And we're continuing this morning a series that we've been doing for several weeks. We've called it Life in the Local Church. A little break from our study through the Gospel of Mark to wrestle through this important topic. What is God's plan and purpose for the local church? And highlighting different aspects of the body, of what it's for, and what God uses and is doing. Last week, if you were with us, we focused in on what is the central mission of the church? And we've looked at the ministry of the Apostle Paul and said that the mission, the central mission of the church is to strive through the preaching of Christ to refine and present everyone perfect, mature in Christ, bringing people to faith and then maturing in their faith in more and more like Jesus. And in many ways, Today's message flows right out of that. So if the central mission is to see people come to Christ and matured in Christ, what does God use to accomplish that? What does God use to accomplish that? And the answer is he uses a variety of different things. But today we're going to focus in what is on one primary, central means of maturing the saints and converting sinners. We're going to talk about the preaching of Christ. So let's read again from Paul's ministry, 1 Corinthians 1, beginning at verse 18. And as we read, remember this is not just the words of Paul, but through the Spirit, the very word of God. Paul writes this, For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to those who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart. Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom, It pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles. But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Therefore, as it is written, let the one who boasts boast in the Lord. And I, when I came to you brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom, for I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. and I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling. And my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in a demonstration of the spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in wisdom, the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." Let's pray for God's blessing. Lord, We commit to you your word and pray that you would use its strength and truth in our hearts. We ask it in Jesus name. Amen. There was a question posed on a fairly popular Christian website, and the question was this, throwing it out there to the masses. If you could change one thing about the institutional church, what would it be? If you could change one thing about the local church, what would it be? And various believers were writing in. And here's what one said. Here's what I change. The obsession with the sermon. Replace it. Replace it with more educationally advantageous methods of teaching, which build relationships, sharing, meaningful interaction, for example, discussions. Another illustration, read about a fairly significant conference that took place in evangelical circles and a pastor was speaking to the group and the subject of his message was about drama. And here's what he said. He said, drama is the most effective method of presenting the gospel today. And in contrast, he said about preaching, we've just got to find other ways to get them in. So, two quick illustrations. Perhaps you can connect a segment of the church today that views preaching as antiquated. One writer even called it the pony express method of communicating God's truth. The pony express method. It's quaint, but really hopelessly outdated. This segment of the church that views it It's okay, but can't we do better than that? Can't we do better than that? For communicating the gospel to unbelievers, for feeding the sheep, can't we do better? But maybe your immediate reaction is, whoa, whoa, whoa, no, not us. We love the sermon. We love preaching. I mean, come on, look at our services. We give about half of our service over to the sermon. You look at our budget. There's a huge chunk of our budget, therefore your giving, our giving, that goes towards paying for a preacher who focuses his time on preaching. So you say, no, no, not us. We love preaching. Of course, that begs the question, why? Why do we like it so much? Others don't, we do. Is it just because that's what we like? Or, preaching is our brand. You know, everybody's got their own brand, the thing that they do. You know, Starbucks, you do coffee. Keep making lattes, that's your thing. Presbyterians, keep preaching. That's what you do. Keep doing it. Stick with your brand. Is that basically what we're doing? It's our thing? Is that it? Let's talk about the place of the preaching of the word in the local church. And to do it, we dive into Paul's discussion of his ministry to a local church, reflective of his ministry throughout the starting and building up of local churches. And we wanted to look at how does he think about preaching? How does he think about preaching? The first thing we probably should do is be careful to define our terms, because we can refer to that idea of preaching in kind of a variety of different ways. There is a sense in which we could rightly say, call it maybe preaching with a small p, that preaching is broadly considered any communication of gospel truth. And this is a good thing and an important thing, and we should do it. Small p preaching, any variety of way of communicating gospel truth. So it might be you sharing the gospel with a neighbor over coffee. It might be you getting together with another believer and encouraging them with a Bible verse that you had read that morning. It might be you teaching a Sunday school class. It might be us singing a hymn together. There's a sense in which singing good music is A form of preaching, isn't it? As we're communicating and speaking forth God's word? So there's a sense in which any communication of God's truth can be considered a form of preaching. Call it preaching small p. But what we have here in Paul's discussion, and I want us to focus in on, is something a little more specific. Maybe call it preaching capital P. The term that Paul uses here three different times in our passage for preach, preaching, verse 21, 23, again in verse 4 of chapter 2, that term there is a little more specific than just kind of a general communication of gospel truth. It implies something more specific