The answers to the problems of lack of good preaching lye within yourself. All these questions you have can be answered by a simple study of God’s word. The real problem is most today rely upon others to be taught God’s word. They don’t seek it out for themselves. You don’t have to go to seminary school to understand God’s word. Seek it out for yourself.

Yes, indeed Christ is absent from our sermons as well, and that’s dangerous as well. I’m actually writing a post on that later this week. For this post though, I was primarily thinking about the church’s failure to address things deeper than a checklist of “dos and don’ts” and doctrines. Speaking from experience … doctrinally rich sermons that fail to answer my questions profit very little. I’m not saying that doctrine is wrong, I’m just saying that doctrine by itself, without proper relevant application, gives me little more than more knowledge. I prefer wisdom, the relevant application of that knowledge.

Anyway, I’m rambling … hope that makes sense.

My two cents on the topic is that too much preaching has failed to be Biblical (instead being one man’s experience or opinion). And even when “Biblical” (that is, derived from some portion of Scripture), it very often fails to be Christo- and cross-centric (the essence and heart of all of God’s revealed truth).

For the examples you gave — sex and smoking — when put through a filter of the cross, you definitely come away with more than “don’t do it.”

You come to understand the husband-wife relationship (all aspects, sex included) as a shining example of God’s eternal redemptive plan (Ephesians 5). You come to understand that, now as a part of the church, your body — and all things phyiscal — are part of God’s kingdom and should only be used for things glorifying to God and pointing to Jesus Christ (Ephesians 4-5).

Finally, I should note that I don’t believe in most cases that conveying such a low view of the cross (see I Corinthians 1) is completely intentional. In fact, I think it’s a terrible side effect of our “Christianized” culture. Somewhere at some point in the past, someone “got it” — and got it in a way that I think we both want to get it and have others get it. And at that point, they taught it straight up. But Sunday after Sunday of filling a pulpit and coming up with things to say, they felt the need to come up with sexy and interesting ways to say the truths of Scripture (which never change … no adds, no take aways). And so other things become the focus and the hardcore doctrines that help us make sense of why we should “stop it” get shortcutted in favor of “more interesting” personal anecdotes, faddish advice and hyperbole.

But what these pulpits (these would range from traditional “fundamentalist” to modern “liberal” and everything in between) is that the most relevant thing in the world is the Gospel — taught staight, preached clearly and applied to every aspect of our lives.

Doctor:
You don’t want to go through life being afraid of being buried alive in a box, do you? That sounds frightening…

Woman:
Oh it is!

Doctor:
Then STOP IT!

Woman:
I can’t! I mean, it’s been with me since childhood, and…

Doctor:
Oh no, no, no … we .. we don’t go there. Just stop it.

My main problem is with churches/preachers that are unwilling to ask and answer the subsequent questions that will inevitably come as a result of our “stop it” mandate.

For instance:
Pastor says:
“Smoking is wrong. Christians should never be addicted to anything, and it’s bad for you.”

Natural follow up question:
“What about caffeine? That’s addicting. What about fast food. That’s bad for you. Are those things off limits too? If so, then I assume you would have the same negative reaction to seeing my car at a drive thru window as you would if you saw me smoking, right? If not, then please explain why smoking is a sin, but fast food isn’t, and coffee is ay-OK.”

Pastor says:
“Oh no, we don’t go there. Just do what I say, and don’t ask questions.”

Or worse, he gives some bull crap answer that wouldn’t escape the ability of a 5 year old to dismiss as such.

Clearer now

“Don’t have premarital sex, and here are ten reasons why…” Is that what you think we are supposed to do? “Don’t lie or steal, and here are ten reasons why…”

Christians should be motivated by the better promises God gives, “stop it” not to “stop it” but to please God, etc. But axioms will never become definable (i.e. why the moral code says ____? Because the moral code says ____, that’s why).