Preaching to Real People
This message was delivered August 25 at the 2022 Send Twin Cities Preaching Workshop.
Shepherd the flock of God that is among you
Three texts to interpret: the Scriptures, the wider culture, your people
Our aim is that by knowing and obeying the Scriptures, our people would shine like stars in the midst of the wider culture
You have to know the culture so that you can equip your people to live faithfully in it
Danger: gathering Christians together in order to unload on the sins of the world
Danger: preaching about the sins “out there” or online or “in that church”
Better: Assume that the sins that are manifest outside are present in subtle and seed-form inside. Address both. Don’t condemn the mature form and ignore the seed.
Some people say “Don’t preach to the choir.” The choir needs some preaching. The issue is that you want the choir to say both Amen and Ouch.
The main point of the text does not have to be the main point of your sermon.
More precisely: the main point of the text (in terms of exegesis) does not have to be the main point of your application
The Bible (or at least, the individual books) was written for us, but not to us. The issues in Galatia are not identical to the issues in your church.
Therefore, it’s appropriate to take up a minor point in a text and press it home in a major way in your church (if that’s what your church needs).
Imitate the apostolic method; don’t slavishly ape the apostolic application (i.e. don’t try to force your church to be Corinth or Ephesus or Rome).
Paul’s example of boldness
And in this sermon, Paul addresses the crowd as though they were misled. He doesn’t come out guns blazing. He doesn’t call them sons of the devil for opposing the gospel and trying to kill him. He recognizes that their hostility was stirred up by false accusations and so instead of going nuclear (like Stephen does at his martyrdom), Paul tries to identify with this mob, to bridge the gap in order to lead them to Jesus:
He emphasizes their shared Jewish heritage (22:3-4)
He emphasizes their shared zeal for God (“as all of you are this day”). Notice this: he doesn’t root their violence toward him in enmity toward the gospel; he gives them the benefit of the doubt and says, “I know that you’re here today because you have a zeal for God. I completely understand, because I was educated according to that zeal for God and his law. You and I? We’re the same.”
He emphasizes that he too persecuted Christians, dragging them to prison and even supervising executions.
He then describes his encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus. This is the turning point of his life, and you can see what he’s trying to do. “I was a persecutor like you, zealous for God. And then Jesus knocked me off my horse and redirected my zeal. I’m still zealous for God, but my zeal is shaped and formed by the death and resurrection of the Messiah for my sins.” And even here he is trying to build bridges in order to persuade them. He emphasizes that Ananias, the Christian who came to restore his sight and baptize him, is “a devout man according to the law, well spoken of by all the Jews in Damascus” (22:12). In the midst of this, he weaves in the gospel: Jesus is the Righteous One (22:14). By calling on his name, your sins can be washed away (22:16). Baptism is the public identification with Jesus and his people. Then, note that after his conversion, Paul emphasizes that he came to the temple to pray. His Christianity didn’t lead him to turn away from Judaism; it fulfilled his Judaism.
In a vision, the Lord tells him to leave Jerusalem, because the people won’t accept Paul’s testimony. Paul then reiterates his former persecution of the church: imprisoning Christians and approving of Stephen’s execution. Now, before I show you how he ends this sermon and his testimony, I want you to see how Paul is preaching the gospel to these people. He’s surrounded by a mob of people who are zealous for God and the law, and who just got done beating a follower of Jesus. And he knows that they did so because they were stirred up by slander and false accusations, by the mis-leaders, by apostles from the world. So what does he do? He tries to show them that even persecutors can be transformed. And they can do so without losing their zeal for the God of Israel. He’s essentially saying, “I was like you. I thought zeal for God meant opposing and persecuting followers of Jesus. But then my story collided with Jesus, and he changed everything. Well, not everything. I’m still zealous for God. Christians are devout people with good reputations. But by calling on the name of Jesus, the Righteous One, my sins have been washed away. And yours can be too. You don’t have to reject my testimony about Jesus.”