and something a little more official. What we could call as the official proclamation of God's word by God's chosen messenger. It's the same word that we read in Romans 10, as Paul was talking about the word going forth and he says, how are they to hear without someone preaching? It's the term that Jesus uses to talk about the preaching ministry of Jonah. There's Jonah, not just an everyday citizen, but here's Jonah, God's official prophet, called to go with an official message for an official people, and there he goes and he preaches to Nineveh, that more formal declaration of God's word. It's what Paul describes in his own ministry and what he does in a variety of different contexts, going to the synagogues and preaching about Jesus, going to Mars Hill in Athens and preaching Christ to the Gentiles, the philosophers, preaching Christ, that more official preaching in the context of a worship service, in the context of what we might call open air preaching. the sense of an official proclamation. You actually could take this word and also translate it as to herald, preaching, heralding. Kids, do you know what a herald is? You know what a herald is? So think in your mind back to the days of kings and queens, and there's a king sitting on his throne, and he wants to get out a message. He wants all of his subjects in all of his land to know this official declaration of the king. How does he get the message out? What does he do? He sends heralds. Those who go out into the different places in the kingdom and announce there is a message, a message from the king. And here it is. And here it is, and the herald speaks, not his own ideas or thoughts, but he speaks the message that the king has for the people. That, that is what true biblical preaching, capital P, is about. It's God's servants called specifically to proclaim, to explain and apply the king's message. That's what preaching is. Listen, it's a message from King Jesus. In that sense, what we're talking about here in preaching is different than just sharing. It's not me sharing my thoughts or reflections. It's even different than just a teaching time. Sometimes we can refer to, okay, this is the teaching time of the service. We can understand what we mean by that, but it's actually different than just a teaching time. Preaching really understood is it's not the Christian version of a TED talk. I've studied a bunch of things and I'm going to share them with you. I'm going to teach you what I've learned. It's really different than that. It's really someone standing up and say, there's a message from the king and here's what it is. And here's what it is. God's word through God's messenger. And so hopefully already you start to see why this would be a big deal in the life of the church, a big deal in worship. Because if we're gathered together worshiping God, well, if God is speaking to us, well, that's worship, right? The preaching of the word is worship. As you hear the king speak, as you give attention to it and believe his words and take to heart what he says, that is worship in the most profound way. So, preaching is prominent and important because it's God speaking through His word, through His messenger. We talk about its meaning, but then let's talk about its subject. As you follow through the passage that we read, you'll notice that Paul really wants to focus a lot of attention on not his method as much as his message. He wants to focus in on what the message is, which of course makes sense. If you think about a herald, what's a herald all about? He's not saying everybody pay attention to me or everybody pay attention to the method in which I speak. It's everybody pay attention to the message. And Paul here describes what the message that the preacher is getting out. He refers to the message in a number of ways in our text. Verse 18, he calls it the word of the cross or the message of the cross. In verse 23, he says, we preach Christ crucified. In chapter two, verse two, he describes this testimony of God as Jesus Christ and him crucified. You see the common idea the message that he's been given to proclaim in this official way as God's herald is Jesus Jesus who came was crucified and then as he's gonna add in chapter 15 raised from the dead Proclaimed in the world this Jesus. There's the message. This is the message that the king once proclaimed. It's Christ and Christ and Him crucified. This is how God is saving and working in the world. That the Savior came, and He died, and He rose, and now He's transforming through His Spirit. So preaching, if it's to be real preaching, is all about Jesus. Which, rightly understood, is another way of saying preaching the Bible. Because as Jesus Himself said, the Bible really is all about Jesus, from beginning to end. the Old Testament preparing the way and pointing to Jesus, the Gospels explaining what Jesus did, and then the rest of the New Testament describing and expounding and applying what Jesus did. And so what the preaching of Christ is really all about is preaching Jesus from all the scriptures, preaching the Bible. And so the message can't be, here are the preacher's words of wisdom. If I'm standing up here on a Sunday morning and the only thing I have to give you is my personal thoughts and words of wisdom and my inspirational stories, that is, not only is that not preaching and not really worship, it's not even worth your time. I'm not that smart. So stay home, read your paper, drink coffee at home, it's not worth you being here. But, but, if the focus of the preaching is the message from God, Christ crucified and raised, and that is what changes and transforms your life and the world, well, that's worth showing up for. That is important. That is God's salvation. So the message, Christ and Him crucified for salvation. But then we do want to talk about the method in which that message is delivered, because Paul himself reflects on how he delivers this. And this is what he gets into in chapter one, or chapter two, verses one to five. He describes how it was he came with this message specifically to the Corinthians. Just read verse one. He says, and when I came to you brothers, I did not come Excuse me, and I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. Or, verse four, this is my speech and my message, my preaching, were not implausible words of wisdom. So what he's saying, there's a background