Preaching to Satisfy Your Ego

Simplicity. Clarity. Brevity.

These are the very top virtues for any sermon.

Of course, you have to be true to the text you're preaching. That's absolutely important. But assuming you understand the text at all, then your sermon needs to aim at: simplicity, clarity and brevity.

If you are not aiming at those virtues, you are doing your congregation an incredible disservice. And why are you doing it? To satisfy your ego.

Yes, that's right. I'm posting anonymously and I'm about to say something that many ministers will consider an unfair, unjust judgment that lacks all the facts.

But I'm doing it anyway because I've been in that pulpit. I know what tempts ministers and their egos.

If you are not aiming at simplicity, clarity and brevity as your top three goals after doing justice to the text, it is because your ego has gotten in the way.

Why do I say this? It's quite simple really. Suppose that your number one concern after doing justice to the text was your listeners. Suppose that you were most interested in their best interests. What would that look like?

It looks like this: simplicity, clarity, brevity. When your biggest concern is being understood by your hearers, what isn't your biggest concern?

Impressing your audience.

Now stop and think about that for a minute. If you are concerned about impressing your audience, what will you necessarily NOT care about? You won't care about whether or not they actually understand what you're saying. You won't care if they get it. They don't need to get it to be impressed.

In fact, it's usually helpful if they don't get it, if you want them to be impressed. After all, all they really need to know is how smart you are, or how well read you are, or how good a job you do of crafting an excellent sermon. And if they come away saying, "Man, he knows so much! I'll never know as much as him!" then they're impressed with you, even though they didn't understand.

Who, you ask, are these crazy ministers who care more about impressing their audience than communicating with them? Well, frankly, most of them.

Oh, now I've got you agitated I suppose. But it's true. They want you to think they're brilliant.

You don't believe me do you? Ok, I'll prove it. This Sunday, after the service, when you're shaking your pastor's hand, tell him, "Hey, thanks for that sermon, it was really simple and easy to understand!"

What kind of reaction do you think you'll get?

Then the next Sunday, shake his hand and say, "Wow, pastor. Just WOW! That was absolutely brilliant! You're so well read! Pure genius! Just the way you have with words is astounding!"

I bet you'll get a much more positive and lively reaction. You may even have to excuse yourself from the conversation.

Look, Pastors are sinners just like the rest of us. We can forgive them for it, right?

But they are tempted with a desire to impress their audience. And this leads to all kinds of foolishness that would have no place for those seeking to communicate with simplicity, clarity and brevity.

I have actually heard people speak glowingly of a minister, "I never had any idea what he was saying till the last 2-3 minutes of his sermons, when it would all come together." And there are many ministers who foolishly and recklessly seek to mimic that style of preaching.

Really?

Most ministers aren't quite that far gone, but just about any minister can be tempted to use jargon from time to time. Or maybe they drop some names of some famous authors or ministers and quote them. At length. And no one has any idea what they said, because it's a translation of a Latin text written several hundred years ago. But boy, that minister did his homework, didn't he? We won't doubt his credibility will we? Never mind that we have no idea what he actually said.

But what if ministers sought to impress their hearers with the text instead?

What if their number one goal was for you to understand what this text was saying, even if you were only a child? What then?

You know, we Protestants are very quick to say that the Roman Church was crazy to conduct services in Latin for so long after Latin became a dead language. Why do we think that's so crazy? Because no one knew what they were saying, and therefore what was said was of no value.

Isn't that Paul's criticism of the Corinthian church in 1Cor 14? Verse 9 says, "So with yourselves, if with your tongue you utter speech that is not intelligible, how will anyone know what is said? For you will be speaking into the air."

Ministers - I wish you would actually stop and THINK about that. If no one knows what you're saying, it's of no value to the people you're speaking to. You're speaking into the air. It doesn't matter if you're babbling in some nonsense baby talk and claiming it's the language of angels, or if you're speaking in Latin to people who don't speak Latin, or if you're just arrogantly using big words and complex sermon structures because you have a fancy seminary degree and you want everyone to know it.

A lot of ministers like to say, "My sermon this morning has 3 points, and they are..." and then they proceed to list them. This is ridiculously helpful for people taking notes.

And yet, one minister once said to me that he never does that, and he never does it very deliberately because it insults the audience's intelligence. It's not that he had 3 points and just failed to disclose them, it's that he was against having points at all. His sermons were like one gigantic run on sentence.

My eyes were opened when I invited a friend to church one Sunday, and he actually came. And the sermon text was some passage from the Old Testament that was 3 chapters of genealogies. Yes, 3 chapters.

My poor friend walked out absolutely bewildered. He had no idea what had just been said and learned NOTHING. He certainly wasn't about to abandon hope in anything and everything but Christ.

What a shame.

Yes, I know. The genealogies are Scripture too. I get it. But seriously, muster a bit of courage. If you can't preach an intelligible sermon on some passage of Scripture - SKIP IT!

Oh, but my conscience won't let me do that! That'd be like saying that this passage isn't Scripture!

No, it's not like saying that at all. It's admitting that you can't preach a coherent sermon on that passage, and you're sparing your flock the pain of having to endure an incoherent sermon.

And seriously, WHERE is the principle of lectio continua found in Scripture? Or do we not believe in Sola Scriptura anymore?

