I am not sure how to respond to sermons that are constantly Christ-less, for I too once preached them. I preached them a lot. I preached them for years. Yes, I preached the Bible. I used it a ton. In fact, my sermons were saturated with scripture as a great many sermons are. Nevertheless, they were Christ-less sermons. Oh, I put a short five minute gospel plug in at the end of the sermon, but the sermon was still Christ-less. And so when I hear pastors preach Christ-less sermons I am prone to feel empathy and sympathy for their misunderstanding of the task of the preacher and pastor. Yet, knowing what I now know I am also angered at the thought that Christ is not the substance of what a lot of pastors preach each week.
There can even be a misunderstanding of what expositional preaching is to be about. Some think it is about preaching verse by verse and chapter by chapter. But expositional preaching is so much more than that. It is about proclaiming Christ. If we do not gather as a church to hear Christ proclaimed, then for what do we gather? Do we think that God is simply trying to be clever when tells us that His Son is the Word of God? Or do we miss the reality that all of Scripture (the written Word of God) is to lead us to the redemption story of Christ? All of it.
I do not have a clever way of communicating an earnest plea through this keyboard. Emoticons will not suffice when I say that if your preaching is not focused on, centered around, saturated with and drenched with Christ, then you do not have the makings of a Christian sermon.
If you attend a church where the redemption story is not heralded every week from whatever passage of Scripture you are in, then you are hearing a bogus sermon. It is a farce. You should be fearful of sitting under that kind of preaching.
Too often sermons are simply about purpose, values, principles for living, raising families and living victoriously. Christians are being told week in and week out "what to do". "Do this and do that and God will be pleased with you." I tell you with all sincerity that this sort of preaching is an afront to the cross. It is scandalous! It is modern-day Pharisaism. God is not pleased with us because we "do" something. He is pleased with us because the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us by faith. That and that alone is why God is pleased with us. Do we obey God to please Him or do we obey God to display His glory...knowing that His glory pleases Him? There is a vast difference and I tell you that Christians should be obeying God to display the glory of God, not to please Him as if He were still angry with us. We obey Him because we are pleased with His beauty and splendor. Christ pleased God for us and if we think that we are to do righteous deeds in order to make God happy with us then we preach a false gospel. And if that type of preaching goes on in your church, then you are part of an apostate church. They have forsaken Christ and His gospel. That is what is wrong with evangelicalism at large. Christ is not proclaimed and principles for living are.
What's scary is that your average Christian does not see this in their church. They don't understand that their church has lost their first love. They have big screens, fancy pulpits, great bands, wonderful programs, fun people, enticing video clips, but so what! If Christ is missing, then so what! But the seeker-sensitive, seeker-aware church thinks that this kind of self-improvement preaching is what the unbeliever needs and wants to hear in their specialized sevices. Do they want to hear this kind of preaching. Absolutely! But is this kind of preaching what they need? No! Nothing could be further from the truth. It must be obvious that unblievers want to hear principles for living. That is the legalist in all of us that thinks that obeying rules is the way to please God. But those principles for living were written for the CHURCH to display the glory of God and to show the SINNER how far they fall from the glory of God. But that is not the way these sermons are packaged. They are packaged as Biblical principles that are good for everyone. That is what is deathly wrong with purpose-driven kind of sermon that a host of pastors are being led to preach.
Christ is to be held up every week. He is to be preached. When Christ was born the angels did not proclaim, "We bring you good news...for now you have some guideliness for living!" They proclaimed that a Savior was born. The Apostles did not go out and preach to sinners that they needed to get their marriages straight and that they needed to succeed in the workplace with some solid principles. No, they went preaching Christ. "Woe is me if I do not preach Christ!"
You must leave your church gathering each week with hearts and minds and speech full of Christ. If you leave only with the thought, "Ok, now I've got to do these things in my life," then you've missed the point of Scripture. And that is why most preaching is an afront to Christ and His saving work. Pastors are simply telling people each week "what to do" instead of telling them "what Christ has done for them." If I have overemphasized the grace of God here, then great. If it seems that I am an antinomianist--although I am not--then great. My aim is to preach the sufficiency of Christ in both justification and sanctification for it is by trusting in Him that we are saved and by beholding Him that we are sanctified...but how can we behold Him and be sanctified after His image if we do not hear Him speak His truth to us in His Word.
