34. Expositional Preaching w/ Mike Hutchinson Part 1

And here we go. This is the For Freedom Podcast. This podcast exists to bring to light the legalism and abuse in the independent fundamental Baptist movement, and to encourage believers to grow in grace through the scriptures. Now, here's your host, John Holyfield. Welcome back, everybody, to the For Freedom Podcast. John here with our other host, James Safer. How's it going, James? The other host over here, James Safer, is doing well. We are enjoying a one-week-old baby and just enjoying life. I've been spending some time with him. My wife's been having some doctor's appointments, and so I get to hold him and hang out with him. The church is gracious enough to give me a couple weeks out of the office, and so I've been enjoying spending time with the family, catching up on some reading, catching up on some movies, and just enjoying life as it is. And so it's been doing good. I hope you're doing well, John. How's things over in the Tennessee land? Doing great. We had a very big weekend here. Had a guest in and did like an evangelism summit at our church to do some training on biblical evangelism. Might end up becoming a podcast episode to sort of contrast biblical evangelism and what the type of evangelism we did. I did air quotes there. You can't see that, that we did in the IFB. But, yeah, we had a wonderful time this weekend, just tired from it and those kinds of things, but excited about going on. And we are excited about today's episode. We have a great guest on today that we'll get to in just a minute. But first, let's get to our This Week Roundup. James, this week going on, it's been actually a couple weeks going on. I don't know if you've been paying attention to it. I actually do every year, but I haven't been this time. March Madness. Do you keep up with March Madness at all? I do. All the teams that I would watch. And, you know, this year it sort of snuck by me. I didn't do a bracket. Normally I do a bracket for our teenagers with the baby coming and getting ready for that. I just hadn't had time for it. You know, all the big teams, UNC, Duke, Kentucky, all those were knocked out the first time since, I think they said 1960 or 70, that one of those teams would not be in the Sweet 16, which is incredible to hear that. But our good old boys, Arkansas, from our former days in college, made it to the Sweet 16, made it to the Elite Eight. But then they got knocked out last night by Baylor. And so I've been watching them. I was actually wanting them to go all the way just because everyone else is out, all the big dames. And so it's good to pull for some of those underdogs. But other than that, I haven't followed much at all. Yeah, me too. It's just been sort of an off year for me when it comes to that. Excited about this week. I'm taking my daughter on a date to see this brand new movie. We're going to the movie theater. We already bought our tickets to see the epic Godzilla vs. Kong. Did you ever watch the old 1950s Godzilla vs. King Kong? Absolutely have to. Come on, John. I mean, it doesn't get better than Japanese old school claymation buildings getting torn down by a baby doll Godzilla that they made look like it was massive. You can obviously tell there's a guy in the King Kong costume. You can see his eyes through it. And he takes this fake tree and shoves it down Godzilla's throat. And Godzilla just sets the thing on fire. It's so cheesy. But I'm excited about this new one. Yeah, it's like one of those Indian Bollywood TV shows. One last thing I wanted to cover on this week's Roundup was something that I listened to yesterday. that I just wanted to throw a mention to and a shout-out. James, I don't know if you've caught it yet, but the RFWP did an episode with the guys from the RFP. And I've got the first part listened to, and I've just got to say my man Nathan Cravat just crushed it with talking about the importance and worth of women from the Bible and Christianity. And I was just sitting there listening to him go on about 15 minutes on that. And I was like, dude, you're killing it. This is great stuff. And if more pastors and churches would have that kind of mentality and attitude, I think that we would definitely see a different culture than what we have in churches today. Yeah. I haven't been able to listen to that one yet. I've actually been binge listening to the 26 Letters podcast, and they have been blessing my soul. It's been a great, great couple of, well, all their episodes. I haven't heard a bad one yet. They are just a great couple. I can tell they love each other. It's cool to see husband and wife talking through these things. And I love the aspect of one was raised in the Christian school mindset, and one was raised in the public school mindset, which is where I was at. And then David, how he went to Bible college, sort of the same story of me. And just on a younger level, they're not quite as old as I am. But just it's been really, really good for me to listen to them. And every morning, I've been