SS01 / EP01 – In the season premiere, pastors Micah and Brent discuss why biblical preaching matters in the church and the conviction of preaching the truth unapologetically in a world that doesn’t want to hear it.
SS01 / EP01 – In the season premiere, pastors Micah and Brent discuss why biblical preaching matters in the church and the conviction of preaching the truth unapologetically in a world that doesn’t want to hear it.
Micah Klutinoty: You’re listening to “For the City”, a podcast of Gospel City Church. My name is Micah Klutinoty.
Brent Thomas: And I’m Brent Thomas.
Micah: Today we are discussing preaching God’s Word, specifically why we open our Bibles every week and boldly proclaim what God has said.
Micah: What’s up Brent?
Brent: What’s up buddy?
Micah: Talking about preaching at Gospel City Church today. And we, you know, we’ve been a part of churches like this for a long time. And preaching is a big deal. We like to say that we preach with boldness. We preach without apology.
2 Timothy 4:2 is kind of a great place just to anchor our thoughts, and it says, Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.
And that exhortation is something that we take pretty serious as a church every week that we gather together as the people of God. But let’s, you know, like, let’s have fun with it a little bit. Do you remember your first sermon? Have you preached a lot?
Brent: Yeah, I mean it feels like a very small amount compared to the guys I’ve looked up to in my life. But yeah, you grow up in church, you hear a lot of sermons. And for God to craft you and shape you and call you into certain roles where now you’re preaching His Word is a humbling thing. My first sermon ever I was serving as a worship pastor at a church and so of course John 4:24 was the passage I was given.
Micah: Absolutely.
Brent: It was the worship pastor preaching Sunday. And so preaching on worship to my church, and we were a portable church meeting in a school. And I get up to go to preach. We had a time of worship and then I walk up to preach and our whole audio system goes down.
Micah: Amazing.
Brent: So my microphone doesn’t work at all. No screen behind me. My points are nowhere to be found. And it was probably like a 400 seat school auditorium and it’s elevated seating from my stage where I’m standing. So I’m screaming as loud as I can talk normally.
Micah: One service or two?
Brent: One service.
Micah: Great.
Brent: Luckily. Praise God. And for sure like I remember my wife was sitting in the back row. And I was like, “Oh man, that was rough. How do you think it went?”
She goes, “I didn’t hear a word you said the whole time.”
So you know, it’s kind of a discouraging thing as a young preacher that your first message half the congregation missed out on. But the most distinct thing I remember was the weight I felt that I had never felt before in preparing to preach both the week leading up and walking up there on Sunday morning. Leading worship is weighty, but it’s a different weight. And so that was the thing I most remember from that first sermon. I’m sure you have a great story around your first sermon.
Micah: I mean yeah, my situation is funny because it’s kind of like yours. Worship pastor and then you get the opportunity to preach. And I think that’s probably a cool thing to talk about even how being worshippers of Jesus and worship pastors who want to vertically express to the Lord having a love for the Word of God is important.
But same kind of thing. The first time was in the gym back when we planted our church, which is now thirteen years ago. And my first sermon was Romans 12:1-2, which is another kind of worship pastor message, living sacrifice. I don't remember my exact points. I don’t remember much about that sermon at all. People still to this day say, “Man, I remember your first sermon and you were pacing around like an animal up there.” And I was so fast. Once the passion gets going I tend to pace back and forth.
Brent: Can’t sit still.
Micah: It was a learning experience for sure. And when you look back on those moments you’re like, “Yikes!” but they’re transforming in the process.
Brent: And that’s crazy because there are probably people who are in that message for you, and the first few rows for me who actually heard it who were blessed and encouraged despite the imperfection of the messengers who were standing before them, despite the lack of amount of reps of preaching or whatever you want to call it.
And so I think it’s interesting to kind of look at why is preaching this kind of staple and effective part of what we do on Sunday morning. Like where is the power coming from? Is it all about being a dynamic preacher or all the right illustrations and all of that?
But even what we see from 2 Timothy is that the power is actually residing in the Word more than it’s residing in the person. And I remember that being instilled in me from that first message. It’s not about you. It’s not about you. It’s about the Word of God.
