All Sermons

Preaching Conference Part 4 By David Cook

Other Talks on preaching can be found at SMBC bibletalks

Now this morning I'm going to change the order of things, if you're over there you're probably
better sitting over here because I'm going to work with the overhead quite a lot in the
first session before morning C. So what I'm going to do this morning is I'm going to talk
about an area that's not outlined in your booklet which I've entitled preparing the
preaching program then in just before morning C we'll prepare a sermon from the letters
and then after morning C I'll talk about clarity and preaching and then I'll preach
the sermon that we prepared before morning C. So first of all I think I want to talk
about developing a preaching program and I just want to show you a couple of years of
preaching programs that I have developed.
Now the first step, so none of this is outlined so you just need a blank sheet of paper for
anything that you think is worthy of note.
I'm just going to make a number of points by way of introduction into the development
of a preaching program and then throw up a few preaching programs on the overhead.
The first step is that you must keep in mind in preparing a preaching program is that you
must know your people so you must know what their needs are, you must know what their
hopes and pains are, you must know their interests and so you've got to therefore start with
the most basic issue, how long should I preach and when I got out of theological college
and went to parish I knew how long I should preach, I'd preach, all good evangelical
boys preach for 35 minutes and the congregation if they can watch Sale of the Century for
30 minutes five nights a week they can listen to a sermon for 35 minutes.
Well I was preceded in my first parish by what one elder told me in my second week was
a brilliant topical preacher, he'd been alive many years and he'd never heard as good
a preacher as my predecessor which was very challenging for me, greatly encouraging and
so I got up and started to expound the scriptures for 35 minutes at a go and then I remember
being in the main street of Weowool one day and an old bloke who was the secretary of
the local hospital, he said you know you preach far too long, you preach twice as long as
you should, we can't take it, you know that don't you, everybody's saying we can't take
it, why don't you cut it back?
So I immediately went to 20 minutes, so that following Sunday we went back to 20 minutes
because I think you've got to listen to people and from there I gradually built up and up
until we got to 35 minutes again four or five years later but I think the important thing
especially in a country parish I found that it was vitally important to be visiting people
and I think that's the case in a city parish as well and I know that there are lots of
issues with visitation but I think we've got to get out and visit in order to know what's
going on in people's lives so that we can preach effectively to them.
In Ashfield we started, in the city, we started what we call the vestry hour, it was not held
in the vestry and it didn't go for an hour but apart from that it was an accurate title.
Every Wednesday afternoon from 3.30 to 6.30 we had open mans and people knew they could
come and talk to us about any issue, we had a lady who'd just come out of the exclusive
brethren and she was there every second Wednesday afternoon with a great long list of questions
mostly about why we don't talk about the doctrine of separation enough but what would happen
is Maxine would be in the kitchen, she'd get the food ready and be cooking coffee and there'd
be someone in my office and then someone would go through to the kitchen waiting to come
into my office, they'd talk to Maxine, having talked to Maxine they didn't need to talk
to me and so that's the way it worked and it was just brilliant because everybody always
said oh we know you're so busy we don't want to interrupt you but if you have open mans
once a week then they know they can come, we're there to be interrupted, please come
and interrupt us.
Late last year I preached at Terrigal Uniting Church and the minister there every Tuesday
afternoon goes down to the wharf at Terrigal, there's a coffee shop on the wharf at Terrigal,
he has his secretary open up the whole afternoon from 2 to 5 o'clock and parishioners can
book in for half hour slots, he says every Tuesday afternoon he has a full afternoon
of people who just come in, they know they've got a half an hour, they come in he said by
the end of the time he's over caffeine on the coffee but he does in half an hour slots
people just come and talk to him about any issue and I think it's this whole issue that
I'm so busy I haven't got time to talk to people, blank out some space, go and sit at
the wharf or wherever you are and tell people please book in and come and talk to you and
having hospitality, Sunday lunch is particularly important as well because we need to know
where people are at.
You know how Calvin begins the institutes, true wisdom he says consists of two parts,
knowledge of God and knowledge of ourselves, that's how the institutes begin and therefore
we need to know people and we need to know what's going through their mind and we need
to be sensitive to that and that means that we just, look let me tell you a case study,
we have a friend who was a member of a church for 30 years, his wife tragically died of
cancer, 20 to 30 years, his wife tragically died of cancer therefore for a few weeks he
wasn't at church, he had no contact from the pastoral team of the church, a month or so
later having not returned to church he received the church newsletter with a printed form
around the letter saying hi there, printed, we've missed you at church, thought you'd
be interested in the church notice paper.
He wrote back to the pastor and said hi there, thanks for sending me the church newsletter,
please take my name off the church membership role.
That was insensitive pastoring, this man had lost his wife, they had been members of the
church for a number of years, the only contact after five or six weeks of absence was a roniade
sheet that said hi there, thought you'd be interested in the news from the church.
Now we've got to be careful, everywhere I look I'm a number, I've got PIN numbers,
I've got a medicare number, I'm a number everywhere, to my pastor I mustn't be a number,
I am a person, I'm not just an email address either, if you've got something to say to
me at our church last year when we were in a vacancy, I noticed members of the congregation
were saying things to each other that they should have been saying face to face and they
were saying by email, it's terrible, we had one member of our church resign by email.
We need to eyeball each other, be careful of those things, so we need to get out there
and speak to people and in country towns get into the hospitals and get around, talk to
people, when we were at We War we'd join a local tennis club, I even joined the urban
area community in We War, I didn't know what they were talking about, the first meeting
was KNGs and I thought what are they talking about these people, KNG, kerb and guttering
and I thought man this is incredible, but it just gets you out into the community and
I think we've got to somehow get into the community, so don't be a hermit, you've got
to get to know people.
Now the other thing I think about when I think about preaching programs is there's got to
be a variety of style, I don't always want to preach in exactly the same way, sometimes
you can do first person sermons, you can become the character for example, now you can't do
that too much because it puts a lot of pressure on you, you've virtually got to memorise your
material and you don't want people turning up to church thinking I wonder who he's going
to be this week, that sort of thing, but I have seen in our own chapel a fellow who preached
a sermon and had someone sitting miming, so the fellow who was sitting on the platform
was actually preparing the sermon in his mind and this fellow is narrating how he prepared
the sermon, it was very clever, it was actually an exposition of Genesis chapter 1, he was
expounding it, but this bloke was playing him, but all your focus was on him and what
he was thinking while the preacher standing over there and putting words into his mind
and he's sitting there oh should I say that and it gave him the ability to be able to
say things directly to the college leadership, like he challenged us oh can I actually say
that the college is wrong and that it does not recycle paper or the faculty is going
to be there should I say it or shouldn't I, you see by doing it that way, having the mind
character sit there and wonder about that you're able to say things that you may be
embarrassed saying if you're just preaching a normal sermon, an orthodox sermon. I've
also seen debates which are good, but I don't think that you should have debates in place
of sermons. Question time as well I think can be helpful, but I always make sure my
question time is separated from the sermon so as not to give the impression that well
that's what I've got to say, what have you got to say, that sort of thing, it's up for
debate, but question time, when we were in our last parish we'd always have question
time in our house after the evening service. Debate and drama is no substitute for preaching
but you can go first person and I think in an evangelistic setting the idea of having
a panel type of gospel presentation can be very helpful as well.
