If you received yesterday’s State newspaper than you saw the striking headline, “Lou: Locker room or boardroom, Holtz can fire ‘em up.” I suppose that headline is no surprise considering that we live in the hometown of the University of South Carolina and yesterday was the dawn of the 2001 Gamecock football season. Though the headline wasn’t surprising something in the article itself startled me. As the author was talking about Lou Holtz’s unique ability to motivate people he wrote this interesting observation, “At the end of Holtz’s rambling, prototypical 20-minute talk they give him a standing ovation. What exactly did he say? A couple of listeners admit they aren’t quite sure, but they liked it. A lot.” (The State Newspaper, September 1, 2001, No. 244, front-page article written by Bob Gillespie.)
I find that frightening – that people can like a speaker – a lot – without really knowing what he’s saying. Perhaps that reality isn’t all that big a deal when it comes to talking about fans liking a football coach – after all – the only people whose success depends on understanding what the coach says are his players. But when that truth is considered in the realm of religion it is terribly frightening. After all we’re all players in that realm, and we all want to be successful, that is, we all want to win the eternal prize of heaven. For that very purpose we call pastors to speak to us and guide us on the road to eternal, spiritual success. So it only makes sense that if we are to like a pastor – and like him a lot – it is vitally important that our admiration is built on understanding.
But what should we be listening for that would prompt us to like a pastor a lot? In the text for this morning God himself offers us guidance. God identifies two key elements that make a pastor and his sermonizing something we will like a lot. God says that a great sermon is one where the pastor I) doesn’t mix up God’s Word. God also says that a great sermon is one where the pastor II) doesn’t mince God’s Word. If those two, key elements are present in a sermon then God himself declares, “Great sermon, pastor!”
Unfortunately there were pastors, called prophets, in Jeremiah’s day who wanted the compliments but didn’t care if they were preaching God’s Word. These preachers insulted the true God imagining that he was just as powerless as all of the other national gods of the nations surrounding Judah. In the minds of these preachers the true God was no more concerned about pure teaching than any of the other gods were. Besides, they figured, if we aren’t in his temple he can’t hear what we’re saying anyway.
Those assumptions were reflected in their preaching. They weren’t so concerned about saying what the true God said – they were more concerned about preaching what the people wanted to hear. They loved to substitute their own ideas and notions and pass them off as God’s Word as though God had spoken directly to them in dreams. Instead of allowing the timeless truths of God’s Word shape their beliefs and teachings, essentially, they determined what they would teach based on popular opinion polls arguing that doctrine is just a matter of one’s own interpretation. As a result they really didn’t care what people believed – just so long as those people kept coming back in bigger and bigger numbers, complimenting the preacher on his oratory skills, and filling the offering plate with lots of cash.
God makes it clear that their preaching, though done with smooth talk and flattery, though very attractive to large numbers of people, and well-polished, does not qualify as great in his eyes. In fact, it’s not even good. God makes it clear that he hears and sees everything they are doing. He considers their work an abomination. After all they don’t even have the integrity to identify their dreams and opinions as merely human ideas. Instead they were content to mix those things together with God’s Word and pass off the whole package as God’s Word. As a result God declares that they have fed their listeners with lies. They are content to mix the grain, the solid food of God’s Word, with the straw, the junk food of human wisdom. They were very zealous in their work, but they weren’t bringing people closer to God. In reality through their preaching and teaching they were actually tempting God’s people to forget God’s name. They were tempting God’s people to abandon the true God and worship a god that their own imagination had concocted not unlike what their forefathers had done in worshiping Baal.
Despite the passage of time things haven’t changed much have they? Countless preachers today – gifted speakers, eloquent, friendly, and with charismatic personalities have contented themselves to mix the truth of God’s Word with error and their listeners don’t seem to care that they are being fed with lies. The truths of God’s Word have been decimated under the battle cry, “That’s your interpretation!” Denomination after denomination has fallen to the dreams and delusions of the arrogant human mind that proceeds with egotistical conceit to make itself the final judge of what Scriptural teachings to accept and which to reject. If our changeless God condemned that same type of attitude and activity in the Old Testament as one that led people away from him then we have no reason to believe that his verdict has changed about the matter today.
God wants you to listen to pastors who faithfully adhere to the truth of his Word. God wants you to support pastors who bring you closer to him by guiding you into his truth. Why? Because in the end it’s not the pastor’s eloquence, his charisma, or his wisdom that will save you – it’s God’s! That’s why God insists that a great sermon is one that is always based on and guided completely by his unchanging Word.
