The Pulpit: Its Powers and Pitfalls (Part 2 of 2)

The faithful preaching is a powerful tool God uses to transform lives and to glorify himself ministry isn't without potential pitfalls today on Truth for Life. Alastair beg identifies ways that effective preaching can be derailed and he reminds pastors of the upside to preach continued today in first Corinthians chapter that followed laziness. There's no question that if you give yourself wholeheartedly to the ministry of preaching, it will demand every ounce of your fiber, but if you want this guy just got his word for do as little as possible, then pastoral ministry provides that opportunity is a tremendous number of lazy people in pastoral ministry if they were involved in any kind of private enterprise.

The big belly up to be flat broke. They never make a dime and they needed a good kick in the seat of the fence and back into action. Beware the laziness of just sitting around in your socks when the members of your congregation have had their shoes on for the last four hours. Stop this nonsense about how you need to be home with your family because if you don't get to get of your family. You can take care of the church.

I understand that but that's not an excuse for sidling around and going on picnics and doing whatever it pleases you. Norming laziness is a dreadful thing.

Look at how many ministers of the big fat tummies while you get them.

Sixthly, I start about people in Britain that I wasn't going by American sixthly misplaced affections. The pitfall of misplaced affections such as such as loving the ministry rather than loving Jesus, such as loving talking and hearing your voice rather than loving the privilege of opening up the Scriptures, such as loving the Bible and not actually loving the Christ to whom we are introduced in the Bible seems very possible to stay close to the word of the Lord and not be close to the Lord of the word to become a theoretician to become able to become an answer of questions to become cold and refrigerated and disentangled from the loving embrace of the Christ we serve. That's pitfall to be consumed with money rather than with contentment to drift into immorality rather than to live in personal purity misplaced affection 73 cents of aimlessness sense of aimlessness. Howard Hendricks apparently had in his study, a sign that said on it.

What in the world are you doing with these people. There is a great danger that we lose our way in pastoral ministry so it is imperative that we constantly are harnessing ourselves to the purpose driven statements of the Scriptures.

Paul is classic, is he not because I want to win as many as possible in first Corinthians 9.

He says I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection in Philippians 3 he says, I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. In other words, he was absolutely clear about what he was doing and where he was going and it is a shame when in the responsibility of opening up the Scriptures are friends and our colleagues our leaders alongside is looking to his understand you have any idea what you're doing you any notion of where you're going.

Will you help us, will you take the helm of the ship. Some of us need help in relationship to that and people always be glad to help provide were prepared to say hello but some of us want to still hold the tiller went on quite where to move it or how to direct the boat and were aimless and we drift and our congregation drifts with us hatefully. The danger of capitulation. The danger of capitulation, forgetting that the primary purpose of our food. It is to see men and women put in a right relationship with God for us to capitulate to the notion that it is our business to either make people happy or to see their life's integrated door to relieve their circumstances or to improve their condition. No we stand between a holy God and sinful men and women and ours is a ministry of reconciliation and knowing the fear of the Lord we persuade men. Our responsibility is to feed the sheep to teach them not to tickle them. It's the guiding them and there is a great danger in our day that we would capitulate and we would become just glorified cheerleaders, happy chaps that stand up and try and make everybody feel a little better about themselves. The last pitfall I want to mention a picks up on the ramblings that we started yesterday about naked preaching and that you will remember that the question was how right is it, or the pastor to use himself as an illustration, and I knew in the back of my mind that I had something in my files concerning this. I find it and I just want to use this opportunity to share it with you that someone is writing an article about this whole notion of authenticity and being authentic and indeed the heading of the article is naked creatures are distracting and he says this. Have you ever decided to act authentically. I think I'll act authentically that says dumb. He says as deciding to act humbly, you either are or you aren't to intentionally pamper my sermon with doses of predetermined authenticity is to be inauthentic. An elderly woman complained to me that she could tell when her pastor had not had time to prepare a sermon because he would begin crying at the weakest point in the sermon crying. I said yeah crying. She said he says something like when I think of what Jesus did for us. I just will forgive me. I'm just overcome with gratitude. He usually is overcome with gratitude about once a month, usually related to his fishing schedule in a society where the emotional striptease is the standard stuff of daytime television in a culture where we are encouraged relentlessly to scan our egos as if there is no help for us. Other than that which is self derived do we preachers need to be authentic. Authenticity is more than a matter of being who I it is a matter of being who God calls me to be for preachers authenticity means being true not just to our feelings, but true to our vocation to God's call. We serve God's people by laying aside ourselves taking up the cross, preaching Christ and him crucified. Whether we feel like it. Next Sunday are not. That's authenticity now that brings me away from the pitfalls to the other side of the coin and to the power and I want to spend the balance of my time here. Now we read purposely from first Corinthians and chapter 1 and two me to say a word or two about power.

