Developing Redemptive Messages

We are ready for lecture two which I have identified as developing redemptive messages. So last time we were mainly talking about the rationale, the reasons for doing redemptive messages, and most of today we'll talk about how to do it. But just a quick review of redemptive principles for Christ's inner preaching. We talked last time about the necessity of a redemptive focus in all truly Christian preaching. I remember that little thing by J. Adams, kind of a nice rule of thumb, where he said, if it's acceptable in a synagogue or a mosque, there's something wrong with it. If it's acceptable in a synagogue or a mosque, there's something radically wrong with it. Expository preaching is committed to revealing what the word says. Jesus says the whole word presents his person and work by revealing the grace that becomes most fully revealed in him. So to say what the text says, that expository ethic, is to reflect what it is relating concerning the ministry of our Savior. B, some identification marks of non-redemptive preaching. We kind of learned kind of wrong paths to go down. And so how easy they are. Wrong paths are any solo bootstrap some messages that are only just fix it yourself. And these sometimes are identified by the deadly bees, be like, be good, be disciplined messages. Let me remind you, these are not wrong messages in themselves. They're wrong messages by themselves. If they're solo bootstrap, all we've said is be more disciplined. If all we've said is be good. It's rushed in in one of his early books before a lot of the theonomic stuff got real strong. And the theon the messianic character of American education, he has a chapter actually. It's an appendix entitled The Menace of the Sunday School. And what he talks about there is the Sunday school teacher who says with wonderful sweetness. Now Sally, if you're just a good little girl, Jesus will love you. It sounds so sweet and it is so foreign to the gospel. If you're just a good little girl, Jesus will love you. He loved us when we were his enemies. It's not because of our goodness that he is our savior. Such messages, all of these deadly bees by themselves, inadvertently imply acceptance with God depends on our conduct. They imply that acceptance with God depends on our conduct. But this is contrary to the Scriptures, such as Isaiah 646. All our righteous acts are like filthy rags. Luke 1710, Jesus said, when we have done all we were commanded, we are still unworthy servants. Again, if the message is only you do more good works, you straighten up, you fly right, you be more disciplined. The trouble is the Bible is saying that's never enough. Even when you've done all you were supposed to do, you're still an unworthy servant. So if the message's entire scope is do more or do better, it actually is not what Christ said can help us at all. So the gospel is so foreign to the way most people think, right? And most people, even in the church, are out there balancing scales, right? I'm not perfect, but the good work is going to outweigh the bad. But according to Scriptures on what side of the scales do our good works go. They actually weigh against us. They're still filthy rags. They are still that which is tainted with our humanity. The Westminster Confession of Faith puts it this way in the 16th chapter. Our best works cannot merit pardon for sin, but are actually reprobable by God. That's a whole different concept. People out there thinking their good works are going to outweigh their bad. And yet what's actually happening is their good works are weighing against them. Or actually subject to God's reproof. And it's why again a message simply of be good actually hurts people. Because we're actually telling people to do more that would weigh against them unless, as the confession continues, nonetheless God is pleased to receive them that is good works in Christ. I'm a visual thinker. And so I think I really like this notion that it's my works wrapped in Christ. It's Christ righteousness that makes the good works acceptable. So if the message does not inform people how his grace, his working is what makes them acceptable to God, it's actually the wrong message. When I was a kid, I went through in my adolescence a right of passage that everybody, every male in my household had to go through. This right of passage was known as using a two-man crosscut saw. When you grew up in the rural south, my daddy and his daddy before him had all learned how to use a two-man crosscut saw. So listen, we knew about chain saws, but it was a right of passage you had to learn how to do that. And I can remember one particular kind of crisp fall morning. We were sawing through some logs, and we got a log on the cutting frame. We didn't know it, but it was rotten on the inside. So we got just a little ways into the log, and it split, and it fell off the cutting frame, and it landed on the ground. It's so hard, it kind of sheared along a face. And to my kind of adolescent brain, that rotten piece of horse head log, rotten piece of log looked kind of like a horse head. And so after we got through sawing for the day, I took that rotten horse head log and stuck it in my arm and took it home. And a few weeks later, I don't remember if it was my dad's birthday or Christmas because they're both in December, I took that kind of horse head rotten log, and I nailed a two by four to it. And I put some sticks on for legs, and I tied on a rope for a tail, and I put some nails down the side of the two by four. Wrapped it in butcher block paper, put a ribbon on it, gave it to my dad. He took the paper off of it, looked at it and said, that's wonderful. What is it? And I said, Dad, it's a tie rack. You see those nails down the side, you can put your ties on them. And for years, my father used that rotten horse head log as his tie rack, you know, kind of leaning it against the closet wall because it wouldn't exactly stand up straight. Now listen, when I first presented that work to my father, I thought it was really good. I mean, I thought this was a work of art ready for a museum somewhere. But I had to get just a little bit older, and I would say, oh, Dad, when you please get rid of that thing. Yet he accepted it, not because it was good, because he was good. It was what was in him that made it acceptable, not it. And it's what we have to say when we preach to God's people, saying he expects these works, but they're acceptable only as they are received in Christ. It's what God has provided that makes them acceptable, not the things in themselves. So when we preach, we're always trying to, as it were, wrap the imperatives in the indicatives of the grace of God. To remind people, it's what he has done, what he provides, that makes these things acceptable to him, and then makes them a joy to present it to him. Because we recognize his grace is what makes them acceptable. Now, that's not always an easy step. If you picked up the sheet as you came in the door here, or else go all the way back to your lectures, there's some quotations that I gave you. And a key one is the one from Martin Luther. And that's the right at the beginning. Now, this was from a sermon that Luther preached toward the end of his life. And you see it's called the sum. You know, everything added up. The sum of the Christian life. And yet here he's acknowledging some of the struggle to explain this grace thing and work with it. He says this. It's exceedingly difficult to get into another habit of thinking, in which we clearly separate faith and works of love. Even though we are in faith, the heart is always ready to boast of itself before God and say. After all, I've preached so long and lived so well and done so much. Surely he'll take this into account. But he cannot be done with man you may boast. But when you come before God, leave all that boasting at home and remember to appeal from justice to grace. Don't ask God to be just. You don't want fair. What do you want? You want mercy. You want grace. We