A Brilliant and Gracious Critique of a Lousy yet Popular Sermon
Here we want to share a link to brother Tim Challie's video from his recent series on great sermons. In this video he flips things around and presents the most watched sermon on Youtube, which is, ironically, not a good sermon by any means.
When it comes to the Lord Jesus' global mission and our part in that mission it is of utmost importance that we know what we are preaching. There are two primary ways we can be found unfaithful to the call of God in missions. One is to be found living not in accord with the Gospel message and thereby bringing bad testimony to Christ. The other way we can be found unfaithful is when we speak, preach or teach a false version of the Gospel. This is the issue we will treat today in this blog post and it is of no small matter. I personally know "pastors" who lead flocks of thousands of people and week after week they feed them this same nonsense. At times they even boast that they are "motivational speakers" rather than preachers; this is true but to their shame. It's all very sad because the people come to Christ and say "yes" to Christ, but in these cases the Christ they hear of and respond to is not the actual Jesus of the Bible but rather a "Jesus" of man's own making or imagination. They say "yes" to Christ, just like they say "yes" to everything else that improves their status or situation...
Jesus is the Word made flesh and His mission is primarily about the proclamation of the Gospel message; this naturally requires words. We aim to bring God glory and to faithfully proclaim Christ's message of salvation to a lost world that is dying separated from Christ. To honor Jesus we must be found faithful to His word (the Gospel) and so we share this well-done video to that end.
We exhort you to give 10 minutes of your time to watch this and better inform yourself of what is commonly called Christianity and gospel preaching while it is anything but. May God bless you!
"So Christian, let me plead with you before you listen to the latest popular speaker, think about the truth you are receiving. Does it encourage you toward worldliness or Godliness? Does it exalt man or God? Does it align with the truth of scripture? As Paul told the Romans, abhor what is evil, hold fast to what is good.
And Christian preachers, let me plead with you, preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ with all of its goodness, with all of its power. Tell of the sinful state of man, tell of God’s love for us in sending His Son. Tell of the perfect life and obedience of Jesus, tell of His full payment for our sins on the cross. Tell of His death-defying resurrection and tell of the salvation that He offers to those who repent of their sins and believe in His name. Tell the people that God Himself is the greatest prize of the Gospel and please, oh please, proclaim the name of Jesus. His name is worthy of all glory and all honor and all praise. And to be sure His name is worthy of being included in your every sermon." -- Challies
