Jesus said: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.” — Mark 16:15
Paul said: “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.” — 1 Corinthians 1:17
It’s a strange thing when the quality of “winsomeness” becomes pejorative, but apparently that is the world we find ourselves in. Without sounding like a grouchy widow, may I spend a few lines in defining one of the first ruling principles that guided us when we arrived in Manhattan in June of 1989 to start Redeemer Presbyterian Church.
The Manhattan of 1989 was a dangerous place; the number of murders that year was 1,905, a record high. Assaults, theft, drug trade, violence of all types was normative. Religion of all kinds was despised, but particularly Christianity as this was the era of the big tele-evangelist scandals. (Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Jimmy Swaggert, etc.) In fact, when Alan Kleinberg, a curious early attender of Redeemer, found out that, technically, as a church planter, Tim was designated as “an evangelist” (which meant that he could baptize and admit members before having an official church body of leaders), Alan nearly left. (You can watch Alan’s story here.)
In the almost 37 years I’ve lived here, NYC has never shown itself to be sympathetic to the preaching of the gospel or gospel-centered practices.
For instance, several years after Redeemer began, we rented a Methodist church for an evening service location, but when someone from that church noticed that our bulletin listed a support group for “men struggling with sexual addiction,” Tim was called in to be examined by their leadership. They asked him: “Did this listing for support include homosexuality?” Tim replied: “Yes.” They responded: “No, no, no, if someone comes to you and wants help with coping with same sex attraction, you must not counsel him or her. You must send them to a therapist who will address these self-hating beliefs.” Tim wasn’t sure he heard properly. “You mean, if someone asks me for help in dealing with their same sex attraction, I have to refuse to speak to him, turn him away, and instead direct him to see someone who will encourage him in those attractions?” They answered: “Yes, that’s what we meant.”
And they were so upset by this that they cancelled our rental agreement and threw us out of their building.
I could go on with more examples, but people familiar with Tim’s sermons counter with the fact that he didn’t often refer to hot-button issues when he preached, except perhaps as passing examples of sin, along with greed, overwork, excessive need for approval, and so on. So was he dodging the heavy duty issues so as to escape even heavier persecution? Not for a moment.
Redeemer’s philosophy was that preaching on Sunday mornings and evenings had to major in the majors—that is, establish that Jesus Christ was God come to save us, not just one more teacher showing us how to save ourselves.
Often people would try to find a particular hot-button topic to fight over with Tim, and he would say, “Do you believe Jesus rose from the dead?” That usually caused a puzzled silence. He would go on: “Because if he did, then you have to re-examine everything in your life in the light of that; and if not, then why would you care what my opinion is about abortion, sex, politics, or anything else?”
Do you believe Jesus rose from the dead? … Because if he did, then you have to re-examine everything in your life in the light of that.
The two Bible verses at the beginning of this article make very clear that Jesus expected us to preach the gospel, and (as a friend once said) not on everything the preacher has ever thought, believed, or known. There is certainly a place to teach what the Bible says about marriage, justice, treatment of the alien, and all the ways we are meant to live as Christians. Some passages provide opportunity for that to be done in the application of a sermon, but a sermon preached in worship should always feature the gospel rather than coming across like a Sunday school lesson or a lecture. The gospel of Jesus Christ is central, and as he himself said, “All the scriptures speak of me” (John 5:39).
Tim’s sermons all bear the hallmark of that understanding. What many people do not know is that immediately after Tim’s sermons following every service (until he began preaching at multiple locations), he held a no-holds-barred Q&A time for anyone who wanted to ask a question about something they had heard in the sermon, or anything about Christianity at all. (He reserved the right to say, “I don’t know,” if asked about auto maintenance for instance.)
Typically between 100 to 200 people stayed afterwards, some with genuine questions, others with just a gleeful anticipation of pinning an evangelical Christian down with some mic-drop question he couldn’t weasel out of. I’ve often wondered how many of the proponents of “fighting fire with fire” would put themselves in the same position as Tim did: “Here I am, an orthodox, believing evangelical Christian standing in the middle of Manhattan … hit me with your best shot!”
And they did.
Most of those sessions weren’t recorded, so only the memories of those who attended will be able to attest to the variety, complexity, and occasional ferocity of those questions. Many times someone would ask a question about a hot-button topic, a difficult to understand passage in the Bible, or a conservative doctrinal position, in addition to a wide range of other questions like “Are you saying Jesus is the only way to be saved? Are you saying other religions are wrong? Are you saying that the Bible is without error?” And on and on.
Tim answered them all—faithfully, forcefully, with civility, and thoughtfully, without trying to shame the questioner. One of Redeemer’s guiding principles was this: “Remember what it was like not to believe, and talk to people the way you would have liked for someone to talk to you when you didn’t believe.”
In addition to those weekly Q&A sessions, we held Saturday seminars that addressed cultural issues that stood in the way of many people coming to faith. They weren’t always the most important issues that we felt someone who was not yet a believer should be addressing; but those cultural issues were barriers for many people, so it was important to address them.
The point I’m making is that while the Sunday sermon was intentionally focused on the gospel of Jesus and his redemptive work as the best way to understand whatever Bible passage was being preached on, hot-button issues were not ignored. They were fully, adequately and biblically addressed numerous times with regular church attendees and skeptics alike at venues and events outside of worship.
Because through the lens of a savior, we can address any topic appropriately, but without Jesus we’re just arguing about opinions.
I am so thankful that Redeemer was always a place where the major topic that was addressed every Sunday was the gospel. And other topics were addressed but in the proper order. Because through the lens of a savior, we can address any topic appropriately, but without Jesus we’re just arguing about opinions.