popping one of them in, listening to it as I've been around the house. And so it's been a great time for me, really blessing my soul with it. Yeah, I like the 26 Letters podcast. I've been trying to catch up, too. I'm not as far along as you are. But one thing that I love Dave and Sam, and I love their intro music. Like, I played it the other day on my speaker, and my daughter was just totally grooving to it. Like, she was dancing. And we were all just sort of jigging. I mean, it's just so good. It reminds me, and this may be what they were going for, but it just reminds me of, like, Sesame Street or something. But it's just really cool. Yeah, exactly. It's great. Well, next, we're going to move to our IFB sermon archive. And like we introduced last week, we are going to an old sermon that I used to listen to in college called, I Sure Do Miss You, Brother Hiles, preached by Jack Skopp. And if I mentioned this last week, I'm going to mention again. You may think that not like the idea that we're playing this sermon because of what's happened. But as I said last week, we thought about this, but we came to the conclusion that this did happen. This guy did exist. This guy did preach. This guy did have influence. And this message influenced us. And this is part of our journey as well here at this podcast. So we wanted to play this clip, and wow, it's, I don't know how much crazier we have played. I mean, we've played some crazy clips, but I don't know how much crazy blasphemy gets done in this clip. Here we go. Younger man but my age. And I saw that. I saw the rock and roll sets and the drums. That evening, I got in that car and I said to the men, I said, I sure do miss Brother Hiles. I said, I've never felt so lonely for Brother Hiles in all my life. I said, I am just dying to have one more sermon from Brother Hiles. Where's the guy to hear him one time more preach on who slew all these? Where's the guy to hear him one more time preach on will the real America please stand up? Where's the guy to hear him preach one more time on one nation under God? Where's the guy to hear him preach one more time on duty? Where's the guy to hear him preach on is there not a cause or Amnon had a friend? Where's the guy to hear him thundering out? Where's the guy to hear him preach from behind the pulpit here one more time? I said, I wish I had any time. I'd give him anything to have just 60 minutes with him to have him put my mind back on track after it's been derailed from seeing all these big huge Baptist churches with rock and roll drum sets with the pulpit ought to be and with the women running around their britches and their shorts. I said, I'm tired of seeing flesh and Baptist flesh. Where is the Lord God of Elijah? Went to my separate room that night in a motel and I just cried for a long time. I wept and I got on my knees and I said, Brother Hiles, I believe you hear me. I said, it's not going to happen at your church. It's not going to happen at your college. It's not going to happen at your schools. I said, if we're the only church in the world that doesn't change, we're not going to change. Well, James. Words are escaping me. The biggest part of this message and at this moment in this message is when he says, I got back to my hotel room and I got down on my knees. I prayed to Dr. Hiles. Like I'm praying to the Virgin Mary. No longer do we pray to Jesus. No longer do we pray to God, the Holy Spirit. We pray to the fourth part of the Trinity, Jack Hiles. And we make our requests known to him. And he is the one that is going to deliver us. And he's going to be the one that or that helps us. It just it blows me away. You know, you can listen to Jack Hiles messages. You can go on YouTube. You can you don't have to wish I could hear one more message of fresh anointing or fresh oil, whatever it was. You can actually listen to him again. Believe it or not. He just because he preached to him. I don't know how many times in his lifetime. You can go back and listen to him again every day of your life, if you so please. OK, despite the fact of the absolutely insane things that he was saying about drum sets and women wearing shorts and flesh and all that stuff. The fact that he was saying that he needed to listen to a message by Brother Hiles to get his mind straight. I thought that we renewed our mind through the scriptures, through the truth of God's word, not the opinions of Jack Hiles. Wow. Yeah, that was a little crazy. That's how you don't preach. And to learn how to preach, we are going to go today to our interview that we were very excited about and having Mike Hutchinson on today to talk about expositional preaching. All right. We are excited to be here today with our guest, Mike Hutchinson. And Mike Hutchinson has done ministry as an interim pastor, and he is the host of the True Presbyterian podcast and spent time studying at Greenville Theological Seminary. You may know him if you listen to the Preacher Boys podcast with Eric Skorzynski. He's done some great work over there on a couple of episodes he's done with Eric. But we are extremely happy to have him on today's episode with this subject. Mike, how are you doing today, man? I'm doing all right. I'm in the process of getting ready to move. So I've got a bunch of stuff flying at me at about 5,000 miles an hour. And I just feel like I'm underwater at the moment. But, you know, God's still good and all of that. So I'm doing okay. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, we are excited to get into this topic. And this is something that you actually covered a little bit of. I say a little bit of. You spent a good amount of time on the Preacher Boys podcast discussing expositional preaching. And when we asked you about doing a certain topic on today's episode, you like to go back to this. And we are more than thrilled because we haven't done our episode on expositional preaching. And so I'm excited about getting into this subject. James, you have anything to add before we get started? You know, this is something that I have just recently tried to incorporate more of. You know, we were raised topical. That is the style of the Independent Baptist is more of the topical style of preaching. And so for me, I did a little bit while I was in Idaho. And then while I've been here, I went through the book of James. And I went through the book of Ephesians with our teenagers before the pandemic when we couldn't really do much. But we were meeting on a regular basis. And so I went through the book of 1 John on a Sunday night with our church when I was able to preach to that. So this is something that I'm starting to get my hand in. I'm not an expert. It's definitely a tough, tough topic. And so I'm glad to have Mike on here to talk about this as well. Well, thank you guys so much for having me. I'm always happy to come on and talk about preaching. Yes, sir. So the first thing we're going to get to today is I want to ask this question and sort of deal with this. And that is what expositional preaching is not. And to examine this, I have a couple of clips, IFB clips, brought to you by IFB Sermon Clips to sort of bounce some ideas off of. So here's the first one. Let me just say in passing that I hope that you won't tell the sermon police that this is a topical outline. Well, as I think about it, I hope that you will tell the sermon police that I'm preaching a topical outline. I remember when I was saved and called to preach, the question wasn't, is it topical or expository? The question was, is it Bible? Does it have the power of God? And does it get a soul to Calvary to try to debate and discuss what is greater, a topical outline or an expository outline? Is this foolish to debate or discuss what is greater, a flathead screwdriver or a Phillips screwdriver? I mean, dear friend, the tool of truth will work. The tool of truth will work. The tool of truth will work every single time. Mike, any thoughts on what he was saying there about his characterization of expositional preaching? Well, OK, so here's here's where I'd start. You know, he says in there, you know, the question wasn't was it, you know, topical preaching or expository preaching, but was it Bible preaching? And so that's a false choice fallacy. That's a basic informal logical fallacy just right out the gate. And so that's unsurprising in some ways. And so I want to be clear when we talk about expository preaching and that sort of thing that I am not opposed to topical preaching. I am opposed to topical preaching that is not done exegetically. And so that's where the real rub is. And so, look, man, I don't care if you preach topically as long as you did your exegesis before you got there. Awesome. Let's, you know, go ahead, do that. But to say that, you know, or to to hint that maybe expository preaching isn't Bible preaching is so upside down. I simply do not know where to start with that. I would challenge anyone to listen to an expository sermon from Dr. Joel Beakey at Heritage Reform Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and then compare that to the topical preaching that you hear and tell me which one is more full of Scripture. Absolutely. And on that note, this might be something even to cover in our podcast, James. Joel Beakey has an excellent series on the topic of biblical backsliding. Oh, it's great. That is actually really different than what we were taught backsliding was in the IFB culture. I'll have to look that up. I love that. Yeah. You know, I was sort of trained, not, well, some personally, I went to some of his summits, but my expositional preaching training came through Stephen Lawson. Stephen Lawson talked a little bit about it as the idea of there are many forms of expositional preaching. And what most people describe as expositional preaching is actually sequential expositional preaching. Right. And you can have topical expositional preaching, but like you said, it's got to be done exegetically. Right. So a great example of topical preaching that's done in an expository fashion and that is topical in its general structure would