This four-part expository study was preached at Flagstaff Christian Fellowship During Pastor Steve Cole's Retirement Transition in 2018. Audio and manuscripts are available for each lesson.
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November 18, 2018
In the early 1950’s the notorious gangster Mickey Cohen attended a meeting where Billy Graham spoke. He expressed some interest, so several, including Graham and J. Edwin Orr, spoke personally with him about Christ, but he made no commitment. But later another Christian man shared the gospel with Cohen and urged him, based on Revelation 3:20, to invite Jesus into his heart. Cohen prayed with this man to receive Christ.
Cohen later attended a Billy Graham crusade, but his life after this showed no signs of change. He distanced himself from the man who had shared the gospel with him and began to hang around with his underworld cronies again. When the Christian tried to help him, Cohen complained, “You didn’t tell me that I would have to give up my work [being a gangster]! You didn’t tell me that I would have to give up my friends [other criminals]!” He had heard that there were Christian movie stars, Christian athletes, and Christian businessmen. He assumed that he could be a Christian gangster! When he realized that he could not, he turned away from the faith (told by J. Edwin Orr, Christianity Today [1/1/82], pp. 24-25; and in more detail by Charles Colson, Loving God [Zondervan], pp. 81-92).
We may chuckle at the idea of being a Christian gangster. Yet millions of professing Christians, while not gangsters, live no differently than those in the world. They have never turned from the sin that characterized their lives before they prayed to receive Christ. They’re angry and abusive toward their mates and their children, they often look at porn, they don’t manage their money God’s way, and they waste hours every week watching the filth in the media. The only difference between them and our pagan culture is that sometimes they go to church on Sunday mornings. And yet they claim to be born again Christians!
Are people who claim to be born again, but whose lives are no different than before they “received Christ,” truly converted? The Bible answers that question with a loud, “No!” Those who are truly saved by faith in Jesus Christ are marked by what the Bible calls, “repentance.” This does not mean that they are sinless, but it does mean that they are sinning less. They hate their sin. They fight against it. When they realize that they have sinned, they turn from it and turn back to following Jesus as Lord. A study of “repentance” in the Bible shows that…
A life of turning to God from sin is evidence that you are genuinely converted.
Salvation is based on faith alone in Christ alone, not on good works. But if God has saved you, He changed your heart. Saving faith is inseparable from repentance. But sadly, because of popular false teaching, many in evangelical churches think that because they prayed the sinner’s prayer or invited Jesus into their hearts, they are saved and going to heaven. But if their lives are not marked by initial and ongoing repentance, they’re in for a rude awakening on judgment day! Don’t be deceived: the evidence of genuine conversion is a life marked by turning to God from sin. A study of “repentance” in the Bible shows that…
Many argue that to preach repentance as necessary for salvation is to add works to faith alone. Since there are many verses that connect repentance with salvation, they have to define repentance to mean a change of mind regarding Christ, not a change of behavior. But is repentance just a change of mind? No!
The main Old Testament word translated “repent” means to turn or return. It is the twelfth most frequently used verb in the OT (1,050 times; sometimes it refers only to turning around physically, but often it means turning to the Lord). Victor Hamilton writes of the Hebrew verb (Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, ed. by R. Laird Harris, Glean Archer, & Bruce Waltke [Moody Press], 2:909), “… it combines in itself the two requisites of repentance: to turn from evil and to turn to the good.” He concludes (ibid.) that “this conscious decision of turning to God” includes “repudiation of all sin and affirmation of God’s total will for one’s life.”
The New Testament uses three words for repentance. They occur (in noun or verb form) over 60 times, beginning with a summary of both John the Baptist’s and Jesus’ preaching (Matt. 3:2; 4:17): “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” R. C. Trench (Synonyms of the New Testament [Eerdmans], p. 260) describes repentance as “that mighty change in mind, heart, and life wrought by the Spirit of God.” While the main Greek word is a compound word taken from two words meaning to change one’s mind, this meaning (according to J. Goetzmann, The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, ed. by Colin Brown [Zondervan, 1:358), “plays very little part in the NT. Rather the decision by the whole man to turn around is stressed. It is clear that we are concerned neither with a purely outward turning nor with a merely intellectual change of ideas.” Wayne Grudem defines it (Systematic Theology [Zondervan], p. 713, italics his): “Repentance is a heartfelt sorrow for sin, a renouncing of it, and a sincere commitment to forsake it and walk in obedience to Christ.”
Thus repentance involves a change of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Like saving faith, repentance is a gift that God grants by His sovereign grace (Acts 5:31; 11:18; 2 Tim. 2:25). Although sinners are responsible to repent, when anyone does repent, it’s because God graciously granted it.
While sorrow for sin is a normal part of repentance, it is possible to feel sorry for your sins and yet not be repentant unto salvation. Judas Iscariot felt remorse for betraying Jesus, yet he was not converted (Matt. 27:3). Esau “found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears” (Heb. 12:17). Paul told the Corinthians that sorrow according to the will of God can lead to repentance, and thus be valuable (2 Cor. 7:8-11). But sorrow for sins alone is not enough. Biblical repentance is a turning of the whole person from sin to God. The repentant person accepts responsibility for his sin, he calls out in faith to God for salvation, and he proves his repentance and faith by his subsequent changed life.
The connection between faith and repentance is clear in Paul’s ministry to the Thessalonians. He writes (1 Thess. 1:8), “For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith toward God has gone forth, so that we have no need to say anything.” The Thessalonians had believed the gospel that Paul had preached. But clearly their faith was inseparable from repentance, because verse 9 reads, “For they themselves report about us what kind of a reception we had with you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God.” Paul did not preach, “Just believe in Jesus now and later you should consider turning from your sins.” Rather, he had included repentance in his gospel. The Thessalonians’ whole way of life had changed from idolatry to serving the living and true God. (See, also, Jonah 3.)
Paul recounted to King Agrippa that on the Damascus Road, Jesus told Paul that He was sending him to the Gentiles (Acts 26:18), “to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.” That is the message Paul was to proclaim to lost people. It was a message about repentance: turning from sin (darkness, Satan’s dominion) to God. That message is bound up with, not distinct from, “forgiveness of sins” and “faith in” the Lord Jesus.
Paul adds (Acts 26:20) that in obedience to Christ he preached, “even to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds appropriate to repentance.” Paul’s gospel to lost people was not just, “change your mind about Jesus and believe in Him, but don’t worry about your sins.” Rather, Paul’s gospel—which he got straight from Jesus—included repentance, which meant a change of behavior. Lost people must turn to God from sin to be saved. This means that…
John the Baptist preached repentance to lost people and made it clear that he wasn’t talking about a change of mind only, apart from a change of behavior. Luke 3:3 summarizes John’s message as “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” John told his hearers that they needed to bear fruits in keeping with repentance. Then he gave them specific behavioral changes that they needed to make (Luke 3:8, 11-14).
Jesus also preached a message of repentance to lost people (Matt. 4:17; Mark 1:15). He told the Jews (Luke 13:3, 5): “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” When Jesus sent out His disciples to preach, their message was “that men should repent” (Mark 6:12). They didn’t make up that message. Like the apostle Paul later, they got it straight from Jesus!
John MacArthur sums up a chapter on repentance (The Gospel According to Jesus [Zondervan], p. 167):
Repentance has always been the foundation of the biblical call to salvation…. No evangelism that omits the message of repentance can properly be called the gospel, for sinners cannot come to Jesus Christ apart from a radical change of heart, mind, and will. That demands a spiritual crisis leading to a complete turnaround and ultimately a wholesale transformation. It is the only kind of conversion Scripture recognizes.
