to the Apostle Paul, and was mentored by him and eventually entrusted with ministry responsibilities of his own, when he was installed as a pastor who was responsible for the church of Ephesus, despite his relative youth and inexperience.

Biography and Call to Ministry

Early Years

I also grew up in a home where the Bible was faithfully taught to me by my family.

I’m a pastor’s kid and I grew up here, at Southeast Valley. When you’re a pastor’s kid, it comes with the territory that you’re along for the ride.

A few of you’ve been here for many years and you watched me grow up.

By God’s mercy, I became a Christian when I was 5, when I heard the Gospel in Children’s Church on an ordinary Sunday 23 years ago.

I knew I was a sinner and that God was holy and that if I died in my sin, I would spend an eternity in Hell, experiencing the consequences for my sin. But I heard the good news that Jesus lived a perfect life and died on a cross for my sin, and he rose again on the third day, so that if I would trust in Jesus, my sins would be forgiven, I would be as white as snow, and I would go to heaven to be with Jesus when I died.

I remember jumping up and down after church to meet my mom and dad in the lobby saying, “I got saved! I got saved!”

The next year, after my parents took some time to evaluate if my profession of faith was clear and credible, I was baptized over in the Education Building at an ordinary Sunday night church service.

[Show picture]

I grew up in this church, participating in all the activities and classes and groups. CEF. Patch the Pirate club. Children’s church. Junior worship. Sunday school. VBS. Camp Tishamingo in 2nd grade and Camp on Wheels/Grand View Camp from 3rd grade up. Youth group. All of it. I was poured into by Jesus-loving, Bible-loving people who were willing to invest time and energy and love and prayer into the next generation.

High School

One year in high school, the youth group went through a study of the book of Romans. A few of us are still here from that group. Shoutout to you, Chris and Jessy and Molly!

And during that year, we got to Romans 5:1, which says this:

Romans 5:1 (ESV)

1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

I had always thought of peace like a calm, internal serenity. But in our group time I learned that peace with God was more than just internal peace. It’s not just the presence of serenity, but also the absence of hostility. And in verse 10, Paul says that were God’s enemies who were at war with God, but now, because of Jesus, the war was over. Jesus died on the cross and faced the righteous judgment of God for my sin so that I wouldn’t have to, if I believed in Jesus.

And now, because my hostility with God was dealt with on the cross, Romans 8:1 says

Romans 8:1 (ESV)

1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

The weight and gravity and seriousness and joy of the Gospel grabbed me. It was so intense it felt like another conversion. I believe was genuinely a child of God before that, but my heart was captivated.

That began a season of soaking in the Bible and learning to love God more deeply and fully. I was hungry to learn and hungry to grow.

I started reading my Bible with excitement and joy.

I started using the Bible to help me pray as I prayed passages back to God.

I started learning more about God through theology books that my dad and other mentors pointed me to.

I found myself amazed singing the songs of the faith - rich, beautiful, biblical songs that were saturated with truth.

I love reading and I love stories like Narnia and the Lord of the Rings -- and I soon learned that the Bible was the ultimate story, not just 66 individual isolated books with disconnected “Bible stories” in them, but one big story, from Genesis to Revelation, telling the story of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and New Creation.

The more I learned about God, the more I loved God. And the more I wanted other people to know Him and love Him too.

Saying ‘No’ and Politics

One day when I was in high school, I had this sudden, overwhelming thought that came out of nowhere one night before bed — I had this clear, overwhelming sense that God wanted me to be a pastor.

I was so shocked and scared by that thought, I said out loud to myself all alone in my room, “No.” And I went to bed.

I was not going to be a pastor.

(1) I didn’t want to be pastor, because that’s what my dad did, and I wanted to get out from under his shadow and accomplish something for myself.

(2) I didn’t think I could be a pastor, because in my eyes, I could never be like my dad, and my dad was what a pastor was.

He was extroverted and jolly and a people-person

I was introverted and solemn and a very different kind of people-person

(3) I had already decided that I was going into politics, and I didn’t want to give that up.

I had discovered that I loved politics and public policy. I spent hours and hour diving in and learning all that I could

I was so obsessed with this stuff, I would come home after school and get everything done and then watch C-SPAN for fun.

