Sermon thoughts....well, thoughts on church-shopping and church-hopping

Unless you move around a lot, you probably haven't had many reasons to church-shop.  If you are picky, easily disgruntled or peeved, or happen to belong to a church in turmoil, you probably have done some church-hopping.  I consider hopping and shopping to be two different things.  Church-hopping involves looking for a new church because something about your current church has upset you:  a disagreement with a fellow church member, a decision made by the leadership team which you cannot support, preaching or teaching which has become somehow distasteful.  Church-shopping looks similar, but it's inspired by a geographic move or by the closure of a former place of worship.  In other words, church-shopping is driven by physical realities; church-hopping is driven by other, less tangible (and possibly less defensible) realities.

The reality which lead me to need another church is that the messages being preached were no longer firmly grounded in Law, Gospel and scriptural truth.  Concerns about the purity of the Gospel message are as big and motivating as a geographical move.  Although I suppose one could claim a similar primacy to concerns about a pastoral message that is "simply" convicting and uncomfortable. It wasn't just style--although what felt like inadequate preparation, even sloppiness; and excessive verbal pauses made concerns about content even harder to bear.

At it's core, I imagine that most sermon's preached this past Sunday morning had some version of "Love your neighbor" as their focus.  In many instances, there may have even been specific statements about who those neighbors are--even shading off into political commentary at times.  If you left feeling the burden of "love your neighbor", you left with the burden of the Law.  If you left feeling only the burden of the Law, your pastor did not do his job.  Any time we are told to do something-- even if that something is the best and most noble thing--that we cannot do and do perfectly, to God's holy standard, this is God's Law.  Because of our sinful nature, the Law does nothing but convict us of our sinfulness.  We say with Paul "who will rescue me from this body of death!"

The rescue from the convicting power of the Law comes in the form of Christ Jesus, His death on the cross for our sins and His resurrection to glory for our justification.  By faith in Christ, we are declared righteous; in Baptism, we are united in His death and resurrection; we are given the Holy Spirit of power and wisdom, guiding us in all righteousness.  This is the Gospel.  It is the answer to God's Law. He did not disregard or negate His holy expectations; He fulfilled them in the Person of Christ and granted His holiness to us.

If the sermon speaks only about "love your neighbor!", it speaks only the Law.  But a sermon that speaks "all of your failures to love your neighbor are forgiven for Jesus' sake!  Live in joy and show God's love to others out of grateful hearts" is a sermon that gives comfort and hope.

What I was hearing--and what my family was hearing--were sermons that focused almost exclusively on "love your neighbor...and here, speaking about specifics from the news, are the neighbors that you should be loving."  Any mention of Jesus was only to refer to Jesus' calls to love of neighbor, never about His saving works.  We left feeling like we'd just been given 20 minutes of guidance on how to be a better citizen.  For me, after a work week filled with unending to-do lists and with an underlying personality that never feels "good enough", I left craving the pure Gospel of God's love in Christ.  I left further drained, not renewed.  I don't go to church to "feel good" but I do go because I need to be reminded that my goodness does not need to be enough--Christ's goodness is all that matters and His goodness is mine by grace.

The church we went to today had a sermon full of Christ.  This was a sermon about the Transfiguration of Christ in the presence of His three disciples.  The story of the Transfiguration reminds us about Christ's perfection as God-Man and His commitment to the plan of salvation, to His Father's will.  Our's was a sermon discussing Christ's power and His plan of salvation, one which highlighted the humanity of His disciples--and how much like they we are, how easily overwhelmed.  A sermon which emphasized the intentionality of Christ's humanity, the restraint of His glory, the manifestation of His power in love.  A sermon about giving God glory on the mountains, and moving forward to live out love in the valleys.  It was a sermon about Christ, not about me. 

I hate church-shopping and church-hopping.  I hate change, but I also hate that the Word of God is not preached in all venues with purity.  I am frustrated with myself that I ignored early concerns and we kept going to this church.  But I am encouraged that there are still churches where the Gospel is preached, and that I'm privileged to live in a country where I can seek and find them.