Well so variety is the spice of life, now in many congregations in Sydney this is what's
happening, now let me tell you about our local Anglican church, they have a service
at 7.45, 9, 10.30am, 5pm and 7pm so they've got five services a day. I know Dubbo last
weekend I was out there and the local Presbyterian church has a service I think at 9, 11 and
7 and they have one sermon through the day so you only go to church once unless you want
to hear the same sermon twice. Now I think in the local Anglican church there's one
sermon in the morning to 7.45, 9 and 10.30 and then they have another sermon at night
for people who are used to going twice on Sunday. Now I think that's my generation,
if I stay home Sunday night I feel guilty, so we go to church twice but that sort of
generation is passing away and I think people actually go to one service, so at Dubbo there
are three pastors, one for each service and there are three separate congregations, they
have a combined eldership, a combined committee of management but there are three pastors
so you belong to nine, you belong to eleven or you belong to seven and what happens is
that a lot of people go to other churches in the morning and come to the seven o'clock
service at night. So I think it's good to provide independent sermons as well, now in
my thinking about preaching when I develop a preaching program I want to be doing Old
Testament, Gospel and Epistle, so I'm looking for a three-fold designation, I want something
on the Old Testament, a series on the New and a series on Gospel and a series on Epistle
or you might just have Old Testament and New Testament. Others will choose themes, topics,
doctrines as well but whenever I cover a topic I always do it from an expository viewpoint,
I'm always going through and explaining a passage because I think that I do not preach
doctrinally so I don't expound the doctrine giving an overview of what the Bible is saying
because I think every time I get the congregation to turn a page I'm potentially confusing them,
if I'm going to preach on a section of the Bible I want them to eyeball that page and
not take them back to Genesis, then to Isaiah, then to Matthew, then to Revelation.
The way you build your preaching program, I take it these days will be built around
the school term and you've got four terms in the year and about 10 weeks of the school
term is an ideal place to begin to work out how you're going to be preaching your sermon series.
Now let me just show you a typical year therefore, I think you can see that, right so now what
we've got in the morning is we've got term 1, 2, 3, 4, 10 weeks per term. Now okay I'll
start the year if we've had an evangelistic emphasis the previous year, Christianity Explained
running, I'll start the year with a series for a new believer. Now these are actually
series I've done as principals in college and so I'm talking to Bible college students
at an average age, 28 years of age with some sort of theological background but I think
it's important for us all to be involved in mentoring someone and last year a friend
of my son, my son's best man at his wedding got converted and I undertook to just meet
with him and disciple him through the year so all the things we covered in our discipleship
sessions I thought well I'll turn this into a sermon series for a new believer. I'll
show you that in a moment but basically that's a topical or doctrinal series on basic discipling
but every sermon is going to be an exposition of a passage. We then move on to Old Testament
in the morning Daniel and then the Unheeded Christ series, the first of which I did yesterday
on Matthew's Gospel is really a series of 10 sermons on Matthew's Gospel and then Romans
1-8 so you've got Gospel, Epistle, Old Testament and a doctrinal series. At night you've got
a letter, Epistle, then how to read the Bible. I think that was probably in my parish experience
the most successful series of sermons I ever did, that is how to read the Bible, a basic
series on hermeneutics, introductory sermons on what the Bible is and then show people
how to apply principles of interpretation to each type and then we do a Gospel and then
we do a series on the Holy Spirit. Now in between you can do various things but you'll
see here that I've got the fifth Sunday is Sunday with a difference. I think you've just
got to be thinking about these things but you get three fifth Sundays in the year and
I think it's great to do something completely different on those fifth Sundays. Encourage
your leadership to give you and your wife a weekend off for example, that's different
so you can go away and enjoy yourselves but I reckon it's a great idea to have a special
guest on the fifth weekend. The special guest can come and you can have a church house party
with a difference, you can stay at church, you don't have to go away. So you have a Saturday
night dinner and the speaker speaks and then Sunday morning the speaker speaks again, Sunday
potluck lunch, then Sunday afternoon the speaker speaks or Sunday evening and you've got a
fifth Sunday with a difference. Think for example on the fifth Sunday night of having
a special family night and getting a children's worker in to do puppets or something like
this. So there's variety. Fifth Sunday is important. A friend of mine in his parish
in Sydney is preaching through consecutive Psalms over the school vacation period. So
when school holidays comes he's just doing the next consecutive Psalm and I think he's
up to Psalm 61-62 in the coming school vacation period. So that shows you how long he's been
in the parish. But you can do different things here. You can look at characters in the Bible,
you can take some proverbs and then you've got Christmas as well and Easter. Easter no
longer falls at the end of school term 1 I gather because Easter's moving. They're not
going to tie school holidays to the Easter break. But certainly Christmas gives you the
opportunity to preach on the Christmas theme. Now let's look at a few of these in detail.
Do you want to ask any questions about that? Or perhaps wait and we'll look at these in
detail. So here is the first series for a new believer. So this is what it's going to
look like and in my case I'm dealing with 12 or 13 weeks. So these are the issues that
I dealt with with the new believer. So the most basic issue, what is a Christian? And
I'll expound John 1. The ubiquitous danger, Romans 5, 1 and 2 which we're going to look
at a bit later. Then we look at the whole issue of doubt. Funny, I kept waiting for
this bloke to raise the fact that he was having doubts but he never did. So I thought I'll
tell you I'm going to prepare a sermon on doubt anyway even though he wasn't having
doubts. I never said to him hey you should be having doubts. I didn't want to feed that
to him. But this new believer that I was deciding never had doubts. But anyway there's a sermon
on doubt and instead of going for doubting Thomas I went for doubting John the Baptist
because I think his model of handling his doubts, go and ask him is he the one, is a
pattern for us in handling doubt. The Holy Spirit, see this second one was about justification.
The two things that blew this bloke's mind were one, the reality of justification and
two, the fact that he now has the Holy Spirit living in him. And every week he'd ask me
to tell him about justification again because it was such a remarkable truth. The Holy Spirit,
the Holy Spirit and the Bible, point five, delighting in God's Word, Psalm 1, the Spirit
and the sinful nature, the battle that's going to go on within Galatians 5, the whole issue
of perseverance, is it preservation or is it perseverance, looking at that. One thing
I do, how to use the mind, single mind, I'm a man of one thing, prayer, money, the Gospel.
Now I've added one more sermon to that and that is the Church and involvement in the
Church from John chapter 15, so I've actually made it into 13 weeks. And the interesting
thing about this series was that there's a guy in Sydney, I don't know about you, but
I find that when you write a sermon you can't adapt the sermon to book form. I find it impossible
to do. But there's a bloke in Sydney who's listened to all these sermons on tapes, transcribed
them into written form, checked all my sources, he's a very thorough barrister and he's now
turned all of this into a book for a new believer and he's calling the book, Old Truths Forever
New. Now I find that very difficult to do but he's done it. So you can simply take,
I've written a book then by simply preparing a series of sermons and he's taken it and
taken all my material and just turned it into a written form. So you can do that if you
do anything that you think, yeah this works well, why not give it to a wider audience?