Paul is talking here about power. In this section as you would know you be familiar with that.

It is a very timely message because in his generation as an hour there was a phenomenal preoccupation with the notion of power and Paul recognizing that it was customary for people in the context in which he was moving to be intrigued by interested in our powerful people doing powerful things. He apparently picks that up and chooses to instruct the Corinthian church as to the nature of God's dynamite and in the midst of all that he is saying here in the is seeing a great deal.

Let me zero in on this one notion which I believe to be true to the text in your sensible people. You can examine and see whether this is accurate or not.

What Paul is saying here that power the power of God is active on the lips of those who preach that the power of God is manifested through the foolishness of what was preached, so that in this very act of spirit filled God anointed Bible-based instruction from God to man through the lips of a spokesman God's power is manifest and that you see is the explanation of apostolic preaching that Peter and the others were not on the streets of Jerusalem giving lectures on Christian doctrine. They were not on the streets of Jerusalem sheathing, the generalities about Christian principles that people might like to try and appropriate and assimilate into their lives and thereby be better people know the word on the streets of Jerusalem conveying but conveying facts in such a way that it was owned by the Spirit of God. And so there was a power there was a dynamite about what was going on others in his sight here that I think I should probably leave alone not just going to mention it and O'Gorman. I don't believe that drama awakens faith in Jesus. I don't believe that art awakens faith in Jesus. I believe that preaching awakens faith in Jesus in a way that nothing else dumps Christian preaching begins only when faith in the message has reached such a pitch that the man or the community proclaiming it becomes part of the message proclaimed when the man or the community becomes part of the message proclaimed so people come among your Christian community and they say these people are the message. The message is these people.

This preacher is this issue this question is this person you can disentangle the man from the communication that is taking place.

These Christians must show me they are redeemed crying.

Nietzsche before I will believe in their Redeemer. Thus, when the apostolic church declared the hour cometh, and now is this is the age of the spirit. The church itself.

In its total life was part of that romantic truth for man encountering that church felt even though they were pagans. A waft of the supernatural, mysterious power, like the steering of our dawn wind is not an amazing little section, the income insurance, even as pagans out waft of the supernatural on this deal. He is our's.

The preaching of Whitfield. That's the 18th century awakening that is something far different from a knowledgeable fellow speaking with emphasis. It is active buying income to buy means of the living God. Now when Paul uses power in relationship to preaching.

This is his emphasis. He says God has chosen to work in such a way that is power might be displayed that he says illustrating. It is why he is chosen, the likes of you.

It's was humorous.

In verse 26 and following. He says if you want to know that this principle is true that God's power is made perfect in weakness. God's chosen to bring down the strongholds of wisdom by the measure of foolishness. He said just think about yourselves. Is it just think about your church. What we are like when you are called know many of you were wise by human standards.

You want a bunch of influential people. You didn't come from noble birth. That's the whole point. God chose the foolish to shame the wise, the week to shame the strong.

The lowly things the despised things.

The things that are not so the people would stand back and say there is only one explanation for this event and that is that God's power is here now.

That's what we want to see happen.

Not that we would use our congregations to the lowest common denominator so that pagans feel better that there is something that makes them feel very comfortable metal band plays a little interview happens little skit happens in and you know funny people come out and dance around in the and they go away and they say my church is a wonderful place that's not it at all. Think about the personnel he says and think about the preaching. When I came two brothers adding come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaim to you the testimony about God or the testimonial of God. I was there to share my ideas. I was there to speak as from God about God to bring you to God know when you do a bit of history and go back and read the acts of the apostles read around chapter 1415 1617 into 18 you will know that he wasn't coming off a private plane here. He had been in Philippi and he got flogged he went from there to Thessalonica and riots broke out and they had to take him out of the city under cover of darkness. He buzzed down to Berea and the people who came from Thessalonica started up the agitation and Berea then went to Athens got to Athens and his heart was breaking here paroxysms as he looked at the idolatrous situation there, and his life was stored within them and then on from there and into Corinth and he begins to preach in the synagogue and the throwing out of the synagogue and he reminds them of these historic days. He says when I came you remember I didn't have much by the way of baggage picked him up from the airport he was coming to speak at your conference in Corinth, you know should you have any bags. Paul well I had a couple that I left behind. What did you leave behind my left eloquence behind it is we love eloquence here in Corinth LA I didn't bring that we know people are expecting that yeah know I didn't bring what you know people are really into that there there into miracles and their into eloquence of their into wisdom.

