Well, today we are concluding our study of Sola Scriptura. Now, I've only used that word, I think, one time since we started this, but if you look at what we've covered so far, it's all been about the Bible, and that's what Sola Scriptura is. It's by Scripture alone. And I've sought to raise those issues among us because these were issues in the Protestant Reformation, that the Word of God is the final authority, not the Word of man. And we've already looked at two of the things related to scripture, the binding word. Scripture is binding on the conscience, and I sought to point that out. And secondly, we talked about the truthful word. You can't go anywhere else, any book in the world, and pick up one like the Bible that declares to be absolute truth. I had someone comment on a YouTube post this past week talking about lies in the Bible and immorality in the Bible. And I said, yeah, those things are in the Bible, but not as promoted as something that is commendable by God. No, they're put there as examples so that you would understand that God is a holy God. Because there were consequences, right? Consequences to immorality. consequences to sin just as there are today. And so as I've said we've looked at the scripture being binding on our consciences and that's why we have to keep saturating our minds with the Word of God so we're putting in the right information because we want to do as Charles Spurgeon said one time, if you prick me in the night I'll bleed biblene. And that's what you want. You want to have the Bible, the Word of God, coming out of your mind, coming out of your heart. You want it in your ears as it's going in. You want it seen as you're reading it. You just want to put this in and then you want this to come out in your life. And so, you want to be bibline. The reformers place great emphasis on scripture, and as I said, this is why we have the Protestant Reformation. Today we're gonna look at the third aspect of this, and that is the proclaiming word. The reformers placed great emphasis on proclaiming God's word, preaching God's word, evangelizing with God's word. Now they did that through preaching, as I just said. They did it through other means as well, like the translation of the Bible in the common language of the people. They also did it by teaching it systematically, verse by verse, and giving the sense or the explanation of Scripture. And when they would do this, they would seek to preach Christ from all of Scripture. And so that's what we're going to do today. Martin Luther said that the highest worship of God is the preaching of His Word. But yet, that is what is missing in many churches, right? You go to some churches and you don't get the preaching of the whole counsel of God. You get a little bit of peep preaching. You get little sermonettes for Christianette kind of preaching. In fact, listen to what some of the churches are saying about themselves. I'm frankly embarrassed to read this and that this is even in print, but just understand the situation and the gravity of it. One church said this, the sermons are relevant, upbeat, and best of all, short. They must have YouTube shorts, right? You won't hear a lot of preaching about sin and damnation and hellfire. Preaching here doesn't sound like preaching. It's sophisticated, urban, and friendly talk. It breaks all the stereotypes. That's not preaching. Another church said, the pastor is preaching a very upbeat message, it's a salvationist message, but the idea is not so much being saved from the fires of hell, rather it's being saved from the meaninglessness and aimlessness in this life. It's more of a soft sell. Listen, if that's what you're preaching, go home. If that's what's being taught, everybody in the church needs to go home. You need salvation from sin, not salvation from a meaningless and aimless type of life. Listen, if you get saved from your sin, you will have the other kind of salvation that they're mentioning here. You won't have a meaningless life. You won't have an aimless type of life. John MacArthur, he says, the weakness of the pulpit today does not stem from frantic cranks who rant about hell. It's the result of men who compromise and who fear to speak God's word powerfully with conviction. The church is certainly not suffering from an overabundance of forthright preachers. Rather, it seems gutted with men pleasers. And this is not what the reformers believed. Zwingli said, the word of God is to be heart. And that with great devotion. See, for them, the heart was not scripture. The Word of God was not, for them, a great devotion. It was pragmatism. It was whatever works to reach people, even if you have to throw a clown in the service. You know, just focus on what works. Don't trust the Bible. Essentially is what's being said. Churches today are more focused on everyone's felt needs rather than on what God says. And to be honest with you and those of you who've been with me all this time, these eight years, know that what I'm interested in is what God says. And nothing more and nothing less. So let's see what God says about the church and the proclamation of his word. I'm gonna address this today in three ways. If you look on the back of your bulletin, I left you some things to fill in. But we're gonna talk about the importance of preaching, the nature of preaching, and the power of preaching. Yes, it's all about preaching. preaching God's Word. I'm going to use the term preaching in both the official and non-official sense. In the official sense, seen as the responsibility that God ordained, God called man of God who is a preacher. And then seen in the unofficial sense where all of us are to be evangelist. We all are to evangelize with the message that the Bible gives about Jesus. Now when we talk about the word preach, it appears over 100 times in the Bible. Its primary usage is in the New Testament. Another term that's used, and we see a lot of it in the Old Testament, is the