Blog is Moving!!!

I am moving this blog to combine with my Reading for RETransform8tion blog.
Visit me here at the Living Water Blog

Why I Think Preaching is Serious... Even though I love to Laugh

Check out this article from 9 Marks and Greg Gilbert. I don't want to fall prey to being the funny-man pastor, although I love the fact that we laugh so much at OPBC.

Why I Usually Don't Preach Politically Charged Sermons...

There is plenty of "Christless" Preaching these days. Morality without Christ is NOT Christianity. Too often our emotions and our political ideals can cloud our understanding of the nature of "by grace through faith" Christianity. Too often preaching and "Christian" politics can prop up worldly affairs as preeminent over and above the affairs of the soul. Preaching like this leads to "white-washed tombs"... clean on the outside and dead and rotting on the inside. We don't need political sermons... we NEED the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The hope of the world is found in the Gospel... not in political "rightness"... pun intended.
Here is a lengthy quote from Michael Spencer ... I would challenge you to read the rest of the article HERE.

Sermons about moral and cultural problems. We live in a time of continuing moral breakdown. There is no doubt that the Judeo-Christian underpinnings of our culture are being eroded. Traditional values are under attack. The role of religion in society is disputed in almost every niche of the public square.

The church feels particularly sensitive to this breakdown. There is a sense of moral and prophetic outrage. Some Christians see the demise of cultural morality as proof Jesus will soon return. Others see moral breakdown as a threat to our children and our political freedoms.

For these reasons, many evangelical sermons deal with the moral and cultural crisis. This sort of preaching has a long history in evangelicalism, so we ought to know the dangers of preaching against saloons and movie theaters. But it seems we haven't learned our lesson.

A generous segment of today's social and cultural preaching is increasingly Christless. Instead of Jesus, the message is either personal moral fortitude or collective political action. Because this sort of preaching appeals to the fears and emotions of evangelicals, it is commonplace. Thanks to people like James Dobson, Jesus has become the patron saint of any conservative's social and political agenda. While many of these crusaders are doubtless correct on the Biblical worldview, they are also usually too busy getting us to the polls to get us to Christ.

The Bible is certainly not oblivious to moral issues. The prophetic voices in scripture testify to God's holy concern with how we treat one another, and how justice is exhibited in society. But the key to scripture is always Jesus, not moral or social reform. In some of his most shocking words, Jesus says that there is a comparison that can be made between religion that helps the poor and the Gospel that commands all men everywhere to repent and believe.

Evangelicals are emotionally--and politically--engaged with cultural battles like homosexual marriage and abortion. They have demonstrated substantial growth in their support of ministries of mercy. But some of this political and moral involvement has been at the cost of Christ-centered preaching. "The Crisis"--whatever it might be--is never the point of our discipleship. We are always followers of Jesus.