I was all in

I decided to attend Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA, because they offered me a generous scholarship and most importantly, they had a Summer Internship Program on Capitol Hill, about a 3-hour drive from campus, and Liberty had over a hundred alumni in key government offices on the Hill and a robust network of connections.

When the time came, I packed up and moved across the country to attend a school where I didn’t know a single soul in a student body of some 14,000 residential students, all because I was all in on politics.

I was not going to be a pastor.

As I look back now, I can see that that was all setting the stage for what has become the core, central theme of my ministry: Gospel Centrality.

(1) Gospel Centrality

Would you look again at 1 Corinthians 2:1-5

1 Corinthians 2:1–5 (ESV)

1 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.

2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling,

4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,

5 so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

The Apostle Paul is writing to the Corinthian church trying to get them to see that their value system was upside down. They valued worldly wisdom, and skill, and strength, and power, and nobility. They valued capability. But Paul says the core of the Christian faith, and certainly the core of Christian ministry, in any capacity, is not about being capable, it’s about being dependent. It’s not about your skill, its about God’s power. It’s not about doing, but believing. It’s not about what you say, it’s about what God has said. It’s not about what you do, but about what God has done.

And this is so central to Paul to Paul, that in a letter where he will dive into very specific instructions on a whole range of practical, Christian living topics, he says in verse 2:

1 Corinthians 2:2 (ESV)

2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

How can Paul say that He knows nothing except Christ and him crucified?

The breakthrough for me was a book by Jerry Bridges called “The Discipline of Grace.”

A friend gave me a copy when I graduated high school, and God used this book to change my life.

Bridges starts the book by asking a question: Is your relationship with God a performance-driven relationship?

He Uses the Illustration: Good Days and Bad Days

When you have a good day spiritually, and you get up on time and you read your Bible and pray and are excited to do what God has called you to do and you can sense God’s presence with you throughout the day, and you have an opportunity to share the gospel with one of your kids or a coworker or somehow who asks some very specific questions and it sounds like they’re open, so you pray silently for God to help you and you pray for the Holy Spirit to work in their heart.

When you have a bad day spiritually, and everything is reverse. You don’t get up on time, so you have to scramble to get ready and scarf down some breakfast and you miss your Bible time and prayer time and you’re a bit up tight and you’re overwhelmed throughout the day and you feel like God is distant. And then you have the same kind of opportunity to share the Gospel.

If you were honest, do you think God would be less likely to bless you on your bad day than your good day?

In other words, do you think that God’s love for you in your practical, day to day life is dependent on your performance?

Bridges says that a lot of us live very performance-based lives.

On our “good days,” we think we don’t really need God’s grace.

On our “bad days,” we think God’s grace is out of reach.

So we swing like a pendulum from feeling really good about ourselves in pride and self-righteousness, to feeling really bad about ourselves in despair and self-loathing.

What’s the solution?

Bridges says the solution is the Gospel.

“We need to continue to hear the gospel every day of our Christian lives. Only a continuous reminder of the gospel of God’s grace through Christ will keep us from falling into good-day—bad-day thinking, wherein we think our daily relationship with God is based on how good we’ve been. It is only the joy of hearing the gospel and being reminded that our sins are forgiven in Christ that will keep the demands of discipleship from becoming drudgery. It is only gratitude and love to God that comes from knowing that He no longer counts our sins against us that provides the proper motive for responding to the claims of discipleship.”

He continues with this zinger, the main point of his book:

“Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace.”

1 Corinthians 2:2 (ESV)

2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

This was the key that God used to unlock my heart.

The Gospel says I’m far worse than I ever thought, but more loved than I ever thought.

The Gospel is not just the good news that my past sin was dealt with on the cross. It’s also the good news that my present sin and my future sin was dealt with on the cross.

And now, because of the Gospel, I stand in the Risen Christ. Fully known. Fully loved. My sin placed on Jesus and Jesus’ righteousness placed on me. I am united to Christ.

That meant three things for me:

(1) My motives for wanting to go into politics were wrong. I had built up a story that said the ultimate answer to the real problems of the world was through politics, but in fact, the only real lasting hope for our world is Jesus Christ and him crucified.

I could spend an entire career in politics advocating for better public policies — something that’s a good thing to do — but if my motives were wrong, thinking that that would solve the real problem, I would waste my life.

