Voddie Baucham - Preaching Christ Not Moralism

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We have experienced and endured a great deal and it
is amazing to think that we just met and started
talking about all this four years ago. And let me
just say, and with all of the honesty and candor
that I can, sometimes when we're at this conference, this

(00:23):
is the and I know nobody means this okay, but
sometimes here's the way we kind of feel. We kind
of feel like people come to this conference and their
thought is this okay. These guys started this three and
a half years ago. They found some secret paint by
Numbers kit that showed them exactly what to do and

(00:44):
when to do it. We come to the conference and
if we ask them the right question, maybe they'll give
it to us. Newsflash. We had nothing. We had open
Bibles and some brothers who were willing to just trust
it and do what it said, and the providence of God,
and that's it. There's been no formula. There's been I mean,

(01:08):
there's things that we've done well, there's things that we've
done poorly. There's things that we've learned along the way.
There are things that we are trying to learn even now.
And one of them I'm here to share with you tonight,
and that is this whole idea of how we faithfully
preach Christ from all of scripture. That's something that we've
been laboring over at GFBC for a while. How do

(01:31):
we faithfully preach Christ from all of Scripture. I would
say that when we started, we didn't do that. I
would say that now we do it better. But we
are still in the process of learning and growing at
what it means to preach Christ faithfully from all of Scripture.

(01:53):
And let me say that one of the reasons that
it's difficult is because of the amount of training that
Paul and I have amen and unfortunately it hadn't been
the best kind of training as it relates to preaching Christ.
It really hasn't. It's been the kind of training that,

(02:14):
first of all, in some instances made it's sort of
difficult to learn how to preach expositionally at all. But
then when you press through that and learn how to
preach expositionally, one of the things that we sort of
automatically lean toward is what I call just pure exegesis.
And when we're preaching just you know, pure exegetical messages,

(02:38):
pure expository messages, especially when you get to the Old Testament,
we're not preaching Christ at all. You know, there is
no Gospel, there is no Jesus. It becomes a pure
character study of that character in the Old Testament, you know,
and it's David slew Goliath because he had faith. You
need to try to be more like David. Plant text

(03:01):
doesn't say Jesus. Therefore, I guess the text doesn't have
anything to do with Jesus, and we just sort of
move on from there. And by the way, that is
the most common way that the Old Testament is preached,
not from a crystal centric perspective, not at all from
a crystal centric perspective, and that is especially that is

(03:24):
especially difficult for those of us who are trying to
exercise family discipleship within the contemporary context, recognizing that much
of what we deal with is Old Testament texts that
inform us about what the family is and how the
family is to operate. If we're not careful, we end

(03:46):
up just basically running through the Old Testament with a
purely Hebreke mentality, and we preach messages. And this is
when it came home to me. I got a letter
from an Orthodox Jew who heard one of the messages
that I preached from a passage in the Old Testament
and loved it. I was like, you know what, it

(04:08):
wasn't worth it. If I can preach any passage of
Scripture and a person who does not know Christ can
hear it and love it. A person who's a Jew,
not a converted Jew, an orthodox Jew, can hear a
message that I preach from the Old Testament and be

(04:30):
so moved by it that they take the time to
handwrite me a letter and were never offended by the
cross I did not preach the Gospel and just landed
on me like a ton of bricks. Landed on me
like a ton of bricks. And so let me talk

(04:52):
of there's three key elements that we're gonna deal with
here this evening. Three key elements that we try to
deal with in our preaching. And this is very important,
and we always have a section on preaching at this
conference because of one of the myths. One of the
myths of the family integrated church is that family integration

(05:12):
impacts our preaching so that either everything is to the
lowest common denominator because the kids are in there, and
the only way the kids are going to be able
to hang in there is if everything becomes a children sermon,
pure myth pure. That that famous hour and a half
message that I preached that Sunday, that famous hour and

(05:34):
a half message. We're in the Old Testament going through
the patriarchs, and it was Jacob and Esau. It was
an hour and a half on election and predestination. Okay, family,
integrated church, kids of all ages in the room. Hour
and a half on election and predestination. So no, we

(05:58):
are not watering down, dumbing down, shortening anything because kids
are in the room. Okay. Now, granted that was an exception,
the exception of exceptions. And one of the reasons that
I preached that long is because I'm using I was
using some slides. I felt like, some of these things

(06:19):
that I'm gonna say, we need to see them, We
need to, you know, go through these doctrines here. So
I'm using these slides. Well, when I when I did
my introduction, I hadn't forwarded my first slide, so my
timer didn't start. So I thought that I had only
been up there for an hour, but it was thirty
minutes before I put my first slide on. So Paul

(06:40):
goes no, brother, that was that was That was more
than an hour. She said, Oh, okay, I my bad.
So that's the myth, and that's not true. The second
myth is that we're always preaching on family because family

