"The Spirit of God Just Spoke..."

Many pastors, during their sermon on Sunday, might say something like, “And you know, I want to say something the Holy Spirit just spoke to me to tell you…” It is implied that what comes next is most certainly more important than everything else said, right? Yes? No? I would think so.

Here is why that kind of statement - “And you know, I want to say something the Holy Spirit just spoke to me to tell you…” - is very problematic. It implies that everything else said in a sermon is not (as) authoritative. Perhaps only that one statement is actually to be trusted as true and from God. But isn’t the whole sermon meant to be authoritative in so far as it comes from the Word of God? While a sermon is not the Word of God, a sermon is meant to explain the Word of God and thus be authoritative in that regard. A sermon that transgresses the Word of God is not authoritative. But when a preacher shares a thought he says is “from the Holy Spirit”, a whole new layer is introduced, calling into question everything else that is said in the sermon.

In that moment, the preacher is implying that everyone ought to really perk up because they are finally about to hear from God. They haven’t been hearing from God through the preacher until now. And what does that imply about the rest of the sermon? That it is not from God, not really. That it may not be true at all. Imagine leaving church every Sunday and thinking, “I’m not sure about the rest of the sermon but the part that was ‘from the Holy Spirit’ I can trust.”

A preacher who does this might respond and say, “No, the whole sermon is from the Word of God. It’s all authoritative in that regard. But that one moment was directly from the Holy Spirit to me.” Alright, let’s roll with that. Are you, preacher, now saying that you receive revelation from God directly that is as equally authoritative and binding as the very Word of God?

To that most preachers would say, “No, of course not! Secret messages to me from the Holy Spirit are not binding like the Word of God.” Alright, let’s roll with that. If that’s the case, then what’s the point in saying, “The Holy Spirit just spoke to me…”. Because if you really believe the Holy Spirit, God himself, told you to tell your church something, then it is a binding word of God on them, carrying as much authority as the Bible. And if it’s not, then whatever you think the Holy Spirit spoke to you is just like everything else you’re saying in the sermon and therefore what’s the point in telling everyone you think the Spirit just spoke to you?

Here’s the point: we either have (1) the Word of God and (2) sermons that teach and preach it or we have (1) the Word of God, (2) sermons that teach and preach it, and (3) binding secret messages the Spirit gives directly to preachers that have the same authority as the Bible.

“Ok but I make clear to my church that messages to me from the Spirit could be wrong, so they don’t have the same authority as the Bible,” a preacher may add here. And to that Christians ought to respond, “Well, if they could be wrong, then why should I remotely trust that they are from God? If they can be wrong, saying they are ‘from the Spirit’ does not mean anything.” In other words, if they could be wrong, then I don’t care whether you think they are from the Spirit or not. Just say the thought and I’ll test whether it accords with the Bible or not. Adding “This is from the Holy Spirit…” actually changes nothing about the authority of the idea if “it could be wrong” or if “it doesn’t carry the same authority as the Bible”.

Christians can rest knowing they are hearing from God when they read the Bible and when they hear a sermon expounding the Bible. They can rest knowing they don’t need their preacher to also receive a secret message from the Spirit in order to hear from God. They can rest knowing they have everything they need to know and walk with God, right there in the Bible.

"God Moves When..."

I recently saw a quote by a popular evangelical figure that read, “God moves when people want God.” That kind of idea gets many quick “Amens!” from Christians today. The idea is that if we want God to move, we need to want God. If we want God to move, we need to…fill in the blank.

That is the dominating message of the church in America today. If you want God to move, act, be present, then you need to…fill in the blank. This message is usually taught to spur people on towards good works of some kind. “Don’t expect God to show up, move, and act unless you…”

Now, the Bible says things like, “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” This is super encouraging. We often think if we seek to draw near to God He might not ever draw near to us but the book of James is there correcting that mindset, holding out an incredible reality that if we want to be near to God and draw near to Him, he will draw near to us. Amazing!

However, the dominating message of the Bible is not, “God moves when people want God”, rather, the dominating message is, “If you want God, it is because God is moving in you.” For example, in the book of Judges you will read that the people of God cried out in their suffering after they forsake God. Then God moves and shows up and delivers them. We assume they are crying out to God in repentance. In actuality on at least one occasion there is no reason to believe God’s people were even crying out to Him. They were just in agony, crying out. But God shows up nonetheless to deliver them. In other words, God moved before they even wanted Him.

Isn’t that the story of your salvation as a Christian? Before you wanted Him, thought of Him, or sought Him, He moved. But when it comes to the Christian life we often think things have changed. Now that you’re a Christian, we hear, He will only move when you…fill in the blank. He won’t move until you appropriately want Him, seek Him, pray enough, are faithful enough, and on we go. It’s all up to you now, all the time.

