Picking Your Pastor

Sermon Transcript

Jesus, we want to hear you. You promise that your word will never return. Void meaning. When we want to hear what you have to say, you're going to accomplish everything you set it forth to do. And so right now, Lord, we clear any distractions out of our minds.

And, Lord, we get ready to hear directly from your living and active word. Lord, I pray for help from your holy spirit as I deliver this message, that you would be pleased, that you would be honored, and that you would be glorified in all that is proclaimed here today. And that, Lord, you would grow us and challenge us and encourage us as a church as we continue to see seek after you. And, Lord, may you receive glory and praise and all the honor that is so rightly due to your name for loving us enough to give us this word. And all of God's people who are ready to receive his word and hear what he had to say and put it into practice, agreed with me and said, amen.

I want to encourage you this morning to open up your bible to one corinthians, chapter two. First corinthians, chapter two. We're beginning a new chapter this morning. And as Paul has been writing to this group of believers in Corinth, where he pastored for 18 months, he's been talking to them about his gifting and how he came. He's told them about their identity in Christ, the purpose of the church.

And last week, we really took a look at the difference between worldly wisdom versus godly wisdom and how God's wisdom is so different than what the world would have to offer us. And now what I'm going to talk about this morning is how Paul came to them. So I've titled this message, picking your pastor. Picking your pastor. Now, if you lived in Corinth in the first century, you wouldn't get to choice.

You wouldn't get a pick, right? Because if you went to church, you would have whoever was going to be up there, because there was only one church in Corinth. And so, but we live in a day and age where you're going to get a chance to pick your pastor. Okay, for many of you who said, I've already settled that in my head, I promise you, for what you're going to read from Paul, he's not going to tell how to pick your pastor. He's just going to tell you how he came to the corinthians, what he valued, what was important in a pastor, what's not important in a pastor.

And I'm telling you, not all of you are going to live in Denver for the rest of your life. You may not get to come here. For some of you, you're checking out. Hey, is this where God wants me to be? Or you're going to have a friend who's going to ask you at some point in time, how do I know where to go to church?

Where should I pick in my community? This will answer that question for you. Okay. And so, as we look in God's word today, we're going to take a look at what it means to be a pastor. And I'm gonna highlight for you from these five verses, four things that you should not look for necessarily or should not be primary when you look for a pastor, and four things that are primary when you look for a pastor.

And so if you'll read with me in one corinthians, chapter two, I'll read verses one through five, and then we will unpack them together. Notice what Paul says. He says, and when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God, for I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.

And so let's look at these four things that Paul is going to tell us that when you're picking a pastor, you should look for. And the first one is this. When you pick your pastor, do not choose a man. Okay? Do not choose a man based upon his eloquence or personal opinions, but choose one based upon one who boldly preaches the whole counsel of God.

Do not pick a pastor based upon his eloquence or personal opinions, but one who boldly preaches the whole counsel of God. Notice what Paul said he did when he came to the Corinthians. He said, and when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with what superiority of speech or of wisdom. Superiority of speech is eloquence. It's fluency of words.

It's. I didn't come to you as a great communicator. I didn't come to you as a great storyteller. Now, there's nothing wrong if you have a preacher who's a good communicator or a good storyteller, but don't make that primary. Sometimes when I ask people about their preachers.

What do you like? Well, he's such a good storyteller. He told this one about a puppy last week that was just so cool. Well, what did it have to do about Jesus? I don't know.

But the story about the puppy was cool, right? It's not about the eloquence of the language. It's not about the communication. And as Paul's been in this context of wisdom, worldly wisdom versus godly wisdom, he does not come with superiority of speech or with wisdom. In other words, worldly wisdom.

In other words, I'm not coming to you with my own personal opinions to get you to a place where you agree with what my personal opinions are. Okay? Now, this may come as a shock to some of you, but I'm very opinionated on a lot of different things besides just the Bible. Did you know that about me? Yeah.

I'm just gonna be honest. I'm being vulnerable this morning. I mean, there's several things that I could give you opinions about. Like, maybe we could talk about. I don't know.

Maybe we could talk about how to school your children. Cause you have a lot of options available to you, don't you? I mean, you can go to private christian school. You can go to just a private classical education model. You can go to some other kind of private school.

You can go to charter school. You can go to public school. Heck, you can even homeschool. Okay? And guess what?

I have an opinion on that. But when it comes to proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ, it makes no difference to me, because I don't want that to dilute what I'm preaching about when I'm proclaiming Jesus Christ. Some of you may know that prior to being a pastor, I used to sell financial services. Do you know that? I have opinions about how people should save money.

And we could talk about how to broaden your portfolio and how to set aside different funds in different places. But on a message when I'm preaching Christ, that's not how I spend my time, because I don't want it to dilute the message of Jesus Christ. Hey, we could talk about politics. You know how many of you would believe that I'm opinionated when it comes to politics, right? I mean, I have an opinion of how we should vote and what we should do and how we should be involved.

But when it comes to preaching the word of God, that's just not where I go. Because whether you're republican or Democrat or libertarian or independent, it doesn't matter. To me, when I'm proclaiming Christ, I want you to know Jesus in all of his glory. Or we can talk about patriotism, couldn't we? I mean, I just happened to be the Monday Night football game this week where the Broncos played the Chargers.