have to appeal from justice to grace. But let anyone try this. And he will see and experience how exceedingly hard and bitter it is for man who all his life has been mired in his work righteousness to pull himself out of it. And with all his heart rise up through faith in the one mediator. This is very interesting. I myself have been preaching and cultivating grace for almost 20 years. And still I feel the old clinging dirt of wanting to deal so with God that I may contribute something. So have to give me his grace and exchange for my holiness. Still I cannot get it into my head that I should surrender myself completely to sheer grace. Yet I know that this is what I should and must do. I find that an amazingly candid statement. I want to contribute something. Lord, let it count for something for my merit. And yet to get it into your head, no. It's entirely his goodness. Nothing in you. Entirely his and to depend upon his grace. And of course, if we're teaching people, that's the gospel. It becomes imperative for our preaching as well that they understand that role. If we talk about the the distinctives then of what Christ's inner preaching is, if we have to get grace on the scene of any message, then we should also say what Christ's inner preaching is not. And I'm indebted to Sidney gradanis here in his book Soloscriptura for some real quick definitions of what Christ's inner preaching is not. The first he says this, Christ's inner preaching is not allegorical preaching. Christ's inner preaching is not allegorical preaching. Christ's inner preaching does not attempt to make the person of Christ appear in every Old Testament mug puddle and camel track by allegory or analogy. Through paralleling Old Testament accounts and New Testament experiences of Jesus. We did this last time. Remember Rahab's red cloth and the Moses meeting the women at the well. You know, is Rahab's cloth about the blood of Christ or is it about the fact that she was a scarlet woman? Well, you can kind of make it mean anything you want it to mean if you're just going by allegory. Also, not what gradanis called leapfrogging to Gagatha. That is, something in the Old Testament reminds you of something in the life of Christ. He said this, Christ's inner preaching shows how God's grace operates throughout history to enable God's people to understand and depend upon his provision alone for their salvation. That's pretty good. It's saying, how is God's grace operative so that God's people are depending on him rather than themselves? Second, gradanis, second, gradanis said, Christ's inner preaching is not antinomian preaching. Now, you know, we just have to say as we did last time, when you talk about grace focused or Christ's inner preaching, the greatest fear and evangelical reform circles is that you'll become antinomian. And so we just have to be clear here. We are not talking about antinomian preaching. Christ's centered preaching does not negate the necessity of law in believers' lives, but teaches instead that our obedience has no power to redeem or to grant merit before God. Christ's inner preaching reveals the grace in all of scripture to motivate God's people according to Christ's precept. If you love me, you will obey what I command. It's not wiping out the law. It's giving the proper motivation for obedience. And by the way, the obedience is not to gain merit. It's to walk in safety. It's to walk in glory. It's to do that which is not only best for us, but most glorifying to the one that we love. The grace focus has its intent not to justify us, but to inspire us to do what God requires. Now, next page, as we say what redemptive preaching is not, we have to about what redemptive preaching is. First, it is recognition of all scripture as one organic history of God's redeeming work, that is the revelation of His grace. Remember Vos again, the progressive principle, there's a progressive understanding, the organic principle, it's all tied together and the redemptive principle. It's all tied together in revealing what God is doing to redeem His people. So B, redemptive preaching is relation of all persons and events and teaching to the revelation of grace as it is ultimately made known in Christ. This is from Grudanis's book again. He says this, in opposing the fragmentary interpretation which reads the Bible as a collection of biographies. Do you all have this lecture? I'm just thinking. Most of you have that? Okay, good. I'll keep going. In opposing the fragmentary interpretation which reads the Bible as a collection of biographies, the redemptive historical side stresses the hermitidical significance of the unity of redemptive history. The unity of redemptive history implies the crystal-centric nature of every historical text. Redemptive history is the history of Christ. He stands at its center but no less at its beginning and end. Scripture discloses its historiography, that is the purpose of its history right at the beginning. Genesis 3.15. Genesis 3.15 places all subsequent events in the light of the tremendous battle between the seat of the woman and the seat of the serpent, between Christ coming into the world and Satan the ruler of this world, and it places all events in the light of the complete victory which the seat of the woman shall attain. In view of this, it is imperative that not one single person be isolated from this history and set apart from this great battle. The place of both opponents and co-workers can only be determined crystallologically. Now a lot of words going by but what's he saying? He's saying the theme verse of the Bible is not John 3.16. He's saying it's Genesis 3.15 because what's happened there? God speaks to the serpent. I'll put enmity between you and the woman, between your seat and her seat. You will strike his heel but he will crush your head. And now all events, all of human history that unfolds from this point is unfolding that first gospel, that explanation of what Christ would do. Everything is about the great battle that is engaged between seat of the woman, Christ and the serpent and all his seat. So everything, whether you're talking about the judges or the kings or whether you're talking about our lives today, is still the battle that's being engaged until Christ will hold full sway. I sometimes think of it this way. It's almost as though we've been given the privilege of standing on a hill overlooking a vast Napoleonic battlefield and some of you may have been to Waterloo or something like that. You stand up on a hill and you can see where the armies engaged and it's almost as though you could say like on that hill back there, there's the artillery and they're in front the infantry and back behind the cavalry and their supply trains further back and spies on both sides. But you can't explain any particular without relating it to the battle. Everything has a role in the battle. And the same thing is true. We kind of stand on Genesis 3.15 and say, there's Samson, there's Paul, there's David and we begin to understand in light of their role in the great battle of the victory of the king. Everybody's got a place. Everybody's serving a purpose. And the goal in redemptive historical preaching is to say what is the purpose? What is the place of that in the overall battle that's being engaged? The small print there that's just above Genesis 3.15, our goal is not to make every passage mentioned Christ but to show where every passage stands in relation to the grace ultimately revealed in Christ. Now that's important, we get allegorical, right? If you're looking at every passage saying, where does this mention Jesus versus what's the function of this passage in revealing the nature of grace that's ultimately going to be manifested fully in His work? If we just say, I got to make this text mention Jesus in some way, we'll get very allegorical. So here's what we're trying not to do. And this is just kind of visually representing what Bridalis was talking about. We're not doing this imaginative leapfrogging to