God gives us faith by the Word of God to believe in the Son of God. What then do you think the point of continuing to hear the Word of God preached is? It is to keep believing in the Son of God. Why? God keeps us saved by faith in the Son of God. And only those that endure til the end shall be saved. We persevere in Christ by faith in Christ which is granted to us by the Word of Christ so that we can be with Christ. Christ-centered and cross-focused preaching accomplishes this in our lives. Should we be surprised when people abandon the faith and faith in Christ if the God-given means of faith is abandoned--which is preaching Christ and letting Christ speak through His Word. If we mangle the Word of God and present it as a manual for living instead of the Covenenant (testament) of God then we, as pastors, contribute to the on-going apostasty in the church.
For the sake of the glory of God, pastors, we must step up and hold up Christ with every sermon...with every point of the sermon...with every scripture in the sermon...with every illustration in the sermon. Proclaim the oracles of God with all zeal and lead the church to Christ.
And if you find yourself in a church that uses the Bible in sermons but does not lift up Christ...please find a church that does. Forget the expense and inconvenience you may experience in trying to find such a church. But at all costs, find one and determine to be with this group of believers as you grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I would strongly encourage any believer to read Christianity and Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen. Although it is not an easy read, it is a profitable read. The liberal church of yester-century has become the norm today. The average church that today calls themselves evangelical, fundamental, Bible-based, family-oriented, purpose-driven has no idea that the church they are members of today was the apostate church that godly Christians warned about last century. I am embarassed to say that the evangelicalism that I grew up in and taught for much of my pastoral life was more influenced by the heresies of Charles Finney than by the long line of godly men that have preached the sufficiency and grace of Christ since the beginning
creation.
This is an urgent plea to all my friends and brothers and sisters in Christ. Know where you are in history or you may think that because you grew up in a sheep's pen that you are a sheep when you are not. Dig deep into Scripture and stop scratching it's surface. Know what your church really believes. Demand that your pastor exalt Christ with all his strength. Demand that your fellowship groups be centered around Christ and not marital status, age, sinful tendecies or hobbies. Demand that your worship songs be saturated with Scripture and literary images that will arouse your affections for Christ. Demand that discipleship be more than just forming good habits, but about displaying glory of Christ. Why? Because if we do not the world will get a mixed message of what church, scripture, worship, evangelism and Christianity as a whole are about.
Today I had a Jehovah's Witness come to my door and try to tell me that my understanding of repentance and discipleship is nothing more than a "personality change". I assured her that she was completely wrong. I am not sure where she got this idea. But I imagine that she got this idea from the way that Christians portray discipleship and sanctification. It's just outward behavioral change...no different than psychological reform.
A few weeks ago I read an article in Newsweek in which the author bashed on Christians for their views on marriage. Her rationale went something like this: "If Christians are so stuck on using the Bible as the rule for marriage, then which example do we follow...Jesus' singleness, David's with his adultery, Abraham's with having a child with his wife's servant." I was bothered by her understanding of what Scripture was about. But with the way pastors preach today, it is no wonder that she thought the Old Testament saints were examples to follow rather than sinners who needed a Savior. If sermons were always about Christ, from every Christian pulpit, from every Christian pastor, then the world would know that Scripture is about Christ and not examples for living in the lives of those mentioned.
David must stop being our example in life to "overcome our giants." Instead he must be the annointed king through whom God would fulfill His covenant and bring forth the King of Kings.
The "heroes of faith" in Hebrews 11 must been seen as people who had faith authored in them by Christ who will complete their faith and bring them to Himself (Hebrews 12:2 & 22-24). To divorce Hebrews 11 from the entire context of Hebrews and to make those people into examples for living is to miss Christ completely and to fail at preaching.
To teach Romans 12:9-21 apart from Romans 12:6 is to miss out on the fact that our good deeds and ministry to the church is the grace of Christ at work in us....not us serving God alone.
Christ-less preaching is not a small matter. The salvation of God's people and the glory of God are at stake.