I was invited by a group of friends, and so we had this great little tailgate party before. And then I entered the stadium, and it was a night game, so it was the second Monday night game, so it was dark. Do you know when they bring the parachutists in before the game? They were playing thunderstruck by AC DC. And I'm looking in the sky, and in order to see the parachutists at night, they had them, like, carrying these torches and flames or something.

So all this flames going on in the air while I'm listening to thunderstruck. And then they all land, and my heart's beating loud, you know? And then they have the Toby Keith song made in America, and fireworks are going off. And then people pull this whole flag across the entire stadium and sang the national anthem. And I stood with my hand over my heart and sang to give pledge to our nation for all the great men and women who have fought for our country and died so that we can have liberty and freedom.

And not only that, but they had an eagle that flew from the top of the stadium down to some gal who had something on her arm. And the eagle landed during this thing, and I had tears coming down my face, and it was awesome. But when I'm preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, that doesn't matter to me. Because even if you think differently about patriotism, I'm okay with that. Because my Bible tells me that I'm a citizen of the kingdom of heaven and that my allegiance to Jesus Christ and his kingdom trumps any personal feelings I would have towards the United States for the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

See, that's why Paul said, when I came to you, I didn't come to you trying to win you over with my opinions, and I didn't come to you trying to have flowerly language and good speech. So you'd say, what a good speaker. He goes, what did he do? He was one who boldly preached the whole counsel of God. Notice what he says.

Why did he come proclaiming to you the testimony of God? Proclaiming is preaching. If you're looking for a pastor, the number one thing you want to find in a pastor is one who will preach the entire counsel of the word of God. That is the message servants and saints throughout history have said. The same thing.

Doctor Martin Lloyd Jones of last century said, the primary task of the church and of the christian minister is preaching the word of God. He went on to say that the work of preaching is the highest and the greatest calling to which one can ever be called if you want something. In addition to that, I would say that the most urgent need in the christian church today is true preaching. And as it is the greatest and most urgent need in the church, it is obviously the greatest need in the world. Also preaching.

Preaching. It is the most important ministry in the church. Preaching. Why? Because this book is God's word.

He wrote it to us through his Holy Spirit. This one book is made up of 66 different books. And God has called gifted men to herald that message. Preaching is more than just teaching. It's not just giving you facts and it's not just telling you stories.

It is heralding the word of God, that the word of God is true. And God thinks it's very important that we hear his word proclaimed. Why? Because the preached word of God is the word of God. Now, preaching takes a bad rap in our society.

Yeah, preaching, whatever, you know, small groups are more important. Worship's more important. Whatever. Without the preached word of God, let me tell you, you can have church service. You can have thousands of people come.

Let me tell you who's not at that service. Jesus Christ, who's up in heaven somewhere saying, hey, would somebody let me have a voice? Would somebody let me speak? I've written 66 books. I'd actually like to tell people what I want to tell people.

Preaching is primary. And for those of you that would say, well, you know what? Why is it so important to me? I'll give you a couple reasons why it's important to you. Because the message of the cross and the message of Christ is not only important for those who come to church, it's important for the entirety of the world.

It means there's some of you who are sitting here today who have come to harvest for a little while. Some of you may be your first time, and you've never, ever given your life over to Jesus Christ. Preaching is me telling you that God is alive and God loved you so much, he sent his only begotten son, Jesus, who lived a perfect life, who died on the cross in your place for all your sins, who rose from the dead, who's as alive as he's ever been, who is willing to forgive all your sins, call you to himself, fill you with his spirit, and empower you for the rest of your life. That's good news that needs to be proclaimed. And if you've never trusted Christ, make today or day, confess him as your lord and savior.

But for some of you, like, hey, I've gone to church for a long time. I already know the Bible. I already got all this stuff. Why would I need to sit under preaching? I think about the hymn that says, prone to wander, lord, I feel it prone to leave this God I love.

Here's my heart o take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above. Do you know that even as a believer, even as one who prays, even as one who seeks the Lord, there are things that go off in my heart sometime that tell me, maybe you don't wanna walk with Jesus like that. Maybe you don't wanna go all in like that. Maybe I need to not give him the best. Maybe I need.

What does a preacher do? A preacher calls a Christian that says, hey, listen up. Listen to me. If you think about being sexually immoral, stop. It's wrong.

You don't wanna do that. You wanna follow after God. Hey, businessman, I know you can cheat on this deal this week and make more money, but stop. Don't do that. God's watching.

Hey, for those of you that are thinking about, hey, maybe I'll be in church, maybe I won't, the preacher says, you need to come and be reminded of the fact that Jesus Christ is still alive and he could come at any moment and be ready for him. That's what a good preacher does. Preaching is God's word so that you know that Jesus Christ is alive presently in your life. And to put yourself under the authority of preaching makes all the difference. John MacArthur, in his helpful commentary, says it like this.

He says some people, including some immature believers, will go from church to church looking for the right preacher. Unfortunately, their idea of right preaching is not sound biblical exposition, but interesting observations and suggestions based upon the preacher's personal philosophy. They are not looking for a word from God to believe, but for a word from man to consider. Why are you here today? See, preaching is thus saith the Lord.

I'm not telling you this so that you'll have ideas or opinions about it. I'm saying this is what Jesus says. What are you gonna do with it? If you're not coming into church saying, God, what are you saying to me? And I need to hear what you're saying, and I need to put it into practice.