Gagafa. This is where you're working along in the Old Testament and the preacher sees something like the women around the well of Jacob or something like that and says, this passage reminds me of something in the life of Jesus. That's that kind of leapfrogging thing versus what we're actually trying to do, which is this. We are identifying wherever we are in history, whether Adam and Eve or the flood or the patriarchs or the law or the kingship or any aspect of the New Testament, Christ coming resurrection, church or coming again. Where are we in the battle of Christ to cross Satan so that as we're moving historically along, our goal is to say where are we engaged in the battle and what is the function of this texture, this person in the overall. Says there at the bottom, the preacher explains the role of any epic event, person and passage within the divine crusade of redemption. That is the sovereign victory, the seat of the woman, over Satan. Now it's kind of easy to see in a description. It's kind of hard to do sometimes, right? And for that reason, we're going to talk about other approaches than just a redemptive historical approach that we will value that one. The top of the next page gives the essence, though, of what we're trying to do. Top of page three says this, Christian preaching is simply the proclamation of the divine crusade of redemption, of God's way out of the human predicament. Now that's Simon Blocker in 1955. I think if he'd said, instead of predicament, fallen condition, I would have been in trouble. I could have never written a book. But it's kind of the same notion, isn't it? It's to make it Christian preaching, you're saying, what's God's way out? How is God the hero here? What's he doing more than making some allegorical connection? A basic process that we could follow for Christ's inner preaching. And again, this is more the how-to portion of the lecture. How do you do this? A three-step process for preaching Christ that is God's redeeming work from every text would be this. You start with, what is the FCF? What is the fallen condition that's going on here? What was wrong that the Holy Spirit wrote this? Here we said, if we were Lutheran, we'd be talking about what's the burden of the text? What was wrong that this needed to be written for that generation and succeeding generations? What's the burden of the text or the fallen condition that requires God's intervention and rescue? A true FCF requires a divine solution and thus exposes the inadequacies of legalistic, moralistic messages? I mean, if your target is clear that you're dealing with fallenness, then simple human activity is not going to fix it. So by identifying the FCF, what we're doing is we're requiring God's intervention and that's why we're avoiding man-centeredness as well as antinomianism. We're saying, here's the problem that God must answer and we're showing how that is being addressed first by identifying the FCF. Number two, we ask, what redemptive, and you can almost do, or grace, what redemptive or grace principles are evident in the text? So having identified the burden, what's God doing about it? What redemptive or grace principles are evident in the text? We try to examine historical context. Now, this is important, right? Because you're going to say, where are the various places that you can get the grace as it were? Where various ways the text might be showing it to us? Historical context, genre, narrative features, doctrinal statements, divine actions, surrounding passages, all these things that underscore the necessity and presence of God's redemptive work or grace on behalf of his people. In essence, we're asking the question, we look at the text and we say, what does it tell me about the nature of God providing redemption? Or was it telling me about the nature of man requiring redemption? Now, you've heard those questions before, right? Those are the two lenses. What does this tell me about God? What does this tell me about me? And by asking those two very fair questions of any text, what does it tell me about the nature of God providing redemption, or the nature of man requiring redemption, you're automatically going to start dealing redemptively. It can't just now be about human activity. You see the little note at the bottom there? Remember context is part of text. The expository, not fanciful. Grace principles may be found before, after, or throughout the immediate text. I mean, you'd have to say some of the Pauline epistles are nothing but, if you get to those paranetic portions, which are just the imperatives, right? Here's how you live in the world. You just have to say, there's nothing there but imperatives. But it's got a context. Before he gave the content, the imperatives, he said, in view of God's mercy, present your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual. And before he began to list all the acts of spiritual worship, he said, in view of God's mercy, do these things. And he's just spent about 11 chapters, saying what the mercy is, before he then began to list the things to do. So sometimes, we'll have to say, if you just, if you just kind of deal in isolation, yes, there may not be grace and evidence. But context is part of text. Context is part of text. So it may be something said, after or before or woven through, that is revealing the grace principles in play. My notes say number two again, but it should be number three, right? One, two, and then three, in the light of how these grace principles fit into the overall plan of redemption, how should we respond to these principles in our lives? So as we saw grace being taken to struggle back then, how is truth being taken to our struggle today? How are we to respond to it? This in my mind is the joy of redemptive preaching. Why Christ's inner preaching is, is that which helps the preacher along as well as the people? I mean, why do you go to seminary? Why do you think about doing ministry? Something you said, I want to help people. I want to be a part of bringing Christ's mercy and grace into their lives. So if what I'm doing in preaching is not just saying you need to know more doctrine, or you need to do additional behaviors, which is what I think most people approach the text thinking. That's all I'm up here to do. Tell you more doctrine and more behaviors. Instead, what I'm saying is, there's some struggle that you're going through. And it's like the struggle of those people for whom this was written. And the grace of God is telling you how to deal with that struggle. So we take truth to struggle, and suddenly we become those physicians of souls that we want to be, rather than those who are just pestering people to do more every week. Now, I'm not saying you want to take these pills. There may be some, you know, you've got to have the shot of your, but your goal is this healing, this idea of bringing help to people that this grace centered and Christ centered approach helps with. Now, if you say where do we get the grace, there are various interpretive approaches for Christ's inner preaching. The first two are the less authoritative kinds. The first is a topical approach. A topical approach, which we're not going to emphasize this semester, a topical approach creatively adds redemptive truth to the topic at hand. You know, it was said of Spurgeon, no matter where he began in Scripture, he always took a shortcut to the cross. Well, we're going to talk about shortcutting, right? Although I like the ethic, you know, you knew we wanted to get to God's work before he ended, but it was, if you read a lot of Spurgeon's work, Christ kind of rode in on a white charger at the end. I mean, there was really nothing in the text that provided a basis for what was being said. Now, a topical approach is one way to get it in. Another is a textual approach, a textual approach, including redemptive truth by analogy or illustration or addition. I can remember when I was a kid growing up going to really a wonderful church one time, very large Baptist church