Why this sinner dares to preach the Word of God

As a sinner, I know that someone like me proclaiming the Word of God--both His Law and His Promise--would be the height of hypocrisy except for two things.

One is that, other than Jesus Who was sinless, only sinners can proclaim the Word of God. That's the only earthly pool of available candidates God has at His disposal. I come from that pool.

And, of course, it is a Word from God that must be preached. As the apostle Paul puts it in Romans 10:17: "...faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ." So, for better and worse, imperfect human beings like me are who get nominated for preaching God's Word.

But I am conscious of my sins. Some days more than others. But, like all the human race, I am called to daily repent, that is, turn from my sin, and believer in, trust in Christ, perfect man, God incarnate, and in what He has done for all people through His cross, to destroy the power of sin and death over my eternal destiny. When I entrust my old sins and my present, future, and eternal existence to Christ alone, I am saved from my sin. Acts 4:12 says of Jesus: "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved." I depend on the grace God gives only through Christ.

If I saw myself as anything other than a sinful person whose only hope for forgiveness and life is Jesus Christ, I wouldn't dare take the pulpit.

The other reason I dare to take the pulpit is that, it appears and has appeared for nearly four decades, through the affirmation of the Church and an inner compulsion of faith, that I have been called to preach. Called by God.

I attended my first seminary class more than thirty-seven years ago, have been ordained for nearly thirty-four. To this day, I ask God whether I heard Him right when it came to my call. I still think that the sermons I've prepared aren't good enough. (Of course, they're not. But God uses my study and prayer to make more of my "not good enough" efforts, it seems.) I still cringe when I hear recordings of my preaching or teaching; how can people stand to listen, how could I have neglected to make that point, why did I let me get in the way of God?

And yet, God's call to this sinner continues. No one could be more inspired by this particular example of God's grace than I am.

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Today's Hunger for God's Word Isn't Surprising

Thirty years ago, my guess is that if you asked the average churchgoer what one thing attracted them to or kept them attending a particular congregation, the answer would have been music. Music can be important in helping us to worship God, of course. As musician Toby Mac has said, music goes to places that words alone can't.

But, according to this poll from Gallup, sermons or talks that teach more about Scripture is the top reason that people go to worship.

I have seen this in my own ministry. Today, there is wide acceptance among churchgoers of varied worship and musical styles. The worship music wars are over in North American churches, in part I think, because we all are exposed to so many different musical styles that for us to hear such variety in worship isn't jarring.

Today, people care less about packaging--worship form--than they do about what's inside--the message proclaimed. People want to know what God says in His Word, what He calls us to believe and why.

In thirty-two years as a pastor, I've never seen a greater hunger for God's Word than I see today.

This dovetails with my own journey as a preacher. In days past, I looked for great stories to fill my sermons. A good story that helps people to understand the Bible text before them is fine. But too often, I think, I tried to be "cute."

When my former denomination began taking a path away from the authority of Scripture as God's Word and the norm for our life, faith, and practice, I decided that the time for cute was through. If so many people in my former denomination could be hoodwinked into walking away from the authority of God's Word, a central tenet of the Lutheran confessions, I had to quit assuming that everyone knew what the Bible said. I needed to unfold the Scripture again and again.

I know that in my own life, in the craziness of daily living, I can easily lose sight of God's Word, His revealed will for me as a human being, and the center of history, God enfleshed, Jesus, Who died with humanity and rose from death in order to open up eternal life with God to all who believe in HIm. If I as a pastor, won't help people to hear and see what God is saying to them, I let them down.

There are fewer stories in my sermons these days. And the stories are usually shorter. Always, I pray, they're tied to the Biblical text on which I'm preaching on that day.

Christian faith is life and death business. People who come to worship with us who have no faith need to hear God's Word...without me, my stories, or attempts to be entertaining, relevant, or cute getting in the way. People who come to worship and believe, yet need encouragement, help, counsel, strength, reproach, or liberation, aren't helped when sermons are autobiographical and cute.

People need Christ. And they need the Word about Christ, which is found in every word of the Old and New Testament. People don't seem to mind that I don't entertain them. Or wow them.

Hellenistic Jews once approached Philip, another Hellenistic Jew and a follower of Jesus. They told Philip: "Sir, we would like to see Jesus" (John 12:21).

Whether the people who go to Christian worship on Sunday mornings know it or not, they're seeking the same thing. When, in Christian preaching, as well as Christian fellowship, Christian worship, and Christian service, they do see Jesus, they'll be back for more.

The Word of God, when read, pondered, or proclaimed has power! In the New Testament, Paul says, "...faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ" (Romans 10:17). And God assures us in the Old Testament that when His Word is spoken:

...as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:10-11)

The Gallup findings are not surprising to me, then. When people hear God's Word faithfully read and explicated, they know they've heard from the One Who made them, redeemed them on the cross and rose from the dead to give them life, and still lives with them through His Holy Spirit. They've come into contact with the Life-Giver and the Life-Changer. And they want more!

