Godly People Say Goodbye (Acts 20:18-35)

Christians living rightly

are consistently saying goodbye.

Download the sermon from Acts 20:18-35

Preaching Matters

Biblical preaching matters because our church needs to hear directly from God and God speaks directly when His Word is preached fully.

Part I of the series "Church Matters"

Download the sermon: Preaching Matters

Hope for Introverted Preachers!

Just one of many reasons I love Tim Keller. Interviewed in this weeks' World Magazine, Keller talks about how God has prepared him through an introverted personality and love of study to be a gospel-centered preacher in the middle of Manhattan.

The following interview excerpts focus on fighting inferiority and superiority complexes as a pastor:

Q: How did you overcome your "painful introversion"? Are you saying, how did an introvert get to be a megachurch pastor in Manhattan? Very gradually. It is a combination: God called me to be a minister and then decided to prosper my ministry more than a lot of other people's, which was always a surprise. I do not know why. It is not false modesty. I am still not sure why.

Q: Gift and grace? The gift side of it is that God continues to send me people who seem to be helped by the ministry. That overcomes some of your lack of confidence, but the danger of relying on your gifts, saying, "Hey, I am a pretty good preacher, people will come back to listen to me," is that that leads to the opposite of an inferiority complex, a superiority complex, which is probably more deadly. They are both self-absorption.

Q: How do you fight that? As I moved from feeling like nobody likes me to everybody likes me—then you get really famous and nobody likes you again—I had to work on the gospel a lot in my heart. Every time I started to get too big a head, something would come along and God would bring me down. This is the way I think everybody grows. Something would bring me down and I would have to use the gospel to shore up my confidence on the basis of His grace rather than on my gifts. —

Read the rest of Marvin Olasky's interviews with one of my favorite preachers:

"A Wave Came In: How An Introvert Like Tim Keller Became a Great Preacher"

-jsm-

Comparing Preachers

I've become consciously concerned as of late at the propensity of our podcasting generation to critique the preachers and sermons of their own church against those they religiously listen to on podcast.

Podcasting sermons on the web is a brilliant and amazing avenue to share biblically-centered preaching to those who may not otherwise be able to attend a service. It's encouraging to the believer who has to commute and would rather spend his transit time growing in grace and knowledge than learning lyrics to pop ditties that won't survive the decade. And that is only one example of why I am grateful for podcasted preaching. 

But I fear what it becomes for many of us who listen regularly is an avenue for comparison to the preaching we hear in our own congregations on Sundays. I've observed a few ways this works itself out, the first being the most common:

1. The podcaster is so enamored with the podcasted preacher that he then unfairly holds (whether consciously or subconsciously) his home pastor to the same standards of a John Piper or John McArthur or Mark Driscoll, failing to recognize those men shepherd specific congregations with express needs first and foremost; and if it goes unchecked, this attitude may further harden the well-intentioned mind and heart to a failure recognize and encourage the strengths and ministry of his own pastor's preaching and how it fulfills the spiritual needs of his local church. 

2. Playing off the feelings of the first point, the sermon critic becomes so to the point that he fails to plant himself at any local congregation and become what C.S. Lewis referred to as a "church connoisseur" who flits from church to church, sampling every sermon against what he considers his competently cultured taste buds. Fewer places do I see this more than collegiate Christians or seminarians who cut their teeth on Matt Chandler and refuse to join any church that isn't The Village. This attitude is unbiblical and displays an immature understanding of the function of the local church in the life of the believer living in an area in which ministry can and should be done.

3. As a natural outgrowth of all of the above, the radical Christian podcaster decides no local church will suit his acquired tastes or standards and decides to pursue a 'private spirituality' apart from a local body of Christ. His weekly feast of five podcasted sermons from the most popular preachers will suffice for his sanctification...

Wrong. 

The natural digression displayed above is one I've seen more often than I would have thought possible. The attitude behind it is one of unabashed pride in the form of snobbery. It also betrays in the offender an immaturity in grasping the essential place of the local church body (and its lead pastor) in the continued march to maturity in Christ.

Don't try to hold your pastor to any other man's standards, no matter how good you think they may be. It's an attitude akin to holding your wife to the standards of other women in media. The pastor of your local congregation is fashioned for a specific ministry in that community. Instead of driving two hours to attend a church for the sermonizing, try finding a local, Bible-believing congregation in which you can serve and not just pew-sit (or podcast in your jammies). Bible-saturated preaching is essential, this we know. But so is establishing relationships with fellow believers for the purpose of sharpening and discipleship. Be involved with what God is doing through believers in your area. Just like those pastors and church members in the local congregation, He has you in this place for such a time as this.