Jared C. Wilson's Blog, page 43

Jesus, The Sympathetic Realist

From Scott Sauls’s new book Jesus Outside the Lines:

“Jesus personally responds to our fuming and sadness. Feisty Martha got to see Jesus get angry at death. Tenderhearted Mary got to see him cry. Two unique women witnessed two unique responses from their Lord and Friend. Jesus, who is the fullness of the image of God, not only sympathized with them, he did so according to their uniqueness. Jesus arched his back toward the bully for Martha’s sake. Then he shed tears for Mary’s sake. Perhaps Nicholas Wolsterstorff was thinking of Jesus’ tears when he wrote this reflection in response to the premature death of his son:

We strain to hear [God in our sorrows]. But instead of hearing an answer we catch the sight of God himself scraped and torn. Through our tears we see the tears of God . . . Perhaps his sorrow is splendor.

“Jesus is the resurrection and the life. The ones who believe in him, though they die, yet shall they live. He will call them forth from their graves just as he called Lazarus from the grave mere minutes after getting angry and crying about Lazarus’s death.

“Jesus wants to fixe everything that’s broken about us and everything that’s broken around us. But before he does this, he wants us to know that he is with us and for us in what’s broken about us and around us. He shares our situation. He is a warrior and a champion against the bully, but also much more. He is a friend who sticks closer than a brother, a mother hen who gathers her fragile chicks under her wings, and an advocate who shares our grief and tears — especially and ironically, during the times when he seems most distant is a sympathetic realist.

“Jesus, the sympathetic realist, reminds us that everything is broken. At least it is for now.”



— Scott Sauls, Jesus Outside the Lines: A Way Forward for Those Who are Tired of Taking Sides (Tyndale, pp.161-162)

If You Love the Lord, You’ll Love His Church

“Holding indifference, apathy, or bitterness toward the church sets you against what God holds dear. It shows that what Jesus loves and saves is not worth your own time, interest, and affection. This fact applies to the church universal and the church local. God has called you to himself to be a part of his people. How you interact with the people of God reveals much about your relationships with the Lord (Matt. 25:31-46). If you love the Lord, you will love his church (1 John 4:7-12).”

– Joe Thorn, Experiencing the Trinity: The Grace of God for the People of God (Crossway, p.93).

But I Am a Gospeled Man

But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

— 1 Timothy 6:11-12

As I view what it means to be a man through the lens of this instruction from Paul to Timothy, I am reminded again of the holy activity of true masculinity (and true personhood, generally). Flee, pursue, fight, take hold. Paul is nothing if not verby. I am struck, though, by how often I fail at these things. I am busy about things that so often don’t matter and passive about things that do. I am lazy. I can’t be bothered. And when I look for where I ought to get the oomph of holy pursuit from, I see Paul couching the masculine imperatives in the masculine indicative: “O man of God.” If this is what I am, this is what I can do. Furthermore, I see the importance of “taking hold of the eternal life to which I was called” for the other actions.

The godly man is a gospeled man. He has seen who he is in Christ, he is moved by what God has done for him in Christ. If I don’t get this part, all the rest will just be a self-salvation project, an exercise in self-righteousness.

I need a better vision. I need a better vision than simply that of myself as a “manly man” going about some religious busywork. I need a vision of the conquering, saving, loving Savior who has done all these things for me and covers my failures at doing them myself.

If biblical manhood is about denying excuses and taking responsibility — and I think it is — I begin to think of all the excuses the God-Man could have made when it came to loving and saving me. He could have shaken his head and cataloged my list of deep unworthinesses:

Father, he’s so sinful. He’s always struggling with lust and he looks at pornography.

Father, he’s so lazy. He doesn’t deserve all this effort.

Father, he’s so unspiritual. He won’t even pick up the Word to read a few lines.

Father, he doesn’t treat his wife the way she ought to be treated.

Father, he’s not the kind of guy who could set the world on fire, is he?

Father, he’s so passive. He’s so timid. He’s such a coward

Father, he’s so prideful. He enjoys praise too much and he’s selfish.

Father, he’s short-tempered. He leaps to defend himself too much.