For those of you who don't know the jargon, what I just said is that the principle of lectio continua - which just means preaching through a book of the bible, chapter by chapter, one passage at a time until you finish the book and move on to the next one - is not found in the Bible anywhere. Nowhere does God command that in Scripture. However wise the principle might be, it's nowhere to be found in Scripture. And Sola Scriptura is a Latin phrase that just means Scripture alone. The point is that the Bible alone gets to tell us what to do, not some stupid principle that men made up, no matter how wise.

So for Christ's sake, and the sake of your hearers, SKIP that passage you can't preach. Maybe no one can preach some of those genealogies. Then maybe no one should preach them.

Or is it better to speak into the air and waste an opportunity to drive the point of the gospel a little deeper into someone's thick skull this week? Or actually communicate to those visitors who aren't sure if they should be there?

Because if you're trying to impress your audience with what you know, with your mastery of the Old Testament canon, with your familiarity with the famous authors of the church, your knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, or the subtle nuances of how to craft the perfect sermon according to the coolest theory you've ever heard - then you aren't preaching the text anymore at all.

You're only preaching yourself.

You're not saying, "Hey, look at Jesus!"

You're saying, "Hey, look at me!"

I know how strong the temptation is. I have felt it. You want them to listen to you. You have to establish your credibility. They have to accept what you're saying. They shouldn't question you. They need to just do what you tell them...right?

No.

No, you don't need them to listen to you.

They need to fall in love with Jesus.

You need to decrease, he needs to increase. You need to DISAPPEAR in the pulpit.

Preach the WORD.

As long as you're preaching the Word, what you're saying has all the credibility your sermon needs. It's the Word of GOD.

It has been proven by Christ's resurrection from the dead and ascension into heaven. It has been proven by the apostolic authority bestowed on the men of his choosing. It has been proven by signs and miracles of all kinds performed at the time when the foundations of the church were laid.

The Bible's credibility has been MORE than established.

I have news for you, preachers. You HAVE no credibility in the pulpit except that which you BORROW from the text! No one gathers to hear YOU on Sunday morning. They gather to hear from GOD.

To the extent that simplicity, clarity, and brevity are NOT your goal in the pulpit is the extent to which your preaching is simply to feed your ego. To that extent, you are not preaching the Word of God but only preaching yourself. To that extent, you put up your own ego as an obstacle between your flock and Christ Jesus, their only hope for salvation. You are risking peoples' eternal salvation for the sake of your EGO.

I don't envy ministers on judgment day. 

This is one of the reasons why I no longer envy them for today. I know that temptation. I am glad I no longer have to face it, at least not with such high stakes.

If you think that temptation didn't have a strong pull on me, just look at how long all my posts are on this blog! Terrible! Sorry readers!

I Confess...I Forgive

Note: My counselor suggested I write a letter to God, forgiving those whom I perceive to have wronged me.

Dear God,

I must first of all confess that I have no right to talk to you. I have opposed you to your face my whole life, you, who gave me life and breath and everything. I understand why your Word says on man's behalf, "I am a worm and not a man!" 

You see, I am a wicked, rebellious sinner. And I know it. If you say, "Up," my heart longs to go down. If you say, "Left," I'll convince myself that right is clearly the best way to go.

And yet you are the one who formed the heavens and the earth. You are the one who created light from darkness, who made such a diversity of creatures, and whose wisdom confounds the sharpest of scientists and philosophers throughout history.

And you sent your Son to die for my sins that I might yet be redeemed despite my foolishness and live forever.

And still my heart wanders. It is not as if I am not grateful for all you have given me: my life, both in this world and the one to come - and the world in which I dwell - and at such tremendous cost to yourself. I am grateful.

But I am not ONLY grateful. I am also heartless and cruel and selfish and pitiless and merciless and petty. I often live to seek my own glory rather than yours.

Yes I worship you - but I have other gods as well. I worship myself. I worship my stomach. I live for pleasure. I squander the talents you have given me, burying them in the ground. I have asked for my inheritance early and squandered it on the pleasures of sin.

And I have been bitter towards you. I walked away from the ministry voluntarily in obedience to your clear command spoken through the guiding hand of your providence. You backed me into a corner where I had no choice but to let it go for the good of my family, and I relented and obeyed your command to care for my family first and foremost.

And I confess that I felt like I had gouged out my own eyes. I confess that I blamed you for my pain. I confess that I feel like you have abandoned me and withdrawn from me.

And I confess that I feel justified in feeling this way. When I would preach the Word, I had an intimacy with your Word that it seems I cannot experience any other way. Sure, it's one thing to study the Word in depth, but quite another when there is the pressure of the need to write a sermon for this Sunday that accompanies it. That pressure produces a need to delve into the text, it produces a motivation and a purpose.

And I confess the truth: I miss you. I miss your Word. I miss preaching. And I confess that it's at least in part because I don't feel like my life is quite as important as it could have been had I preached your Word.

And I confess that since I have missed you and missed your Word, and missed the pressure that comes from having to preach, and miss the purpose in studying your Word - I confess that I have blamed you for withdrawing from me, and so I have withdrawn from you.

I confess I have abandoned your Word and abandoned prayer. I confess that these have become loathsome to me. I confess that my heart has become cold and bitter, black and shriveled. 