So that's for a new believer and I found when I did that at college to theological
Bible college students it was used of God to challenge them so you shouldn't think that
it's too basic. Philippians, this is the series that I did at the same time at night and again
I just divided Philippians on this occasion up into 10 passages, just moved through and
I prepared 10 sermon outlines and 10 Bible studies. So this was done at Ashfield originally,
we had small groups and once a year we met together to do common Bible studies. So the
small Bible study groups did their own thing except for one period in the year where they
all came together and in this case they did Philippians so the Bible studies were outlined
and the sermons were outlined as well as just a matter of you have to work well ahead of
yourself at that point, studies to follow. So they'd come to church on Sunday, they'd
hear the passage expounded, they'd go to cell group during the week and they'd study together
the passage, that's Philippians. The Daniel series was something like this, I just did
six on Daniel in this case and at no point should you feel that your series is your master,
that is if there's a death in the congregation or something particularly tragic or September
the 11th, I've got no hesitation in departing from the sermon series, the program because
it's not Lord, I'm Lord over it and introducing a special sermon. But again I think we need
to be moving into Daniel, we need to be moving into prophetic books as well and so this is
just sermon one and two is on the narrative section of Daniel and then the prophetic section
is sermons three to six. Daniel holds the line in uncertainty, he looks to the future
in the certain times it remains faithful even when it costs. So Daniel is a great model
to us of a man who is in exile as we are in exile. This is the series which I did on hermeneutics
and basic interpretation of the Bible. So we look in sermons one to three, you look
at the whole issue of what the Bible is and so I think if I was going to parish today
I'd spend the first 12 months, three months on what is the Bible, I think I'd then spend
three months on what is the nature of people and then so where is our authority, what are
we like and then three months on the doctrine of the church, how we relate to one another
and so this looks at what is the Bible and then from sermon four we look at basic issues
of interpretation and we applied that to Philippians 4.13, I can do all things through
Christ who strengthens me. Then on sermon five we look at the whole issue of washing
feet and wearing hats, what do we do with those sections of the Bible which seem particularly
appropriate to their own culture and so how do you interpret when Jesus says you ought
to wash one another's feet. If we're not going to do that literally then how are we to take
that principle seriously? Then we looked at narrative under section 6, 8 with the judge,
psalms, poetry, wisdom, miracles, parables, prophecy and apocalyptic literature and again
that could be done in parish with studies to follow but that was a particularly helpful
series from the feedback which I got and people really enjoyed doing that because it helped
them in their own Bible study preparation and in their own quiet times.
The unheeded Christ which I talked about yesterday starting with the love of enemies, that's
how I moved through Matthew and those are the sections which I decided to preach on
which are basically unheeded. Do not resist the evil man which comes before love of enemies.
Adultery, you and me, you know what the hound dog game or something, you and me baby ain't
nothing but mammals so let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel that was being
played at the gym when I was there. You and me baby ain't nothing but mammals so adultery
in the mind is adultery, Matthew 5, 27 to 30. Unforgiveness, forgive us our sins as
we forgive those who sin against us. Why not accumulate because we're great accumulators.
The self-delusion of hearing and not doing. Who chooses who in this whole process of becoming
a Christian. I put in Matthew 17 because it was a fascinating one, not particularly unheeded
I just never preached on that. That's where they say hey give us the temple tax, does
your teacher pay the temple tax and Jesus says to Peter, look let's not offend them
go out and the first fish you catch there'll be enough in its mouth for the temple tax
and so go and pay the temple tax and I think that's a fantastic miracle. Of all the miracles
Jesus did I find that the one that's hardest to really come to terms with because it just
seems fantastic. Anyway so I thought I'd preach on that and that was good for me to
preach on that, I shove that in this series. Resolving tension, here is the way to cut
80% of our pastoral difficulties by preaching on that section of Matthew's Gospel, that's
an incredible section. Whoever wants to become great as the servant, Jesus is coming so be
ready. The reality of judgment and the last word on the great commission. Okay so they're
all unheeded sections and again I put out a book with that with studies to go along
with it. And then finally in this section the Holy Spirit, who he is and what he does
and so again you'll notice that though we're looking at the theology of the Holy Spirit
we're looking at passages in the Bible, I'm always going to be expounding the Bible. So
I'm looking at John's Gospel, I'm looking at the Epistle theme. Okay. Right now the
second program that I'll throw up is something, it's going to look something like this and
in this series if you come in the morning we'll do a series on the Christian family
which is most appropriately done in the morning, then a series on people, Gospel and Epistle,
Mark's Gospel, Ephesians. At night we'll do Romans 1-8, Romans 9-16, so Epistle. We'll
do something on the doctrine of God's sovereignty and something on wisdom literature because
I always want to be preaching on wisdom literature in my program. I'd like to be having a series
on wisdom somewhere every year because I think it's vitally important for us. This is what
Romans 1-8 looks like and this follows Cranfield's Expository Times article, 11 1987, November
87, volume 99-2. That's well worth getting because Cranfield, I think his double volume
commentary on Romans is, I personally find it the most helpful of the technical commentaries
on Romans but he summarises, gives an overview of Romans in that Expository Times article.
So if you can get your hand on that and you're going to preach on Romans then I think that
gives you a very helpful outline of the work. I put up here just a few things, all apologetic
eventually rests in the resurrection. What's true of marriage is true of Christian living.
What's true of physical fitness is true of spiritual fitness and all believers' questions
are answered in Romans. So when you go, for example, to Katoombra and it's Question
Time and you think, if you're an unbeliever, whatever you're going to ask me is answered
by the resurrection and if you're a believer, whatever you're going to ask me is answered
by Romans, it just helps concentrate your mind and you think, whatever you ask me, the
answer's in Romans and I think that that's true. The answer is in Romans and it's a great
book, isn't it? I won't say it's the great book but it's a great book in the Bible and
that's how you just break up Romans and we ought to be preaching more on Romans.
Okay, do you want to ask a question about this? Any point?
Yes?
I just wondered if you could comment on this. We've always been asked to be long-haired
and we've been asked to believe and it comes like so many times that sometimes we've
long-haired and have to believe more and more than that.
Yes, yes. Any other comment or questions? We'll just keep going. I'll finish this
in a minute. The 21st century humankind, because I think the great need of our age is what
we believe about people. I think that's our weakest area of knowledge, what we believe
about people and so I would do this on the theme, the harvest to seek for above all things
and beyond cure. God created all things good, the nature of people, Psalm 8, realistic humanism,
Genesis 3, God's photo of ourselves, Romans 3, 9 to 20, God's model man, the need for
complete change, regeneration, true reconciliation, God's purpose for redeemed humanity, the
always appropriate prayer for us, always to be repenting and true personhood, whole
personhood as it's found in John 15. So that just looks at the nature of people because
we know very little about ourselves. The hiddenness of God, this was a series on 6, a theology,
giving people a theology of suffering. This is one that I did last night at the public
meeting. The hidden hand from the book of Esther, the hidden hand at work, Romans 8,
to 30, the hidden hand at the cross, Colossians 2, two case studies, Acts 12 and Stephen,
you know that James has mentioned in one verse that he has martyred and Stephen's given
60 verses or so, responding to the hidden hand and then the hidden hand in your personal
growth from James. What's interesting in my study of the book of Esther of course is
that God is there and apparent on every page but he is never once named and Esther follows
Nehemiah where God is named continually because Nehemiah is a book which is dominated by
Nehemiah's praying to Yahweh and so Nehemiah is always praying and then you go from that
where Yahweh dominates his answers to prayer in the book of Nehemiah to a book in which
he is never named at all and yet he is apparent on every page. That's the hidden hand of God.
And then wisdom and I think wisdom is of vital importance and so you could fill this out
into a series over a number of years but in wisdom you've got a Job, you've got Ecclesiastes,
you've got Wisdom Psalms, Proverbs and Song of Songs and so this series on wisdom might
give the path to godliness, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Two ways
to live, Proverbs chapter 9 is an ideal chapter talking about Lady Wisdom and Madame Folly.
