And my sermon today is on expositional listening. And I will explain what that means, but expositional listening, 2 Timothy chapter four. I charge you, in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure silent teaching. But having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded and endure suffering. Do the work of an evangelist. Fulfill your ministry. For I'm already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Henceforth, there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all who have loved his appearing. Let's pray. Lord, just thank you that you bless the reading of the word here, but also the preaching of your word. Thank you that you've called for your word to be preached, to be explained, to be taught, to be understood by your people. And I thank you that you have not left me here in the pulpit to preach alone, but that I have Your Spirit. Help me to be humble, and I pray that Your Spirit would work through Your Word, convicting of sin, calling to repentance, and comforting Your saints. I just pray that You would give open eyes and ears, and I pray that the sermon on listening to preaching would bear fruit for years to come, that the The points of application would be remembered and applied and that all of us can grow in this. Thank you for that work that a sermon preached at one point, history, can bring ongoing fruit because it's your word that's being preached, not my word or my opinion. In the name of Jesus Christ, I pray, amen. You guys can sit down. So, in case anybody's wondering, I did put out that Josiah was gonna be preaching, but Josiah also rented some equipment and it worked out better for him. Plus next Sunday, it's a little bit up in the air. Assuming my flight gets back on Saturday, I should be good from Southeast, but it's a little bit more tenuous, so I'm preaching today. And I'm continuing in a sermon series, and the sermon series is on church membership. And so, so far in the sermon series, I've covered that baptism is membership in the visible church, but I also distinguish that baptism is not the same as local church membership. And I made the case, I'm not going to repeat the case, but there is importance there because I don't want, when we talk about local church membership, people to think, that it's the same, as some people actually view, baptism is baptism into the local church. Baptism is membership into the visible church. Local church membership is related, but different. So when we're baptized, we're baptized into a community of believers, that's for sure. But our specific membership in a local church and accountability, that membership is slightly different. And so I've established that there is such a thing as the local church. And you wouldn't think, in many ways, that we need to establish that. But today, especially, I think it's important to establish that, yes, there is a local church in Scripture. And I established that local church membership is in Scripture, and that what we could call formal local church membership more of a piece of paper or a formal acknowledgment. So we've had local church membership in our church, but it's been more just understood that there's members. But we're moving towards formal membership. And I explain the reasons in that while that's not spelled out in Scripture, it flows from the necessary commands of Scripture, that the Scripture sets forward local elders. It shows us examples of those elders being responsible for the care of souls, specific souls. I can't be responsible for everybody that drives by on Fairview Loop today that's a Christian. I can't be responsible for everybody in this area. I am responsible for those people that actually acknowledge that I am their elder, same thing for Josiah, as a plurality of elders. And so I have a special relationship, and we see that in scripture where there's this charge by Paul to elders to take their responsibility serious because that they have a responsibility for the souls of those under their care. We see that church discipline implies membership in a local church. We saw that in Corinthians with the example of Paul calling out sin in the local church and calling for the local church to exercise discipline of a known member of that church. We saw even in Matthew 18 how it says that at the end of going to the individual and then with a brother and then to bring some issue, some sin before the church. And so there's a church, there is a local church that is meeting and that that person is a member of. So some of the positives of this acknowledgement of membership are that we don't have to guess. Josiah and I don't have to know to kind of wonder, well, I wonder who thinks that they're a member. I hope they acknowledge. And it'd be very easy in a certain situation for somebody to be, We go to try to deal with the situation or take our role seriously as pastors and somebody to be like, well, who do you think you are? We're not members, we've just been attending. And so we want that to be acknowledged. But also there's kind of the blessing of part of our new, it's very simple membership form, is that just kind of preparing the way that we're gonna be doing, quote unquote, spiritual wellness checks. We're going to be touching base with the couples, the families, individuals in the church. every so often, and it's not like you're being called into the principal's office. We just want to take more seriously our role of like, how are you guys doing? What are you going through? How is the marriage? How's the family? How's the raising of kids? What things do you need prayer in? the all those type of things. And so for at this point, with more of just an acknowledged membership without formal membership, it's kind of awkward sometimes for us to go and be like, hey, we want to check in on you. Because it feels like, oh, there must be a problem. But we're trying to establish that no, this is a regular part of local church life is actually caring for the members of the church. So that leads us to, so I've established local church membership. So now I'm beginning kind of the second half of the sermon series. And the sermon series, the second half is on what it means to be a healthy member of a local church. And I'm inspired in the sermon series by the book by Nine Marks on what is a healthy church member, which I would encourage you guys to read as we preach through this. It's very short and I have extra copies, which I meant to bring today. Anyways, but I have extra copies of that book. It'd be good to read through. But positively, on your side as members, what does it look like to be a productive, healthy, healthy member of the local church? How do you contribute to the local church? What does it look like for you to be a member of the local church? And of course, it will come back to touch on Josiah and I, but the reality is that we have a very serious role, Sobering role, but we don't have all the role the Ephesians for describes us as equipping the Saints for the work of the ministry it it describes the members of the church and edifying each other in love and building the whole up. And so every piece, kind of like a house, plays its part, or the analogy Paul uses is a body, plays its part in the local body and in the broader body. And so our goal is to equip you. And so that's what I'm really doing here is seeking to equip you as members of the