If We Read Our Bibles, Why Do We Need Sermons?

00:00:00.000 | Well, if we read our Bibles, why do we need sermons?

00:00:07.440 | It's a question from a listener to the podcast named Lucia.

00:00:10.680 | "Hello Pastor John and Tony.

00:00:12.240 | I am a high school student and have been blessed by many of your sermons and podcasts.

00:00:16.680 | I have a question.

00:00:17.680 | I know there was an old episode titled, 'If I listen to sermons, why do I need to read

00:00:22.200 | my Bible?'

00:00:23.200 | That was episode 435 back in 2014.

00:00:27.360 | I want to ask the reverse question.

00:00:29.360 | If I read the Bible, why do I need to listen to sermons?

00:00:32.960 | I feel like many people emphasize reading the Bible, saying it's our direct way to

00:00:36.920 | have a relationship with God.

00:00:39.160 | Whereas when you listen to sermons, you may be listening to someone else's relationship

00:00:42.880 | with God.

00:00:43.880 | Also, I know that powerful sermons can make you feel emotional, but I hear that our faith

00:00:49.360 | shouldn't be based on emotions.

00:00:52.040 | What I mean by getting emotional, it's hard to explain, but the inspiring feeling where

00:00:57.000 | I feel God's love, how great He is, and feel motivated to change.

00:01:01.280 | But once those emotions in me die down, I'm not sure where to go next.

00:01:05.600 | Do I read the Bible more or do I listen to more sermons to help me feel something again?

00:01:09.840 | But I digress.

00:01:11.240 | My main question is this.

00:01:12.680 | Why listen to sermons if we all have the Bible to read on our own?"

00:01:18.440 | Let me try to answer this question in two stages.

00:01:21.800 | First, I'll try to show from the New Testament that it is God's plan and design that besides

00:01:31.400 | the infallible Word of God in the Bible, the church is to be led underneath that infallible

00:01:39.400 | Word by fallible elders, sometimes called pastors or overseers or teachers, who are

00:01:48.100 | gifted to lead and to teach the flock.

00:01:51.920 | And then second, we ask the question, "Why?

00:01:55.980 | Why did God set it up that way so that the ordinary members of the church who have in

00:02:02.520 | their hand an infallible Bible should listen to and respect and esteem and follow and rejoice

00:02:10.000 | in the ministry of the Word through fallible preaching?"

00:02:14.480 | So step one, God's plan.

00:02:17.880 | Just this week, I was preparing a "Look at the Book" session on 1 Thessalonians 5, 12-14.

00:02:29.220 | And I was compelled to address this very question before I knew that this question would be

00:02:36.680 | asked.

00:02:37.680 | And here's what it says.

00:02:38.680 | "We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord

00:02:46.560 | and who admonish you and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work."

00:02:56.120 | So here's a group in the church that leads and teaches.

00:03:01.680 | And then I think verse 14, the next verse, turns to address those very teachers like

00:03:08.840 | this, verse 14.

00:03:10.480 | "And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak,

00:03:18.920 | be patient with them all."

00:03:21.240 | So I drew out from that text the obvious point, namely, here's the infallible apostle writing

00:03:31.500 | to the Thessalonians and handing off a large measure of responsibility for the ministry

00:03:40.480 | of the Word in the church.

00:03:42.520 | He's handing it off to fallible people.

00:03:45.400 | He's telling the teachers how to minister the Word.

00:03:50.200 | And he's telling the members how to receive the Word and how to respect the teachers.

00:03:57.580 | Then consider 2 Timothy 4, 1 and 2.

00:04:00.480 | This has been huge in my life as a pastor preacher, where Paul says to Timothy, young

00:04:07.600 | Timothy, whom Paul had left behind as a pastor in Ephesus, he says, "I charge you in the

00:04:15.800 | presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead and by his

00:04:22.120 | appearing in his kingdom, preach the Word."

00:04:27.040 | It's just a clear command to Timothy, "Preach, herald the Word."

00:04:32.360 | In other words, the question is not whether the believers in Ephesus think they need to

00:04:38.680 | listen to Timothy when he preaches, since they have access to the infallible letter

00:04:43.840 | of the Ephesians.

00:04:45.540 | The question is whether God, and in his perfect will, is telling them to listen to Timothy,

00:04:54.640 | preach the Word.

00:04:55.640 | He's saying, "Timothy, preach the Word."

00:04:59.200 | And God intends for people to hear the Word preached if he commands his pastors to preach

00:05:06.120 | the Word.

00:05:07.120 | Here's just one more passage, Ephesians 4, 11.

00:05:10.240 | "Christ gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers

00:05:17.040 | to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ."

00:05:22.800 | So what's clear in this passage is that the risen Christ intends for churches to have

00:05:29.980 | pastors and teachers that, through their preaching and teaching, equip the saints to do the work

00:05:38.400 | of the ministry and build themselves up in love and faith.

00:05:44.080 | That's the divine plan.

00:05:46.480 | Now, the second step of my answer is why.

00:05:51.700 | Why does God do it this way?

00:05:54.160 | Why does he plan for there to be fallible—I'm talking about myself there, John Piper—fallible

00:06:02.160 | human teachers and preachers in the church who teach and preach to the people on the

00:06:09.160 | basis of God's infallible Word, when the people have that infallible Word right there

00:06:16.520 | in their hands?

00:06:18.540 | And here are five reasons that I see in the Bible.

