Apostolic Preaching
Notes
Transcript
This morning’s Scripture lesson is taken from 1 Corinthians 2:1-5:
And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
May God add his blessing to this, the reading of His holy and infallible Word.
As we have been seeing the past several weeks, the church at Corinth was being torn apart by a party spirit and at the heart of this division was the Corinthian’s love for worldly wisdom and rhetoric. The Greek and Roman culture at the time placed great value upon eloquence and wisdom; we see this reflected in verse one of our text.
We are not that much different, in many ways the situation is much worse with the advent of mass communication and the internet. The church is increasingly being dominated by celebrity preachers. Even in Reformed and Presbyterian circles you will hear people essentially saying: “I follow R. C. Sproul. I follow Tim Keller. I follow John Piper.” Of course, these Reformed celebrities are small potatoes compared to the likes of Joel Osten, Benny Hinn and Joyce Meyer.
Paul combats this tendancy to employ worldly wisdom and methods in the church by reminding them of three things: his apostolic message, the method by which he preached this message and finally the manner in which he conducted himself when he preached. In these five verses, we have revealed to us the standard by which we are to judge preachers and the messages they preach.
Let us begin first with the first criteria:
The Message
The Message
In verses one and two, Paul reminds the Corinthians of his message when he first came to them. He calls this message the “testimony of God”. Paul calls it the “testimony of God,” because his message was drawn from Scripture, the Word of God. This is the first characteristic of apostolic preaching, it is Scriptural. Paul and the other Apostles preached the Word of God, not their own opinions and ideas. Sadly, much preaching today has little or nothing to do with the text. In my sermon this morning, observe how my points and sub-points are coming from the text itself. I do this because I want to preach to you the testimony of God, not the testimony of man!
Second, this is a Christ centered message. Paul writes, “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” This does not mean that every message is what has become know as a evangelistic sermon. What it means is this: Jesus taught that all of Scripture was directly or indirectly about Him (Lk 24:25-27, Jn 1:45, Acts 8:35; 13:27) and as we examine the sermons the Apostles preached and the way they used the Old Testament in their letters, we discover that their preaching and teaching was always centered upon Christ. This is one of the reasons I have entitled my sermon Apostolic Preaching, their preaching is the gold standard by which all other preaching should be judged.
You may be asking yourselves at this point, “If all the Old Testament finds its fulfillment is Christ and His work on the cross, why did the Jews not recognize Jesus as the Messiah?” The reason is that apart from the illumining power of the Holy Spirit, no one will recognize Jesus as the Messiah. In 1 Corinthians 2:14 we read these words:
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
What Paul is saying is this, apart from the Holy Spirit, a person can read the Bible, but they will not really understand it and respond to it in saving faith apart from the Holy Spirit. This brings us to the second criteria:
The Method
The Method
If a person is unable to accept and understand the things of God by the use of their own innate abilities, to rely upon worldly methods of persuasion is not only ineffective, but is counter productive. In our passage today, Paul says he preached the message he did, used the methods he did and in the manner he did “so that [their] faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God” (1 Cor 2:5).
What is so dangerous about having our faith rest upon the wisdom of man rather than the power of God? It is this, such faith is a temporary, false faith. Jesus speaks of such temporary, false faith in the Parable of the Sower and author of Hebrews warns about such faith writing:
For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.
Let me give you an example of how this truth has played out in American history. In the 18th century, there was a mighty movement of God now as The First Great Awakening. This revival used biblical means and produced thousands of true conversions and lasting fruit.
Then, in the 19th century, there was a second revival, known as The Second Great Awakening; rather than relying upon the simple means God has give us in His Word, this movement used worldly wisdom and worldly methods. These revivals produced thousands of professions of faith, but just like the seed that was consumed by birds, withered in the sun, or chocked out by weeds; these professions were false professions. There was no lasting fruit, in fact, it produced spiritual weeds that have plagued the American church to this day! In the nineteenth century, after these so called “evangelists” worked over an area, people would call that region a “burnt out district”. Illegitimate births, alcoholism and a general hardness towards the things of God would characterized these regions.
Let us bring it a little closer to home, why is it that Generation X and Generation Z the two most ungodly, irreligious generations in American history? There have been many reasons given, but I would like you to consider this: were these not the two generations that grew up in the time when the Church Growth Movement dominated the American church? The Church Growth Movement abandoned the simple methods taught to us by the Apostles and attempted to “reach” people the worldly means of marketing surveys, entertainment and messages tailored to people’s “felt needs”.
Brothers and sisters, the wisdom God has given us is the wisdom of the cross. The power of God has given the church the signs of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. By the standards and wisdom of this world to rely upon such lowly means is weakness and foolishness; and that is the whole point! God gives the church such lowly and weak means so that it our faith will rest upon the wisdom and power of God, not the wisdom and power of men!
This brings us to the last characteristic of apostolic preaching: the manner in which the preacher preaches.
The Manner
The Manner
Paul says this about his manner:
And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling,
By weakness, Paul is referring to the type of weakness people accused Jesus of having. In Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians we find this helpful passage:
For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but in dealing with you we will live with him by the power of God.
By the standards of this world, Jesus was weak, by the standards of the Corinthians, Paul was weak, but in reality, both Jesus and Paul were strong. What was their strength? This verse tells us, the power of God at work in their lives! Earlier we learned that Paul laid aside worldly methods, and depended upon the power of God to make his message effective. Now we are learning that the power of God also changed the way he conducted himself as he preached.
Why are so many pastors bullies? Why do so many pastors fall into sexual sin? Why do so many pastors compromise doctrinally? There is one word that answers these questions: POWER!
If you are relying upon your own power rather than God’s you are setting yourself up for a fall and this is especially true of leaders in the church. Of weakness and strength, Paul said this:
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Paul’s ministry was powerful and enduring because he relied upon God’s strength, not his own!
Finally, a brief word about “fear and trembling”. This does not mean that Paul was fearful of people or anxious about his circumstances. It means Paul always lived in fear and trebling of God. He lived in fear of preaching a worldly message, of relying upon worldly methods and strength. He was anxious that the Corinthians’ faith would “rest not in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.” (1 Cor 2:5)
As I close this message, I plead for you to pray for me and other preachers that we would be Apostolic Preachers. The stakes could not be higher. The health of the church and the souls of men and women hang in the balance; and when you pray, pray with hope and confidence. Prayer is the handmaiden of preaching, and just like biblically faithful preaching, prayer unleashes the power of God!