where I sometimes attended in an evening service of pastor gave a tremendous message on not procrastinating. You know, it's God's time, it's not your time, you should be a steward of time as well as treasures. Don't put off till tomorrow what you can do today. It's God's time, be responsible. And at the end, there was an alter call. Now, you know, nothing in the message or the text had been pointed out, which would lead you to Christ. Now, I was still thankful for the notion of Christ is still the answer. You know, if you're not being good steward of time and not doing what you should, there's still a reason. But it was just a textual addition. It was nothing that it actually come out of the text. As you might guess, the thing that we're going for is the next category. And the next category is going to be those messages which are expository in nature. The expository approach finds the actual redemptive focus of a passage in first the text that is there some text that will actually mention the work of Christ. If you're in Matthew 26, which is the crucifixion, and you don't see redemptive truth, you ain't looking, just say what the text has. You know, there are one way to expound grace principles is to say what the text says. If it's actually mentioning Christ or his Messianic work, a gospel account of Messianic Psalm, an epistle reference in his own body, he took our sins in his own body on the tree that we might die to sins and live for righteousness. There's just clearly a reference to Christ's work in our behalf. But now here's the problem. If you're only going to preach redemptive truth, where the text explicitly talks about the crucifixion or Christ's redemptive work, how much of the Bible are you going to miss? I don't know the answer to my own question, but you've figured what 90% you know, I mean if you're just waiting for some specific reference to Christ's redemptive work, you're not going to preach redemption very often or else you're going to narrow quite a bit what you're going to talk about. So while a textual expository approach may get you to redemptive truth, it can't be the only way. A second way to get redemptive truth may be by looking at type, not only text, but type. And you're going to reclowny a little bit this semester and he does some discussion of typology with a lot of the flowering of discussion right now about the nature of Hebrew narrative, lot more discussion going on about typology these days than a decade or so ago. But more to go, this is where Christ's redemptive work is represented in an old testament type and kind of for reform people, the rule of thumb is a type is only a type if the New Testament represents it as such. Okay, something in the New Testament is saying that this is a type of something that was done like the temple, the kingship of David. I mean there are things that are identified as types. Now whether or not it's got to be the Bible specifically saying these things were done as an example, a tip-os for us, a type for us is a big question. I tend to think that the way the narratives of the Old Testament are structured sometimes are indicated to be typological by the paralleling that's happening in the New Testament narratives. That sometimes you see, I can remember when I was a kid just laughing at a preacher one time who said now, here's what happened when Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac. They went up a hill, the sun put wood on his back. Get it? Hear it? And I just thought, how silly? Well I'm not sure, I think it's silly anymore. I mean if we were reading Moby Dick and you know in chapter 3 there was some description of Quik Quik's spear and way over on chapter 52 there was another mention of another spear but it had the same description. You know I would say same author, Melville was doing something here. Now what we tend to do is they know this author is Luke and that author is Moses. So it must, well that's true too but there's another author in play too who is what, the Holy Spirit. If it's the same canonical authorship then there may be other things going on. Now what I've just said is highly controversial and I wouldn't urge you to make that your first step in preaching today. But there's no question that when you get to clown and you're going to have to think about typology but let's still go there. If you're only going to preach redemptive truth where the text specifically mentions some aspect of Jesus' redemptive work or there's some typological reference to it now how much of the Bible are you going to skip? Again I don't know the answer to my question but what 80% 75% you're still going to miss. So what's our last piece? If we said how do we get redemptive truth it's not represented in text or type then the last piece has to be context. We identify where this passage is events, persons or instruction fit in the overall revelation of God's redemptive plan or where this passage is imperative stand in relation to the grace principles evident in context. Now how is context revealing things to us? In its context every passage is either a predictive of the work of Christ. One way that passages are revealing Christ to us is by predicting Him. These are of course things like the prophecies right or the Pro-2 Evangelium that I read a little while ago Genesis 315. These are things that predict who Christ is or what He will do. So all forms of prophetic material are predictive. A second way in which context there's revealing the work of Christ to us is it may be preparatory. There are things that are preparing us preparatory for the work of Christ. They prepare us to understand Christ person and or work sometimes even negatively how do the law become our school master to lead us to Christ? By ultimately pointing at our inadequacy to keep the law Paul said through the law I died to the law that I might live for Christ. It taught me the negative about me as a way of pointing me to Christ. So it's preparing me right it's preparing me to understand another I must depend upon even what he would do. There are certainly preparations that we're understanding for the work of Christ in the sacrifice system of the Old Testament. The writer Hebrews uses that over and over again right? You're going to understand what Christ was doing because of the sacrifices of the Old Testament and the fact that we have a greater high priest now. Certain passages are reflective of the work of Christ. See is reflective. Certain passages are reflective of the work of Christ. That is we see Christ character or nature being reflected in what he does for his people or what they do for one another. We see Christ character and nature reflected in what he does for his people or what they do for one another. Finally some passages are resultant of the work of Christ. That is we see something that applies to us as a result of what Christ redemptive work has accomplished like the fact that you can pray. It's the only reason that you can pray because you have someone interceding for you. Your prayer your ability to pray and be heard is a result of the redemptive work of Christ. Your ability to worship is a result of what Christ has done. Your ability to be treasured by God is a result of what Christ has done. So there are many aspects of our lives that are a result that are being described in various text as a result of the work of Christ. Now I'm going to turn this off and just tell you where we are here. What I just did is kind of classic redemptive historical method. We say here's the big picture, Genesis 3, 15 and forward. So from Genesis to Revelation everything is revealing the battle between the seat of the woman and Satan. And the various ways that are being revealed are things like text are predictive of the work of Christ, preparatory, resultant to reflect them. You know we get this. So somewhere in this large scheme of biblical history that's how this or that text is functioning. Now I taught that for I'm guessing about 10 or 12 years before I kind of listened to myself