church. So today my sermon is on expositional listening. Now, A lot of us know what expositional or expository preaching is. Maybe I should call the sermon expository listening. But there's the flip side of expository preaching, which is expository listening. This sermon, by the way, this series, when I go off on a series, because I have been preaching verse by verse through Genesis, but when you go to a quote-unquote topical series, just, I get this a lot, I hear it, people make this differentiation between, oh, well, you're done with Genesis, and now you're teaching on a topic like church membership, so therefore, that was expository preaching, and this is something else, this is topical preaching. Expository preaching is setting forward, describing, explaining the Word of God. That's really what the word expository means. Carla will know the word poner in Spanish, which is the same as in Latin, basically, which is to put forward, to set forward, and that's the root word here, to expose, to put forward the Word of God. So, While the norm for the church, and what I will be getting back to, and what Josiah is doing now in his preaching, is expository preaching in the sense of verse by verse, because that's the way the scriptures were, the letters were written, and there is a natural flow. Sometimes topical preaching is important, and topical preaching is also expository. So I really want you guys to understand this. I don't want there to be any misgivings about, oh, well, this is not expository preaching if it's topical preaching. If the topical preaching It's preaching and setting forward and explaining the word of God. It's scripture-driven. It is also expository. It's not to downplay the normal of working through verse by verse, but topical must be and should be and is, if it's faithful to scripture, if it's teaching scripture, expository. So this is expository preaching to you. I don't want you to think that I'm gonna preach about expository listening and expository preaching and I'm not doing it. No, this is expository preaching. And so in this sermon, here's what I'm gonna teach you guys today and cover. I'm going to exposit two passages. The first is the example of the Breans. The second is the bad example, so that's the good example. The second is the bad example in 2 Timothy 4 of those with itching ears, wanting preachers who preach what they want to hear. And so I'm gonna contrast two passages. One is a good example, one is a bad example. So I'm gonna exposit two passages. And then the bulk of what I'm gonna be teaching today is going to be application. It's gonna be practical nuts and bolts of how do you be a good listener. So expository preaching is important, but if you're not listening in a way that matches that expository preaching, if you're not practicing expository listening, Again, understanding, seeking to understand the text, thinking in terms of what is the Scripture being taught? How is it being set forward? How do I gain the most as I can from this sermon and what's being taught? If none of that is happening, you could sit under, and I forget who said this, it might have been J.C. Riles or something like that, that Judas sat under every one of Christ's sermons. So it is perfectly possible to sit through years of expository preaching, and decent, good expository preaching, that you should have gained from, and to gain nothing. And we don't want that to be the case. I want you guys to listen. I want you to learn. I want that matching part that has to be there when expository preaching, whether it's Josiah or myself, or you're listening to a sermon on your own, or reading through a sermon, I want you to be able to match it with expository listening and good listening skills for the sermon. So two examples of One is good expository listening, and one is not practicing expository listening. So we're gonna start with the good example, who are the Brians. Turn to Acts chapter 17, verse 11. And I want, I always like to try to engage the kids. Obviously, if I engage the kids, I'm probably engaging the adults as well. But you young kids, are you guys listening? I'm seeing some heads pop up, good. I want you to get as much as you can out of sermons. I want you to not just sit through years of sermons and just kind of like, oh yeah, okay, well I guess I gotta be still for a while. I want you to gain as much as you can when I'm preaching, when Josiah's preaching, but also when you hear another sermon, or you go to a church out of state, when you're visiting, or whatever the case is, I want you to be good at listening. And I know some of you kids will complain that, I don't understand, I don't, and some of that's normal. Sometimes things are gonna go over your head, and they will when you're pretty young. but the more you can open your ears and tune in. So when I get to, I want you to listen all the way throughout, but especially when I get to the part where I describe how to listen, I want you guys to listen. I want you guys to pay attention to how to listen and practice that. So as you get older, you will learn, you will grow, you will get stuff and sometimes you're, I'm surprised by how much you kids are getting and you may not even realize you're getting it. Act 1711. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica. They received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so. Sometimes I'm surprised by scripture. Can you imagine what would happen if a pastor today said, these Christians over here were more noble than those Christians over there because they received the word with, and Paul, Paul in the scriptures and here in Acts, it's not Paul's writings, but Paul does that in his writings where sometimes you're surprised by the Cretans, his description of the Cretans negatively. Sometimes we're a little bit too liable to, oh, I don't wanna step on anybody's toes, can never say anything negative, can't call people out, and you don't see that in scripture. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica. They received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so. Now, this is a good example of expository listening. I'm using that word a lot because I want you to understand it. At the end of the day, it's a big word that we throw around in reform circles, but it just means to set forward, to understand, to grab a hold of the word, to explain it, and then on the part of the person who's listening to receive that word. They were good expository listeners. They received the word with all eagerness. We all think of things that we eagerly receive, obviously things like money or food or gifts, things that we think are good. And if we see a need for learning and we see that we can learn and that will really help us, we tend to be eager about receiving that information. If we have a car, that's not running and somebody explains that there's some simple fix, we're eager to receive their insight, their input, what they have to teach us. So they receive with all eagerness, and there's that emphasis of all eagerness. They were eager, they were excited to receive the Word. Specifically, what they were receiving was the Word as it was preached to them. And that's the standard. So sometimes in a sermon, you have to sift and sort a little bit. Sometimes there's a little bit of chaff. And any preacher, if you follow them long enough, I've read a lot of preachers