You're missing out on your very growth in your christian life. Right? If you're just saying, hey, what's he got to say, how does it make me feel good? What do I have to do? You know?

That's not what preaching is. And here's the truth about preachers. Preachers will either listen to the word of God, champion the word of God, pray to God, and receive his spirit and proclaim it, and God will shape his people, or a pastor will turn his ear out to his people to see what they want him to say, to see what they want him to feel good about, and the people will shape the pastor. I mean, I could point you in a thousand directions to a thousand different churches where the people shape the pastor. There's no word from God.

It's not the authority of God's word being proclaimed boldly. It's a lot of people that are gathering with a pastor that's saying what is needed to be said to keep the same group of people here time after time again. But it's not a fresh word from God. I mean, I'm telling you right now that the word of God and the preaching of the word of God is primary for. For what God wants to do and what he wants to tell us in our life.

Now, I really didn't have that experience growing up. I mean, I was in a church where the word of God was somewhat valued in the sense we would read it or we would even reference it. But I never heard somebody thunder or trumpet the word of God or herald it until I went to a promise keepers meeting back in 1992. And I heard Doctor Tony Evans preach. And in that hour that he spoke, I remember my soul being stirred at its core, and I laughed through different parts, and I cried through different parts, and it got done.

And I was like, who the heck was that? And this was before the days of podcasting or Internet, okay? That didn't even exist. But I found out that doctor Tony Evans had a radio ministry in our area where I lived at 1030 in the morning. So you know what I did?

I tuned in every day at 1030 in the morning, and I pulled my Bible out, and I started taking notes on everything he said. And two or three years later, you know what? My faith was roaring. It was zooming. Why?

Because I was hearing the preached word of God, and it was changing my life, okay? At harvest, our first pillar is unapologetic preaching. It's not because that makes for a nice pillar in the lobby. It's because it's what God wants the church to be founded upon. And we will trumpet and champion the word of God here, because it's how God gets his message across.

It's kind of scary too, you know? I mean, when I read through the Bible in Luke chapter ten and verse 16 in Luke 1016, when Jesus sends his apostles out to preach, here's how serious he is about the word. He says, the one who listens to you listens to me, and the one who rejects you rejects me. And he who rejects me rejects the one who sent me. God says, to the extent that you preach the word and you're faithful with the word, when people hear you, they're actually hearing me.

To the extent that you're actually faithful with the word, when they hear you and they reject you, they're actually rejecting me and they're rejecting my father who sent me. So just be faithful with the word, right? As a pastor, we don't need to get creative about what new themes and topics we need to create because there's myriads of them here in God's word that we can spend the rest of our life chewing on. And if you come to a church where the word of God is being hammered, championed, thundered, trumpeted, whatever you want to say, and you're willing to put that into practice over a period of time, I can promise you that you will grow in your faith in Jesus Christ. I mean, even at the end of Jesus earthly ministry, after he's risen from the dead and he meets Peter and he restores him to the faith, what's he telling three different times?

Feed my sheep. Feed my sheep. Feed my sheep. Tend my sheep, shepherd my sheep. The number one way to feed the sheep is preaching the word of God.

Make no mistake about it. I'll hear christians say stuff like this. Okay. I don't know. I mean, maybe it's selfish for me to want to go to a church where I'm just getting fed.

Maybe that's selfish of me. Let me ask you a question. Is it selfish for you to eat? What do you mean? What if you said, oh, I'm just.

There's a lot of people that aren't eating in the world. Maybe I'll just not eat ever again. You wouldn't last very long, right? God not only wants you to serve, you cannot serve if you're not eating. The pastor's primary job is to feed the sheep.

There's nothing wrong with feeding sheep. To say I want to be fed means this. I want to hear what God has to say to me and put it into practice. There's nothing wrong with that. Oh, and by the way, to some of you young men out here who are called to be preachers.

There's nothing wrong with you being called to preach the word of God. Cause I listen to young men sometimes that say, well, maybe it's just selfish in me, or maybe it's just my own personal desire. It's not a selfish call to respond to the call of God in your life, to trumpet and herald and thunder his word to a group of people so that people can hear God. Right? Preaching.

When there is no preaching, it means there is no voice of God. When there is no voice of God, yes. Then you have to come up with a lot of other myriads of ways to hear his voice. But preaching is primary. It was primary in the first century, it's primary today.

And there will always be. There will always be people who will oppose preaching. Why? Because it offends. We just read it last week, the message of the cross, the word of the cross.

It's foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it has become the power of God. When you pick your pastor, it's okay if he's eloquent, okay if he has personal opinions, but don't make that the reason. You go. Go somewhere where someone is going to boldly preach to you the whole counsel of God, the testimony of God. It means that this man will not skip over chapters and verses because he thinks that you might not like it.

This man's not going to skip over chapters and verses because he feels in his own heart he's not quite ready for that yet. He's going to hold the standard high, and he's going to champion God's truth, and he's going to hold the bar so that we can trust Jesus to turn us into what Jesus wants us to be. Amen. That's how you pick a pastor. That's how you tell people to find a church, find a place where the word of God is being heralded.

Secondly, Paul says this. When you pick your pastor, don't pick a man of God just based upon his intelligence, okay? Don't pick based upon his intelligence or his personal agenda, but one who is determined to make the ministry of Jesus Christ primary, notice what he says for I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Determined. You know what that word means?