I confess that I tolerate life and have ceased to really live it.

And I confess I have abandoned hope in Christ by wondering if I have failed to measure up to some standard of behavior, so that perhaps I brought this upon myself. Perhaps my WORKS were insufficient to EARN your favor and so become a minister.

I confess that I have forgotten that even my BEST works, indeed, the best works of any man who now has the privilege of preaching in the pulpit, are but filthy rags. They are soiled diapers. My best works are as the vomit encrusted clothes of a homeless man who has died of alcohol poisoning. They do not cover my shame. They do not make me radiant.

I confess: you alone are holy. The only man who ever truly did good was your Son, Jesus Christ.

I confess I have no hope in myself but in Christ alone. I confess I could not have failed to earn the right to become a minister, because no man has ever earned that right. For, as your Word declares, even Jesus did not appoint himself to his office, for your Word to him that echoes of all eternity was captured by the psalmist who says that you once said to him, "You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizadek." No man can ever be worthy to preach your Word, no man can ever appoint himself to the task. It is never a matter of justice, but only a matter of your appointment.

I confess that you have appointed me to bring you glory however you see fit, and I will obey as you empower me to do so, whether I know what I am doing or not. May Jesus' words also cover me: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing." I confess I have no idea what I am doing or why I am doing it. These things are known to you alone.

Please grant me the wisdom that leads to being at peace. Please restore me to a love of your Word and of prayer. Grant me the grace to forgive others, even as you have forgiven me.

Whatever the truth of the matter is, I cannot say, only you know, but I forgive those who have, in my eyes, mistreated me unjustly without cause.

Your Word says that there are shepherds who do not feed, heal, care for the flock, your flock, your people, your church. You say that they feed only themselves. You have said that they do not bind the wounds of the sheep. They do not chase away the wolves. They eat the sheep! They clothe themselves in their wool.

I know from my experiences that your Word is true, because I have met just such a wicked shepherd. I was his intern. He was my pastor.

When I should have been especially under his wing, he rejected me. He did not pray with me regularly. He made me feel unwelcome and burdensome in his presence. He wasn't even there the first several times I preached in his church, and was alarmed and overreacted when the elders took issue with a sermon I preached that was too long. It WAS too long, and I feel awful about it and embarrassed to this day. He was right to tell me to never do that again, but it was my fourth sermon there, and the other three were of appropriate length, and I explained that I was trying to learn how to preach from an outline rather than a manuscript. I messed up bad. But he would never forgive me and labeled me useless and stupid and completely incompetent from then on, and there was simply no overcoming it.

He humiliated me privately by telling me, after listening to a RECORDING of that ONE sermon that he was pretty sure I wasn't cut out for the ministry.

He humiliated me further by demanding that I submit every sermon outline, Sunday school plan or youth group lesson to him by Thursday night in advance of Sunday so that he could look over it and make sure it was up to snuff.

He humiliated me further by regularly, week in and week out, offering up extremely rude and blunt criticism laced with accusations of everything I had written and said it all via email.

And though I had determined, right from the very start of this, to NEVER argue with him, to NEVER defend myself, but to be like Jesus, silent before his accusers, like a lamb to the slaughter. I demanded it of myself and I obeyed. Rather than respond in kind to his emails, I would simply make the changes he requested and send the materials back to him by the end of the day Friday or Saturday morning, so that he could take one last crack at it before Sunday - which he often did, subjecting me to yet more criticism and accusations.

And the humiliation was also public. Not content with making me feel stupid every week via email, he always also found ways to criticize my Sunday School lessons DURING Sunday school, and taught the church, especially the elders, to do the same. He also led the elders and consequently the whole church in criticizing my sermons every Sunday night during the ill-advised question and answer period that closed out the evening service.

Every meeting of the board of elders was another opportunity for him to criticize and humiliate me with an audience. Every Sunday was an opportunity to criticize me in front of the whole church.

The pastor and elders all should have known better than to think that anyone, as soon as their sermon was preached, would immediately be persuaded in a few sentences to disavow expressions and thoughts they'd carefully crafted over the course of a week in conversation with the text, something they'd been trained to do in four ridiculously difficult years in seminary. And they thought that they would change my mind with one or two sentences, carelessly thrown out after thinking about the passage for all of about 25 minutes. The truth is fairly obvious: the assumed I would simply bow to their obviously superior intellect and wisdom.

I succumbed to the temptation to defend what I had said ONCE. One time. I had been there several months at this point and was sick and tired of getting the proverbial rotten tomatoes thrown at me every single week, and had anticipated what they were going to say. And when they, predictably, said exactly what I knew they were going to say, I said that I had thought about it that week, hoping that that might at last gain me some modicum of respect in their eyes. But no such luck. It got really ugly, really fast. It was like trying to talk to a brick wall. Though I remained respectful, I wasn't about to concede that my entire sermon was based on an incorrect understanding of the passage (because it wasn't), and after diverting the conversation to someone else's question (which was inevitably not a question but yet another thinly disguised statement of the intern's incompetence to say anything about what the Bible says), we all moved on. Or so I thought.

