On this episode of the FTC Podcast, Jared Wilson and Scott Keith, Prof. of Theology at Concordia University, about the ins and outs of Christian friendship and Dr. Keith’s new collection of essays on the subject.
Gospel-Centered Resources from Midwestern Seminary
Nothing feels better than success. Seeing a church grow in number, welcoming new visitors each Sunday, building new state-of-the-art buildings, having an exciting and dynamic worship atmosphere, hearing about constant “decisions” to follow Christ, and many other facets are how the modern-day church oftentimes determines success. But here is the gospel reality: none of these are at the heart of what the church is supposed to be. In fact, a successful church, as defined by Scripture, wouldn’t necessitate any of these. Far too often, we determine success according to a business model rather than a biblical model. Businesses define success according to profits, employees are oftentimes treated as only parts of a machine, and power reflected in leadership is wielded with a me-centered mentality.
There is nowhere in Scripture that defines success as a top priority of the church. Let me take a brief pause to say that this does not mean the church should shy away from gospel effectiveness. But even gospel effectiveness is not measured solely by what man sees. Church membership, conversions, and baptisms are all wonderful gifts that point to gospel effectiveness, but when church membership is treated like a country club membership, when conversions are inauthentic as a result of easy-believism, and when baptisms are spontaneous with little to no meaning, this is anything but gospel effectiveness. It is a mirage of gospel effectiveness.
The Dangers of “Successful” Church
Treating the church as a business has never been a biblical model. Businesses are all about profits, marketing, advertising, and being innovative. If anything, this is the total opposite of what the church is meant to be because the business mentality is man-centered and the church is God-centered. For business, customer is king. For church, Christ is King. This means the church is wholly different than any business, even a “Christian” one. It is my pleasure to say that Chick-fil-A has a business model, not a church model. And they should because they are not the church. Sadly, the church frequently adopts a business mindset and there are several dangers that accompany this mindset.
Fear of Man Over Fear of God
There is such danger in valuing what man says, or how man will respond, over what God has already said. Proverbs 29:25 says, “the fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is safe.” Psalm 119:120 says, “My flesh trembles for fear of you, and I am afraid of your judgments.” King Saul in 1 Samuel 15:24 says, “I have transgressed the commandment of the LORD and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.” Or perhaps the clearest example is John 12:42-43 that says, “Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.”
When we are more concerned about man’s response rather than worship of our God, we are ignoring God’s Word completely. Church leadership that is guilty of reactionary leadership is holding the fear of man as supreme. Reacting out of fear of what man will think is not church leadership at all. However, responsive leadership that does not just tell people what they want to hear loves both God and His church. Responsive leadership glorifies God and at the same time doesn’t ignore the members. Also, fear of man places no value in humble confrontation of sin. Church members are called to hold one another accountable. Church members have the responsibility to represent the gospel in their relationships with one another. The fear of man always shies away from this responsibility because man’s opinion is most important. We must quit bringing a business-like fear of man into the church.
Numbers Over Depth
Jesus’ miracles attracted crowds. But at the end of Jesus’ miracles, He reveals that many in the crowd did not actually believe in Him. Towards the end of Jesus’ ministry, He led his disciples toward Caesarea Philippi. It would have been extremely dangerous for anyone to follow Him to this region. The crowds dwindled more and more until only the twelve were following Him. There in Caesarea Philippi, Jesus clearly told His disciples for the first time that He was going to die. Jesus knew the cost of following Him and continually expressed this cost. He was not concerned with the crowds that followed because “he himself knew what was in man (John 2:25).” For the church to be consumed with numbers rather than depth is being less Christ-like and being more business-like.
Yes, church, we desire for people to come to a saving knowledge of Christ, but we also desire for them to mature in that relationship and continually put to death the works of the flesh and walk by the Spirit (Galatians 5:16-26). This is the opposite of a numbers-focused method. Valuing depth over numbers also means holding high church membership. Church membership is more important than church attendance. Church membership opens the door for depth in relationships rather than just the surface-level relationships of non-committal attendance.