And they begin to feel like the apostle Paul:

...I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:8-11)

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Preachers and Politics

[I write a column for the Community Press newspapers. This is the column version of this post.]

A new book recounts incidents from evangelist Billy Graham's experience as pastor to U.S. Presidents and their families.

The book reveals that Graham has done more than provide spiritual counsel to the eleven presidents he's known. He's offered political and policy counsel.

When the depths of Richard Nixon's unethical conduct came out, Graham was shocked into a new stance toward politics and politicians. Graham resolved to always provide pastoral counsel and care to those White House families who sought him out, but not to be a policy advisor or presidential cheerleader. "We [preachers] have to stand in the middle," Graham declared in 1981, "to preach to all the people, right and left."

Like Billy Graham, I'm a political junkie. Three years ago, in what I think was a mistake for me as a pastor, I ran for the State House of Representatives myself. I'm glad that I lost. Had I been elected, I might have forfeited my ability to reach out "to all the people, right and left..."

I encourage Christians to be involved in the political process. But it's almost never the job of a pastor or of the Church to express political opinions. I don't know what God thinks about the War in Iraq, immigration reform, or health care. I don't know any preacher who does.

A big part of my job as a preacher is to echo Jesus' call, recorded in the New Testament book of Mark, "Repent, and believe in the good news" (Mark 1:15). Jesus summarized that Good News in His famous words to Nicodemus, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life" (John 3:16).

If I mix my political preferences in with my proclamation about Jesus, it confuses people about the true content of God's message for us and, most dangerously, may unnecessarily alienate some people from Christ. Jesus' call for human beings to admit that God is bigger than them and to then surrender to God alienates some people anyway. The preacher who adds a political requirement to having a relationship with God changes the Good News and becomes no better than a peddler of cults.

Graham's example suggests that preachers should stick to preaching the Good News. It also suggests that preachers pastorally befriend politicians.

I try to do that. A few months ago, I had lunch with a Clermont County pol who has become a friend. Before we ate, I prayed. I thanked God for our food and our time together and then I asked God to bless and guide my friend in his important work. After we'd said, "Amen," I saw him dabbing his eyes. "I just can't get used to it," he said. "I'm always so moved and humbled when people pray for me. Thank you."

Praying for politicians of both parties is one of the best things anyone can do. After all, politicians are people too. Through prayer, preachers and others can ask God to offer leaders His counsel. And they need God's counsel far more than they need ours!

Preachers and Politics: Billy Graham as a Case Study

A recent issue of TIME magazine excerpts a book that looks at evangelist Billy Graham's relationships with eleven US Presidents--from Harry Truman to George W. Bush.

But it does more than recount incidents from Graham's experience as presidential pastor.

Senator and former First Lady Hillary Clinton, one of the collection of one-time White House occupants who Graham knows best, told the authors that Graham is also a "political junkie." "He loved elections because he knew that you had to tell a story, you had to connect with people--all the things we talk about in politics," she says.

The President to whom Graham, a lifelong registered Democrat, was personally closest was Lyndon Johnson. As Graham recounts in his autobiography, his counsel often went way beyond the spiritual. Graham offered LBJ advice on the President's War on Poverty program and in fact, seriously weighed an offer to leave his evangelistic ministry to become Johnson's anti-poverty czar.

Graham is probably most well-known for his relationship with Richard Nixon, to whom he imparted advice and to whom he sometimes gave a prominent place at his crusades.

"But," Gibbs and Duffy write, "on the heels of Graham's crushing experience with the Nixon Administration, the evangelist recalibrated his relationship with the White House and kept his distance."

As some evangelical Christians started what became known as the Moral Majority or the Religious Right, Graham said:

Evangelicals can't be closely identified with any particular party or person. We have to stand in the middle, to preach to all the people, right and left. I haven't been faithful to my own advice in the past. I will in the future.

I identify with Billy Graham. I'm a political junkie and I've likened the excitement I feel on election nights to what I felt as a kid on Christmas Eve. I was a Social Studies major and to this day, I love reading biographies and histories recounting the political leadership and maneuvering of pols. I keep up with current events. In a former life, I ran a congressional campaign and worked for the State House of Representatives in Columbus.

Three years ago, I made what I recently have described as one of my biggest mistakes as a pastor. Concerned about public school funding in Ohio, I ran for the State House of Representatives myself. The congregation I serve as pastor was okay with my making the bid. I'm sure that I could have juggled my schedule to have continued full time as a pastor and still served in the House.

But, in all honesty, I'm glad that I finished fourth in a five-way primary contest. Had I been elected, I might well have forfeited my ability to fulfill my call as a preacher of Jesus Christ's Gospel. As Graham puts it, we preachers are to reach out "to all the people, right and left." And everywhere else on the political spectrum.

I encourage Christians to be involved in the political process. To inform themselves about issues and candidates. To pray about what's right. To get involved in political campaigns. To vote.

But it's almost never the job of a pastor or of the Church as an institution to express a political preference.

