The Blessings of Countless Guides in Christ: Some Preachers that the Preachers at Our Church Find Helpful
This Sunday one of our pastors preached from 1 Corinthians 4, a passage where Paul speaks of being a father to the Corinthian church. Paul contrasts his role as their spiritual father with what he calls countless guides in Christ. In the context of the letter, to have countless guides wasn’t necessarily a blessing because their guides didn’t often sing the gospel in harmony. Additionally, the net effect of countless guides and lack of spiritual fathers made the kingdom of God appear to be more about talk than the power of a changed life. Hence, Paul had the necessary role as their spiritual father, a father who knew the congregation and the congregation who knew him. Perhaps we could think of this distinction as the difference in a child’s maturation between having countless babysitters and having loving, involved parents.
But this passage got me thinking. While countless guides might be a hindrance to growth, they can also be a blessing. We can honor God for the countless guides we have access to in our day, that is, if we hold the guides in the right light. I’m so thankful to God that I could never listen to all the great sermons or read all the great books on a given passage. Even when I preach something less familiar to our church, from what I sometimes call the crispy pages of the Bible, as we did all summer long with the book of Jeremiah, I still can find great resources to help me and, by extension, our congregation.
I’ll say it another way. In Ephesians 4, Paul writes that God has given his church many gifts, including the gift of teachers. If God gives this gift of teachers, then I believe he intends for us to be learners—and those who teach regularly should be the best learners!
In my own preaching, after I’ve studied the passage, having explored my own questions and made my own preliminary observations, I often turn to commentaries for further study. After those commentaries, I often listen to sermons preached from the passage. In a week when I’m preparing to preach on Sunday, as I exercise or drive across town, I might listen to two sermons or I might listen to six. It all depends on how much time I have, how confused I might be about the passage, and how many sermons I can even find. While I’m listening to the sermons, I’ll take notes on my iPhone. And I confess: I almost always listen with the speed at 2x.
I’ll also mention that I’m dogmatic about not doing any peeking at other sermons until I’ve done my own work. The same goes for commentaries. I want to be able to argue in my mind with the preacher (or author) from an informed place rather than being passively carried along. In that Sunday school cliché, I want to be a good Berean.
Below I’m sharing a list of preachers that the preachers at our church find helpful. The list is certainly not my attempt to catalog the best preachers. I put them in alphabetical order by first name just to avoid the connotation of rank. I wouldn’t even begin to know how to assess and narrow a “best of” list. For starters, I doubt I’ll ever have a broad enough awareness for such a task. I wish I knew more preachers than I do, and I love it when I can add someone new to this list.
But I will share the criteria I did use to create the list. I prioritized three traits: (1) faithful local church ministry over a long time, as opposed to mainly conference speaking, (2) a tendency toward expository sermons in series through books of the Bible, which means lots of passages get covered, and (3) an accessible website that can be searched by passages.
For some of the pastors and churches I listed below, I know they have several gifted pastors on staff, and I might have only listed in the headings the one(s) I know best. And there are other preachers who I often check to see if they have preached my passage, but sometimes their websites are not as easy to navigate. Examples include the guys at Immanuel Nashville, such as Ray Ortlund, TJ Tims, and Sam Allberry. I’ll also look for sermons from Crawford Loritts, Paul Washer, Christopher Ash, Sean Michael Lucas, Kent Hughes, Charlie Dates, and others.
There are a few pastors listed below that I feel personally connected to, but perhaps they have either less time in ministry (so they’ve preached fewer passages) or their websites aren’t as accessible. I’ll add my friends below anyway and mark them with an asterisk. And if you’re reading this and you are one of my friends and your name is not on the list, I am seriously not trying to slight you. I could have listed more of my regular preaching friends at nearby churches in our denomination, guys like Trent, Josh, Kirk, and Matt. But I have too many ministry friends to list you all. Perhaps you could say I have countless guides, and I’m thankful to God for that.
Whether you’re a preacher like me or if you just listen to sermons and biblical podcasts for edification, I think it’s helpful to bring close the words from Matt Chandler that the Village Church often puts at the start of their content. Their website is terribly difficult to search by passages, and that’s frustrating. But I love that they remind listeners that the teaching they are about to receive is intended to be supplemental and not replace regular involvement in a good local church.