be in the Dutch Reformed and the German Reformed world when they do their catechism sermons. And so one of the things that came out of the Reformation, particularly in the Palatinate in Germany, was the Heidelberg Catechism, which is absolutely beautiful. It is absolutely wonderful. The Heidelberg Catechism is why I decided to marry my wife. There's a really historical story there. But you think of question and answer one to the Heidelberg Catechism, right? What is your only comfort in life and in death? My only comfort in life and in death is that I am not my own, but that I was bought body and soul by my precious Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And then the answer continues from there. And so what you do with catechism preaching is you are looking to the texts that are included in the Heidelberg Catechism because, I mean, like two-thirds of the page is scripture references. And so I'm going to one of those texts, but then I'm using the catechism's answer as my outline for the sermon. And so that is exegetical in that I'm looking at the text, I'm breaking it apart and examining it in its various pieces. I'm arriving at what the meaning of the text is, which is where my expository step occurs. And then I'm drawing out of that what is the leading doctrine of the text. And then the entire sermon is going to be structured around that leading doctrine. And so that is exegetical, expository. And yet it is also topical in the sense that the way that the catechism is structured is that it's touching on the major core doctrines of the Christian faith. And so if you look at the structure of the Heidelberg Catechism, it actually follows the structure of the Book of Romans. And so it's dealing with three kind of subjects as it moves through, which is guilt, grace, and gratitude. And so as I use that, you know, say I'm doing a Sunday evening series through the question and answers of the Heidelberg Catechism, again, built out of scripture. I'm not preaching the text of the catechism. I'm preaching the text of scripture that it's built on. But as I'm moving through it, I'm moving through the guilt of sin. That absolute heinousness and sinfulness of sin. I'm dealing with the need for a Savior. Then I'm dealing with, when I get into the grace section, what it is that we're saved by free grace. And why salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone. And then as I get into gratitude, then I'm starting to talk about what it is that we do as believers to live lives that grow out of the salvation that we have in Christ. And so that's a topical series. There's no two ways around that. But it's being done exegetically, and there is an expository process that's involved. So topical preaching and expository preaching don't have to be totally juxtaposed to one another. But what is completely juxtaposed to one another would be bad topical preaching that is not done exegetically, and that is basically a springboard for the pastor to just rant about whatever hobby horse he wants to be on today. Absolutely. Yeah, that's the beauty of going through a book is you're going to hit everything in that book, whether you like it or not. Oh, yeah. And too many times we've heard the sermons on money and we've heard the sermons on whatever, but we never get the stuff in between because every year we're going to preach a giving sermon. Every year we're going to preach this sermon. And so topically, you're never going to hit the things that you don't agree with or it's personal to you. But when you go through the actual book, you see that. So let me ask you this. What is, defined in your terms, what is expository preaching? So the best definition that I have found for this, and I freely admit that this is not my definition. This is the definition of my own professor of preaching when I was at Greenville Seminary, Dr. Joey Piper, would say that expository preaching is a comprehensive explanation of the meaning and intent of a particular biblical passage. And so there are two aspects to that, right? I'm explaining the meaning and the intent. And all too often when expository preaching goes bad, what you wind up with is a lecture. And that's not expository preaching. And so that is zeroed in on the meaning. And so the intent comes into play as I'm constructing a sermon when I'm asking the question, what did this text mean to the people to whom it was written? What's its significance in that particular historical context? Because that helps me arrive at the authorial intent of that passage. And so that kind of connects in some ways to your previous question about what expository preaching isn't. So expository preaching isn't a lecture. And that's something that we need to be really, really very clear about. And expository preaching is not a commentary, right? So when I get to the pulpit and I'm preaching an expository sermon, you know, I'm not simply reading John Murray's commentary on the Book of Romans and doing what he's doing there. The Reformation definition of preaching is that preaching