word proclaim. And that word occurs about 116 times. But the classic passage that I want to refer to for just a moment is found in 2 Timothy chapter four, and if you'd like to turn there, I want to focus in on verse two. 2 Timothy chapter 4 and verse 2. And I just want to mention those first three words that Paul wrote to Timothy. And he said this, preach the word. He didn't say preach yourself, preach about gimmicks or fads or cultures. No, he said preach the word. That's the Greek word keruso. It's a command right here as Paul is commanding Timothy to preach God's word. The word caruso, it means to herald. It means to proclaim publicly as an official spokesman for the king. This word has roots in the guy that would run and tell good news. He was a spokesman for the emperor. Now sometimes some of the news he gave wasn't good news, was it, since he represented the emperor. But he would proclaim in a formal, grave, and authoritative manner, and it must be listened to. This is the message which the emperor gave him to announce. That's the word that Paul is using here in 2 Timothy 4.2. You need to preach, you need to herald, you need to proclaim this word. You need to do it in a formal, grave, and authoritative manner. This is what people are to listen to because this is coming from the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. J.I. Packer, who is with the Lord now, he made this statement. Preaching appears in the Bible as relaying of what God has said about Himself and His doings. So when I preach, that's what I'm to preach. I am to relay what God has said about Himself and about what He's done. In other words, it's the proclamation of the Word of God. It's what Paul said to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20 and verse 27 when he says, I have not shunned to declare unto you the whole counsel of God. Or it says, John Calvin said, it's the public exposition of scripture by the man sent from God. So that's my definition I'm working with this morning. A definition, as I said, of preaching in a non-official capacity is simply sharing the message of the gospel. Sharing the good news about Jesus Christ with others. That's the role we all play. So let's begin first with the importance of preaching. And let's say this, preaching is God's ordained means of proclaiming salvation. This is how he decided to announce it. This is how we are to tell the world. No one comes without being called, and that call comes from gifted men who are preachers of God's Word. Listen to these words from Romans 10, beginning at verse 14. How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how will they believe in Him in whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? Job security. How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things. However, they did not all heed the good news for Isaiah said, Lord who has believed our report. So faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. How will they hear without a preacher? That tells me right there that my role as a preacher is to speak. I mean, there are guys out there that want to sing the gospel, and I guess that's okay. But you don't find that in the Bible, saying that. It says preach as official spokesman for the king. Now, look, if you're with me at Romans 10, if not, just listen. Verse 17 is very insightful. It says, Faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. I've heard people quote this verse, not really understanding what it's meaning, because it's not just any word about Christ. The phrase, the word of Christ, it's not the Greek word logos that Paul's talking about. The term word is the Greek word rhema, and rhema means sayings. or utterances. So when we say the word of Christ here in verse 17, he's talking about the sayings of Christ. And I just asked this question, what are the sayings of Christ? Well, according to the context in Romans chapter 10, it's specifically referring to the gospel message. In a broader context of Romans 10, he refers to the Old Testament scriptures that spoke about Christ. We find that in verse 11, verse 13, and verse 15. So when Paul is saying in verse 17 that faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ, he's talking about the message about Christ. He's talking about the gospel. It is a very specific message. So as you're over there debating things, I have nothing to do with the gospel and you're debating it with an unbeliever. I would encourage you to lose that conversation as quickly as you can and get the conversation on the gospel. Get the conversation on the message of Christ. Faith comes by hearing a specific speech about Christ. Again, that's the gospel. And this is God's ordained means of salvation, the preaching of His Word, the preaching of His gospel. Yet not always everyone receives it that way. Some see it as foolishness. Some think about a simple message as the gospel as being Foolish. Listen to what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1.21. He says, For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. So for an unbelieving world that doesn't understand the gospel, it's foolishness to them. But for those who do, It is not foolishness, it is the message that is given to us of the wisdom of God and of the knowledge of God. There is a passage in Colossians 128 where Paul makes it extremely clear In the preaching of the gospel, he says this, we proclaim Him, and Him is Christ, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom so that we may present every man complete in Christ. This is what we proclaim. And we do that by preaching. And preaching is done by the church in its official capacity by preachers and evangelists, but it's also done by individual believers as they evangelize the lost. So preaching is God's ordained means of proclaiming salvation. Preaching is also God's ordained means of providing spiritual nourishment for the church. This is how the church grows. It comes through the preaching of His