What Makes a Sermon Good?
00:00:00.000 | What's the purpose of a sermon?
00:00:07.060 | What is the preacher trying to accomplish?
00:00:09.600 | While ministering in Belfast, I heard Pastor John answer this question by saying this,
00:00:14.440 | "The preacher's job is for people to know God and to find Him more satisfying than food,
00:00:21.880 | sex, money, sports, or media.
00:00:25.600 | They're idolaters if they don't."
00:00:28.400 | Wow, powerful language about the urgency of the preacher's task.
00:00:34.760 | The preacher's not a stand-up comedian trying to get laughs.
00:00:36.920 | He's not a stage performer trying to out-entertain the overstimulated attention span of a Netflix
00:00:42.680 | addict.
00:00:43.680 | He is seeking after eternal things to grab hold of the hearts of his people in order
00:00:48.800 | for them to find more joy in the giver than they find joy in the gifts of the giver.
00:00:55.120 | That's the task of the preacher.
00:00:57.440 | Here now is the full clip from Ireland.
00:00:59.520 | Keith Getty is leading a conversation with Pastor John about his recent book on preaching.
00:01:04.880 | Here's their conversation.
00:01:05.880 | "Each person at the conference is getting this book, Expository Exaltation.
00:01:11.560 | You know, I made the joke yesterday.
00:01:13.600 | I was reading Desiring God on the Lawrence-Denar ferry to the point that every time I see the
00:01:18.720 | book, I still smell, you know that sea water and then that kind of smell of the boat?
00:01:24.120 | Every time I see the book Desiring God, I still have that smell in my nostrils.
00:01:27.120 | It's really weird.
00:01:28.120 | But as I said, it was a unique eye-opener for me because it was both this rich biblical
00:01:35.040 | doctrine, but it was just, there was so much of the emotions, the affections, the passion
00:01:41.920 | and the outworking of it.
00:01:43.360 | I've always come alive with Charles Wesley's lyrics because I think they explode theology
00:01:47.400 | in a way that opens all the affections.
00:01:49.440 | Stuart Tynand does the same thing, and this book did that for me.
00:01:54.680 | Talk to us about Expository Exaltation and preaching and worship and take it away.
00:02:02.080 | If the goal of life, worship, preaching is a people alive to God, knowing God truly,
00:02:19.560 | loving Him duly, and the fact that those rhyme says something, I work at sentences like that.
00:02:27.280 | I sit for half an hour trying to think how to say new things.
00:02:30.120 | I mean, that one will get old.
00:02:31.640 | It's already old to me, you know, love God truly, or know Him truly, love Him duly.
00:02:37.320 | It's old to me.
00:02:38.320 | It might not be old to you, but I work at things like that.
00:02:40.840 | But that's another topic.
00:02:43.680 | If that's the goal, my people need to know God, and my people need to have passions for
00:02:52.560 | God so that they have more satisfaction in God than food or sex or money or sports or
00:03:01.280 | media.
00:03:02.280 | They're idolaters if they don't, and that's my job.
00:03:08.520 | So if that's your job, Pastor, what are you going to do?
00:03:10.520 | Both of those are impossible.
00:03:12.360 | The devil is blinding their minds and their hearts are hard stone.
00:03:15.980 | You can't do anything about that in yourself.
00:03:21.060 | So preaching is an impossible task, has an impossible goal.
00:03:24.800 | Miracles have to abound in this room.
00:03:27.080 | If anything eternal is going to happen.
00:03:29.440 | So what do you do?
00:03:32.000 | And those two words, expository exaltation, with a U, not an A, not ex-altation, but ex-altation.
00:03:40.840 | One is transitive, one is intransitive.
00:03:43.000 | Remember those words from grammar?
00:03:45.680 | No.
00:03:47.600 | What do they teach in school these days?
00:03:49.800 | C.S. Lewis.
00:03:54.000 | Those two words capture those two goals.