here. The background here is the ancient world, in this particular phase of the ancient world, where there was a great fascination with polished, official, lofty Greek rhetoric. a way of speaking that was formalized and had patterns and was very attractive to people. And so if you could have someone come up and speak in this oratorical style, well then people would flock to hear you. It wasn't as much what you said, but how you said it. And people, you could gather a crowd with this. And this is what people looked for. This is what impressed people. Now think of it, here's Paul, a very highly educated man. Paul was familiar with the philosophy and style of his day. He could have done this. He had the intellectual ability to give the fancy Greek polished rhetoric that everyone loved. And yet Paul says, I specifically didn't do it. He could have come and given them the very thing they love, the big show that would bring in the crowds. He could have done it, but yet he says here he specifically chose not to do it. You might say, why, Paul? Why not? If this would draw a crowd, this would gather people in, why not give them the show? Why choose not to? Well, he explains. Did you see it in verse five? He said, I chose not to come bring my message in plausible words of wisdom. Verse 5, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. He says, because if I came that way, you might be tempted to have your faith in Christ be connected to this wisdom. This this show says and I don't want that so I specifically chose not to bring the show So your faith might rest on a firm foundation And if we think about this, this is a real challenge to us in in every age, but I think especially in in our day Because I think there is a temptation in the church to think well if we can put on the big show then we should Then we should But now, of course, for our day, the big show is different. No one's really impressed with lofty Greek rhetoric and philosophy. You're not going to draw much of a crowd. But there are other ways that we might draw a crowd and get people excited and bring people in and connect people. What would it look like? variety of different things. It could be the fancy multimedia presentation that has the real wow factor to it. It could be very elaborate music. It could be the celebrity pastor that everybody listens to and everybody loves and he's so inspiring and he tells these great stories and you walk out just feeling so pumped up and alive and, you know, maybe aspects of that, not bad in and of themselves, but what's oftentimes the hidden assumption? If we can put on the big show, we should. Which is why it really should strike us as odd that Paul says, I could have done the show, but I chose not to. I chose not to. That my faith instead came very simply, my preaching instead came very simply. He said, even in weakness and fear, I was coming to you because I didn't want your faith resting on human wisdom, but on the power of God. Maybe you could think of it this way. If you walk out of this church or any church, and you're saying to yourself, what a wonderful service, or what a wonderful preacher, If that's where your focus is, then there's something lost there. There's been something of a defeat there. Think of the difference between that and you walking out and thinking, what a wonderful Savior. That's a spiritual victory. That's God's heart, that's God's plan, to focus your attention not on the show, but on the Savior. And so we need to think specifically how we do that, and Paul is here giving us a specific focus on preaching and preaching Christ and Him crucified. In part, as we'll go on now to say, because it works. Because it really works. Back up a few verses into verse 21 of of chapter 1 He says for sense in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom It pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe We should rightly stress the preaching of Christ Because it works Because in God's plan, that's what he has chosen to use to save, to bring people into the kingdom and to mature them in Christ. The context here is specific. That's why we read the big passage. The whole point in the big passage is Paul's revealing the plan of God. The plan of God is God's going to exalt his power. He's going to exalt his wisdom. And in the process, you know what he's going to do? He's going to bring low the wisdom of men. And so you have, Paul says, you have the Jews of his day, and they love miracles. That's impressive. And then you have the Greeks of the Gentiles of his day, and they love the rhetoric and the philosophy, and that's impressive to them. And what does God do? He specifically chooses to save, not through the miracles, not through the philosophy, but through the preaching of this unimpressive Christ crucified, unimpressive in the eyes of the world. He does what is seemingly unimpressive, uses what is seemingly unimpressive to bring low the wisdom and pride of men. This is what God uses. The preaching, simple, unimpressive thing of what appears to be a simple and unimpressive Savior, a crucified King. But that's what saves. That's what saves. So, to put it somewhat crassly, preaching because it works. It works. Okay, maybe not in the sense of pure numbers. Putting on the big show, asking yourself, well, what do people love? We'll do that. You might get a bigger crowd that way. But again, in the plan of God, that's not what he's out for. He's out for salvation, right? People convicted, brought to faith, and then as we talked about last one, matured in that faith, more and more like Jesus. What does God use for that? Christ, Him crucified, and proclaimed, and proclaimed. What did we read in Romans 10? As Paul there is wrestling through, well, people need to hear. And what does Paul say? If faith is that thing that saves, he says, so faith comes through hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ. The argument then, we need a preacher. because faith comes through hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. Preaching because it works. And think about it, you've seen this, haven't you? Haven't you seen this in your own life? How God used the preaching of his word? Perhaps you can think of specific times, or specific messages, or specific periods in your life where you grew, maybe coming to faith initially, or just growing in the Lord because of God's word