From that ONE anecdotal piece of evidence, now every time the elders evaluated me formally as part of my internship, I was labeled "unteachable", and this was the only evidence cited - even almost a year later at the end of my internship. And at that time, the pastor even admitted that this was the only time there'd been even a hint at me being unteachable, and admitted that there was actually a mountain of evidence to the contrary. Nonetheless, I was labeled as unteachable.

And why? Because this group of men who had somehow become leaders in the church - these shepherds who fed only themselves, especially their own egos - had determined at the very outset of my internship that they were going to keep me out of the ministry and had been on a quest ever since to find reasons to justify it.

My unpardonable crimes were these, as I later realized: 1) a sermon very early in my internship that was too long (it was too long, but my sermons after that were always right at 25 minutes with no more than 2-3 minutes variance either way). 2) A "strong distinction between the law and the gospel". That's in quotation marks because it's a quote. The pastor, after my internship ended, admitted that my making such a strong distinction between these two made him very uncomfortable. He never mentioned it a second time, but there was NO gospel whatsoever in his preaching. NONE. At that was how he treated me too. No kindness, no mercy, no grace, no love. Just constant criticism, accusations and reminders that I just don't measure up. 3) I was a committed reformed/presbyterian who thought the Bible actually teaches what our confession says it does. I was "too sure of myself", which the pastor interpreted as arrogance, and demanded everyone else agree with him. Apparently I was supposed to have no idea what I was talking about after four years of seminary and was supposed to teach that the Bible says whatever anyone thinks it says, and that I had no actual right to interpret it.

And the whole internship came to a head almost 6 months after it was over, when he came banging on my door the day after Thanksgiving (3 years ago yesterday), demanding to know why I hadn't come to his office to defend last Sunday night's sermon as we had agreed last Sunday night.

And the horrible thing I had suggested in my sermon? The scandal that had him so outrageously upset?

It was that I had dared to suggest, as I preached out of Romans 4, that when Paul insists that Abraham was NOT justified by works, he felt it necessary to say so because there were Jews at the time who actually DID think he was justified by works.

The pastor vigorously challenged this in front of the entire congregation (because he was sure that no one wanted to go home, but would rather sit and listen to some obscure academic debate), and when I said that I had read such a view of the passage in Cranfield (a VERY credible and legitimate commentary on Romans which I liked so much I asked for it as a birthday present one year), he suddenly dropped the debate and allowed the conversation to proceed.

Of course, after the congregation was dismissed, he made a beeline for me and, after claiming that he didn't want to "gainsay" me in public, he demanded to know where Cranfield had said such and such and how he had come to that conclusion. I said that he quoted several - SEVERAL - ancient sources, and that he could see it for himself if he wanted. He demanded I bring the commentary to him that week in his office and show him. He said he found it outrageous that I could say such a thing in like of Sanders' scholarship on second temple Judaism. That's when I remembered his discomfort with a strong distinction between law and gospel, and realized this was a conversation I didn't want to have.

So I delayed. I didn't go to his office. That Thursday was Thanksgiving. And I didn't answer my phone. I figured I'd drag it out till Sunday and just hand it to him and walk away. 

But he came to my apartment and demanded to know why I hadn't come by, and why I hadn't returned his calls. And I finally told him. I told him he'd done nothing but criticize me, and that his desire not to gainsay me in public was ridiculous because he'd been doing that with astonishing regularity since the very first time he'd heard me preach, now a year and a half ago. And I told him he'd led the elders and congregation to follow him in this, so that whenever I stood before anyone in that church I felt like I was in the middle of a feeding frenzy. I told him he'd bred a culture of contentiousness in that congregation, and that it was all bent toward constantly criticizing me. And I said I silently took it all and did NOT defend myself, with one, really quite small exception, and that nevertheless, he and the elders had unjustly labeled me as unteachable, even though I changed EVERY sermon I ever wrote in that church in response to his criticism even before I preached it, and did my best to incorporate the mountain of criticism I received in response to my sermons or teaching whenever it occurred. I said it was as if he and the elders were listening to me only for the purpose of finding something to criticize.

I said that though I stood on the floor of the regional governing body of the church and when asked what my biggest weakness was said, "Humility - as soon as I start to show some small signs of humility, I take pride in how humble I am" - even though I stood before those who held my future in their hands, I nevertheless admitted this weakness - and yet I was still labeled as arrogant by him and the elders.

And when I had said this and much more, especially about him preaching through the book I had preached through as an intern - I couldn't BELIEVE the audacity of this man - he admitted to all (though he claimed his preaching through that book had nothing to do with my having preached it, which means either he was lying or the biggest moron in the history of the world, which I knew was not true) and said he was ashamed of himself. He admitted that he had seen me as a threat from day one and was determined to squash me. When I took it all in silence and did not defend myself, he said he interpreted that as defiance and redoubled his efforts to squash me. And when I continued to silently acquiesce to his slightest whim about my sermons or anything else, he grew more and more frustrated that I didn't argue back. He said this. And he prayed (only the second or third time he had ever done so with me) and confessed to you that he was ashamed of himself for what he had done.

He wanted me to be like him. He wanted me to be contentious like him. He wanted me to be sharp tongued and blunt in front of people like him. He wanted me to be a shepherd that feeds on the flock and teaches them to be wolves. And when it became clear that that was never going to be who I am, he decided to punish me for it.