preach. And I recognized though I talked about fitting things into their large historical context that's hardly ever what I did. And I begin to think now I still think I'm preaching grace, I still think I'm preaching redemptively. But I'm not always kind of doing this you know Genesis to Revelation masterpiece you know of everything including the kitchen sink being thrown in. And I began to recognize there are other approaches to doing this redemptive preaching that are not just this macro all of world history kind of approach or find the context of it. And that's what C on page 4 is about. It's kind of telling you what your options are. I don't know in any way what to negate or even belittle these redemptive historical methods. I mean they're absolutely essential for kind of navigating where you are in the text. But the macro approach is always number one C1 the redemptive historical that is finding out what place or function of the text, what is the place or function of the text in redemptive history. That's kind of the macro approach and lots of ways in which this functions. We're kind of Western thinkers here. So we're working in a linear way. So we think you know this historical event led to that historical event led to that historical event led to Christ. And that's one way of thinking about it. Another way of thinking about kind of the macro scheme is to recognize the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, is more of an Eastern mind document. An Eastern thinking doesn't often work linear but often takes an idea and circumscribes it to make the point. It kind of talks around it to say this is the point. And that's another way of thinking about the Bible. We thought all right how are people going to approach God? Well they've messed up early in life in Eden. So ultimately you know what we'll do is we will have a law. And if everyone obeys the law of God then they'll be okay with God. So we'll try that. Is that work? Well that doesn't work. Okay well let's have a period of judges where everyone will do what's right in his own eyes. How's that work? Well that doesn't work either. All right well let's choose a human king. Let's get the best, the brightest, the biggest, the handsomest. And we'll let that person make the decisions for us and when we have a human king who's really the best of all people, then things will be okay for us. How well does that work? Well that doesn't work either. Well we'll get the prophets to come and the prophets will come and they will give us the word of God that will correct us and we'll have the correct understanding. And they will identify the right kings that we should have in the right way. If we just get enough prophets to help the people of God, then we'll hang together as a people. We'll be the kingdom of God and then everything will be okay. How well does that work? That doesn't work either. Okay well if it does have that things we're going to have to make it up to God. So we better have some kind of a temple system. We'll sacrifice to God. We'll give enough sacrifices he'll be happy with us. Is that work? All right now think what just happened? We're gonna have to have a better log-ever. We're gonna have to have a better judge. We're gonna have to have a better king. We're gonna have to have a better priest. We're gonna have to have a better sacrifice. We need Christ. We've had a bunch of dead ends. A lot of things that didn't work to point to the thing that must work and that we must have. It's more than a linear history, although it's still taking the encompassing view of history and saying certain things have been bridges, you know, like the sacrifice system, we kind of bridge to understanding what Christ would do. But there are other things that are kind of dead ends like doing what's right in your own eyes, or trying to be good enough for God by keeping the law. That's a dead end. So by these various forms of dead ends and bridges, history is functioning to show us what God would do in Christ. Now, all of that are just, those are just various forms of the macro-interpretation. But there are micro-interpretations too, which I'm going to guess you'll often feel more comfortable with, like this, number two. Sometimes in a historical passage or narrative passage, there is doctrinal instruction. That is, there is redemptive doctrine or understanding grace that is exemplified or stated or taught. If you're reading an account from Abraham, and it says, Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. Is there any grace principle in there? You know, and you don't have to go from Genesis to Revelation, you say, right there. Just right there is a doctrinal statement that shows the grace of God. It's nature, how it functions. Faith leads to God's blessing rather than what we do. And sometimes looking in biblical narratives or other portions of scripture, like the prophecy saying, what doctrinal statement is right there is just a microway of finding grace in the text as well as the broader scope. The third, and it's what I find candidly, I use the most, is what I call relational interaction. That is, identifying what redemptive truth or grace principle does God demonstrate toward His people or in their dealings with each other. So, all right, is there any place in which God is dealing with an awful king and yet still provides Him mercy, like David, like Manassas? We see, we see God providing mercy toward people who do great evil. Is there any redemptive truth there, any grace principle? Sometimes it's just looking at the narrative and if you will, having on, you're this side of the cross perspective. I think sometimes people think in order to interpret the Old Testament properly, I have to just go blind to what Jesus did on the cross. It's like, no, I live this side of the cross. And I know that what was happening, the Old Testament, was preparing people to understand what Christ would do. So, now as I look back and see it, this side of the cross, I understand what truth was being prepared for them. And it may be things like this. Is there strength that God is providing in weakness? Faithfulness, despite unfaithfulness, provision for need, forgiveness for sin, protection and danger, discipline for correction. Now, as I must say, I think this is what you'll feel the most comfortable doing. Again, I don't want to negate the redemptive historical large scope. But if what you're doing is you're saying, I know that God is preparing his people, sometimes in very simple ways, for what he's going to reveal, redemptively in Christ. Then I look at that text and I say, how is God showing his mercy? And that grace principle in evidence is going to, I think, come to you very quickly if you're putting on your lenses and you're saying, was this telling me about God? Was this telling me about me? And it's going to show you aspects of God's grace in Revelation. And that's the item D at the bottom of that page. The redemptive lenses therefore to use in approaching all texts are the two key questions that are always applicable and always fair. That is, what does this text reveal about God's nature or attributes which provide the work of Christ or our nature and attributes which require the work of Christ? The note at the bottom, revealing aspects of the necessity and provision of grace rather than mention of Jesus is what makes a sermon redemptive. Now, don't take it to me and I'm saying, don't mention Jesus. What I'm concerned is that we do not say this word means Jesus or this event means Jesus. Where it obviously doesn't and leads us to allegorical errors. But rather to say, this text is revealing grace. I can always say we know that this aspect of grace is more fully revealed in Christ. I'm not saying this text means Jesus. I'm saying I understand it's bearing its relation to what ultimate grace is provided in Christ. So I may still be mentioning Jesus in the message, but I'm not making the text mention Jesus where he really doesn't appear. I'm showing how the grace of God is being exposed