There can even be a misunderstanding of what expositional preaching is to be about. Some think it is about preaching verse by verse and chapter by chapter. But expositional preaching is so much more than that. It is about proclaiming Christ. If we do not gather as a church to hear Christ proclaimed, then for what do we gather? Do we think that God is simply trying to be clever when tells us that His Son is the Word of God? Or do we miss the reality that all of Scripture (the written Word of God) is to lead us to the redemption story of Christ? All of it.
I do not have a clever way of communicating an earnest plea through this keyboard. Emoticons will not suffice when I say that if your preaching is not focused on, centered around, saturated with and drenched with Christ, then you do not have the makings of a Christian sermon.
If you attend a church where the redemption story is not heralded every week from whatever passage of Scripture you are in, then you are hearing a bogus sermon. It is a farce. You should be fearful of sitting under that kind of preaching.
Too often sermons are simply about purpose, values, principles for living, raising families and living victoriously. Christians are being told week in and week out "what to do". "Do this and do that and God will be pleased with you." I tell you with all sincerity that this sort of preaching is an afront to the cross. It is scandalous! It is modern-day Pharisaism. God is not pleased with us because we "do" something. He is pleased with us because the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us by faith. That and that alone is why God is pleased with us. Do we obey God to please Him or do we obey God to display His glory...knowing that His glory pleases Him? There is a vast difference and I tell you that Christians should be obeying God to display the glory of God, not to please Him as if He were still angry with us. We obey Him because we are pleased with His beauty and splendor. Christ pleased God for us and if we think that we are to do righteous deeds in order to make God happy with us then we preach a false gospel. And if that type of preaching goes on in your church, then you are part of an apostate church. They have forsaken Christ and His gospel. That is what is wrong with evangelicalism at large. Christ is not proclaimed and principles for living are.
What's scary is that your average Christian does not see this in their church. They don't understand that their church has lost their first love. They have big screens, fancy pulpits, great bands, wonderful programs, fun people, enticing video clips, but so what! If Christ is missing, then so what! But the seeker-sensitive, seeker-aware church thinks that this kind of self-improvement preaching is what the unbeliever needs and wants to hear in their specialized sevices. Do they want to hear this kind of preaching. Absolutely! But is this kind of preaching what they need? No! Nothing could be further from the truth. It must be obvious that unblievers want to hear principles for living. That is the legalist in all of us that thinks that obeying rules is the way to please God. But those principles for living were written for the CHURCH to display the glory of God and to show the SINNER how far they fall from the glory of God. But that is not the way these sermons are packaged. They are packaged as Biblical principles that are good for everyone. That is what is deathly wrong with purpose-driven kind of sermon that a host of pastors are being led to preach.
Christ is to be held up every week. He is to be preached. When Christ was born the angels did not proclaim, "We bring you good news...for now you have some guideliness for living!" They proclaimed that a Savior was born. The Apostles did not go out and preach to sinners that they needed to get their marriages straight and that they needed to succeed in the workplace with some solid principles. No, they went preaching Christ. "Woe is me if I do not preach Christ!"
You must leave your church gathering each week with hearts and minds and speech full of Christ. If you leave only with the thought, "Ok, now I've got to do these things in my life," then you've missed the point of Scripture. And that is why most preaching is an afront to Christ and His saving work. Pastors are simply telling people each week "what to do" instead of telling them "what Christ has done for them." If I have overemphasized the grace of God here, then great. If it seems that I am an antinomianist--although I am not--then great. My aim is to preach the sufficiency of Christ in both justification and sanctification for it is by trusting in Him that we are saved and by beholding Him that we are sanctified...but how can we behold Him and be sanctified after His image if we do not hear Him speak His truth to us in His Word.
God gives us faith by the Word of God to believe in the Son of God. What then do you think the point of continuing to hear the Word of God preached is? It is to keep believing in the Son of God. Why? God keeps us saved by faith in the Son of God. And only those that endure til the end shall be saved. We persevere in Christ by faith in Christ which is granted to us by the Word of Christ so that we can be with Christ. Christ-centered and cross-focused preaching accomplishes this in our lives. Should we be surprised when people abandon the faith and faith in Christ if the God-given means of faith is abandoned--which is preaching Christ and letting Christ speak through His Word. If we mangle the Word of God and present it as a manual for living instead of the Covenenant (testament) of God then we, as pastors, contribute to the on-going apostasty in the church.