Lord, I confess that in my eyes he is indistinguishable from Cain. 

This man maliciously destroyed my reputation. He crushed my career before it ever began. He stomped on my heart. He drove a wedge between me and the church. He isolated me from the fellowship of the saints. He threatened my well being, and much more importantly, the well being of my family. He was determined to be an obstacle between me and the ministry and was resolute that he would never recommend me for the office of minister.

And I know this because just before I left that miserable place, I made him admit it. He admitted that were any potential church to call him and ask about me, he'd say, "He's not ready." This is just a cop out, and I told him so. He didn't deny it. The truth was, he still felt threatened by me and remained determined to crush me to the extent it was in his power. He declined to say whether anyone had called him to ask the question or not. I suspect they had, and I never heard about it because he told them I wasn't ready and then was too ashamed to tell me what he had done because he knew it was unjust.

But Father, your Word says, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors."

First and foremost, I need your forgiveness. You have forgiven me 10 thousand talents of gold - an incredible sum worth Billions in today's money. It's such a huge debt that I could never have paid it to you. And really, Billions doesn't even capture it. If I had a Billion dollars, it wouldn't even begin to pay for the debt that I owed you because of my sin.

The only thing that COULD pay the debt for my sin would be eternal Death in hell forever. And even that would never be enough, which is why I deserve to die forever and ever with no one to rescue.

But you DID rescue me. You sent your only Son, who is himself God, who gave up his glorious throne to take on flesh and walk around among us sinners in the stench of our sin...and we killed him in a jealous rage - perhaps hoping to deny him the eternal life we felt we deserved despite our sin which we know makes us worthy only of death. We are foolish and irrational in our efforts to cling to our sins and justify ourselves despite them. We oppose you to your face. I oppose you to your face. And yet you gave up everything to redeem me, though you have to drag me, kicking and screaming toward what's in my own best interests.

You have forgiven me my debt by PAYING my debt for me.

How could I then turn around and demand that this man repay me for what he has done to me and what he has robbed me of?

He couldn't have prevented me from being a minister if that's what you had wanted. He's no match for you. And I deliberately chose not to defend myself. I chose to just go away quietly. I voluntarily walked away from the ministry because it seemed to me very clear that that's what you were asking of me - and wasn't I willing to do so?

Can't I look back on my experiences and know that I learned something from them? It may be that I don't understand all that I learned or its true significance. I don't know the future you have planned for me in this life or how you will be glorified in it.

But I do know that you were pleased to shape me to more closely resemble Christ through suffering. And that suffering was VERY public. Many people saw it with their own eyes and saw that I took it all in stride. Whatever I may feel about that internship or whatever anyone else may say, one thing is for certain: you were pleased to give me an opportunity to bear witness on your behalf - which is exactly what I had set out to do when I went to seminary.

Thank you for teaching me wisdom through suffering. Thank you for bringing me to that church where I suffered so many things for your glory. Thank you for granting me the grace to believe in all you have done for me, to believe in the promises of your Word, and to trust that you know what you're doing. Someday what happened to me will be made more widely know in the age to come, and YOU, not me, will be glorified exactly how you have determined to be glorified.

And so I forgive this man who did all these things to me and sought to overthrow your purposes for my life. His efforts served just the opposite. He sought to silence my testimony, but instead he handed me a megaphone and enhanced my testimony. He gave me an opportunity to "put my money where my mouth is". He gave me an opportunity to show that I really do, deep down, want only to serve you however you want me to (even if I also have competing sinful, fleshly desires).

It is not for me to say whether or not he is in Christ. That's your job. You're God and I'm not. You are the ONLY judge.

If he is in Christ, then there is no debt for him to pay to me, because Christ has paid it for him already. How could I DARE to demand any further payment if Christ has shed his blood for him and YOU have forgiven him? How blasphemous would I be if I still held his sins against him?

If he is not in Christ, your Word teaches me that vengeance belongs to you alone. David was so good about not taking revenge on his own behalf but leaving it to you to repay. And you did. So with him, so with all of us who hope in Christ. If this man is not in Christ, you will take vengeance upon him for what he has done to me. You will put him to death forever in torment and cast him out of your presence. What could I add to that? Is this not enough to satisfy me? For me to demand more is outrageous. If I insist on something tangible in this life, then isn't that admitting that I don't really believe in hell? But I do believe in it and I believe that you are just and will not leave sins, any sins, unpunished. Vengeance is yours.

Help me to repent and turn from all those little ways my heart yearns for little expressions of vengeance, hatred and anger. Keep my heart from hating this man. Keep me from anger. Keep me from desiring any sort of vengeance against him.

Please grow me in my faith. Please help me to believe that you really HAVE forgiven me. Please remind me that even though I can't become a minister, it doesn't mean you haven't forgiven me of my sins. Remind me that you have spared me from something that would not have been best for me.

Remind me that I was desperately seeking to get to the airport on time to make my scheduled flight, and that the obstacles you put in my way to prevent me from getting there on time were not your cruelty, but your mercy - because that plane was destined to explode on takeoff.

Take me to Psalm 73 again and again and again. Remind me of the end of the story: that we will live forever in glory, and those who do not have faith in Christ will die forever in shame and misery. Remind me that I desperately wanted to run as fast as I could to hell, but that you have dragged me, kicking and screaming, to heaven.