I mean have you done a can of market research before you showed up here and you know you're supposed to give the people what they want. Don't you soon. I didn't bring eloquence another and impress people. I'm not going to do all I can Shakespearean drivel just to impress them with my talking on the kind of preaching that just impresses people with the stuff. Let me tell you, you cannot impress people with yourself and impress them with the Lord Jesus simultaneously trailing behind the bag of eloquence. He left behind the back of wisdom.

I don't have time to go into all of this, it is Sophia is a very important thing and I he says I I did bring one or two things with me. I I brought weakness and fear, and much trembling.

That was the manner in which he showed up the message with which he came was real clear.

I resolved and Katrina was the means.

I made the singular determination. Not that he was unable for these things, he was exceptionally bright in a written book of Romans. Have you not been but I determined I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I was weak I had fear. I shook a bit my message and my preaching did not say to people man is he wise is he persuasive, but there was something about the message I proclaimed it was a demonstration of the Spirit's power brethren. Is this not what we long for the spirit of God would come down upon our preaching surprises that even the pagans would catch a waft of the supernatural would be caught up in some way. Now his express motivation is there in verse five I determined to do this so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power, TV came in and just impress them with his ideas and his notions and his skill in his eloquence, and so on. Then the people would have been stabilized for wee while but they would have been at the mercy of the next person who came into town a little brighter, a little more eloquent. So Paul says when I came in I didn't want you to respond on the basis of that.

That's why proclaimed the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, so that your faith might rest, not in man's wisdom, but in God's power. My dear friend and mentor Eric Alexander in giving an address in Canada some years ago, concluded his remarks like this that is one thing I want to say to my brethren, who are called to be preachers. There is one thing above all other things in the world that we need.

That is the mysterious thing we call the unction of the Holy Spirit of God upon our lives and upon our ministry. Charles Spurgeon used to say unction is that somewhat that it is impossible to define what you always know when it is present and you can usually tell when it is absent. We need to cry to God for the Holy Spirit's anointing upon our preaching, so that the people may not go away with the notion. What a great preacher. Instead, they should say what an amazing God, how glorious years we have been in the presence of God this day. Truly God is on this place. Oftentimes God takes the most feeble week despise servant of his and comes down upon them for the simple reason that it would be difficult for anybody else to get the glory. God exalts his name and glorifies his son and melts the hearts of his people because God is come upon this particular instrument of his glory above all other things we are to be the instruments of his glory and honor and we shall find expository preaching. The most amazing laborer in the world. There is really nothing quite like it. It is utterly consuming. It may sometimes be utterly exhausting sometimes uncertainly exhilarating but it is the most glorious privilege in all the world on mornings I find myself getting up from my study desk and walking around saying out loud in the study fancy for being paid to do this, isn't that one of the great mysteries of the world and see somebody actually paying you to do this kind of thing I find that quite overwhelming. It is privilege beyond my under standing from one of my dearest of Scottish friends to one of my dearest American friends, Alister, writes John MacArthur preach the word brother. This is the heart of our service not always easy but always blessed in my office struggles to fulfill that service the following Puritan prayer has strengthened me and let me finish. Now my address with this Puritan prayer Lord, high and holy meek and lowly, has brought me to the Valley of vision where I live in the Heights with the end in the depths with me, hemmed in by the mountains of sin not yet see thy glory.

Let me learn by paradox of the way down is the way on that to be lowly is to be high the broken heart is the healed heart of the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit that the repenting soul is the victorious soul that to have nothing is to possess all that to bear the cross is to wear the crown but to give is to receive the Valley is the place of clearest vision. Lord, in the daytime.

Stars can be seen from deepest well it's in the deeper the wellness the brighter the star showing listing to Alister Greg for life been finding out.

There are many pitfalls that can undermine a pastor's ministry.

We've also learned today that God's power is revealed in the spirit filled preaching of his word, just like every believer.

Pastors need to be encouraged.

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You know the risk of growing weary and drifting from the things that matter most to God like solid biblical teaching faithful holy character in the book is titled faithful leaders in the things that matter most. You can request your copy when you donate to Truth for Life today is a Truth for Life.org/donate call us at 888588788 Bob Lapine, the apostle Paul seized every opportunity available to him to proclaim the gospel we prepared to follow his example confront world in need of a Savior. Join us tomorrow. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life learning is prolific