What isn't a sermon?

Let me begin this observation with a caveat. I am not a pastor.

Although I have preached a handful of sermons, I believe firmly in the idea that one should be cautious when offering a criticism of anyone who does for a long time what I have only done a few times.

That being said, I have a bother which has developed into a frustration and has now grown into a full-fledged lament.

I’ve heard a lot of sermons in my life, beginning with my own father’s Sunday discourses. I’ve heard sermons by fiery preachers and soft preachers, eloquent preachers and stumbling preachers. I’ve heard Southern accents, British accents, Nigerian accents, and even some sermons in standard American dialect (Midwestern in case you didn’t know). Some preachers are arrogant, others are tender. Some are self-deprecating, others seem to not even have a sense of humor. Some sermons are topical, others are exegetical, and a handful are what one might generously call improvisational, perhaps meant as a way of inducing the Holy Spirit to show up. In short, I’ve heard a lot of sermons.

Putting aside sermons from so-called “liberal” churches, all the preachers I’ve heard would describe their sermons as being Biblically based. These are men who really love Christianity and deeply believe what they are doing is bringing the Bible more fully into people’s lives. I don’t for a moment doubt their sincerity, nor do I doubt they are trying to preach the Bible the best they know how.

Unfortunately, that’s not enough. And the sense in which it’s not enough winds up becoming the sense in which it’s not even really the Bible, either.

In my experience, you see, the most common way to preach is take a Bible passage (or Bible topic), and use it to disclose or distill a helpful bit of instruction about how the congregation should live. In other words, preaching is a matter of giving people good advice. “Go forth and sin no more,” might be the concluding line of any American sermon. And lest you beat a hasty retreat from taking me seriously, let me say that this is not a problem “those other” churches have. It’s been true in virtually every non-denominational, Evangelical, or Bible church I’ve ever visited. Even the ones I would otherwise describe as fairly solid.

The problem is that Christian preaching is not about giving advice, even if it’s sound advice. Christianity is about proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ as it is concealed in Scripture to be revealed by the preacher for the spiritual nourishment of the disciple. Every sermon, yes every sermon, is thus meant to be the culminating act of worship pressing people ever more fully into the Presence of Christ by stoking the embers of awe we all as believers supernaturally feel at the Gospel of our Savior. This (and only this) will truly transform people and bring God the glory He so richly deserves.

Failing to grasp this as the central purpose of a sermon (and the central point of every part of the Bible), many sermons never even really address the Gospel or It’s uniquely life-changing power. Sometimes, something called “the Gospel” is added on “after” the sermon, like a misplaced appendage. Sometimes it’s not there at all. But when preaching is properly understood (and practiced), the entire agenda of the thing is to bring us into Christ’s embrace by showing how He and He alone is the solution to all our problems and the resolution to every Biblical plotline. And although small drops of God’s Grace can seep out through anyone who presents anything related to God regardless of how ineptly it’s done, full-fledged preaching of this sort opens wide the floodgates of God’s transformative Grace. And it saddens me every time I see it not happen. Every time. Again and again. And it is this supreme sadness that motivates me to write today.

To put the matter in the bluntest of terms, there is preaching the Gospel, preaching Christ, and preaching the Bible. If you aren’t doing all three, then you aren’t really doing any of them at all. You may be lecturing, moralizing, or even giving useful advice. But you aren’t preaching, even if you’re basically doing what everyone else is doing…especially if that is so.

And again, speaking as someone who has tried to do this tremendous task only a few times, I can say from experience that it is magnificently hard to do right and remarkably easy to do wrong. May God grant all of us who at least sometimes communicate the Gospel the grace to do it better more often. And may we all be earnestly praying the same for all preachers everywhere. For this and many other things, our pastors deeply need our prayerful support and encouragement.