Whom have I in heaven but you? And on earth, there is nothing I desire.

You are the strength of my heart and my portion forever. I am your servant, you are my God.

I claim the promises of your Word in faith because of what Christ has done for me, in the power of the Spirit.

Amen.

I Hate Listening to Sermons

Since I walked away from the ministry, I hate listening to sermons. I really do.

Yep, I didn't qualify that or add anything to it. There it is, right up front, all alone.

I hate listening to sermons. Can't stand it.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm a Christian who struggles with sin and desperately needs to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ preached to me on a regular basis. I absolutely love the Word of God. Nonetheless, I hate listening to sermons.

Surely now that I've said it four times (counting the title of this post), you believe that I really mean it.

Ok, all of that was for the people reading this post who aren't former ministers. You former ministers know exactly what I'm talking about.

It really started in seminary... It turns out, the more you learn about how to do something well, the harder it is to be patient with those who do not do it well, especially when it's their job to do it well.

Let me explain. I've learned what it means to preach the Word. I understand the theories and principles behind it. I get, in the abstract, what preaching fundamentally IS. So when I sit down to listen to a sermon, I expect it to conform with what preaching is supposed to be.

Preaching is fundamentally about preaching the Word (2 Tim 4:1-2). That very Word of God is personified throughout the Old Testament prophets, a theme that John takes up in the opening of his gospel: "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God." Powerful words, these.

We really shouldn't ask, "What is the Word of God?" but rather, "WHO is the Word of God?" The answer is Jesus, God the Son, who became a man and fulfilled his role in the covenant of redemption, according to which he would become a man, live sinlessly, lay down his life for his people and be rewarded with eternal life, glorification, and ultimately a bride, his people, whom he would redeem by shedding his blood, whom he would clothe in his righteousness and present to himself blameless and glorified, and who would be devoted to him in utter gratitude for all he had done for her. This is the God man, the Word become flesh.

And THIS is what the content of preaching is. Jesus: who he is, what he has done, what that means for us, what it implies for us, etc. Preaching must be Christ centered, Christ focused, Christ saturated.

So far this is theological finger painting. Nonetheless, even those who would articulate just such a view of preaching, even if they consciously aim at this as their standard, will always fail to execute perfectly because we're sinners.

Furthermore, Jesus must be preached in every passage. No, it does not matter that your sermon text is a list of names in a genealogy in the Old Testament. Jesus said that the Scriptures testify to him (John 5:39). Furthermore, when Jesus met with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, he taught through the entire Old Testament. And what was his subject matter? Himself (Luke 24:25-27).

Paul also confirms this of course. He says that the law and the prophets (= Old Testament) bear witness to the imputed righteousness of God that is credited to us by faith in Christ alone (Rom 3:21-26). Christ is explicitly mentioned as the content and subject of preaching (Col 1:28, 1 Cor 1:23). He is the fullness of our wisdom from God (1 Cor 1:30).

But, some say, what about the Old Testament? You can't preach about Jesus from the Old Testament without reading Jesus back into the text. Certainly the Jews of ancient times would not have understood it so.

Very well, let's talk about the purpose of the existence of Israel. Why did Israel ever exist at all? Why did God do that? Let's start from the beginning.

Gen 3:15 - undoubtedly you know the passage. Adam and his (so far) nameless wife have just sinned by doing the one thing God commanded them not to. God comes and demands that Adam account for himself, and he blames his wife. God turns to his wife and she blames the serpent. God never asked the serpent anything. (Ever wondered why?) Then comes the curse, and as part of the curse on the serpent, God says that one will come, the seed of the woman, who will crush the serpent's head. And of course the serpent is the Death-bringer, so crushing his head is a reference to triumph over Death. Who is that seed of the woman? That word "seed" becomes extremely important in the book of Genesis, something that Paul takes up in Gal 3:16. (Hint: Paul explicitly says that the Seed is none other than Jesus Christ.) Adam is so full of hope and inspiration that he gives his wife a (new?) name: Eve, because she was the mother of all the living. Translation: thanks to the Seed promise, we didn't die, my wife will have children, and they will LIVE! They were supposed to die for eating the fruit - but they were spared. So Eve is redeemed and given a new name.

However, you know how it goes from there...Abel seemed to be the Seed, but then Cain kills him. And so begins the awful history of fallen man. The flood. Sodom and Gomorrah.

Then God revives his Seed promise by talking to a guy named Abram, who is later renamed Abraham. God promises to Abram in Gen 15 that he will have a Son who will inherit the land. And he promises him Seed. There's that word again. So basically, God promised that Abraham would have a Son who would be the Seed promised in Gen 3:15, the Seed of the woman, Eve. And God promised to Abraham that his Seed would inherit the land of Israel, and that his Seed would be as numerous as the stars of the sky, etc. Who was that referring to again Paul? Christ! (Gal 3:16)

So the big deal about Abraham is that his line would give birth to Christ, the promised coming one who would conquer Death and crush the head of the serpent. And God adds that he will inherit the land. And as the Old Testament progresses, the promise gets filled out more and more.

Who were the children of Israel? They were some of the children of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, who was the father of Jacob who had 12 sons whose lines became the 12 tribes of Israel. What made those people special? The promise that they would give birth to Christ.