00:03:58.200 | Expository means my job is to see what God has revealed of himself in this book.
00:04:09.400 | See how he revealed it in the very words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs.
00:04:16.360 | And then to find words and structures of thought to so teach it, elders must be apt to teach,
00:04:28.000 | didactikos, be really good to meditate on what that adjective means.
00:04:32.360 | They must be apt to teach so that when he's done, understanding has happened.
00:04:38.280 | Light has gone in the mind and they are better aware of the reality of God in their minds.
00:04:49.160 | I mean, I'm, here's a little, I don't know where you are on this, but a couple of things
00:04:54.760 | about how knowledge relates to worship.
00:05:00.200 | I've watched some people who are so disinclined to theology, so inclined to mystery that they
00:05:11.400 | try to make God look greater by highlighting what we can't know because he's so great.
00:05:26.840 | When I read the Bible, which is a very thick book, like mine has what, 1200 pages in it?
00:05:34.120 | No, 1060 pages roughly in this book.
00:05:37.600 | This is not written so that you will praise God for how little you know of him.
00:05:44.280 | It's not.
00:05:45.280 | I just know it's not.
00:05:46.600 | God did not waste so many people's time putting so much glorious truth about himself in this
00:05:54.720 | book for us to say so little of it, know so little of it, and justify our ignorance by
00:06:00.960 | wonders of mystery.
00:06:03.360 | Baloney.
00:06:04.960 | The way you come to appreciate mystery is by climbing to the top of the highest mountain
00:06:10.760 | you can find and looking over it and seeing, oh, there's another range out there.
00:06:15.760 | And then climbing that one and looking over the top and saying, oh, there's another range
00:06:19.760 | out there.
00:06:20.760 | And then climbing over that one, that's called theology.
00:06:23.240 | Those mountain ranges are learning about God from the book.
00:06:27.160 | So that's my first beef with those who try to create worship out of not knowing.
00:06:34.200 | Here's another one.
00:06:35.680 | God cannot be glorified by being trusted without reason.
00:06:44.540 | So many people extol leaps, like leap, just leap into the dark.
00:06:50.880 | Well, if a man walks up to you on the street and gives you a bag, you don't know him from
00:06:58.680 | Adam, and he gives you a bag and he says, "There's $10,000 in cash in here.
00:07:04.720 | Would you go deposit it at my bank?
00:07:07.040 | Here's my bank number.
00:07:09.000 | Here's my pin.
00:07:10.320 | Here's the account number.
00:07:12.880 | Here's everything you need, and I'll see you later."
00:07:16.080 | And you look at him and say, "I don't even know you.
00:07:21.600 | Why would you trust me with this?"
00:07:23.000 | And he says, "I just do.
00:07:27.000 | Would you think he's a wonderful person?
00:07:30.560 | He's an idiot."
00:07:33.760 | And God would say he's an idiot.
00:07:37.160 | However, if when you say, "I don't even know you," he says, "Well, I know you.
00:07:44.720 | I've been watching you at work.
00:07:46.400 | I work down the hall.
00:07:49.040 | I've tested you.
00:07:50.240 | I've seen everything you do.
00:07:52.040 | You are a man of great integrity.
00:07:53.800 | You put this in the bank.
00:07:54.800 | I know you will."
00:07:55.800 | Now, how do you feel?
00:07:57.600 | He's not an idiot.
00:07:58.880 | He's done his research.
00:07:59.920 | He knows you.
00:08:01.080 | He's honoring you.
00:08:03.320 | That's the way God wants to be honored.
00:08:05.840 | This book has in it countless reasons for trusting God, countless reasons for trusting
00:08:12.160 | God.
00:08:13.160 | If you try to make much of God without reasons to make much of God, he's not honored.
00:08:18.480 | You're an idiot.
00:08:20.520 | So that's another beef I have with people who say, "Leap in the dark."
00:08:26.000 | Now what question are we trying to answer?