as a way of understanding the ultimate work of Christ. That leads to the paragraph on the top of page 5. This reminds us the term Christ-centered is sonecticky. That is part for the whole. There are lots of other similar terms like grace-focused or you hear me use the word redemptive preaching a lot, right? Redemptive or grace-focused or gospel-oriented. You hear people refer to it in different ways. The term Christ-centered is sonecticky for all of God's redeeming work that makes us know and depend upon his grace ultimately provided in Christ. A Christ-centered sermon does not attempt to make Jesus appear where the text does not speak of him, but rather demonstrates the relation of the text to his person and or work. Notice it says person and or work may not just be his person. Often biblical texts are not directly revealing the person of Jesus, but are revealing a dimension of God's gracious nature that will be most fully revealed in Christ and must be grasped by us to know to know him and to reflect him. I think of how Paul said it in Acts 20. You remember how he's explaining toward the end of his ministry. Here's what I did. Here's what I was about. He said this. I consider my life nothing if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me the task of testifying the gospel of God's grace. I consider what I've done nothing if I don't finish my task and my task is testifying of the gospel of God's grace. So he gives this this great gracious context to everything that he's about. And do we say did Paul give imperatives in his letters? Of course he did. Did he give instruction that he sometimes say discipline had all those things? Yes, but it was always in the context of so people will understand the grace of God that is their ultimate hope. Now what you're doing this semester is you are particularly going to historical narratives and it's often harder to follow this theme. If you're in the book of Ephesians where you're learning by grace you're saved through faith, it's kind of easy to see grace there. It may be harder to see grace where David slays Goliath. Where is it there? But where is it there? How did David slay Goliath? You come with Sora, Javelin and Sphere. I come in the name of the Lord. Even in the narrative David is reminding himself and God's enemies that his strength, his power is not his own. It's what God provides. He comes with the authority, with the name and for the purposes of his God. Always there's this redemptive context. So as you're going to narratives, let's talk about just things to use. What are you going to use as you go to narratives? How do you use these redemptive lenses to identify grace principles? Again, I think a good way to start is whether it's David and Goliath or David and Mifibusheth or Samson Delilah. What does this text reveal about God's nature or attributes which provide the work of Christ? Or our nature or attributes which require the work of Christ? And using those questions and ricas as they're kind of the relational interaction questions often. To identify the grace principles or patterns evident in the text. I'll come to patterns in just a minute. But a key idea is this. God is the hero of the text. If you keep going back there, you're kind of on the safe ground. How am I showing how God rescues? How is God the hero in this account? And we're unfolding the story of his rescue. You're going to read an article by Tim Keller toward the end of the semester. Well, maybe it's not toward the end. Maybe middle, in which he says this, he says one of the reasons that Christ's inner preaching so appeals to a postmodern mind is that this is a generation that so loves narrative. And he says when you're doing redemptive preaching, God always comes to the rescue. There's always that implicit story going on. How is God rescuing his people? He's always the hero if we're understanding how the text is functioning. So here are various grace principles or patterns that you might look for in historical narratives. One, deliverance before obedience. When is the Exodus happen relative to the giving of the law before? And even when God gives the law before he says, here's what you are to do. He says, I am the God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Therefore do these things. He didn't say do these things and then I'll rescue you. So the pattern was deliverance came before obedience. Number two, a covenant is made before its conditions are met. God obligates Himself before the conditions are met by the obligy as it were, the one who is being obligated humanly. God obligates Himself. Love is before and beyond performance. Before the performance there is love and beyond the failure to perform adequately, there is still love from God, patterns. If you were looking for principles of grace, they would do things like, do we see mercy for guilty, strength for the weak, love for the unlovely, provision for the needy, rescue for the helpless, justice for the oppressed, punishment for enemies, discipline that is redeeming discipline for the wayward, warning for the negligent, faithfulness for the un...what is God doing that's gracious, or what are those who represent Him doing that is gracious, giving something undeserved, providing something that could not be provided by human strength alone. How is grace in evident? Then having done that we motivate obedience required by this text with its grace principles. We're motivating obedience with the grace principles that are evident. Remember that we said application has four questions. Remember those, what to do, where to do it, why to do it, and how to do it, what, where, why, how, prep and del and the elementary practicum, we're getting you familiar with those, what to do and where to do it. Instructional specificity, where's the text tell me, what's it tell me to do, and where does it tell me to do it? We're now doing these, this is Christ's center. We are saying, how is grace motivating and how is it providing strength? Now our next lecture next time, we're going to really focus here on the how. But for now we're looking at the text and we're saying, why should I do that? How is the grace of God? How is my love for Him being generated by the grace that's in the text so that I will desire to do, long to do, those things that please God? Again, for those who think that Christ's center preaching is antonominant, again there's just not understanding of the process. We've never excluded these questions. They always stay on the page, what to do and where to do it. But this is what makes it Christ's center. We have said, why do you do what you do in the places that you live? And that has to be not for merit, not for personal gain, but out of love for Him. And the grace principles that are being excavated are the attempts to make us, and God's people understand, their love for Him. On page six at the top, He says things you're now familiar with, so I'm going to go quickly. As we look at the narratives to examine with redemptive lenses, we are looking for number one, relational interaction. Number two, doctrinal statement. And number three, redemptive historical methods. All those are our tools now for excavating the grace that's in the passage. Relational interaction, doctrinal, and again remember the list that was on the preceding page. Looking for those grace patterns or principles. At the end of it saying redemptive there, you see that a little parallelogram or that old diamond says, remember text may function as dead ends or bridges. Text may function as dead ends or bridges. So you're looking at those narratives this semester. And as you look at the narrative, you're saying what grace principles are evident there. Maybe in the macro thing. It may be in doctrinal state. It may be in the way people are relating to one another or that God is relating to them, but what grace principles are in evidence. Now as you go about organizing a narrative for a sermon, and that's a little bit different than we've done the epistles, right, which are