Father, he’s such a failure, a nobody, a loser. He’s a stuttering wimp. He is what he always feared his family thought he was. He doesn’t deserve a second glance. He is what his critics say he is, worthy of scorn and derision and unworthy of forgiveness. He is what the Accuser says he is, only as good as what he has failed to do and deserving of eternal condemnation.

But with his atoning sacrifice Jesus didn’t say any of those things about me. He says “Father, this man is your son and you’ve set your affections on him. So I am pleased to die for him.”

So I write this today not as a perfect man, but as a gospeled man, because I have taken hold of Christ having taken hold of me (Phil. 3:12). I have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, and now by God’s grace I am empowered to love well and serve well and husband well and daddy well and pastor well. And so can you, men of God, if you will but lay hold of it.

Take hold of this precious truth. The Son of God has set aside all the charges against you, all your sins and failings, and has taken them to the cross, killing them by dying with them, leaving them dead as he himself raises to new life — your new life, which is eternal and into which he is calling you.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

— Romans 8:1

Thou Shalt Not Murmur

“‘Tis always better to have scraps with a blessing, than to have manna and quails with a curse; a thin table with a blessing is always better than a full table with a snare; a thread-bare coat with a blessing is better than a purple robe curst; a hole, a cave, a den, a barn, a chimney-corner with a blessing, is better than stately palaces with a curse; a woollen cap blest is better than a golden crown curst; and it may be that emperor understood as much, that said of his crown, when he looked on it with tears: ‘If you knew the cares that are under this crown you would never stoop to take it up.’ And therefore, why should not a Christian be contented with a little, seeing his little shall be blest unto him? Isaac tills the ground and sows his seed, and God blesses him with a hundredfold; and Cain tills the ground and sows his seed, but the earth is cursed to him and commanded not to yield to him his strength. Oh, therefore never let a Christian murmur because he hath but little, but rather let him be still a-blessing of that God that hath blest his little, and doth bless his little, and that will bless his little to him.”

– Thomas Brooks

Preachers, Keep A Close Watch On Your Life and Illustrations

Sermon illustrations. They can make or break your message, or so we’re told. In my time at Docent Research Group, working as a pastoral research assistant, I remember the high premium put on killer illustrations. One client I worked for only wanted sermon illustrations, pages and pages of them, no exegesis, no reference excerpts. I think over the course of several months, having filed numerous research briefs full of newspaper clippings, movie ancedotes, literary references, assorted fragments of pop culture detritus, and even some original creative stories, he eventually used one illustration that came from the briefs.

We all know a good illustration when we hear one in a sermon. But I for one think sermon illustrations are way overrated. Yep, I said it. I think too much emphasis is put on illustrations in how we train preachers and in too many actual sermons. You shouldn’t trust your illustration to do what only God’s word can. And that’s where many of us often go wrong with illustrations. Here is more on that though, and some other wrong ways preachers often use illustrations in their sermons:

1. Too long.

If you’re going to eat up valuable real estate in your sermon time, you’ve got to make it really count. But some sermons are too reliant on long set-ups or overly present creative themes that end up obscuring the biblical message. This is a problem, assuming what you want people to focus on most is the biblical message. Some preachers really pride themselves in being storytellers or artists, and that’s great — but quit the ministry and go be a storyteller or artist. That will glorify God too. But at least then there’s no mistaking the point of the message. Some illustrations go on so long and some topic themes are so pervasive, any Bible verses that show up in the sermon really only serve to support the illustration, when by definition it’s supposed to be the other way around.

2. Too many.

I heard a message once that began with a 5-minute story from the preacher’s childhood, segued into an ancedote from the life of Leonardo DaVinci, then transitioned into a series of quotes from ancient philosophers (where Jesus appeared alongside Socrates and Aristotle, like they’re all part of some Toga Brothers gang), and stumbled into a heavy-handed object illustration complete with big props on the stage. This guy forgot what he was there to do, which ostensibly was preach. The result of all these illustrations was distracting and, actually, counter-productive, because at some point, the law of diminishing illustration returns kicked in, and each successive illustration diminished the effectiveness of the ones before it. When you use too many illustrations, when your sermon is so full of illustrations or the time you spend on them is greater than the time you spend proclaiming and explaining the text, they stop being illustrations and become your text. Preachers who overuse illustrations are communicating that they don’t actually trust the Bible — which is inspired by the Holy Spirit — to be interesting, provocative, and powerful.