Word, the evangelization of the lost. We used to call that reach and teach. We preach the Word, we evangelize the lost. The church can't grow without this. I know God will use additional means, but the primary means is preaching. And the church is to be fed a steady diet of the Word of God, and that's done through preaching and teaching. If you wonder why I teach through books of the Bible, I'm fixing to tell you that in just a moment, but this is the main reason. Because I believe that every word is important. That's why I believe in expository preaching. Expository preaching focuses in on every word. And if we teach through books of the Bible, we're going to get God's thought that is given in that book instead of just being all over the place. and running a risk of taking verses out of their context. Because part of your interpretation as you interpret a passage is what does this verse mean in its context by which it is written. Now there were four things that the early church was involved in, the very first church. It tells us in Acts 2.42 that they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship and to the breaking of bread and to prayers. Look at these four things. The apostles' teaching, that's at the top of the list. They were committed to the teaching about Christ. So much so that the Sanhedrin in Acts 528 told them, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine. That's all they kept hearing about was this man that they had murdered, who is the Messiah. But we see that priority. In the early church, Acts chapter 5 verse 42, it says, Every day in the temple and from house to house they kept right on teaching and preaching that Jesus was the Messiah. That's what they did every single day. They taught and they preached. Even when a problem arose in the church, they made sure that they kept their priority on teaching. In Acts chapter 6, there was a neglect in the daily distribution of the food to the Hellenistic Jews, and the congregation had this problem going on. And it reached the ears of the apostles. And the apostles said in Acts 6 too, it's not desirable for us to neglect the word of God in order to serve tables. So they tell them to choose out among you and they give them the qualifications of the seven men that would take on this responsibility. But according to the apostles, verse four, they were going to devote themselves to prayer and the ministry of the word. Their focus was on spiritual nourishment, spiritual food, because that's what the church needs. Now, I know everyone has an opinion on that. I know I get invited to lunch every Sunday. I'm just not physically there. I'm there in spirit, right? Oh, that pastor went so long today. I didn't even know a few weeks ago I preached an hour and 15 minutes. I was just caught up in the moment. And I said, well, I need to scale that back. So it scaled it back to about 45 minutes in the next message. It's not like I'm up here, and I got my clocks and all that, and I'm thinking, well, I got another 45 minutes to go. It's not any of that at all. I used to think this. I've been in the church for over 40 years, and I used to think, people that have got this 12 o'clock-itis, that essentially they're saying, isn't God done yet? Isn't the Holy Spirit through? I mean, isn't an hour enough? Well, they did this every day, and they did it in the temple, and they did it from house to house. And this is what we should be doing. We should be talking about the Word of God every day. We should be in it every day. We should be sharing it with those we come in contact with every day. Even if it's the only people you're around, it's your family. And maybe they're already saved. That's okay. Just keep talking about the Word of God to them. Over in 1 Peter 2, It talks about longing for the pure milk of the word like a child or an infant, a baby longs for the milk from its mother's breast. It says it this way, like newborn babies long for the pure milk of the word so that by it may grow in respect to salvation. And in order to do all of that, you have to do what he said in verse one where he talks about laying aside sin because sin is what hinders our desires. So on those days when you feel like I don't want to read the Word of God, see if there's something going on in your heart that you've given yourself over to. Some sin or sins. And ask the Lord to change that, to remove that, to repent, to help you repent of that. But right before he told them to long for the pure milk of the Word, He told them that it was this word that was preached to them. This word that they desire was preached and it needs to be preached first. So they were to lay aside those things that would hinder just like we are to do this today. And when you do that it says in verse 2 that you will grow in respect to salvation. See that's the word that we need. We need every word. We need the whole counsel of God. You know, I like that phrase, the whole counsel of God, because that tells me that Paul never held back. He gave them everything. He gave them the whole counsel. Over in Acts 20 and verse 32, Paul said this as he closed his instructions to the elders at Ephesus. He says, And now I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. How's the church to be built up? It's to be built up by the word of God. And that's why he commended them to the Word of God's grace, because it's able to build them up. That's talking about spiritual growth. And it's not talking about a one-time event. It's talking about an ongoing, continual process where God's Word causes our spiritual maturity. It builds you up. That's a construction metaphor that's referring to the spiritual development of character and understanding. Hold on to that last word, understanding, because that brings me to the nature of preaching. What kind of preaching is the church to do? You know, there are all kinds of preaching. There's textual preaching. There's topical preaching. I'm doing topical right