4 Keys to unveiling His reality at WCBC: 2. Unapologetic preaching

Last week we began a brief series on Unveiling God’s reality in our church. And we alluded to the fact that the one thing we have that the world does not have is the genuine presence of God. Although God is everywhere, you and I know that His presence can be more powerfully experienced in one place or time over another. Some days you hardly feel God with you or hardly feel His presence in a church service and at other times knowing His presence comes easy, you hear His voice more easily, you see lives changed, people healed, hearts transformed. An author and Pastor by the name of James Mc Donald identified 4 things, 4 keys in the Bible that if added or prioritized in your life and in our fellowship together will unveil the weighty presence of God constantly, so that lives are impacted constantly. So that when people hang out with us they will experience what they really need – an encounter with a living and powerful God. Last week we looked at the first key. 1. Unashamed Adoration. If you live with an attitude of gratitude and you worship privately and corporately with a desire to just love the Lord with your whole being, you and those around you will begin to experience more of the tangible glory of God. This morning we look at the second key; 2. Unapologetic preaching. Now before we launch into a 15 minute sermon I want us to watch a video clip. This is for those people who have been raised in a culture that says that the Bible is not special, that there are no ultimate truths, that the Bible is not reliable, that the Bible is just another religious book, that faith is what you subjectively create it to be. If you don’t truly believe that the Bible is unique then how can you share it with others without watering it down and trying not to offend them. The Bible Explored: can I trust the Bible? To 8:03 minutes from the Canadian Bible society. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPaeo19sQXw a) The Bible is ACCURATE b) The Bible is RELIABLE c) The Bible is RELEVANT I believe that the message of the Bible is that God loves us, that we are all sinners and fall far short of His glory, that we all deserve to be punished but Jesus has taken our punishment for us, that ONLY through Trusting in the finished work of Jesus we can be saved. This gospel is offensive. It upsets people. Our culture says “whatever works for you”, “whatever floats your boat” believe that, but don’t say there is only ONE WAY to be saved. Don’t say it’s all about Jesus. And if we allow our culture to conform us instead of the Word of God no one will hear the gospel and no one will be saved and transformed. Miracles won’t happen. We will have a form of Christianity that is without power. If we want to see God unveiled in our friendships and at work and in our church we must preach Jesus and the full, uncomfortable message of the Bible. 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 (CEV) Friends, when I came and told you the mystery that God had shared with us, I didn’t use big words or try to sound wise. 2 In fact, while I was with you, I made up my mind to speak only about Jesus Christ, who had been nailed to a cross. 3 At first, I was weak and trembling with fear. 4 When I talked with you or preached, I didn’t try to prove anything by sounding wise. I simply let God’s Spirit show his power. 5 That way you would have faith because of God’s power and not because of human wisdom. I really enjoy preparing sermons and delivering sermons. The thing is, I learn a lot myself in the preparation and I feel the presence of the Holy Spirit on me as I preach sermons. When I was first out of Baptist College and I wanted to have good structure and impressive quotes and a great choice of words, God was good to me but I didn’t feel His anointing the same. I find that if we preachers try to keep our opinions out of it, try to just teach what was intended for us to learn from the Bible, the presence of God comes.

