Theocentric Preaching

490 years ago today, a monk with a mallet posted the 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. One of the 95 Theses said this: “62. The true treasure of the church is the Holy gospel of the glory and the grace of God.” In essence, that monk rediscovered and applied the gospel within his context.

It’s just as important for us to rediscover and apply the gospel today, first to ourselves and then in our ministries. Tim Keller puts it this way:

We never “get beyond the gospel” in our Christian life to something more “advanced.” The gospel is not the first “step” in a “stairway” of truths, rather, it is more like the “hub” in a “wheel” of truth. The gospel is not just the A-B-C’s of Christianity, but it is the A to Z of Christianity. The gospel is not just the minimum required doctrine necessary to enter the kingdom, but the way we make all progress in the kingdom.

We are not justified by the gospel and then sanctified by obedience but the gospel is the way we grow (Gal. 3:1-3) and are renewed (Col 1:6). It is the solution to each problem, the key to each closed door, the power through every barrier (Rom 1:16-17)….

All our problems come from a failure to apply the gospel…

The main problem, then, in the Christian life I that we have not thought out the deep implication of the gospel, we have not “used” the gospel in and on all parts of our life. Richard Lovelace says that most people’s problems are just a failure to be oriented to the gospel—a failure to grasp and believe it through and through. Luther says (on Gal. 2:14), “The truth of the gospel is the principle article of all Christian doctrine… Most necessary is it that we know this article well, teach it to others, and beat it into their heads continually.” The gospel is not easily comprehended. Paul says that the gospel only does its renewing work in us as we understand it in all its truth. All of us, to some degree live around the truth of the gospel but do not “get” it. So the key to continual and deeper spiritual renewal and revival is the continual re-discovery of the gospel. A stage of renewal is always the discovery of a new implication or application of the gospel—seeing more of its truth. This is true for either an individual or a church.

So Happy Reformation Day! I pray that our ministries will be characterized by the rediscovery and application of the gospel.

Some Reformation Day resources:

• White Horse Inn’s broadcast on The 490th Anniversary of the Protestant Reformation
• The 2007 Reformation Day Symposium at Challies.com

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones explains how preaching Christ helps us avoid some dangers in his book The Preacher and Preaching.

He suggests that we preach the Old Testament believers not as moral exemplars, but as examples of those who lived by faith:

Preaching Christ from all the Scriptures joins faith to grace. The Old Testament believers trusted as they waited for that salvation to come. They are examples to us as believers - not apart from the objective facts of God’s redemption, but as those who lived by faith.

The obedience of love flows from that faith relation. Like faith, love is kindled not by introspection, but by looking to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith. We love because He first loved us; it is the love of God that is shed abroad in our hearts.

Preaching Christ also helps us avoid moralism and other fads:

The Scriptures are full of moral instruction and ethical exhortation, but the ground and motivation of all is found in the mercy of Jesus Christ. We are to preach all the riches of Scripture, but unless the center holds all the bits and pieces of our pulpit counseling, of our thundering at social sins, of our positive or negative thinking - all fly off into the Sunday morning air.

Paul was resolved to know nothing at Corinth but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Let others develop the pulpit fads of the passing seasons. Specialize in preaching Jesus!

In his excellent book The Art of Pastoring, David Hansen offers an interesting insight into the benefit of theological reading:

Good hard theological reading makes my sermon preparation go faster. I’ve noticed this for years: two hours spent reading an author like Barth, Forsyth, Edwards or Bonhoeffer on Wednesday saves me hours of sermon preparation on Friday and will produce a deeper, more searching thesis. Such writers teach me to think Christocentrically. Thinking Christocentrically helps me sort through the side issues and leads me straight to the heart of every biblical text and the subject of all sermons: Jesus Christ.

The more searching my understanding of Christ, the better my sermon preparation. Given my antipathy to time management schemes, it’s a little hard to admit, but reading difficult theology is one of the best timesavers I know.

There are many reasons why preachers don’t preach God-centered messages. One of the reasons, though, has to do with the fear that preaching about God will be irrelevant to people’s lives today. In other words, we fear that preaching about God will lead to sermons that lack relevance.

I can understand this concern: preaching has to connect with the people sitting in the congregation before us. It isn’t wrong for preachers to be concerned about relevance at all.

The challenge for preachers, though, is to truly believe that there is nothing more relevant to people today than God. Nothing is more relevant to God.

I was reminded of this yesterday when I received The John Piper Sermon Manuscript Library. The back of the case says:

Since 1980 John Piper has labored in the ministry of preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church under the conviction that “People are starved for the greatness of God.” More than success, or riches, or esteem, or sex, or family, or sport, the glory of God satisfies the yearnings of our souls and sustains us in all our joys and pains…The glory of God is vital for our lives and for the life of the church.

Ultimately, preaching is a reflection of our theology of God. If one believes that God is all-sufficient, and that all things exist in relationship to him and for his glory, then preaching will center itself on God. If one has a lesser view of God, then that preacher will speak on lesser things.

Two beliefs form the basis for God-centered living and preaching:

• the belief that God is the only true God, and
• the belief that “we understand ourselves, our experience, and even the world itself from the perspective of our acknowledgment of the God who chooses to be known by his creatures” (Stanley Grenz).

If we really believe these things, we will work towards living - and preaching - in a God-centered way.

This article by Michael S. Horton highlights the difference between an anthropocentric view of life and a theocentric one:

Ironically, those who seek their best life now, centering on themselves and their story rather than on God and his story, not even their life here and now makes any sense. Their own script—even when it allows God a supporting role—becomes dull. No wonder so many people walk out of the theater in the middle…

When we try to fit God into our “life movie,” the plot is all wrong - and not just wrong, but trivial. When we are pulled out of our own drama and cast as characters in his unfolding plot, we become part of the greatest story ever told. It is through God’s word of judgment (law) and salvation (gospel) that we are transferred from our own “life movie” and inserted into the grand narrative that revolves around Jesus Christ. In the process, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer reminds us,

We are uprooted from our own existence and are taken back to the holy history of God on earth. There God has dealt with us, with our needs and our sins, by means of the divine wrath and grace. What is important is not that God is a spectator and participant in our life today, but that we are attentive listeners and participants in God’s action in the sacred story, the story of Christ on earth. God is with us today only as long as we are there. Our salvation is ‘from outside ourselves’ (extra nos). I find salvation, not in my life story, but only in the story of Jesus Christ…What we call our life, our troubles, and our guilt is by no means the whole of reality; our life, our need, our guilt, and our deliverance are there in the Scriptures.

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A prayer from John Stott’s book Your Mind Matters:

I pray earnestly that God will raise up today a new generation of Christian apologists or Christian communicators, who will combine an absolute loyalty to the biblical gospel and an unwavering confidence in the power of the Spirit with a deep and sensitive understanding of the contemporary alternatives to the gospel; who will relate the one to the other with freshness, authority, and relevance; and who will use their minds to reach other minds for Christ.