You may be wondering: What is the relationship between repentance and saving faith? Repentance and faith are inextricably bound together, like two sides of the same coin. But the two words have different nuances or emphases (see John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion [Westminster Press], 3:3:5). Genuine saving faith, which is trusting in Christ alone and His shed blood to deliver us from God’s wrath, includes repentance. You can’t truly lay hold of Christ for salvation with one hand, while at the same time knowingly hold onto your sin with the other hand. To genuinely trust Christ, you must turn from your sin. Some may verbally profess to believe in Christ while holding onto their sin. But such empty profession without repentance is not true saving faith.
For example, if you’re driving to Phoenix and you repent, you don’t just say, “I changed my mind. I don’t want to go to Phoenix. I believe that Flagstaff is where I should be.” If you keep driving toward Phoenix, saying that you believe you should go to Flagstaff won’t get you there. True repentance means that based on your change of mind, you will actually turn around and drive back to Flagstaff. If your belief is genuine your behavior will reflect it. If you truly believe in Christ as your Savior, you’ll turn from your sin. That’s repentance. J. Edwin Orr wrote (Christianity Today [1/1/82], p. 27), “The difference between true faith and what the Scripture calls false faith is simple: it is the lack of repentance.”
This is illustrated in the story of Simon the sorcerer (Acts 8:9-24). Acts 8:13 says that Simon believed, was baptized, and continued on with Philip. But when Peter and John came to town and people received the Holy Spirit through their prayers, Simon offered to pay them so that he could have the same power. Peter responded (Acts 8:20-23):
“May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! You have no part or portion in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. Therefore repent of this wickedness of yours, and pray the Lord that, if possible, the intention of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bondage of iniquity.”
So although Luke says Simon had “believed,” he was not saved, because his faith did not include repentance. We aren’t faithfully presenting the gospel to lost people if we imply that they can get to heaven by faith without turning from their sin.
Becky Pippert, in her book Out of the Salt Shaker & into the World ([IVP], pp. 45-47), tells of inviting Lois, a Stanford student who was skeptical about the existence of God, to a Bible study. Lois agreed to come but said, “The Bible won’t have anything relevant to say to me.”
The next day Becky discovered that Lois was living off campus with her boyfriend, Phil. To Becky’s great surprise, Phil came with Lois to the Bible study. Before she knew Lois’s background, Becky had already decided to study Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well in John 4.
She started the study and suddenly realized that the passage dealt with a woman living in sexual sin. Not wanting Lois to feel ambushed, Becky tried to arrange it so that Lois wouldn’t have to read any of the text as they went around the room. But it turned out that Lois had to read the portion where Jesus said to the woman, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’ ... for the man you’re living with now is not your husband.” It was Lois’ first time ever to read the Bible. She said, “I must say, this is a bit more relevant than I had expected!”
Becky later met with Lois and talked with her about Christ. “Is there any reason why you couldn’t become a Christian?” Becky asked. “No,” Lois said. “Well, I can think of one,” Becky said. “What will you do about Phil?” Then she talked directly about how becoming a Christian is a relationship with God that affects every aspect of our lives, including our morals. As they talked, it became clear that God had been pursuing Lois for a long time. There were tears and struggles followed by a sincere prayer asking Christ to be her Savior and Lord.
Immediately she said, “Becky, I’ve got problems. I’ll have to tell Phil and move out; I have no place to go; it’s impossible to get a dorm room this late, and now I’ll have to pay this month’s rent in two places.” So they prayed again, and as Lois left, Becky agonized over how such a young believer could handle so much.
Later Becky was chatting in the hall with some other students when she heard a commotion and turned to see Lois, slowly walking down the corridor, carrying several suitcases and smiling with tears streaming down her cheeks. Everyone began asking her why she had left home. “Oh, no. I haven’t left home. I’ve finally found my home,” she said. “You see, today I became a Christian.”
That decision had far-reaching effects. That same night three girls decided to get right with Christ. Another girl who had assumed she was a Christian realized she wanted no part of it if it demanded total commitment. The next day Lois was told she could move into the dorm (unheard of at such a late date), and she discovered her new roommate was a mature Christian.
Three months later her boyfriend Phil became a Christian, and he too grew rapidly. He had been angry over her conversion and her moving out. But after he was converted he told her, “Thanks, Lois, for loving God enough to put him first instead of me. Your obedience affected my eternal destiny.”
Luke 24:47 reports the risen Lord’s great commission to the disciples was “that repentance for forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all the nations.” Repentance is at the heart of the gospel. God forgives the repentant sinner.
But repentance isn’t just something a person does at the moment of salvation and then says, “Whew, I’m glad that’s over!”
Apostates are described (2 Pet. 2:21-22) as those who turn away from God’s holy commandment and return to sin as a dog returns to its own vomit. But true Christians grow increasingly sensitive to sin and obedient to the Lord, beginning on the heart level (Mark 7:6-23). Repentance has to begin on the heart (or thought) level (Matt. 5:28; Acts 8:21). To grow in Christ means to walk more closely with Him in the light of His Word. The Word exposes things in our lives that are not pleasing to Him. If we truly know Christ, we’ll be quick to confess these things as sin and to turn from them. As I said, we will never be sinless, but as we walk with Christ, we will sin less and will turn quickly from that sin when God confronts it. A life of turning to God from sin is evidence that you are truly saved (1 John 2:3): “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.”
The story is told of a girl who trusted Christ and applied for membership in a church. A deacon asked her, “Were you a sinner before you received the Lord Jesus into your life?” “Yes, sir,” she replied. “Well, are you still a sinner?” “To tell you the truth, I feel that I’m a greater sinner than ever.” “Then what real change have you experienced?” “I don’t quite know how to explain it,” she said, “except I used to be a sinner running after sin, but now that I’m saved, I’m a sinner running from sin!” They accepted her into the fellowship of that church, and her life there proved her conversion.
The final thing to consider about repentance is:
Some see repentance as negative. But the fact that God grants repentance gives us great hope. It means that when we turn to God from our sin, He will be gracious to us because of Christ’s death on our behalf. Both the Old and New Testaments picture God entreating sinners to turn back to Him. Isaiah 55:6-7 implores,
Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the Lord, and He will have compassion on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.
When Jesus told the stories of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son, in the first two He emphasized the joy in heaven when one sinner repents (Luke 15:7, 10). In the third story, He illustrated repentance on the part of the prodigal son, who said (Luke 15:18-19), “I will get up and go to my father and will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me as one of your hired men.’” But he didn’t just think that; he actually did it!
When the prodigal returned, the father didn’t say, “You no good excuse for a son! You’re going to pay for your sin!” Rather, the father saw the son a long way off, ran to him and didn’t even let him get the whole confession out of his mouth before he threw his arms around him, kissed him, and welcomed him home with great joy (Luke 15:11-24). That’s God’s response to every sinner who turns to Him from his sin. If you will turn to God from your sin and trust in Christ’s death on your behalf, He will welcome you with great joy!