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Especially if you preach through the Bible as I usually do you have to say things, call sin, sin, say sex outside of marriage is wrong, you have to say that there is only one way to God, don’t be greedy, forgive that person who hurt you. If I or any other preacher teaches what the Bible says, there is an anointing that comes on us, and testimonies of how God has changed people in the week that follows. It would be easy to skip passages like “in this world there will be suffering,” or “all of God’s children will be persecuted” or “the tithe belongs to the Lord,” “pickup your cross and follow Jesus,” etc. It would be nice to skip those passages; people can get offended or feel that you are pointing the finger at them. But if you or I preach the whole Bible and say what it says unapologetically, God will turn up tangibly. I guess any person can get the facts from a Bible passage and stand up and give a lecture in a monotone. That is not preaching. Preaching is what Jesus commissioned the whole church to do. “Go into the whole world and preach” It’s accurately taking the truths of the Bible and under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit telling other people. Preaching is not giving your opinion or sharing your experience. It’s not even prophesying what God has just revealed to you. It’s taking what is in the Bible and speaking it out into the church or the community. The idea, or the origin of the word preaching is closely linked with the ancient role of a herald: someone who would go into the market place and passionately declare the king’s message. The message is an urgent conveying of what the king has said. Now I am not saying we should all go down to the mall and yell at people. What I am saying that every time you passionately declare God’s message, ie what the Bible actually says, you are preaching. It’s letting the Bible speak. Sometimes we find 20 verses on a topic and order them or choose the ones that fit what we are going to say. I don’t think that is preaching. Preaching is when Christian people say I won’t make this fit with my theology I will let this challenge me and challenge you and I won’t be embarrassed or ashamed of any of it. Isaiah 55:11 (CEV) 11 That’s how it is with my words. They don’t return to me without doing everything I send them to do.” Was it C.S Lewis who said I do not need to defend the Bible any more than I need to defend a roaring lion? The Bible speaks for itself and with power. One of the key signs that a person is preaching what the Bible says rather than what they think is that they will speak with authority. People continually commented on Jesus’ ministry. Man, this Rabbi speaks with such authority. The Pharisees and the Scribes would often challenge Him on His preaching and on the miracles that went with the preaching and ask, “on whose authority do you say and do these things?” Don’t apologise for anything it says that might be culturally offensive or hard hitting. It’s God’s Word. If you or I try to water down the Word or rephrase it in a less offensive way we are putting the emphasis, the priority on what the listener thinks. Our goal is not to be anxious about offending people; we should be far more concerned about offending God. If someone asks you “would a loving God send someone to hell?” you could answer with good theology around God’s Holiness and justice and give elaborate illustrations, but I wonder if a more simple answer would be “God is God and He can do whatever He wants.” Someone says to you, “what kind of Father would let His son take the penalty for someone else’s sins?” You could spend a lot of time trying to help the person make sense of this or you could just say “Thankfully a Father who is not at all like us, a Father worthy of worship.” When you declare the gospel, don’t lean on the social sciences like psychology or philosophy or sociology. The power of God supports, follows the preaching of the Bible. I will never forget a talk given to a group of pastors some 5 or so years ago on a moral issue. The guest speaker was a renowned Baptist orator. A real story teller. And entertaining speaker. He spoke for about one and a half hours on the topic. He began addressing the issues from his research into sociology. Then he moved to the science of psychology, then he shared what several doctors and medical specialists had said then about 10 2 minutes before he finished his 5 year journey to discovery on the issue he concluded, “I then read the Bible to see what it had to say and I concluded it was probably right.” I left that place entertained, I left it impressed with the man’s intellect and oratory skill. But I left that meeting having learned nothing really about what the Bible says and means. The whole experience didn’t change me or anyone else. None of us appeared convicted of sin, none of us appeared more in love with Jesus, none of us experienced the glory of God. The speaker was a well known pastor – and yet I knew, as I regretted loosing that 1.5hrs of my life, that I had not heard preaching. If people are going to experience the Glory of God, that tangible, miracle producing presence of God, then when you and I tell other people what the Bible says, it needs to be without watering it down, or skipping bits, or apologising for the awkward parts. Preaching is not about us trying to impress or please people, it’s about trusting in the Work of the Holy Spirit. If you preach the Bible and not your ideas, then you can depend on the Holy Spirit to turn up and speak to people directly. Isaiah 66:2 (CEV) 2 I have made everything; that’s how it all came to be.[a] I, the LORD, have spoken. The people I treasure most are the humble— they depend only on me and tremble when I speak. Humble people, when they hear you and me share the message of the Bible as it is written, will respond to God’s Word. Remembering that preaching is not just about passionately and urgently talking about the message of the Bible from a pulpit, it has to do with sharing that message, undiluted anywhere, I notice these words in Luke 10 Luke 10 (CEV) Later the Lord chose seventy-two[a] other followers and sent them out two by two to every town and village where he was about to go. 2 He said to them: A large crop is in the fields, but there are only a few workers. Ask the Lord in charge of the harvest to send out workers to bring it in...... 16 My followers, whoever listens to you is listening to me. Anyone who says “No” to you is saying “No” to me. And anyone who says “No” to me is really saying “No” to the one who sent me. 17 When the seventy-two[g] followers returned, they were excited and said, “Lord, even the demons obeyed when we spoke in your name!” Seventy-two ordinary people were sent out into the neighbouring towns to talk about Jesus and the Bible. These people who were not sent out to impress or persuade but simply tell the message with urgency are told, “When you simply tell them what is in God’s Word ‘whoever is listening to you is listening to me.’” When you are faithfully sharing God’s Word , people are hearing from God! Have you noticed what the second of the two great commissions to the church actually says? To every believer Jesus said Mark 16:15 “Go and preach the good news to everyone in the world” Great commentator John Stott said there are 6 metaphors that describe what preaching is; One of those metaphors was that of a bridge, when you and I take time to see where people are at and build a bridge of truth from where they are to the spiritual realm, you are preaching. Spurgeon said that he prepared sermons with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. Jesus showed us how to build bridges between the natural and the spiritual constantly. He meets a dodgy Samaritan woman at a well who has come for water John 4 Jesus asked her, “Would you please give me a drink of water?”