now. And then there's expository preaching. And then there's all kinds of other things that people put labels to. like a running homily. I think Homer Lindsay that used to be at First Baptist preached there before he went to be with the Lord. He was a running homilist. He would read a verse, explain it, read a verse, explain it. That's what one does. But the kind of preaching that I have in mind is what I mentioned a moment ago and that is expository preaching. And let me share with you a little bit about expository preaching. I've talked about it before because that's the kind of preaching that I do. The definition of that kind of preaching is really best seen by those who did it in the scriptures. We certainly can't get our understanding from preachers today because not all preachers are expository preachers, but a good example would take us back into the Old Testament. So let me have you to go back into the Old Testament to the book of Nehemiah. Nehemiah. And I want you to go to chapter 8, Nehemiah chapter 8. And don't test me on these names because these names are much harder than what I read in Matthew 1. But I want you to get the gist of what took place here. It says, And all the people gathered as one man at the square which was in front of the water gate. And they asked Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses which the Lord had given to Israel. Then Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly of men, women, and all who could listen with understanding on the first day of the seventh month. He read from it before the square which was in front of the water gate from early morning until midday. In the presence of men and women, those who could understand, and all the people were attentive to the book of the law. Ezra the scribe stood at a wooden podium which they had made for the purpose. And beside him stood Matthias, Shema, Ananias, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Messiah on his right hand, and Petodiah, Mishael, Malachi, Hashem, and yes I'm guessing all this from here, and Hasheb Adonai, Zachariah, and Meshulam on the left hand. And he opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people. And when he had opened it, all the people stood up." So sometimes you've been visiting a church, or maybe a church you used to go to, and right before they would do the scripture reading, the pastor would say, would you stand for the reading of the scripture? The reason why I don't do that is because I read a lot of scripture in a sermon. I'd have you doing this. Because I asked a pastor friend of mine, I said, you know, why did we not, you know, we're doing this in honor of the reading of scripture. If we're really gonna honor the reading of scripture, we just tell everybody to stand up for the whole time. Just stand for the whole message, and then you're honoring by standing. But I know not everyone can do that. Look at verse six. Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people said, amen, amen. while lifting up their hands and they bowed low and worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground. And these men and the Levites explained the law to the people while the people remained in their place. And they read from the book, from the law of God, translating to give the sense so that they understood the reading. You know what I find interesting about this? They did this from early morning, verse three, until midday. The people that were there were men and women. And we would have to say that there were children there because you have that phrase, those who could understand. And what I really like about the passage, it says that they were attentive. And you hear their attention to this when the people said, Amen, Amen, and when they lifted up their hands and they bowed low and they worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. That's attention. But pay attention now to verse 8. They read from the book, from the law of God, translating. to give the sense so that they understood the reading. Notice the word sense in verse 8. In order for them to understood the reading, they needed to understand the sense of the passage. The sense means the meaning of the passage. They needed it explained. They needed the insight and the understanding and the wisdom that came from the explanation. In the context here, giving the sense means that the readers, Ezra and the Levites, were not just reciting the law, but they were interpreting the text. They were explaining its meaning. They were helping the people to understand its application. This is what they did. Because they knew that if you did not understand it, it would be unfruitful to you. You could not apply something you did not understand. This is what expository preaching is. It's giving the sense. It's helping you to understand. It's explaining the meaning of the text as the author intended it. It's not westernizing the Bible. It's not even coming to the Bible and said, but this is what the Bible says, but this is what it says to me. And then share a personal interpretation. What it means is what it means. And when you get to the meaning of it, now you have the scripture. And I want to understand what it means in its original sense. I don't want to understand just because somebody in a Bible study who hasn't done their homework is saying, well, I think it means this. It's not that at all. On the road to Emmaus in Luke 24-27, Jesus was conversing with two men and it tells us in verse 27 that He explained to them the things concerning Himself in the Scriptures. The word explained, some translations have expounded, It means to interpret thoroughly. It means to explain the meaning, to expound fully, to translate or interpret clearly. It comes from the root word dia, which means thoroughly, while the word hermeneuo, where we get the word hermeneutics, means to interpret, to explain. The word itself emphasizes thorough explanation and careful interpretation. See, it's