In Romania, many nominally belong to the Orthodox Church. When a person gets saved, the Orthodox scornfully call him, “a repenter.” That’s not a bad label! May we all be “repenters”! Does your faith in Christ include lifelong, heartfelt repentance? Jesus said (Matt. 7:21-23),
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’”
Those are some of the scariest words in the Bible! Don’t be deceived: The evidence that you are truly saved is a life of turning to God from sin. Anything else is a counterfeit.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2018, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
November 25, 2018
My subject is, killing sexual sin. The phrase comes from John Owen, who wrote (The Works of John Owen [Banner of Truth], 6:9), “Be killing sin or it will be killing you.” But Owen got it from the apostle Paul (Rom. 8:13), “For if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” (See, also, Col. 3:5, ESV.) But killing it once is not enough. Sexual sin is a monster with more than nine lives. You’ll have to keep killing it for the rest of your life.
I still remember how shocked I was back in 1987 to read a survey in Christianity Today ([10/2/87], pp. 25-45) that one out of eight pastors admit to committing adultery since being in the ministry! Among CT’s subscribers who were not pastors, it was one out of four who admitted to being unfaithful to their marriage vows!
About the same time, Leadership (Winter, 1988, p. 24) reported that 20 percent of pastors admitted to looking at sexually oriented media (print, video, or movies) at least once a month! This was before the internet and smartphones made viewing porn as easy as a couple of clicks!
More recently (1/26/16) Christianity Today (christianitytoday.com/news/2016/january/how-pastors-struggle-porn-phenomenon-josh-mcdowell-barna) reported, “Overall, 21 percent of youth pastors and 14 percent of pastors admit they currently struggle with using porn.” The article added, “In comparison, 47 percent of men and 12 percent of women in general seek out porn at least once or twice a month. And about 27 percent of Christian men and 6 percent of Christian women actively look for porn during that time.” The Conquer Series (conquerseries.com/why-68-percent-of-christian-men-watch-porn), a DVD program to help Christians with this problem, claims that 68 percent of Christian men and 50 percent of pastors watch porn regularly!
Whichever numbers are accurate, to cite the famous understatement from “Apollo 13,” “Houston, we’ve got a problem!” So as one of my final messages to this church, I want to talk about killing sexual sin. Our text shows that …
Killing sexual sin is essential for all who know Jesus Christ.
You can consult other messages that I’ve given for a more thorough treatment (“Moral Purity in a Polluted World,” 6/1/97; “The Right and Wrong Place for Sex,” 2/13/05; “Clean Up Your Act,” 6/1/08; “Sex, Greed, and Christians,” 3/6/16; “Sexual Purity,” 10/9/16; etc. or my article, “Winning the War Against Lust”). But here Paul gives four ways to be killing this common sin.
1 Corinthians 6:9-10: “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.”
Fornication refers to any type of sexual activity outside of marriage. Adultery refers to having sex with someone other than your (heterosexual) spouse. Effeminate refers to the man who takes the woman’s role, whereas homosexuals refers to the active partner in homosexual relationships. In Romans 1:26, Paul also condemns lesbian relationships.
Some argue that “will not inherit the kingdom of God” (repeated twice here) refers to a loss of rewards, not to salvation (cf. Eph. 5:5-6; Col. 3:5-6). But Jesus said (Matt. 5:27-30):
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’; but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.”
Clearly, Jesus was saying that you must radically cut off the sin of lust, which is at the heart of all sexual sins, or you will be cast into hell. (See, also, Heb. 12:14; 13:4.) While true believers fall into these sins (David is the prime example), if a person does not repent of sexual sin and fight to kill it, Jesus meant that such a person is not a genuine believer and is headed for hell. After affirming Paul’s gospel that we are saved by grace through faith in Christ and His death on the cross, apart from works, Alan Redpath adds (The Royal Route to Heaven [Revell], p. 74),
Yet the Apostle Paul also relentlessly declares that no one can claim salvation and go on practicing sin like an unbeliever. If the outer life of a child of God is not made pure, it is evidence that the inward heart has never been renewed. The faith that does not produce holiness is not New Testament faith; it is not saving faith; …
Paul warns us not to be deceived about this matter (1 Cor. 6:9; Eph. 5:6). It’s an area where the enemy tries to fool you by lying, “God’s grace will forgive. You deserve some pleasure, so don’t be too hard on yourself.” But Paul says (1 Thess. 4:8) that if you reject God’s commandment for moral purity, you’re not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.
Those are strong words, but before you despair, note the word of hope (1 Cor. 6:11), “Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” No sinner is beyond God’s power to save! To be washed means being cleansed from all sin through faith in Jesus’ shed blood (Acts 22:16; 1 John 1:7). To be sanctified here refers to being set apart to God for holy living that glorifies Him (1 Cor. 1:2, 30). To be justified means that God has declared the believing sinner “not guilty” and has imputed Christ’s perfect righteousness to him (Rom. 3:24-26; 4:5). All of this happened, “in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”
Thus the starting point for moral purity is to believe the gospel and be born again by the Holy Spirit (John 3:3-8). Then by walking in dependence on the indwelling Spirit, you are able to put to death the sinful deeds of the body and develop self-control (Rom. 8:13; Gal. 5:16-23). It’s a lifelong war, but if you’re not fighting that war, you may not be truly saved. Those who belong to Christ and have the Holy Spirit living in them cannot be content if they’re yielding to sexual sin.
1 Cor. 6:12: “All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.” Most commentators agree that the phrase, “All things are lawful for me,” was a slogan of the libertines in the Corinthian church. Paul taught that we are not under law, but under grace (Rom. 6:14). We died to the Law and are released from it (Rom. 7:4, 6). But he did not mean that we are free to live according to our lusts in disregard of God’s commandments (Rom. 6:1-2; Gal. 5:13). Like the rules of the road, God’s commandments are for our blessing and protection (Rom. 7:12). If you violate them, you and others will get hurt. So here Paul cites the slogan which the libertines were misusing, but hedges it with two safeguards:
Sexual sin is destructive because it drags God’s holy name through the mud (Gen. 39:9). This is especially true if a Christian leader sins. He discredits the faith in the eyes of unbelievers and causes many believers to stumble in their walk with the Lord.
Sexual sin also hurts the sinner himself. While at first, it feels good (otherwise we wouldn’t be tempted to do it), as Proverbs 7 warns, to succumb to the seductive woman is to go as an ox goes to the slaughter. It will cost your life (Prov. 7:22-27). Also, to engage in any sexual sin damages your relationship with Christ. You can’t enjoy close fellowship with Him while you’re defiling yourself.
Sexual sin also hurts the person you sin with. If you claim to be a Christian and engage in sexual immorality with a non-Christian, he or she may wrongly conclude that Christians are free to engage in sexual sin. So you may be helping him or her down the path toward eternal judgment. If the other person is a Christian, you defile him or her and damage his or her relationship with Christ.
If you’re married and have children, sexual sin will hurt your mate, your children, and your grandchildren. You’ll lose their respect and your ability to influence them to follow the Lord. So before you yield to the temptation of lust, think about the consequences.
Paul says, “I will not be mastered by anything.” Dr. Ted Roberts, the host of the “Conquer Series,” claims that churches are wrong to view yielding to pornography as primarily a moral problem. Rather, he says, it is mainly a brain problem (conquerseries.com/why-68-percent-of-christian-men-watch-porn). I disagree; it is primarily a sin problem. But the valid point he’s making is that viewing porn re-wires your brain so that you become enslaved to it. Like being enslaved to alcohol or drugs, sexual sin becomes life-dominating. It consumes and destroys the one engaging in it.
John MacArthur goes so far as to say (The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, 1 Corinthians [Moody Press]. P. 149), “No sin is more enslaving than sexual sin.” Jesus Christ, not the lusts of the flesh, is to be the Lord of your body.