(07:02):
is who we are. Family is what we're all about.
We get up there every Sunday and we preach on family.
So people ask us, you know, if singles are alienated,
or if people without you know, husbands are alienated, or
if people who whatever are alienated, because we talk about
family all the time. And my first response is, who
can come up with that many messages on family? Amen,

(07:27):
Nothing could be further from the truth. That's not what
we're doing. And anybody who's been at GFBC and knows
about our approach to preaching at GFBC just finds that
completely and utterly laughable, that whole myth that somehow we're
just always preaching messages on family. So three key areas
when we talk about preaching Christ from all the scripture.
Number one, we're talking about proclamation of the Gospel. We

(07:50):
preach the Gospel. That's what we're called to do, to
preach the Gospel. Okay, So whatever we're doing, we must
be preaching the Gospel. Whatever we're doing we have to
be preaching the gospel. You guys who are interested in
planting churches out there, if you're worried about what to preach,
you're probably on the wrong track. We preached the gospel period.

(08:15):
That's all we got is the gospel. Secondly, we practice
systematic exposition. Systematic exposition what does that mean. That means
we preach systematically through texts, but not just through individual
text Let me tell you what we've done in the
last three and a half years. Three and a half
years ago, we got started and we preached through the

(08:36):
Book of Ephesians. After we finished the Book of Ephesians,
we had been through an epistle. So we decided that
we're going to go through a gospel. So we preached
through Mark. Well after we preached through Mark, we had
been through an epistle. We had been through a gospel.
We needed to get into the Old Testament. They had
to get some law, so we preached through Genesis one

(08:56):
through eleven. After we preached through Genesis one through eleven,
laying the foundation for a biblical worldview, then we went
and we preached First John, going back to an epistle.
After we finished First John, we came back and we
did the Life of Abraham, getting back in Genesis. After
we finished the Life of Abraham, we went to the
Sermon on the Mount, back to the Gospels. Now we
finished the Sermon on the Mount, we've come back to Genesis,

(09:19):
and now we're doing the finishing up the Life of
the Patriarchs. And after we've finished the Life of the Patriarchs,
one of the things we're talking about is elders that
will probably after this go and preach through Romans. We'll
probably break that into sections, just like we did Genesis,
so systematic exposition. We need some epistles, we need some Gospels,
we need some law. After we finished Genesis, we'll probably

(09:41):
get some wisdom or some history. But again, we preach
the whole Council of God, and we preach it systematically.
Even in our services when we have our Old Testament
reading and our New Testament reading, we're systematic in our
approach to which New Testament portions and Old Testament portions
that we read. Because we believe that all scripture is

(10:03):
breathed out by God, profitable for teaching, rebuke and correcting
and training in righteousness, all of it. So we read
all of it. So we'll we'll read some gospels, we'll
read some epistles. Well, you know, we'll we'll get some
some some acts going there. We'll we'll do it all that.
That's our approach. If somebody could bring me my adapter

(10:28):
back there for some power, that'd be good right about now.
So that's our approach when we're reading, even when we're
reading through the scriptures, let alone when we're preaching through
the scriptures. So whatever we're doing, we're proclaiming the gospel. Secondly,
we're practicing systematic exposition. And thirdly, we do it all,

(10:52):
thank you, sir. Whether redemptive historic hermeneutic a redemptive historic hermeneutic,
and that's just a fancy theological term for saying, we
do it believing that the whole Bible is about Jesus,
that the whole Bible is about God's redemptive plan, and
his redemptive plan is ultimately summed up in the person

(11:14):
and work of Jesus Christ. So wherever we are in
the scripture, we're looking at that passage of scripture through
a redemptive historic lens. Okay, So those three things we're
preaching the gospel. Secondly, we practiced in systematic exposition. And thirdly,
we're doing all of this with a redemptive historic hermeneutic

(11:39):
and a redemptive historic foundation. Now here's what I want
us to do. If you have your bibles, where you
open your bibles to First Corinthians chapter two, First Corinthians
chapter two, and we're going to look at a passage
of scripture that really sort of sums up the philosophical

(12:00):
underpinnings of this kind of approach, First Corinthians chapter two.
And we'll look at those first five verses of First
Corinthians chapter two that sums up Paul's ministry in Corinth.
And again, you know, all of the mess in corinth.

(12:20):
We realize all of the different kinds of philosophers that
were there, and philosophies that they engaged in listening to,
all the different kinds of rhetoric to which they were exposed.
We understand that about Corinth. And in the midst of that,
Paul makes this statement here early on in First Corinthians,
he says, and I, when I came to you, brothers,

(12:42):
did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God
with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know
nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And
I was with you in weakness and in fear and
much trembling. And my speech and my message were not

(13:04):
in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the
spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest
in the wisdom of men, but in the power of
God a man. Hallelujah, Praise the Lord. There's this underlying
philosophy for what he preached, why he preached, and how

(13:24):
he preached when he was in Corinth. Three things I
want you to see here. First is this, The Gospel
is not an appeal to the wisdom of men, but
instead a proclamation of what God accomplished in the person
and work of Jesus Christ. Let me say that again.
The Gospel is not an appeal to the wisdom of men.