Then we take just a few Proverbs on jealousy and then look at Job in one sermon, the God
who sustains faith in difficult times. Ecclesiastes, what is life all about? Then take a Wisdom
Psalm, what kind of man, what kind of person can live in the world where God lives? Saving
sex for someone special, Song of Songs. I want to be preaching on sex at least once
every year, at least once every year because we are saturated with it in our society and
I don't want congregational members to come along to church to think oh well that's true
of the world but in church it's off limits, it must never be off limits in the pulpit.
God invented sex and therefore he invented the environment in which sex is to be appropriately
expressed so I want always to be preaching on sex and I think that came to be mostly
when I used to take my kids to church when they were young teenagers and I thought man
why doesn't someone preach to them about sex? It's there in the Bible, there's one whole
book about it in the Song of Songs and so every year I want to be doing a series on
sex and I do that at college as well and sometimes at college we divide the students up into
male, female so that we can be even more definite about what we have to say and what's
wrong with doing that at church for example? Taking the women off and sending mature women
along to talk to them and the men off and giving the opportunity to men to be addressed
about issues. The wisdom of God, 1 Corinthians 1 because that sums up the cross, the wisdom
that's from above James and wisdom and the future knowing that the day is coming, God
has set the day therefore repent. Okay and you can turn any of those series into a series
on proverbs or a series on Job or whatever. Okay now does anybody want to ask any questions
or comments about any of that? That's just looking at two annual yearly programs.
Would you include a Catholic sermon among those or would you put an appeal in every sermon?
No I wouldn't put an appeal in every sermon no but I would be sensitive to what the sermon's
about and whether it lends itself to an appeal. I don't want to put an appeal in every sermon
because it just becomes too predictable but I do want to put appeals in because I think
that we are far too, we concentrate far too, we assume too much that all our hearers are
believers and I don't think we can assume that. I think it's true to say that after
18 years at college on present experience I would have to say now that we have always
had an unbeliever in our college. Now we didn't know that at the time but now I look back
it would appear that there are people from most years in our college who once walked
to students of college with Christ who are now not walking with Christ. Now either God
will bring them back, they are regenerate and God will bring them back or they were
never regenerate in the first place. Now you may over a time period be able to look at
members of your own congregation who are just like that and you think they sat in your church
to all intents and purposes you assume they were believers but they may not have been.
So therefore I think that when I preach a series which I'm doing at the moment from
Thessalonians chapter 1 of Thessalonians which is through the authentic Christian experience
I did make an appeal that people should search their heart to make sure they were regenerate
and to respond if they were in repentance and faith. So we need to be thoughtful about that.
A question, a bad example, Lloyd-Jones I think recalls it like to pre-announce what he was
going to be preaching on. What's your view on the giving of the program beforehand or
isn't it the next week? What did you do?
But isn't it true that Lloyd-Jones preached through Romans over a number of years so people
found out Friday night and they knew what was coming next. I always say to students read
Preaching and Preachers by Lloyd-Jones. It's one of the three choices we give them and often
they don't read it because it's the longest of the three choices but I say if you don't read it while
you're at college read it before you die because it's the great classic. That doesn't mean that
everything he says there you're going to agree with like he says collecting illustrations.
I think he says it's adulterous you know it's all this but yet he's got illustrations all the time
that he uses and the taping of sermons. He didn't like it yet you can go and get his sermons taped
through Coorong now and so I think it's good because it says to people I've given prayerful
consideration to this, I'm planning for the future and I want you to join me in this journey by
preparing when you come to church. So I like to tell them that this is what they can expect. However
don't think that when you turn up on the Sunday necessarily if something has happened that I think
that I have a burden from God to preach about I will break from the series. Anything else on this?
How are we all feeling this morning all right? Everybody had a good breakfast.
You could just like to expound on that comment on how we know a burden from God.
I mean if Holy Spirit is offered in three months from now. How do you work out when you're
destroying the holy horse and when a genuine good time to have a program on the side?
Well things can come up like we all of a sudden are committing our men to war in Iraq.
Australia is at war with Iraq. Is there such a thing as a just war? It says lots of talk going on
about this in the paper. Then I as the pastor of the congregation want to seek to give people
a Christian mind. Is it appropriate that people should live in homosexual relationships?
And see we've moved beyond that. Of course that's appropriate. The question now is can we
ordain these people to Christian ministry? The question's gone whether it's appropriate.
Yes of course it's appropriate. Now we talk about whether or not they should be
ordained to it in the church. My mother meets every month on the fourth Friday of every month
with a group of her old customers. So they're all in their late eighties and nineties.
My father used to call them the ballet girls when they'd come right? And they turn up there
and my mother tells me the sorts of things they talk about. And there's one lady there whose
father used to be a Methodist minister and she's always on about how terrible these gensons are.
Isn't it dreadful what they say about not ordaining homosexuals to the ministry?
And my mother says what are you talking about? Do you think that homosexuality is a lifestyle
that's appropriate? And do you think that homosexuals should be being ordained to the ministry?
But it's interesting to listen to what these old women are saying. I want to listen to it.
My mother said on one occasion where they're getting into the gensons, my mother said I want you
to know that everything the gensons believe, my son David believes, oh no, your son's lovely
because they say that to my mother. It's good honour for standing up and saying everything they
believe he believes. So watch yourself. But it's interesting, you sit down and listen.
You say mum, how are the ballet girls? Oh well, she tells me all about what the ballet girls
are talking about. And they're talking about Pauline Hanson. That's a big issue right now.
So I want to be listening to that and therefore if there is an overwhelming event like we are at war
or something, 9-11 has happened, I want to address that at some point. The Port Arthur Massacre.
I would have thought that you're going to depart from a sermon series to deal with that.
Or there is some issue that's come up in the congregation that you believe needs to be addressed.
Now you might let it lie for a while before you address it, but all I'm saying is that the plans
that are right here, you don't know what's in store, what God's going to do in your life
before these come about. You might go through personal tragedy yourself. I did a series I remember
at Wee War. I was in the middle of a series and I started getting funny symptoms and I went to the
doctor and I just read in the Women's Weekly how Betty Cuthbert had been diagnosed with MS.
And I said to the doctor who was a member of our congregation, it seems to me my symptoms are just
like MS. Do you think I've got MS? And he said Dave, it's a real possibility.
And then he got out this big black book and he said I'm only showing you this because you're my friend.
And I said great. And he showed me how MS progresses, how I can have up to ten years of normal life
and the two things that struck me were one, I wouldn't live to be at my children's weddings if they were to marry
and two, I don't want to go to heaven yet because I don't know enough people there.
Now I knew a few old elders from Wee War but that was about it. Now that was a silly way of thinking.
But you see if that happens to you, are you just going to keep going on Sunday for the normal series?
I took a Sunday off and then I came back and preached on what happens to the believer after death.
I preached to myself and I found it really helpful just to go through and see what the Bible teaches about our hope.
And in that context I found Hoyt Kimmer's book The Bible and the Future a great benefit to me.
So see those things may well happen and I want to be free and open to that.
It turned out I don't have MS by the way. I should add that I had migraines which showed themselves in another way
apart from headaches. Did you know that migraine sufferers, 20% of us, don't get headaches?
The migraine shows itself in some other way and in my way it shows itself my face goes numb
which is a problem for a preacher, my face goes numb and then I lose my ability to speak.
I know when it starts, I think uh oh, it's getting two hours, I'm not going to be able to speak.
I've missed one church service as a result of that only in all the years.
Okay, does that answer the question, whatever the question was David?
How do you know when you should depart?
Well I just think you have a particular interest that I need to be preaching on this particular issue.
But it doesn't happen often, people can generally predict that I'm going to preach as I've preached.
Anything else?
