I solemnly urge you in
the presence of God and Christ Jesus, who will someday judge the living and the
dead when he comes to set up his Kingdom: Preach the word of God. Be
prepared, whether the time is favorable or not.
Patiently correct, rebuke, and encourage your people with good
teaching. For a time is coming when
people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will
look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. They will reject the truth and chase after myths. But you should keep a clear mind in every
situation. Don’t be afraid of suffering
for the Lord. Work at telling others the
Good News, and fully carry out the ministry God has given you. 2 Timothy 4:1-5(NLT)
Course corrections are necessary in any venture. Without careful attention to where
the ship is headed, it makes little difference how the ship gets
there! And it doesn’t take much to be
off course.
On day six of the ill-fated mission of Apollo 13, the
astronauts needed to make a critical course correction. If they failed, they
might never return to Earth. To conserve
power, they shut down the onboard computer that steered the craft. Yet the
astronauts needed to conduct a thirty-nine-second burn of the main engines. How
to steer? Astronaut Jim Lovell determined that if they could keep a fixed point
in space in view through their tiny window, they could steer the craft
manually. That focal point turned out to be their destination--Earth.
In New Testament thinking, we are ALL ministers; we
are ALL workers in God's field. We ALL
have a ministry to attend to. God has
placed each one of us in His field for the purpose of working out His will in
His world.
Our focal point is sharing the faith – witnessing, preaching
the word, just as Paul encouraged Timothy. Paul called the church body ambassadors for
Christ. He meant that our mission and
ministry are carrying a message to the world, the good news of God’s reconciliation.
Now, if the church is to bring that message to the
world – if we are to preach the Word to all
people, the next question that comes to mind is; "HOW?"
Our text this morning leads us to a thorough
understanding that Jesus not only saves, but calls each of us to preach
the word. So, this morning we are
taking a look at HOW we as a
church body are to preach the word.
Preach the Word implies teaching as much as sermonizing. In New Testament times there were people who
were known as "sophists". The
name comes from a word used to describe the study of anything. They were willing to teach anything for a
price.
The world is like that today; information is at our
fingertips. Snap on the TV and you've
got everything from Sesame Street to Peter Jennings to Pornography. You cannot walk very far in any direction
without being subject to something, or someone trying to shape your
thinking.
If we have any kind of competition in the work of the
kingdom, it is not other churches that want our members, it is the world, and
Satan, and sin competing with the church for the souls of people.
Our task in preaching the Word is what
Paul exhorted Timothy to do in our text:
Patiently
correct, rebuke, and encourage your people with good teaching.
He was telling Timothy (and us) that false doctrine
leads people in the wrong direction, and the best way to combat the effects of false
teaching is to teach sound doctrine!
Banks don’t worry a whole lot about fake money – they
teach each new teller trainee what real money. If a counterfeit shows up, the teller will
know!
Our aim is to be organized in teaching the genuine Word
of God to all people in everything we do at this church, and to instruct our
families at home, and reach our community with the truth contained in God's
Word.
Jesus said to let our light so shine that others will
see and give glory to the Father in heaven.
This is why we EDUCATE. But we also....
To consolidate means "to combine, to bring things
together in one union". Preaching
the Word implies an economy of our time and talents. It is, as the business world would describe
it, maximizing
our productivity. In verse 2
Paul says: Be prepared, whether the time is favorable
or not. The word "prepared" means be
ready. The Amplified New
Testament has it: "Keep your sense
of urgency."
Maximizing our productivity in "preaching the
Word" is like that; we must keep a sense of the urgency of Gospel truth in
our conversation, our activities, our employment, and our leisure time.
Our witness for Christ must be a part of everything we
are and do. And it starts right where we
live.
We EDUCATE.....We CONSOLIDATE....We:
I am convinced that the single most devastating effect
on churches that fail, and families that break up, and societies that crumble,
is lack of cooperation. And I believe
that the enemy that is at fault is a misconception of what our forefathers
designed as freedom. What we see today
as FREE
TO DO WHAT I PLEASE is a perversion of freedom as described in the
scriptures, as well as the original thought of the Constitution of this country,
which is: I AM "FREE TO DO AS I OUGHT.
When people start seeing their own personal agendas,
their own selfish interests, as more important than serving, the fiber of anything
(home, church family, country) is in serious jeopardy!
The Apostle James even warned us that the cause of
disputes, and fighting amongst the church was lack of cooperative spirit. Paul warned (v.3,4) that there would come a
time when folks would flock to false teachers because glib-tongued, slick
operators would say the kinds of things people wanted to hear - RATHER
than be obedient to sound doctrine.
Now cooperation in
"preaching the Word" means much more than just being here for the
worship service. It means we must ADHERE
to the doctrine the Word of God teaches, and not be drawn aside into weird fads
like the NEW AGE movements or feel good messages preached by those
who are more interested in popularity than the hard claims of a Gospel that
requires followers to leave the comfort zone to pick up a cross daily.
Cooperation means uniting in the faithful proclamation
of the cross of Jesus Christ, and an empty tomb, and a coming King! It doesn’t mean we need to get bogged down in
debates over meaningless questions about religious viewpoints. Beloved, you don't have to DEBATE
the Word with anyone...YOU simply PREACH the Word to everyone!
We EDUCATE...CONSOLIDATE...COOPERATE, and:
To preach the Word is to penetrate
and transform/change the world.
Once again, in our text, to correct is to show
error in a convincing manner.
To rebuke is to spotlight error so as to
bring about a desired change. To encourage means to be alongside
another to give them comfort and strength to succeed. It’s the picture of standing with your arm
around another.
Our whole purpose in sharing our faith is to bring the
light of God's love in focus for our friends, neighbors, and the whole
world.
We cannot do that if we are silent about our faith. You've heard about the man who bought a
parrot for $5,000. The bird spoke five
languages. The pet shop promised to
deliver it that afternoon. After work
the man hurried home and asked his wife if the bird had arrived. And it had!
Where is it? In
the oven, she replied. NO....Not
the oven; woman, that bird speaks five languages. Well, she said, why didn't he speak up?
Sometimes you must penetrate the
barriers by speaking-up!
In a church I once served I met with men to drink
coffee and solve all the major problems of the world. We always had a good time, discussing,
debating, and deciding on the fate of Iraq, the Federal deficit, and other
items.
Once when the waitress came by to check if all was in order, one of the men informed her
that this was a group of church officers and a preacher...and there was very
little order in it! She laughed and
said, oh, my family are all Christians. I wanted to pick up on the opportunity, but
one of the men beat me to it.... What about you, dear? he said. She had to confess that she wasn't
saved. Don't you want to have a full
life? She smiled as she went back to work. The battle isn't over with that young lady; she
will hear of Christ again.
Preaching the Word means caring enough to go out on a limb with your self-esteem,
your image. It means placing faith-sharing,
preaching
the Word, as a priority ahead of personal comfort. The devil's gospel is being preached in our culture
today at an increasing pace. Despite
that, the gospel of Jesus Christ is going to prevail.
Bottom Line for Us, Here,
Today:
This church will live in covenant to deliver the
faith, the gospel, bringing the lost to the Savior....or this church will die,
languishing on the treadmill of wishful thinking. There is no neutral place for a church
charged with the responsibility of preaching the word!
In ancient times a soldier named Alexander, who had
been a coward in battle, was brought before his leader, Alexander the
Great.
Alexander the Great said to Alexander the coward: Either change your conduct, or change your
name.
If we are true followers of Jesus Christ, bearing His
name, does that not apply to us too?
In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit!