just a paragraph. I mean sometimes the narratives are what? Three, four chapters long. You know, if you're in first sample, something like that, you know, these big chunks of narrative material at times, how do we organize narratives? Number one, remember exploding a verse or distilling a passage are both legitimate homological movements that may affect how an outline is formed. That is often when we're in didactic or epistle material, we're taking a little portion of scripture and we're exploding the implications, right? In narratives, often we're going the other direction. We're taking big chunks of material and we're pulling it together. You know, what are the principles that we see in operation in this narrative? Christ and the Lord's Prayer for instance, explodes the implications of Proverbs 30 verse 8 and 9. But in Matthew 12, 38 through 41, he summarizes four chapters of Jonah in only four verses. So you see both patterns going on, sometimes exploding, sometimes distilling. The key thought for you, I think, today is this. As you are preparing the narrative passages that you're working on, here's the key thought. Number two, principle lies to make a word, principal lies, main points and sub points. That is, identify the truth principles that are supported by the text features and facts. Do not state text facts as main points or sub points that will lead you with no truth to illustrate or apply. All right, there's just a lot of words go by. And you were so nice to nod your heads, but inside you're going, what? And the world that that mean. Here's the notion. It's very tempting when you're explaining a narrative, simply to retell the facts of the narrative. First, David took out his sling. Second, David threw a rocket, Goliath. And for my third main point, Goliath hit the ground. Now, it's all true. And basically what you've just done is you've, you've colonized the narrative. You know, you can say, this happened and that happened and that happened. And then you come and you start trying to do application. And so you say, all right, now what should you do? Well, David took out a sling and you should take out your slings, whatever they are in life. You should take them out and slay your giant. And you're kind of looking for, you know, you can't work with that, you know. What you're looking for is you're looking for the principle that a main point is supplying. That is proven by the facts of the text. Like, God's servants trust him even when they face adversity. How do I know that? David, when he went against Goliath, called out for the name of God. The fact supports the principle. Here's some examples on the page in front of you. Not this. This is not what we're going to do. It's just a restatement of text facts merely describing the text. Israel confronted Jericho. Israel marched around Jericho. The walls of Jericho tumbled down. See, you're just kind of chronicling the text. You're just going through it there. But this, here's where you formulate biblical principles as main points. These are in the old homologous language. These are called universal truths. So what universal truth, not just what text fact, what universal truth is being proven by that text fact. Like, faithfulness requires facing God's enemies. Well, Israel had to go against Jericho. They did ultimately confront Jericho. Faithfulness requires facing God's enemies. Two, faithfulness requires obeying God's word. Like, God said, march around, and they marched around. Three, faithfulness results in seeing God's hand. The walls of Jericho tumbled down. The way, you know, we've been taught, at least at this institution, that sermons are often formed, is with the double helix that goes this way. Right? Explanation, illustration, application. Often, what you're doing in a narrative, and this is even called a narrative structure, and some of you, I know, may begin experimenting with it this semester, is the helix goes this way. Here's what happens. You get a principle, like, faithfulness requires facing God's enemies. That's the principle. That's the main point. And then you'll tell some of the narrative, you know, the Jericho was a major town, and it was where the enemies of God would have kept kind of watch over anything that was entering into the land of Canaan. And therefore, it was necessary that it be confronted, and God's people were told to do it, and they did. At least this generation did, not this generation before, how difficult it was. But ultimately, I'm saying the principle. I'm giving the facts, kind of retelling the story, that supports that principle. And that's going to lead to another principle, right? Like, faithfulness requires obeying God's word, not just confronting enemies, but obeying them, talk about, here's what God told them to do, and here's what they did, etc. Now, these principles themselves may have some points, all right? That are also principles, okay, sub-principles. They're not just text facts. But the text facts in here are always going to be supporting the principle. It's at these different nodes, all right? If you're putting as an outline on paper, it won't look any different, right? You're still going to have a main point. I just want to make sure that your main points are not simply text facts, all right? Because then when you get to application, you're just going to be lost. But when you talk about a principle, faithfulness requires facing God's enemies. Now you've got a principle that you can apply, and it'll work for you. Question? I'm not hearing at all. That's a great question. Do you need to use illustrations? And the answer is yes, though at times the narrative, if it's told with a lot of live-body detail, may be the illustration. So you're still using it if you're asking, you always have to be an external illustration. The answer is no. The illustration may be an aspect of the narrative itself, retold. And remember, it's not just an illusion to the narrative. It's a retelling of the story in a way that it can be engaged. That was kind of a wishy-washy answer to your question. You still have to do it this semester, explanation, illustration, application, still got to do that. But sometimes the illustration will have a little larger component in a narrative sermon as you're explaining the narrative and telling it. And we're going to talk more about this in the fourth lecture where we listen to Clowny. But still have to do explanation, illustration, application. Last page, page 7 says in essence what I just said to you, we used the text facts to support the main and subpoint principles. In didactic passages, epistles, which we've done in the past, the raw material that was available to support the main points and the subpoints were stated truths, propositional development, thought flow where we exegy did the thought of a paragraph. So our resources were in the thought of the paragraph. And in narratives, the raw material available to support the truth or truth claims or applications may be in stated truths but may be in exhibited truths. What do we see happening between God and His people? What happened to David after that? What is being exhibited that will prove the truth that you just said? In dialogue, character development, context, the cultural setting, the flow of the plot, the story patterns, those of you who've done Hebrew narrative here already know that a lot of story patterns are occurring in Hebrew narrative of written. You know, in an epistle, we're exegyting thought. In a narrative, we're exegyting actions. What do these actions prove? What do these actions prove regarding a principle that we can say this principle can be proven out of this narrative? Now, I know the narratives may seem a little scary to you because it's so much easier to exegyte thought. When I was probably about seven or eight years out of seven or eight years ago, I visited a friend of mine who was a preacher in Wyoming and I just did a series of evening messages for him. He said to me at the end, he said, you're doing narratives