1 Cor. 6:13-17: “Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, ‘The two shall become one flesh.’ But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.”
“Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them,” may have been another slogan of the Corinthian libertines. They were saying, “Sex is just like eating. We have a biological need to eat and we have the same need for sex. Neither is wrong. Someday God will do away with our bodies and their needs.” But Paul says that they were wrong on both counts. In verse 14 he states that God will not do away with our bodies, because He will resurrect them (see 1 Cor. 15).
Then (vv. 15-17), he argues that the analogy between eating and having sex does not hold up. He was specifically addressing the problem of the Corinthians going to the Temple of Aphrodite to have sex with the temple prostitutes. He points out that as Christians, our bodies are members of Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 12). To join yourself to a temple prostitute is to join a member of Christ with a prostitute. His vehement response is (v. 15), “May it never be!”
While we don’t have temple prostitutes to tempt us, Paul’s point applies to when you view porn: It’s like saying, “Hey, Lord, check this out!” Or, if you engage in any sexual sin, you’re involving Christ with you in that sin! “May it never be!”
Then (vv. 16-17) Paul points out the spiritual nature of the sexual union. He cites Genesis 2:24, “The two shall become one flesh,” which applies to marital relations, and says that it even applies to having sex with a prostitute! The sexual act is not just a physical joining of a man and a woman, but a union of two persons in the deepest form of intimacy that we can know. In the Old Testament, the sexual union is often referred to as a man “knowing” his wife. As Paul argues in Ephesians 5:25-32, marriage and the sexual relationship in marriage is a picture of the union between Christ and His bride, the church.
That’s one reason why God designed sexual relations to be restricted within the boundaries of lifelong marriage between a man and a woman. Sex in any other context destroys the picture of Christ’s faithful, exclusive love for His church. So Paul’s point here is that to take sex outside of lifelong heterosexual marriage is to pervert God’s purpose for our bodies. God never designed sex to be merely a physical act, like eating. It joins two persons on the deepest level, even when it’s a one-night fling.
This may be Paul’s intended meaning behind the difficult statement in verse 18: “Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body.” The problem is, there are other sins that seem to be against our bodies: alcohol and drug abuse, overeating, and suicide. One commentator (Gordon Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians [Eerdmans], p. 261) says that there are 20 or 30 solutions offered as to what Paul means!
My understanding is that he is speaking in light of what he has said in verses 15-17 regarding the unique, God-designed purpose for the sexual union. John MacArthur explains (ibid. p. 151), “Because sexual intimacy is the deepest uniting of two persons, its misuse corrupts on the deepest human level.” He cites C. S. Lewis in his Screwtape Letters: “Every time a man and a woman enter into a sexual relationship a spiritual bond is established between them which must be eternally enjoyed or eternally endured.” MacArthur adds, “God takes sexual sin seriously because it corrupts and shatters spiritual relationships, both human and divine.”
In verse 17, Paul states a profound, life-changing truth: “But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.” Just as a man and woman who join their bodies together are joined in more than a physical way, so when we trust in Jesus Christ as our Savior, we enter into eternal spiritual union with Him on the deepest level. As Jesus said (John 15:4), “Abide in Me, and I in you.” (See, also, John 17:21-23, Rom. 8:9-11; Gal. 2:20; Col. 1:27.) Our union with Christ is a spiritual bond of love much deeper than any husband and wife can experience in even the best of marriages. The sexual union in marriage is to display the spiritual union and love that we enjoy with Christ.
Thus, to be killing sexual sin, recognize that sexual purity is a salvation issue. It is never profitable and always enslaves. It violates God’s purpose for our bodies. Finally…
Verses 18-20 contain two commands: “Flee immorality” (v. 18); and, “Glorify God in your body” (v. 20). Burn both commands into your brain! Flee! Glorify! When you are tempted to click on porn or to go to bed with that sexy partner who is not your spouse, flee as fast as you can! Don’t stand there and pray about it. Get out of there as you would run from a fire that threatens your life! The reason for fleeing is that your aim as a believer is to glorify God in your body. Note four things:
One truth that has helped me to fight against lust is to realize that all sin begins on the thought level, so I need to defeat it on that level. Jesus taught (Mark 7:21-23):
“For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.”
This means that sexual sin is never a sudden blowout. If someone says, “I was just cruising along when all of a sudden, Bam! I had a blowout and fell,” he’s deceived. He doesn’t understand the way temptation and sin work. James 1:14-15 describes the process: “But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.” Then he warns (v. 16), “Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.”
Sexual sin is always a slow leak that begins when you don’t judge your lust on the thought level. No one ever fell into adultery who didn’t first entertain it in his or her mind. Jesus’ extreme language about cutting off your hand or plucking out your eye regarding mental lust means that you have to kill lust the instant you’re tempted. Take every thought captive to obedience to Christ (2 Cor. 10:5). He knows our thoughts (Heb. 4:13). To be a man or woman of God, you have to walk with Him on the heart or thought level. This demands mentally and physically fleeing immorality!
1 Cor. 6:19a: “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God …?” “Temple” (the Greek word) refers to the holy of holies in the Old Testament. That was the most sacred place on earth. Only the high priest could enter there, only once a year on the Day of Atonement, taking the proper sacrifice. The amazing truth is that now your body is that holy of holies! Just as God dwelled in that holy place, so the Holy Spirit now dwells in every believer in Jesus Christ (Rom. 8:9).
In Galatians 5:16-23, Paul commands us to walk in the Spirit so that we will not carry out the deeds of the flesh, which include sexual immorality. One of the fruits that the Spirit produces in us is self-control. This includes the ability to flee sexual temptation. Develop the habit of walking moment by moment in the Spirit. Ask God to strengthen you with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your heart through faith (Eph. 3:16-17). That is essential for killing sexual sin.
Paul always brings us back to the cross. There, Jesus bought us with His own blood. We no longer belong to ourselves, but to Him. Think of the price He paid to purchase you from the slave market of sin. Why go back there? Jesus is your new Master.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism states, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” If you’re happy with your mate, why would you want to get involved with someone else? If you’re happy with the Lord, why look for happiness in sexual defilement? Begin each day finding true happiness in God. You can’t glorify or enjoy Him if you’re messing around with sexual sin.
We live in a morally corrupt world, but so did the Corinthians. Their city was so corrupt that the Roman world coined the phrase, “to Corinthianize,” which meant to commit sexual immorality. Many in the Corinthian church had defiled themselves repeatedly with sexual sin. But go back to verse 11: “Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” If you have trusted in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, that verse is true of you. Live like it’s true! If you haven’t yet trusted in Christ, that verse can be true of you today if you will turn from sexual sin to Jesus as your Savior and Lord.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2018, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
December 2, 2018
In February, 1977, just shy of my 30th birthday, I began to serve as the pastor of a small church in a Southern California mountain community. To say that I was unsure of whether I could fulfill the demands of the job is a gross understatement! I told the Lord that I’d try it for three years and then see where things were at. By His grace alone, I served that church for just over 15 years before moving to Flagstaff, where I’ve served for over 26 years.
You might think that the longer you serve the Lord, the more confident and competent you become, but the longer I’ve served, the more inadequate I feel. But that’s good, because it forces you to realize that you have to depend on the Lord for His blessing. If He doesn’t work far beyond your inadequacy, everything will bomb. Even the apostle Paul, who was more gifted and more zealous than all of us, exclaimed (2 Cor. 2:16), “Who is adequate for these things?” A few verses later (2 Cor. 3:5), he explained, “Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God.”
