Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro: F3, workout F3 Name is Part-timer

I belong to a work out group of men that work out each week here in the Memphis area.

It is peer-led, free workouts that encapsulate three main objectives, Fitness, Fellowship and Faith.

Every workout last 45 minutes and every workout ends with a time of devotion and prayer.

If you are new to the group, you are called a friendly new guy during the workout and at the end, you are given a name.

The regulars probe you about your likes, you family, you career, a favorite sports team.

If none of this info sparks an embarrassing name to label you with, then we move to the embarrassing stories.

On my first workout on January 8th, 2018 landed me the name Part-timer.

Why you ask: because I have five kids, a wife, a secondary job and I am a pastor at a church.

Therefore, the proverbial running joke continues about pastors, “we have very little to do” we are merely part-time workers.

That name really encapsulates a joke that has some reality of what people think of pastors, especially ones who are full-time vocationally.

I have heard the question more than once, “what do you do all day?” Sometimes that question comes with general intrigue while other times its a criticism.

That Criticism weighs heavy on pastors and so they seek to juggle many aspects of church ministry to earn their keep.

In full-time contexts they often clean the church, cut the grass, fix the plumbing, fill the baptistry, visit the sick, bury the dead, teach the SS class, and finally get to prepare and preach the sermon.

When you consider that a majority of US churches are 100 people or less, then its not hard to imagine many pastors earning their keep by doing all these things.

I would consider an unacceptable answer for most people to that question would be, I spend most of my time praying and studying God’s word in order to feed the flock each week.

But it shouldn’t be unacceptable if we priortize the preaching of God’s word as the central focus of a biblically healthy church model.

1.

A Preaching Ministry Defended(v.1-2)

Like in many letters that Paul wrote to the church, Paul defends his ministry among God’s people against the backdrop of critics of him.

He makes a few statements to give clarity to the attack on him.

Look in 4:1-5

1 Corinthians 4:1–5 (ESV)

1 This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. 2 Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.

3 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court.

In fact, I do not even judge myself.

4 For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted.

It is the Lord who judges me. 5 Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart.

Then each one will receive his commendation from God.

Paul will make the case in the following verses that lead up to chapter 4 that he is innocent of any judgments against him and those judgements are invalid because they are concerning spiritual matters to which the Corinthians are unequipped to judge.

This makes a solid point for us to consider as we see the reality of any stands that we make for Christ in our personal lives or in a ministry context.

There will always be those who judge our efforts, our motives, and our character.

But we must take those criticism with a thick skin understanding that come from blind people offering decorating advise.

There is no validity to an judgment against you when it comes from a person who is not gifted by the spirit to see and understand spiritual matters.

This is Paul’s point in our text for next week:

Sometimes he defends the criticism of his apostolic authority.

Many doubted that Paul was a legit apostle and that his words carried any weight.

In this instance, it is not about the authority in what Paul is saying to the Corinthians.

They are not in disagreement with his doctrine as much as they are standing in judgment against his showmanship- his delivery of the message.

I have stressed the environment of Corinth in which the showmanship and entertainment value of the sophist created a celebrity stardom for public speakers.

Paul’s delivery of God’s truth stood in contrast to the secular wise men of Corinth.

He seemed to even be pitied against Apollos, his ministry companion who most likely had a more rheotrical preaching style like the sophists, given his influence in Alexandria.

Author Ben Witherington writes,

The audience was expected to evaluate a rhetorical speech and compare it to others.

Rhetors expected the audience to judge their oral performance.

The Corinthians were not acting differently from others who had been raised in a culture that had certain expectations about rhetorical performances.

It was believed that a person is as he or she speaks, that there is a correspondence between words and life, and that one who is eloquent is also wise.

Paul’s personal presence seems to have been weak, and by rhetorical standards this reflected on his ēthos, his ability to establish his good character and credibility.

But Paul was not there to entertain, he was there to proclaim the truth and wisdom of God through the preaching ministry that the Lord had sent him to accomplish.

Let us consider for a moment this passage and from it see a healthy guide for preaching in the local church.

Paul exemplified this in the early church and there is much we can learn from him.

Preaching has many words associated with it in the NT language.

Two are mentioned in this passage and another one used in 1:17 but there are many more.

In 1 Cor 1:18, Paul uses the term EUANGELIZO.

It is a compound word in the GK with the EU meaning good and ANGELLO meaning message, or announcement.

Therefore preaching is about the MESSAGE or content that is delivered which is good news.