Okay, well get into wisdom though and do preach on sex
because I think it's terribly important for us to be preaching on sex
but there are a number of guidelines you should follow when you do preach on sex.
Of course my goal in preaching on sex is I want to preach on sex
so that the grandparents present will come up and buy the tape afterwards to give to their grandchildren.
And I think if I can preach on sex and not offend the grandparents present, I've succeeded.
If I can be true to the Bible and non-offensive to the older generation, then I'm well ahead.
David, do you think that's the only place to preach on sex?
No.
You think it's a very other place to preach on sex?
Yeah, well you see, because you can do it from all the ethical exhortations in the letters for example.
1 Corinthians 6, 1 Thessalonians 4, there's dozens of places where you can preach on sex.
But I think the Song of Songs is a lovely place to preach on sex
because it's in the context we were talking about yesterday,
my beloved is mine and I am his.
And it's in that context that they express sex, it's in that covenant commitment to one another
that is the environment for sex to be expressed.
So I think that's a great truth that comes out of the Song of Songs.
Anything else?
I remember we had a new believer in Wewa and he turned up one Sunday and I preached on sex
and he came out and said, wow, I never expected to come to church and learn something about sex.
And I thought, isn't it great that he can, he can come in an environment to hear what God says about it
because we're far too close.
You look at television, you can just drive along the streets here.
I mean, I drove home last night and there's prostitutes out on the street here in Islington near the Baptist Church.
That's everywhere.
You go along the bus stops and you've got people in alluring poses, it's there all the time.
You can't escape it.
So what is our Christian mind in relation to this?
How are we going to forearm people?
Okay.
Anything else before we move on?
I'm going to move on now to letters, which is the page headed preaching letters.
And we're going to prepare a sermon.
On that page headed preaching letters, I just, when I'm preaching on a letter,
I bear in mind three things that every letter of the New Testament,
and keep in mind that in the New Testament, there are 29 letters.
Now that might surprise you that there are 29 letters because there are only 27 books of the New Testament,
but there are 13 letters by Paul, three by John, two by Peter, one to the Hebrews, one by Jude, one by James.
There are seven letters in the book of Revelation of Jesus to the churches.
And there's one letter from the Jerusalem Council in the book of Acts, Acts chapter 15.
So what I've got to say about letters applies to all 29 different letters.
So you could do a great series on the great letters of the New Testament and just do them in overview.
Now there are three contexts.
Every letter has three contexts.
It has a literary context, it has a cultural context, and it has a theological context.
Now just in overview of these.
Number one, I need to think about the literary context of a letter
because there are different types of letters.
Do you remember when you used to get letters?
I think you don't get them much anymore,
but some letters were private letters of a personal nature, some letters were business letters,
and that's the way it is in the New Testament.
So you've got private letters like the letter to Philemon with regard to Onesimus.
You've got specific letters written for a specific need like the letter to the Romans,
the letter to the Philippians, the letter to the Colossians, the letter to the Corinthians,
the letter to the Thessalonians, they're all specific.
You've got Catholic letters which are sort of written that can be equally applicable to any congregation.
And I take Ephesians, the letters of Peter and John are in that category,
you know that they are as relevant to a congregation in Thessalonica
as they are to the congregation at Colossae.
And then you've got letters that are like tracts like James and Hebrews.
Now therefore what you've got secondly is applied theology in a lot of these letters
and there's that great book with the title,
If Christ is the answer, what are the questions?
That's a good title for a book and it's a good title for a sermon series,
If Christ is the answer, what are the questions?
What you've got in the letters are answers but you're not told often what the questions are.
So you've got to work back from answer to what the question might be.
And so I want to know here is applied theology,
what is the question that's been asked to draw forth this answer?
Thirdly, the other thing I want to remember is that basically when I'm reading a letter,
a paragraph normally, usually but not always represents one unit of thought.
So you've got to be careful about paragraphing but it's generally true
and the paragraphs are quite old as we have them,
that one paragraph represents one unit of thought.
Therefore if I want one big idea, most paragraphs will have one big idea.
And so if I'm moving through a letter I might preach on a few paragraphs
which somehow have a link to one another or I might just preach on a paragraph per week.
And then you've got the New Testament letter form, just be aware of that,
the addressee, the good will section, the body, the conclusion.
Secondly, cultural context and this is particularly important
because we've got to realise that in the Old Testament we're dealing with Hebrew culture
and I've always found Roland de Vaux's book there, Ancient Israel, It's Life and Institutions,
is a great book because he tells you everything there is to know about Hebrew culture.
He even tells you for example how women had babies,
did they have them sitting up, lying down, backwards, frontwards?
He goes into great detail about this, everything, he's got great indexes.
So if you want to know about for example funeral rites in Israel,
he's got sections on it to tell you what the Hebrew culture was like.
And of course in the New Testament, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah by Alfred Eddishon
is a great classic there and helpful as well.
Just keep in mind that the New Testament world was a Greek-oriented world
and you can see cultural influence so that we are basically an age which is dominated by American culture.
We used to be 10 years behind America, now we're right up with them and you see that all around us.
Have you noticed for example on the ABC that they now pronounce words
like process, project, status, all American pronunciations.
We used to say status, we used to say project, we used to say process
but we don't project, process, status.
And if you look at the Macquarie dictionary it will tell you that the way Australians pronounce status
is status is status, project, process, but even on the ABC now
we've just gone along with the American interpretation.
And I go and watch sometimes when my son plays cricket at school
there are some kids now, most kids are leaving cricket and moving into basketball
and I'll be talking to a father about basketball and he'll say
but our defence is bad, and I think what's wrong with him, our defence is bad, our defence is bad.
We talk about having swim meets, not swimming meetings.
We talk about the wide world of sports, not sport, that's all American.
Anyway, let's not get started on that.
So that's the American culture in which we live
and the equivalent in the first century was the Greek culture so I need to understand that.
And I don't know, you might have Bible dictionaries that help you with that
but I find Edershine gives great insight into that area.
Then theological context, so I've got to be aware of what makes the writer tick.
And I just have in mind this sort of thing,
that if I've got James say and I've got him in a headlock
and I say James with your dying breath tell me what makes you tick,
what is your theological core?
What would he gasp out?
What would he say, my theological core is...
And he'd tell me, what would he tell me?
If I said to Paul, tell me what is your theological core?
What would he gasp out to me with his dying breath?
If I said to John and Peter, what is your theological core?
What do you reckon they would say?
Talk to your neighbour, let's do some pair work on this.
What do you think number one James would say on the basis of his one letter?
Okay, I'll give you a minute for each of them.
So let's be quick, James first.
.
Okay, that's time for John.
Now Peter, one and two Peter and Mark's Gospel is also from Peter.
So there's your source, Mark's Gospel one and two Peter.
Mark wrote the Gospel on Peter's eyewitness accounts.
So what's Peter, what's at the heart of Peter and Mark?
Now remember you're getting out there gasping last breath words,
don't be too verbose, they're just going to gasp out their core.
Now the last one, I'll give you double time.
You've got Paul, this is the most difficult.
Now have a look at Paul's, think about Paul's letters in overview and ask yourself
what are his last gasping words to be with regard to his own theological core?
I'll give you double the time for Paul.
Okay everybody, well let's get insight from one another.
So we're going through this exercise in order that we can preach on the letters of these apostles.
So if I'm going to preach, if I for example want to take a letter from you,
I want to know what makes you tick.
So really asking the question what makes these blokes tick?
So what about James, what do you reckon?
What do you reckon makes James tick?
Sorry?
