Why I Preached About Charlie Kirk Last Sunday

Pastoral thoughts about the nature of preaching

A few thoughts on whether preachers should or should not have preached about Charlie Kirk yesterday.

First, if you're not a pastor, it's probably not good to be blasting your pastor as a coward or hireling on X. Maybe he is, but this isn't the place to deal with that. Obey the fifth commandment.

Second, understand the nature of sermon prep. Some pastors write their sermons on Monday or Tuesday, then the rest of their week is filled with appointments and meetings. They just don't have time to rewrite an entire sermon because someone thinks he should.

So no, I don't think preaching a whole sermon about Charlie Kirk was necessary. However, I do think pastors should have made space in the worship service to offer a word of comfort and hope, perhaps during the pastoral prayer or at some other point.

Third, I've seen a few comments on X that pastors should "preach Jesus, not Charlie Kirk!" That's a false dichotomy. Any skilled pastor can preach about Charlie Kirk's death while pointing people to Charlie Kirk's savior.

We need to remember the nature of preaching. Preaching is not a mere theological lecture, or a mere political commentary. Preaching is not a skyscraper (one story upon another). Nor is preaching an evangelistic crusade, where the focus is primarily on unbelievers.

I think expository preaching is great servant but poor master. Every faithful expositor still makes editorial decisions every week. Do I preach verses 1-4 or 1-7? Do I dig into that Greek word or this other Greek word?

The preaching calendar is not sacrosanct. If an expositor is slavishly handcuffed to whatever text is in the calendar this week, he's simply refusing to budge from editorial decisions he made when he put the preaching calendar together in the first place.

Some pastors use a lectionary. That's great; we should follow our traditions. But lectionaries are tools in the pastor's tool kit. It's OK if a pastor decides to switch it up in moment's of great, national crisis.

We make hundreds of decisions to include or omit certain things, and wise expositors have two primary goals: (1) glorify God and (2) edify God's people.

A metaphor I find helpful is that every sermon is a meal and the pastor is the chef. The pastor's duty is to feed his people a meal from God's word every week that will glorify God and edify them. We all remember Jesus' words to the apostle Peter: "feed my sheep". This was on Jesus' heart before he ascended to the Father.

If a pastor truly thinks like a shepherd, and if he's approaching his sermon as feeding God's sheep a steady diet of scripture, then expository preaching will generally be the way to go.

The editorial decisions a pastor makes about his preaching calendar and individual sermons can be viewed as planning the menu.

The pastor is not just responsible for providing individual sermons, but the "feed mix" of his whole preaching ministry. I might preach one sermon that will feel like a 2X4 between the eyes, but I also know that my sermon next Sunday will feel like a tender word of grace.

I know this because I've already planned out the spiritual "menu" for the church for the next several months.

This past week, I chose to scrap the sermon I was writing and preach about Charlie Kirk's death instead. Not every pastor has the capacity and flexibility to do that, and we should have grace for faithful shepherds who are doing their best. I'm thankful that I had the flexibility in my schedule to do that.

And I did it because, as a pastor, I sensed that my people needed a particular "meal" that would address their spiritual hunger. I saw it with people in my church and also with Christians online around the world.

So it was like everyone was suddenly in insulin shock, where their blood sugar had dropped to dangerous levels and they needed specific nutrients in that moment. It's an imperfect analogy, perhaps, but you get the point.

I perceived it was necessary as a pastor to provide a spiritual meal that provided the nutrients they most needed in that moment, and I had a duty before God to do my best to provide it.

I wasn't about to let my commitment to expository preaching prevent me from fulfilling the higher duty to feed God's sheep.

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Here’s the sermon I preached.

My main points:

1. Why Charlie Kirk’s Death Matters (I published the text here)

2. The Left and Right are Not the Same

3. The Violent Cult of Leftism

4. An Appeal to Leftists to Repent and Believe the Gospel

5. An Appeal to Those on the Right to Repent and Believe the Gospel

6. Four Words of Exhortation for All Christians

   1. Make Christ first in your life

   2. It’s OK to be angry

   3. It’s not OK to sin in your anger

   4. Love your enemies (not “sentimental well wishing, but biblical love)