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9 “You are a Jew,” she replied, “and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink of water when Jews and Samaritans won’t have anything to do with each other?”[a] 10 Jesus answered, “You don’t know what God wants to give you, and you don’t know who is asking you for a drink. If you did, you would ask me for the water that gives life.” She is thinking physical water and Jesus builds a bridge to the Biblical truth that He alone can give water that gives eternal life. That is preaching. John 3 a religious leader Nicodemus doesn’t understand how someone can be born twice. 4 Nicodemus asked, “How can a grown man ever be born a second time?” 5 Jesus answered: I tell you for certain that before you can get into God’s kingdom, you must be born not only by water, but by the Spirit. 6 Humans give life to their children. Yet only God’s Spirit can change you into a child of God. 7 Don’t be surprised when I say that you must be born from above. 8 Only God’s Spirit gives new life. The Spirit is like the wind that blows wherever it wants to. You can hear the wind, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. Jesus builds a bridge through Biblical truth from the natural mind to Spiritual, Biblical truth. Let me show you the reality, that if you know the Bible you can all preach. You can all build a bridge from the physical to the spiritual, from the needs of humans to the answer of the gospel. I want you to look at the person sitting nearest to you. If they are shorter than you I want you to preach them a 30 second sermon based on the natural picture I am about to give you. Imagine you are in a flat with flatmates. The light bulb just blew. The room was in darkness. Then your pre- Christian flatmate screws in a light bulb and the light comes on. Thinking of the light and the darkness what Biblically based message could you bring to them at that point. So many people live in darkness, they don’t know what they are here for, life seems confusing. Jesus said that He is the light of the world, man when you connect with Him, you can see your way in life. Now the shorter person is to preach to the taller person. You and your pre-Christian friend have just sprayed the shaded, mould covered side of their house with 30 seconds ‘spray and walk away’. You return to the wall 10 minutes later and the mould is gone and its clean and shiny, what might you preach to them? Jesus does in our hearts what 30 seconds just did on that wall. He is the only one that can make you completely clean and shiny as if you never sinned. In your home groups, put different objects on the table, or read different articles from the news and invite others in the group to bring Biblical truth to bridge the natural to the spiritual. If you can do that, and I am sure that you can, you can preach the Bible where ever you go. When Paul preached the Bible to those in Thessalonica they said that it was God speaking, not Paul. 1 Thessalonians 2:13 We always thank God that you believed the message we preached. It came from Him, and it isn’t something made up by humans. You accepted it as God’s message, and now He is working in you. It’s God’s Word, and we preach it for what it says, if we make a big thing of Jesus and try to avoid drawing attention to ourselves, God will turn up and the glory of God will be revealed. I love what Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:5 We are not preaching about ourselves. Our message is that Jesus Christ is Lord. He also sent us to be your servants. When you share with someone what the Bible says, whether they like you or not is really not important. People sometimes want to argue with you about things in the Bible about Christianity that they disagree with. Most of those things can be like red hearings. But if you point them to Jesus and who He is, that message is the one that will change them. That is the most important message of all. In order to keep the message Jesus-focused, you really have to become less and less self-focused. Too often what is said in many churches sounds like what is said in society. 4

What some churches believe is just a reflection of their cultures. Romans 12:2 Don’t be like the people of this world, but let God change the way you think. Then you will know how to do everything that is good and pleasing to him. If we do the work, work out that we can trust the Bible as true, so that we get to the point in life where we totally trust that what the Bible says is true, then we share its message with people, without watering it down, without dodging the offensive bits, God will unveil His glory in our conversations and in our fellowship. May God deliver us from any fear of man, or desire to please people, and release in you and me confidence in His Word and the Power of the Holy Spirit to back up His Word wherever it is preached.

DECLARATION – THE BIBLE In a world that says that all truth is subjective, ‘whatever works for you.’ We declare that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. That All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, We choose not to try to make the Bible conform to our culture or our ideas, to choose the parts that we like. We will look to the Bible to transform and inform our way of thinking. We declare that the Bible is accurate, reliable and relevant. The Bible is God’s Word.

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