Micah: Yeah, and I think that's really the big point of, you know, even 2 Timothy that we read (preach the Word in season and out of season) is that my tendency is to always approach it with what I’m feeling or my circumstances. I think that’s an easy way to approach the Word just as a Christian in general is like, “Oh I know I need to do devotions and my life is really hard right now. So I’m going to open the Bible, I’m going to flip through the Scriptures and it’s going to help me with my problem.”
And the truth is the Bible doesn’t always give us what we want to hear; it gives us what we need to hear. And so as preachers, you know, even as I’ve been getting more into it, I said this last week. It’s like my tendency is to want to approach the text at hand with the felt needs in my life, the circumstances I’m going through. And I want to like read my situation into this text. And that’s not always what the text at hand is meant to do. The context might be completely different.
And yet when we’re faithful to what the author intended and what the Bible is supposed to say in that context, it ends up breathing a whole transformative grace into my life because the Spirit is showing me Jesus and not an answer to my problems. And inevitably when I start to Jesus, my problems start to get brought into focus. And I think that’s the beauty of approaching the Word that way.
Brent: For sure. And churches do it a lot of different ways, you know, and there are lines that have been drawn based on how churches preach, right? And again, growing up in church but nineteen years old I’m sitting in that gym that you’re talking about, hearing the Word of God be preached and I gave my life to Christ.
Micah: Amen.
Brent: And I can't tell you the points of the message. I can't even tell you the passage. But there was an authority that was spoken over me from God’s Word saying my life is not my own. There is a God; He is holy. And that breathing that transformative grace into my soul is what changed my life forever.
And so Gospel City obviously has a perspective on preaching that we’ve held to for thirteen years that might look different to other churches and has changed some people’s lives. And so what exactly is that position on preaching and how does it differ from others?
Micah: Yeah, that’s good. So we’ve used the word “bold” and “unapologetic”, meaning we aren’t going to apologize for what the Bible says. The way that we get to the things that sometimes maybe some places avoid or some places would apologize for is by an expositional approach. And so expositional preaching is really just exposing what the Scriptures' intent was or what the author's intent was.
So if God is the author, if He breathes out words and through the power of the Spirit inspired men to write them down and has preserved them, then every word matters and every word was written in a context historically, grammatically, and all of those little pieces matter to my life. And so to take it at face value, the temptation will always be, you know…There are two words: exegesis and eisegesis. Exegesis is like digging into the fine details and pulling out the meaning of the text, where eisegesis might be me reading my interpretation into it. And that’s super easy to do.
If I want to preach a sermon on a specific topic, I could go to a lot of passages and use it as a springboard to use as my platform. And yet I don't want my topic to be the platform. I want the Word of God to be my platform and I want it to inform everything. And so I think that’s the approach to preaching that our church has always taken. Would you say that’s true?
Brent: Yeah, absolutely. And what I think is interesting in what you said is that word “topical” can be a little divisive for some people because some churches, pastors, whatever, might say that they only preach topically. And so that skips them all over the Bible; they’re going to different things and they’re approaching felt needs. And that can be helpful to people but it may not be exactly what’s needed for the church Body to be built up and encouraged by the Word of God.
But in my context I preach weekly to our student discipleship ministry here. So sixth through twelfth graders. And we would look a lot more topical than on a Sunday morning. Like our church right now we’re preaching through the book of Acts, verse by verse through the book of Acts. And we’re pulling topics in application for people's lives.
And then on a Wednesday night when I stand before the students I might say, “Hey, for the next four weeks we’re going to talk about identity and we're going to root ourselves in God’s Word and what God’s Word says about identity.” And I think that’s a key that has transformed my preaching.
Because it would be super easy for me to look at our students and go, “Man, what are they going through right now? They’re having an identity crisis in their life. And so what I really want them to know is this truth. And so now I’m going to skip through the Bible and proof text my idea of what I want them to feel. And it would sound good. It would feel biblical and all of that.
Micah: It might even be helpful.
Brent: It might even be helpful, but it won't have the same power and transformative nature to it that if I just said, “Here’s what God says about who He created you to be. Forget me. I’ll get off the stage. It’s about what God’s Word said.” And that is a distinctive within our church that has surprisingly kept people coming back. Because in our heads as preachers and pastors we kind of wrestle with this weekly, right? Like, Oh, I’ve got to make applicational. I’ve got to have good illustrations.
