By Hershael W. York
How can we preach Jesus and be so theologically bankrupt? Theologically empty sermons are about as exciting as a fat-free, sugar-free, nutritionally empty meal. You might find something to chew on, but very little to digest. The only way to take theology out of the sermon is ultimately either to distort who Jesus is or get rid of Him altogether. How can we preach Jesus without a theologically rich understanding of the Trinity, the incarnation, soteriology, sanctification, the mystery of the will of God? Like the other religions of the world, we have to dethrone Him to a mere man. We preach Him as a best friend rather than as Lord. We preach His example rather than His substitutionary atonement. We make His name a talisman to be used for our wishes rather than the authority by which we go into all the world. Jesus preached theologically because He preached Himself, and we dare not depart from that paradigm.
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In the church I serve as pastor I am currently preaching a series of sermons on the family, working through passages of the Bible that teach what a Christian home should be like. Frankly, I am having a lot of trouble.
The exegesis of the passages is not what troubles me. After all, I have spent years of my life in classrooms and study learning how to handle the technical aspects of the biblical text. Similarly, I don’t find the homiletical structure to be any more difficult than usual either — that part is always tough. Still, I am having a hard time preparing and delivering these sermons because the part of this series that gives me a disconcerting pain is how I fall far short of the standard that I present to my people each week. I often find myself preaching with a broken heart, not only because of my love for my people, but because of my realization that I have failed in some key ways and my preaching does not always match my life.
Jesus, on the other hand, never felt conviction about His sermon topic; He never heard Satan whisper in His ear what a phony He was. Jesus never knew any distance between the vast sky of intention and the hard earth of performance. His character was completely consistent with the concepts He proclaimed to others. Even in the Sermon on the Mount, the highest ethical standard ever espoused, He was both preacher and subject. He was the perfect incarnation of the Beatitudes, the perfect illustration of obedience, the perfect implementation of the character demanded by the entire sermon. His life modeled the second mile, the turned cheek, the simple trust in God required for a single day. Who else would dare claim that on the Day of Judgment, He would be the one telling false disciples, “Depart from me, I never knew you!” (Matt. 7:23).