If you have trusted in Christ as your Savior, He wants you to serve Him in some way in line with the gifts He has given you. Peter wrote (1 Pet. 4:10-11):
As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
This church will be healthy only to the extent that every member uses his or her gifts in dependence on the Lord, seeking Him constantly for His blessing on His church. Serving the Lord is more of a mindset and way of life than a particular job or role. It’s who you are if Jesus has saved you. If He bought you with His blood, then you are not your own. You’re His slave and you serve however, wherever, and whenever He wants you to serve.
But perhaps you want to serve the Lord, but you feel paralyzed by inadequacy. Remember, in Jesus’ parable of the talents, it was the guy with only one talent who buried it, but then got chewed out by his master (Matt. 25:14-30). So if you think you’re an inadequate, “one-talent” Christian, be careful not to bury what the Lord entrusted to you. He expects you to use your one talent for His kingdom purposes. I want to talk about how to serve the Lord when you feel inadequate to do so.
No passage of Scripture has had a more profound impact on my service for Christ than the accounts of the feeding of the 5,000. You could argue that it’s the most significant miracle Jesus performed, since it’s the only miracle reported in all four gospels. The Lord used this incident to train the twelve. We see this in His pointed challenge (Luke 9:13), “You give them something to eat!” John 6:6 tells us that Jesus was testing them (especially Philip), knowing what He was about to do. The miracle itself is almost passed over. We’re never told exactly how Jesus did it. The focus is not on the spectacular nature of the miracle, but on what it teaches those who serve Jesus about how He meets the overwhelming needs of others through them.
Christ gives us His adequacy to meet the overwhelming needs of people when we yield our inadequacy to Him.
Three things stand out in this story: the needy people; the inadequate disciples; and the adequate Lord Jesus.
The apostles returned from their first preaching tour (Luke 9:1-6) and gave an account to Jesus of all that they had done (v. 10). Jesus withdrew with them near to Bethsaida, on the northeast side of the Sea of Galilee. Mark 6:31 tells us that the purpose of the getaway was rest. Mark also states that there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and the disciples didn’t even have time to eat. So they got in the boat and started off across the lake for a short “vacation.”
But the five-mile trip across the lake was the only vacation they got! The people saw them going and ran there from all the cities and got there ahead of them. When the disciples saw that crowd of needy people waiting for them on the shore, they must have thought, “Oh, no! Lord, how can we escape?”
The fact that this many people would go to this effort to be with Jesus shows how needy they were. If you had asked around the crowd, many would have said that their greatest need was for physical healing. There were blind, deaf, lame, diseased and dying people there. By the end of the day, others would have said that their greatest need was for food. There was no food in that desolate place. Others had other needs. But whether anyone recognized it or not, every person’s greatest need was spiritual. Jesus could heal their bodies and fill their stomachs, but that was only a stopgap measure if they perished in their sins. So Jesus taught them about the kingdom of God, how they could rightly be related to Jesus the King (Luke 9:11).
I’ve seen a bumper sticker that reads, “Life is tough; then you die!” If a person does not know Christ and have the hope of eternal life, that bumper sticker is really true! Sin has taken a terrible toll on the human race. Often the problems people have can be the entry point for us to serve them, not only physically or emotionally, but also spiritually, which is their greatest need. But that’s where we encounter our own problem:
Note the contrast between Jesus’ attitude toward the multitude and that of the disciples: Jesus welcomed them (Luke 9:11), but the disciples said to Jesus (Luke 9:12), “Send the crowd away.” Maybe the disciples were just being practical about how to provide food for this huge crowd, but given the situation, I think it’s legitimate to assume that they were exhausted. They wanted a break from the needy people.
Then Jesus said something utterly ridiculous (Luke 9:13): “You give them something to eat!” “Say again, Lord?” “You give them something to eat!” There were 5,000 men, plus women and children. Assuming two children per couple, there were 20,000 mouths to feed! The only food the disciples could come up with was a boy’s meager lunch (John 6:9), five loaves and two fish. So we see the complete inadequacy of the disciples to meet this overwhelming need that Jesus commands them to meet.
The manner in which Jesus performed this miracle is significant. He could have called down manna from heaven. This miracle took place in the wilderness and having the people sit in groups of fifty pictures Israel in the wilderness under Moses, camped by tribes. Calling down manna would have shown Jesus to be the new Moses. But He didn’t do it that way.
Or, Jesus could have spoken the word and a loaf of bread would have appeared miraculously in each person’s hand. It would have been much more impressive than the quiet way He did this miracle. And it would have been much more efficient than having the 12 disciples distribute the bread and fish to this huge crowd. Each disciple would have had to serve over 1,600 people, which must have taken a long time.
Or Jesus could have called angels who could have taken the bread from His hand and flown directly to each group and given them the food. People would have been amazed. They would have talked about it for the rest of their lives.
But how did Jesus do it? He used the weary, inadequate disciples to distribute the bread and fish to the people. I’m convinced that the Lord did the miracle that way to teach the disciples that His method for meeting the overwhelming needs of a lost world is through His people. But not just any kind of people. He uses inadequate people!
Jesus uses tired, emotionally drained people. The disciples had just returned from their first preaching tour. Jesus knew that they were tired and needed a rest. But their only rest had been the short trip across the lake. True, Jesus let them rest all day as He taught and healed the multitude. But we see their tiredness and emotional weariness in their request, “Send them away.”
Jesus uses busy people. They didn’t even have time to eat because of all the people coming and going (Mark 6:31). I thought that our hectic schedules were unique to our culture, but apparently not! I’ve worked as a banquet waiter, so I know that once they started handing out the food to this huge crowd, the people were making demands: “Over here! We need more bread here!” They were busy men! But invariably the Lord doesn’t use people with extra time on their hands. He uses people who are already busy. The disciples didn’t have time to eat until that entire crowd had been served.
Jesus uses people who lack resources. The disciples’ comment (v. 13) about buying enough food for all these people was probably said with some sarcasm. They didn’t have nearly enough money to do that. Philip did a quick calculation and told Jesus that 200 denarii (seven to eight months’ wages) would not be enough to give each person just a little bread (John 6:7). Obviously, the disciples didn’t have anywhere near that much cash in hand. Besides, they were in a desolate place. Even if they went to Bethsaida to buy bread, the town wouldn’t have had enough bread to feed this crowd. They were hopelessly lacking in the resources to feed this multitude.
Some people say, “I’ll serve the Lord someday, but I’m too busy to get involved right now.” Or, they think, “I plan to give generously to the Lord’s work after I get my finances in better shape. But right now I can’t give much.” But they’re making the mistake of thinking that serving Christ is something we volunteer to do when we have adequate time, energy, and financial resources. Then they’ll volunteer to serve Him.
But Jesus doesn’t work through volunteers. He works through His servants (the Greek word means, “slaves”; see John MacArthur, Slave [Thomas Nelson]). Slaves don’t volunteer to serve. They don’t tell their masters, “I’ll clean your house and fix dinner tomorrow, but I’m too tired and busy today!” Slaves serve when they’re tired, wiped out, busy, and lacking in resources. Slaves serve because they’re under obligation to their master (Luke 17:7-10).
