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.