3. Too clunky.

You know these when you hear them. It seems as though the preacher prepared his sermon using some kind of template, plopping something from an illustration book or website every time he saw Insert Illustration Here. Or his pop culture references are old, but not historic old (red meat for the Reformed crowd) or vintage old (ironic winks from the hipsters) but “lame” old, “out of touch” old. Maybe the stories are sappy or cheesy or hokey. Or maybe there’s no decent transition from the illustration into the body of the sermon. I’ve heard some guys tell a cutesy-story or badly land a bad joke and then pause, as if waiting for audience reaction, ending the silence with a “But anyway…” That’s a sure sign of someone who put a lot of trust in the illustration and no thought into how it would actually fit into the tissue of the message. Remember, if the weight of power is put on your illustrations instead of the biblical text, the clunky illustration makes a clunky sermon.

4. Too self-referential.

Here’s a good rule of thumb: when using yourself as an example, be self-deprecating. Make it confessional, not exaltational. In other words, use your personal illustrations to show us not how great you are, but what you’ve got wrong, how you messed up, where you’re deficient. It doesn’t have to be a serious example; it can be a funny one. But self-referential illustrations that talk the preacher up too often violate 2 Corinthians 4:5. This same rule applies somewhat to the use of wives and children in illustrations. Everyone appreciates a good “the pastor is a normal guy with a normal family” type story, and most preachers know not to criticize or point out flaws in their wives and kids in sermons, but if you reference your wife and kids (even positively) too much, over time it can have the same effect as the self-congratulating illustration — it casts a vision of your family as the church’s moral exemplar, which is not good for your family or the church, and also only serves to by extension exalt yourself. Use family illustrations sparingly and when using personal illustrations, go the route of self-deprecation.

NEW: Gospel Shaped Worship

It’s my great privilege to introduce to you my entry in the new joint production of The Gospel Coalition and The Good Book Company, The Gospel Shaped Church, a DVD teaching series using the TGC Theological Vision of Ministry to help your small groups, discipleship classes, and other gatherings progress in learning how your church can become more gospel-centered.

My entry is titled Gospel Shaped Worship and explores what the Vision statement called “Empowered Corporate Worship”:

The gospel changes our relationship with God from one of hostility or slavish compliance to one of intimacy and joy. The core dynamic of gospel-centered ministry is therefore worship and fervent prayer. In corporate worship God’s people receive a special life-transforming sight of the worth and beauty of God, and then give back to God suitable expressions of his worth. At the heart of corporate worship is the ministry of the Word. Preaching should be expository (explaining the text of Scripture) and Christ-centered (expounding all biblical themes as climaxing in Christ and his work of salvation). Its ultimate goal, however, is not simply to teach but to lead the hearers to worship, individual and corporate, that strengthens their inner being to do the will of God.

Here is a brief video of myself and Collin Hansen discussing Gospel Shaped Worship:

And here is Dr. D.A. Carson’s video intro to the entire series:

My friend Erik Raymond, pastor of Coram Deo in Omaha, Nebraska, teaches the other available entry in the series, a study called Gospel Shaped Outreach. Both Erik and I will be presenting messages on our study theme in workshops at The Gospel Coalition Conference next month.

The Bridge of Grace Will Bear Your Weight, Brother

“Ah! the bridge of grace will bear your weight, brother. Thousands of big sinners have gone across that bridge, yea, tens of thousands have gone over it. I can hear their trampings now as they traverse the great arches of the bridge of salvation. They come by their thousands, by their myriads; e’er since the day when Christ first entered into His glory, they come, and yet never a stone has sprung in that mighty bridge. Some have been the chief of sinners, and some have come at the very last of their days, but the arch has never yielded beneath their weight. I will go with them trusting to the same support; it will bear me over as it has borne them.”