showing us that Jesus didn't merely just quote scripture, but he provided detailed understanding of its meaning and its significance. That's why when you hear a verse like this in 1 Timothy 4.13, Paul said to Timothy, until I come, give attention to the public reading of scripture, to exhortation, and to teaching. That's essentially what expository preaching is. And when he says give attention to, that right there means that there is preparation that first has to happen. There has to be this personal preparation. Preparation of the heart. Preparation of the study. And then they would publicly read the scripture just like we heard in Nehemiah 8. And then they would explain and then exhort. You read the text, you explain the text, and you apply the text. That's what they sought to do. That's why they needed to have a clear explanation of the scripture. The same for the reformers. That's why they wanted the scripture in the language of the people so that they could understand it. Even the little plow boy as he's over there behind the plows and the ox and he's plowing his furrow. He wanted him to understand the scriptures. William Tyndale used to sit there and watch him do this. And William Tindall, who was the reformer of the English Reformation, whom I've told you that the King James Bible really is his work, and about 70% of it retains his work, but he literally died so that you could have that in your language, so we could have it in English. So the Reformers emphasized explanation, verse-by-verse, systematic explanation of Scripture. They wanted the people to have that understanding. Now, the nature of that is that it had to be Christ-centered preaching. An example of that would be Acts chapter 2. Let me have you turn to Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. On the day of Pentecost, Jews were gathered there in Jerusalem. They were all in one place. A noise came like a violent rushing wind. It filled the whole house where they were sitting. There appeared to them languages Languages of fire distributing themselves. It rested on each one of them. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit. They began to speak with other languages. And I keep saying languages because that's exactly what it was if you look at verse nine. Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, the districts of Libya around Cyrene, visitors of Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs, What'd they say? Well, first, verse 8, they asked, how is it that we each hear them in our own language in which we were born? And then look down at verse 11. We hear them in our own language, translators put tongues, speaking of the mighty deeds of God. Well, what did Peter say when he preached? Look at verse 14. But Peter, taking his stand with the eleven, raised his voice and declared to them, Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give heed to my words. For these men are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was spoken of through the prophet Joel. And it shall be in the last days, God says, that I will pour forth of my Spirit on all mankind. And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even on my bond slaves, both men and women, I will in those days pour forth of my Spirit, and they shall prophesy." And I will grant wonders in the sky above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and glorious day of the Lord shall come. And it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." Now by the way, none of that was fulfilled at that moment other than what he said in verse 17 about pouring forth the Spirit. All these other things are still future. And then he said, men of Israel, listen to these words, Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through him in your midst, just as you yourselves know. This man delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put him to death, but God raised him again, putting an end to the agony of death since it was impossible for him to be held in its power. Listen, he's preaching Christ. And he's not finished. But when he did finish, it says that they were cut to the heart, verse 37. They were convicted because they heard a specific message about Jesus, their Messiah. This was Christ-centered preaching. Another example of this, if you just flip over to chapter 8 in verse 5, we find Philip. Philip goes down to the city of Samaria, and what's he doing? He's proclaiming Christ to them. He's proclaiming Jesus is the Messiah. Look at verse 35. He opened his mouth, and here he's with the Ethiopian eunuch, and he begins from this scripture that the eunuch was reading, and he preached Jesus to him. This is Christ-centered preaching. This was also Paul's approach. If you want to go forward to chapter 17 and look at verse 2. According to Paul's custom, he went to them and for three sabbaths he reasoned with them from the scriptures explaining and giving evidence that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead and saying that this Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ or the Messiah. Christ-centered preaching. Listen, if there's no preaching about Christ, then there is no preaching worth preaching. Charles Spurgeon said, The preaching of Christ is the whip that flogs the devil. The preaching of Christ is the thunderbolt, the sound of which makes all hell shake. But if preachers aren't preaching about Christ, hell's not shaking. The devil's not being flogged. It's not a thunderbolt coming across. John Durham said, Christ is the native subject upon which all preaching should run. So we see the importance of preaching. This is what the early church did and we see the nature of preaching that expository, Christ-centered. Let me close with the third one, the power of preaching. Preaching is the power of God for salvation. Everyone who believes experiences the power of God in salvation. Listen to Romans 1 16. Paul says, I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. To the Jew first and also to the Greek. This is the power of God that's being preached. The gospel And it's the power of God's Word that saves. I had somebody I saw made a comment on one of our videos and said that, you know, the Bible doesn't save you. All I did was that I responded with a few verses. Here's one of them. James 1.18, in the exercise of His will, He brought us forth by the Word of truth. How were we brought forth? How were we born again? By what? The Word of Truth. 