(13:46):
It is instead a proclamation of what God has done
in the person and work of Jesus Christ. So if
I'm preaching the Gospel, I must be preaching about what
God has done in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
If I am not preaching and proclaiming what God has

(14:06):
done in the person in work of Jesus Christ, i
am not preaching the Gospel. Let me say that again.
If I'm not preaching, if I'm not proclaiming what God
has done in the person and work of Jesus Christ,
I am not preaching the Gospel. And from the time
I got out of seminary, well before that, I started
preaching before I went seminary, all the way till just

(14:30):
not long ago, last couple of years. If I'm preaching
in the Old Testament, I wasn't preaching the Gospel. A
great percentage of the time, I just wasn't. And even
if I was, here's what I was doing, I'd go
and I'd sort of do you know this kind of
you know, character study thing here in the Old Testament,

(14:50):
where this is what this message is about. Here's the
stuff that you need to do. This person did this,
you need to do it too. And then at the end,
you know, if you don't know Jesus, here's how you
need to know Jesus. That sound familiar to anyone, That's
the way virtu will lead. Everyone today preaches the Old Testament,

(15:12):
and unfortunately much of the New Testament list there's something
right there about the person in work of Christ. We
do the same thing in the New Testament, say the
people who preaching in the New Testament and not preaching
the Gospel because they are not proclaiming what God has
done in the person in work of Jesus Christ. Let

(15:34):
me say this, the Gospel is not the force spiritual laws.
That's not the Gospel. The Gospel is an announcement of
what God has done in the person and work of
Jesus Christ. The Gospel calls man to account and forces

(16:01):
man to come to grips with the fact that in
and of himself he is undone, and it is only
what God has accomplished in the person and work of
Jesus Christ that gives him any semblance of hope. We
see that in Paul's first statement. He says, and I
when I came to you, brothers, you wise individuals, you

(16:23):
individuals who love philosophy, who love rhetoric, who love lofty speech.
When I came to you, did not come proclaiming to
you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.
For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus
Christ and him crucified. This word that he uses here.
I decided that this word he uses here in the

(16:46):
Greek is a word that means to make a judgment
based upon the correctness or value of something. Often the
Greek term chreno is used is translated to judge. He
makes a judgment as though. Paul says, before I got
to Corinth, I sat down with myself and I said self.
H Self said, yep. I said, you know, these people

(17:08):
in Corinth, they love rhetoric and they love philosophy. They
love a whole bunch of different stuff. Himself said yep.
And I said self, you know, we know philosophy. H
Self said yep. But I said self, we need to
make a determination right here and right now. We are
not going to try to impress these people. We're gonna

(17:31):
try to win them. We know nothing except Jesus Christ
and him crucified. We're not We're not going to appeal
to wisdom. The wisdom of man is foolishness. We're not
going to appeal to it. And we know nothing but

(17:51):
Christ and him crucified. Now does that mean that Paul
decided that he would not address any other issues. Nothing
could be further from the truth. We know that he
addressed myriad issues when he was in Corinth and everywhere else.
For that matter, But all of the issues that he
addressed he addressed from the perspective of the Gospel. Amen, well,

(18:13):
we'll explain that more momentarily, but listen to this. He's
already made a statement about appealing to wisdom in chapter one.
Back up the verse eighteen. For the word of the
Cross is folly to those who are perishing, But to
us who are being saved, it is the power of God.
For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of
the wise and the discernment of the discerning. I will

(18:37):
ForwArt next verse, where is the one who is wise?
Where is the scribe? Where is the debater? Of this age?
Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world,
For since in the wisdom of God, the world did
not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the
folly of what we preach to say those who believe

(18:59):
he can do. For Jews demand to sign, and Greek
seeks seek wisdom. But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling
block to Jews and folly to gentiles. We preach Christ
Crucified knowing that it's a stumbling block and an offense.
We are not appealing to men's wisdom, but we are
actually coming against it in full force with the Gospel.