What does God think about the War in Iraq? Or immigration reform? Or US terrorism policy? Or capital gains taxes? I don't know for sure and I don't know anyone else who does.

My job as a preacher is to invite people to turn from sin and follow Jesus. If I mix my political preferences in with my proclamation, it confuses people about the true content of God's message for us and, most dangerously, may unnecessarily alienate some people from Christ. Preachers who do politics make people feel excluded from Christ.

Some people will feel alienated from Christ and His Gospel anyway. The Gospel we preachers share isn't all happy talk. "When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die," Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote. The "old Adam" and the "old Eve," our inborn sinful selves whose prime impulse is to look out for ourselves, others be damned, must die.

A big part of following Jesus thus entails living in what Martin Luther called "daily repentance and renewal," bringing the old self and our sins to God, asking for cleansing, and the power to live this day in love for God and love for others.

All of this entails surrender, something that any audience a preacher might address will find difficult to swallow anyway. The preacher who then adds things to her or his proclamation, things like, "Oh yeah, to be right with God, you also have to vote this way or support this candidate," is adding an unnecessary obstacle to people having a relationship with God. They're diluting and changing the Gospel message they were called to proclaim. In that sense, they become no better than your friendly neighborhood peddler of cults.

Preachers should not, except in the most extreme circumstances, express political preferences. We have bigger fish to catch. Our focus should be to act as mouthpieces for Jesus' call that we die to sin, so that we can rise to live with God forever.

But there will be times when, in the political realm, the conflict between complete evil and good is so clear that a preacher will have to speak out. That was what happened to Bonhoeffer in Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler's hatred was so obvious, so contrary to Christ's Gospel of love, that it was clear that every Christian preacher and leader should oppose it.

Few found the courage to do so. Bonhoeffer did. He joined a plot to overthrow Hitler and in the waning days of World War Two, after an extensive period of imprisonment, was executed.

Only those of the most extreme politics would suggest that we have faced a Hitler in US politics in recent years. I remember hearing a "Christian preacher" during the 1996 election cycle, saying that if Bill Clinton were re-elected to the presidency, it would be the last free election we ever had in America. We've had several since.

And today, people concerned about the expansive interpretation of executive power followed by the Bush Administration, compare the current president to Hitler. But it appears that our elective process is continuing to unfold and that, if the polls are credible, the 2008 presidential election race is the Democrats to lose.

Christians in this country and people in the country at large don't need to hear about the political preferences of preachers. Inquiring minds could care less.

What they really need to know from us is..

that God is for them when life doesn't make sense,
that God wants to help them make the most of their lives,
that God can forgive the sins that cause them shame, and
that they can be made new.

They need to know that God wants to be with them now and forever.

Like Graham, I haven't always followed my own advice, although I've never expressed a political opinion from the pulpit. (Not that I know of, anyway.)

But that won't prevent me from befriending politicians, either. Whether the general public knows it or not, politicians are people too.

There's one local pol with whom I have regular contact. A few months ago, we had lunch together. I asked him if he'd like to pray before we dug into our Chipotle burritos. He said yes. I thanked God for our food and our time together and then I asked God to bless and guide my friend in his important work.

After we'd said, "Amen," I looked across the table and saw that his eyes glistened with tears. As he dabbed his eyes with his napkin he said, "I just can't get used to it. I'm always so moved and humbled when people pray for me. Thank you."

And when all is said and done, praying for politicians of both parties is one of the best things we can do for them, for our flocks, for our country, and for the world. Through prayer, we can ask God to go to leaders and counsel them. As the great Frank Laubach wrote years ago, "We can do more for the world with prayer than if we were to walk into Whitehall, London, or the Kremlin in Moscow, and tell those men [sic] what to do---far more! If they listened to our suggestions, we would probably be more or less wrong [emphasis mine]. But what God tells them, when they listen to Him, must be right. It is infinitely better for world leaders to listen to God than for them to listen to us."

Preachers would do well to emulate the course that has been Billy Graham's since the humiliation he experienced on learning that Richard Nixon, the President he most publicly embraced, had been so decidedly un-Christian in the conduct of his presidency. He's befriended pols and he's prayed for them. But he's decoded to act only as their pastor and preacher, not their counselor, confidante, or advocate.

Gibbs and Duffy conclude their TIME magazine excerpt:

Graham recalled these [presidential] friendships with the humility that comes with experience. "As I look back, I feel even more unqualified--to think I sat there and talked to the President of the United States," he said. "I can only explain that God was planning it in some ways, but I didn't understand it." He doesn't expect to make it back to the White House anytime soon, but he watches out for its occupant the best way he knows how. He does daily devotions, and whoever sits in the Oval Office will always have a place in his prayers.

[Also see here.]

[THANKS TO: Article 6 Blog for linking to this post. Written by John Schroeder, also of Blogotional, the piece also takes a prominent fundamentalist theologian to task for his views on these matters.]

For the Preachers in the Crowd

Pastor Jeff and I are dialoging on sermonizing. Feel free to join in.