The Scandalous Sermon

Big Idea

Tension: Why should Timothy preach the Word?

Resolution: Because more important than the itching ears of men, Christ will return for those who love him.

Exegetical Idea: Timothy should preach the Word because more important than the itching ears of men, Christ will return for those who love him.

Theological Idea: Christians must value biblical preaching because it prepares them to meet Christ.

Homiletical Idea: We prepare to meet Christ by listening to and valuing biblical preaching.

Outline

Background to 2 Timothy

Introduction

In 2011, Steve Thorngate said this in an article in the Christian Century: “I've got an idea: read my lips--NO MORE SERMONS! just stop preaching. We laypeople are now literate. We can read books on our own or take classes. We don't need clergy teaching or preaching at us. The very idea of a sermon is offensive: a lecture where we can't argue back or even ask questions. And so is the very idea of clergy as authorities or intellectual leaders--when in many congregations most laypeople are as educated or better educated.”

Is this true? Is preaching obsolete? Do we need to get rid of preaching? Is it archaic, offensive, too authoritarian?

Outline

Preach the Word (v2a)

What is “the Word”? (2 Tim 3:14-17). The Word is about God’s plan, not ours. The Word is good news, not good advice. The Word is God’s Word, not ours.

“Preach” - Expositional Preaching - The main diet of preaching at this church is not topical, it’s expositional. And even when we do have topical sermons, we’re not seeking to make those topics appear out of thin air. We’re trying to genuinely communicate, “thus saith the Lord.”

Making wise for salvation. Until preaching brings us to Christ, it is not biblical. This is what Paul himself says. That the Word itself makes us wise for salvation. It is preaching the gospel. Telling the good news about Christ’s atoning death and life-giving resurrection. It is preaching the good news that we can only be justified by Christ alone who died in our place on teh cross. And we can only be given life through his resurrection. Preaching is nothing without the gospel.

This means that Good preaching should seek to say what the Bible says, not what the pastor says. The Word is not a prop for pastors. It doesn’t exist to confirm what they want to say. No the relationship of pastor and Word is the relationship between Messenger and Message. The messenger doesn’t determine the message, he seeks to deliver it.

It also means that there will always be something passive about preaching. It means that just as salvation is a gift that we receive, so preaching is a message that we hear. Yes, there are times when I will ask for participation in one way or another. But preaching is receiving God’s Word, and that means necessarily that it will always be passive at some level, and that is okay.

How do we preach the Word? (2b)

In season and out of season. When it is opportune and inopportune.

Rebuke and reprove - “step on your toes”

Exhort (Encouragement) with complete patience and teaching - Good teaching is what will lead to encouragement.

The time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. (3-4)

Notice that word for “sound.” That means, whole, healthy, stable. That is what Biblical preaching is. It is whole, it is genuine. It's not built on sifting sand. It’s built on the rock. It has integrity. It won’t collapse.

There is a time that is coming when people wont’ want that. Not everybody wants the Bible.

Rather, they look for people who will tickle their ears. Who will tell them things that are titillating. Who will tell them half-truths. Who will not clearly open up God’s Word. Who will appeal to their basest instincts and enver confront them wtih God’s Word. And they will stop listening to the truth. And they will turn to myths.

This is why we’ve called Preaching Scandalous. Because the world does not love it. It cannot understand it. It thinks it is strange.

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

Now look at vs. 4. Notice how Paul connects the pastor to the preaching. We live in a world where this is an increasingly tenuous tie. Where people don’t want a pastor up here telling them thus saith the Lord. But God says, “no, I have put pastors in place to deliver the Word.”

This is what God expects from a pastor. They should be sober-minded. That is, they shouldn’t let themselves get obsessed or driven by this way and that. People should expect that their pastor won’t get “drunk” with news, or politics, or social justice, or technology. Rather, they are to have a clear mind.

Second, they should endure suffering. They should know people will reject them and reject the ministry. ANd often it’s not because of them, it’s because they don’t want teh Word.

Third, they should do the work of an evangelist. That is they proclaim teh gospel.

Fulfill your ministry. They should seek to spend their lives doing all they can to do all that God has called them to do.

Why? Because God is watching and Christ is returning (vs. 1). Paul looks at Timothy and says, “fads come and go. Sometimes people love preaching, and sometimes they get sick of it. Sometimes people will accept you and sometimes people will reject you. But the reality is this Christ is returning. And you want people to be ready for that day.