Entertainment Over Discipleship
Having an attractional ministry has become the norm in churches today. Doing life together is less appealing to people than creating a fun and entertaining environment. When looking in Acts 2, entertainment and fun are nowhere to be found. Commitment to one another, commitment to worshipping together in unity, and a commitment to giving, are all at the forefront. This mentality of getting people in the door with something other than the gospel in order to tell them about Jesus is not biblical. A bait and switch is a business trick that we should not employ in the church. It displays a lack of faith in the gospel itself. The popular phrase, “what you win them with, is what you win them to,” is overused but helpful. Do we really think the gospel isn’t good enough so we need to add bells and whistles?
We should care more about theology than we do a dynamic worship experience. We should care more about worship than we do relevance. We should care more about discipleship than entertainment. Not one person should walk into a church without walking out knowing more about what it means to be a follower of Christ. There should always be a worshipful response from a church focused on making disciples of Christ. The same cannot be said about a church focused on entertainment.
The church cannot continue to misrepresent the Church by looking more like a business. The Church exists for worship. We must hold high corporate worship. We must display the significance of the Lord’s Supper and Baptism. While a business would say people are merely numbers, tools, or consumers, the local church must say they are image-bearers of God, made to be like Him, and offered restoration only through the death and resurrection of His Son. May the church uphold the gospel because that is her call.
Allow me to highlight a way that our church seeks to celebrate the beauty of gender complementarity during our corporate worship gatherings.
A couple of years ago, as I was reading through the Scriptures, I was struck by 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, where the Corinthians are given the instruction: “but every wife who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven” (v.5). As tempting as it is, let me invite you to not get bogged down by the curious element of head coverings in this passage (a topic I’m looking forward to wrestling with when we eventually decide to preach through this controversial book!). Instead, I invite you to zoom in on the thing that struck me a couple of years ago. Namely, the fact that Paul just seems to take for granted that women in the congregation were praying and prophesying publicly. It’s as if he’s saying, “Of course, you know that when you assemble together, the women will be praying and prophesying as well. When they do, make sure that they do it like this.”
Given how self-evident it seems to Paul that women will be routinely praying in the gathered assembly, the persistent absence of sisters praying in our worship gatherings was conspicuous. This was a convicting absence for me, as a pastor. So, I began to think to myself, “Where in our congregation would it be appropriate for that to happen?” At our church, we follow a consistent pattern every week: a biblical call to worship, two songs of praise, a corporate biblical confession, a corporate prayer of confession, a private prayer of confession, a biblical/pastoral assurance of pardon, a song of thanksgiving, the public reading of Scripture for the sermon, the pastoral prayer, the sermon, the communion prayer, communion, a final song of thanksgiving, and the benediction.
The only three times of formal, corporate prayer in our liturgy are (a) the corporate prayer of confession, (b) the pastoral prayer before the sermon, and (c) pastoral prayer before communion. The most natural place to have women lead the congregation in corporate prayer from time to time is obviously the corporate confession. So, I concluded that, at the very least during the weeks that our sisters are leading the worship service entirely, they should also be leading out corporate prayer of confession. I brought the issue to my fellow elders, and they agreed wholeheartedly.
However, that does not mean that the entire liturgy will ever be led by our sisters. Why? For a couple of reasons.
Firstly, when we think about the assurance of pardon and the benediction, both of these elements are saturated with a deeply pastoral flavor that seems to brush up against the activities of “teaching” and “exercising authority” over men, which Paul expressly prohibits for women (1 Timothy 2:12). In other words, as a pastor, I want to protect the able sisters in our congregation from (even inadvertently) disobeying God’s Word. But secondly, and related to the first reason, I think we’d be missing a splendid opportunity to showcase, and revel in, the beauty of gender complementarity if we had our sisters lead out in the entire liturgy. For in doing so, we would either have to invite our sisters to engage in these “pastoral-like” activities, or we would have to make these activities “less-pastoral-like” so as to accommodate the sisters leading. In both of those scenarios, we would be missing out on the beauty of female prayer and worship, and male leadership. Which is precisely what Paul roots his prohibition regarding female teaching within (1 Timothy 2:13-14).
