Come Sunday
“Uh, Girlfriend, you need to reassess the situation.” -What I think God was saying to the American church on January 6, 2021. The insurrection that happened that day was shocking but unsurprising to me. I and many others had witnessed with great discomfort the slow boil leading to that moment over the last four years. What is more, we witnessed many pastors err on the side of compliance and complacency when the fires of conspiracy theories and nationalism started to take hold of their congregations. And then their sermons. Oof. As a tired but hopeful black woman, I submit this plea to my brothers and sisters who preach the gospel with or without a pulpit in our proverbial Sunday sermons.
Come Sunday, we need to address the politicization of the Gospel and the idolization of elevating Party/Country so closely to King Jesus, with clear and gospel-centered preaching.
Come Sunday, we need more pastors to lead the way and be more transparent with their wrestling and their reassessments. All glory to God when you can finally testify of how He has saved you from something you got so very deeply wrong. If you want revival, revival starts with repentance. Repentance starts with conviction. But conviction is stifled by pride. “Be killing sin or it will be killing you,” and your congregation. Remember that Revelation 12:11 says “[the angels] overcame [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.”
The life-giving Gospel is about the Truth of who God is and it is not here to prove every one of your human judgements right. It is not here to prove any political leader right. We must preach not for the purpose of self-vindication but to echo God’s message of love and hope for all.
This does not mean that issues of daily life are not important or relevant enough to make it to the pulpit. No. For every situation, we know God’s grace is sufficient. That too is the Gospel. What we must remember is that no political power can replace the Gospel. No secular mission can replace the Gospel. None of that should (though it sometimes does) blind us from living out God’s greatest commandments and preaching the Gospel. Understandably, our culture can sometimes become so fiercely intertwined into our theology that we may think what we’ve believed or said or done must be right. That if it’s not the truth itself, it is at least adjacent enough to truth to be sustained.
And to that, I submit Hebrews 4:12-13: “God’s word is alive and working and is sharper than a double-edged sword. It cuts all the way into us, where the soul and the spirit are joined, to the center of our joints and bones. And it judges the thoughts and feelings in our hearts. Nothing in all the world can be hidden from God. Everything is clear and lies open before him, and to him we must explain the way we have lived.”
A practical example of this is the Parable of the Good Samaritan. I read it a lot, asking God to humble me in new/His truth, as many times we feel that we have gotten everything right in our walk and theology. This one line in v25 recently stood out to me: The lawyer “seeking to justify himself” asked Jesus “who is my neighbor?” Jesus’s response to that question was specifically and intentionally counter cultural. What was this expert of Jewish law trying to justify to Jesus, the very fulfillment of the Law? Better question: what action or belief are you trying to justify to God, using God as your defense?
Friend, join me in asking the Holy Spirit to guide us in this journey of uncovering the deep untruths of our lives that we’ve held on to so much that are holding us back from fully living in Gospel Truth.
In love and veritas,
Chioma