(19:22):
But to those who are called both Jews and Greeks Christ,
the power of God and the wisdom of God. For
the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the
weakness of God is stronger than men. We do not
appeal to the wisdom of men. Here's a question I
get all the time because I go places and I
talk about apologetics all over the place, and I practice

(19:46):
presuppositional apologetics. We come from the text, okay, not trying
to just win men based on their own reason or
my reason based versus their reason. And here's what I
hear from people I'll get. I'll get these sort of
emails from students all the time, or not just students,
who are just various people in churches, and they'll say,
you know, I have this friend of mine and they're

(20:07):
really smart. Around here. It's I have this friend of
mine and they're a rocket scientist over at NASA, and
I was just wondering if you could share with me
anything that you could. And it's always predicated on this
person is really smart. In other words, if they were dumb,
God could get them. But they're in a different category,
So they need something. You know, the Gospel may be
sufficient for dumb people, but the Gospel is not enough

(20:30):
for a rocket scientist. That's not what the Bible teaches.
We preach Christ. Yeah, but he's a rocket scientist. It's
foolishness to him. Yes, exactly. We preach Christ. That's what
we preach. We preach Jesus and him crucified. Yes, but

(20:50):
this person, you know that they're they're a professor of
you know, ancient literature, and they have all these questions
about the documents and this and that. We preach Christ. Yeah,
but that just doesn't seem to be enough. That's your problem.
The minute you stop believing that the Gospel is sufficient,

(21:12):
you've left the reservation. It is enough, It's more than enough,
It's more than enough. Does this mean that we ignore
Peter's admonition to always be ready to give an answer
to anyone who asks us the reason for the faith
that is in us? No, not at all. But understand
what Peter says there. Peter says, always be ready to

(21:36):
answer the question why do you believe what you believe?
Peter doesn't say always be ready to match wisdom with wisdom,
because wisdom will win the day. And in fact, the
context of Peter's statement about apologetics is the context of suffering.
When you look at First Peter Chapter two and First
Peter Chapter three. Here's what Peter's saying, even if they're

(21:59):
going to kill you, always be ready to open your
mouth and say it, even if it will cost you
your life. Know what you believe in, why you believe it,
and communicate that effectively to others. What do we believe?
By the way we believe the gospel? We believe the gospel,
we preach Christ. If we're not convinced of that, we'll

(22:25):
preach other things. Okay, we'll preach family integration, we'll preach
you know, home education, we'll preach whatever you name it.
We'll preach those things. Now do we address those things, Yes,
we absolutely address those things, but only as we preach Christ.

(22:50):
We already said earlier, the whole idea of family integration,
and by the way, the idea of education and the
way we educate our children. What's that about? That is
about faithfulness and discipling. What's discipling about? It's about faithfulness
and the Great Commission? What's the Great Commission about? It
is about the gospel going forth to Panta ta Ethne

(23:13):
All peoples, it's about the gospel. It's about training people
in the gospel, and that's it. That's it, folks. If
we have family integration as a structure, but we lose
the gospel, we've gained nothing. We've gained nothing. We preach Christ.

(23:39):
We preach Christ. So what your kids don't go to
the youth group? Who cares if you're not preaching Christ? Amen?
Who cares that you've decided you're going to build your
family on do the rhodomy six if you don't understand
that that's not enough to save. We preach Christ and

(24:04):
him crucified. That's what we preach, and we preach Him
from all of scripture. Listen to this from Luke, because
Jesus believed this, that the whole Bible was about him Luke,
Chapter twenty four, beginning in verse twenty four. Some of
those who were with us went to the tomb and

(24:25):
found it just as the women had said. But him
they did not see. And he said to them, old
foolish ones, this is Jesus, now, oh foolish ones, slow
of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken
was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these
things and enter into his glory? And beginning with Moses

(24:45):
and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the character
studies of each of the individuals there, and how they
could work harder at being like them. No, interpreted to
them in all the scripture the things concerning himself. Jesus
taught himself from all of scripture. From all of scripture

(25:10):
John one and verse forty five found Nathaniel and said
to him, we have found him of whom Moses in
the law. And also the prophets, wrote Jesus of Nazareth,
the son of Joseph. Did you hear that we found him?
This is what they were writing about John Chapter five

(25:34):
and verse forty five. Jesus says, for if you believe Moses,
you would believe me, for he wrote of me Acts
Chapter eight, Verses thirty four and thirty five. The Ethiopian
Eunich can hit up there reading Isaiah. Philip finds himself

(25:55):
running by the chariot. Why he doesn't know yet, And
the eunuch said to Philip about whom I ask you?
Does the prophet say this about himself or about someone else?
Phillips gotta be going. You're getting me right. I'm running
up here. You a need fiopian, you need fiopian. And

(26:19):
you just happen to be reading Isaiah, and right there
in Isaiah about the suffering servant, and you're asking me
who he is talking about. Then Philip opened his mouth
and beginning with this scripture, he told him, you just
got to understand a character study of Isaiah and be

(26:40):
more like him. No, told him the good news about
Jesus wepreach Christ and him crucified. No matter where we're preaching,
no matter where we're preaching. Two, the Gospel does not

(27:03):
rely on the effectiveness of man for its effectiveness. To say,
gospel does not rely on the effectiveness of man for
its effectiveness. To say, one of the things that has
harmed the church more than anything that I've experienced in

(27:27):
my lifetime, as I've been preaching for twenty years, twenty years,
and one of the things that I've seen, of all
of the bad stuff that I see in the church,
there is more of it that could be laid at
the doorstep of Charles Finny than any other person. Horrible, horrible,

(27:49):
absolutely horrible, and one of the overarching problems that we have.
That is a direct result of the life and ministry
of Charles Finny is the idea that somehow it is
the effectiveness of the measures employed that determines the effectiveness
of the gospel preached. And we believe that. We believe that.

