I preach twice a week.  It takes me a very long time to prepare the sermons that I preach and I do not think that is a bad thing.  I preach expository messages.  That means I take a passage of Scripture (often progressing through a particular book) and I seek to explain to the people what the Biblical author intended when He wrote the passage often doing so verse by verse.  I then try to illustrate, argue for, and help people apply the ideas of the Biblical author.  I believe that this is the most faithful type of preaching.

I often listen to sermons throughout the week on my phone (usually Matt Chandler, J.D. Greer, and Alistair Begg), and they are all faithful preachers, but it is not the same as hearing God’s Word in real life with God’s people.  Recently I got to go to a service and hear another pastor preach.  I was excited to hear the Word preached in real life with other believers present!  However, shortly after the sermon began I was disappointed because the sermon was topical.  That means that the preacher comes up with the main idea (hopefully its a Biblical idea, sometimes its not) and then tries to support his idea with different passages of Scripture.

I want to be clear about this. I don’t care what another preacher thinks!  I want to know what the Biblical author was getting across as he was inspired by God!  Now don’t get me wrong, I think there is a place for topical preaching but its uses should be few and far between.  I think a pastor should only preach this type of sermon whenever there is an urgent issue in the church that needs to be addressed immediately (but even still, expository preaching is often better in this case if the preacher merely knows what passage to preach from).  However, the main diet of a church should be expository preaching!  After all, preachers’ sermons and ideas are not inspired by the Holy Spirit but the Biblical authors and their ideas were!  It is very easy for topical preaching to go wrong! It is easy for topical preaching to keep the preacher and the congregation in a shallow knowledge of the Word by merely skimming the top of several passages rather than digging deep and really understanding a passage.  It is easy for preachers to preach their favorite topics over and over again and not giving their flock the whole diet of God’s Word.  It is easy for preachers to misinterpret, overemphasize, and take passages out of context when they are preaching topically because they are dealing with several passages at once which makes it harder for congregations to test what the preachers are saying by God’s Word because the preacher is jumping around in the Bible too much!

After the service, another believer said, “That was a great message, wasn’t it?”  I wasn’t sure how to respond.  I didn’t want to speak negatively of another pastor.  I could agree with many things the preacher said but the problem wasn’t so much the message as it was the driver of the message.  I want God’s inspired Word to be driving the message. Not the preacher.  I think we need a revival of expository messages.  I hope that more congregations will stop getting by on topical messages and desire the meat of God’s Word.  I hope that more churches will start to demand that pastors preach expository messages!

This morning I woke up with a burden on my heart for some individuals I know who say they are Christians and that they have been saved, yet they seem to be spiritually asleep.  I had a burden on my heart for them and for any who are in the same situation: unconscious of the weightiness of spiritual and eternal matters.  I realize that I have been in this same situation before myself.  I wish someone had shaken me sooner and had awakened me so I could know even more joy in knowing and serving Jesus during those times.  I hope that I wake up more even now.

I wrote in my prayer journal, “My Father, I am often burdened for those who claim to be saved but are not following you.  Why aren’t they awake to spiritual realities?  Why don’t they realize the weightiness of who you are and what you’ve done?”

Then, immediately afterwards, I read Isaiah 49-52.  Three times in Chapters 51 and 52, God tells the people His people to “Wake up, Wake up.”  I don’t think this is a coincidence.  I believe it’s time to sound the alarm!  I believe it’s time that we encourage each other that we confront each other to wake up!  It’s time to make sure that we don’t allow each other to fall asleep spiritually!  The third time that God tells His people to wake up here He says,

“Wake up, wake up;
put on your strength, Zion!
Put on your beautiful garments,
Jerusalem, the Holy City!
For the uncircumcised and the unclean
will no longer enter you.
² Stand up, shake the dust off yourself!
Take your seat, Jerusalem.
Remove the bonds from your neck,
captive Daughter Zion.”
³ For this is what the Lord says:
“You were sold for nothing,
and you will be redeemed without silver.”

The idea here is to get rid of the wickedness in our lives and to step out of the chains that sin had bound us in.  As Christians, we are no longer slaves to sin!  Jesus has unlocked the chains that we might serve Him freely and out of gratitude!  We were in slavery, but now we have been redeemed!   It was without silver but it was with the precious blood of Jesus!   He died for us!  How could we live our lives in apathy toward Him?  How can we live our lives like His didn’t matter?! 