that I look up to, like the Puritans or Martin Lloyd-Jones, and every so often, now I second-guess myself on this, but every so often there's something that's like, eh, I don't agree with that, because I see it disagreeing with the Scriptures. The preaching is very powerful and we should take it humbly, but it ultimately comes down to the word that's being set forth. They received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so. So they're being given the word, there's preaching, proclaiming of the word is being given to them. And then they're taking up their own Bible, as you should too, in their hands and saying, okay, Paul, said this. Paul said justification is by faith alone. He uses the example of Abraham. They were going back through their Old Testament and examining the scriptures to see if such things were so. They were examining the scriptures with all eagerness, receiving it with eagerness and examining the scriptures to see if these things were so. So part of expository listening you have the duty as a Christian. Every Christian has a duty to take a sermon or something they're told by another believer or they read about the Bible. Every Christian needs to be fluent in this, to know this, to be able to cross-check, to verify, to go, hmm, that I'm not, I've never heard of that before. Does that Is that what the scriptures actually teach? And to dig into it. It's not that you're just being doubtful or you're being dismissive or disrespectful to the teaching. you're eager to receive it and you want to know, is this really the word of God? And that's what they did is they eagerly received and then they made sure that it lined up with scripture. Now, if you didn't do this, think about the danger of hopefully you're safe here, but you shouldn't just trust that you're safe. Imagine that if you walked into any, you know, you walk into any building that looks like a church on the Sunday, you could get any number of, Pharisees, you could walk into a Kingdom Hall, you could walk into a Latter-day Saints meeting, you could walk into a United Methodist rainbow flag-waving church where you're going to hear things that don't, that conflict with the Word of God. Think of the danger if Christians don't take the Word seriously. And think of even faithful churches or even faithful pastors who have slipped from their faithfulness to the Word and over time have started to teach error. And because people respected them, thought, oh, well, he knows more than me. He's the pastor of this church. This church is so great. The church I go to is so great. They know the Word. think about the danger of your souls and your family's souls, because these things have eternal implications. If you start to slip off of, there's, I mean, we understand Christians don't have to have everything figured out, but if you start slipping off the fundamentals of the faith and denying the fundamentals of the faith, that's dangerous for your soul. You start mincing away at justification through faith alone or the basics of Christianity, or you start going off into areas of supporting in being okay with sin, and it's because it's being taught to you. Those things are damaging to souls. They ruin. That's part of why God holds teachers to such a high degree is because what we preach can have such an impact. So it's your duty to examine the Scriptures daily, to, in a sense, think, you're reading an expository sermon, hopefully, to take it yourself and to think expository, to think, okay, let me follow his chain of, let me follow Tate's chain of logic here with the Scriptures and how he got there and look at some commentaries and see if this is so. Doesn't mean you dismiss me or disrespect me or anything like that, but you have that duty. So this is a good example of what, and this highlights and emphasizes the importance of expository listening, that you need to exposit the scriptures too. You can't just trust Josiah or I to exposit the scriptures. You can't just trust a sermon that you listen to on Sermon Audio to exposit the scriptures. You have a duty to understand the scriptures yourself. Let's turn to the bad example, and that is 2 Timothy 4.2. Now, when you do that, when those things do line up with Scripture, and what we're preaching is sound, you're gonna get a whole lot out of it. You're gonna get a whole lot more than you would if you just like, oh yeah, well, because the danger of just being like, oh, I really respect Tate and Josiah, and yeah, everything they say is great, and yeah, it's just wonderful, the sermons are so uplifting, and not really doing your homework, and thinking through what we're teaching, and checking it with Scripture, is I find that when people do that, they end up with a very shallow faith. And their pastor, sometimes you hear people, oh, my pastor's so great, and I don't understand all the stuff he understands, but he just comes to all these, but what you'll find is that they have very shallow understandings of those things themselves. Oftentimes it doesn't really impact their life, because they're not owning it, taking it for themselves seriously. 2 Timothy 4.2. Actually 401, sorry. This is such a weighty charge that Paul gives to myself, to Josiah, to anybody that's preaching. Anytime you proclaim the word, there's a sense in which this is true for you. I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead. This is like Paul is bringing out this seriousness to Timothy. And by his appearing in his kingdom, And this next line has been such an encouragement to me when I felt down about preaching, when I felt discouraged about preaching, when I felt about giving up on preaching. This charge by Paul, I've taken personally and felt like Paul is speaking to me and I think that's appropriate. He says, preach the word. be ready in season and out of season. So in season and out of season is at opportune moments when you think everything, there's a reason to preach, preach. When in inopportune moments where it doesn't feel like maybe I should preach, preach. Preach at times that seem conducive, like it's easy to preach and preach at times that are difficult to preach. Preach at all the different seasons when you can preach, preach. Whatever you're going through, whatever the church is going through, whatever group you were before, preach. Preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove. Reprove is, you notice it says reprove and rebuke. Reprove is a little bit more of a explain type word in Greek, whereas rebuke is leaning a little bit more on authority. And there are times as a pastor, where we need to lean a little bit into authority and to speak with some authority, because we can set forward all the facts all day long, but there's a time when we need to say, no, that's sin, that's wrong. Stop doing that. Do this. And so it shouldn't just be theory, there actually should be some emphasis on some authority when we know we're in line with Scripture to speak with authority and to actually rebuke. Reprove is the explanation, rebuke is more of forcefully No, this isn't gonna happen here. And exhort. Exhort's an interesting word because it carries with it both the connotation of persuading, persuasion, as well as comfort. So it can be, exhort really means you, some people, you have to pull them out and yank them out. and other people you have to be gentle with in certain situations. Exhort