Faith through works.
Right, faith through works, real faith shows itself.
Wisdom is seen in faith working itself out in practice.
Okay, any advance on that?
Everybody fine with that?
Okay, let's go to John.
What do you reckon John's on about?
Right, here in this love, the death of Christ is the great mark of God's love.
Anybody else on that?
Right, so life is a prominent theme isn't it?
Love is a prominent theme and life is a prominent theme.
What's interesting about John is at the end of both his first letter and his Gospel
he tells us why he's written them and so eternal life is a theme of both.
Remember the Gospel, these are written that you might have life, the epistle, the letter.
These are written that you might know that you have life, so it's an issue of assurance.
So life, love, they both start with life.
So you've got light, love, life, truth.
So what's at the heart?
Christ.
Christ, yes, the source of light, love, truth.
I think knowing Jesus.
Knowing Jesus, so this is eternal life that they might know you
and Jesus Christ whom you've sent, so knowing God.
So John certainly talks about the need to be born again but Paul doesn't, does he?
He doesn't talk about regeneration as such, he talks much more about justification.
So therefore if I'm going to be doing that regeneration I'll do it from John
but if I'm going to talk about righteousness declared I'll do it from Paul
because that seems to be the equivalence there.
So for John probably it is having life, knowing God through Christ
and showing that in love, in love for one another, that may well be it.
I just put the love of God in the love of man.
The love of God in the love of man, so love, light, good, thanks.
Peter, what about Peter, what do you reckon about him?
He's a bit in the shadows, isn't he?
I remember one time I went to Rome and we went out to the church
where Paul had been put to death supposedly
because Rome's just full of idolatry and it's centred on Peter
and there was a guy waiting for us there and he said, he was sort of, we'd interrupted him
there were some catacombs under this church and he was reading the paper
and he said, what do you want to see the catacombs for?
He's a Catholic priest, an American Catholic priest and he said, oh we're interested.
You interested in Paul?
We said, yes, we're interested in Paul, you must be Protestants, are you?
He said, yes, we are.
Yes, I said, with full conviction we're Protestants.
After a week in Rome I even had more conviction about it.
Anyway, so Peter, we're not so interested in, are we?
But we ought to be, so what's at the heart of what Peter's on about?
Living hope in hard times.
Living hope in hard times, that's a good summary, isn't it?
And especially because Peter seems to talk about hard times a lot, doesn't he?
Suffering, suffering is a real issue for Peter.
Anything else?
Being a Christian in a pagan society.
Being a Christian in a pagan society, so we've put our finger on something here
and isn't that relevant for us?
So the suffering Christ and identifying with the suffering Christ and his sufferings.
That seems to be a big thing both in his epistles and in the Gospel of Mark.
Take up your cross and follow me.
Good.
Okay, now that's just getting us ready for Paul, which is a big one.
How many PhD theses have been written about this question?
What's at the heart of Paul's theology? What do you reckon?
Christ died for him.
Christ died, Christ death for him?
Yes, someone else?
Union with Christ.
Union with Christ?
Christ is all and in all.
Is all and in all?
So Luther said justification, you're not…
Go with that one.
Grace and union, Luther said of course James was an epistle of straw
because he didn't emphasise justification.
He's making a good sign, isn't he?
Yeah, there he is. That's right.
So James Stewart agrees with Peter, a man in Christ, the concept of in Christ.
So you think of justification and it's there in a number of the epistles but it's not.
I've been preaching through Thessalonians and I haven't yet found the Declaration of Righteousness
and you'd think if something's going to dominate him it's going to dominate all his writings
and yet the concept of being in Christ, union with Christ, seems to dominate.
It comes through in every letter he writes.
So maybe that is at the core and I think that that in Christ issue,
the key to our justification is our identification with Christ.
The key to our sanctification is recognising our identification with Christ.
May well be that's the one.
Okay, so out of that theological context we're going to come to Paul's letter.
We'll open up Romans chapter 5 if you would please
and I think David has given us a fresh pyramid or triangle for today.
Romans chapter 5, we're going to read from verse 1 to 11
and we have to race along here because of time.
Romans 5 verse 1.
Now the first thing you do therefore in preparing a sermon is you read the passage.
Therefore, now I just read it the way I would read it
with my pencil and my piece of paper next to me.
Therefore, well you know the old saying, what is the therefore there for?
If I stood up to you today this morning, David opens in prayer and I started like this.
Therefore, you immediately think, what's he talking about?
This demands, the opening of a conversation with the word therefore demands context.
Oh, what was he saying yesterday that he's now applying to us?
Now therefore is there because of what he has said in the previous section.
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
I just noticed the repetition, the words repeated through faith through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Through whom? There's another one.
We have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.
So we stand in grace having access through faith, by faith.
So by faith and through our Lord and through faith.
Faith is being repeated by and through.
And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings
because we know that suffering produces perseverance.
Now I noticed the other day I've got an adolescent son, our last son at home
and you know what adolescent boys are like?
Sort of in five years they'll be human again.
That sort of picture.
And I said to him, what's your teacher like in this particular subject?
He said, oh, he's a sick dog.
And by that he means he's really good.
So adolescents, a sick dog means he's really good.
And there's a guy I heard the other day.
I said to him, what did you think of that sermon?
He said, oh, it was pure filth. It hadn't been spewed.
Now that's what the guy said.
What did you think of the sermon?
It was pure filth. It hadn't been spewed.
By that he meant it was terrific.
A sick dog teacher is a great teacher.
So adolescents use language in exactly the opposite way to its meaning.
Is that what Paul means here?
And also we rejoice in our sufferings, joy in suffering.
James says pure joy.
Is it that sick dog element?
Or does he mean what he means by the words he uses?
Well, of course he does.
Not only so, but we rejoice.
So we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, but we rejoice in suffering.
So there's the repetition of rejoice
because we know that suffering produces perseverance,
perseverance carried the character hope.
So there's relationship between that.
And so we rejoice in the glory of God.
We rejoice in suffering because suffering leads back to hope,
which is the glory of God.
So there's some sort of cycle going on there.
And hope does not disappoint us
because God has poured out his love into our hearts
by the Holy Spirit whom he has given us.
And I'll put it to you,
therefore that often we think that Paul really is the great apostle of faith.
But Paul, it seems to me, is always coming back to hope.
He does it again in Romans 8, for example.
Now, I think that if your experiences are the same as mine,
we look at verses 6 to 8 and we think,
what wonderful verses to preach on.
And often they are preached on out of context.
You preach on and you can preach the gospel from those,
the wonderful demonstration of God's love for us in the death of Christ.
But it's interesting that this is a paragraph
that is linked with a previous paragraph.
And so in my thing, I think, what is the link here?
You see, at just the right time, see, he's explaining what he said.
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless,
Christ died for the ungodly.
Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man,
though for a good man, someone might possibly die.
I want to know what the difference is between a righteous man
who you'll rarely die for
and a good man who you might more commonly die for.
And that's probably a question that the commentary is going to answer.
But I'll look at my Greek and my lexicon
and see the difference between the two words.
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this.
So here is a demo.
While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
My big question at the end of that paragraph is,
what is the relationship between that paragraph
and the paragraph that comes before?
What is the relationship then between that paragraph
and the paragraph that follows it?
Since we have now been justified by his blood,
how much more shall we be saved from God's rock through him?
So it seems to be, if he's done this, will he do this?
If we've been justified, will he save?
For if, when we were God's enemies,
we were reconciled to him through the death of his son,
how much more, having been reconciled,
shall we be saved through his life?