Church, it is time to get real!  If you say you have been saved but this salvation has not made a big difference in your life, it is no salvation!  True salvation changes a person completely!  It makes us a new creation!  It gives us a new birth!  It causes us to obey God where we only desired to rebel before!  The last sermon I preached was from Malachi 3.  After realizing that Jesus changes everything, this message about returning to the Lord helps us to test our faith!  Three questions you should ask yourself to see if you have really been converted are:  Do I desire to study and obey God’s Word?  Do I give sacrificially and joyfully?  Do I serve God gladly with my words, time, and energy?

I am not saying that we earn our salvation or that we have to change ourselves.  I am saying that if a person is truly saved, God’s Spirit, which entered him or her upon repentance and faith in Jesus, will not allow that person to remain as you are but will be making him or her more like Jesus (Rom. 8:29).

Brothers and Sisters, it’s time to wake up!  The apostle Peter tells us,”Be serious! Be alert! Your adversary the Devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour.”  Satan is trying to make sure that you go to Hell!  If he can’t have you, he will try to make sure that you don’t lead your wife, husband, children, grandchildren, parents, friends, neighbors, and co-workers to Christ so that they will be damned to the Eternal Lake of Fire.  If you remain asleep to spiritual and eternal matters, that may happen!  If you are saved, he will try to make sure that you don’t lead others to Jesus!  Satan wants you to sleep!  It’s time to wake up!

Me and two friends goofing off at a park in NC Obviously, I’m not the one with the heavy load here.

For several weeks now I have been refreshed in serving and worshipping the Lord.  This is very exciting and I praise God for it.  However, with this has come an intensified concern for the well-being of the church where I serve as pastor.  I have had a hard time sleeping on many nights and resting on my days off because this concern has been constantly reentering my mind and continuing in my heart.

During my prayer time yesterday I had many of these concerns on my heart.  I was concerned about the health of the church, concerned about the church growing, concerned about individual church member’s spiritual growth and health, concerned about whether I am doing the things that God would want a pastor of one of His churches doing, concerned about why our church isn’t growing faster.

In the midst of these concerns flowing out of my heart, the Holy Spirit reminded me of the following passage:

“Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  All of you, take up My yoke and learn from Me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yourselves.  For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” –Matthew 11:28-30.

The beginning of this verse begins with the Greek word δεῦτε.  It means to “come here” and to “come now!”  I find it comforting that Jesus doesn’t want us to lose heart because we are carrying a heavy load.  He wants us to come to Him  right away!   He doesn’t want us to be discouraged for any length of time.  How long do we carry heavy loads in our own strength before we actually take them to Jesus?  He has promised that when we come to Him, He will give us rest and allow us to learn from Him.

Now, I want to be clear.  I am not saying that Jesus doesn’t want us (any and every Christian that is) to take on responsibility of any kind.  In fact, He calls many of us to bear extremely heavy responsibilities for Him.  However, when we come to Him, we find rest and strength in order to carry such loads.  The Apostle Paul tells us in 1 Cor. 10:13, “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to humanity.  God is faithful, and He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation He will also provide a way of escape so that you are able to bear it.”  I want you to notice here that the way of escape is not the removal of the temptation or of responsibility.  The way of escape is the strength to be able to bear the temptation and the responsibility without giving in or giving up. 

Now, back to our original passage from Matthew 11.  Jesus says in verse 30, “For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”  Jesus is contrasting the gospel (that is the good news of His life, death, and resurrection that allows us to be saved from eternal destruction) with all of the demands of the law and the extra demands of the Pharisees.  Under the Mosaic Covenant and Law (that is the Covenant that God made with Israel through Moses on Mount Sinai), the Israelites were required to follow the whole law.  The curse for disobeying the law was death (Deuteronomy 28:45).  However, Jesus came and obeyed the whole law on our behalf.  He died to pay the penalty for our disobedience to the law.  Now, we can come to Him, take on His yoke, and He will take ours.  This means, that whenever we are weak and whenever we fail, there is no more penalty or punishment for us.  Why?  Because Jesus took it!  I don’t have to be constantly afraid that I am going to fail God!  Why? Because Jesus had victory on my behalf!

This also leads to one last idea:  Jesus is in control!  He is the one who works in the hearts and minds of His people!  He is the one who grows His church! He is the one who will convict unbelievers to repentance and faith!  I am His instrument and so are you!  He has merely called us to take part in His ministry.  Therefore, when we are burdened and weary in heart, it is important to remember that this is primarily His ministry and His yoke that we get to take part in!  That’s what makes this yoke an easy and light one to bear.  It’s because Jesus has borne it and is bearing it in us and with us!

Praise God!