This Ministry Belongs to God: Clear, Faithful Proclamation

Now popularity preaching is this, you go to a church and the guy gets up and he preaches to you and he tells you how great you are. This is wonderful. Who doesn't like to hear about how great we are? You're wonderful. You're special. You've got all these gifts and abilities. You are important and all that. Listen, the the largest church in America, the most watched television church in America has a guy that smiles to you and proclaims that each and every sermon. You are wonderful. You are great and God sure is lucky to have you on his team. [00:29:57] (41 seconds)  #HumilityOverFlattery

Everything we're gonna do, we're gonna seek to honor God and his word, and we're gonna do things before you. So you should ask questions about it. If you wonder about something that we do, you should have every right to ask the question why. Because we don't wanna do it our way, we wanna do it God's way. And if the leaders of a church can't point you and say the reason why we're doing it is found in this book, then we shouldn't be leaders in the first place. [00:35:10] (25 seconds)  #GodsWayNotOurs

Whatever we're doing as a church, if it is not shining light in a dark world, listen to me very, very careful. We have ceased to be a church and we've become a community center. Now does that mean we we can't have potluck and pickleball? We can't we can't enjoy fun and time? No. That that absolutely, we should be doing those things. We should be enjoying those things and I hope that you go and participate in those things. But all of those things should be catalyst to us pointing people to Jesus Christ. [00:36:36] (37 seconds)  #ChurchPointsToJesus

The bible tells tells us these four things about us as human beings that Satan has blinded us, that sin has seduced us, that shame has condemned us, and stubbornness has hardened us. So if that is our perspective and that's God's perspective of us, Then what good is it for us just to have fun and games? What good is it for us just to go through the motions? Because all that's gonna do is keep people blinded and dead in their sin. [00:37:22] (36 seconds)  #BlindedBySin

And so we need to know and recognize that what Paul is communicating is, listen, it tastes like wine, it smells like wine, but it isn't wine. It may taste like the gospel. It may smell like the gospel, but it's not the gospel. It's something that is diluted. And we need to be more discerning about those things and we need to challenge it whether it's from this pulpit or any other pulpit to say, I need the gospel and here's why. [00:32:42] (27 seconds)  #DiscernTheGospel

Friends, listen to me. You and I, we're dirty, rotten, filthy scoundrels. We are dirty to the core. We invent ways of doing evil. And by the grace and mercy of God, he didn't just send us to hell right away. He sent his one and only son that we might have life. And we need to hear that. And we need to know that that that what is natural to us is inclinations of the harder to do evil. [00:30:43] (31 seconds)  #WeAreAllSinners

So there are a lot of churches that dilute the fullness, the whole council of God's word by picking and choosing passages that move the needle. Now we have a discipline here. And the discipline you see and you've been a part of is a strategic commitment. It's our guarantee to you that the predominant way we are going to teach you is through a steady diet of verse by verse exposition of scripture. [00:28:30] (30 seconds)  #VerseByVerseTeaching

The bible says by by the apostle Paul, we are blind dead and held captive by the evil one. We are children under the wrath of God. But God who is rich in his mercy has sent Jesus Christ in the world has taken away our blinders and has given us eyes to see and ears to hear what God wants of his people. [00:33:21] (23 seconds)  #GodOpensEyesToTruth