Not only is this so, but we also, here's the word again, rejoice.
So we rejoice in hope, we rejoice in suffering.
Now we rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
So there's the word through again,
through whom we have now received reconciliation.
And reconciliation is now introduced as a concept
for the first time at the end of this section,
right at the very end of it.
So I'm preparing, I'm thinking, I'm writing these words down
and therefore what I want to be doing first up,
I want to look at Romans 5, 1 to 11.
Here you have in the Bible,
Romans is the exposition of the new covenant
and the congregation at Rome was a cosmopolitan congregation.
There's a lot of debate as to whether the Jews
or the Gentiles were in the majority
and most scholarly conclusion these days
is that the Roman congregation
was fairly evenly balanced between Jews and Gentiles
and therefore when Paul gets to chapter 12
and especially 14 and 15,
the weaker brother, that is the sensitive Jewish conscience
and the Gentile who has a stronger conscience
has less scruples about things, what we eat, et cetera.
Paul is talking to them about how they should be relating together.
So that's the context here in the canon of Scripture in the Bible
is a full exposition of the new covenant
and its implications for congregational life.
Okay, now I look at the book itself
and I've just put down the break up of the book there.
It seems when you read Romans, the first section is 1-17
where Paul introduces himself, he introduces his theme.
Then he goes from that, the exposition of the Gospel, the good news,
it's almost as though he says,
do you want the good news or the bad news first?
And he gives us the bad news first
and the bad news is from 1-18 to 3-20
where he shows us God's diagnosis of humanity
that all of us, he takes the pagan idolater first
then the self-righteous moralist in chapter 2
then the unreached ignorant person in chapter 2
and then the knowledgeable person, the Jew, in chapter 2 and 3.
So each of those categories he says
and he's showing how the pagan idolater is lost
how the self-righteous moralist is lost
how the ignorant unreached person is lost
and how the knowledgeable person, the Jew, is lost as well.
And then he comes from chapter 3, 9-20
he just gives us all the Old Testament references
to back up what he has said about the fallenness of humanity.
Then he comes to 3, 21-26 which Leon Morris in his commentary says
is the most significant paragraph ever written in the history of writing.
That's what Leon Morris says.
Verse 21-26 are the most significant words ever committed to writing
because he comes to the but
but now a righteousness from God has been revealed
and so 3, 21-26 which Spurgeon says
should be the theme much more than it is of every Protestant pulpit.
People say our past is always preaching on Romans 3, 21-26
justification.
Then from having established the truth
that righteousness is not a human achievement
but is God's credit, is God's gift to us
Paul shows that there's nothing to boast in
even the faith we need to link us to Jesus is God's gift to us.
If it were God's gift to us we could at least boast that we've contributed faith
but it is God's gift to us.
And then he shows that there's nothing
he has not initiated this truth himself in chapter 4.
I remember when Alan Gill was the religious affairs writer for the Sydney Morning Herald
and he wrote on the 450th anniversary of the birth or death of Martin Luther
that Martin Luther discovered the philosophy of justification by faith.
And of course you think no, no it goes further back
it goes back to the apostle Paul
Alan Gill said but it had its roots further back
yes it goes back to Paul
and Paul of course says it was the experience of Abraham
so he's not invented it.
This was Abraham's experience and he says even David
sees this experience and recognises it.
So he's establishing here 1. the reality of justification
2. the justification leaves no ground for human boasting
and 3. that justification has always been God's way of setting people right with himself.
So there's nothing innovative from Paul about this
and it's in this context that he comes down to chapter 5, 1 to 11
and says well what is the fruit of this justification?
What does it mean in practice? How is it living out for us?
So that's the context work.
Now let's go to a summary of the passage in your own words.
Because it's time I'll give you the summary I've got here.
So if we just look there, I'm sorry this is my writing.
So over here I've written context
so I've got theological context, it is Paul
and at his heart I believe is in Christ.
So Lloyd-Jones for example says that the core of the letter to the Romans
is Romans chapter 5b where we leave identification with Adam
and we are now in Christ.
So at least Lloyd-Jones agrees that in Christ seems to be the dominating truth for Paul.
The literary context is that it's a letter written to introduce the Apostle Paul
and how relations between Gentiles and Jews
the blessing to Gentiles is not at the expense of Jew
and then the cultural context will show itself in this passage, Romans 5 to 11
by the pictures which the Apostle Paul is using here
and we'll look at those pictures in a minute.
But let me just give you my summary of the section with verse reference.
Number one, since we have been justified through faith
we have peace with God, access to grace and hope of the glory of God, verses 1 and 2.
Now notice it's not yet interpreting
it's simply stating in a summarised form what the passage says.
Point two, we rejoice in suffering, arrow, because it leads to perseverance
arrow to character, arrow to hope, verses 3 and 4.
Hope, point 3, will not be disappointed because the Holy Spirit reminds us constantly of God's love, verse 5.
That, it seems to me, is the key to setting this whole passage into context.
Four, further, God's love is demonstrated in the substitutionary death of Jesus
for the undeserving, that is the godless, the sinner, the enemy, a rare thing, verses 6 to 8.
So the rare thing just takes in what verses 6 and 7 says.
Point 5, reconciliation to God, which is the last word he uses, as his enemies
how much more will we be saved by Christ's life, verses 9 and 10.
So if God reconciles enemies, now we are his children, surely he will save us.
And then point 6, we are to rejoice in God through Christ
through whom we have now received reconciliation, verse 11.
Now that is the summary of the passage.
Now let me come to what I believe to be the movements of the passage.
Now I think the movements of the passage are, there are four movements here first.
There's the fruit of justification, verses 1 and 2.
There is the exhortation to rejoice in our suffering
because that leads to a freshening of hope
and therefore the link between movement 1 and 2 is hope.
We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God and movement 2,
but we rejoice in suffering as well because it leads to us
to have a keener awareness of our hope of the glory of God.
Hope will be fulfilled by God's great love to us, verses 5 to 8.
So the link therefore between the demonstration of God's love and hope
is that the demonstration of God's love ensures that our hope will be fulfilled.
That's the key.
Why did he go on about love in the midst of hope?
Because how do you know your hope will be fulfilled?
Because God has proven that he loves you and he will not see your hope dashed.
Verse 4, this is 9 to 11,
Having done the greater, God will do the lesser.
Now as I say, I think it is quite common for us preachers to preach on verses 6 to 8
because it's such a tremendous section, but we often do it out of its context.
Paul is showing God's love seen at the cross
in order to assure us that our hope of the glory of God will be fulfilled.
Now, down the foot here, I've put in some of the dominant pictures.
OK, so what are the dominant pictures here?
There's one that we have access,
the word literally is that we have a landing platform to grace in which we stand.
I've put in the next one is the relationships between suffering,
character, perseverance, freshening hope.
There seems to be a relationship.
I've just expressed that as a production line between suffering and the freshening of hope.
The substitutionary death for someone who's righteous, rarely.
Someone who's good, more commonly.
But someone who's undeserving, never.
So that picture of who would you die for?
The demonstration, what did it mean in the first century for a demonstration?
We know what a demonstration is, but what did it mean in the first century?
And then you've got this fifth sort of picture is
if God reconciled enemies, now they're friends, will he save them?
If God does the really big thing, will he now do the comparatively little thing?
And so that's another picture which you have.
Now, just work together then on the next one.
Go up to subject and complement.
What do you think in one, two or three words is the subject of this passage?
Just work together on that.
What do you think is the subject of the passage?
What do you think is the subject of the passage?
What do you think is the subject of the passage?