being preached. I've lost track of how many times people have caught me after a service and said, how did you know I needed to hear that? How did you know that was exactly what I needed to hear? And just to keep me humble, that almost always happens on what I think is the worst week ever. And what I think is the worst sermon I've ever preached. And someone said, that's exactly what I needed to hear. Yeah, because that's how God works. I can still think of an occasion when I was sitting, I wasn't preaching, but I was sitting in a service, and I was very mindful of an unbeliever who was there, someone I'd been praying for and wanting him to come to know Christ, and the guest preacher that week came up and read what I thought was a really obscure passage and strange passage of scripture, and then the sermon, in my not-so-humble opinion, sounded all so strange and obscure, and I'm just kind of, oh, this is not what he needs to hear, come on, you know? And I find out later that that exact message was what God used to bring him to faith, in part. What in the world was God doing? Well, that's what God does. That's what God does. It's not, wow, the preacher's amazing. We love preaching because preachers are great. No, this is the way God humbles us, but exalts his power. It works. Faith comes through hearing. hearing through the Word of Christ. And so what that means, it's got to have implications for how we think and how we approach God's Word. I've listed four in your bulletin. It means that we probably should think about the Word preached with preparation. with preparation. If God really speaks through his word and this is his means of building up sinners through the preaching of the word, well, it's probably worth preparing. Here's how Charles Spurgeon put it. He said, we are told that men ought not to preach without preparation. Granted, but we might add men ought not to hear without preparation. Makes sense. Makes sense. Primarily, our preparation is spiritual. Praying, Lord, prepare me to hear your word throughout the week. Lord, get me ready. Praying for those who will be hearing God's word preached along with you. Praying for the preacher. He certainly needs it. Lord, work through this week instrument. Maybe it's through the week. Maybe it's on the drive to church, praying together as a family or as an individual. Praying Lord, would you use your word? We know this is what you love to use Of course, it also makes sense practical preparation to to aid if this is this is that big a thing that God uses Practically, it makes sense to make arrange our affairs so that we're able to be here and able to be here with an energy and Probably remember from growing up or maybe you still get these messages for your kids, you know standardized testing this week in school And what do they always tell you when standardized testing is coming? Make sure you go to bed early and you eat a good breakfast in the morning. Why? Because these tests are important. Okay, that makes sense. It's daunting on me. Should I have any less preparation for God's Word being preached? That's a whole lot more important than filling in little circles on a standardized test in the scheme of eternity. Maybe I should do a better job getting to bed early and having a good breakfast and showing up with all my energy. So preparation, concentration, seeing how we can focus in the midst of God's Word being preached to, you know, Bible open, okay? We give you that outline so you could take notes, even if you never look at those notes again. I don't know about you, for me, just the simple act of writing something down engages my mind and my brain. Kids, I mean, it's something you can take advantage of. Writing a word or two about the sermon or just drawing a picture that has to do with the sermon to kind of connect with what you're doing. Concentration. Application. Trying to do what James encourages us, challenges us. Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. So realizing that the whole goal is not merely to make it through the sermon, but to put it into action, to have it bear fruit in our lives. Probably the best place to start with that is just thinking through after a message, how do I, what does this look for me to live this out? Maybe in conversation, maybe in conversation fellowship after the service or on the drive home or around the table. And remember, as you're discussing the sermon, the whole point is not to talk about how great or not so great the pastor was. Because again, you're missing the point. Even if you say how great he was, you're missing the point. But how great is the Savior? What is God teaching me? What does he want me to turn away from? What does he want me to believe? What does this look like in your life, in my life? Application. And finally, invitation. If God really uses this, well then it certainly makes sense that one of the best ways we can have an impact upon the unbelieving world around us is to invite people to come and hear God's word preached. It's not the only means of evangelism, but it's one we shouldn't neglect. Research still shows that people who come and visit a church do so more often than not because someone invited them. Someone invited them. So there's something we all could do. Who is God put in my life? I could just invite him to come and hear Christ crucified. So are we at Emanuel Church obsessed with the sermon? Well, I hope so. And just as importantly, I hope so we are in the right way. Not just because it's our thing, our brand, but because we know it's God sending forth his word to his people. The king is using it to refine and convert and transform, and we're excited to see what he does in our lives. We're excited to see what he does in others. Maybe you add an implication of this in the implication of expectation. Leaning in, I expect God to do great things. God, what are you gonna do this week? because we know that's what you love. Well, let's pray together. Father, we do pray that you would use the message of the cross, even as it's presented and proclaimed through simple, unimpressive instruments around the world, Use it in our lives, in the life of our body, and throughout your church. Father, that we might be more like Jesus and know Him better. For we do pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Well, let's close singing of Jesus. 529 is our final hymn. 529.