How do we do it? By yielding our inadequacy to the adequate Master to use as He pleases. Five small loaves and two fish, a boy’s lunch—not much to feed such a crowd. In Matthew 14:18, Jesus says, “Bring them here to Me!” That’s the key! Give your inadequate resources and abilities to Jesus. The insufficient becomes more than sufficient when surrendered to Christ! That points us to the third prominent feature of this story. We see the needy people; the inadequate disciples; and, the adequate Lord:
Two thoughts:
That sounds obvious, doesn’t it? But so often we make up excuses about what we don’t have and we fail to offer to Jesus what we do have: “If I just had more time, I’d serve the Lord!” “If I just had more money, I’d give regularly to the Lord’s work!” “If I just had the ability that others have, I’d serve the Lord.” “If I just ...”! But Jesus didn’t use the 200 denarii and all the bread in Bethsaida, which the disciples didn’t have. He used the five loaves and two fish that they did have. Jesus doesn’t ask you to give Him what you don’t have. He asks you to give Him what you do have.
A country preacher went to a farmer in his church and asked, “If you had two farms, would you be willing to give one farm to God?” “Yes,” replied the farmer. “I only wish I were in a position to do it.” The preacher persisted, “If you had $20,000, would you give $10,000 to the Lord’s work?” The farmer replied, “Yes, I’d love to have that kind of money! I’d gladly give $10,000 to the Lord’s work.” Then the preacher sprang his trap: “If you had two pigs, would you give one to the Lord’s work?” The farmer blurted out, “That’s not fair! You know I’ve got two pigs!”
The Lord doesn’t use what you don’t have. He uses the inadequate things you do have when you yield them to Him.
The disciples weren’t giving the orders here. They were following Jesus’ orders (Luke 9:14): “Have them sit down to eat in groups of about fifty each.” “Eat what, Lord?” “It won’t work, Lord!” “This is crazy, Lord!” No, they did what Jesus commanded. Yield yourself to Him and let Him do as He sees fit. What Jesus did with this boy’s lunch is what He does with us when we yield our inadequate abilities and resources to Him:
Without His blessing, we’re wasting our time. Psalm 127:1: “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.” Do you covet God’s blessing in your life and service for Him? Decades ago, Watchman Nee’s chapter, “Expecting the Lord’s Blessing” (Twelve Baskets Full [Hong Kong Church Book Room], 2:48-64) deeply affected me. I’ve read it many times. Nee argues that everything in God’s work depends on His blessing. If it is there, even an insufficient amount is sufficient; if it is lacking, the greatest resources and efforts in the world will not be enough.
By God’s blessing, Nee means a working of God that is far in excess of human calculations. If you scrape together 200 denarii and buy enough bread to give everyone a little, that is not God’s blessing. But if there is no human way to explain the results by the gifts or the efforts of those involved, that is God’s blessing. It’s not that we’re sloppy about our work and expect God to cover for our laziness or incompetence. We ought to work hard and be skilled in what we do for the Lord. But to have God’s blessing is not to expect results in proportion to my hard work or my talents, but for God to do “far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think” (Eph. 3:20).
So often we’re just like the disciples. We see the need and start calculating with what we don’t have. Pastors think, “If I just had Bill Gates in my congregation as a tither!” But as Nee points out (ibid., p. 63),
If we have to accumulate sufficient wages to buy bread for the needy multitudes, years and years will elapse before their need is met. We must expect God to work beyond all that man can conceive.
Without the Lord’s blessing, five loaves and two fish were ridiculously inadequate. With His blessing, it was more than enough. However you serve, seek God’s blessing and make sure that nothing in your life hinders it!
After blessing the bread, Jesus broke it. Blessing and brokenness go together. You won’t find God’s blessing apart from God’s breaking. You can see it in the lives of every person God has used. Abraham and Sarah had to be past their ability to produce a child before God gave them Isaac. Jacob had to be crippled in his hip before he prevailed with God. Moses had to fail in his own strength and spend forty years tending sheep in the desert before God used him to deliver Israel. David wrote (Ps. 51:17), “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” Vance Havner observed (source unknown),
God uses broken things. It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume. It is Peter, weeping bitterly, who returns to greater power than ever.
Most of us aren’t too weak to serve the Lord. We’re too strong, or at least we think we are. The Lord does not want our adequacy; He wants our inadequacy so that we trust Him to supply what we lack. When we’re weak, then we’re strong (2 Cor. 12:10). His strength is made perfect in our weakness when we yield ourselves to Him and allow Him to bless, break, multiply, and distribute our few loaves and fish to meet the needs of others. Jesus blesses; He breaks. Then,
Luke 9:16b-17a: He “kept giving them to the disciples to set before the people. And they all ate and were satisfied.” The “all” included the boy who generously gave up his lunch! Everyone had enough. No one went hungry.
Don’t miss the end of verse 17: “The broken pieces which they had left over were picked up, twelve baskets full.” How many disciples? Twelve! How many full leftover baskets? Twelve! A basket full for each disciple! But the disciples had to serve the hungry multitude first; only after that did they each collect their basket full. Sometimes we worry, “If I give my time and energy and money to serve the Lord, I’ll be drained and burned out!” But as Jesus goes on to explain (Luke 9:24), “Whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.” Lose yourself serving Jesus and He will make sure you get a basket full for yourself! You may be tired, but you’ll be full of joy in Jesus!
The bread in this miracle is symbolic of Christ. After performing this miracle, He said (John 6:35), “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall not hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.” The Lord is teaching that if we will surrender ourselves to Him to use as He pleases in meeting the needs of others, then He will satisfy us with a full measure of Himself.
We hear a lot about “burnout.” While we all need adequate rest and time off, we can test our labors for the Lord by this: If we’re burned out, probably we’ve been trying to meet others’ needs with our inadequate abilities and resources. But if we come away tired, yes, but with the satisfaction of the fulness of Christ left over in our souls, then the Lord’s blessing was on us.
Do you feel inadequate to serve the Lord? Hudson Taylor, the great 19th century founder of The China Inland Mission, said that when God decided to open inland China to the gospel He looked around to find a man who was weak enough for the purpose (E. H. Broadbent, The Pilgrim Church, p. 40). He also said (Dr. & Mrs. Howard Taylor, Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission; The Growth of a Work of God [China Inland Mission], p. 279), “All God’s giants have been weak men who did great things for God because they reckoned on His being with them.”
Robert Morrison, the first Protestant missionary to China (we stood by his grave in Macao in 1987), was asked, “Do you really expect to make an impact on that great land?” “No, sir,” he replied, “but I expect God to.”
A. T. Pierson said of George Muller, who supported thousands of orphans without ever making their needs known (George Muller of Bristol [Revell], p. 112), “Nothing is more marked in George Muller, to the very day of his death, than this, that he so looked to God and leaned on God that he felt himself to be nothing, and God everything.”
We’re inadequate to meet the overwhelming needs in this world. But when we yield ourselves to our adequate Savior, He blesses, He breaks, and He satisfies.
Copyright Steven J. Cole, 2018, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
December 9, 2018
In practicing for a relay race, runners work hard to get the handoff of the baton right. If a runner drops the baton, the team is immediately disqualified from the race.
Today, I’m handing off the pastoral leadership baton to Dave Berry. If you were here on May 31, 1992, the Sunday that I began as your pastor, I thank you for hanging in with me over these years. You qualify for some sort of special reward in heaven! On that Sunday I preached from this text to explain my major task and yours. I repeated the same basic sermon on March 15, 1998 and again on January 21, 2007. If you’ve already heard it three times, your reward will be even greater!