That is certainly one aspect of a great sermon. But God identifies one other expectation that must be fulfilled before he considers a sermon to be great. A great sermon in the eyes of God is one that doesn’t mince the Word of God.
What does that mean? God has recorded two major teachings in the Scriptures. The first is the Law, the one that he refers to as a hammer in the text. With his law God intends to diagnose the problem with human souls as they are from the point of conception. God uses his law to make human beings aware that without serious help they will surely perish forever in hell. That’s the hammer of God’s law that smashes the sinful, self-righteous spirit that is deluded in thinking that human beings are capable of earning their way into heaven by doing good works. As the Apostle Paul wrote in the letter to the Romans, “Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin” (Romans 3:20). Though the preaching of God’s law is often unpopular and uncomfortable it is a prerequisite of a great sermon. It’s a prerequisite because every human being is sinful. Therefore every human being needs to hear the diagnosis of God’s law to keep them aware of the dangerous disease of sin with which they are infected so that they might look for and continue to make use of the proper treatment.
God’s treatment for sin, the only one that works, is found in the other major teaching of the Bible. It’s called the gospel, that’s the fire that God speaks of in the text for this morning. The gospel is just like a campfire that warms human hearts that are frozen by sin with the warmth of Jesus’ love. The gospel is the good news that Jesus loved the people of this world so much that he willingly sacrificed his innocent life on the cross to pay the price demanded for the sins of the whole world. The gospel is also a purifying fire that sanitizes human hearts as it cleanses them with Jesus’ blood and righteousness. This cleansing, this forgiveness moves people to rely on Jesus alone as the only medicine that will keep them from perishing in eternal torment.
Martin Luther emphasized just how important the task of correctly distinguishing between Law and Gospel was when he wrote: “It is therefore a matter of utmost necessity that these two kinds of God’s Word be well and properly distinguished. Where this is not done, neither the Law nor the Gospel can be understood, and the consciences of men must perish with blindness and error” (St. L. Ed. IX, 799 f.).
You see it’s not only important that I vigorously maintain that distinction within the body of my sermon so that it might qualify as good in God’s eyes – but, it is just as important that each one of us maintain this distinction in our hearts, minds, and lives lest we careen off the narrow path that leads to heaven into the ditch of pharisaical self-righteousness on one side or sinful security on the other. I fear that we as a congregation struggle quite often in the ditch of sinful security we more often than we care to admit. I think that may be the case when it comes to our attendance at Bible study and Sunday school. More than 60% of our congregation is not involved in any forum for Bible study that this congregation offers on a regular basis. I’ve heard more than a few justify their absence because Sunday is, “my only day off,” or, “I just don’t get much out of it,” or, “I’m just too busy.” What misplaced priorities! What bold statements of human arrogance. Who of us has grown so smart that God’s Word has lost its power to enlighten our hearts and increase our understanding? We who have no time for God and his Word would do well to listen to the admonition of St. Paul to the Corinthian Christians, “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” (1 Corinthians 10:12).
Oh that God would smash our stony, unresponsive, sinful hearts with the hammer of his law! Pray that he would pulverize them to bits and create new hearts that respond to his love and feed on his Word in their places! Be glad my dear friends because that is exactly what God is doing as his Law and his Gospel are applied to your lives. He tears down the stubbornness and laziness of our sinful flesh and builds us up with the good news about what Jesus has done for us. He causes us to rejoice by revealing that Jesus dedicated his life wholly and completely to us. He overwhelms us with Christ’s love as he shows us that Jesus stopped nothing short of giving us the very best that he had, namely his own life, so that we might be called his own. Now I urge you to live in thankfulness to your Savior by committing yourself to spare no effort in bringing yourself around the intensity of the fire of God’s Word where God himself reveals his committed love for you in Christ. There and there alone, will you find warmth and life and light forever with Jesus!
Finally, my friends, may the standard by which every sermon is evaluated always be the standard which God himself has set forth. It’s my prayer that every sermon offered from this pulpit would measure up as great according to that standard. If they do then they will have done you the highest good – because they will have focused your hearts and minds on the truth of God’s Word and faithfully applied that truth to your hearts and minds that can but help but affect your lives both now and forever. May God grant it for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