But that just isn’t the way of God. Yes, it is true if we draw near to Him He will draw near to us. It is true if we pray, He answer. But it’s also true that God draws near to us, leads us, moves in and around us, and acts on our behalf in countless ways that are not direct responses to us doing anything. And that’s because God is a God of…grace.

This means you don’t have to live your Christian life only expecting God to be God if you…fill in the blank. You can actually rest and rely on the grace-based movement of God. Practically, this looks like having peace about something in your life even though you know in hindsight that you haven’t prayed about it enough. It means having peace that God is still with you even when you haven’t wanted Him enough. It means having peace that God is still orchestrating your life for His purposes even though you have made countless bonehead decisions.

Now that you’re a Christian, remember, God is still gracious. He is still the God of all grace. It’s not all riding on your shoulders now. Rest knowing that for every 1 time He draws near because you drew near, He has drawn near without you asking 100 times. And knowing that will actually make you want Him more.

Ask One Question to Find a Church Home

Ok, yes, there is more than one question you should ask when picking a church to call your home church. But there is one big one that should be asked immediately.

“What I need first of all is not exhortation, but a gospel, not directions for saving myself but knowledge of how God has saved me. Have you any good news? That is the question that I ask of you. I know your exhortations will not help me. But if anything has been done to save me, will you not tell me the facts?”

J. Gresham Machen posed that question to make a major theological point. The church exists to principally and continually preach and teach good news, not good advice, exhortations, and directions. And how far so many churches are from meeting that standard.

When looking for a church you need to ask quickly, “Because what I need first of all is not exhortation, but a gospel, not directions for saving myself but knowledge of how God has saved me, will this church give me the Good News week after week? That is the question that I ask of this church. I know their exhortations will not help me save me. They won’t even change my heart to sanctify me. But if anything has been done to save me, will it tell me the facts?”

Many, many churches today preach and teach primarily about…you. They preach about what you should be doing, what you can do to improve, why you’re not more mature, what you can do to get free, and how you should leave. The test of how good a sermon is centers on how much it “challenges” and “convicts” you and how much it exhorts you to grow in the Christian life. Do we need to be challenged, convicted, and instructed in the Christian life. Of course! But challenges, laws, exhortations not only can’t save us, they can’t even change our hearts to empower us to change. Like a stop sign, they tell us what to do but do not even give us the desire to do them. Something else is needed for that.

That something else is the Gospel, the knowledge of how God has saved us, the good news. The good news is not meant to be heard one time in order to get you in the kingdom and after that it’s time to hear primarily the Law, exhortations, challenges, and directions. The Gospel is meant to be heard over and over again. It is the central, repetitive message of the Bible. It’s counterintuitive but what gets you moving in the right direction in the Christian life is hearing again that God has completely justified you through faith in Christ. In Christ, you are totally forgiven, you are free, the work is done.

"Love God, Love People"

Most evangelical churches today have a short mission statement like the following: “Love God. Love People.” That kind of call to the church and to the world is biblical. It comes straight from Matthew 22:24-40. We ought to love God and love people. That is true.

But here is why that mission statement, as the primary banner over a church, falls short for what a local church’s mission is: it is Law. “Love God, Love People” is a summary of the 10 Commandments. The 10 Commandments are 10 specific laws from God regarding how we are to love Him and love people. So, let’s ask it this way. Wouldn’t you find it odd if a church’s mission statement was this: “Do The 10 Commandments”? If you read that on a banner in a church lobby, you’d probably be worried. “Is this church legalistic?” But most don’t think that way when they see a mural on the lobby wall that reads, “Love God, Love People”.

It’s not that we shouldn’t follow the 10 Commandments. We should. But should that be the ultimate, central, primary message of a local Christian church? Or is the ultimate, central, primary message of a local Christian church, “You have failed to love God and love people. You don’t do it. You can’t do it. You won’t do it. But Good News: Jesus lived, died, and rose for you!”

The typical evangelical church today, while shouting that it is “gospel-centered” and “all about Jesus” fails to see that their primary message is not the Gospel. It is not all about what Jesus has done for us but what Jesus commands from us. In other words, the typical evangelical church today is law-centered and revolves around all that Jesus commands you to do. The typical evangelical church today primarily offers you calls to action, challenges, conviction for sin, ways to progress, and steps to improve, while rarely giving you a heavy, consistent dose of the Gospel of grace.

