I said something in the sermon last Sunday as it related to 9/11 which I wish I hadn’t said. Or perhaps I should say, I wish I had said a bit more clearly. So that’s what I’m doing here. It was really nothing more than a transitional statement—but I made an off the cuff comment related to it.
I was attempting to speak a little about 9/11 and how the gospel was the hope then and it is the same hope now. Just a little side point that was related to the main point—that we’ve only got one life to live. I said, “15 years ago many pastors had to change their preaching plan to address the tragedy of 9/11”. And then I said what I wish I had said a bit more clearly. My unguarded statement was this: “I find that somewhat strange that they’d have to change their message…shouldn’t we always be preaching messages which would be relevant when 9/11 hits?”
I’ll explain what I mean by that in just a second, but first let me tell why I shouldn’t have worded it that way. This particular Sunday I’ll be preaching on Ephesians 5:3-14. I’m still working through my 3AM statement (the big point of the passage broken down into a concise statement). But I know the sermon will be on sexual immorality. Had I been scheduled to preach on that text on 9/11/01 I would have been a horrible pastor to have kept plodding along and talking about healthy human sexuality. It would be as Dr. York says, “spiritual malpractice”.
But it wasn’t really the faithful expositor that I had in mind when I made that statement. What I was really trying to say—to encourage our folks in—is the necessity of having preaching which is always centered on the gospel. What I was meaning to say is that it should tell you a bit something if you have to change the way you preach in order to speak to a tragedy like 9/11. I didn’t mean that the faithful pastor might need to change his text and adjust to this curveball. But what I did mean is that if the steady diet of your preaching isn’t one which speaks to devastation then you might want to look at that.
There is a deafening silence which often comes from attractional churches during tragic times. I appreciate what Ray Ortlund said back in early July when we had such civil unrest. Ortlund said, “One benefit of these hard times: every unserious, shallow, giggly church is obviously irrelevant. But churches of deep purpose matter.” The reason for this silence is that attractional churches aren’t accustomed to speaking to the difficult things of the Christian life. Events like 9/11 leave them scrambling. And that’s a shame, because I’m convinced that scores of their folks are struggling through their own personal devastations which the gospel can and does speak directly to—but all they hear are shiny and happy little tips which you could just as easily get from watching Dr. Phil.
So this is just a simple plea to preachers. Preach every week as if 9/11 just happened and the only hope that folks have is the gospel. As Richard Baxter said, “Preach as a dying man, to dying men and women”. There is far much too much at stake for us to fiddle around with tips to improve our comfortable lives. Preach a 9/11 relevant gospel every Sunday.
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