You see, Paul is not arbitrarily saying, “Here’s the one thing that women shouldn’t be doing, but regarding everything else, all bets are off.” Were that the case, we would have to consider this prohibition virtually arbitrary; as if men and women are totally interchangeable, and male leadership in the church in this one activity (i.e., teaching) came down to a coinflip. But Paul’s mindset is far more holistic than this. He roots this instruction all the way back to the garden, arguing that this kind of female leadership in the church isn’t fitting, not just because it goes against the grain of cultural customs, but because it goes against the grain of nature. God made men and women differently, to harmonize with one another and complement one another. Male headship in the home, and male leadership in the church is not an arbitrary structural requirement placed on an otherwise amorphous cosmos—as if everything were malleable, and the relationship between the genders are completely up for grabs outside of those two explicit areas. No, male headship in the home and male leadership in the church is reflective of the structured cosmos that God has placed us all within. There is a grain to the universe, and the instructions God’s Word gives to men and women goes with the grain.
Think about it like a symphony. If it is true that all of creation sings out with praises to God (cf., Psalm 19:1-6), we should be thinking, “Where do I come in? Where do I go loud? Where do I quiet down? When do I sing melody, and when do I sing harmony? Etc. etc.” When God gives men and women unique instructions in Scripture, he isn’t just making arbitrary requirements. He’s giving us instructions on the good life. He’s saying, “You’re not a tuba, you’re a flute; I’ve made you to do trills, so do that right… here,” or “You’re not a cello, you’re a pair of symbols. Don’t just play willy nilly; you need to crash as loud and hard as you can right… here!”
This is, in my estimation, the answer to many of the debates regarding “complementarianism” in the western church today. Too often, people get hung up on the particulars. On the one hand, you have people getting hung up on the particulars in such a way that everything becomes a slippery slope. Don’t start doing this, because if you do it won’t be long before you cross this boundary. Always keep the boundary in mind! On the other hand, you have people getting hung up on the particulars in such a way that the particulars become mere fences. As long as we don’t cross that line, everything else is fair game. We’re nowhere near the boundary and we’re not on a slippery slope, so it doesn’t really matter what responsibilities are taken up by men and women!
I think a much better way forward is to see the particulars as reflections of the world that God has made, and indications for the good life. Our Triune God is not capricious or half-baked in his instructions. If he’s instructed for men to be on one trajectory, and for women to be on another complementary one, it’s because he’s made us to function that way, and structuring our lives along those lines will actually lead to our joy.
We can, obviously, find reasons to object. We don’t like the idea that we were made to function in a particular way. We want for things to be more up in the air, arbitrary, and amorphous. We want a cosmos that isn’t structured or hierarchical, but is rather malleable for us to structure as we see fit. But the reality is, whatever we come up with is nowhere near as beautiful as the cathedral God intends to build with the very different material of men and women. To stick with the metaphor (which isn’t all that far off from 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, by the way), if men are stone foundations, built to handle weight and deal with wear and tear, and if women are stained glass windows, equipped to beautify and adorn the structure as a whole (or, made to be a “glory” per 1 Corinthians 11:7), it won’t benefit anyone by putting the stained glass window as the foundation or the stone in the windows.
To bring the issue back to our corporate worship gatherings, we have a beautiful opportunity to revel in the complementarity of godly men and women when we worship, especially on those weeks where our sisters lead in some areas while qualified men continue to lead in others. It is more beautiful, not less, when the voice of a godly sister in Christ articulates our corporate prayer of confession, and it is then complemented by the strong godly voice of a brother in Christ, speaking on behalf of Christ the pastorally tinctured assurance of pardon.
All that to say, I invite you to notice the complementary loveliness of your services as often as you can. When you hear the conspicuous presence of the feminine, revel in it. Praise God for it. Imagine how colorless and lifeless our expression of worship would be without it. And when you hear it complemented with masculine leadership, do the same. As we say in the Emmaus Kids Catechism:
Q: Are boys and girls the same?
A: No, they are different.
Q: Why is this a good thing?
A: Because God’s not boring, and their differences are good!
Biblically understood, there is a lot more involved in “going to church” than simply attending a worship service. The gospel is designed to remake our entire souls, reorienting us away from ourselves and instead around God and others. The gospel makes the church, so the church that operates according to the gospel that has made it magnifies the Christ of the gospel more than the church that doesn’t. And yet, the commitments the church makes to “go to each other” must necessarily entail “going out” as well. The church that is not on mission, in fact, is not acting true to its own nature. The gospel is not meant to be hoarded but to be shared.