covers both bases with complete patience. So this isn't just flying off the handle. This isn't just acting out of our own emotions. It's long suffering. It's patience. It's a willingness sometimes to realize that people don't change quickly, that change takes a while. So we're patient in teaching. There has to be content. There has to be teaching of the word of God behind it. So that's good expository preaching. Paul is calling Timothy to solid expository preaching. Timothy is going through, and we're gonna go through this, because I'm gonna preach through 1 Timothy coming up, but Timothy is going through hell in his local church. That's the backdrop of 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy. Timothy is getting all kinds of opposition. There's all kinds of factions. There's problems in the church. And as a younger man who's being accused by older people of, hey, you're a young person, he's being dismissed because of his youth. which is a common situation. Paul is, as the older counselor to Timothy, is coming in and saying, no, preach, and do it this way, and stick to your preaching. Don't back off the preaching, Timothy, keep preaching. Exposit the word of God, apply the word of God, personally, in a group setting, across the board, hold to the word of God, and set forward the word of God. So that's expository preaching. Now, Paul emphasizes this in light of the real threat that all of us face in every local church, and that is that if we're not careful, the following things will happen, the following people, the following human nature will derail our preaching. We'll make our preaching something soft, something that is palatable to the congregation, something that people like, and something that doesn't hit the notes that God has called preaching to hit, exhort, rebuke, all the things Paul just called Timothy to, the falling group of people in human nature is going to try to derail that. And so this is the bad example. This is the example, the Bureans were the good example of what preaching should be, of receiving it eagerly with joy, soaking in everything you can, and then checking all with the word of God, going back and talking about it at home, and thinking through it, and processing, and comparing it with scripture, versus this. For the time, in verse three, for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching. They won't be able to put up with it. They won't stomach it. They won't have the stomach for sound teaching. They'll want to show up at church, but they won't want to receive sound teaching. But having itching ears, I always thought that was an interesting phrase, but if you picture, have you ever been in a position where you couldn't itch like your nose or something, something was needed to be itched and you couldn't itch it? And you just had that like, it's driving you crazy that you really want to itch. There's that desire to itch. That's the type of desire these people will have. They will have that type of desire for this wrong type of preaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves. teachers to suit their own passions. So they will heap up, multiply teachers, the teachers, the preachers that will get put in the office of preaching will be the ones that do the following things to suit their own passions. And so people typically don't care if you preach against other people, other groups, other denominations, other segments of the population, if you're the left, people don't, the left doesn't mind if the pastor gets up and preaches against the right, and if you're the right, the pastor doesn't mind, the people don't mind if you preach against the left, but if you're in a church that is full of right conservatives, which, generally speaking, I think is a much better, well, that is a much better proposition, But then you start to expose the sins of the right and of your own church. People don't like that. People don't like their sin to be exposed. They like the sins of other people to be exposed. And they want teaching that is suited to their own passions. They want custom-crafted teaching that tiptoes around their own sins, their own desires, their own sinful desires, and even gives them credibility. Hey, I can actually continue in the sexual relationship that's wrong. I can continue my sin and it's all grace. I like that preaching. People like preaching that doesn't tiptoe or doesn't step on their toes. And I would say this, if you want to be a Berean, if you want to be an expository listener, you will By the nature of the case, when I say expository listener, you will want to know what is in here, not what you want this to say. And you will desire that when this conflicts and steps on your toes, you will come to church and listen to sermons with a willingness for your toes. Nobody likes their toes to be stepped on. Nobody likes to go, oh man, I really stink at this. Wow, I'm in sin, I didn't realize I'm in sin. I don't wanna have to turn. But you will come with a willingness to be called to repentance, with a willingness to be rebuked, reproved, rebuked, and exhorted, to conform yourself to the word rather than ask that the preaching conform itself to your passions. And it doesn't have to be lust or sexual sin or those type of things. It can also be pride, your opinions that you've come to, it can be any number of things, your desires, what you want the word to say, and you don't like that the preacher, the word, comes to a different conclusion. And we'll turn away from listening to the truth, so that's the opposite of expository listening, is they're not gonna listen to the truth, and wander off into myths. And there are some of that today, and I will say that if you're deep diving into nephilimology, and you're basing your theology off of nephilims, and there's a group that's doing that, there's a segment of the Christian population that's going off into the book of Enoch and angelic this and that. If you're going off into myths, and I've actually seen that used to dismiss people more excited about the book of Enoch which isn't canon, which isn't scripture, then the actual teaching of scripture, we have this tendency to wander off into myths because the myths don't tend to step on our toes. Very few people walk away from deep diving into Nephilimology, all the speculation about the Nephilim and weird connections and all this stuff. Very few people walk away from that thinking, you know what, my heart's convicted. I'm the one, I'm the man, I need to get on my knees, I need to pray, I'm convicted. It's not, those type of vain myths and foolishness don't lead to that. So as for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist to fulfill your ministry. So that is the opposite, being the person who can't stand sound teaching, sound doctrine, who's not teachable, humble, willing to conform yourself to the Word of God, but wants the message of the Word to be conformed to your sin and to your desires and to your thoughts and to be like you, that's the opposite of expository listening. What I'm saying is that you need to take this Bible and know it for what it is and seek to understand it for what it is through the preaching rather than trying to find some verification, some validation of yourself in here. So, that gives us some examples of expository listening. I wanna give you some practical nuts and bolts application of like, how