(28:16):
We believe that the preacher has to be more articulate.
The preacher has to be funnier. The preacher has to
be more engaging. The preacher has to be more charismatic.
The preacher has to tell more stories. The preacher has
to do the preacher has to do this because if
he does this, he can move men. And by the way,
this is true. The preacher can move men. I learned
how to do it. You can move men, you really can.

(28:42):
We've seen it, have we not. He gets up and
he engages the crowd. And after he engages the crowd
and he tells them stuff and kind of get the
crowd with him and get the crowd laughing, and this
and that and the other. Then you tell a few stories,
and all of a sudden you flip the script and
you get real somber, and you bring some sort of
legalistic guilt trip on the peace people about what they're
not doing, and how bad their life is and how

(29:03):
desperately they need to make it better. You get them
realizing all the stuff that they haven't done that they're
supposed to do, and you play the real soft music.
While the real soft music is playing, you just tell him.
He's calling you. He wants you, don't you want him?

(29:24):
He went all the way to the cross for you.
Can't you come to the front of the room for him.
Look at your life. You know you haven't lived right.
You know you haven't obeyed him. You know you haven't
read your Bible like you ought to. You know you
haven't shared your faith like you ought to know. You
know you've been preachers coming down that you know everybody's

(29:48):
coming down. There's anything in your life that needs to
be made right with God. You just need to come.
And we moved towards this ca farsis at the front
of the room. That's finny. Yes it works, but does
it save No, it doesn't. But what it does is

(30:14):
it creates this very real and very measurable experience so
that the guy can then send out his brochure to
other churches and talk about how he went to a
town of thirteen thousand, and they had fifteen thousand decisions
for Christ. You'll just invite me to your town. We

(30:35):
can do the same there. And it's horrible. It's horrible.
And all of a sudden, we begin to measure men
by their effectiveness and success as opposed to measuring men
by their faithfulness. That's why you can have a guy

(31:00):
with a huge church who's a heretic, and nobody will
say he's a heretic. Why well, because the church is growing.
That's got to be God, right, folks. Nothing grows faster
than cancer. Not all growth is good growth. It's not.

(31:21):
People are accumulating for themselves, Teachers in accordance with their
own desires. They have itching ears. They've turned aside from
the truth, and they've turned to myths. That's what's happened.
That's what's happened. But because we have this sort of
success driven mentality, we look at the guy who's preaching

(31:44):
the myth and getting the crowd, and we begin to
tweak the gospel message so that we can compete with him.
The Gospel does not rely on the effectiveness of man
for its effectiveness to save Paul says verse three and four.
I was with you in weakness and in fear and

(32:06):
much trembling. And my speech and my message were not
in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the
spirit and of power. Amen, fear and trembling. Fear and trembling.

(32:29):
It got to humble us to handle God's word before
God's people. Not to humble us. It'll terrify us to
handle God's word before God's people. Study to show yourself
approved under God, a workman who does not need to
be ashamed. Why Why because he handles accurately the word

(32:52):
of truth. In other words, if you don't you need
to be ashamed. It out of humble us. He says,
he was there in weakness and fear and trembling, and
what they saw was not a demonstration of his abilities,
but a demonstration of the power of God. That's why

(33:16):
he's able to say in Romans chapter one, for I'm
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, the Gospel is
the power of God for salvation. The gospel, not the preacher.

(33:36):
The Gospel is the power of God for salvation. The
message not the messenger. We used to understand this. You
know what the thrust of missions used to be. The
thrust of missions used to be going places, learning people's language,
and getting the scriptures into their language, because we actually
believed that what they needed was the Bible. The thrust

(33:57):
of missions today god places and learning how to relate
to people because we believe they need us. They need us. No,
the Gospel saves, not us. Listen to this for Timothy

(34:26):
four one through five, we've already referred to it. I
charge you, in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus,
who is to judge the living and the dead by
his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word. Be ready
in season out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with great
patience and teaching, for the time is coming when people
will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they

(34:48):
will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,
and will turn away from listening to the truth and
wander off in the myths. As for you, always be
sober minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist,
and fulfill your ministry. That's what you do, no matter

(35:11):
the trend, no matter the fad, that's what you do.
Just preach the Gospel. The Gospel is the answer. The
Gospel is the power, not you being a certain person.
It's the Gospel. Once we believe that it is us

(35:34):
and our ingenuity and our creative creativity and craftiness. Once
we believe that, then we go right back to the programmatic, pragmatic,
efficiency driven approach to the way that we do ministry.
But if we believe that the answer is the Gospel,