00:08:27.520 | Remind me again.
00:08:28.520 | [laughter]
00:08:29.520 | >> Expository, expulsation.
00:08:30.520 | >> I'm on expository.
00:08:31.520 | Let me just shift gears for just a minute.
00:08:35.520 | And he asked me another question.
00:08:36.880 | I'm sorry.
00:08:37.880 | I talked too long.
00:08:39.600 | So you want people to be knowing God, truly loving him duly.
00:08:45.800 | Well, stocking their minds with ideas is not sufficient for awakening love, affections.
00:08:54.760 | How does that happen?
00:08:56.600 | It's a miracle.
00:09:00.000 | I said to Chuck early on, and I've said it all along, we don't worship and then preach.
00:09:08.520 | We worship with singing and then we worship with preaching.
00:09:12.600 | You and I are doing the same thing.
00:09:14.600 | I'm using preaching, you're using singing, and we're both worshiping.
00:09:18.680 | So what does it mean for a pastor to worship as he preaches?
00:09:24.400 | Telling the truth is half of it.
00:09:27.080 | Making it visible and plain from the Bible is half of it.
00:09:30.960 | But if he's not responding with his heart to what he's seen here, he's not preaching
00:09:37.000 | and he's not worshiping.
00:09:39.200 | There got to be evidences in that man's voice, in that man's eyes, in that man's demeanor.
00:09:45.840 | He believes this.
00:09:47.720 | He loves this.
00:09:49.360 | He's afraid of this.
00:09:52.020 | He's amazed at this.
00:09:54.800 | Whatever the proper emotions are for this particular psalm or text in Romans, whatever
00:10:00.920 | those particular appropriate responses of the heart are, he should have them.
00:10:07.600 | And that's exaltation.
00:10:09.840 | Expository exaltation.
00:10:10.840 | So really, expository exaltation is an effort to see preaching as an embodiment of what
00:10:18.280 | you want out there in the people.
00:10:20.440 | What you want in the people is people who know God rightly and then feel deeply about
00:10:26.120 | what they know about Him.
00:10:27.800 | Feel appropriately.
00:10:29.200 | If it's hell, you want them to feel the horror of it.
00:10:33.200 | If it's lostness, you want them to feel the grief of it.
00:10:35.720 | If it's heaven, you want them to feel the hope of it.
00:10:38.200 | If it's a great gift, you want them to feel thankfulness for it.
00:10:41.880 | If it's some horrible sin they've committed, you want them to feel broken for it.
00:10:46.000 | All those feelings are worship.
00:10:48.240 | That's what matters.
00:10:50.160 | And you've got to embody that, preach that, and then if God please, if God please, it
00:10:56.840 | happens in people.
00:10:59.080 | Incredible.
00:11:00.280 | That's the high calling of the preacher.
00:11:03.000 | And you heard a mention of Chuck in this audio clip.
00:11:05.920 | That's Chuck Stedham, Bethlehem's longtime worship leader who served along Pastor John
00:11:09.920 | for many years.
00:11:11.920 | But boy, that quote really sticks with me.
00:11:13.720 | The preacher's job is for people to know God and to find more satisfaction in Him than
00:11:19.200 | in food, sex, money, sports, or media.
00:11:22.080 | They're idolaters if they don't.
00:11:25.560 | That's powerful.
00:11:27.160 | Well, preachers and wannabe preachers and discerning listeners of sermons, thanks for
00:11:31.360 | subscribing to Ask Pastor John in your favorite podcast app or in YouTube.
00:11:35.560 | We appreciate having you along for the ride.
00:11:37.860 | And next time we field the question, "I am of Calvin," are we forbidden from making such
00:11:43.760 | a claim?
00:11:44.760 | I am of Calvin.
00:11:46.560 | This is a good one.
00:11:47.560 | This is a really good question.
00:11:48.560 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:11:50.000 | We'll see you on Friday for that.
00:11:51.160 | [END]
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