do you get the most out of sermons? How do you be a Berean? How do you listen expository? How do you do it? So I'm gonna break this into pre-sermon, during the sermon, and post-sermon. How do you get the most out of a sermon? So kids, I'm gonna be speaking to you. Nakoda? I'm gonna be speaking to you too, okay? So, throughout the week, here's how you prepare yourself for Sunday and for getting the most out of the sermon. Throughout the week, open this up. Read it. If you have a question, go to your parents. If you're old, if you're a good enough reader, pick up, ask your parents, hey, what's something I can read on this? You older kids, you can pick this up and you come to, I don't really understand what Matthew is saying in this chapter. I don't know what, I don't understand what this parable means. What does this parable mean? If you want to come to me, you can go to your parents. If you want to come to me and ask for something to help you with that, your parents might have some answers, but also a lot of times, like recently that happened with the book of Matthew, and I was able to, here's R.C. Sproul's commentary on Matthew, and he does a good job of explaining this parable. So dig into your own questions and find answers, but here's the main thing. Open this up throughout the week. If you want to understand the sermon on Sunday, read this, because the more you read of this throughout the week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. The more you're gonna get when it's preached. I'm gonna direct this more to the parents. Learn to think in a expository way. Learn to break down a text of scripture. Practice taking a text of scripture and maybe make it like you're going to teach on it and think through what is the script, what's the context of this verse, what are the main words, look up some commentaries on the verse, read through commentaries on the verse. They're free, they're online, they're easy to get a hold of. Try to understand a verse. Take the time to not just skim read, but actually deep dive and try to understand and break apart a piece of scripture and understand it correctly. Practice that throughout the week. Practically as well, I've been trying to get out ahead of time what I'm preaching on in advance so that people have some heads up. So you guys know that Josiah is going through Jonah, You know that I am preaching through church membership, and I'm using roughly the Nine Marks book as kind of a rough guideline. When you know those things, and if we tell you, and we should, get out word that I'm preaching on expository listening ahead of time, and maybe a little explanation, It would be good if you guys knew that ahead of time and started thinking in that direction so that it's not just some new thought in your head. Maybe look up, sometimes even a simple Google search, I hate to just say Google, but you'll find some good Ligonier articles on the topic. You'll find a good, some good, there's some really good reform resources and for whatever reason, I think it's because there's answers reformed. Articles tend to come up at the top in a lot of the search results for different topics. So if it's expository listening, maybe go, hey, I'm gonna Google expository, what is expository preaching? What is expository listening and see what comes up. Or ask me for resources, ask Josiah for resources. I would highly recommend if you know that Josiah's gonna be investing in Jonah for a while, I'm gonna be preaching through First Timothy coming up. It might be good to find the best resources. One or two resources, doesn't have to be a ton. On those passages, start listening to some sermons on Jonah. Start... reading through some commentaries on Jonah. Start just reading through the book. Familiarize yourself. Understand, get your head in the game. We're kind of in this together on the book of Jonah, on church membership, and start wrapping your mind around this before the sermon and during that series so that you're not just completely cold, coming in cold without any knowledge on the subject. Try to prepare yourself for the topic. You can do it. But be willing to buy, for example, I went through Genesis for a long time, and it would be really good if I'm going through Genesis or I'm gonna go through 1 Timothy, if you were to find some good resources on maybe a devotional, sometimes you'll find a devotional on Timothy or whatever, find something like that and get familiar with Timothy. ahead of time, pray for your pastor. You kids can do this. You can pray for, you can pray for Josiah, that as he preaches next week on Jonah, that pray for him and that he would do well with that, that he would preach faithfully. Pray for your pastors. Pray for yourself, that you'd be open to hearing. Pray for the congregation, that we'd all grow from it. God answers prayers and he answers those prayers. Also prepare yourself and your family for worship. So, and I will admit my own feelings here as a dad, I don't do the best job with this, but it's really good if we can avoid Sunday morning being a zoo, Sunday morning being a circus. It's best if we can come in well-rested into church on Sunday. If we're prepared, we have our Bibles. You kids, don't make it so that Sunday morning becomes, not that we should be yelling, but don't make it so your parents are having to get on your case to get out the door or get up at a certain time. You play your role in getting out the door and making Sunday mornings easier. and so that you can all come in without a bunch of fresh frustrations about the morning. Prepare yourself, prepare your clothes the night before. If it's a food Sunday, do preparation ahead of time. Don't be rushing things last minute. Think about Sunday. It's something we can all improve on, I can improve on, is preparing ourselves for Sunday and Sunday worship. That's pre-sermon. During the sermon, And make that a good thing, like this is a good thing, we're coming together, it's like we're getting ready for a party or something good, but let's do that together. During the sermon, eliminate distractions. So I'm gonna give you kids some very specific things, but this applies for adults too. Go to the bathroom before church starts. You don't need to be, there's really very little reason for anybody to be getting up over and over and over. Sometimes things happen, and I understand parents will have to deal with things, but if you kids go to the bathroom before church, you'll probably be less likely to need to go to the bathroom during church. And also, don't use going to the bathroom to be an excuse, because guess what? We can wait sometimes. Try to not get up. I'm not gonna shame you. Don't feel like it's the walk of shame if you have to go to the bathroom. If you have to go to the bathroom, go to the bathroom. But generally speaking, try not to go to the bathroom, especially multiple times during the sermon. Try to sit still. Try not to distract by moving around. There should be very few, something we've had to crack down on with the kids over the years, There should be very few little discussions that are distracting each of you kids from the sermon. Realize you're not only keeping yourself from listening when you're having a little discussion, you're talking about, chatting about things and whispering back and forth. You're keeping yourself from listening and gaining, and then you