Over and over again, the apostle Paul in his letters necessarily connects the inner life of the church with the outer witness of the church. He transitions from inward relational harmony and service to outward acts of justice and mercy and blessing. For instance, in Romans 12, Paul is discussing what the inner life of the church looks like and then transitions into a statement like this:
Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:17-21)
Here, we see how the church is meant to move from harmony with each other, hospitality with each other, needs-meeting with each other (in verses 13-16), to now ministering to those considered our “enemies.” This is something of course only the gospel can help us do.
When we see the purposes of the church in enjoying the gospel in the New Testament teaching, the phrase “missional church” ought to strike us as incredibly redundant. Charles Spurgeon has said, “Every Christian is a missionary or an impostor.” That is a harsh word but it certainly is in keeping with Paul’s command to “let love be genuine.” If we say we love God but have no love for our brothers, we are liars. And if we say we love God but have no love for the lost, we are liars. The love God gives us in the gospel is more than enough for us. It must overflow, spill the banks of the church fellowship and begin to flood the communities and contexts the church finds itself in.
The church centered on the gospel, then, makes a commitment to bless the world. We determine that we are so satisfied in God that we are willing to live at peace with all men, so far as we are able. We determine, by God’s grace, to suffer wrongs if it will further the gospel. We determine to hand over to God what is rightfully is—the place of judgment, the place of authority, the place of sovereignty. And because we who were enemies of God were nevertheless fed and clothed by him in Christ, we ascribe maximum worth to him and maximum glory to his gospel by feeding and clothing others.
And in the end, our efforts at fulfilling Romans 12:21 serve to foreshadow that great and consummate day when the Lord will return and finally overcome evil forever with his eternal goodness. And these efforts also serve to recollect that great and wonderful day when the Lord came in Spirit to our souls and overcame our evil dispositions forever with his eternal righteousness. The church is empowered by the Spirit through the gospel to bless the world as the overflow of God’s blessing of us. That the world may know the God we serve and worship him alongside us in spirit and truth. We love and believe and serve and bless, that the whole world might “go to church” with us.
“So how was your flight?”
When I am asked this question, I typically respond by saying it was a good flight. I speak positively about the flight for one reason. It landed. I may not like my assigned seat. There may have been no room for my bag in the overhead compartment. It may have been a bumpy flight the whole ride. But none of that really matters as long as the flight lands safely.
The same is true of sermons. It may get off to a bumpy start. You may have to play catch up to stay within the allotted time schedule. The people on board may not like where it is headed. But all will be forgiven if you can safely land the sermon at its intended destination.
Here are seven tips on landing the sermon safely with a strong conclusion.
Give a true conclusion. Don’t just stop. Don’t let the sermon trail off. Don’t preach until you hit your time limit. Don’t go until you run out of material. Don’t simply end by saying a prayer or extending an invitation. Conclude the sermon intentionally. View the sermon as a unit with an introduction, body, and conclusion. Work to craft a conclusion that is clear, compelling, and climatic.
Only conclude once. Paul says, “Finally,” several times in Philippians. But Philippians is divinely inspired. Your sermon on Philippians is not. So when you say, “Finally,” mean it. Avoid serial conclusions. You will only make the congregation nervous if you keep circling the runway. No skilled pilot plays with the landing gear. And flight attendants don’t promise to land early just because the passengers look bored. So don’t go into an unnecessary holding pattern by introducing new material at the end. Land when it’s time to land.
Know your destination. Where is the sermon going? What’s the point? How should the congregation respond to the truth of the text? The answers to these questions will determine how to end the message. A conclusion cannot reach a place where the sermon does not go. You should take off with a predetermined destination. And the navigational devices of the message should head in that direction and lead to a logical conclusion. A good conclusion is the result of a sermon that had purpose, unity, and movement.
Review the message. It is often said that a speaker should tell the audience what he is going to say, say it, and then tell them what you said. That may be a cliché. But it works. An effective way to conclude a sermon is to review the major points of the message. Don’t just repeat the main ideas. Restate them. Enforce them. Apply them. Illustrate them. Celebrate them. View the conclusion as the introduction in reverse. Close by making the point again.