1 Peter 1, 23 and following says, For you have been born again, not of seed which is perishable, but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring Word of God. For all flesh is like grass, and all of its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, the flower falls off. But the word of the Lord endures forever, and this is the word which was preached to you." You can't have any salvation without the Bible. You can't have any understanding of it without the Bible. But yet, many see it as nothing more than foolishness. And yet Martin Luther, he even said, the preached gospel is offensive in all places of the world. It's rejected and it's condemned because they see it as foolishness coming from a bunch of morons. I heard at one of the rallies that Kamala Harris did, there were some guys that said, Jesus is Lord. And she heard it, she stopped, she said, You're at the wrong rally. And had them ushered out. They made them leave. Now if that's not persecution, what is it? I remember years ago at the Democratic Convention, they literally voted out God. See, that party, if you're part of that party, that's not the party that it used to be. It's not the same party. It's a liberal party of death now, and how they're pushing abortion, murdering innocent babies. I can't vote for that. The Bible says in Psalm 139 that we're knit together in our mother's womb. That is a creation of God in the womb, and yet They just want to rip those babies apart. I believe in babies. I have seven of them. My wife had two miscarriages, so two of them are in heaven. So preaching is the power of God for salvation, and then last, preaching is the power of God for sanctification. You say, what is sanctification? Well, sanctification means that you're set apart. Set apart to truth, Jesus said, sanctify them in truth. Your word is truth. It's the word of God and the spirit of God that aids, of course, in our sanctification. Ephesians 5.26 describes it as the washing of water by the word. 1 Thessalonians 2.13 describes it as the word that effectively works in us. Paul said it was the Spirit that enables us to put to death the deeds of the body, Romans 8, 13. For if you are living according to the flesh, you must die. But if by the Spirit you're putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. See, that's sanctification. And just so you hear it even more, Colossians 3, 5 talks about putting to death your members which are on the earth. But probably one of the most classic passages that tells us that this is God's will is 1 Thessalonians 4. And let me just read three of the verses there. Verse 3, for this is the will of God, your sanctification. You're being set apart. Now he's going to tell you how he's using that word. That is, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion like the Gentiles who do not know God. In other words, when we're talking about sanctification, we're talking about you being holy. Living a holy life, like Peter said in 1 Peter 1 15, but like the Holy One who has called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior, because it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy. You're to be holy, you're to cleanse yourself from all defilement, 2 Corinthians 7 1. This is what we're to be. The church is to preach the Word of God. The members are to preach the Word of God. The sermons are to be expositional. They're to be explained. The Word needs to be explained, but explained in its original intent, its original meaning. So, as we remember the Protestant Reformation today, just remember that it was the proclamation of the word that caused the Reformation to spread throughout the world. And of course, they had the Gutenberg Press. In fact, no one would have known the 95 thesis that Martin Luther nailed to that door in Wittenberg if it wasn't for the printing press. He didn't know it was spread all throughout Germany. and reaching into England and France and all these other places. Someone said this, the very fact that the truth is not popular is all the more reason for preaching it. It is not our responsibility to make it accessible. It is our duty to make it available. Are you making it available? Because that's what the reformers did. It wasn't popular. with the Roman Catholic Church, the church tried to discredit them, they used fear and intimidation, they used death, but the reformers still pressed on to make it available. So when you leave today, make the gospel available. If you go to lunch, you sit in a restaurant, I like to use those million dollar bill tracks, I'll put them down, but I don't let that be my tip. Christians have gotten a bad name, bad rap on tips because they don't tip. And two, when they do, they put down a track. You want them to read the track. Put some real money down with it. And just spread the gospel. In the words of Jesus, as you are going, make disciples of all nations. In order to make a disciple, you have to be a disciple. and I trust and pray that you are. I trust and pray that everyone in here knows and loves the Lord Jesus Christ. And if not, that you would do what Jesus said in Luke 9, 23, where you would deny yourself and take up your cross daily and follow him. I strongly urge that. Let's pray. We thank you, Heavenly Father, For your word today, we thank you for the privilege and the opportunity for us to look at it together. And I pray that your name will have been praised and you have been worshiped. And we pray all this in