This is the ENTIRE REASON for Israel's existence. This is what set them apart. This is what made them special. This is why they were God's special, chosen people, his lasting possession, his inheritance (bride language). What made them special was that they were people of the promise. Their hope was in Christ, the one who would be born who would redeem them from Death, the Seed of the woman who was now revealed to be the Seed of Abraham, who might be born at any time.

This is why, for example, Tamar was so desperate to have a child of Judah's line (Gen 38). It's a bizarre story and we often don't know what to make of it, but she went to extraordinary lengths to become part of Jesus' family tree. She wanted to be part of the family of promise because she believed in the promise and wanted redemption from death through the promised Seed to come. Granted, her methods were crazy, but God blessed her for her faith, not her deeds, even though her faith did shine through in her sin-tainted deeds.

So the ENTIRE POINT of the history of Israel points to Jesus. Jesus' birth in the New Testament gives significance to literally everything that happened in the Old Testament, because the Old Testament is the story of Israel, the people of the promise. The Old Testament only means anything at all because of the birth of Christ. It's not only what makes Israel's story significant to us, it's also what made their story significant to them at the time. Their hope was in the Messiah to come, and they all knew that was what made them God's chosen people. They were the promise people who hoped in Christ. Granted, they didn't know exactly what they were hoping for, didn't fully understand it, but neither do we fully understand heaven or what the resurrection will be like - yet that's what distinguishes us as the church. We are those who hope in heaven, who hope in the resurrection, in the age to come. We hope in things we don't fully understand.

If the entirety of the significance of the nation of Israel flows from the birth of Christ and the promises that were made about him, beginning all the way back at the very beginning of human history in the Garden of Eden - then isn't Jesus the POINT of the Old Testament?

And this is what Matthew does so eloquently in Matt 2:15. When Joseph brings his wife and son Jesus out of Egypt where they had hidden, Matthew says that this fulfills the words of Scripture and quotes from Hosea 11:1, "Out of Egypt I brought my son." The only problem is that if you go back to Hos 11:1, you'll see that it VERY clearly is referring to Israel as God's son. But don't worry - Matthew knows what he's doing. He's just saying what I've been saying.

Matthew is just saying that Israel as a nation was a living, breathing testimony to Jesus Christ. They were a nation set apart. God was calling attention to them and drawing the world's gaze upon them. And the world has surely noticed and has been paying attention ever since. But the whole reason for doing so was to prepare the stage for the coming of Jesus Christ.

Jesus was, as they say, in the loins of his ancestors when they were called out of Egypt and Pharaoh and his army was drowned in the Red Sea. Their very existence and especially the story of their remarkable history bears witness to their hope in the coming Messiah who would redeem them from death. They were the Jesus people, heralding his coming on the stage of world history simply by being who they were. The Word which would be made flesh was already on the lips of his people, because their existence spoke of him long before he became a man. Their existence spoke a Word, and that is the very Word who became flesh. And that Word is recorded in the Scriptures of the Old Testament.

And OH! What a rich Word it is! How robust and full of color, character, emotion, tragedies, comedies; there are stories of heroes, cowards, men, women, children, ridiculously old people living almost a millennium; there are angels of light and monsters of the deep; there are stories of battles and warriors and kings and queens, temples and empires; there are historical narratives, poetry, prophecy, prose, mind bending wisdom literature, visions, crazy dreams, impossibly long lists of names and even a book of songs. And all of it, every single last word of it, somehow, in some way testifies to the coming of Jesus Christ and its significance.

Even the best ministers can screw it up at times. It can be really hard.

But as hard as it is - and this is really why I hate listening to sermons - foolish, sinful, prideful men inevitably make it harder than it needs to be.

Please, please, for Christ's sake, preach sermons that are simple, clear and concise. Preach the text as it shines light on Jesus Christ. Tell me what Jesus has done for me. Encourage me to hope in him. This is the point of Scripture. Yes, convict me, rebuke me, but remind me that I am redeemed. After all, isn't that the point of convicting me of my sin, to remind me to appreciate how much I need Christ and how precious his shed blood on my behalf actually is? Isn't THAT what I need?

But that is SO rarely what you get. Like I said, even if you're aiming at these goals, they're very hard to strike perfectly. Obviously when I preached sermons, that's what I was aiming for. I don't think I ever really nailed it. Only Scripture can really do that.

Sadly, most men are not even aiming at these goals deliberately to begin with. Oh sure, most men, at least in reformed and presbyterian circles, will insist that preaching must be Christ centered in theory. And yet in practice, they'll preach a moralistic sermon that says little if anything about Jesus. Rather than telling me what Jesus has done for me, they'll beat me over the head with what I need to do for him.

Worse, many men are not deliberately aiming at simplicity, clarity, brevity. They can't help it. They're sinners. They want you to know how well read they are, so they quote unnecessarily long passages from Calvin, making everyone's eyes glaze over. I love Calvin - but please don't ever read long quotes from him in a sermon. It takes a lot of time and careful thought to puzzle out what he's saying - and that's for seminary graduates! How much more is it hard to follow for laymen!