is the explanation and application of the Word of God. And so you have to have both together in order for whatever it is that you're doing to be preaching. That's great. Have either one of you, and I know we didn't talk about this, but have either one of you listened to the Preacher's Talk podcast that came out a couple, end of last year? I have not. I haven't even heard of it. Do you mean Pastor's Talk? No. So Pastor's Talk with Nine Marks, they put out a second podcast called The Preacher's Talk. And they start out this whole podcast talking about how to preach expositionally, how to take the Bible with what it is. And there's three men, and it's put on by the Charles Simeon Trust. But these guys, man, they are really, really good, talking about a lot of great stuff. And I encourage any pastor, it's helped me as a young pastor, a young preacher, to hear some of these things that I didn't hear in college, that we didn't hear when we were training on taking. Because so many times when we study expositionally, we have so much stuff. Like we've talked about in the past, historically, geographically, and they talk on there, okay, grab one key thought and drive that one thought home. Drive that thought. Yes. And so many times he said, what will happen is a young preacher will get up and we'll try to drive four or five points home. Right. And it's overload. They've done checked you out. Yep. So I encourage any young pastor to listen to that podcast. And I think Mike brought out probably the most common pit. And I know I've done it before and am susceptible to doing it again in messages that I've preached through books. And that is just ended up giving a verbal commentary, just doing the meaning. And, you know, one of the things I think it is, because there are some well-known expositors that when it comes down to it, that's really what they do. It is. Yeah. There's no question about that. And that is a common trap with expository preaching is that it can reduce itself to a mere lecture. And so that's one of the things that you really do need to avoid. And we'll get into this a little bit in some of our conversation later. But what you're talking about, you know, find one leading idea maybe. And then, you know, you want to drive that home. Well, that is one of the things that R.L. Dabney talks about in his little book on sermon preparation. The modern title of it is Evangelical Eloquence. And it's published by Banner of Truth Press. And so he talks about the seven cardinal requisites of the sermon. And these are seven things that every sermon must have, right? This is not, you know, it would be nice if they had these things. You know, this is not the frosting on the cake. This is things that must be present. And one of the things that he mentions in there, it's what he refers to as point. And so the idea is that the sermon should be moving towards creating a single impression on the listener's mind. And that that's what we're getting at when we talk about point. And there are some dangers in the way that we teach guys sermon preparation that are related to that. And we'll get into those a little bit later when we start talking about sermon prep. But that is the right idea. You want the sermon to create a single, definite, very clear impression on the person who's listening. And then you want to drive that nail in just as deep as you can. You know, I want to, I can, sorry. My mind is cracking up here because I'm going to juxtapose that a little bit. Oh, Jack, I'll see. I'm home. I found this. I thought you might, your mind might melt a little bit, Mike, when you hear this. But this is from. Do you guys put this out on YouTube by any chance? No, no, no, no. Okay. So you guys aren't seeing what's happening behind me right now. So for those that listen to the True Presbyterian, you'll know that my co-host there is Fiona, the theology dog, consumer of socks and heretics. And as soon as you trotted out the Jack Hiles, Fiona, the theology dog started moving around back here. So she's getting excited. Heretic. Yeah. She's ready to consume. She's ready to rock. She's ready. She's ready. I have this book, Teaching on Preaching by Jack Hiles, that's been found in my box that Mary was, my wife, was about to start throwing away. And I don't know why I stopped her, but I grabbed this. And this sort of goes along exactly with what we were talking about and you pointing out Dabney's assessment of what you're wanting to get across. This is what Hiles says. Methods and means that he talks about this chapter is devoted to the methods and means that will cause the people, the congregation, to carry with them from each message one great truth they will never forget. And this is how you do it. Number one, first thing you do, picture the invitation and the one thing you want to happen. Okay. Yeah, we'll talk about that a little bit later. But that's where you should start, right? And here's the thing, though, and I'm surprised that I'm going to say this, is that Hiles isn't all wrong there. So I would object