(35:55):
changes everything. He says number three, Failing to preach the
Gospel results in misplaced faith. That's why it's important. That's

(36:16):
why it's important to preach Christ from all the scripture.
Failing to preach the Gospel and proclaim what God has
done in the person and work of Christ ultimately results
in misplaced faith. Listen to what Paul says in verse
five that your faith might not rest in the wisdom
of men, but in the power of God. That's his goal,

(36:41):
that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men,
but instead your faith might rest in the power of God.
Not in me, but in the power of God. That's
the answer. It is the Gospel and the power of

(37:02):
the Gospel. What does that misplaced faith look like. Let mean,
just just make this real practical for a moment, when
we don't preach the Gospel, and when instead and when
we don't have a redemptive historic approach to the Bible,
and when we instead use the Bible as you know,

(37:23):
something to be mind for principles that we can apply. Ultimately,
there are a couple of ways that we can go astray.
One of those is legalism. Legalism works righteousness. See, we
all have a natural bent toward works righteousness, all of us.
You want to save yourself. I want to save myself,

(37:46):
you and I both when we get to heaven. What
we want to hear from God is, man, you did
a great job. That was awesome. I mean, you know
Jesus what did he did on the cross? That was
good stuff. But man, that stuff that you added, whooah.
Come on, now, let's just be honest. That's what we want,

(38:06):
and we want to be able to stand before other
people and talk about how much better we are because
of what we do. It works righteousness. Now, bring a
preacher who doesn't preach the Gospel to bear and here's
what we find. We go to the Old Testament, we're
preaching the life of Abraham, and we find Abraham did

(38:27):
this and it was good. Therefore you go and do
likewise so that you can be like Abraham. Abraham did
that and it was bad. Therefore don't go and do
that so that you won't be like Abraham. Ultimately, Abraham
just becomes this sort of case study for us, and
one of the results of that is that basically we

(38:48):
move towards works righteousness. I want that you want that
at the end of the sermon, here's what we want.
I want to have a list of three to five
things that I need to go and do better at
it so I can feel my sense of accomplishment. And
that feeds our work's righteousness muscle. It wants that, it desires,

(39:13):
that it yearns for that. Here's some stuff you need
to go and you need to work on, and you
need to do better, and that works righteousness muscle. That
carnal man he goes, Yes, that's what I'm after, but
he can't do it. That's why he's got to come

(39:33):
back next week and get three three to five more things.
You can't do it. By the way, that's why we
loved rededications. What is that I mean, think about that
for a moment. Rededication. You come up to the front
of the room and you rededicate yourself. Why because the

(39:55):
first dedication didn't work? Is that the gospel? Is that
the gospel? No, that's not the gospel. You know what
rededication is. Rededication is works righteousness on steroids. That's what
it is. Rededication says I tried hard that first time,

(40:18):
but it wasn't quite hard enough. But this time, I
really mean it. That is not the gospel. It's not
the gospel. It works righteousness. And if all we do
is go to the Old Testament and find character studies,
or even go to the New Testament, find character studies,
you know, gone to the rich young ruler. And basically

(40:41):
the whole point of the rich young ruler is you
need to do a better job with your money than
the rich young ruler did with his money. You just
need to work harder. That's it. It's legalism. It works righteousness.
That's us attempting to justify ourselves. The other problem is moralism. Moralism,

(41:05):
we just sort of moralize the text, and this is
bad for our kids. Here's what happens. You come to
the Old Testament, and all the Old Testament is for
your kids is Esop's fables with Bible versus attached. The
moral of this story is, if you want that, just
go get Esop's fables. Don't bring God into that. If

(41:29):
all you want is moralisms, go get something that's designed
to give you moralisms. The Bible is not designed to
give you moralisms. The Bible is designed to unfold God's
redemptive plan in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
It's not about moralisms. You can't get there from here.
Oh then what do you do with Abraham? Oh? I

(41:51):
don't know. Perhaps what Paul does with Abraham and Romans.
Paul does not treat Abraham as a case study for
how you do better. Paul interprets the life of Abraham
as an example of justification by faith. That's what he says.