Too often they are more concerned with impressing you than communicating with you. They don't care as much that you understand the message of the text first and foremost, they care first and foremost that you walk away from the sermon saying, "Wow! Our pastor is brilliant! Clearly he's very well read! Have you seen how many books he has in his study? I've been looking for preaching like this my whole life!"

They use big words and theological jargon. They drop names to prove they've read books. They make elaborate points because they want you to know how deeply they've studied and thought about the passage. They teach you about Greek or Hebrew to show you that they can read the original languages and conduct sophisticated linguistic analysis.

They are, in short, like Tamar who prostituted herself and yet, despite herself, managed to bear witness to her hope in Christ anyway and was blessed by being grafted into Jesus' household.

And this is why I hate listening to sermons. I hate obscure sermons no one understands. I hate sermons full of undefined jargon. I hate sermons laced with discussions of the finer nuances of Greek grammar or the often bewildering definitions of Hebrew words. I hate sermons full of names of famous reformers or theologians. I hate academic, pompous, narcissistic sermons designed to impress the audience with the erudition of the speaker rather than communicate the message of the text to everyone present including the children.

The Bible is clear. We believe in the perspicuity of the Scriptures. Why don't we believe in the necessity of clarity in preaching? Why don't we value simplicity? Brevity?

I was actually - I kid you not - critiqued for preaching sermons that were too simple, too easy to understand, too clear. I'm not kidding! Not just by one guy, but SEVERAL pastors! And they were passing along not just their own criticism, but that of many in the congregation as well!

But doesn't Paul say to the Corinthians that the trouble with their three-ring circus they called a worship service was that no one understood the message? He says it's pointless to speak in uninterpreted tongues because no one knows what you're saying (1 Cor 14:6-11). It's much better to speak something that's intelligible, he says.

Likewise, when Christ's disciples ask him why he speaks in parables, he responds that he doesn't want people to understand - otherwise they'd turn and repent and he'd heal them (Matt 13:10-16). The very least thing we can take away from this passage is that understanding the message comes first, then repentance and then healing. And that understanding can't happen unless what's being said is understandable. Much more could be said about that passage, but this is an undeniable implication of it.

And this is why I hate listening to sermons. There's always something wrong with it, tarnishing God's glory, whether mishandling the text or speaking to impress. Either way, it's very uncomfortable for me.

And now that I occupy the pew and never again the pulpit, I can't do anything but just sit there and take it in and try to make the best of it. It's awful. It's almost always a tremendous struggle.

I'm very grateful for the pastor I now have. I have a good relationship with him, and he definitely aims at simplicity most of the time and clarity. He also really takes preaching Christ in all Scripture very seriously. Knowing his heart allows me to forgive him his imperfections.

But there is nothing, nothing, nothing so satisfying as preaching Christ as boldly and clearly as you can from a passage of Scripture. There is a satisfaction in that that cannot be matched by anything else in this world. This is the real reason why sitting in the pew and noticing the shortcomings of sermons (I canNOT turn off the noticing!) is so hard. Just being in the pew and not in the pulpit is so much...less...of an experience.

I can liken my relationship to the Word to the relationship a man has with his wife. And yes, I mean in the biblical sense of knowing. When you wrestle with a text all week preparing to preach it, there's an intimacy with that text. It gets into you somehow and consumes you. It's all you can think about. You're eating dinner...thinking about the text...thinking about the text...what's that noise? "Huh? Oh, sorry, what were you saying honey?" It keeps you up at night because there's something you still can't quite wrap your mind around. It's an intense, all-consuming relationship that you have with that text that week.

And then comes Sunday, that glorious day. That's when you finally get up there and let it all out of you. And it comes out in a flood of emotional and spiritual energy. And it leaves you exhausted but extremely satisfied, even though you feel self conscious about it almost immediately afterward. Like I said, just like a man and his wife.

To walk away from the pulpit is to walk away from...THAT.

To then go and sit in the pew...

I've never been divorced. But I can kind of imagine what it must be like when a man's wife leaves him and he's sad about it but goes along with it. And she takes the kids. And his life has just become so sad. And every other weekend, when he picks up the kids for their short visit, he has to see her together with her new husband. And he puts his arm around her or holds her hand...

And all you can think about is that that's your WIFE. But you don't get to have that relationship with her anymore. You get to hang out with your kids a little bit, but you aren't really their father anymore.

I don't mean to downplay the pain those men go through at all. I'm sure it's absolutely awful and they would prefer to gouge their eyes out. Nonetheless, I think it's an apt analogy.

And you know what's worse? There's only one guy (in most cases) in your entire church who can even begin to relate to what you're feeling because he knows what it is to preach - your pastor. And yet, he can't relate either because he's never had it ripped away from him like a wife who demands a divorce and walks out with the kids and you're powerless to stop her.

That's why I started this blog. I recently began talking to a man who was violently cast out of the ministry. Here at last I met someone who actually understood because he's been there. And I was able to do the same for him. I was actually able to give him some job procurement advice...

...and I felt a satisfaction I haven't known in a very, very long time.

This blog is a place where former ministers can commune together, learn from each other, and for the first time, communicate with others who have been there. We can advise each other. We can help each other heal.

Remember, this website is purely anonymous: both those who post and those who comment. Comments that name people (including the name of the commenter), churches or organizations will be deleted.