– Charles Spurgeon, in Iain Murray’s The Forgotten Spurgeon

What Is Preaching, Anyway?

Last week, Todd Rhoades posted an article called “What if your sermon was like a TED talk?” The gist is approaching the work of preaching like those who deliver those short, punchy, trending-viral TED talks, to tailor the sermon so it has “handles,” as Andy Stanley says. As far as sermon prep goes, it’s always good to cut “fluff,” but the approach promoted by this kind of thinking is utilitarian, pragmatic preaching, a hallmark of the attractional church. I discuss the pragmatic reduction of preaching in the attractional world quite a bit in my next book (hint, hint, nudge, nudge, wink, wink), but the question raised by this approach prompted me to dig into a previous work to share an excerpt. The question is “What is preaching, anyway?” (you will notice that post makes no mention of the Bible and closes by asking the preacher how he might present “your truth,” reflecting further the “good idea”-centrality of attractional teaching). My attempt at an answer is found in the below excerpt from The Pastor’s Justification:

—

Contrary to popular wisdom, good preaching has little to do with eloquence, fashion, or the length of a sermon. Good preaching is all about content and posture. By content, I mean, “What is the message about?” and by posture I mean, “How is it about it?”

Film critic Roger Ebert has said that a movie is not what it is about but how it is about it. In other words, what makes a movie bad or good is not mainly what it’s about but how it presents its content. Similarly, a preacher can preach on nearly any subject found in the Scriptures so long as he does so in a Scriptural posture.

Good preaching goes with the grain of the Bible. So we are not flippant where the Bible is not flippant. We are not angry where the Bible is not angry. We smile where the Bible smiles, and we yell where the Bible yells. (Some preachers only preach smiling sermons or angry sermons, which shows they aren’t really preaching the Scriptures faithfully.) Good preaching is dependent on content (the Scripture’s words) and posture (in their Scriptural sense).

That is what good preaching is. But what is preaching itself? Lots of theologians and ministers define preaching in different ways, but I tend to think that preaching is proclamation that exults in the exposing of God’s glory.

Proclamation.

Preaching can employ instances of conversation and laid-back chit-chat but preaching cannot be typified by conversation and chit-chat because it is first and foremost declarative. The Bible does not come with fill-in-the-blanks. It isn’t MadLibs. Preaching in essence declares, “Thus saith the Lord.”

Because the gospel is good news, not good advice, we come proclaiming “It is finished,” not “Get to work.” Because the gospel is a God-authored story, we come proclaiming his wisdom revealed in Christ, not our wisdom revealed in fortune-cookie bon mots. With our sermons we are meant to be delivering what we’ve received, not what we’ve created.

The soundest and safest Christian reflection consists in “what you have received, not what you have thought up; a matter not of ingenuity, but of doctrine; not of private acquisition, but of public Tradition; a matter brought to you, not put forth by you, in which you must not be the author but the guardian, not the founder but the sharer, not the leader, but the follower.” (Vincent of Lerins)

Preachers approach God’s word as its recipient, its servant, and its deliverer, not its author, manager, or marketer. Because our triune God is holy, infinite, almighty, and wise, we preach like he is. Preaching assumes authority, from God and from his infallible word. So then we don’t preach like so many ninnies as if every sentence ends with a question mark. And we preach like we’re at a pulpit even when we’re at a music stand or plexiglass lectern. These words from Lloyd-Jones offer powerful wisdom:

God is not a subject for debate, because He is Who He is and What He is. We are told that the unbeliever, of course, does not agree with that; and this perfectly true; but that makes no difference. We believe it, and it is part of our very case to assert it. Holding the view that we do, believing what we do about God, we cannot in any circumstances allow Him to become a subject for discussion or of debate or investigation. I base my argument at this point on the word addressed by God Himself to Moses at the burning bush (Exod. 3:1-6). Moses had suddenly seen this remarkable phenomenon of the burning bush, and was proposing to turn aside and to examine this astonishing phenomenon. But, immediately, he is rebuked by the voice which came to him saying, “Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.” That seems to me to be the governing principle in this whole matter. Our attitude is more important than anything that we do in detail, and as we are reminded in the Epistle to the Hebrews, God is always to be approached “with reverence and with godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:28 and 29).