What do you think is the subject of the passage?
What do you think is the subject of the passage?
What do you think is the subject of the passage?
What do you think is the subject of the passage?
What do you think is the subject of the passage?
What do you think is the subject of the passage?
What do you think is the subject of the passage?
Okay, let's take this up again.
Sorry to push you along, it's time.
Now, I'm asking myself what is the subject of the passage?
So can I therefore take my little son or daughter
and explain to them what Paul is saying?
Paul is saying this.
He's saying since we've been justified by faith,
we have peace with God, we have access to grace by faith
and we have hope for the glory of God
and we rejoice in that hope for the glory of God.
And we even rejoice in things that seem contrary to that hope,
that is suffering, because suffering leads to perseverance,
perseverance leads to character
and character leads to a freshening of our hope.
And we can be sure that God will fulfil the hope that he put in our hearts
because he's given us the Holy Spirit to assure us that he loves us.
But even that, on one level, he does on another level,
he sends his son, the Lord Jesus, to die in our place
in order to demonstrate his great love
and he's demonstrating his love to us
to assure us that we're loved
so that we know that in the atmosphere of such love,
our hope will be fulfilled.
And we not only rejoice in that,
but we know that if God has taken us when we are enemies
and reconciled us and made us his friends,
now, having done the really big thing and reconciled enemies,
will he save his friends?
We know he will.
And what's all that about?
What's the big issue there that he's talking about?
It's not justification, isn't it?
He's saying justification, this is the fruit of it all,
but what do you really want us to know?
Assurance, certainty of what?
Hope.
So, therefore, I would say that the subject here is hope.
Now, if the subject is hope, then the next issue is,
the complement is, what does he say about hope?
And what he says about hope, I think, is this.
It is the fruit of justification.
It is ensured by God's love in Christ and the Holy Spirit
and comparatively, if God has done the lesser,
then God will do the greater.
So that's what that says up there.
God has done the greater thing comparatively lesser
than what God has already done.
So to bring us to glory is a lesser thing
than what God has already done for us in Christ.
He's reconciled enemies.
Having done the greater, he will do the comparative lesser.
So what does the passage teach me about hope?
Well, it teaches me that first, hope is the fruit of justification.
It is ensured by God's love in Christ and the Holy Spirit living within me.
And it is a comparatively lesser thing for God to fulfil my hope.
Because he's already done the greater thing
in justifying me, reconciling enemies.
So the big idea, we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God,
the fruit of justification through faith.
This hope will be fulfilled because of God's great love
seen in the gift of the Holy Spirit and Christ's substitutionary death.
I'm struggling for one sentence here, comma.
Having reconciled enemies, God will save friends.
Right, so that's my sentence.
We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, comma.
It is the fruit of justification through faith, semi-colon.
This hope will be fulfilled because of God's great love
seen in the gift of the Holy Spirit and Christ's substitutionary death, comma.
Having reconciled enemies, God will save friends.
That's a sentence worthy of calling out.
Yes, that's right, thanks.
It's a big sentence, isn't it?
It's a bit of a fudge, that sentence, but anyway.
Right, all right, now that leads me then to my big question
and the questions here would be how do I know that hope is certain?
How do I know God loves me?
Now that's a good question and the passage does answer that
but I think the wider question is that I know God loves me
therefore my hope is certain.
What is the fruit of justification?
Well that seems to be the first two verses.
Who can be sure that that could be the person who is justified by faith
can be sure, how can I have hope?
That could be another one.
I think I'd be going on how can I have hope
or how do I know that my hope is certain?
That seems to be the big question here.
And when it comes therefore, so what I'm doing here
is I'm just writing down everything I can think of on the page
and when I come to application then
I'm saying that what does it teach me about God?
It teaches me that God is at peace with me, having been justified by faith
we have peace with God.
So it's the fact that God is at peace with me
not the feeling of peace which I can have.
That he has glory for us, that he loves us, gives us the Holy Spirit
and Christ as the gracious substitute
and he will do what he promises to do
that is he will bring us home to glory.
Now that's what it teaches me about God.
What does it teach me about me, us?
We can be sure of our future
we can have confidence of a wonderful future
so we're not to be in confusion or lack of assurance
we are to be people who rejoice in Christ, we rejoice in God, we rejoice in hope
and we are people who are secure
because God has given us a double proof that we are loved
one the cross to the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Now I work at the necessary level
how does this apply for all people?
The hope of God's glory is a certainty for those justified through faith.
The hope of God's glory is a certainty for those justified through faith.
So it is not a matter of denoting yourself
or of being arrogant to believe God's promises.
Justification by faith is the assured foundation of the hope of God's glory.
As we saw last night, Romans 8, what God begins he finishes.
Now possible, what is the possible, how does it work out for me?
When I doubt I am to remember that I am loved
and the cross is a tremendous reminder to me of God's permanent love.
The empty cross is a tremendous reminder to me of God's permanent love.
What did that fellow who wrote Les Misrables, what was his name?
Sorry, Victor Hugo.
The supreme happiness of life, he said, is the conviction that we are loved.
The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved.
And of course God's love, unlike all human love, is unconditional.
It's a remarkable thing.
So when I doubt I go back to the cross, that God loves me, the great objective mark of his love.
Okay, impossible, how can you not understand this passage
but you can never be sure of your eternal future.
I can never be sure.
You can be sure.
And what seems to be arrogant pride is actually taking God at his word.
And a person who says they're never sure is actually, that's the mark of arrogant pride
because they're saying I'm not sure whether I can be good enough.
Therefore they hold out the hope of being good enough.
What could be more arrogant than that?
A person who says I'm not a good Christian.
If you're justified through faith you're a perfect Christian.
The hope for heaven is wishful thinking.
No, God proves the hope for heaven by one, showing that he loves us,
by two, having done the greater thing he will surely do the lesser thing.
Having reconciled enemies he will save friends and he will bring them home.
Now all of this I'm working on before I get to my commentary
and when it comes to Romans you have an incredible range of commentaries to choose from.
More commentaries than on any other book in the Bible it seems to me.
And so I find personally in preparing this series on Romans
the more commentaries I read the more confused I became.
They say you've got to decide which of the ones I'm going to read.
I always like to go for a shorter devotional one and a longer technical one.
And I found Cranfield in a two volume series a terrific commentary
and I found Martin Luther to be the shorter devotional one
because his whole world was turned upside down by his understanding of Romans 1.17.
So it was a great one and I might add another one in there.
I personally don't read John Stott commentaries
and the reason I do that because I think that they're so good
that they sort of impress themselves on you and everybody just repeats John Stott's outline.
So I don't do it because I know that in principle there anyway
our graduates who are out on the field who get all our principles, our tapes
generally they've got access to John Stott commentaries
and so I don't need to say what they've already got there.
And so I try and go for something other than Stott
and so I'll go for a shorter commentary and a longer one.
In what I'm doing, the other thing I want to say that I'm doing in Thessalonians
I'm realising again the great value of Calvin's commentaries.
I think they're just wonderful and also of Matthew Henry.
There's a lady who used to come to church in Indorel
and she came out, an elderly lady and she said
you know after church every Sunday I just go home and read Matthew Henry
and he said it all many years before all you young blokes say it.
That's right, the sixth volume by Matthew Henry is a remarkable thing.
Don't get the one volume, it's cheaper but it's taken all the good things out.
The sixth volume series by Matthew Henry is just a great series.
So Henry, Calvin, it's a good combination.
Okay, any comments or questions on this?
Are we right then?
Okay well I think that brings us to morning tea.
Thanks.