But Paul’s words here are of utmost importance. I often get emails from people in other cities telling me that they can’t find a church that preaches God’s Word. So I want you to understand (perhaps for the fourth time!) why I have emphasized expository Bible preaching and why Dave will carry that same baton in the years ahead.
J. I. Packer (A Quest for Godliness [Crossway], p. 282) wrote, “We shall never perform a more important task than preaching. If we are not willing to give time to sermon preparation, we are not fit to preach, and have no business in the ministry at all.” He argues (p. 281) that “the well-being of the church today depends in large measure on a revival of preaching in the Puritan vein.” He explains (p. 283), “... to the Puritan, faithful preaching was the basic ingredient in faithful pastoring.” I agree. I believe that biblical preaching is the pastor’s primary task.
Maybe you’re thinking, “You’re saying that because you’re a preacher. Of course preaching is important to you!” But I’m not saying that preaching is important simply because I’m a preacher. I’m saying that preaching is important because God says that it is important in His inspired Word.
Our text is Paul’s final charge to Timothy just before the apostle’s execution. He senses that the time of his departure has come (2 Tim. 4:6). He’s handing the baton to Timothy, his younger friend and understudy. Paul realized that Satan would relentlessly attack God’s Word. Having just emphasized the trustworthy nature of that Word and its vital importance (2 Tim. 3:16-17), he now charges Timothy (and every pastor after him) to be faithful to preach the Word, no matter what the opposition or hardships. But preaching is a two-way street. So Paul’s words are not only a solemn charge to pastors. They also are a solemn charge to all believers to listen to biblical preaching with a view to obedience.
Preaching and obediently hearing God’s Word are of utmost importance in view of eternity.
If Paul had said, “I solemnly charge you, preach the Word,” it would have been a strong exhortation. If he had said, “I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, preach the Word,” it would have been a really strong exhortation. If he had said, “I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, preach the Word,” we’d be off the charts on strong exhortations!
But when he says (2 Tim. 4:1-2a), “I solemnly 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,” I don’t know how he could have said it any more emphatically! It’s as if he grabbed Timothy by his shirt, pulled him to within six inches of his face, and shouted like a drill instructor, “Preach the Word!” Paul gives five commands in verse 2 and four more in verse 5. In verses 1-2, Paul shows why preaching the word is of utmost importance. In verses 3-4, he shows why obediently hearing the word is of utmost importance. Then (v. 5), because there will be inevitable opposition to the word, he shows why a faithful pastor must persevere in preaching the Word.
Paul answers four questions: Why preach? What to preach? When to preach it? How to preach it?
The word translated solemnly charge (1 Tim. 5:21; 2 Tim. 2:14) had a legal nuance, of taking an oath in a court of law. Paul is calling Timothy in front of God’s judicial bench and charging him under oath with the serious task of proclaiming God’s Word to those who also will someday stand in front of that bench for judgment by Christ Jesus, who will return to reign over all.
The verb is (before to judge) literally means, is about to. It implies the urgency of the task. The day is soon coming when Christ will return. He came the first time as the suffering Savior to redeem us from our sins. But the second time He will come as the Sovereign King, to defeat all rebellion and to judge the living and the dead. I think that includes just about everyone here! Although as believers in Christ, we will not face condemnation (Rom. 8:1), we all will stand before the judgment seat of Christ to be recompensed for what we have done with our lives (2 Cor. 5:10).
This means that you need to take life seriously. One day you will stand before the Lord Jesus to give an account of your life. The Word of God tells us how to live in a manner pleasing to the Lord (2 Cor. 5:9). Preaching is important because judgment is ahead.
Christ will appear and set up His kingdom to reign over all. The word appear was used of the Emperor’s visit to a province or town. Just before his visit, things were put in order. The garbage was cleaned up, the streets were swept, and the buildings were scrubbed clean for his appearing. During his presidency, Jimmy Carter would sometimes spend the night at the home of some average citizen. If you knew that the President would be spending the night at your house, I’m sure that you’d do some housecleaning! Well, Christ, the King, who is far greater than the President, is coming! Preach so that people will clean up their lives and be ready for His return.
Some scholars argue that the word means the gospel. I don’t object to that, as long as by “the gospel” you include the whole counsel of God as contained in all of Scripture. In the original text, there is no chapter break between 2 Timothy 3:16-17 and 4:1-5. All Scripture is profitable for teaching (3:16) or instruction (4:2, a related word). A preacher must explain and apply the doctrines of the Bible so that when he’s done, you can look at the biblical text in its context and say, “I understand what it is saying and how it applies to my life.”
“Preach” means “to herald.” The herald was the king’s messenger who relayed the king’s message to the people. He wasn’t free to make up his own stuff. He wasn’t a politician or diplomat or a spin doctor. His job was to proclaim faithfully the king’s message so that the people understood it. Even so, the preacher’s message should come out of the text and be governed by the text.
There is a sad lack of that kind of biblical preaching in American churches. I once listened to some tapes titled, “The best of ...” a well-known preacher. He took his theme loosely from a biblical text, but then he’d jump off from there and tell a lot of uplifting stories. But when he was done, he had not explained or applied the words of the text in its context. You could have removed all the Bible verses and the result could have appeared in Reader’s Digest, not much altered by the absence of the Scriptures.
But Scripture gives us “the wisdom that leads to salvation” and equips us for every good work (2 Tim. 3:15-17). It reveals to us “everything pertaining to life and godliness” (2 Pet. 1:3). If a pastor doesn’t explain and apply Scripture, his preaching may be entertaining and inspiring; but it will lack life-changing power.
Although I disagree with much of Karl Barth’s theology, I admire him for an incident that happened during the 1930’s (told by Michael Ladra, Ministry Journal, July, 1985). He was preaching on John 3:16. Even though many in his German congregation professed to be Christians, they were sympathetic to Hitler’s persecution of the Jews. Barth made the point that Jesus was a Jew, that He had died for all the world, and that the Jews were part of that world. Thus anyone who loves Christ would not participate in the widespread ill treatment of the Jews. Many in his congregation walked out in disgust before he finished the sermon. One wrote a scathing letter denouncing him. Barth’s reply was a single sentence: “It was in the text.”
That kind of preaching takes courage! But the man who proclaims the Word of God must not pull his punches. He must be patient and gentle, but he must proclaim and apply the text of Scripture as the King’s message.
So, why preach? Preach because of Christ’s coming judgment and kingdom. What to preach? Preach God’s Word. Third,
“Be ready in season and out of season.” The idea here is that a preacher is not to play at preaching. Rather, it must be a life-consuming passion. He is never off duty. All his life and his walk with God go into the preaching of the Word, because biblical preaching is God’s truth imparted through a man who walks with God. “Be ready” implies a sense of urgency. Picture a paramedic unit on call, ready to save someone’s life. Souls are perishing without Christ. Christians are straying from the fold. Proclaim God’s Word whenever and wherever you can!
The 18th century evangelical preacher John Berridge was called in by the Anglican bishop and reproved for preaching at all hours of the day and on every day of the week. “My lord,” he replied, “I preach only at two times.” The bishop pressed him, “And which are they, Mr. Berridge?” He quickly responded, “In season and out of season, my lord” (A. Skevington Wood, The Inextinguishable Blaze [Eerdmans], p. 212).
2 Tim. 4:2b: “Reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.” Biblical preaching should show people where their lives are not in line with God’s truth and help them to make the necessary corrections to obey that truth consistently. Martin Luther put it (in David Larsen, The Company of the Preachers [Kregel], p. 157), “Always preach in such a way that if the people listening do not come to hate their sin, they will instead hate you.”