To me this is a very vital matter. To discuss the being of God in a casual manner, lounging in an armchair, smoking a pipe or a cigarette or a cigar, is to me something that we should never allow, because God, as I say, is not a kind of philosophic X or a concept. We believe in the almighty, the glorious, the living God; and whatever may be true of others we must never put ourselves, or allow ourselves to put, into a position in which we are debating about God as if He were but a philosophical proposition.

I don’t believe we ought to forbid talking about God in any position, whether it be from an armchair or from a ditch on the side of the road, but as it pertains to preaching, Lloyd-Jones’s point is sound and important. We do not approach preaching casually unless we approach God casually. We can make jokes about ourselves and be self-deprecating when we preach, because we do not “preach ourselves.” In the preaching ministry, we take ourselves lightly and the word of God heavily.

We preach the terrors of God’s wrath as if they are terrifying, we preach the joys of God’s salvation as if they are joyful. We preach hell in serious, sober ways, neither being glib about it nor speaking as if it is the only word. And we preach the gospel in declarative ways, bold and certain and full of Christ’s glory.

“that exults”

Preaching is proclamation that exults. As I’ve said, preaching takes the content of the text and proclaims it according to the posture of the text. Preaching is fundamentally an act of worship. We don’t stop worshiping when the music is done. We keep worshipping during the preaching of God’s word, and we hope our preacher is worshiping as he’s preaching God’s word.

Preaching is a kind of singing in itself. Not literally, of course, but in its declaration of God’s worth and work, it is a worshipful projection of God’s anthem of his own awesomeness. When we preach with exultation, we are out-singing the enemy and giving voice to the wordless groaning and declaration of creation.

Preaching that exults necessarily entails a preacher who understands his sermon text in the spiritual sense. His affections have been charged and shaped by the text. He feels the Scripture he is preaching. In the crucible of his daily life dedicated to the Bible generally and his prayerful, watchful, thoughtful study and preparation in his office specifically, his heart is broken by and filled with the text. This is a Spiritual work, and the preacher has been praying all along that it will happen for him and for his hearers.

He ascends to the pulpit, then, carrying the mantle of God’s call and prepared to joyfully work and seriously play, to preach what John Piper calls “gravity and gladness,” but not to mess around. He’s not throwing things out to see what will stick. He is playing his instrument and launching arrows. Like Nehemiah’s men, he is building the wall with a trowel in one hand and a sword in the other.

The gospel-centered preacher is not blasé or boisterous. He is exultational. If he is impressed with himself, this won’t work. But if he is awed by God, he might find the jet-stream of the text and ride it into rapture. The Spirit may grant him unction, but even if the Spirit doesn’t, the gospel-centered preacher knows he has not exulted in vain. God’s word will have its purposed effect according to the wisdom of God.

“in the exposing”

Preaching is exultational proclamation in a text that is taught. In other words, preaching is not simply reciting the Scriptures with feeling (although it can and should include such work); it also explains the Scriptures. Nehemiah and Ezra’s epic project involved providing proclaimers not merely to read the Law, but to teach it. “They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading” (Nehemiah 8:8). Jesus “interpreted” to the disciples in the Scriptures all the things concerning himself (Luke 24:27). He didn’t simply recite the Bible; he “gave the sense.”

This is what is generally meant by the label “expository preaching” (or “expositional” preaching). Jonathan Leeman explains:

One thing is definitive for an expositional sermon: It lays out the meaning and purpose of a biblical text clearly. It says, “Here is the point of this text, and it’s relevant to you, no matter who you are, where you are from, or what’s happening in your life right now.” The preacher concentrates all his powers on reproducing the burden of the Bible in the hearts and minds of the people, and he avoids letting anything in his person get in the way of that goal.

Expository preaching can involve a variety of means of exposition: message points (with or without alliteration or acronyms, of course), stories and illustrations, and quotes and scholarly interpretations, but it is largely about sticking primarily to the text to reveal what the text says and what the text means.