I mean, I made a choice, a careful decision to make sure that when I was preaching, I was preaching primarily on the ministry of Jesus Christ. Now, Paul, just so you know, Paul was one of the most learned men of his day. Paul was not stupid. Paul was incredibly smart. Okay?

I mean, he studied under the greatest teachers of Israel. If anybody would have been a first rate theologian, it would have been Paul. So when Paul says, I determined to know nothing. He wasn't saying, I don't know nothing. He was saying, I made my point, Jesus, not my intelligence.

I made my point. Jesus, not my personal agenda. That's what he was saying. And we read this. I mean, I love how, you know, sometimes we spiritualize this book.

I mean, these guys were men filled with the Holy Spirit. But even as the disciples talked about Paul, I mean, if you write this first down, second, Peter, chapter three and verse 16. Two, Peter, 316. When Peter was talking about the ministry of Paul, here's what he says in which some of his things are hard to understand. I mean, Peter, the first apostle, who stood right by Jesus, who understood Jesus, says, yeah, when Paul writes, I mean, he's kind of heady.

I don't even understand some of the stuff he's saying. Paul was smart, make no mistake about it. What was Paul saying? But I determined not to put my intellect on display for you so that you think I was smart. You ever heard somebody say something like this about their pastor?

I've heard people say stuff like this, hey, what did your pastor preach on? You know what? It was real lofty. I don't quite know what he was saying, but it was really smart and really, really good. No, it was really, really bad.

Like, the more you know about something, the more you should be able to put the cookies on the bottom shelf so that anybody can take them off. Right? Don't flaunt your intellect. Don't flaunt your personal agenda. Put Jesus Christ and him crucified on.

Teach the word in such a way that when people go through the word, they're like, I see right where you got that. It's right here in black and white. No, I see it. Cause if you can't see where I'm getting what I'm getting, then I'm making it up. It's right here.

Paul determined to know nothing. It says it right here. I mean, did Paul have a reason to brag? I mean, in Philippians, he says that he did. In Philippians, chapter three, starting in verse five, as he writes to the Philippians, he gives his whole resume.

He said he was circumcised on the 8th day of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews as to the law, a pharisee as to zeal, a persecutor of the church as to righteousness, which is in the law, found blameless. In other words, I could tell you all about me because I'm awesome. I mean, when it comes to keeping religion and when it comes to doing what God wants, nobody's done it better than me. But whatever things were gained to me, those things I have counted loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be lost in view of the surpassing knowledge of Christ, Jesus, my lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but rubbish, which is really dung, so that I may gain Christ.

What's Paul saying? He's like when it comes to my intellect, my background, my religious experience, in light of knowing the gospel of Jesus Christ, I count everything as crap to knowing Jesus Christ, my lord. When I preach, I preach Jesus Christ as Lord because nothing else matters. Everything else is substandard to that. Everything else is on a lower playing field than that.

Jesus Christ is alive. Jesus Christ is the Lord. Jesus Christ wants you to respond. Listen to Jesus right now. It's really interesting for me.

I mean, every now and again I get hate mail. I know that may come as a surprise to some of you, but one of my favorites I got was a couple years ago when I was teaching through Matthew from a person that said I talked about Jesus too much. I kept it as a compliment. It was a gospel, for heaven's sakes. What else was I going to talk about?

Jesus was on every page, every sentence. Preach the gospel. Preach the word. Now, just so you know, because I know what some of you may be thinking, like, well, if I had the apostle Paul, I mean, wouldn't it be cool to have the apostle Paul as your pastor? I mean, I hear people sometimes when they say, well, when I die, one of the first people I want to meet is the apostle Paul.

I just want to meet him and hang out with him. It would be great to have a pastor like that. You ever wonder what the Corinthians thought about Paul? You ever wonder what they thought about Paul being their pastor? I love that the word of God reveals it to us.

If you flip over in the next book in two Corinthians, on the next letter that he wrote to them in two Corinthians, chapter ten and verse ten, here's what Paul was hearing back from his congregation after he pastored there for 18 months. For they say his letters are weighty and strong, but his personal presence is unimpressive and his speech contemptible. The Corinthians thought, Paul is a good letter writer. I mean, when he sway he sounds really strong, but his presence ain't very good. He's not a good speaker.

I mean, who's impressed by that guy? That's what people thought about the apostle Paul. Young pastors, let me tell you something. Don't ever base your performance on what other people are saying about your message. Based it only on how accurate and faithful you've been to proclaiming the word of God.

That's all that matters, right? Because if Paul would have taken counsel of what everybody was saying about him, Paul would have been like, I'm done with this church. I stink as a pastor. I'm horrible at this. And if you preach, I promise you that's how you feel every time you get done preaching.

I promise you, tomorrow morning, that's how I'm going to feel. I promise you. This last Friday morning, after I spoke to the men, that's how I felt. I feel it every time. Cause who's adequate for such things?

How is it possible that God could use a man to stand up and share truths about Jesus in such a way that you become the aroma of life to those who are receiving life, and you become the aroma of death to those who are receiving death, right. I mean, how can it be that God can use a mere man to do that? It's only by his grace. It's only by his grace. Don't look at the person's intelligence.