to picture the invitation, right? I mean, so I'm Presbyterian. I'm not going to ask anybody to, you know, walk the aisle or anything else. God can deal with you in your pew, right? The front of the church is not sacred. You don't have to go down to an old-fashioned altar, you know, for God to deal with you and for you to become a Christian. But, and again, we'll get into this some with the sermon prep stuff. But one thing that is true in that is think of preparing a sermon like a roadmap, right? So if you get in your car and you prepare to leave the house, you don't leave the house not knowing where you're going, right? And you have a destination of sorts in mind. And so in that regard, yes, have your purpose and the point of the sermon that you want to drive home in mind at the start of preparing your sermon. Because that's where your sermon outline should lead, is to the destination of the sermon. So in that regard, he's not all wrong. I would, however, say that, you know, ultimately what I want to happen is going to be consonant with what the author's purpose is in the text. Like I said, we'll get to that a little bit deeper into this interview. But, yeah, I mean, there are other presuppositions that are behind what he just said there. Oh, yeah. He's got like 15 other points that flesh that out. And the idea is mainly like getting the results and putting out what you want to teach, which is which explains a lot on most of what came out of his pulpit, which is all of, you know, his his personal, you know, building his own empire through, you know, intimidational means and different things that way. Sure. So let's move to this next one, which we sort of already hit indirectly. But why? Why expositional preaching? If we've defined it, why is this the one thing that that we that Mike that many others would put a stake in the ground and say we must have expositional preaching? So one of one of my convictions is that one of the problems that we have, and this shows up in my own preaching in several ways. But one problem that we deal with week in and week out every day is not all that dissimilar from the problem the reformers had. So in the age of the reformation, you had the Bible basically locked up in Latin, it wasn't available in the common language of the people. And then along comes Luther, who translates, you know, the Old and New Testament into German in a really earthy manner. I mean, it's it's still, I think, probably the best German translation out there. But the issue is that the people didn't know their Bible, right, because they didn't have access to it in their own language. Well, we have access to the Bible in English or, you know, in most languages. Obviously, there are still some people that we haven't reached with the scriptures in their own languages. But we still don't know our Bibles all that well. Right. So if you're looking at the general state of things in most, let's say, broadly evangelical churches, the level of biblical illiteracy is shockingly high. And so expository preaching is is one way. It's not the only way, but it is one way. And I would argue it should be the main way to instruct your people and show them how an entire book of the Bible hangs together. Right. So if I'm preaching through Ephesians, I am going to be demonstrating to the people as I preach through that text or as I preach through that whole book. How Paul's argument is connected. Right. And if I'm doing expository preaching really well, I'm also bringing to bear the entirety of scripture there. Right. So I'm not. So as as people that are the heirs of the Reformation. And yes, if you're Baptist, you are an heir of the Reformation. This trail of blood nonsense has no historical basis. Absolutely. As as Reformation heirs, one of the things that we teach is not simply sola scriptura, but it's also tota scriptura. And so it's not just scripture alone. It's all of scripture. And so all of scripture should be informing my sermon as well. And so that for me, at least, is the central reason to preach in an expository fashion is because I want the people that are listening to be better acquainted with their Bibles. I want them to be better acquainted with how an entire book hangs together. I want them to be better acquainted with how the entire narrative of scripture reaches its culmination in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so when Jesus talks to the Pharisees, what does he say? You search the scriptures and think that because you do that, that, you know, you're doing so well, but you have no idea what scripture actually means because you don't believe in me. And so we see that again when he's talking with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, right? And beginning at Moses and the prophets, he showed them in the scriptures how it was necessary that the Messiah must die for his people. And so all of scripture that includes the Old Testament is ultimately about Jesus. And if you miss that, you're missing the point of the Bible. And so that's a big reason to preach in an expository fashion. So those would be just some reasons to preach in an expository way. So I think that's where I would go with this kind of to start. You know, I'm reading right now. I actually have about 10 pages left to finish it, but it's a book. I don't know if you consider it a mini book or a booklet, but it's about 90 pages long by Ligon Duncan on worship that was just released, I think, at the last T4G or the digital one they did. And he talks about, you know, in the regulative, the reformed view of worship and the regulative principle, which I apologize to our listeners. We don't really have time to get in to break that down and define that. But, you know, the total view of all of our worship being influenced or being driven by the Word of God and that part of that worship being, you know, I think he simplifies it to pray the Bible, sing the Bible, preach the Bible, you know. And just having that Bible-saturated thing. Well, what's the best way to saturate your worship service with the Bible, especially when it comes to the majority of your worship service, which is the preaching hour or the time of the delivering of the message, but having an expositional message from the Bible? Yeah. So, for the folks that are listening, here's a short definition of the regulative principle for you. So, the regulative principle of worship is that we may do in worship only those things for which we have in Scripture either an explicit command, an approved example, or which can be deduced from Scripture by a good and necessary inference. And so, that's the reason that we want to regulate our worship according to the Word of God. And so, the idea behind the regulative principle is you don't get to do whatever you want in worship. God decides how He wants to be worshiped. And He's told us in the Scriptures how He wants to be worshiped. And so, yes, our worship services absolutely need to be saturated with Scripture. And so, let's just take the normal order of worship in a Presbyterian church. We're going to begin with a votum, right, which I am going to start before I do anything else with a quotation from Psalm 121. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made the heavens and the earth, right? And so, when I begin the worship service, I begin by reminding the people that are in the seats that we cannot worship God rightly in our own power, that we need the help of the Lord in order to worship Him properly. From there, I'm going to move into the call to worship, right, which may be, you know, normally I use something from the Psalms. So, let's say it's Psalm 98 or another Psalm. So, I'm going to go to a call to worship. This is not a psalm. This is a specific text of Scripture that I am going to read. So, let's say it's, O come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord our God, our Maker. Or Psalm 98, 1, O sing a new song unto the Lord, for He has done wondrous things. Right? And so, the reason that I do that is because you don't get to just enter into the presence of a thrice holy God willy-nilly. God needs to invite you into His presence. He calls you into His presence. And if you want to see a beautiful example of that, it's in Exodus chapter 24. So, as Moses goes up the mount to receive the Ten Commandments, the people are told they can't even touch the mountain, right? But when he's called up, he's called to go up with himself, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seven elders, or the 70 elders. And you have to think of the mountain as being in three tiers here, okay? So, the lower tier of the mountain, they have to leave the 70 elders behind. And then as they go further up the mountain, to the second tier, you have Moses, Aaron, Nadab and Abihu. They're the only ones that are there. And the glory of God descends on this mountain like an absolute flame of fire, right? Like the earth is shaking. There's this huge pillar of fire that's descended on top of the mountain. And it says in Exodus 24 that Moses and Aaron and Nadab and Abihu are able to look up and see what amounts to the paving stones of heaven and see God's feet as He's seated on the throne, right? And they have to wait seven days before they can enter. And they sit and they feast at the feet of Jehovah. And then the last thing that happens is that Moses and Moses alone is invited to come into God's presence. And so, that's our biblical basis for a call to worship. God needs to call you into His presence when you come before Him. And then from there, we're going to go into an invocational prayer, right? So, now we're going to pray God's Word. And if you guys are listening to this and you want to know an excellent way to do that, buy Matthew Henry's little book, A Method of Prayer. And what it is is a way to pray Scripture as you pray. And so, what we're doing in that is we're pleading God's covenant promises as we pray. It's the same thing that Daniel's doing in Daniel 9, verses 1 through 19, right? So, as Daniel prays, he's pleading with God, remember your covenant promise to restore the people from exile. And so, that's what we're doing in the invocation. And then we're going to sing God's Word, right? This is the reason why psalm singing has been such a historic part of Presbyterian and Reformed worship. And so, we're singing God's Word. And then we're going to read God's Word. So, we're going to read a chapter of the Old Testament and a chapter of the New Testament. And so, when I've done reading that, now I'm going to have a prayer of confession, right? Where we are going to confess our sins. Why? Because the Word does a convicting work. And so, having read the Word, I should be cut to the quick. I should be convicted by what I've heard. And so, now we're going to come to the confession of sin. And when the confession of sin is complete, then what you're going to have is what's called the assurance of pardon, right? And this is one that makes a lot of people that don't come from a liturgical background, like you would find in the Presbyterian world, a little bit nervous. And so, when I announce the assurance of pardon, I am not saying that I am in the position of Christ to pardon your sins. What I am saying to the weak that are present, to those that feel their own deep sense of sin and shame of how could I be forgiven, I'm going to take you to a specific passage of Scripture. For instance, those who come to Christ, He will in no wise cast out, right? Take it right out of the Gospel of John. A reminder to you that if you have truly confessed your sins, and if you are receiving and resting upon Christ alone for salvation, that God truly does forgive your sin, and He has forgiven your sin. Then I'm going to have a prayer of intercession, right? Where we're going to go before God and intercede on behalf of the needs of the congregation, the community, the nation, so on and so forth. And then I'm going to have the sermon, right? And so you're going to get 30 to 45 minutes of me preaching a particular text of Scripture. When I'm done with that, you're going to have a final psalm, right? And again, we want to be singing the words of Scripture. And then we end with a benediction, which is usually taken from, you know, the Aaronic benediction. And so what a benediction is, benediction literally means good word. It's God's pronouncing His blessing on you as you leave His presence, right? And so as I go from that place, I'm going to be going with the benediction. So the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you. The Lord be gracious unto you and give you His peace, right? So at every stage of your worship, Scripture is deeply involved. And so that's what we're driving at. And so in expositional preaching, preaching the Word of God is the high point. That is the culmination in many ways of what we're doing. And if you'll notice, what's happening throughout that worship is that there's a dialogue that's happening, right? God speaks, we respond. God speaks, we respond. So God speaks in the call to worship. We respond with a prayer of invocation. God speaks in the Scripture reading. We respond with a confession of sin. God speaks in the assurance of pardon. And then we respond with song. And so this is the way that we see kind of worship being structured. But what stands at the summit, at the peak of that mountain, is the proclamation of God's Word. Why? Because the grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever. And the ordinary, normal means by which men and women and boys and girls are saved and brought into living union with Christ is through the preached Word. And that's where everything moves in worship. And that's great. That's awesome. I think you just made like half our listeners go to a Presbyterian church next week. Well, hey, the more the merrier. We, and look, we don't require that you, you know, hold the infant baptism to be a member. I know members of our own church that my wife and I attend that are credo-baptists. The only thing that we want from you is to make a credible profession of faith and to take your vows before the congregation. So you're always welcome to come. Yeah. Well, let's... That's a very interesting thing of like how misrepresented, you know, Presbyterians. And like James sort of started out saying that today about different denominations have been to us. But James, go ahead with... This is where we really wanted to get to today. And this next question. Yeah. And, you know, you even said it, the climax, the whole point of the service is the expositional preaching. So how do you get to that point in preparing and executing a well-rounded expositional preaching? And right there is where we will be ending today. We thank you guys so much for listening. And we hope that you tune in next week to part two with Mike Hutchinson as we dive into how to do expositional preaching. Thank you so much for listening. And until next time, to God, not the pastor, be the glory. Thank you. Thank you. I willrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrewrew

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