complain about, oh, I don't understand. Lists, don't be talking during the sermon. You're hurting somebody else too because they're sitting there being distracted by you too. Don't distract yourself or other people. Us adults can be the same. I understand sometimes you have to get up to do some food stuff for a food Sunday. We try to minimize that. We try to be attentive listeners and sitting down in our chairs. Concentrate. We can exercise self-control and concentrate. You kids, think about this. Sometimes your parents are trying to give you instructions and they have to tell you, hey, listen, I need you to get this. Or sometimes they'll give you instructions and then you don't listen to the instructions and something happens as a result that's not good. You can focus. We have an ability to focus. I've heard people tell me, oh, I can't listen to audio books, or I can't read, or I can't pray, or I can't, you know, I get the Bible, my mind just wanders. These are all real things that everybody deals with, and the answer is pretty simple. We just have to learn to concentrate, and it's hard work to focus. But in any area of life, you have to focus, so focus. focus on the sermon, focus on what's being read, open your Bible. I would encourage you and your kids to bring your Bible. And when I give, and I'm trying to give enough time, I don't know if I'm doing it effectively, I'll try harder, but I try to give enough time when I give a scripture reference so that everybody can open to that page. Usually if I'm giving a scripture reference, it's because I want you to turn there. The more senses you put in, so if you see something, you hear it, The more you can engage your eyes and your mind and your ears, the better you will remember. So it's really good for all of us when Josiah says turn to Jonah chapter three, we should turn to Jonah chapter three. It's gonna help us. To be thinking of questions you have throughout the sermon. You can ask those of your parents, you can ask them during the Q&A, you can come to me or Josiah after church. But think about questions. Just thinking about questions will help you to learn. So if you don't understand something, write the question down if you need to or remember your question. And of course, be willing to let your toes get stepped on as you're thinking through that. Don't be thinking about the other person. One of the things that pastors and people that give marriage events hate is that the common response on the part of the wife is, oh, I'm so glad that you touched on these things. He needed so, Joe needed so desperately to hear all these things that you had to say. And when we hear that, if you've ever led people in like some kind of marriage type thing and you hear that the other person the whole time was just thinking about their husband or wife, how the other person needed the information. You know how frustrating that is because I've had it where I'm like, no, you need, you needed that. I can't believe you just went through that whole thing and you were just thinking about your husband or your wife because you needed to hear that. Like I, I probably shouldn't have had you in mind, but I had you in mind as I was covering that. and you were just thinking about your spouse. Don't think about other people. Don't think about, oh, my brother, oh, if my brother was to understand this about Christian love, he would treat me so much. Don't be thinking the whole time about other people. Think about how I can gain. Us adults can do it, too, with other members of the church. We can easily think, oh, well, this sermon, boy, that seems to be directed at Josiah or whatever. We shouldn't do that. How does it apply to me? Post-sermon, so I've covered before the sermon, during the sermon, and there's probably other things, this is just some practical input, but there's other practical input we can give. After the sermon, ask questions. The Q&A is a good time for that. Realize, and this is something I've had to realize, that there is a limit to how far we can go during the Q&A. So sometimes it's, okay, that's, I, I don't have the answer is a really good answer for me or just I had to have. Our tendency sometimes, and I have to fight against this, is to try to come off the cuff with an answer when we don't have one. We shouldn't. So sometimes, don't be frustrated if you ask your question and we don't have the answer ready and we have to come back. And we should come back and work through that with you. You can ask during the Q&A, but also you can ask afterwards, off to the side. You can reach out to us, you know, follow up with your question, or you can ask your parents. I wanna cover one quick thing with question asking. It's when you ask a question, something I see commonly is that somebody will ask a question and they're expecting a response to kind of follow in a certain line, and then I will legitimately seek to answer the question, but I see the answer as being over here, which is a little bit different than they were thinking. and the person will get frustrated and think, oh, he's not answering my question, that's not my question. Now, sometimes that could be the case, and that's where you gotta talk through it, but also realize sometimes the answer to your question might not be exactly what you're thinking of, so also be, again, a good listener, try to understand is what Tate or Josiah is answering, is it actually an answer to the question I had, but maybe I don't think it's an answer off the top of my head. but I need to be open to the fact that the answer to my question might be different than. I think it is. Also, just be willing to let somebody answer your question. One of the most frustrating things I've experienced in the past has been when somebody has some big looming question, it comes up over and over, over a long period of time, some burning thing for them, and then you as a pastor, or even just a friend in Christ, go, hey, this is obviously a big thing to this person, and you go dig into it, you go read, you go study, and you come back with thoughts on it and wanting to have a discussion, and the person's like, oh, well, it's not that big of a deal, you know, I don't wanna make a big deal about it. If you bring something up, like when I do that, if you ask me a question and I go and research and I come back and I have thoughts, I'm not trying to shoot you down. I'm not, that's not a bad thing in my mind. That's actually a really, really good thing. I enjoy that. I want to do that. And I've been surprised sometimes when people have been unwilling to have the discussion on something that's their own issue that they brought up and they asked the question on and then they won't, follow through with the discussion. If you bring something up, be willing to kind of follow through the conversation. You can re-listen, so ask questions, but you can re-listen to the sermon, so a lot of times they're recorded, so if you didn't get things, you guys can re-listen to it, that can be helpful. You can study further, so you could go, okay, Tate preached on church membership, but you know what, that got some thoughts going, I'm gonna go on Sermon Audio and I'm gonna search church membership, and you can listen through some sermons on Sermon Audio, or search monergism.com, or Reform Books Online, or Ligonier's website, or whatever, and dig deeper into it after the sermon. Think