Many moons ago…
Many moons ago, probably during my first year or so of accepting the call to be the pastor of Pitlochry Baptist, I had a great guy in our church preaching every now and then. He was a member of PBC, working as an academic at that point, but had served as a pastor for a number of years in his homeland of South Africa. I loved his preaching; it was a great balance of the word and the Spirit. I was pushing things on at Pitlochry. I was building on what I thought were the good things of church culture which appealed to us as we moved from Stirling Baptist. And at the same time, I was metaphorically moving a number of organs an inch at a time towards the front door. However, my friend from South Africa was in more of a hurry to get things going.
Throwing cats among the pigeons
On more than one occasion while preaching he would bring a challenge to the church that was akin to throwing the cat among the pigeons. Afterwards, I would have carnage to clean up. Then it was a huge hassle, not it was all worth it. I don’t recall who told me this story – and it is a bit of an urban legend. As a young man early in his pastorate ministry in South African, he started a new sermon series and went on to preach sermon No1 three time in a row! After this 3rd time of preaching The Sermon, a delegation of his Elders challenged him on what he was doing. In response, this young but confident pastor said he would preach the same sermon for another 3 weeks unless the church listened and heeded the challenge in Scripture. I so hope that is a true story!
I am not a circuit preacher. Sometimes those who are on the road week in week out preaching and teaching at different churches and conferences are able to hone a message that is perfectly balanced, brilliant to hear, and more often than nought, successful in bring out a positive response to those it was delivered to. I pastor a wee Baptist church of about 100 people not far from the centre of Scotland and have done so for coming up for 17 years. To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never revisited an old sermon of mine, much to the consternation of my wife Miranda who has to put up with me as I sit with a new text or theme each week. Life would be so much easier if I could just pull one out the bag.
Jeremiah 7
And yet, I find myself doing this at my home church of QP this coming Sunday. Full disclosure time: I’m taking our church family through certain sections of the book of Jeremiah, and last week I opened up the Scriptures at Jeremiah 7:1-15 – a passage known as Jeremiah’s Temple Sermon. I’m not looking to rehash an old sermon because it’s easier for me – although up to a point the hard work is done already. I guess I’m doing it because I don’t think it’s just a word for my church family, and it’s still there in my mind and heart from last week. I’m trusting it’s the LORD’s word for you and me this coming Sunday too. I certainly don’t intend to create drama by throwing the cat among the pigeons – the Church is too precious to Jesus and she belong to Jesus. In one way or another, I’m trusting the LORD will do something of old, afresh among us in these days.