Politically, that message might be an announcement of victory at war or in a new appointment of a sovereign.

We get our English term Evangelism from EUANGELIZO.

Jesus and the work of redemption is the good message that is to be delivered and announced.

1 Cor 2, Paul uses two more

Katangello and Kerrusso

KATAANGELLO is a derivative of EUANGELLO and both can mean proclamation of a message, specifically good news like the gospel.

Both words are reflecting the root word ANGELLO that the message is not announced publically with joy and urgency, not timidly or restrained.

The other word Paul uses to refer to his preaching is KERUSSO which is the verb form of KERYX.

A Keryx was a formally authenticated herald in a kingdom who was hired to announce to the citizens great words from the king.

They were verbal practitioners whose resume included a thundering vocal range so that the message could be heard from afar.

Therefore, Kerusso as a verbal form came to refer to an authenticated message sent by a dignitary, in Paul’s case, the very words of God spoken by King of Kings.

These GK meanings then help us understand what preaching is to entail.

Preaching is a bold, public, confident proclamation of the good news of God’s word that is an authenticated message by the Holy Spirit delivered by an appointed man of God to an intended audience of interested listeners.

Preaching finds its roots in the theology that God speaks to mankind through words and those words contain the very power of God.

With those words he creates and brings life, and with those words he grows and nurtures, and even brings judgment and death.

Those words are then intended to be communicated to man by God’s messengers such as angels, prophets, apostles and preachers.

These delivery creatures are entrusted with a faithful message, not of their own making, and therefore must be faithful to make sure the package arrives at its destination.

To discard the authenticated message for their own, is not preaching and it is an offense against the Sender.

In his book Preach, Mark Dever states that preaching “derives its authority by being rooted in and tightly tethered to God’s word…without it, it is simply a speech” (Preach, pg36).

Charles Spurgeon, who is known as the Prince of Preachers, wrote in his Lectures to My Students a more eloquent statement,

“However eloquent the sower’s basket, it is a miserable mockery if it be without seed.

The grandest discourse ever delivered is an ostentatious failure if the doctrine of the grace of God be absent from it; it sweeps over men’s heads like a cloud, but it distributes no rain upon the thirsty earth and therefore the remembrance of it to souls taught wisdom by an experience of pressing need is one of disappointment or worse.”

(Spurgeon pg.

73, Lec V)

Therefore Paul defends his ministry by stating that his intention is to be faithful to deliver doctrine to his hearers and not worry himself with decoration.

When Paul states he did not come to them with lofty speech or wisdom, he refers to an eloquence of words that found itself lost in the comparison with rhetoric of that day.

When he came to Corinth in Acts 18, he came to simply preach them truth and in doing so he focused on doctrines of God that find their fulfillment in the person of Jesus Christ.

We cannot believe that Paul only preached of Jesus his year and half of ministry there, but wants he wants them to see is that he would not overloading the message with fluff and pageantry.

Preaching of God’s word should be the most central focus of every church gathering around the world because it is at that place that God speaks through his word.

This is where the people of God are fed and therefore it takes precedence in the order of service.

This is what we have instilled here at our church in comparison to churches in our community and nation.

We hope you don’t come just for the music or the kids song but that you see those things as supplements to the sermon each week.

Our singing to the Lord prepares our hearts to listen to Him speak through the exposition of the Scriptures.

Paul avoiding pageantry simply means that he was not going to capitulate to the cultures desires or norms because what the culture needed was not culture admonition, it needed divine engagement.

We know that when God’s word goes forth it changes individuals so that the community around them changes, one person at a time.

Therefore Paul feeds them what they need, not what they want.

They wanted rhetorical genius but Paul gave them the genius of the message of the gospel.

Church, consider what you need as a believer who has been given new life in Jesus.

You need the proclamation of the gospel message each week in this gathering as food for your soul.

You needed to be pointed back to Christ, to his grace, forgiveness, his power working in you, his coming consummation of his kingdom, because you need this hope.

Jokes, long illustrations and all other forms of pulpit pizzazz may woo you like a chocolate cake sitting on the counter, encased in glass but eating the whole thing only brings suffering and pain down the road.

You need a healthy balance of spiritual protein and carbs that will strengthen you for the battle each and everyday.

I remember the phrase back in the 90’s church culture that they could not resist, “Spiritual Milk- it does the body good.”

2. A Preacher’s Heart Revealed(v.3-4a)

Secondly, look at Paul’s position as he stands firm on his method of preaching.