(2) My hesitation to follow my dad’s footsteps as a pastor was rooted in pride and self-righteousness. It was performance-based living, thinking that I had to make a name for myself.

Learning the Gospel more deeply led me to realize that my life is not my own. I’ve been bought with a price. It’s not about me. And God’s will for my life is to glorify Him and point people to Him in whatever way He equips me. My life is not my own. I have nothing to prove.

(3) My fear of failure to be a pastor was rooted in a lack of faith that God made me the way He made me for a reason, for His glory and for the good of others.

Maybe that sounds simple and obvious to you, but I’ve had to learn to embrace the fact that just because God didn’t build me like my dad doesn’t mean He can’t use me.

The God who saved me for His glory is the same God who made me for His glory

And if God went to such great lengths to save me, why would I not believe God would go to great lengths to sustain me and to use me

God has not used my dad greatly because of anything in my dad. God gets all the glory in how He has used a sinner like my dad.

And by God’s grace, I pray that God will get all the glory in how He chooses to use a sinner like me.

1 Corinthians 2:2 (ESV)

2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

This verse has become something of a theme verse for me.

How can Paul say that He knows nothing except Christ and him crucified?

I think he means that everything else the Bible teaches flows from a clear understanding of the Gospel.

In Paul’s life, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is so central, so significant, so important, that he sees everything else in his life as connected to the Gospel.

Illustration

If the Christian life is a wheel, then the Gospel is the central hub of that wheel. And everything else is a spoke connected to that hub. Not everything in the Bible is the Gospel, but the Gospel is at the heart and the core of everything else in the Bible.

This is what I mean by my first Core Ministry Priority: Gospel Centrality.

Every key moment of significant growth on my spiritual journey has been connected to understanding the Gospel more clearly, more deeply, more richly.

I believe this is the most significant and important of all my priorities.

I’m committed to making the Gospel of Jesus Christ the central theme of my ministry.

And as I see it, it is directly connected to my Second Core Ministry Priority: Expositional Preaching.

(2) Expositional Preaching

In college, I eventually switched my degree to Biblical Studies, with a minor in the Biblical languages.

All of a sudden, I found myself immersed in the study of the Bible.

During this time, I was an active member of a local church, and between my church and my studies, the Lord began to shape my philosophy of ministry and specifically.

I think 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5 really captures my heartbeat of the importance of expositional preaching in the life of the church. Let me read it again:

2 Timothy 3:14–4:5 (ESV)

14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it

15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

1 I 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:

2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.

3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,

4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

5 As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

All throughout the Pastoral Epistles, written from the Apostle Paul to Timothy and Titus, two pastors of different churches, Paul has stressed that the primary role of the pastors or the elders of a church is to guard the good deposit. To believe, teach, and defend the truth of God’s Word.

And to emphasize that, Paul argues theologically.

In 2 Timothy 3:14-17, Paul argues on the basis of what the Bible is: the Bible is God’s Word. It doesn’t merely contain God’s Word, it is God’s Word.

He uses that word “God-breathed” or “inspired,” meaning that the words used by the biblical writers are not merely their own, but are the very words of God.

And so, if the Bible is the very word of God, that means that believers in general and pastors in particular owe loyalty and reverence and humility to the Word of God.

The job of all believers in general and the job of pastors in particular is to allow the Bible to speak for itself, not to use the Bible as a tool for our own agenda.

1 Timothy 4:13 (ESV)

13 Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching.

The central task of a pastor is to publically read the Bible, explain the Bible, and specifically apply it to the lives of the people.

That’s what I mean by my second Core Ministry Priority: Expositional Preaching.

Expositional Preaching is not a style of preaching, it is a philosophy of preaching. A theology of preaching that flows from a right understanding of the nature of Scripture.

Broadly speaking, Expositional preaching is preaching where the main point of the passage is the main point of the sermon.

That can take many different forms and styles. You can preach expositionally from 1 verse or 1 paragraph or 1 chapter or even 1 book of the Bible.

But if God has spoken by the Living Word and by the Written Word, then believers in general and pastors in particular have no authority to change what God has said.

My job is to deliver the mail.