Now, this doesn't give us an excuse, especially for those of us who are growing in our faith or you younger preachers out there. It doesn't mean be lazy or don't be diligent. I mean, the Bible tells us in two Timothy 215 that we should be a worker who's approved and not ashamed. We should labor in the word. We should work at the word.

The reason I've gone on in academia and worked at my degrees and all the things I've done is not for me. It's not so I have a title. It's not so. I have letters behind my name. It's so I can know the word of God better and more accurately so I can teach it and preach it better than I otherwise would.

Right? But when you read in the first century about these guys, it's really, really cool because you don't hear about any of their degrees or their learnedness or what they did. Last week, I read you a scripture from acts, chapter four and verse twelve, where it says, and there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. There's no other way to Jesus because that's what these guys were saying. Acts 413, the very next verse says.

Now, as they observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus. It's not a pastor's intellect, it's not his personal agenda. It's that a pastor has spent time with Jesus and he's proclaiming Jesus. Now, what's a personal agenda? What's a personal agenda?

I mean, I hear pastors sometimes they have a personal agenda because in every message this gets woven in one way or another. Maybe it's Calvinism, the five points of Calvinism. I mean, they could be teaching on marriage and they would weave the five points of Calvinism into the message somehow, right? Maybe it's the timing of the rapture and when the rapture is going to happen. Do you know that I happen to know exactly when the rapture is going to happen?

I can tell you when it is, so you'll know exactly when it's gonna happen. Do you know what's gonna happen when Jesus Christ comes back for his church? That is when the rapture is going to happen. I promise you, in that moment we will all be saved in the twinkling of an eye. Okay?

Now we could argue different points and different philosophies and all those different things. At the end of the day, that's not my main concern. My concern is that you're ready now if he came today or you're ready in seven years or 25 years. But you're living for Jesus presently, right? I mean, we could have a lot of other things.

What about church growth? Church growth is this. I want to do everything I can as a pastor to make sure I can satisfy you and that you never leave. I want to make sure I never offend you in anything I say. I want to make sure you're always happy with every decision I make and that I always do the right thing all the time.

And I'm more concerned that we fill up seats than I am being faithful with the word of God. Now, you've heard me talk about church growth. Here's how I want to grow our church. I want to grow our church in the faithful proclamation of the Lord Jesus Christ. And to the extent people want to hear and worship Jesus, great, let's grow.

And to the extent that God wants to thin the herd, so to speak, I'm cool with that too. I am not going to stop proclaiming the word of God. Okay, now here's why this is important, because, can I tell you something? What I'm preaching, you can't get this anywhere else. Where else are you going to get this?

I mean, you're not going to get it from television ads. You're not going to get it from commercials. You're not going to get it from talk shows. You show me the show where people are going to proclaim Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father, and all people everywhere need to repent, trust in him, because he's coming back soon. Where are you getting that?

Right. Do you know that when I read this book, that there are things in this book, myriads of things in this book, that go against what the culture would say about those very things? Did you know that? Right. Look, I mean, let's just talk about a few.

Do you know the Bible has something different to say about gender than our world does? You know the Bible has something different to say about marriage than our world does. The Bible has something different to say about abortion than our world does. You know, the Bible has something different to say about creation than the world does. You know, the Bible has something different to say about divorce than the world does.

You know, the Bible has something different to say about love for one another than the world does. You know, the Bible has something different to say about loving unlovable people than the world does. Do you know every time I open this book, I am screaming something countercultural to you? Right. And you as a believer might say, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Which you should say. But do you know that the world doesn't appreciate the very message that God is giving? Do you know that some of the very things that I preach are now considered hate speech, not because I say them, but because God says them. And I have the courage to stand up and say them, too. Now, I just want you to know something as your pastor, because my wife and I have had this discussion way more than once, started to have it with our children, but not at a huge depth.

I know there's coming a day in our culture. I know it because we're on the radio and because we faithfully proclaim the word where by law it will be illegal to preach what I preach. I want to tell you something. The decision's already been made for me. You can take me to jail.

You can execute me. You can do whatever. I will not ever stop preaching the word of God and Jesus Christ in all of his fullness. Amen.

Now, I appreciate your affirmation. I appreciate you clapping, but here's my question for you. If I'm going to be faithful in preaching, will you be faithful in coming to listen? Will you be faithful in coming to listen? Amen.

What if it costs you your job? What if it costs you relationships in your neighborhood? What if you have to go to jail because you've come here? Well, I'll just watch on podcasts. Then it'll be fine, right?

I mean, do you see what we're building here? See, it wasn't just that Jesus trumpeted this message, it's that it was his disciples that were hearing the message that were then saying, you can beat us, you can do whatever you think is right, but we will not stop proclaiming that Jesus Christ is Lord. That's when the church has a witness in the world, right? That's why preaching is so important. And there will always be a downplay of preaching.

Even well meaning, immature christians will say, well, don't preach like that. You'll turn people off. Did Jesus turn anybody off? We're called to faithfully preach the word of God for the sake of the elect that want to trust in Jesus Christ, and I will do that with everything I have until Jesus takes me home. We need to sit under the faithful preaching of the word of God and make Jesus Christ's ministry primary.

