I believe you must have been a very well-liked pastor. What I am trying to get across here, and don't seem to be successful with a few, is NOT that the Gospel (the plan of salvation) has no place in a Sunday sermon - of course it does. What I experienced (only one or two pastors) was using that same sermon EVERY Sunday. Not as part of the sermon - which I think it SHOULD be always proclaimed - but THE sermon being the same, repetitive thing. Believers - once they ARE believers - need to learn the meat of the word of God and I think you will agree, the Christian life entails a lot more after a person comes to saving faith than before.
So, yes, "Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel", but woe is my flock if they learn nothing BUT the Gospel. And, again, when I say "Gospel", I am not speaking of the life and words of our Savior as told in the gospels of Matthew,Mark, Luke and John, but the "good news" that Christ has come to save us from our sins.
Take care!
I sure hope you guys are comfortable because you've really touched on a nerve here.
I get precisely what you are saying BB.I sat in church for years hearing pretty much the same sermons over and over.There was the odd sermon that really hit it out the park if you were inclinded to chew on what was being said but so many had folks checking their watches.Well,I sat there checking my watch to but a lot of the time it was out of a sort of frustration.Almost every time I sat and read God's Word I could not help shaking my head at the memory of a statement I read years ago about church."Church is a very dangerous place and the Bible itself is dynamite.Ushers should issue helmets and the pews should be fitted with safety belts!"
I believed that.I couldn't help it.After all,if the Bible,the Creator's message to those He created in His own image actually is what it claims to be,then we actually have in our posession a bonifide extra-terrestrial artefact.Who could not,or would not,be awestruck at that thought? This was and is awesome in the truest sense of the word.Yet here we sit yawning and checking watches as if all this is no big deal.
"Believers - once they ARE believers - need to learn the meat of the word of God..."
I came to the impression that the major problem was that if a person was sat in church they were assumed to be a believer.Yet Jesus said the "work of God is this,that ye believe..." Believing is obviously work,it's not something we are naturally inclined to do.Not where Jesus Christ is concerned anyway.In fact we are 'naturally' inclined in the opposite direction to Him.So to say "once they are believers" ends up giving an impression that that part ie:believing is done.I know you know that bb I'm just trying to make a point.
The Word tells us "faith cometh by hearing" and I think that that applies to everybody to some degree.I also think that if faith (trust) comes by hearing then it follows that what is heard the most is trusted the most.Not always simply trusting with the mind but that much deeper trust that resides in our hearts (that we do not fully know).The kind of deep faith in things that effects the way we think and that gives us the context in which we view reality.
Folks were hearing God's Word about twenty minutes a week and the words of the prince of the power of the air about fifty hours a week.As long as the two aren't brought side by side then all will be peace and quiet and no sparks will fly.
The few times I was invited to give a sermon I could think of little else but trying to help them believe.I wanted to try and convince them,to persuade them that what they believed about God and eternity was actually true.Not that this was a wonderfull story,not that it was a beautifull belief or a usefull peacefull religion but that it was cold hard reality wether we believed it or not.
It seemed to me that once a person grapsed that,they wouldn't need much coaxing to "work out their own salvation with fear and trembling" and would come to church chomping at the bit for meat.Well fed and armed against the countless hours of godless babble the world will dish up week after week.
" What I am trying to get across here....is NOT that the Gospel (the plan of salvation) has no place in a Sunday sermon - of course it does"
Amen.
However if that is all that is ever preached it ends up being perceived as a sort of placebo against what is happening all around us every day in a world that is becoming less pretty by the hour.Not to mention more hostile to christianity.To my mind FWIW,helping believers believe is building each other up in Christ.Helping folks to be "persuaded that He is able" helping them to make their election and calling sure so that they will NEVER fall! Because in spite of hearing the gospel week in and week out,it seems many are indeed going to fall away.
Sorry it's all over the place but I'm sure you get my drift.
"I believe you must have been a very well-liked pastor"
You both are.
God bless you