(42:12):
The life of Abraham is about. It's about justification by faith.
That's it. That's the message. And so you know, when
we go to Daniel and other books and things of
this nature, here's the question, what is the picture of

(42:34):
redemptive history that's unfolding there. Here's another thing we have
to avoid, allegory. That's the ditch on the other side
of the road. Well, all of the Bible is about Jesus.
Therefore there has to be a wonder one correlation between
what I'm reading here about this character in the Old

(42:55):
Testament and the life of Jesus Christ. So symbolically this
must be you know this, and that must be the cross,
and that must be No, no, not at all, not
at all, And so we go. You know, the famous

(43:15):
message about David and Goliath and those five smooth stones.
There is a legendary message in Southern Baptist's life about
those five smooth stones. And each of those five smooth
stones was another aspect of Baptist life, you know, that
we need to pick up and sling at the giants
of our you know, yeah, Sunday School, you know BTU

(43:45):
all this, there was the lesson just allegory. Oh not allegory. Well,
what do you do with something like the life of
you know, David and Goliath. What am I gonna do
with that? If the whole Bible is about Christ and
it's about god redemptive plan, what do I do with that? Oh?
I don't know. Maybe there's something there that helps us

(44:09):
understand the person in work of Christ. How can David
and Goliath help us understand the person in work of Christ? Oh,
I don't know. How about the fact that David, the
ancestor of Jesus, stood in the stead of his people
as a substitute, took on Goliath as a substitute, defeated

(44:34):
him as a substitute, thereby bringing victory for all of
the people whom he represented. How about that? It's redemptive history, folks,
It's there, it's there. Is it always easy to find? No,

(44:54):
it's not always easy to find. Sometimes it's in the
bigger picture. But again, if we dig, and if we work,
and if we come with a presupposition that the Bible
is about God's unfolding redemptive plan and the person and
work of Christ, we get there. We get there, but

(45:17):
we avoid legalism and moralism and allegory in the process.
We preach Christ. We preach Christ. Otherwise all we have
is another mechanism that we've set up to get around
the Gospel and to reinforce our natural bent towards Work's righteousness.

(45:43):
Paul goes to Corinth, and he uses their wisdom, and
he floors the people because he uses their own wisdom
and their own tactics. Now, all of a sudden, these
people who are already Hey, I'm of Apollos, and now
all of a sudden, these people just make him one
of those guys as well. And it's all about the
cult of personality. No, it's got to be about Christ.

(46:12):
It has to be about Christ. So when we teach
the Bible in our homes, when we're reading the scriptures
with our children, help them understand the big picture of
God's redemptive history. Help them grasp that. Help them hold
on to that. Don't turn the Bible into Esop's fables.

(46:34):
Don't do that. It's about God and the work that
God is doing to bring about the redemption of his people.
Get that, hold on to that. Does that mean that
there's never any importance or significance to those examples. Now
there's absolutely importance and significance to those examples. We look

(46:56):
at those individuals and we see ourselves. Amen, here's Abraham.
Forget that. Now we're looking at Jacob in church. We
looked at Isaac. He's horrible. He's absolutely horrible. But that's
good news, people, because I am too. Amen. Jacob horrible,

(47:22):
he's terrible. He needs God bad. You know what I
do too. It reinforces the doctrine of election, and it
says God does not look down at you and see
anything in you that he deems worthy to redeem for himself.
Just like Jacob, you are saved, you are rescued, You

(47:43):
are redeemed in spite of, not because of, who you are.
We need to hear that when we see the failures
of the people in the Old Testament, and the patriarchs
and others who are great heroes of the faith, when
we see their failures, we need to remind ourselves there
is none righteous, no, not even one. Even this great

(48:05):
hero of the faith, Abraham, he fell and he failed.
David's on the top of the world with Goliath, and
he's the scum of the earth with Bethsheba. Why because
the Bible doesn't want us to hope in David. His
significance rests in the one who sits on his throne.

(48:28):
That's the significance of David, not as a character study
for you to be more like him. That's ridiculous. Why
would you want to be more like David when David
was not the answer. Otherwise he'd have been the one
hanging on the Cross. It's Christ. It's Christ. It's all

(48:54):
about Christ. It's all about God's redemptive plan to call
to himself a people for himself in spite of their
flaws and faults and sins. The last thing we need
to do, if that's what we believe about the Gospel,
is to somehow get people to think that what it's

(49:15):
really all about is them working harder themselves at not
being what they are. No, you need to give yourself
to Christ. That's your only hope, that's your only answer.
If I give you three things to go do, here's
what's gonna happen. You're gonna forget two of them, and

(49:37):
you're gonna mess up the third, but you'll still be
better than most people. So you'll feel good about yourself. Now,
here's one thing, and one thing only trust Christ and
him alone. He's your only hope. But here's the good

(49:57):
news for those who are saying, well what he's saying.
Then you know we don't call people to you know,
deliver a righteous life. Oh, we absolutely do, and reminding
them all the while that number one, they can't do it.
But number two, it is him who works enough both
to will and to do his good pleasure. So even
when I do accomplish something, it is not for me

(50:18):
to pat myself on the back, but merely to recognize
that God is conforming me to the image of his son.
And I praise him for even my flawed efforts, because
He's gaining much glory for himself in the process. I
praise him for making me a new creature, for changing

(50:38):
the desires that I have. I praise him for reminding
me in his word of how short I have fallen
and how desperately I need Christ. So, yes, we need
to hold up those admonitions in scripture. But we need
to hold up those admonitions in scripture not in such
a way that says to our children, you work harder
and you get here, but in such a way that