So what’s the lesson for us? If possible, we need to help people see that they can be transformed by Jesus. When we can, we must identify with people and show them that we were just like them. Unrighteous, liars, thieves, sexually immoral, homosexuals, drunkards, greedy: that’s who we were. But we were washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). And what’s more, we need to help people to see what parts of their life must die for good, and what parts will be raised and transformed. When Jesus calls a man, he bids him come and die. We must all die with Christ. But if we die with Christ, we will be raised and some of our former life will be raised and transformed. Violence toward Christians must die for good. But the zeal for God beneath it—than can be raised and transformed. Our task is twofold: to help people to see where they are right now, and to help them see where they might be, if Jesus collides with their story, and transforms them like he’s transformed us.
So, Paul is speaking to this mob like refugees from the world, like those who have been misled by slander. He’s becoming like a Jew in order to win them, identifying with them and their concerns and their passions and zeal in order to show them the way out of their sin. He’s really trying to win them to Jesus. Now notice how Paul ends his sermon, and how the crowd reacts.
And he [Jesus] said to me, ‘Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’” Up to this word they listened to him. Then they raised their voices and said, “Away with such a fellow from the earth! For he should not be allowed to live.” (22:21-22)
4) Notice that they were listening to Paul; they were eating it up. Some of them may have begun to see themselves in Paul and be on the way to calling on Jesus. And then Paul has to go and spoil it by mentioning the inclusion of the Gentiles in the people of God. At this, the crowd again goes ballistic, and the sermon is over. I’m confident that Paul knew good and well what reaction his words were likely to get. Remember what stirred this crowd up in the first place: they thought Paul brought a dirty Gentile into the temple (21:28-29). Paul knows that those zealous for the law can easily despise Gentiles. He knows that better than anyone. And yet, in his testimony when he has them hushed into silence listening to how Jesus changed his life, he says it anyway. He could’ve held off. He could have ended the sermon with, “I was like you. Now you can be like me. Call on Jesus. He’ll wash away your sins and purify your zeal for God.” But he doesn’t leave it there, because he can’t leave it there. He has to be bold. He has to be clear and courageous about who Jesus is and what sin is.
And this is a challenging lesson for us. It’s easy to want to preach the aspects of the gospel that people will like, to smooth over the rough edges so that we can win people to Jesus. “We’ll talk about all of the hard truths after they believe. We’ll call that “discipleship.” For now, we’ll intentionally avoid talking about the aspects of the truth that we know will set them off.” Brothers and sisters, we cannot do that. When we call people to repent of their sins, their bigotries, their idolatries, we cannot avoid the ones that we know will make them angry. God sent Jesus to bless us by turning every one of us from our wickedness (Acts 3:26). Our wickedness. The particular wickedness that belongs to us. You can’t preach the gospel to a white supremacist and not call him away from his racial pride and hatred. You can’t preach the gospel to a partying frat guy and not call him away from his drunkenness and debauchery. You can’t preach the gospel to a practicing homosexual and not call him away from practicing homosexuality. You can’t preach the gospel to contemporary egalitarian progressives and not call them away from their commitment to a false view of human nature, and marriage, and men and women and sex.
Such preaching may end the relationship. They may say, “Away with such a bigot.” But faithfulness to Jesus means that we don’t have the right to adjust the truth to suit their sin.
Think of it this way: our call is to testify to the truth, to witness to who Jesus is and what he has done. We hope and we pray that our witness and our testimony is persuasive, that God moves and that people embrace the good news. But our testimony and our witness is faithful, whether it leads to conversion or to rejection. We are the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing, the aroma of life to life and the aroma of death to death. So we cannot compromise, minimize, soften, or hide the truth in order to win converts. We must bear witness, regardless of the response.
Practicals
How do you do this?
Preach out of your counseling ministry. Know your people.
Use wisdom in how you weave it into your sermon. It will require creativity so that you aren’t using your people as sermon fodder. Get concrete, but not personal.
In speaking comfort, you can sometimes get more specific. Let people know that you see them. “I have you in mind.”
Rely on your team. Marshall the resources of your elder team in identifying the key issues, sins, temptations, and tendencies of your people. “Shepherd the flock among you” is a command given to elders (plural).
Know yourself. Know your own temptations and sins and preach to yourself.
Know your reluctances, hesitations, and reactions.
