5 Common Things Pastors Do that Hide God's Glory

An implication is the natural outworking of our beliefs and/or methods. Everything we believe or practice reveals God's glory or hides it. Here are five things pastors do that hide God's glory.

1. When preaching for emphasis, we'll make this observation, "Do you see where God repeated Himself? It must be important then." Biblically, whether God said it once or one thousand times, it is still important. By making this statement we imply that elements in Scripture that are mentioned fewer times carry less weight than doctrines that are mentioned numerous times.

2. When we pray before we preach, or we pray for someone else that is about to speak, we will pray for an anointing. Biblically, an anointing was for a king in the Old Testament or the saving work of the Spirit in the salvation of sinners in the New Testament. What exactly are we praying for or hoping for in the pulpit? The implications are blatantly unbiblical, for we are praying for an elevated state in the pulpit that is greater than the other Christians in the pews. It is a "priestly" prayer. 1) The Scriptures need no extra-empowering, and 2) Having been saved and sanctified by God the Holy Spirit, we need no extra empowering. By praying for an anointing we 1) deny the Spirit's work in us, 2) compromise the priesthood of the believer, and 3) exalt ourselves to the position of "mediator of God's revelation" in the pulpit.

3. When we honor mothers, fathers, soldiers, or our nation during our worship services, we mingle the worship/honoring of our God with the honoring of graven images. The first commandment clearly commands to make no graven images to use in worship. We of course don't carve them out, but we set these people and things next to God's throne when we honor them during worship. Do it before or after worship! Don't mingle the worship of Yahweh with the honoring of humanity or nations! The implication of such practice is that Christians can mingle the worship of Yahweh with anyone or anything. We teach them to practice idolatry.

4. When we refuse to practice or encourage our churches to practice biblical discipline, we communicate that God's discipline toward those whom He loves is not really love. We also imply that "God is love" is not true. We instead practice the world's definition of love while preaching (hopefully!) God's definition of love. We also call into question the inerrancy of God's Word as well as His wisdom.

5. When we preach/teach only positive sermons, we communicate that God is incapable of moving through His unadulterated Word. Not all of the Bible is positive. We must preach the text in front of us. In order to do this in a way that is faithful to the text, we must preach both positive and negative aspects of the text. Is it not scary that as sinful as we are, we think we can "clean up" God's Word so sinners will respond? By trying to "clean up" God's Word, we imply that 1) He needs cleaning up, 2) He cannot move through His written Word, 3) His plan for reaching the nations is not good enough, 4) The Bible is not inerrant, and 4) The Bible is not sufficient for salvation and sanctification.