Perhaps this is why you can never settle into a sense of peace, security, and freedom in your Christian walk. Perhaps this is why you are ever spiritually stressed, anxious, and depressed. You are rightly hearing about who you should be and how you should live. You are rightly convicted for the ways you fall short. But you are rarely comforted by the central message of the Bible, that God single-handedly saves, justifies, sanctifies, and glorifies you. At best, the Gospel is a side-note in the sermon to ensure the church isn’t legalistic about everything. Jesus to you has become a second Moses, ever bringing down to you commandments. Perhaps you no longer, to any impactful degree, see Him as your Savior.

The ultimate, central, repetitive message of the Bible is what Jesus has done single-handedly on your behalf, what He is single-handedly doing for you now, and what He will single-handedly complete in the future. I’ll leave you with the banner Paul saw over his daily life: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). How did the Apostle Paul think about his life? As one “loved” by Jesus, loved by the One who “gave himself” for Paul.

Is Church Stressing You Out?

This Sunday a major slice of Christians in America will attend church at an evangelical church and what they will hear in the sermon is now fairly predictable. The typical evangelical sermon today contains three major points and often must include one major caveat due to those points. It might be helpful to outline the typical Sunday sermon because it may reveal why you still feel stressed, anxious, tired, and/or depressed as a Christian. It may also reveal why you’ll leave church “fired up” again, not having hit the stressed-anxious-tired-depressed part.

The typical evangelical sermon begins with the first major point of how you ought to live. Usually a Bible-character or command of Scripture is highlighted to reveal the ideal way of living. “Don’t do what David did”, “do what Daniel did”, “pray like this Psalmist”, “do what the Bible tells you to do in this passage”. Typically, some clear ideal is given to listeners. That’s point number one. This is where you may sit neutral or may even get excited about the possibility of living in more accordance with God’s Law.

Point number two is where the ideal is applied to your life and the sermon calls you out and challenges you to identify ways in which you are not living up to the ideal. “You keep doing what David did and need to stop”, “you’re not living like Daniel”, “you’re not praying like the Psalmist”, or “you’re not fulfilling this command”. This is the point in the sermon where you are confronted with just how far short you are falling. You think, “I wish I was more like Daniel,” “I wish I prayed with greater fervency,” or “I wish I would finally stop disobeying that law.”

At this point in the sermon it’s time for the major caveat, the part that makes it “evangelical”. At this point, the preacher is sometimes aware that he is heavily preaching God’s Law, convicting everyone in the room with the Word of God. He worries you might think he’s a legalist and not “gospel-centered”. In order to make clear that he is not preaching self-righteousness he pauses to remind everyone, “Now, I’m not saying we are saved by works. I’m not saying you need to do better to get God to love you.” This caveat is enough in many churches to justify calling the sermon or the church “gospel-centered”.

Once the caveat is done, it’s time for the final point of the sermon, the point that it’s time to get to work. “Now, I’m not saying we are saved by works. I’m not saying you need to do better to get God to love you. But I am saying you keep doing what David did and need to stop. Now, here are three ways you can progress and improve this week.” And most of the time in the typical evangelical church the way to progress and improve boils down to one thing: practice your spiritual disciplines in a highly specific way. “Pray before your feet hit the ground, read the Bible before breakfast, pray at this time and for these things, and attend a small group.”

The sermon is now over and you feel deeply one of two things. First, if you haven’t listened to this kind of preaching for very long and especially if you are fairly young (young in age or young in your faith), you might be fired up. “Yes! That’s what I need to do! This week is going to be huge for my progress!” However, if you have put some miles on your Christian journey you are probably feeling differently. You probably leave church feeling deeply distressed, tired, anxious, and maybe even clinically depressed. But why?

You feel that way probably because you are basically only hearing God’s Law each and every Sunday. You feel that way not because what you’ve heard about yourself isn’t true. You feel that way because it is. You are falling short, still, as a Christian. And you feel that way because the minor caveat in the weekly sermon that “we are not saved by works” isn’t the major emphasis.

What you primarily experience at church and what you primarily hear is about…your works. We might not be saved by works but we are apparently sanctified and sustained on the Christian journey by works and effort. Sermon after sermon you are, essentially, given more of yourself. “You need to…You ought to…You should…You can…”. You are turned back in on yourself once again. All that matters is that you follow the preacher’s example and get better. And of course, don’t trust yourself for salvation. But trust yourself for everything else. And if you trust yourself for everything else, who knows, perhaps you will fall so far behind in the Christian journey you find yourself outside the faith completely. That’s what you’re unintentionally led to believe.

The underlying theology that develops in you is a view of God that he is stressed out. He’s stressed about your Christian development. He’s stressed about your lack of progress. He’s waiting for you to make the right move, open yourself up, surrender more, and listen to His still small voice. After all, He can’t take you where He wants you to go without you doing your part. The preaching in many evangelical churches implies that God is stressed out about you, which. stresses you out even more.