Expository preaching does not have to be rigidly verse-by-verse preaching. In fact, many times verse-by-verse preaching can end up obscuring the meaning of the text, because it may reflect a lack of immediate context or a disconnect from the Bible’s larger storyline. So not all expository sermons “give the sense” of the Scriptures, which is the overarching truth that God saves sinners through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As Jesus walked with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, he showed them all the things in the Scriptures pertaining to himself. Christ provides a motivational template for Christ-centered preaching. This means it is possible to preach a message from Leviticus in an unchristian way.

What expository preaching aims to do is explicate what the text means, expound on how it applies to the lives of the hearers, and explain its connection to the gospel storyline of the entire Bible.

“of God’s glory.”

Moses says, “Please show me your glory” (Exodus 33:18). Deep down, this is the cry of every human heart. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says eternity is written there.

The gospel of God’s glory in Christ must be central in our preaching because nothing else even comes close to filling the eternal gap.

We all agree that fallen man has a “God-shaped hole,” but then we go on to suggest all kinds of fillers that are not God—financial success, good sex, promotions at work, healthy relationships, happy spouses and children, community service, outlets for our creativity, etc. All good things but all things you can have and do and still be eternally bankrupt.

Our scale is far too small. The Bible speaks to all manner of good things useful to all men, but the Church is starving (starving!) for the glory of God. We too easily forget that the gospel covers the scale of eternity, that it is the division between real life and death, that God is infinite and our sin is a condemnation-worthy offense against an eternally holy God. We preach and we settle for much less than, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!” (Romans 11:33).

Every week people file into our church services aching for eternity; in our zeal to provide something they may find comfortable and useful and inoffensive, are we offending the God who wishes to offend us in awe of his glory? Are we dismissing our brother Jesus whose formula for victory includes crucifixion?

The scale is enormous, the stakes are high. Instead of spiritually dressing up the idols we know people want, let’s give them what they need—God as all in all, the filling of the Spirit, the exaltation of the risen Lord.

“Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us, that we should be called the sons of God!” (1 John 3:1a). That should be the chief service of our worship services—beholding. Behold our glorious God and his lavishing of grace on us in his precious Son.

When we “expose” what God’s word means, how it applies to our lives, and what it reveals about his saving purposes in Christ, we are showing his glory.

We are aiming for awe of God. Preaching advice is a poor means to that end. We want the Lam to be beheld, so we must hold him up high and long. We proclaim not helpful hints but eternal visions.

We can’t do this if we are making the Bible’s words serve our words. Biblical preaching trusts that the Bible can be set loose to work its power.

Brothers, isn’t it wonderful that we are set free from the tyranny of our good ideas to the power of the Bible’s good news?

The Glory of Christ

“It is by beholding the glory of Christ by faith that we are spiritually edified and built up in this world, for as we behold his glory, the life and power of faith grow stronger and stronger. It is by faith that we grow to love Christ. So if we desire strong faith and powerful love, which give us rest, peace and satisfaction, we must seek them diligently beholding the glory of Christ by faith. In this duty I desire to live and to die.

On Christ’s glory I would fix all my thoughts and desires, and the more I see of the glory of Christ, the more the painted beauties of this world will wither in my eyes and I will be more and more crucified to this world. It will become to me like something dead and putrid, impossible for me to enjoy.”

– John Owen, The Glory of Christ

To Be a Letter of Christ

[A]nd you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

– 2 Corinthians 3:3

I love that. “Show that you are a letter of Christ.” Like walking, breathing epistles — emissaries under Christ’s Lordship, ambassadors for Christ’s kingdom — we testify with our very lives to the good news of Jesus. This isn’t just a relaying of information; it is a subsisting on revelation. It’s carrying the Spirit-illumined Word of God in our blood, in our marrow.

They are not just idle words for you — they are your life. By them you will live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess.

– Deuteronomy 32:47

I am in constant need of repenting of using God’s Word and returning to being used by it. I try too often to live by bread alone.

In my heart of hearts, however, I want to stop using Jesus, appropriating Scripture, and doing church and begin trusting Jesus, living Scripture, and being the Church.

I want to be a letter of Christ.