For the sake of the glory of God, pastors, we must step up and hold up Christ with every sermon...with every point of the sermon...with every scripture in the sermon...with every illustration in the sermon. Proclaim the oracles of God with all zeal and lead the church to Christ.
And if you find yourself in a church that uses the Bible in sermons but does not lift up Christ...please find a church that does. Forget the expense and inconvenience you may experience in trying to find such a church. But at all costs, find one and determine to be with this group of believers as you grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I would strongly encourage any believer to read Christianity and Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen. Although it is not an easy read, it is a profitable read. The liberal church of yester-century has become the norm today. The average church that today calls themselves evangelical, fundamental, Bible-based, family-oriented, purpose-driven has no idea that the church they are members of today was the apostate church that godly Christians warned about last century. I am embarassed to say that the evangelicalism that I grew up in and taught for much of my pastoral life was more influenced by the heresies of Charles Finney than by the long line of godly men that have preached the sufficiency and grace of Christ since the beginning
creation.
This is an urgent plea to all my friends and brothers and sisters in Christ. Know where you are in history or you may think that because you grew up in a sheep's pen that you are a sheep when you are not. Dig deep into Scripture and stop scratching it's surface. Know what your church really believes. Demand that your pastor exalt Christ with all his strength. Demand that your fellowship groups be centered around Christ and not marital status, age, sinful tendecies or hobbies. Demand that your worship songs be saturated with Scripture and literary images that will arouse your affections for Christ. Demand that discipleship be more than just forming good habits, but about displaying glory of Christ. Why? Because if we do not the world will get a mixed message of what church, scripture, worship, evangelism and Christianity as a whole are about.
Today I had a Jehovah's Witness come to my door and try to tell me that my understanding of repentance and discipleship is nothing more than a "personality change". I assured her that she was completely wrong. I am not sure where she got this idea. But I imagine that she got this idea from the way that Christians portray discipleship and sanctification. It's just outward behavioral change...no different than psychological reform.
A few weeks ago I read an article in Newsweek in which the author bashed on Christians for their views on marriage. Her rationale went something like this: "If Christians are so stuck on using the Bible as the rule for marriage, then which example do we follow...Jesus' singleness, David's with his adultery, Abraham's with having a child with his wife's servant." I was bothered by her understanding of what Scripture was about. But with the way pastors preach today, it is no wonder that she thought the Old Testament saints were examples to follow rather than sinners who needed a Savior. If sermons were always about Christ, from every Christian pulpit, from every Christian pastor, then the world would know that Scripture is about Christ and not examples for living in the lives of those mentioned.
David must stop being our example in life to "overcome our giants." Instead he must be the annointed king through whom God would fulfill His covenant and bring forth the King of Kings.
The "heroes of faith" in Hebrews 11 must been seen as people who had faith authored in them by Christ who will complete their faith and bring them to Himself (Hebrews 12:2 & 22-24). To divorce Hebrews 11 from the entire context of Hebrews and to make those people into examples for living is to miss Christ completely and to fail at preaching.
To teach Romans 12:9-21 apart from Romans 12:6 is to miss out on the fact that our good deeds and ministry to the church is the grace of Christ at work in us....not us serving God alone.
Christ-less preaching is not a small matter. The salvation of God's people and the glory of God are at stake.
3 comments:
after posting my last "comment" (lol), I thought I'd comment on your post by providing the link to a great sermon by spurgeon that addresses the very heart of this topic. It is actually the first sermon he gave in his ginormous Metropolitan Tabernacle. Please care for your soul and increase your joy and listen to it!
http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=7705145318
Somewhat of a tangent thought I had, but it will never cease to exist or amaze me, how the most widespread deceitfulness in the work of Satan is his lies about the gospel. Some churches are lost because they focus on merit for saving grace (a sad yet comical oxymoron), while others are lost because they simply (and mindlessly) repeat the name of Jesus over and over, with no thought to His person, power, position, or plea to true followers to truly die to self and follow Him.
The compass of the gospel is similar to the call of Christ Himself in John 4:24, "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."
Focusing mostly on the truth aspect of worship, we truly worship when we seek for the true gospel of scripture which sings of Christ in the fullness of the truth of His person.
PS - "cease to exist" refers to this age. ;)
Post a Comment