The crown of righteousness... for all those who love his appearing. But look at how Paul describes this in vs. 8. It is because Christ really is returning and he is really going to reward the righteous for their deeds.

This is not earning justification. After all, could any of us ever earn justification? No, there is only one name under heaven and earth by which man can be saved. Rather, it is God’s grace that he is giving rewards to the righteous. If God was expecting us to pay him back, would he accept the paltry deeds that we have done here on earth? Of course not. Rather, because God has justified us for all our sins, he is free to reward us. Like a fathre claps when his child gives him an art project from school, even though it has no value to his existence, so does our Father give us when we enter into glory.

But it is to those who love his appearing. Now, this is telling. Most of the time, when we talk about Christ’s return, it’s with anxiety right? We are anxious about it and fearful of it. But here Paul says, this is somethign that we look forward to. Like a bride waiting for her wedding day, like a student waiting for graduation, like a runner looking at the end of the race, we are eager for his coming. We love him. We love his return. We work hard for that day.

Preaching prepares us for that day. Here’s the reason why we need to value preaching. Here’s the reason why we need to make it so central to our lives. Because it is preparing you for eternity. It is God’s ordained means to prepare you for eternity. It’s not that I am all that. It’s that God has chosen this moment, this time each week to make you ready for Christ. I have done enough funerals, I have been at enough bedsides to know, this is coming faster than you know. And you want to hear the words “well done, my good and faithful servant.” Do you want to be like the bride who forgot to send out invitations, who never bought her wedding dress, who never picked out her bridesmaids, who forgot to order tuxes, who forgot to reserve a venue on that day? Or do you want to have everything perfect?

My time has come. - Paul looks back at his life and says, “death is drawing near.” Paul knows he is about to go the way of all the earth.

I am being poured out as a drink offering - In the Old TEstament, sometimes would bring drink offerings into God’s house. And these libations are thanksgiving offerings-an offering given up to thank God. Paul says, everything I have, is just thanks to God. It is because of everything that he has done for me, that I have served him. It is because of what he says in 1 Tim 1:12-16 that he says, all that I have is just thanksgiving to him.

He looks at himself, he looks at the chains on his hand, he looks at the scars in his body - and he says… I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Paul says, I have gotten to the end of my life. And now, having suffered everything, I regret nothing. And I am so glad, Paul says, that I gave my life to this, the preaching of the gospel.

So what does that mean for us? Our vision as a church means nothing without preaching.

We follow Christ - To follow Christ is to follow him into eternity. And you cannot do that without God’s gift of preaching. God’s preaching is God’s gift to sustain you. This is why you should take every opportunity available to you to hear and engage in and love God’s preaching. This is why its worth coming here even when your life is busy, this is why it is wroth coming here even when you don’t feel like it. This is why it is worth coming here when nothing else makes sense. It’s why it makes sense going to church on vacation. It’s why it makes sense going to church even when you have to say no to something in order to say yes to this. Because God is using this time to prepare you for eternity. And at the end of your life, when you see Jesus, you will not regret all the time spent in church.

We help others follow Christ - Which means, if we want to help others follwo Christ, it requires that it cannot be done apart from preaching. If we want to hep others, share the gospel with them, if we want others to come into relationship with God, it means bringing them into contact with this. It means inviting them to church. It means teaching them and discipling them. Dear friends, do you want the lost poeple in your life to know Jesus? It starts here int his place.

To bring God glory - It means that God has chosen preaching as the way to bring himself glory. God has chosen that he will not get glory apart from preaching. Which means that what is happening here in the preaching moment is actually glorifying to God. Preachers will be judged for whether or not they are faithful to this. Parishioners, church attenders, churhc members will be held accountable for whether or not they listened to preaching. Because God loves preaching, and he wants his people to love preaching too.

Conclusion:

Every couple of years, someone comes along and thinks that they know better than God. They think if we can make the preaching of God’s Word can just be replaced by a talk, or make it replaced by a dialogue, or make it replaced by something else that suddenly they’ll have figured it out. And every Sudnay, God humiliates the self-proclaimed self-help gurus of the Modernist Ego by millions and millions of preachers faithfully preaching and believers faithfully hearing God’s Word. May we be among them.