The Suffering Servant was the Babe in the Trough

In light of the “Christmas Season” being upon us, I have found myself looking at the life of Christ – especially after Pastor Chas Rowland’s preaching of Philippians 1:27 (“Only let your manner of life be worthy of the Gospel of Christ…”).  Rather than me expound on a set of verses or provide my feeble observations.  Let us just read this passage that prophesied the death of Christ many, many years before His birth, and let us remember that the suffering servant in these verses was the babe born of Mary.

Isaiah 53:1-12

“Who has believed what he has heard from us?  And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?  For He grew up before Him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground;  He had no form or majesty that we should look at Him, and no beauty that we should desire Him.  He was despised and rejected by men; a man or sorrows, acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we esteemed him not.

“Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.  But He was wounded for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His stripes we are healed.  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned – every one – to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

“He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth.  By oppression and judgment He was taken away; and as for His generation, who considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?  And they made His grave with the wicked and with a rich man in His death, although He had done no violence, and there was no deceit in His mouth.

“Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush Him; He has put Him to grief; when His soul makes an offering for guilt, He shall see His offspring; He shall prolong His days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.  Out of the anguish of His soul He shall see and be satisfied; by His knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, be accounted righteous, and He shall bear their iniquities.  Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the many, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong, because He poured out His soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet He bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.”

Expository Preaching

Expository Preaching.  Whew, that’s a mouthful.  It seems very heavy and weighty and technical.  In some ways, it may be, but at its essence, it just makes sense as a style (for lack of a better word) of preaching.  Some of you hypothetical readers may not know what it is.  Don’t worry.  I didn’t either for a span.  In fact, it was one of the most confusing topics of lecture in my early seminary days.  All that being said, it’s what I would like to talk about today.

The best definition of expository preaching that I have found is in Richard L. Mayhue’s article “Rediscovering Expository Preaching” in the book entitled Rediscovering Expository Preaching: Balancing the Science and Art of Biblical Exposition where Mayhue and others on the staff at the Master’s Seminary write on this subject.  Mayhue defined expository preaching as thus: “…expository preaching focuses predominantly on the text(s) under consideration along with its (their) context(s). Exposition normally concentrates on a single text of Scripture, but it is sometimes possible for a thematic/theological message or a historical/biographical discourse to be expository in nature” (MacArthur, J. (1997). Rediscovering expository preaching (9). Dallas: Word Pub.).  I’m sure you can see where the confusion set in.

Let me define it as I see it.  Expository preaching is preaching the Word of God in the context of the passage of Scripture in the context of its passage, chapter, book/epistle, and place among the entirety of Scripture.  The key word is context.  This way, the preacher does not take his own ideas or opinions and find within the text of Scripture a prooftext to make his message valid.  To me, it just makes sense.  What better way is there to proclaim the Word of God than in the context in which He “breathed” it out (2 Timothy 3:16).

The idea of expository preaching is expressed Scripturally:

• Nehemiah 8:8: “They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.”
• Acts 20:26-27: “Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.”

I must admit to you the reasons that this is on my mind today.  Firstly, today is a preaching day for me.  It is the culmination of weeks of study of the book of Colossians.  I have studied the words, the context – Scriptural and historical, and have done much reading over the text.  I do not want to get into the pulpit and have my own words come out.  In fact, when I pray before preaching, I pray that what the Lord wants me to say will take precedence over my own words.  Second, I have listened to a few sermon snippets this morning that are not based upon the word of God.  In fact, I finally cut the sermon off because it was not preaching God’s Word.  It basically was a discourse on what this man wanted to talk about.  Lastly, the Bible says in 2 Timothy 4:3-4: “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”  Sadly, this time is apparently at hand.

Now, for those who think I am saying that any who don’t preach in an expository manner are unbiblical preachers, re-read everything prior to this.  I have not said that.  I preached for years before I knew there was such a phrase.  I am, however, saying that the context of Scripture is of the utmost importance.  I believe that Paul’s warning in 2 Corinthians 4:1-6 supports this:

“Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart.  But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways.  We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s Word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.  And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing.  In their case, the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.  For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.  For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

I will close with some words from John MacArthur to those of you who long to be faithful expositors of the Word of God:

“To be a legitimate expositor, you have to explain the text, and that rarely occurs in preaching.  That does not mean taking a text of Scripture, finding an outline, and bouncing your way through a homiletical format.  Explaining the text means giving to the people precisely the message that God intended when He revealed that Scripture.  That’s going to take you beyond superficiality, because frankly there isn’t anything superficial about the mind of God….  Everything about the mind of God is profound.  Everything about the mind of God is systematic.  Everything about the mind of God is clear.  Everything about the mind of God is cohesive.  Everything about the mind of God is orderly. And that is how the text should be explained.”

Once again, hypothetical readers, I thank you for your time.

Yours and His,

–Keith

Battling Myself

As of recently, I find that I struggle more against myself than I do against anyone or anything else.  I allow myself to give Satan such stable footing that I cause myself a great deal of difficulty.  Paul, in Romans 7:18-20 says:

“For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.  For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.  For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep doing.  Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.”

That’s how I feel.  I am constantly battling with desires within me – selfishness, success, pride, etc.  But, I plod forward, seeking and striving in Christ to see His desires and will fulfilled rather than my own.

This all greatly stems from a recent revelation that has occurred to me: I cannot be everything – do everything – and cannot be Superman.  For many of you hypothetical readers, this is not a revelation.  Of course, I cannot be everything.  Of course, I cannot do everything.  Of course, I cannot be Superman.  But yet, that is almost what I strove to be.  I am the guy who tries to take on everything that is needed around me.  I am a fixer – a doer.  When someone says “Somebody” should do something, I’m somebody!  And am at the same time nobody.  I am my own detriment.

What I desire, at its core, is a good thing: I want to minister to people and help them in any and every way that I can.  Yet, I realize that I cannot help everybody.  I am spread thin.  My plate is full.  So, I now strive to seek more of what the Lord would have me to do, rather than all that I desire to do.  And the desiring to do much good is not bad, I do not think.  I should desire to do good.  But, alas, I cannot do it all.

This is quite cathartic.

I find myself, in my thinness, clinging to a line from a Sovereign Grace song “Out of the Depths” that has helped me much in my realization of my inadequacy.  This is a song that talks about submitting to the will and Word of God.  There is a line in the chorus that says: “When the harvest time is over, and I still see no fruit, I will wait, I will wait for You.”  I am reminded that success does not come from me.  Success comes solely from the Lord.  He has blessed me with the opportunity to serve Him, but all good things still come from Him alone.  Even when no apparent fruit is being borne, I must continue to be faithful to Him in the way that He describes faithfulness in His Word.

“Wretched man that I am!  Who will deliver me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!  So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.” (Romans 7:24-25)

Thanks for allowing for allowing me to meander through my thoughts in written form, dear hypothetical reader.

Yours and His,

–Keith