Because it's not only primary for bringing us to Christ through repentance of our sin and faith in him, it's primary in our life right now. I need Jesus Christ as much today as I've ever needed him in my life. I need Jesus Christ to touch areas of my life that I'm ashamed of. I need Jesus Christ to touch areas in my life that I need help with. I need Jesus Christ to touch areas in my life that only he can change me in.

Right? That's what we're called to do. That's why, as a pastor, we set God's word on God's plane and his standard on God's standard. And we call people to that. A couple years ago, I bought my son, who's now in third grade, I bought him a basketball hoop for his birthday.

And this basketball hoop can start at 10ft, but you can also adjust the height to it. Our basketball goal in my house, at my house is 8ft tall. Do you know when I play a third grader on an eight foot hoop, I'm awesome. I mean, I promise you, I can beat my son every single time. I can dunk over him.

I can do any number of things without hardly any even leaving my feet. Why? Because when you lower the standard. It makes me feel like I'm better. There's a lot of places where pastors will lower the standard to make you feel better.

What does God tell us to do? Keep the standard here, because what I'm calling people to is repentance. Because if they'll repent, I'll fill them with the Holy Spirit and bring them to the standard that I want them to be at. So don't get mad at me for the standard. Don't look at me and say, oh, you think you can keep that?

I'm telling you, there's no way I can keep that. It's impossible to keep that. But with God, all things are possible. So I will keep preaching the word of God in his full standard. And if you stay under the preaching of the word of God over a period of time, I promise you, it'll change your life.

It will change your walk. You'll begin to see things, like God shows you things. You'll see things the way God sees. Let me give you a third reason you should and shouldn't pick your pastor. When you pick a man of God to be your pastor, don't pick a man based upon his confidence, but pick one based upon one who is courageously dependent upon the Holy Spirit.

Pick one who's courageously dependent upon the Holy Spirit. Notice what Paul says. I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. Now, how about that? I mean, this is the apostle Paul.

This is for me to live as Christ, to die as gain. These light and momentary afflictions are nothing compared to the weight of glory of Christ. What's he saying when he's standing up and preaching? Hey, when I came to you, I was scared, I was weak, I was trembling. And what does he say?

And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom like we've already talked about. Not superfluous words, not wise words, but in a demonstration of the spirit and of power. In other words, pick a pastor where you see the spirit of God at work in that congregation, right? Not based upon his own personal confidence. Paul said, if I had any reason to put confidence in the flesh, I would.

Now I consider it all rubbish. To the surpassing knowledge of Jesus. What's he saying? I didn't feel good standing in front of you. Of course he didn't.

Nobody in the church really liked him. Right? He was scared in what he was doing. Moreover, do you realize that everywhere God sent the apostle Paul, there were threats on his life? Or he was beaten or he was stoned or he was being run out of town or he was shipwrecked.

I mean, if you knew that as a result of you standing up and preaching, that's what's going to come upon my life, you'd be fearful, too. He's just being honest. It's hard to do right. It's hard to build. That's why I love the Bible.

I love God's comfort. In acts, chapter 18, where we read about the formation of the church in Corinth, do you know that God showed up to Paul in a vision at night and comforted him? I mean, think about what Paul was going through. Think about his fears and his weakness and his trembling, and how the church felt about him. And Jesus shows up to him in chapter 18 of the book of acts, verse nine, it says, and the Lord said to Paul in the night by a vision, listen to this.

Do not be afraid any longer, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no man will attack you in order to harm you. For I have many people in this city think that was a vision Paul would have hung onto. Thank goodness. In this city, I can preach and watch people come to Christ, and I'm not going to get attacked. I have the Lord's word on that one.

But when he came, what was he? Weak, fearful, trembling. Why? Because every time a faithful preacher opens up his mouth to proclaim the truth of God, what happens? You get pushback 100% of the time.

I mean, Jesus says, if everybody speaks kindly of you, right? I mean, if everybody. Every time you preach the word. Oh, that was just what I needed to hear. Every single time you're not preaching the word of God.

There should be times you go home encouraged. There should be times you go home kind of corrected. There should be times you go home and feel like, I needed to hear that, and I did not want to hear that. Why? Because God's infinite and he's holy and he's perfect and we're not.

And I can tell you this. On the weeks that you go home and feel like, ugh, I gotta change a bunch. Just know what God was doing in my heart all week while I was preparing to tell you that. The exact same thing, right? So how do you see if a man is courageously dependent upon the Holy Spirit?

And how can you even tell? Here's what I tell you. Check his prayer life. Check his prayer life. If a man prays, he's dependent upon the Holy Spirit.

If a man doesn't pray, he's doing it in his own power. It's that simple. I mean, when I read the letters of Paul, I thank my God upon my every remembrance for all of you and all my prayers for all of you. I always pray with joy because of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now. I mean, almost every letter he writes, he starts by saying, I've been praying for you.

Oh, by the way, epaphras has been praying for you. Oh, by the way, Epaphroditus has been praying for you. I mean, everybody's praying for you. Silas is praying for you, I'm praying for you. Timothy's praying for you.

Why? Because they believed in the power of prayer. Can I just tell you as your pastor, I believe in the power of prayer too. It's why in our services all the time now, we pray in every single service. It's why we have first Tuesdays, every first Tuesday of the month, where we gather corporately.

And what do we do? We pray. It's why on Monday mornings at 630, I meet here with a group of guys to do one thing, pray. It's why I get our group of pastors together right after that meeting to pray. It's why on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, we have staff time to pray.