Issue a call to action. Application should take place throughout the sermon. But the conclusion is a good place to emphasize it. It is self-deception to hear the word without doing what it says (James 1:22). The goal of preaching is application. So end there. Challenge the congregation to live out the teachings of the faith. Exhort them to be doers of the word. Explain why obedience matters. Show them what following Jesus looks like in practical terms.
Run to the cross. Jesus should be the hero of every sermon. And the conclusion is a good place to point your hearers to Christ. Of course, the message should be saturated with the gospel. Christ is not honored when he is mentioned at the end of a message that ignores him throughout. But there is power in concluding with a clear declaration of the gospel. Run to the cross. Call the hearer to repent and believe. End by exalting the sufficiency of Christ’s Person and Work.
Leave a good impression. First impressions are lasting impressions. But so are closing ones. A message that starts with a bang but ends with a whimper loses credibility. A poor conclusion can trump a good introduction and strong main body. So finish strong. Practice clarity. Use variety. Use variety. Make it memorable. Strive for an economy of words. Don’t ramble. Write it out. Be familiar with it. Think of the conclusion as a lawyer’s closing argument. Don’t leave any reasonable doubt. Preach for a verdict.
Editor’s Note: This originally published at HBCharlesJr.com
How much do you think your preaching influences your people? We know the biblical answer. Preaching is God’s ordained means of communicating the truths of scripture and the gospel to His people and the world. But on a personal level, how much do you think your preaching is influential?
Most pastors will never stand before hundreds of people and preach. Still fewer will ever receive an invitation to preach at some conference. In fact, in my small part of the world, most pastors around me are bi-vocational with very little to no training in preaching. Yet, they labor every week in preaching to their same small flock – some for several decades.
It can be easy for a pastor to feel a disconnect between what he knows to be true and what he experiences. He knows that God’s Word is enough and that God uses it to accomplish all His purposes (Is. 55:11). He knows that it is living and active (Heb. 4:12), and that it is never a waste of time to share it. And yet, he rarely ever sees the fruit of his labors. Preaching is one of the rare tasks in which you don’t really know the effect of your efforts.
Furthermore, most pastors don’t go searching for the fruit of their preaching. There is a sense of pursuing flattery or praise from man to ask how your sermon may have set in a person’s heart. Simultaneously, the pastor wants to, and sometimes needs to know if his people are listening, if they are listening well, and if they are benefitting from his efforts. There is an aspect of good shepherding in discerning ways in which your sermons benefit your people without seeking to be puffed up by such information.
Additionally, pastors want to know how they can improve. They want to keep laboring. They want to get better. And they want to be encouraged that they have not and are not running or laboring in vain. I think this is why Paul tells the struggling Galatians, “Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches (Gal. 6:6).”
“Good things” in this verse might refer to several things. But I think it at least means to encourage the pastor in the labors of his preaching. Preachers will preach better sermons when they know that their preaching has an effect upon those to whom they regularly preach. In other words, right encouragement to the preacher has direct benefits for the preaching ministry of the church.
Let me highlight a few ways to receive encouragement in preaching and then highlight a few ways to give encouragement to preachers.
Receiving Encouragement as a Preacher:
So much more could be said. Bottom line: encouragement can be so helpful, nourishing, and refreshing, but the goal is faithfulness to and the pleasing of Christ!
What about the listener? How do we give encouragement to pastors without puffing them up? Here are a few thoughts:
Preaching is a two-way street. It is not just a man talking to a group of people. It is also a group of people listening to and responding to the labors of the man. Encouragement is one of the great and necessary parts of this exchange.
Life in and of Yourself,
You are greater than can be thought—
far greater than this vessel wrought
with sin can fathom.
Lord, bridge this chasm
of exploration and belief;
still my soul and meet my grief
with Your immense splendor.
O Blessed Truth, help me remember
Your extent and Your immensity.
Rid me of propensity
to run from beauty and light.
Grant me grace and give me sight
beyond seeing. Consume my being
with Your ineffable goodness.
Amen.
Editor’s Note: This poem formed from meditation upon Anselm’s Proslogion and course materials from Theology I with Dr. Matthew Barrett.