If you have pastors that you enjoy listening to and they meet the three requirements above, I’d love to expand my personal list and the one we keep for the teaching pastors at our church. Your suggestions certainly don’t have to be famous pastors. I’m always happy to listen to a faithful and fruitful pastor over a famous pastor.
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Alistair Begg
Parkside Church, Chagrin Falls, OH
https://www.truthforlife.org/
Andrew Wilson
King’s Church, London, UK
https://kingschurchlondon.org/talks/
Ben Bechtel and Greg Kabakjian *
Midtown Community Church, Harrisburg, PA
https://mcchbg.org/sermons
Bob Thune
Coram Deo Church in Omaha, NE
https://cdomaha.com/sermon-archive
Chase Replogle
Bent Oak Church, Springfield, MO
https://bentoakchurch.org/sermons/
Collin Smith
The Orchard Church, Chicago, IL
https://openthebible.org/browse-sermons/#scripture
Dane Ortlund
Naperville Presbyterian Church, Chicago, IL
https://www.npchurch.org/sermons
Dave Cover, Keith Simon, Shay Roush, and others
The Crossing Church, Columbia, MO
https://thecrossingchurch.com/Resources
Garrett Kell
Del Ray Baptist, Alexandria, VA
https://delraybaptist.org/resources/sermons/
Greg Lavine and John Beeson *
New Life Bible Fellowship, Tucson, AZ
https://newlifetucson.com/sermons/
H.B. Charles
Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist Church, Jacksonville, FL
https://hbcharlesjr.com/resource-library/scripture-index/?_resource_types=sermon-outlines
Jason Abbott *
Central Church, Jefferson City, MO
https://www.ccjcmo.org/sermons
Jeremy Treat
Reality Church, Los Angeles, CA
https://realityla.com/category/resources/sermons/?type=scripture
John Biegel *
Cornerstone, Annandale, VA
https://cornerstoneefree.org/sermons
John Piper, et. all
Desiring God, Minneapolis, MN (many sermons from Bethlehem Baptist Church)
https://www.desiringgod.org/scripture/with-messages
Jonathan Parnell, Marshall Segal, and others
The Cities Church, St. Paul, MN
https://www.citieschurch.com/sermons
Josh Moody
College Church, Wheaton, IL
https://college-church.org/grow/resources/sermon-archive/
Kevin DeYoung
Christ Covenant, Matthews, NC
https://christcovenant.org/sermons/
(See also DeYoung’s former church, University Reformed Church or his personal website) http://www.universityreformedchurch.org/teaching/sermons.html
https://clearlyreformed.org/resources/
Luke Simmons
Ironwood Church, Mesa, AZ
https://www.ironwoodchurch.org/sermons
Mark Dever and others
Capitol Hill Baptist Church, Washington DC
http://www.capitolhillbaptist.org/resources/sermons/
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Westminster Chapel, London, UK (he passed away many years ago, so the recordings are old)
https://www.mljtrust.org/sermons/
Matt Chandler and others
The Village Church, Dallas, TX
http://www.thevillagechurch.net/resources/sermons/
Matt Looloian *
Liberti Church, Camp Hill, PA
https://www.libertiharrisburg.org/sermons
Michael Lawrence
Hinson Baptist Church, Portland, OR
https://www.hinsonchurch.org/sermonindex
Mike Bullmore
Crossway Community Church, Bristol, WI
https://cwc.church/sermon-archive
Timothy Keller
Redeemer Church, New York, NY
https://gospelinlife.com/
Precept Austin
A collection of all sorts of sermons and commentaries organized by passage
https://www.preceptaustin.org/
Shad Baker *
Carlisle Evangelical Free Church, Carlisle, PA
https://cefc.church/sunday-messages
The Gospel Coalition
A sermon bank of tons of sermons from various preachers
http://resources.thegospelcoalition.org/
Zack Eswine
Riverside, Webster Groves, MO
https://www.riversidestl.org/sermons
* Photo by Kamil Szumotalski on Unsplash