about what you've learned, think about what was taught, and then pray based off of that. Obviously apply, be thinking as you're listening to a sermon, any sermon, any teaching, any scriptural teaching, anytime you open the Bible, you should be asking yourself, what is this gonna change about me and the way I act? How is this gonna change my life? What am I gonna do differently? I'm gonna apply that. So if it's a preaching on the tongue, don't just sit through a preaching on the tongue with no fruit. Think about the way you talk to your brothers and sisters. Think about how it needs to change and decide what those changes look like. So if the preaching is on the tongue and you realize that you get nasty when your brother and sister talk to you, Figure out what changing that looks like. Work on changing that. Pray through that. Ask for help from your parents. Confess your sin. Maybe you should go to your brothers and sisters and say, hey, a lot of times I get kind of nasty in the way I talk to you guys. I'm sorry about that. Will you guys forgive me? I'm really working on that. I want to work on that. I want to do better. Help me to do better. Be humble. The other thing that everybody can do after the sermon is, like a sermon like this, is you guys can afterwards have conversations, and during fellowship meal or whatever the case is, be the person who brings up something about what was just preached. If Josiah's preaching on Jonah, and there was a conversation about did Jonah actually die? It's wonderful, and one of the things that I love to hear, Josiah likes to hear, is people having conversations about those things afterwards. So it should fuel conversations in the time after church or throughout the next week. And last application for post-sermon. is, was it Jonathan Edwards? Does anybody know that made the resolution that they would, if they studied the scripture and it brought up a question that they would resolve, they would never let a day pass without digging into it further? Was that resolving it? I think it was Jonathan Edwards. What happens is sometimes part of our dullness in reading through the word, is we come against a tough passage and we're like, huh, I don't know what that means, that's confusing. And we get in the habit of just going, okay, and we move on. And we end up then, at some point, feeling like the Bible doesn't answer our questions and it's just a confusing book of riddles. We go through our reading and we never resolve things, we never even attempt to resolve things, and then we act like the Bible's the fault because it didn't, because nothing was resolved. The problem often is us, not the Bible. So when you read the Bible and you come across a question, or a problem, or a controversy, or something that seems like, oh, that doesn't seem to fit with this, I would urge you, maybe it's not that day, but in that coming week, now you know where to focus, focus in on that and try to resolve your own question. You can, a lot of times, with some help, resolve your own questions. But if we get in the habit of being lazy, then we start acting like the Bible's the problem, not our own lack of diligence. So I've covered that preaching should be expository, so should the listening. The two have to go hand in hand. A good example is the Brians. A bad example is those who had the itching ears looking for preaching that tiptoed around their sins, and I've given you guys encouragement on what to do before sermons, during sermons, and after sermons. And of course, all of this teaching assumes that you know Christ and that you love and serve him, and so that's key. Let's go ahead and pray and submit this to God. Lord, I just thank you for Your goodness, I pray for growth in this area, for us as a congregation. Help us to... Help me and Josiah to faithfully preach. I pray that everyone would faithfully listen. I pray that it would bear fruit. Help all of them to realize, including the kids, that they need to work to learn that it's not just gonna happen. They need to actually put some work into it. And your spirit works through that work. I just pray that there'll be growth and more fruit from sermons as a result. And just pray for all of us to thank you that we rest in your son and his finished work on the cross. In the name of Jesus Christ, I pray, amen. Bread and wine. here at the table represent is that we are members of Christ and of his body, and that's why we gather. And that this bread is a picture of the body of Christ which is broken for us and that we are members of. We died with him so that we can be raised. But it also tells us our need, well, for Christ, and then also that Christ has put other believers in our life where we have to have the help of other believers. In many ways, this picture of the body of Christ is the ultimate death knell, the ultimate blow to pride because we have to admit we need Christ and we need His body. Christ was His muscles and ligaments tore on the cross as he hung. It's broken for us. He is the bread of life that came down from heaven. If a man eats of this bread, he will no longer be hungry. And this wine is a picture of the blood of Christ that was spilled out for us on the cross. He gave his life so that we can have life in him. He rose from the dead and is seated at the right hand of God in heaven with all power, authority. We are seated with him in heavenly places. One of the things I will do after church, I was just thinking about this, is ask my children about the sermon and questions about it. And I would also apply here with the table as well. You parents can ask your kids afterwards, what was the meaning of the Lord's table? Christ drank down the cup of God's wrath all the way to the bottom to the dregs for us. So all the wrath that we should have taken, he took for us on the cross. So we can be saved from that. Let's pray. Lord, I just thank you for this bread and this wine. They're just bread and wine, but because as we take them, as we think on them, as we understand them, that we are receiving them by faith and receiving what they represent, which is your son. We thank you that we grow in the faith as a result of partaking in this table, that our faith is strengthened, that it's made alive, it's quickened, and we just thank you for that. Just dedicate ourselves, we thank you that our bodies, our temples, are part of your temple, are consecrated to you and the Holy Spirit lives in our bodies. Help us in the coming week to respect these bodies that are part of you in your temple. In the name of Jesus Christ we pray, amen. You guys can come up, this is for baptized believers in Jesus Christ. If you've been under church discipline that would be a conversation that we need to, we should probably have, but otherwise this is open for anybody who's a baptized believer. You guys can come up. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost. But now am found, was blind, but now I see. Christ the taught. my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved. How precious did that grace appear, the hour I first believed. Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come. Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home. Lord has promised good to me. His word my hope secures. He will my bread and portion be. as long as life endures. And when this flesh and heart shall fail, and mortal life shall within the veil, a life of joy and peace. When we've been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the stars, We've no less days to sing God's praise than when we first entered heaven. For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way also, he took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. You guys can stand for the reading of the Apostles' Creed, or the Nicene Creed, I'm sorry. That's page 846. 846 in the hymnal. We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible, and in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, light of light, very God of very God. begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made, who for us and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried, and the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he shall come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end. And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets. And we believe in one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins, and we look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen. If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed. Our Lord come. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you. My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen. ♪ Praise God from whom all blessings flow ♪ ♪ Praise him above, here below ♪ ♪ Praise him above, ye heavenly hosts ♪ ♪ Praise Father, Sons, and Holy Ghosts ♪ Amen. You guys can sit down. Any questions? Comments? Anything you guys have found to be practical to help with Preparing for the sermon, during the sermon, after the sermon? I would say sometimes during the sermon I find it hard to concentrate. Taking notes helps when I'm struggling. Struggling to engage and keep my mind on it. Writing down some notes helps me to engage that. Some people, I think, notes can help. And some people, depending on the situation, I have found if I'm taking extensive notes all the time, it can, it could be a distraction at some point, but I think generally speaking, again, you're getting more senses, more, the weird thing is if you take notes even during a lecture or something, even if you just throw your notes away afterwards, the act of taking notes helps to retain stuff sometimes. It's like having a physical Bible and opening it and knowing where things are. geospatially, I know I turn here to find Jonah, as opposed to trying to look it up on my phone. That does help me engage my mind more, and knowing where things are physically in the book is easier and better to find references again in the future, as opposed to trying to just remember what the address of it was in my phone. Physically moving it around. is more helpful to me than just the words themselves on my screen. I remember years ago when this was like 2011 or somewhere in there. The first time I saw somebody pull up a Bible on their phone when I was giving a sermon, I'm like, are they texting? Are they texting throughout the whole thing? Are they like, cause it was kind of new at that point. So, but yeah, I think that hard copy is good. Well, and there's people that you it's easy to kind of convince yourself that oh, that's how I I have to have like this multiple things going on at the same time to focus, but that's not true. And scientifically, there's been any number of studies that have shown we can't really multitask like that, like we think we can sometimes, and that you really have to do one or the other. Your brain's either on one or it's on the other, or you're shutting off, shutting back and forth. So, yeah. Any questions or comments? Good. It's good to hear. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. I like it. I appreciate it. Thank you. And I feel very blessed that our kids came today. They're so willing to come and just expand on a question that we've had. And I feel like it has filtered kids, too, when they have questions. Sometimes I'm like, well, it would be nice to know. And then they came. Yeah, I really appreciate that. Or you put it in single and then Josiah gets answers the same answer I was going to answer before I can even get to it. That's great. I kind of wish everybody could read, there's a book, it's called Amusing Ourselves to Death. Kelsey recommended it or mentioned it originally. And it's a book that shows how we've been basically ruined, the TV generation, television generation, ruined. the way we discuss things, our attention spans, the way we gather information. And you had the television that whole period where people would form opinions off of little sound bites from talking heads. And then there became a tendency to not discuss things. And so I would just urge that, first of all, when we have discussions, we should have more discussions. When we have discussions, we need to make sure that we keep, we don't take offense and like, they can be unnecessarily tense in past situations that I've seen. So we need to be careful about that. But also on the flip side, we need to be careful that we don't throw out, years ago, there was a pastor who visited, who exhorted one of the men who was going, oh, we got to stop fighting. And he's like, why did you just use the F word? And he's like, that's, And the guy stopped, and he's like, no, fighting. Because it wasn't a fight, it was just a discussion. And so today, we tend to have very low tolerance for differing opinions. We tend to have very low willingness to hash through things and to talk through things point by point by point. So we have to kind of relearn We have to kind of relearn how to have conversations again because that's a lost art in our society and we're just kind of getting back to it to be able to have an in-depth discussion where people don't resort to getting offended or acting like, oh, I just don't want to be part of these type of conversations. So there's got to be a little tenacity to stick with those conversations, realizing people aren't going to be perfect. Sometimes people come across a little bit like too sure of themselves or sometimes whatever, but we need to be able to have those conversations and regain that lost art to really regain what the Because that's the picture you get about the Breans. It wasn't just one Brean, it was the Breans hashing through with Paul, searching the scriptures, and talking together. Any other questions or comments? Let's pray. Well, I think it's pretty much a public thing. Does anybody know when the party at our place is starting? She probably put it out and signaled it. Anyways, there's a get together at our place. Everybody's invited. What? Okay. Feel free to take a little bit of time. But yeah, you guys are welcome out. So Lord, just thank you for wisdom. Thank you for graciousness to each other. Help our pride not to get involved in when we have these discussions when we're answering questions or Going back and forth help us help our pride to be put to the side our pride in that sense was crucified on the cross help us to realize that it's dead and to just humbly work through things together and be willing to Just be patient and Gracious with each other and Realize also that something we see clearly may not be as clear to the other person or what they emphasize. That even if what we're saying is right and should be understood, it could take time. Help us to be patient with each other. Thank you for this. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.