One of the things I’ve learned over the years in preparing to preach is to pay attention to my reluctances. Whenever I’m preparing the sermon, there will be times where I will have a subtle check about saying what I’m seeing out loud, or applying what I’m seeing in a certain way. A little hesitation. An intuition. An impulse to steer in a different direction, or add a qualification.
Now I’ve learned that those sorts of moments are of vital importance in preaching and teaching. I’ve learned to interrogate those reluctances, hesitations, intuitions, and impulses. Where are they coming from? And where do they want to take the sermon?
So when did the reluctance show up in preparing to preach this passage? Whenever I started to describe the task of the elders in terms of rule or authority or governance. Whenever I started to describe the responsibility of the congregation to submit and obey the elders. Whenever I started to write the word “rule” or “govern,” I felt an impulse to change it to the word “lead.” The unspoken impulse said, “Don’t say ‘rule’; say ‘lead’” (even though the word “rule” is used in 1 Timothy 5 to describe one aspect of the task of pastoring).
And so I started probing that reluctance and that impulse. Where was it coming from? Because I don’t automatically assume it’s bad. There may be good reasons to move in that direction. But I want to understand the impulse and not simply follow it. Because often that hesitation in me is revealing an awareness I have about you, about this flock. And I’m called to shepherd this flock.
So why was I reluctant to speak about elder’s ruling and governing the church? Because I had an intuition that some people might not like it. Why might they not like it? And there are a lot of answers to that question:
Because we are modern Americans in an egalitarian culture that is allergic to notions of traditional rule and authority, that bristles at talk of obedience to human beings.
Because we are very sensitive to the danger of abusive and domineering leaders, both in the church and outside of it.
And then I probed that idea for a bit. Why are we sensitive to it?
Because we’ve personally experienced such domineering leadership.
Because we live in a mass media environment in which such leadership abuses are widely publicized so that we are all aware that they happen elsewhere.
But as I thought about that source of reluctance, I realized that there was a danger in heeding it. Of course, we’re aware of the leadership abuses around the country. Scandal sells. There are no headlines for fidelity. “Prominent Pastor Abuses His Authority” gets clicks. “Local Pastor preaches 28th Faithful Sermon of the Year” does not. “Evangelical Leader Has Inappropriate Relationship with His Assistant” gets clicks. “Pastor’s Family Enjoys Third Friday Family Fun Night of the Month” does not.
In other words, our sensitivity to abusive leadership is driven in part by the reality of abusive leadership, and in part by the relative publicity of abusive leadership in a mass media environment driven by scandals and clicks. And my intuitive awareness (or at least suspicion) of that sensitivity meant that I felt an impulse to shy away from the language of “rule” and “obey.”
Why then did I want to use the word “lead” instead? I spent less time considering that question, but my first answer is that, in a democratic society, we choose our leaders. And thus, if I don’t like one leader, I can choose a different one. If the elders of one church don’t suit you, go down the street to another. If you don’t want to follow this group of elders, then you can always choose a different group.
And now I felt I had at least some understanding of my reluctance. I think I see it more clearly, and therefore (perhaps) see the needs, concerns, and temptations of this flock better (and if I’m wrong, there are nine other guys who can help me see better). So then what do I do or say in response? First, I felt I needed to say it. The words “rule” and “govern” needed to be in the sermon; they are Bible words. And elders are called to shepherd the flock of God, not coddle the sensitivities of the flock.
At the same time, some of the sensitivity is driven by the real danger of overbearing domineering rule. And so I also felt it important to use multiple terms to describe the task (lead, feed, govern, guide, rule, guard), lest the connotations of one term mislead. I felt it important to clarify the boundaries of that rule (in the appropriate sphere; there is a Chief Shepherd, and I’m not him), and the plurality of that rule (there’s a team) so that the checks and balances are clear. And I felt it was important to clearly name the danger of domineering leadership, so that you know that we pastors know that it’s a danger, and you can hold us accountable—pastor, practice what you preach.
And here’s the amazing thing—in order to do all of that, all I had to do was preach what’s in the passage. It’s all there—the boundaries, the plurality, the danger of domineering. All I had to do was to humbly stay close the text and unpack the word of God, willingly, eagerly, and as an example for you.