(51:00):
says to them, here's the picture of righteousness. Here's the
picture of holiness we so wanted and we so desire it.
And maybe you can't have it without Jesus. You can't
see you begging to change your heart, you begging to
save you, You beg God to make you more like him.
And every time you see an accomplishment in your life,

(51:23):
recognize that that's God answering that prayer, and whenever you
see a failure in your life, recognize that that's God
reminding you of your desperate need for Christ. You can
have legalism, you can have moralisms, you can have allegory.
Give me the gospel, Give me the Gospel. And it

(51:45):
absolutely breaks my heart that you can turn on Christian
radio and listen all day long and never hit the gospel.
You can hear God's preaching from the gospels and never
hear the gospel. It's legalisms and moralisms and allegory, no gospel,

(52:09):
none whatsoever. So as you leave from this place, remember
what you've heard. But above all, remember that it's useless
unless what you heard was rooted and grounded in the Gospel.
And I believe it has been understand that this whole thing,

(52:31):
I will say it again, this whole issue of family integration. Understand.
Remember our vision is to be a kingdom minded christ exalting,
multi generational community of faith. That's our vision, That's what
we desperately desire to become. How do we get there?
What's our mission? Proclaiming the supremacy of Christ to all
men with a view toward biblical conversion and comprehensive discipleship.

(52:53):
That's what we're after, not proclaiming the supremacy of the
family to all men, proclaiming this premiscy of Christ to
all men. Not with a view toward better ordered families. No,
with a view toward biblical conversion and comprehensive discipleship. That's
our view. And remember that family integration piece. The reason

(53:14):
that we hold to it with tenacity is not because
we don't like youth groups. Not because we don't like
youth culture. That's not why we hold to it. We
hold to it because as we look at redemptive history,
we see again and again and again God has this
multi generational plan of one generation teaching his words to

(53:36):
the next. It's the transmittle of the Gospel over and
over and over again. Here's what we're saying. You want
to understand family integration here, It is your kids need
the Gospel, and once a week is not nearly enough.

(54:00):
So your a home needs to be a gospel outpost
where you commit yourself to reiterating the Gospel to your
children again and again and again and again and again.
And then you come to church and we'll reiterate it
all together with a group of individuals who number one,
are also doing it in our homes, and number two,

(54:23):
trusting our elders to faithfully uphold God's word and preach
Christ so that they hear it again. That's what we're about.
Do we always get it right? No, we don't, because

(54:47):
we are flawed and frail and fragile human beings, and
so sometimes we blow it completely and utterly, and we
stand up and we preach as best we can, and
it just works righteousness again. And we go to bed
on Sunday night and can't sleep because we realize, I
didn't preach Christ. I didn't I massage that works righteousness

(55:12):
muscle again. I didn't hold up Jesus before the people
to be praised and adored and utterly desired above all else.
But I held out hope that if they did a
few things over here and tweaked a couple of things
over here, they could make God feel better about them.

(55:36):
And we can't sleep, We can't wait until we get
up and get to try it again. So whatever you're doing,
whatever you're building, preach the gospel literally. It is all
we have. Preach the Gospel. Let's pray, Father, thank you

(56:19):
for the work that you accomplished that we could not,
in the active and passive obedience of our Master's Savior
and Lord Jesus Christ, who in his active obedience kept
the whole law where the first Adam did not and

(56:42):
where we could not, and who in his passive obedience,
suffered our penalty in the death that he died thereby
satisfying your just wrath and imputing righteousness to those who

(57:04):
come to him by faith, so that we might stand
justified forgiven not as a result of what we have done,
but in spite of what we have not and could
not and would not. Thank you for the way that

(57:30):
you unfold this truth throughout the scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation,
telling one coherent story that cries out to man. You
are wicked and ruined, and God has provided the only

(57:52):
answer and the person in work of his son, Jesus Christ.
Thank you that your law reminds us of our sin
and our desperate need of a savior. Thank you that

(58:16):
the books of Wisdom remind us of how imperfect we are,
how wicked we are, how true and good and glorious
you are, and how much we desperately need Christ. Thank

(58:40):
you for the prophets who remind us of your attitude
towards sin and the wrath that is to come. And
how yet again Christ is our only hope and the
only answer. Thank you for the Gospels that unfold for
us the culmination of these things in history. Thank you

(59:08):
for the epistles that lay out for us what the
Christian life then looks like as a result, and what
the Church then looks like as a result of the
person and work of Jesus Christ. And thank you for
that last book of all that reminds us that in
case we were wondering, you are in control of the

(59:32):
affairs of men, and Christ shall be vindicated on the earth.
Remind us of this story. May we cherish it, May
we depend on it nothing more and absolutely nothing less,

(01:00:00):
to your glory and your honor, and for the praise
of your great name. Amen.