Micah: It’s got to be relevant to the situation.
Brent: And if it’s not, people aren’t going to listen and they’re not going to come back and I’m going to mess it up or whatever. And I think what we have both found is when you, in the words of a pastor, let the lion out of the cage, he fends for himself. And so I think that distinctive is what kept me coming back as a young man seeking the Lord and in this season of pastoring here at this church. It gets me amped up every Sunday that it’s not about what you’re going to say, what another guy is going to say from the stage. It’s about, What does God have to say to us today?
Micah: Amen. Yeah.
Hey, this is Micah, pastor at Gospel City Church, and I could not be more excited that you’re listening to the first episode of “For the City.” My hope is that this would be a podcast that is just helpful to the kingdom of God, to local churches and to our church as we talk about DNA and culture and how we do ministry and ultimately how we glorify God and make disciples. You could help us out by liking and subscribing wherever you’re listening to this podcast so that you can stay up to date as future episodes come out. But let’s get back to our first episode, “Why Do We Preach?”
Some words that I was like kicking around, you know, good preaching is rooted in God’s Word. So that’s like the expositional exegesis. I’m going to hold up the Word of God. I'm going to come carefully to the Word of God every week. And you kind of like rigorously devote yourself to finding out what the intent was and how it applies to my life.
Another thing is convictional. I think good preaching is convictional. So that’s probably the difference between teaching and preaching. Teaching is like imparting knowledge. Preaching is going after life change and there’s some passion behind it and I’m kind of bringing some conviction to it because of God's Word. Like we should feel this because God said it, so that it would transform our lives to look more like Christ. And it’s hard and it comes. Sometimes it’s heavy handed and sometimes it’s…but it’s always truth and grace and all that.
But applicational is a big thing that we like work really hard at at Gospel City. So we want to be expositional. We want to unpack all the text. We want to get it in the right historical and grammatical context. But we want it to be applied to our life. Because I could take tons of information and, you know, I think the Word of God in itself is transformative and when it’s unpacked it does apply to our lives in so many ways. But, you know, how would you describe? You do super well at this, especially in the student context and even challenging me. As we go to the Word, how do we apply it applicationally as good preachers?
Brent: Yeah, I think it’s bringing it into the here and now. And I say a lot that I read the Bible as if I want to put myself into this story, right? So if I’m reading a certain passage of Scripture, I want that context and that cultural. Like what’s going on in the culture at the time? What is the authorial intent that’s being expressed in the passage? And I want to put myself into that and ask the question, “So what do I do with this? Now what?”
Because it’s easy to just impart the knowledge, to say, “Oh man, I studied it. It’s like a textbook. It feels like you’re in a class.” And there are some really cool things that you can pull out of it. I just did some study on Noah and the flood. And you start to dig into some of the literary stuff that Moses is doing in Genesis. And it’s all like super cool and kind of nerdy and whatever.
And I can present that and say, “Hey, look at God’s Word. It’s awesome,” and all of that. But if I don’t get to a point where I say, “But the most amazing thing about Noah and the ark is the fact that God’s grace saved a remnant from His judgment.”
And then we look at the cross of Jesus Christ and we see that that’s God saving us through Jesus. Jesus is the ark, right? And we have salvation from judgment. That should change the way we live right here, right now. Like if I can’t get to that in my own heart, then all I’m giving people is just information.
And so applying it and saying, “Ok, here are three things you can go do this week to live that out.” And that's the thing we wrestle with more than the text. Because there are a lot of great commentaries, and you know we have a pastor of theological content on staff who like digs into these things. But what I want to get to is I want to be wrecked by the Word, and I want to get up and I want to tell people how their lives can be different because of it.
Something that I think would be interesting as we talk about…because you look at a Sunday morning or whenever a preacher might get up there and you have no idea what it looked like for him to get to that moment where he’s standing up there and he says, “Open up your Bibles.” Right? And so I know that you’ve experienced this lately, but like what does that process look like for you in developing a sermon, and how do you get to that point?
Micah: I mean man, I’ve heard pastors say like preaching is a crushing weight. And you kind of hear it and you’re like, “Oh I’m sure it is, it's heavy,” and then you start doing it and you just realize like this is a massively crushing weight. Because I don’t know…I’ve read different pastors who have said, you know, their first initial, their first thought after they preach a sermon is, “I’m sorry Lord.” Or, “I wouldn’t cross the street to hear my own preaching,” one pastor said.
