Shepherd’s Pie: Issues of Critical Importance to Pastors

Leadership is by nature strategic and good leaders take care to weigh the consequences of each direction before choosing one. Probably the most strategic act of pastoral leadership is the selection of a sermon text and theme for each Lord's Day. Fresh out of seminary with nothing in my memory addressing this matter, I struggled with this decision week after week. I'd sit down with a Bible leafing through it until inspiration hit; often it took hours. Six months out of seminary I was exhausted.

At that time I was serving in a mainline denomination and I gathered from incidental conversations at my presbytery meetings that other pastors selected their texts from the lectionary, a liturgical planning resource containing a three year cycle of weekly Scripture readings. This seemed as good a method as any so I began to follow the lectionary myself, letting it determine my weekly sermon text and Scripture lessons.

Thinking the lectionary might protect my congregation from the bias of my own selection habits, I plunged into its use with enthusiasm. One immediate benefit was the steady diet of texts from the Old Testament it fed us. This helped me see the chronic neglect of this part of Scripture in the evangelical world of my youth. Also, I appreciated the discipline of reading from the Psalter each week and found these readings a help to me in my own worship. So using the lectionary wasn't all bad.

Yet over time I discovered a fatal flaw as it became clear to me that the lectionary consistently avoided the unpopular aspects of God's character-His justice, holiness, and wrath. It also seemed to hide Scripture's call to repentance. In time, I came to the conclusion I must leave the lectionary behind. How could I, for instance, allow those who believed in the moral influence theory of the atonement to hide the blood of Christ from His sheep for whom it is life itself? Or how could I be a party to their intentional obscuring of the existence of eternal fire in hell or the necessity of repentance as a part of God's work of salvation?

So again I changed my selection habits, but this time I found a procedure that works. Now I preach through books of Scripture. It's been good discipline and it certainly is a relief not to have to agonize over the decision each week.

Yet even this helpful discipline is little protection against a grave temptation facing men in pastoral ministry today- the temptation to avoid those passages of Scripture which explicitly address our own sins and the sins of our congregations.

Notice, I said our sins-not those of the liberal congregation across the street, the executives at Walt Disney, or politicians in Washington. Even slowwitted pastors figure out quickly enough that, among Bible-believing Christians, a stream of "Powerful sermon, pastor!" comments at the back of the sanctuary can be expected whenever the preacher has waxed prophetic against the sins of President Clinton.

On the other hand, if we're determined to be faithful to our calling, we must trust God to give us discernment through the Holy Spirit to see the sins of our congregation which most need to be addressed by the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God.

One sin particularly evident among Bible-believing congregations is the denial of Scripture's doctrine of manhood and womanhood. This sin is so pervasive it's a rare pastor who doesn't recoil at the thought of preaching on this subject. We have our excuses, though, and they sound pious:

"Concentrate on the Gospel and the Holy Spirit will take care of the rest."

"Our church motto is, ‘In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity,' and it would be divisive for me to force my own personal opinion on my congregation."

And, "I try to stay away from political and social issues and just preach the Word."

For shepherds today the problem with our leadership isn't that we fail to think strategically about our preaching, but that our strategic thinking is all wrong precisely at the point where we think we're being most strategic. The man who in his preaching ministry avoids the parts of God's Truth which are most counter-cultural and focuses on something like "What Jesus can do to make us happy and secure" is missing the opportunity with which he has been entrusted to preach God's Good News to this deceived and sin-sick world.

If God has given us the calling of "guarding the good deposit," and if the Apostle Paul's ministry was commendable precisely because he'd "never failed to say" to his sheep "anything which God told him to say," what are we thinking when we slither past the very biblical doctrines which God might use to heal the homes, marriages, children, and sexual identities of both regenerate and unregenerate souls sitting in the pews before us?

When we're preaching to an unregenerate husband who has spent his life being cool and aloof from his wife and children, it is our privilege to show Him the nature of Christ's love for His Bride, the Church, and to teach him that God commands husbands to love their wives just as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her. Think of it: what better way is there to lead such a man to recognize his own sin and, seeing it, to go to the Cross for mercy and healing? Is this not analogous to the following description we read in 1Corinthians of the response of a sinner entering the fellowship of believers?

But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are disclosed; and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you. (1 Cor. 14:24, 25, RSV).

Martin Luther once wrote:

If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.

Pastors are privileged to speak for God and nowhere is that privilege more sweet than at those places where God's Word and Truth are in radical conflict with the commitments of the world which surrounds us. Let's consider the times, be wise and seize our glorious opportunity strategically locating our sermons precisely at those places where Satan has focused his attack.