It's why from eleven to noon on Thursdays, as a staff, we pray. It's why, as our elders, when we get into every meeting for a half an hour, an hour before we do anything, we pray. And that doesn't include praying over all your prayer requests. And that doesn't include my private prayer time about me. And that doesn't include my prayer time with my wife.

And that doesn't include my prayer time for my message. I'm just telling you little bits, I pray. I promise you, I pray. The harder the message it is, the more I'm praying about it, the more I'm trusting the Lord to show up. And to be a church that prays, it takes away our own personal confidence and lays the confidence on the Holy Spirit to do the work.

And when you pray, then you get to see what Paul talks about, you get to see this, the demonstration of the spirit and of power. So I want to see that. What's that? What's that demonstration of the spirit and of power? It means this.

When a church is praying and the word of God is preached, people hear the word of God, people hear Jesus. When lost, people hear about Jesus, there will be people in that church that give their lives to Jesus and people will be saved in that church. There are people who know Jesus, who will hear the word of God and reorient their life and realign their practices so that they're walking with Jesus. And you will see story after story after story after story of people who are now aligning their lives and reorienting their lives more in line with the Holy Spirit so that Jesus Christ can get his glory through them. And the beauty of this demonstration of the spirit is because since all of us are at different places in our walk, God is constantly doing different things in all of us.

That's a demonstration of the spirit and empower. I mean, that's why sometimes people will meet me after a service and they'll say something like this, hey, I really liked your message a couple weeks ago. It's still speaking to me now. Just so you know, when you say that to me, I always wonder, what about the last two? And what about the one you just heard?

But I get what you're saying. So God spoke to me two weeks ago, and I'll have people say something like this. Like, two weeks ago you spoke to me, and man, you're just hammering. You were just talking about marriage the whole time. And somebody will say, yeah, two weeks when you spoke, it was on forgiveness.

And you were just hammering the whole time. Hey, two weeks ago when you were talking to me about my job and what God wanted me to do the whole time, and I think to myself, I didn't talk about any of those things. All I did was trumpet the word of God. And what did the Holy Spirit do? He got hold of Jesus through the word of God, and he applied it to your heart in a specific way that you needed to hear so you could put into practice what God wanted you to do.

That's the difference between a speech and a sermon, right? A sermon is being faithful to the word of God because the Holy Spirit's primary ministry is to magnify the resurrected Christ. So to the extent you're being faithful with the word in a congregation, people can actually hear God. And when they do, then they can choose to accept or reject it, because true preaching is not. Hey, go home and think about it.

True preaching is, what are you going to do right now with what you heard? Then it's up to you. I'm going to either listen to what Jesus says or I'm going to reject what Jesus says. But you're responsible for what you heard Jesus say, which is why some people come to our church and say, I'm not going back there again. It was too convicting and it's not that I'm too convicting, it's that the spirit of God is convicting them.

And they say, I don't want Jesus. I just want to feel good about myself. Right. We want to elevate Jesus Christ here as Lord and him crucified and him resurrected. And that's foundational.

And we're going to see next week there's more to this message than just that, because in verse six, Paul talks about speaking a word of wisdom among those who are mature, and we'll talk about what that looks like. But this is baseline stuff. And if Jesus Christ is not being elevated as the Lord Christ, who died on a cross for your sins and rose from the dead, we're missing the mark on all of our preaching. It's foundational, right. Charles Spurgeon, the great preacher from centuries ago, said this, the motto of all true servants of God must be, we preach Christ and him crucified.

A sermon without Christ in it is like a loaf of bread without any flour in it. No Christ in your sermon, sir. Then go home and never preach again until you have something worth preaching. Now, that sounds really good on paper, but I can tell you this. I've been preaching the word of God for 20 some years.

I remember I spoke at a mayor's breakfast one time, and I got a letter back from this person. I'd never done something like that before. And you know what? This person wrote me a letter and said, I could have got what I got out of your message from anywhere in the world. There was no Jesus in it, and I wasn't mad at them, but I felt it in my heart, like, never again.

Never again. Never again. So if you get tired of me preaching Jesus Christ and him crucified, I'm cool with that, but I will always preach Jesus Christ and him crucified because this may be your last time to get it. I mean, the great evangelist DL Moody one time was doing a series of lectures on the night of the great Chicago fire and didn't give an invitation at the end of the message to respond to Christ. And a bunch of the people that were listening to that night went out and died in the Chicago fire.

He said, never again will I preach a message without preaching Christ and giving an opportunity for people to respond. So if you say, well, I'm already a Christian, and I come to church all the time, why preach the gospel? Because if you truly understand the gospel, it edifies the believer. There's not a time in my life when I see somebody come to Christ where I'm like, oh, yeah, old hat. No.

Every time I hear a story about someone coming to Christ and experiencing God's love for the very first time, my heart overflows with joy. Why? Because the Bible says this. Do you know angels rejoice in heaven over one sinner that repents than over 99 that don't need to? And that makes for a great evangelistic message.

But it's also true for the Christian, too, because the younger son was right with the father and then he wandered off. You know, there's angels that rejoice in heaven. When you who know Christ, who are living a way that you don't need to be living and have wandered off, repent and return and come back, there's angels that rejoice in heaven. Why preach the gospel so that we can join the worship of the myriads in heaven that are glorifying God through what he's presently doing through his church. Amen.