every time. He said, I don't know how to do that. He said, I've been here for seven or eight years. He said, I've never yet preached on a biblical narrative because I don't know how to do it. Now, you have to think 75% of the Bible is historical narrative. So you're excluding a lot if we don't get accustomed to narratives. What I think you'll find is when you get accustomed to narratives, you will love doing it because people just kind of readily engage with the story features. The story features of the Bible and then when you begin to say, I can preach these profound truths out of how these narratives are unfolding showing people the grace of God toward His people and how it's ultimately revealing Christ. I mean, it's very, very enlightening to you and I think often engages people in very powerful ways. You'll love doing it once you get accustomed to it. I am for. In a narrative passage, you test whether you are preaching an expository message by examining whether you have a proven your sermon's points and principles are in this text. Is the truth you just stated provable from this text? B, have you covered the scope of the text? That is the narrative unit selected. Now, a couple of things here. A common approach is to use the scripture introduction to prepare for and summarize lengthy passages. Now, some of you have already asked me questions about this because you've started working on your narratives. And you've recognized you've got a narrative that's 45 verses long. And you're saying, do I have to read the whole thing? I mean, it's going to take 10 minutes. What do I do here? Often when you're preaching narratives, that scripture intro that we've been using to get into the text is a place where you give a few words of explanation or even a large summary of that text and then read the portions most pertinent to your sermon. So if you need particular phrases or interactions, you might summarize a lot and then read a little. Some guys will find out that what they want to do is they want to read a little, summarize, read a little more, summarize more, and then kind of read the end of the text so that they can cover large amounts of material, but they're using that scripture intro to kind of help people navigate through the longer narrative. So often the scripture intro is where you're going to say, now here we are dealing in the life of David and he's in the desert fleeing from the Philistines. And nonetheless, he's still looking to God. Now, he's got some men who are going to defend in here. Let's read what they do. So you might read that now when they came back, they ought to explain again. They honor David. David seemed to honor them, but they needed something awful. Let's read what it was. Now, what I just do is I summarize a very long chapter and that's fine to do. So the scripture intro becomes your great friend when you're preaching narratives that you can get a lot of material in front of people by summarizing and reading key portions. Let me just stop there and say, do you have questions about what I just said, how to use this scripture intro? How do you keep from fostering the notion that he only read the portions he wanted to or formed it in such a way that it's fitting his text? Candidate, I think if you're doing that every week, you can't avoid the suspicion if that's in the fact what you're doing. But if people are regularly seeing how you handle the text fairly, I think they learn to understand what you're doing. And they see you just can't read that much in that length of time. It's almost like you're letting them see your compassion by not reading what would become unwieldy in the message. But granted, and it was going to be the next one that I cover right here, if you don't do this, you will create distrust. I mean, what makes it expository for C is you've demonstrated if necessary that other features of the text do not undercut your points and principles. I mean, you take that occasion where the prophet confronted David, and he said, you know, you're the man who has sent. And David said, I repent. And the prophet said, you're forgiven. And so you say, you see folks, as long as you confess your sin, you're forgiven, and everything's okay. It sounds very nice. But what happens next in the narrative? God says, I'm going to take your first son. Now, there's something that very clearly undercut what you appear just to say. So if there are pieces in the narrative that will not support the principles you've said, then it's not going to be expository, and in fact will undercut your expository concerns. So I think a matter of consistency will help. Note, there is not as high an obligation to cite verses as to cite passage content when preaching from a narrative passage. Now maybe that sounds strange because we've made such a big deal in the epistles. You know, main points and sub points from the text show me where the verse says that. But in a narrative, you know, if people know the story, you say, and at that point, Goliath hit the ground. Look with me at verse 14b, it says, Goliath hit the ground. No, you can't. They know already. They know. Now granted, if you need specific words or phrase, you know, but sometimes in a narrative, it's sufficient to work off common knowledge. Right? And that's a judgment call, right? But it can become redundant at times. If everybody knows, and you're just kind of keep pointing out things unnecessarily, a little bit different than didactic passages. Last big hint here, item five, in narrative, miracle passages show how the event demonstrates God's authority or Christ's status rather than promising a repeat. Nothing scared me more in preaching early on than the miracle passages, because I wondered, now what am I supposed to do with that? Do I tell people, and in your life, if you just, and then I began to see, and others explained to me, that what's happening, remember there are vast portions of scripture where there are no miracles. These long historic periods where there are no, but when the miracles come, it's because God is establishing the authority of His Word, so He's showing His prophets who they are, what their authority, or He's showing the status of the Savior. So we have Christ, you know, in that marked series of events. He has control over the physical world, the spiritual world, death, you know, we have this Christ status is being established. These miracles are not being promised as repeats. They are being shown to demonstrate either the authority of Christ, the authority of God, or Christ's status. We don't have to fear them. We simply have to show the purpose of the miracle in the way that we preach them. Remember, there are long periods of no miracles, even in scripture, thus if God is not always promising a miracle, should we? And the answers, no. What are we promising for promising God's grace? By showing or demonstrating the truth principles of the narrative, the preacher takes truth to contemporary struggle and thus fulfills the joy and the purpose of a biblical message. Now, here's my expectation. Right now, you're picking out narratives that you're going to be preaching on. And as you kind of look over this lecture, my main goal is that you will be saying, all right, what grace principles are there? What does it tell me about God? What does it tell me about me? Just identifying grace principles. And then, beginning to look at the text and saying, what universal truths are here that the facts of the text will support. And that begins to form your outline. All right. Now, what we're going to do next time is this. We are going to say, I don't have it on the board anymore, not only why we are identifying these grace principles, but ultimately how they provide power for Christian sanctification. So, so far, we've been talking about why redemptive truths, some exogetical method. Now, next time, we're going to very much get to, how does this empower the Christian life and why is it necessary for all preaching that will really motivate God's people to holiness?