The Gospel Coalition

Last month, I was glad to give the opportunity for a dozen or so bloggers to contribute posts during my blog break. Unfortunately, I overbooked the blog and was unable to post all the contributions. This post, however, was just too good to pass up. It’s written by Jacob Sweeney, a seminary student and minister of eduction who blogs about pop culture here. Enjoy!

The Preacher’s Message: The Dragon Has Been Slain

The world in which we find ourselves has lost nearly all moral language. Pop music and television glorify unhinged sexuality and violence. Even our humor seems to consider everything to be acceptable as long as its satire. Those of us who are – or want to be – preachers are faced with a difficult calling. Our context may appear different, but the challenge is the same. For me, my strongest instinct is to face the culture head-on, don my best John the Baptist costume and declare sin and repentance. But, sometimes I think preaching in morally confused world means we turn their own poets and prophets against them.

Modern Day Demi-gods

We don’t have to look far to recognize that our world is hemorrhaging in pain. Humanity is searching for a hero to deliver us. Consider the demi-gods who warred against the oppressive deities in Greek myths. I think of Aesop’s fables with its tales of evil around every tree and the impassable hero who would defeat it. Presently, the summer months are reserved for cinematic explorations of superheroes – the modern demi-god. From Harry Potter to the Green Lantern, I see an opportunity for ministers and preachers to speak directly to this world.

Every movie and every book has told them the exact same story, and every one of them is right. We do need a hero! 

Christians know that hero is Jesus Christ. Millennials and Post-moderns may not hear you at first when you speak of sin, but they will listen when you speak of a broken world and our desperate need for deliverance.

Shaping Minds and Moving Hearts

Sin’s effect on our mind can directly affect us in precisely the way we don’t expect. In other words, we don’t always know what we think we know. Our hearts can be deceived. Our brains can be misled. A good preacher knows this about himself and about his people.

Essential to the task of preaching is shaping minds according to Scripture. This requires more than an information dump. The Preacher – by the grace of God and the power of the Spirit – must fill the mind and move the heart.

As you prepare remind yourself that the Word of God is the Spirit-empowered means by which God changes people. He fills their minds and their hearts. Pray for every sermon, that the Spirit would move through the preached Word to transform hearts and minds. As much as it depends on you, preach to stir the heart and the mind.

Give Them Hope

The moral topography of contemporary culture is bleak. The cultural landscape is desolate and dreary. What carries travelers through such wretched wasteland? Hope. Preacher, don’t ever forget that the gospel is a message of hope! It does not surprise me that my generation’s native tongue is cynicism. We do not know hope!

How do we preach in a world gone mad? What is a preacher to do when facing a congregation that does not know its right from its left? He gives them hope. He tells them that the world is not what it should be; it has been devastated by rebellion. Insurrections rarely bring about beauty. Yet, the King returned. He put down the rebellion by suffering the mutineer’s fate. The very ones who sought to usurp him are now invited to his table.

G.K. Chesterton wrote:

Fairy tales do not give a child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.

Most people know the dragon exists. They’re hopeful he can be defeated. The ministry of a preacher is telling people the dragon does, indeed, exist. And there is a St. George and the dragon has been slain.

Jacob Sweeney is a graduate of the Moody Bible Institute (BA) and is currently a Master of Divinity student at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY. He writes book reviews and explorations of pop culture at his blog.  His greatest blessing is his wife, Whitney – who always believes, always hopes and always loves.