Essential Tools for Preaching Christ (Part 3)

When a man and a woman are engaged to be married they can hardly talk about anything else. In fact, we might suspect that something is wrong if they don't express excitement about the wedding. The church is espoused to Christ and looks forward to the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:6-9). Christ's love compelled Paul's preaching (2 Cor. 5:14) and he denounced himself with maledictions if he failed to preach the gospel (1 Cor. 9:16). In the end, ministers must preach Christ because they want to preach Christ. Christ should be central to their sermons because both preachers and listeners cannot bear to be without him whom their souls love (Song 3:1).

This post is the third and final one treating the proper methods of preaching Christ. It shows that preaching Christ is more a matter of the heart than the application of method. Preaching Christ is not ultimately a technique. Preaching Christ is a devotionally necessary response to the preacher's relation to Christ. Paul summarized the aims of the gospel in terms of preaching "repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 20:21). The nature of saving faith and repentance, through which we exercise hope and love, highlights the reasons behind this devotional necessity.

The nature of saving faith makes preaching Christ necessary devotionally. While saving faith receives the whole Word of God because it is God's Word, "the principal acts of saving faith are accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace" (WCF 14.1). Christ is the pioneer and the perfector of our faith (Heb. 12:2). Faith involves being confident that God is able to perform whatever he promises (Rom. 4:21). Christ is both the example and object of faith for believers. Without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6). Faith trusts that if we pray according to God's will he hears us (1 Jn. 5:14-15). Faith teaches us to pray in Christ's name (Jn. 14:13-14), asking mercy from God for his sake and "drawing our encouragement to pray, and our boldness, strength, and hope of acceptance in prayer, from Christ and his mediation" (WLC 180). Ministers preach hoping that those hearing them will either come to faith in Christ or that they will grow in their faith in Christ (Eph. 4:13). Their own faith in Christ and their desire to foster saving faith in others must always lead them to preach Christ as the object of faith.

The nature of repentance unto life makes preaching Christ necessary devotionally. Repentance requires a true sense of sin in relation to its nature and not merely out of fear to its consequences. Sin is not hateful primarily because it is dangerous to sinners, but because it is offensive to God. We saw in a previous post from John 16:8-11 the relationship between Christ and the conviction of sin. Repentance involves grief and hatred for sin and turning from sin to God. Not all sorrow for sin is godly sorrow and not all sorrow for sin leads to life instead of to death (2 Cor. 7:10). Some people, like Peter, hate sin in its nature because they love Christ. Other people, like Judas, hate sin in its effects because they got caught. Remorse for sin is not repentance from sin. Before purposing and endeavoring after new obedience, we must apprehend God's mercies in Christ (WSC 87). Repentance creates a cycle or a tug of war between indwelling sin on the one side and increasing holiness on the other. Faith in Christ alone gives forward momentum to repentance.

It speaks volumes about the state of Christianity at the present day that preachers and hearers need to be told that preaching Christ should be central in preaching. It is a sadder reality that some construct arguments as to why Christ does not need to be in the sermon. This is like a bride not only lacking vigor and excitement over her betrothed but arguing why such things are not really an important part of marriage. A practical problem in this regard is that many pastors who love Christ struggle with how to preach him to small struggling congregations in which almost all listeners are professing Christians. The corrective to this apparent problem is to remember that how ministers should preach Christ to believing congregations is not radically different from how they should preach him to unconverted people. Preachers must always set Christ's glory and beauty before their hearers as the object of their faith and as the means of their repentance. The Christian life is not radically different than our first conversion, since we live by faith in the Son of God (Gal. 2:20). If we live the entire Christian life through faith and repentance, then we must live the entire Christian life out of devotion to Christ. Preaching void of Christ cannot call hearers to faith and repentance in Christ. If preaching cannot call sinners to faith and repentance, then it cannot call them to do anything. If preachers preach Christ from devotional necessity, then the other methods of preaching Christ will fall into place more easily. Their pent up joy and excitement over Christ will look for outlets. We must love Christ more fervently if we would preach him more effectively. We must treasure Christ more greatly if we would hear Christ in the preached Word more expectantly.

*This is the eighth post in a Dr. McGraw's series on Preaching Christ.