00:06:22.520 | Number one, preachers and teachers, according to 1 Timothy 3:2, are to be gifted or apt

00:06:29.320 | or able to teach, which means that they should have the time, the inclination, the skill,

00:06:37.960 | and the spiritual discernment to see things in God's infallible Word, which many ordinary

00:06:44.840 | folks just don't see.

00:06:48.920 | Second, in their teaching and preaching, pastors demonstrate for the people and model for the

00:06:58.360 | people how to see those very things in reading the Bible, which they don't ordinarily see

00:07:04.600 | for themselves.

00:07:06.240 | Preaching is based on the Word of God, and good preaching shows from the very text of

00:07:14.800 | the Word of God where the teaching is coming from so that the people who are listening

00:07:20.040 | can see it for themselves.

00:07:22.760 | And in seeing it for themselves through the preaching of this pastor, they learn how to

00:07:30.560 | see it for themselves.

00:07:32.880 | And so by means of good preaching, Bible reading itself becomes increasingly fruitful.

00:07:41.480 | Third, faithful biblical preaching is what I call expository exaltation.

00:07:49.520 | The word expository implies teaching and explaining what the Bible actually means, and the word

00:07:55.640 | exaltation implies that the preacher himself feels and communicates the worth of what he's seeing.

00:08:04.760 | So preaching is the communication of both seeing and savoring the reality in the text.

00:08:16.080 | This means that those who listen to such preaching over time will not only have their heads stocked

00:08:25.040 | with new thoughts, but will have their hearts awakened to new affections for God and his

00:08:33.680 | Word and his ways and his people.

00:08:36.400 | We might think that the Bible itself should be enough to awaken all the affections and

00:08:44.800 | emotions that Christians ought to feel.

00:08:48.000 | Well, the plain fact is that does not happen.

00:08:54.160 | God has planned that we be inspired and encouraged and humbled and thrilled by the things of

00:09:03.840 | God which we see more movingly through faithful, Spirit-filled preaching.

00:09:12.160 | That's why he says to those teachers in Thessalonica in 1 Thessalonians 5.14, "Encourage the faint-hearted."

00:09:23.680 | Encouragement happens in preaching.

00:09:25.760 | That's a change of emotions and affections.

00:09:29.120 | Affections are changed, not just minds, through God-ordained preaching.

00:09:36.000 | Fourth, God has ordained that the eyes of the spiritually blind be open and salvation

00:09:46.560 | come through the foolishness of fallible human preaching.

00:09:53.280 | 1 Corinthians 1.21, "Since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through

00:10:01.360 | wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe."

00:10:11.920 | We might imagine in our own heads that all the world needs is their Bibles dropped from

00:10:19.760 | airplanes into people's lives.

00:10:23.440 | Well, we can imagine all we want, but God's plan is that people are saved through the

00:10:32.480 | preaching of the Bible, through the preaching of biblical truth, not just the reading of

00:10:40.160 | the Bible.

00:10:41.160 | The foolishness of preaching is appointed as one of the important means of saving sinners.

00:10:48.200 | And finally, number five, behind all four of those previous points lies the truth that

00:10:56.200 | God intends for the church to be a mutually interdependent body of believers.

00:11:04.520 | The eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you.

00:11:10.920 | I've got my Bible.

00:11:11.920 | I don't need you."

00:11:14.120 | It's a quote from 1 Corinthians 12.21, "The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need

00:11:21.000 | of you.'"

00:11:22.000 | In other words, God has determined that Jesus Christ, through the ministry of the Holy Spirit,

00:11:29.960 | will get more glory through the Christ-exalting, Spirit-dependent, Word-saturated, mutual ministry

00:11:39.440 | in the church than he would if people only read their Bibles rather than needing to hear

00:11:48.120 | other believers speak the Word into their lives.

00:11:52.440 | That's the bottom line.

00:11:54.200 | Christ is more glorified through doing it God's way than by forsaking God's way while

00:12:01.240 | presuming to love the Bible.

00:12:03.240 | Wonderful.

00:12:04.240 | Thank you, Pastor John, for your two-stage answer here.

00:12:07.340 | This was an episode looking at the inverse of APJ episode 435.

00:12:11.880 | If I listen to sermons, why do I need to read my Bible?

00:12:15.040 | You can find episode 435 in our archive online.

00:12:18.760 | There you can find old episodes, ask a question of your own, or subscribe to the podcast.

00:12:21.920 | You can do all that at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:12:23.920 | Well, what does it mean to pray in the Spirit, and can we accidentally pray out of the Spirit?

00:12:33.840 | It's a great question.

00:12:34.840 | It's coming up next time.

00:12:36.080 | I'm your host, Tony Reiki, and for that, we'll see you back here on Monday.

00:12:40.400 | Have a great weekend.

00:12:41.080 | [End of Audio]

00:12:42.080 | 1

00:12:42.080 | DesiringGod.org | www.DesiringGod.org

00:12:43.080 | Page 2 of 9

00:12:43.080 | DesiringGod.org Page 2 of 9

00:12:44.080 | DesiringGod.org Page 2 of 9

00:12:45.080 | DesiringGod.org Page 2 of 9

00:12:46.080 | DesiringGod.org Page 2 of 9

00:12:47.080 | DesiringGod.org Page 2 of 9

00:12:47.080 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

If We Read Our Bibles, Why Do We Need Sermons?

Chapters