There's a preaching urban legend that goes something like this...one reason many old-time preachers only stayed one place for a short length of time is that they only had a years' worth of sermons. When they would get through their year of sermons, they would move on to somewhere else, repeat those sermons, and move on again.
The truth is, most of us only have a handful of sermons. No matter where we begin, we end up in the same places. In Churches of Christ my experience is that the standard-issue list of traditionalist sermons goes something like this.
-1)The importance of sound preaching.
-2)The necessity of baptism by immersion.
-3)The evils of instrumental music.
-4)The evils of denominationalism.
-5)The evils of creeds, since we preach the Bible alone.
-6)Divorce and remarriage.
-7)The pattern of the church organization (a. a plurality of elders; b. the qualification of elders and deacons; c. the evils of parachurch organizations)
-8)The pattern of acceptable worship (singing, communion, giving, praying, preaching)
-9)The Adamic, Mosaic, and Christian dispensations (for expert Jule Miller-filmstrip-approved preachers only)
-10)The sins of worldliness we must avoid (pre-1970s); the proper role of women (post-1970s).
Again, it's not really important where one started from, but these themes seemed to appear in almost every kind of sermon I grew up hearing. Nadab and Abihu? That's a warning about instrumental music! Acts (oh, we loved Acts)? Numerous examples of proper conversion! The Pastoral epistles? Church organization AND words on Sound Preaching! For all of our talk about creeds, these seem to be the Ten Most Important Things.
I used to laugh at the small-mindedness of this list...but as I have now finished 15 years of full-time preaching and almost 20 years of full-time ministry, I'm starting to realize that most of my sermons keep coming back to the same subjects. I might well have close to fifteen hundred sermons in my files (and probably another 800 classes), but put them back to back and there's not that much variety. I would, however, like to think that the things I have focused on are a more Biblical list, things that are genuinely important to matters of Christian faith. So, what's my list, if I am being honest?
-1)Jesus is the only way to salvation.
-2)Grace, not perfect obedience, grants one salvation.
-3)The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.
-4)The love, grace and mercy we must show to one another.
-5)The abject sinfulness of humanity, repeated again and again in human history.
-6)The calling out to God (as exemplified in Psalms).
-7)The power of the Holy Spirit for a transformed life.
-8)The call of God to return from sin (as exemplified in the Prophets).
-9)The teachings of Jesus for a full life.
-10)Why the power of the gospel enables Christians to live a holy life.
I'm sure that there are a few other things that I preach, but really most of my sermons end back up in these subjects. I like my list a lot better than the first list, and I think it's more at the core of Scripture...but after all these years I'm finding that I'm not so different than my preaching ancestors.