And you feel that way when you get done a lot of times. And I think it’s because when you’re approaching the Bible as the written Word of God, the breathed out words of God, how can you do that justice as a human being who’s totally in tune with your own sinfulness and your own brokenness and your own need for God?
And so you go and approach the Word not with your felt needs, not with your circumstances, but those are real things that come with you. And then you begin to dig into this and it just wrecks you. And it’s like it convicts you. And it makes you wrestle with How am I going to take this before a group of people and do it any kind of justice? And who am I to be the one to stand up there and to proclaim these things when I need these things so much in my own life? And I think that is the point of preaching.
It’s like not perfect people, not the most eloquent people, not someone who has it all together, but somebody who is very aware of their own weaknesses and yet they’re submitted to Christ and allowing His Word to be held high. And Christ has already exalted His Word and His name above all things, Scripture says. And so I just need to continue to exalt His Word and His name above all things. I need less of me; I need more of Christ.
And I have never felt more in tune with, “His grace is sufficient for me. In my weakness He is strong,” than I do when I go through the process of preaching. And often it’s just, you know, approaching the Word and journaling thoughts, digging then into the context and then just being in tune to the Spirit as you write and as you form points in kind of a direction. And how do you explain these things and then where do you press into the heart of people? And how do you apply it to people’s situations and things that they’re going through?
And somehow the Spirit takes man’s mere words and writes them on the hearts of the people in different kinds of ways. And it’s just a beautiful process. It’s like a mountain you climb every single week. You get to the top of it and on Monday you come crashing down and kind of get ready to go again, you know?
Brent: You start the whole process over again.
I do think it’s what’s crazy to me of how the Holy Spirit works in a room where the Word of God is being preached is the different points and applications that people are able to pull. And sometimes we’ll hear things from, you know, feedback from people like, “Man, I felt like I was the only one in the room and you were preaching right to me.” And that just sounds crazy because you’re like, I was actually just preaching to myself in that moment, so thanks for coming along on the journey.
But even simple things like I heard today somebody give you feedback of a couple weeks ago. The most impactful thing of your message was when you blew your nose. But like you had this moment where you had to like stop and like be a real person and you had to blow your nose during your message. But for that, the Spirit gave them a glimpse into who you are and said, “Oh he’s a real man who loves the Lord, and what he’s preaching is real.” And that’s what the Holy Spirit impressed on their heart in that moment.
And the same is true. Like we’ll craft outlines and alliterate till the day is done and, Oh man, I’ve got to come up with an illustration that’s just going to be so perfect, and all these things. And people come up and are like, “That was a great message. And you know, the most impactful thing you said was this.”
And we’re like, “I don’t even know I said that. It was a throwaway in my notes.”
And you’re like, “Thank you Lord like for that grace,” because it takes a pressure off in that moment of saying like, “That wasn’t me.” All that stress I might have felt in preparing it and the insufficiency I feel, it didn’t meet my expectations maybe but, Lord, I really hope You’re pleased with my effort. And I would hope that would be the heart of everybody who approaches the Word of God is to just say, “Would You just be blessed by Your servant’s effort?” Unworthy servants. We get up and we do it against the next week.
Micah: Lewis Allen said, “A preacher whose pulpit freshness comes from a living relationship with Jesus is a great blessing to the church.” And I just think that’s it man. Like where we walk with Jesus and submit ourselves to Jesus and have a prayerful approach to the Word of God that is like, I want to do this carefully, humbly. Spirit, would You show me Jesus and would You help me to show others Jesus? That is a beautiful thing that transforms your life and my life for sure. We talk about it and that’s power that we’re seeing in the life of our church.
Brent: Yeah, absolutely. And the metanarrative of Scripture resounds the gospel. And so if anything, all we would be blessed to do is preach Christ and Christ crucified. And what a beautiful thing it is.
Thanks for listening to “For the City,” a podcast of Gospel City Church. To find out more, visit mygospelcity.org. If you found this episode helpful, we’d love for you to leave us a rating and subscribe. Also, take a moment to share it with some of your friends. We’ll see you next time.