"I am complete in Him." Colossians 2:10
It has been a very long time since I have filed into a church and listened to a sermon. Since I graduated from church school, I have found peace in the presence and fellowship with the Holy Ghost. He is my teacher!
Needless to say, the sermon is, without question, the "sacred cow" of the Christian movement. The entire Christian Experience is predicated on the anticipation of what subject the Pastor is going to preach about and everyone from the greeters to the Minister of Music has been prepped by the Pastor so that the "mood is set just right."
The immature Christian is totally dependent on the sermon. It is because our nation and, indeed our world is experiencing a global crisis of Biblical Illiteracy mainly because Christians do not read, study or meditate on God's Word. For the lazy Christian, the sermon is their saving grace. Their mindset is this; "no matter what I may have experienced during the week, no matter how much hell I raised, folks I cussed out or how foul my attitude may have been, if I can just get to "chuch" and hear the sermon I'll be alright!"
THE SUNDAY SERMON CANNOT SAVE YOU!
Too many Christians have been misled into thinking that they are saved just because they go to church. They think they are saved because they pay their tithes. They think they are saved because they quoted Romans 10:8 at the altar in front of the congregation. The modern day Christian has a "cultural connection" but not a "biblical connection" to the Lord God. Many churches are social gathering places where Christians go to sit passively with their pew warming friends. In short, the sermon is equated to worship!
This is hard to hear for many Christians, but the sermon was borrowed from pagan (early Greek) cultures and grafted into the Christian faith. The (modern day) sermon has no root in scripture and has very little to do with spiritual growth. Jesus never preached a regular sermon to the same audience. He preached out of a "burden for mankind" rather than from a set script. Neither did Paul, Barnabas, Timothy, Titus or Peter. There was a profound difference between the early church and what is going on today.
Researchers have found that Christians remember less than 10% of the "unsupported" spoken word; (unsupported, referring to the content and/or subject that was taught but was not followed up with study, meditation and prayer by the Christian). No wonder why next Tuesday after church you can't remember what the sermon was about!
The early church gathering was designed as an interactive, extemporaneous and Holy Spirit led exchange among Believers in the gospel of peace. The speaker was interruptable. There was no scheduled weekly meetings. People gathered as they were led by the Spirit! They had only one agenda; to teach the unfiltered truth and direct all in attendance to Christ. What do you think would happen to you if you interrupted your Pastor with that burning question you had about something he just quoted from the bible?
Remove the sermon and the Protestant order of worship becomes, in large part, a songfest. Remove the sermon and attendance will surely drop significantly. Remove the sermon and all you have, for the most part, is a crowd of passive, spiritually dead individuals.
Sinners love church because it is easy to hide in a crowd. Sinners are those people who are spiritually ignorant and have little or no relationship with the Holy Spirit; and,
Sinners have an intimate relationship with the Pastor, but not with Christ. Sinners don't want Christ. Sinners don't want to take their sin to Christ because they love their sin too much and they know Christ will take it away. The Pastor can't save them; he can't redeem them and he can't take away their sin..that is why,
Sinners love the Sunday Sermon...Selah
No comments:
Post a Comment