It’s like the process we read about in Nehemiah 8:8

Nehemiah 8:8 (ESV)

8 They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.

We see the same process used in Luke 3 by the Lord Jesus in the Jewish synagogue, which became the model for the early church. He read out loud from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, then he explained it, and then he applied it to his hearers.

And everyone was ok with him explaining it. They were ok with the theology.

It only became a problem when he actually applied it. That’s when people get mad.

That’s why Paul ends with those verses reminding Timothy that he won’t always be accepted:

2 Timothy 4:3–5 (ESV)

3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,

4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

5 As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

It’s amazing to me what happens when the Bible itself sets the agenda for what we learn.

That warning about “itching ears” isn’t just for people “out there.”

It is very easy for us to put ourselves into an echo chamber, where we just assume that we’re right.

It’s very easy for us to get to the place where we really don’t want to be challenged to think and act and love biblically, but we just want to come to church and be reinforced in our lives.

We just want a coffee-cup verse and a nice story and a pat on the back.

But if we’re growing in Christ, our desire shouldn’t be self-focused. Our desire should be to know Him and to make Him known.

Application

Practically speaking, that means I place a high value on studying God’s Word, and working hard to communicate God’s Word in a way that is clear, understandable, and applicable to our lives.

That takes time.

What that looks like is usually I’m not super available in the mornings for coffee or one-on-one get togethers or meetings. I try to set aside my mornings for prayer and study and sermon prep, and then spend my afternoons on people and projects.

But when I’m preparing to preach I usually start by reading the passage in different English translation, looking for details and connections and I’m trying to discover the original writer’s meaning.

I’m praying that the Holy Spirit would open up my mind so I can see what’s there. I don’t make the Bible mean anything, I’m trying to discover what’s already there.

After that I look up interesting words or phrases from the passage in the original languages and how it appears elsewhere throughout the Bible or outside the Bible.

I always try and craft a crisp thesis statement that captures the main idea of the passage, and then I’ll see how the passage breaks down into different thoughts.

At that point or if I get stuck on a really tough or complex passage I’ll consult a few commentaries and theological resources to check my work. I do my best to wait to look at those until after I’ve had time to work through the passage on my own, but I’m thankful for the resources that I can use to help.

And then I prayerfully try and discern the purpose of the passage and how it connects to the rest of the story of the Bible that culminates in Christ, and that helps me to articulate how that passage outline can turn into a sermon outline like the ones I hand out.

My goal is that as I preach and work through a passage, anyone can listen to my sermon and say, “Yes! I see how you got there from this passage.”

Then I’ll write out the sermon and try to be intentional in asking for some feedback on some ways to help illustrate what the passage is teaching and also how it can practically apply to our lives.

Then when its time for the sermon, I try to follow the example I learned from Charles Spurgeon, who at one point said that as he walked up to the pulpit he would pray over and over, “I believe in the Holy Spirit. I believe in the Holy Spirit.”

Because apart from the Holy Spirit empowering me and opening minds and ears and hearts, I can’t accomplish anything of eternal significance.

You don’t need a public speaker to just rattle off ideas or a self-help guru who can encourage you to self-actualize.

You need to hear from God. And He speaks through His Word.

Conclusion

Those are my first two Core Ministry Priorities: (1) Gospel Centrality, and (2) Expositional Preaching.

Apart from the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we don’t stand a chance at eternal life. We don’t stand a chance at having a life that really matters and impacts eternity.

Apart from the power of God working through His Word and His people who live out his Word together in truth and love, you and I don’t stand a chance and making any meaningful impact in our community.

But on the basis of God’s authority and God’s transforming, soul-saving, sin-crushing, Jesus-exalting power, I believe God has situated our church — Southeast Valley Bible Church — to make a meaningful and lasting impact for the kingdom of God in our generation.

And my prayer for our church in this season is that we would continue to be a church that is known for proclaiming and celebrating the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and that we would continue to be known as a “people of the Book,” committed to the Expositional preaching and teaching of God’s Word in our life together.

And I pray that because of that, our church will be a beacon of life and light and hope in our community, for the cause of Christ.

Conclusion

I hope you’ll come back next week as I unpack my next two core ministry priorities: congregational singing and corporate prayer, and maybe even throw a few more stories in there.

But for now, would you pray with me?

Let’s pray.