Would that all criticism of my teaching be along the lines of "All you ever talk about is Jesus."
Here's an excerpt I transcribed from a recent Mark Driscoll sermon from his special series on Scripture:
I had a nonChristian I talked to fairly recently [who] came to Mars Hill. I said "Well, how's it going? How'd you like it?"
He said, "Well, I liked it, but every week you're just talking about the same thing."
"Well, what is that?"
He says, "Jesus. Is there anything else?"
I said, "No. That's it. That's all we got. We're like a band with one song, and we just keep playing it. That's how it is. It's all about Jesus." But I said, "I'm glad you caught that point. I'm glad you didn't go, uh, it's about monkeys or something. I woulda had to get fired."
He got the big idea that when we open the Bible we end up talking about Jesus. And I know that seems very simple to some of you. But let me submit this to you, that it is sadly uncommon.
I'll give you a couple of examples. I recently, um . . . every once in a while I listen to Christian radio. I can't do it very often 'cause I say things that I then have to repent of. But I was driving in my car, listening to Christian radio; I had a long trip, and I listened to hours of Christian preachers, and I can honestly say that I never heard the name of Jesus. For hours. On Christian radio, we're not talking about Jesus.
I had a friend of mine, he's a church planter, he went to an enormous church. He listened to the announcements, the drama, the sermon, the worship music. There was an altar call at the end: "If you'd like to go to heaven and not hell, come forward now." Jesus' name was never said once. Not once.
If you asked that church, "Do you believe in the Bible?", they'd say "Yes, we believe in the Bible."
And Jesus says you're not really accurately teaching the Bible or understanding the Bible if you're not talking about Me. And so, not only do we love Scripture, we believe that Scripture is not being properly used or understood unless the Person and work of Jesus is the focal point of all that is being understood and instructed.
So I make you this promise: If you come to Mars Hill, we will be talking about Jesus. And you can bring your friends and family members, and they will hear about Jesus, no matter what Sunday they show up.
Yup. I loved that.
Sometimes I worry people will think I don't have any other tricks in my preaching bag, that I am lazy and don't look for other material, that I'm just recycling the same message. But then I realize it shouldn't be about my tricks in the first place. It's about Jesus each and every time, about the Gospel of Jesus each and every time, and if someone has trouble with that, I can take a weird comfort in that they are having trouble with Jesus, not me.
7 comments:
I had really been hoping that one of these days you would start preaching about He-Man, Skeletor, and Castle Grayskull. I can see now I am going to be disappointed :)
Would you settle for the Get-Along Gang?
:-)
which sermon was this from? do you have the date or the title? i would like to get a video clip of this one.
It's from "Special: Scripture, Week 1," which was, I think, about 3 weeks ago. It's the 3rd one down in my itunes listing for the podcast.
People are not thirsty for "not going to hell"...they are thirsty for the embrace and forgiving grace of Christ...If all that is preached is Jesus, it is still complete...without Jesus none of the rest of the Bible is worth the paper it is printed on.
Top-notch stuff.
As for Christian radio, I keep calling in Keith Green's "Asleep in the Light," but they never play it.
Long story but, we are looking for a new church home. We have been attending a local church for about six weeks and every Sunday the pastor ends the sermon with "maybe you need to make a decision today to accept Christ...." My response every Sunday has been "well, as far as I can tell, you haven't given anyone a reason why they should since this is the first time you've mentioned him." At least, that's what I said in my head :-)!
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