That's why we preach. Let me give you a fourth reason that you need to be aware of, a fourth reason. When you're picking your pastor. Don't choose a man based upon his personality, but one rather who challenges you to take steps of faith with God. Paul was a gifted man.

He was gifted by the spirit. He was intelligent. He was all of these different things. But don't pick someone based upon their personality. Don't pick someone based upon I really gel with them or I don't gel with them.

Pick one who's going to help you take steps of faith with Jesus. Why? Verse five tells us why. So that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. I mean, there's nothing wrong with you coming to church.

There's nothing wrong with you loving your pastor. There's nothing wrong with you hearing the word of God from your pastor or praying for him and his family and his children. Because I can tell you we need it and we want it. That's great. But don't make your faith be based upon a preacher's personality.

And I want to tell you something. All of us have an idea of what a preacher's personality needs to be, don't we? I know what a pastor needs to look like. I know how he needs to dress. A lot of people think they know how pastors need to dress based upon how they grew up.

Some of you think a pastor needs to wear a suit and a tie every week. Some of you think he needs to wear slacks. Some are cool with jeans. Some think he should wear a t shirt. Some think he should wear a robe with a clerical collar.

Based upon how you grew up, that's how a pastor should dress. And then you also have ideas for how much of a pastor's time you should be allotted and how a pastor's temperament should be with your specific need and challenge and problem and what that should look like. And I'm telling you, for all those reasons, that's why I can never be a pastor, because I don't fit whatever mold I have in my head of being a pastor until Jesus showed me, hey, if you'll just faithfully preach my word and love my people, I'll use your personality to get it done through a group of people. Can you do that? I can do that, but I got to do it as me, and somebody else has got to do it as them.

And I can tell you God uses all different kinds of temperaments and personalities. Some guys, surprisingly, this may shock you, are more sweet and loving and kind in their natural demeanor than even I am right. They are right. And so, like, when I read through the disciples, I mean, I see Paul and I see Peter, and everybody's like, I want to meet Peter. Peter would be awesome.

You may not like hanging out with him. I think we'd all probably like hanging out with John. I mean, some of you guys that are more of the bean counters and want everything to know what's going on, you probably like Thomas. Cause he wanted to make sure he did. I mean, there's all sorts of temperaments that God can use to preach his word.

There's probably temperaments that you can sit under and be like, eh, I like that better. But here's what you're looking for. Will that person who's opening the word of God challenge you to do something with it so that you're not staying the same? Because faith is an active walk. We walk by faith, not by sight.

We don't just see by faith and not by sight. We're walking, we're going and doing something. God's calling all of us today to take a step of faith in some way and to trust him in doing something. But your faith, it doesn't rest on me. Don't make your faith based upon me.

Well, I believe because of Pastor Jeff. If you believe because of Pastor Jeff, somebody will talk you out of believing because of who they are. Don't believe because of me. Don't take a step of faith. Well, Pastor Jeff told me I should take this job, and Pastor Jeff told me I should.

No, no, no. I'm telling you what Jesus is, who he is, how he is, how he's calling you. You let the holy spirit show you what to do, and you build your faith on the foundation of Jesus Christ and him crucified in your life, life. Amen. So the question is, what's that in your life today?

What's it look like for you to hear a message like this and to know that, you know what? For some of you, thundering the word of God is just, hey, I need to be more in his word. For some of you, it's like, hey, I need to pay more attention to what God's saying. For some of you, you came in here this morning, you felt totally unloved, and you just needed to hear one more time from the word of God with all authority that you are totally loved, that God loves you no matter what. Even you, Christian that sends your socks off all week long, who feel that you can't even be here, or even you, non Christian, that says, I don't know anything about Jesus and feel like you can't be loved, you just need to hear that you're loved today.

And some of you that know you're loved and you're building your identity, there's a specific thing that God's been telling you, a specific thing God's been walking in your life saying, would you trust me? Would you trust me? Would you do this? And I'm telling you as your pastor, if the Holy Spirit's telling you that, then do it and trust God in it and see him show up because of that. And that's where you personally will experience a demonstration of the spirit and his power in your life.

And that's why we herald the word of God. That's why we do it here at harvest. That's why it should be done at every church. And let me give you one final reason why we champion the word of God and why we proclaim it. Because good preaching leads to great worship.

Because when we hear the word of God, it reminds us that Jesus Christ is Lord and that he loves us unconditionally. So we should sing to him and give praise to him and come worship him with all that we are. So that's how we're going to end our service today. We're going to do a couple songs. We're going to take an offering here when I pray for it in a minute.

And as the offering bags pass you by, our worship team will get you up and we'll sing these two songs together. But if you believe in Jesus and you've trusted in Jesus, and you know Jesus. Then let's bring them our best worship that we can today. Amen. Amen.

Let's pray. Dear Jesus, we just thank you for your word. We thank you that we get to hear you every time that it's opened up and proclaimed and preached. And, Lord, we pray that we be men and women and boys and girls that would not just come to listen, but we put into practice the very things you show us. And, God, we give you praise.

We give you glory. We give you honor for who you are. Lord, let this offering glorify you. Lord, let us use it to magnify your name. And, Lord, as we bring you praise, hear our hearts and our cries for you.

In Jesus name, amen.