Challenges to Faithful Gospel Preaching
In biblical churches, the faithful preaching of the gospel is not only central, but indispensable. It’s the primary mark of a true church of Christ. It’s also a means of grace, a way in which God graciously works in our lives by his Holy Spirit both to create faith and nourish it. It’s no wonder that Satan, the world, and our own flesh rise up against such preaching. In what follows, I want to consider three contemporary challenges.
The first is nothing new. Paul wrote about it in the first chapter of Galatians. Paul was surprised how the Galatians were so quickly seduced by a different gospel. The Judaizers were the ones who brought this different gospel. They taught that you need Jesus for salvation, but not only Jesus. You also need to do works of the law in order to be saved. In other words, the Judaizers added human good works to the root of salvation. Christ might get you started, but then it’s up to you to do the good works that please God to complete the equation. Paul calls that a different gospel from the one he preached. He says that even if an angel from heaven were to come with a different gospel, he should be cursed to hell (Gal.1:8-9). Gospel preachers must preach the gospel of Paul, the gospel delivered to the apostles, the gospel revealed in Scripture. That gospel nowhere contains good works at the root. Our good works come in later as the fruit of this message, but never at the root. Our salvation is in Christ alone, by grace alone.
The challenge is always there to forget that. Human pride is naturally so strong. In what remains of our old nature, we still want to think we can contribute something, be it ever so small. Moreover, there are hundreds of voices out there catering to that sinful notion. Our culture goes in that direction and so do countless theologians and preachers. However, faithful gospel preaching always puts sinful humanity in its place. It debases man and exalts God. Faithful gospel preaching never adds our good works to the redemptive work of Christ. Woe to us if we ever forget the teaching of Galatians 1!
A second challenge has to do with authority in our day. There’s an anti-authoritarian wind blowing through our culture. It’s been blowing for several decades, since at least the 1960s. People are suspicious and dismissive of authority when it comes to all kinds of areas of life. They don’t want to listen to those who are in positions of authority; in fact, the very notion of an authority is often regarded as distasteful. As a result, just to take one example, we no longer have police forces, we have police services. But ironically, the rejection of authority is usually not total – instead, it’s often selective. People today choose for themselves which authorities they’re going to have and respect. So pop stars speak out about human sexuality and suddenly they’re highly respected experts on the subject. Movie stars speak up about a crisis somewhere in the world and it makes the news – it seems Hollywood automatically makes someone an authority in international affairs. External institutional authority, however, has fallen on bad times. That includes the church and the pulpit.
The Word of God calls us to be counter-cultural here. Christ has given authority to his church. He gave the keys of the kingdom of heaven to his church. He said in Matt.16 that whatever the church would bind on earth would be bound in heaven. The church has special office bearers through whom Christ rules his church. Therefore, we have to have the discernment to see how our culture is against the Word of God. We don’t get to select our authorities. We don’t really have the prerogative to pick and choose, even when we vote. Ultimately God has chosen them for us according to his sovereign will. That means that when the gospel is faithfully proclaimed from the pulpit, we accept it as the Word of God, as an authority in our lives.
Our final challenge is the most serious one. The preaching of the gospel is something we hear regularly. The challenge is that when you hear something so often, it’s so easy to take it for granted. The challenge is complacency. The challenge is to let that message just drift by you, go in one ear and out the other. The challenge is that the message of God’s grace and forgiveness is just met with a “Whatever. Who cares?” We might not be so brazen to put it that way out loud, but that’s the attitude. It’s a dangerous attitude, because it’s so close to unbelief and hypocrisy. When we take that attitude to the gospel, we’re close to being under the wrath of God and eternal condemnation. Heb. 6 describes that condition as being one where you’ve had a taste of the heavenly gift, you’ve tasted the goodness of the word of God, but yet you hold up the Son of God to contempt. Think about it. Is there a more contemptuous phrase in English than “Whatever”? That word is so filled with contempt and when that word or attitude gets applied to the gospel, we’re holding the Son of God in contempt. Then, as Heb. 6 says, you are near to being cursed, near to being burned up. That’s frightening.
There is a different and better way. That way is summarized in QA 84 of the Heidelberg Catechism when it says that as often as the message of grace is proclaimed, we must by true faith accept the promise of the gospel. Notice those two words “as often.” That means it’s going to come a lot. You’re going to hear it often, hopefully twice every Sunday. And as often as you hear it, you need to conscientiously do something with it. You need to accept it for yourself, embrace it each time again. Believing the gospel is not just something that you do once; it’s something that needs to be done repeatedly in our lives.
Let me make this as concrete for you as I can. You’ll often hear pastors say something along the lines of what you find in the first part of QA 84. You’ll hear something like, “Because of everything Jesus has done, your sins are truly forgiven. Because of Christ, you are reconciled to God. You are his beloved child, because Jesus lived a perfect life for you, died on the cross for you, and lives to intercede for you.” You need to interact with that in your heart each time. It can’t just go in your ears and out again. You need to interact with it. In your head, you have to say, “Yes, I accept that. I believe that this is true for me. Jesus is my Saviour and I am God’s child. I accept the promise of the gospel.” Again, that’s not something you do just once at a certain point in your life. It has to be done time and again, every time you hear it. You need that gospel message to be preached to you, but you also need to do something with it. You need to personally accept it. I urge you to do this every time.
The faithful preaching of the gospel is truly a precious gift of God. We need to treasure it, practice it, and embrace it. By doing that, sinners will continue to be saved. By doing that, our God will continue to be praised. We need Jesus Christ and we need his gospel preached faithfully. Nothing is more important for the church.
