Grace In Sermons
I was struck again by the lack of grace preached in sermons. Don’t agree?
Maybe you don’t immediately notice it, but you sense it on some level. You leave a sermon that didn’t blast you with fire and brimstone and in-your-face guilt. Yet you leave with a burden because its more subtle than a thunderous “God hates fornicators!” It’s slipped right behind God’s work of grace on the cross, the grace you received when you accepted Jesus as your own personal Savior. After you are lulled into a sense of peace and freedom by reminding you of this grace you received many moons ago, you are given a list of responsibilities for the Christian. One could call them commandments.
So you leave thinking that you have to start helping around the house. You have to start guarding your eyes. And no more stealing office supplies from work. You walk out the sanctuary thinking you should be doing more—and less.
Half the time I know what God expects from me as a follower of Christ, but sometimes sermons just point out my utter powerlessness to do the things I want to do and to not do the things I don’t want to do. Sometimes I do need to be reminded of what’s required of me as Christian, but that just ends with me pondering my powerlessness again. It’s not as simple as just doing it or just being obedient. It kills me. I walked into the church in chains. I was reminded that Jesus set me free. Then without me noticing, manacles are slipped around my ankles again.
So, much for peace and freedom in Christ.
[tags]grace, sermons, Christian life, Christianity[/tags]
kenny says:
August 8th, 2006 at 5:44 am
I know what you mean. What’s this phenomenon about? I mean, is it different than Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount? And, given this powerful feeling of guilt, can we ever thank Paul enough for Romans 7 & 8?
More practically, I know a pastor who really preaches grace more than any other I’ve heard.
If you have the time and inclination, I really recommend the sermons by Mark Acuff at http://www.biblechurch.org
The Galatians series is particularly wonderful and grace enduing.
-Dave says:
August 8th, 2006 at 3:00 pm
Kenny’s oh, so right.
I think that in some senses, churches are too lukewarm. Not cutting deep enough to dig out the vileness in my heart makes it harder to really rejoice in what exactly Christ has done. By not cutting low enough, we miss out on the overwhelming power of redeeming love, because it is the sick -not the well- who need the doctor.
And so, professing to be wise we become fools, and exchange the glory of forgiveness from the darkest depths of our being for a handshake and “I’m fine, how are you?”
jackswords says:
August 9th, 2006 at 12:13 pm
Dave,
it’s not so much that the sermons don’t cut deep enough. It’s just sometimes after the cut you leave having to heal yourself.
Kenny,
I don’t know the artist or the preacher sampled, but in an electronica song I heard a preacher say, if you’re not being accused of preaching licentiousness then you’re not preaching grace.
kenny says:
August 9th, 2006 at 2:58 pm
That’s a great line. Again, I recommend the sermons because I’ve often gone away from them saying “when is he going to talk about sin?!”
I guess, somehow there always arises this feeling: I need to do better.
But what is the right response to being confronted with God’s standard of perfection? I always feel stuck in this two-step: 1) thank you God for your mercy; 2) how can I do better.
Should we not try to do better?
I really don’t understand how to respond to grace in terms of my daily struggle with sin.
-Dave says:
August 9th, 2006 at 3:03 pm
But what I’m saying is if the cut were deeper, the healing would be a more natural response. Sinners in the hands of an angry God beg for grace. If we saw the root of our small failings - if the sermons pointed them out to us, the turn to grace would be all the more apparent, to the listener as well as to the preacher.
I’m saying we regard grace too lightly becasue we regard sin too lightly. Instead of fire, brimstone and grace, we get a wagging finger and a pat on the back.
I’m saying the grace in Romans 8 makes no sense without having the reality of Romans 7 driven home first. If Romans 7 ended not with “O wretched man that I am!” but with “I sometimes wish I were a better person,” to hear that “there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” would lose its power. And because nanny-sermons sap the rebuke of its strength, as a side-effect they sap the strength of grace as well.
jackswords says:
August 10th, 2006 at 8:30 am
Kenny,
I’ve already downloaded a Galatians sermon. I’ll probably start listening to it on my way to work. And perhaps we should reverse those two steps, so that we end with God’s mercy. How does this actually make more like Jesus? I don’t know, man. I didn’t come up with this system.
Dave,
So what you’re saying is, instead leaving it at “How loving are you?” with the implcit “Do better” we need to say “Realize you can’t possibly do better because of your fallen state. It would take a miracle to have you shed your unselfishness. Enter God.”
-Dave says:
August 10th, 2006 at 10:00 am
Something like that. When we pretend that we’re pretty decent folk who occasionally don’t do as we ought, we forget that we even need grace (or need to remind others of it).
Put another way, when the cut is largely an internal matter - when the preacher says something like “be a better husband,” and the deepest cut comes from you knowing that you try and fail, that you try and fail, and that you try again and fail - grace is not as obvious a need, because “be a better husband” sounds simple on the surface. If instead the sermon meant to cut you to the center of your being - to expose the unrighetousness, wickednesss, greed, evil, slander, malice, strife, deceit murder, pride, envy and self-love in your heart that makes it impossible for you to be a better husband, then the preacher would be more likely to remember the grace that goes far beyond all that junk.