To do this, a preacher must make an appeal to the reason of the hearers: “Reprove.” This is a legal term that means to present your case in such a manner as to convince your opponent of his wrong. A preacher must present his case in a logically convincing manner from the Word, so that his hearers are persuaded that what Scripture says is right even if their behavior is wrong. The Holy Spirit’s task is to reprove (convict) the world concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8). He does this largely through Spirit-filled biblical preaching.
Second, a preacher must make an appeal to the conscience of the hearers: “Rebuke.” This moral aspect of preaching says, “You are sinning against God; you need to repent!” We tend not to like that sort of thing, but it is desperately needed in our day of watered-down, feel good Christianity. William Barclay rightly said (The Letters to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon [Westminster Press], rev. ed. p. 207): “Any teacher ... whose teaching tends to make men think less of sin is a menace to Christianity and to mankind.”
Third, a preacher must make an appeal to the will and emotions of the hearers: “Exhort.” The word means strongly encouraging someone to right behavior. Some people need rebuke and some need encouragement. If you encourage those who need rebuking, you’re helping them to go on sinning. But if you rebuke those who need encouragement, you’ll discourage them. Someone has said, the preacher’s job is to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. Only the Holy Spirit can take His Word and apply it individually to a congregation made up of all sorts of needs.
The preacher becomes the channel for the Spirit’s working when he appeals with “great patience and instruction.” People require time to change. They don’t always get it the first time around. So the preacher of the Word must say it over and over again from different biblical texts. Patience does not mean tolerating open sin, but rather, bearing with people’s weaknesses. But the preacher doesn’t just leave the people in their weakness; he gives them practical instruction so that they can grow in Christ.
Thus Paul is saying that preaching the Word is of utmost importance in light of the coming judgment and kingdom of Jesus Christ. But even great preaching that falls on closed ears and hardened hearts is not effective. Thus,
2 Timothy 4:3-4: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate [lit., ‘heap up’] for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.” They will find teachers who tell them what they want to hear, not what they need to hear.
I heard Stuart Briscoe say that he asked a Sunday school class what they did with the commands in the Bible. A little old lady raised her hand and said, “I underline them in blue.” That’s nice, but not exactly the point! The commands of the Bible should be obeyed because God gave them to us for our good.
In the Pastoral Epistles Paul frequently mentions “sound doctrine” (1 Tim. 1:10; 2 Tim. 4:3; Titus 1:9; 2:1; “sound words” in 1 Tim. 6:3; 2 Tim. 1:13). “Sound” means healthy (we derive our word “hygienic” from it). Sound doctrine results in healthy Christian living. Note that Paul sets sound doctrine in contrast to what people like and thus it must be endured! Like healthy food, healthy doctrine isn’t always something we like, because it confronts our selfish desires, but in the long run it yields healthy Christianity. Why didn’t God make broccoli unhealthy and ice cream healthy?
Paul warns that people [in the church is the implication] will turn aside from the truth to myths—the religious ideas of men as opposed to God’s revelation in Scripture. The propensity of sinful human hearts is to turn away from God’s truth and to embrace what feels good at the moment. So preachers face the powerful temptation, especially if they want to be liked, to give people the ice cream of popular worldly myths instead of the broccoli of God’s truth. But don’t judge a man’s preaching by whether you like it or not. Rather, answer the question, “Does his preaching line up with what God’s Word says?” Does it come from the text?
I try to serve the broccoli of the Word along with the ice cream (thankfully, the Word contains both!). That’s one reason for preaching verse by verse through the Bible. It gives the right proportions of spiritual broccoli and ice cream. I try gently but firmly to confront sin with God’s truth as well as tell you God’s prescription for spiritual health. But my job is only half the task. You have the responsibility as hearers of the Word not to reject the broccoli and want only the ice cream or to go find a place that only serves ice cream. You will not be spiritually healthy if you do. You need to hear the Word with a heart eager to obey it.
But what if people don’t listen? Then what should a preacher do? Paul tells Timothy in verse 5:
2 Tim. 4:5: “But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” When people won’t listen, the preacher must keep preaching the Word anyway. It is a pointed reminder that a man of God must go against the flow, even at times against the “Christian” flow. Paul gives four commands that show Timothy how to conduct his ministry even when people aren’t responsive:
First, “Be sober” (literally, “Don’t be drunk”). When people get intoxicated with the latest winds of false doctrine, you’re the designated driver. Keep your head about you and continue preaching the truth.
Second, “Endure hardship.” If you preach the truth of God’s Word, you will catch flak. Harry Ironside (Timothy, Titus, & Philemon [Loizeaux Brothers], p. 236) said that he sometimes received letters from people (invariably people he didn’t know personally) who would say, “I resent your personal attack on me last Sunday. I don’t like your preaching; and I don’t think you had any right to expose me in the way you did. I don’t know who has been talking to you about me.” And invariably they closed by saying, “It’s not true.” Then he quoted someone who said, “If you throw a stone into a pack of dogs and one of them yelps, you know who got hit.”
Third, “Do the work of an evangelist.” Don’t get sidetracked by critics in the church, but keep preaching the gospel and going after lost people. The enemy wants us to get sidetracked from preaching the gospel, because the gospel is how God saves sinners. And the gospel also strengthens the saints. Martyn Lloyd-Jones said (Preaching and Preachers [Zondervan], p. 150), “There is something essentially wrong with a man who calls himself a Christian and who can listen to a truly evangelistic sermon without coming under conviction again, without feeling something of his own unworthiness, and rejoicing when he hears the Gospel remedy being presented.”
Finally, “Fulfill your ministry.” Paul is saying, “Don’t bail out of the ministry and go into an easier line of work just because you run into opposition. Fulfill your calling as a preacher of God’s truth! Follow me in fighting the good fight so that you will finish the course” (2 Tim. 4:7).
Years ago in California, I was going through a time of unusual attacks against my ministry. On a day off, Marla and I were driving somewhere and got stopped by road construction. As we sat there waiting for the flagman, I watched a guy driving a bulldozer and thought, “That looks like a nice line of work! He just pushes dirt around all day and at quitting time, he leaves his bulldozer and goes home.” It was tempting, but Paul is saying, “Don’t bail out!” John Calvin (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], p. 255) makes the point that rather than giving up because of opposition, the more intense the opposition, the more vigorously we must fight, to ward off Satan’s attacks on the church. So don’t quit because of opposition. Preaching the Word is a fight! Defend the gospel against all attacks.
So, Dave, I’m handing you the baton. Your main job is to preach the Word of God faithfully, no matter what kind of opposition you may encounter. Church (I’m including myself), our main job is to hear God’s Word with hearts eager to obey. Phillips Brooks described preaching as “truth poured through personality” (Haddon Robinson, Biblical Preaching [Baker], 1st ed. p. 24). That means, thankfully, Dave is not me, so don’t judge him because he is different than I am. God made him that way and God will give us His message through Dave if we listen with receptive hearts.
Paul goes on to say (2 Tim. 4:6), “the time of my departure has come.” That’s true of us all! Very soon we’ll all stand before the Lord Jesus Christ, the Judge of the living and the dead. In view of that solemn day, it’s essential that our pastor makes it his priority to preach God’s Word. It’s also essential that we listen to the preaching of God’s Word with a view to obedience. Then on that great day when we all stand before Christ, we will hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant!”
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2018, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation