The message comes from a particular text

 
Instead of preparing a message and then finding a text that will fit it, the speaker starts with a particular text. Everything he says is governed by what the text says. An expositor has no idea what to tell an audience until he first finds out what the text is saying. The message does not dictate the text we choose. Instead, the text chosen dictates the message given.

 R. Larry Moyer, Show Me How to Preach Evangelistic Sermons, Show Me How Series (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic & Professional, 2012), 22. 
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Regardless of how much the message is developed in its historical context, it means little if it is not placed in the context of the present day. The speaker must make the text relevant so people can understand how it fits their lives right now. The Anglican preacher John Stott observes, “The characteristic fault of evangelicals is to be biblical but not contemporary. The characteristic fault of liberals is to be contemporary but not biblical. Few of us even begin to manage to be both simultaneously.”

 R. Larry Moyer, Show Me How to Preach Evangelistic Sermons, Show Me How Series (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic & Professional, 2012), 24.

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Expository speaking explains the text, in its context, making it relevant to people today.

 

R. Larry Moyer, Show Me How to Preach Evangelistic Sermons, Show Me How Series (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic & Professional, 2012), 24.

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It was His word they heard, not yours. If you ignore the text, you may be an evangelistic speaker, but certainly not an expository evangelistic speaker.

 
The reason you may give less attention to the text in an expository evangelistic message is that the text may not be in front of your audience.

 R. Larry Moyer, Show Me How to Preach Evangelistic Sermons, Show Me How Series (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic & Professional, 2012), 26.

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Perhaps when Joseph had his dreams he saw them as a confirmation of the favor on his life. He had not yet learned that authority is given to serve, not to set you apart. Often in these training periods we focus on the impossibility of our circumstances instead of the greatness of God. As a result we are discouraged and need to blame someone, so we look for the one we feel is responsible for our despair. When we face the fact that God could have prevented our whole mess—and didn’t—we often blame Him.

 John Bevere, The Bait of Satan, 20th Anniversary Edition (Lake Mary, FL: Charisma House, 2014), 28.

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Absolutely no man, woman, child, or devil can ever get you out of the will of God! No one but God holds your destiny.

 
John Bevere, The Bait of Satan, 20th Anniversary Edition (Lake Mary, FL: Charisma House, 2014), 29.

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As already stated, no mortal man or devil can supersede the plan of God for your life. If you lay hold of this truth, it will set you free. But there is only one person who can get you out of the will of God, and that is you!

 
John Bevere, The Bait of Satan, 20th Anniversary Edition (Lake Mary, FL: Charisma House, 2014), 31.

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But to become offended would only fulfill the enemy’s purpose of getting them out of the will of God.

 
If you stay free from offense you will stay in God’s will. If you become offended you will be taken captive by the enemy to fulfill his own purpose and will. Take your pick. It is much more beneficial to stay free from offense.

 
We must remember that nothing can come against us without the Lord’s knowledge of it before it ever happens.

 John Bevere, The Bait of Satan, 20th Anniversary Edition (Lake Mary, FL: Charisma House, 2014), 32.

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often the thing that looks like an abortion of God’s plan actually ends up being the road to its fulfillment if we stay in obedience and free from offense.

 
So remember: Stay submitted to God by not becoming offended; resist the devil, and he will flee from you (James 4:7). We resist the devil by not becoming offended. The dream or vision will probably happen differently than how you think it will, but His Word and His promises will not fail. We only risk aborting them by our disobedience.

 
John Bevere, The Bait of Satan, 20th Anniversary Edition (Lake Mary, FL: Charisma House, 2014), 32–33.

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social gospel was gaining momentum with less emphasis on an individual’s inner relationship with God and more of a focus on broad human social needs in the here and now.

 
Ruth A. Tucker, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya: A Biographical History of Christian Missions, Second Edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004), 282.

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Virtually all Protestant missionaries during most of the nineteenth century were evangelicals who held the authority of Scripture and staunchly defended the cardinal doctrines of the faith. But by the end of the century, carrying the title of missionary was no guarantee that an individual was orthodox in his Christian beliefs. The fallout from higher criticism, the Darwinian theory of evolution, and the social gospel was beginning to be felt on the mission field.

 

Ruth A. Tucker, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya: A Biographical History of Christian Missions, Second Edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004), 283.

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“It is odd,” she wrote, “that a million Baptists of the South can furnish only three men for all China. Odd that with five hundred preachers in the state of Virginia, we must rely on a Presbyterian to fill a Baptist pulpit [here]. I wonder how these things look in heaven. They certainly look very queer in China.”

 Ruth A. Tucker, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya: A Biographical History of Christian Missions, Second Edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004), 297.

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The Lord’s Prayer is designed to keep us from having a self-righteous attitude. We all have this problem, and most of us fight it every day. We naturally want to justify ourselves; we instinctively want to point the finger. This prayer helps to keep us on our toes spiritually and gives us objectivity about ourselves. This prayer shows us that we need daily forgiveness as much as we need daily bread.

 
There are two things Jesus takes for granted in the Lord’s Prayer: that people have hurt us, and that we ourselves will need to be forgiven. We have all come short of God’s glory, and often other people come short of treating us with the dignity, love, and respect that we would like. We have hurt God, and we want to be let off the hook; people have hurt us, and we must let them off the hook.
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You pray that God won’t throw the book at you, and yet you pray that God will throw the book at them.
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Unless we are walking in a state of forgiveness toward others, we cannot be in an intimate relationship with God.

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One way we walk in darkness is by holding bitterness in our hearts toward others—bitterness that creates confusion in our minds and oppression in our hearts. You may say, “Oh, but I am having fellowship with God.” No, you’re not. You’re just claiming you are having fellowship with God if there is bitterness in your heart. And if we claim to have fellowship with God but walk in darkness, we lie.

Walking in darkness is the consequence of unforgiveness. When I don’t forgive, I might spend hours a day in prayer, but I am not having genuine fellowship with God. If I can’t forgive the person who hurt someone dear to me, I am walking in darkness. If I can’t forgive the person who lied about me to others, I have lost my intimate relationship with the Father. I can even continue to preach, and people may even say, “Oh, what a wonderful sermon! You must be so close to God!” I can sing praises to the Lord with my hands in the air, and you may say, “Oh, look at how RT is worshiping the Lord!” I could put on such an act that you would think that I am the holiest person in the church. But if I have bitterness inside or am holding a grudge against someone else, I am a liar. I cannot walk in the light when I am really in darkness.

 
Jesus tenderly shows us in the Lord’s Prayer that we will be hurt—and by people we never dreamed would hurt us. We might think, “Well, yes, I can imagine so-and-so hurting me, but I never thought it would be you!” Psalm 41:9 candidly predicts what Jesus warns us of: “Even my close friend, whom I trusted, he who shared my bread, has lifted up his heel against me.” We will be hurt by the people we love. What’s more, Jesus calls the acts that they do against us “sin.”
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We must learn to foster a spirit of sensitivity to those around us. The more sensitive I am to the Holy Spirit, the more aware I will be of people around me who are in pain.

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Total forgiveness is a chosen privilege. It is a privilege to be godly—to be like God and to pass this forgiveness on to someone else. Why should you want to forgive? Because you prize intimacy and fellowship with the Father more than you desire to see your enemy being punished. You want God’s anointing too much to pursue getting even.

 

Resentment leads to going over and over again in your mind what the offender did, recounting and reliving exactly what happened. You should not dwell on the incident or even think about it. It will not bring you any relief or release; instead, it will cause you to become even more churned up.

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 R. T. Kendall, Total Forgiveness: When Everything in You Wants to Hold a Grudge, Point a Finger, and Remember the Pain - God Wants You to Lay It All aside (Lake Mary, FL: Charisma House, 2010).

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Do you live with more memories than you do dreams? Is it possible that because of what happened to you everything is colored and blurred, without focus? Does that root of bitterness spring up, and you refuse to forget and you refuse to trust God for your future?

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We can't get where we need to be unless we are willing to walk away from the power of past memories and look toward the fruitfulness God can achieve in us in the days ahead—even in the land of our suffering.

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five godly responses. We too should:

1. Choose to live in the present and not the past. Rather than let past injustices destroy any hope of being fruitful in the now, Joseph forgot the past and focused on the present. Through the grace of God, so can we. 

2. Choose to free those who have injured you. Through God's grace, we can forgive even without discussing the past. 

3. Remember that in the injustice, God is present. When God permits evil, He will use it for some higher end. We can move beyond our past when we can embrace it as part of His good plan. 

4. Choose to bless those who have wronged you. Joseph did and Jesus commands us to (Matthew 5:44). Blessing those who have wronged you has the power to set you free. 

5. Choose not to retaliate. Vengeance is God's business, not ours. Trust God to right all wrongs in the day of judgment. 

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Lay it all down. You do that by spending time in the presence of God and asking Him to dig out every root, every thought, every fear, every lingering shred of resentment and pain. That's God's specialty. He will "cause you to forget," and the chains will fall off. They'll fall onto the floor and you'll say, like Joseph, "I'm free—free to be blessed, free to be fruitful."

Erwin W. Lutzer, When You’ve Been Wronged: Moving from Bitterness to Forgiveness (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2007).