The reason typical evangelical sermons unfold like this is because we do not really think the Bible centers around what Jesus has done for us. Sure, we might think it centers on what Jesus calls us to do (Law), so He’s involved in the matter, but it doesn’t center on Jesus Himself, who He is and what He has done for us. While sermons may use language like “it’s all about Jesus” and “gospel-centered”, we still think the Bible is ultimately “Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth”. Like good self-centered sinners, we still think the Bible is ultimately about us. Like good self-trusting sinners, we still think the Bible teaches that our sanctification is ultimately up to us.

Here’s the freeing Good News: the Bible is not about you. God isn’t stressed out about you. He isn’t trusting you to do your part to make sure you become who He wants you to become. He isn’t trusting you to do your part to make sure you get to the place where He wants you to go. He didn’t wait on you to contribute to your justification before justifying you and He isn’t waiting on you to contribute to your sanctification to sanctify you. Find a church that understands that. Find a preacher that understands that to the point that sermon after sermon communicates that. In other words, find a church that weekly preaches the Gospel not merely as a caveat but as the main point.

The Gospel of...Music?

Visit or watch the playback of your average evangelical church service in your city. If I was a betting man, I’d bet the service will begin with about 30-45 minutes of music. After that a preacher will preach a 40-50 minute sermon. The close of the service will then include another 15-20 minutes of music. In other words, the service will be dominated by music. I’ve participated in many of those services and led many of those services. And I think I know why music dominates many church services today.

Music has replaced the gospel, in a sense, in many churches.

I’m not saying the music is “Gospel music” (though it might be). I’m not saying the music communicates the Gospel (though it might). I’m saying the music is the good news delivered to those attending the service and there is a clear reason for that.

In the typical evangelical church service today the Good News that Jesus lived, died, and rose is a message reserved for non-Christians. It is for the unbeliever. Unbelievers are singled out and given that message, usually at the end of the sermon, and told to believe in Jesus for the first time. But that Good News is usually not offered to the believers. Once you believe in Christ, you are put in the category of “believer” and the Sunday church service is designed to give you a different message. The sermon, to be more specific, is designed to give you something different.

For the Christian, the typical Sunday sermon is usually about some law and/or piece of spiritual advice that you need to adhere to in order to progress as a believer. This month’s series is on your spiritual disciplines, next month’s is on your evangelistic life, the next month’s is on your community life, and so on. The goal of the sermon for the Christian is to help you progress, to become more like Christ, and the way the sermon does that is by telling you what you need to do to progress.

The problem is not that Christians do not need to hear God’s Law (do this, don’t do that, etc). The problem is that when that’s all we hear or even when that’s the dominating message we hear, we start to drift from living by grace. We drift because the Law is not a message of God’s grace. Thus, when all or most of what we hear is Law, we drift from the Gospel of grace. We drift back into ourselves, relying on our power and performance. We drift even back into our old way of thinking that perhaps God loves us based on how well we can keep the law.

When all the Christian hears Sunday after Sunday is the Law they begin to hunger and thirst for Good News. Know it or not, they are dying for Good News. They are desperate to hear once again that God is a God of grace. Know it or not, they are also desperate for the power of the Gospel to actually change them and enable them to keep God’s Law, though imperfectly.

So, what does our typical evangelical church give Christians on Sundays? The Gospel message again? Not often. Remember, that message is for the unbeliever. Instead, we give them…music. Desperate for a sense of God’s presence, grace, and good news, we turn to music. Music is powerful and can bring us into a state of feeling peace. So we sing. And we sing. And we sing until we feel peace. The message we hear, the Law, doesn’t give us a sense of peace. It convicts us of the ways we fall short and with no other message of grace for us all we have is music. Music is the good news we are given.

The problem is the emotional state music can put us in fades quickly. Soon after the euphoric high 45 minutes of music brings, you’re back to focusing on what the law-focused sermon made you focus on: yourself. You’re back to focusing on what to do next, how to do better, how you’re not doing better, and why you’re not doing better. You’ve also drifted a bit, so you do all of this distant from the message of the Gospel. You’re not thinking about your Christian walk in light of the Gospel but in light of the Law only. You may not realize it but you need to hear the Gospel again. You need to fix your eyes on Jesus as Savior again, not merely Jesus as your example. But your church is fast preparing to give you more music on Sunday. So the cycle continues week after week.

If you feel like you’re withering away as a Christian, perhaps it’s because it’s been a while since someone told you the Good News again. If that’s you, you don’t need another 30-minute music set. You need to hear the message of God’s grace in Christ. It was for you when you were an unbeliever and it’s still for you, just as much as ever. In other words, Jesus still loves you today based on grace, not your shoddy performance.