Theocentric Preaching

I’ve really been enjoying Iain Murray’s two-volume biography of Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. In the second volume, Murray contrasts the preaching of the Doctor with some of the other preaching taking place in London.

Many talked about “the apparent failure of the church.” In response, preachers focused their message on “the supposed well-being and happiness of the hearers. Preachers were aware of what kind of sermon the people wanted and commonly they attempted to supply it.” Many proposed innovations that would lead to a new day for the church. Some fell strangely silent in the first days of the war.

In contrast, the Doctor’s message did not change. He felt that the problem with his fellows preachers is that “it did not start with the Bible; it only made use of Scripture to present a philosophy of religion which was not the Christian gospel at all.”

Lloyd-Jones preached a different message, as seen in this address:

First and foremost we are face to face with the fact of the wrath of God…God has decided and ordered and arranged that a life of forgetfulness of Him, and antagonism to Him, shall not be successful and happy. Cursing falls upon such a way of life. The facts of life, the story of history, proclaim the wrath of God against all ungodliness and unrighteousness. We have sinned against God…

It is as the idea of judgment and the wrath of God have fallen into the background that our churches have become increasingly empty. The idea has gained currency that the love of God somehow covers everything, and that it matters very little what we may do, because the love of God puts everything right at the end. The more the Church has accommodated her message to suit the palate of the people the greater has been the decline in attendance at places of worship.

This is a very good example of God-centered versus human-centered preaching.

I’m sitting in a room with with other preachers who get together every year to work through a biblical book. We bring in a commentator to help us exegete the text, and then discuss together how we could preach it. It’s always a good week.

This year the commentator is Daniel Block, who is currently finishing a commentary on Deuteronomy that should be out in another year. We’ve just been discussing Deuteronomy 7:1-11, which is certainly a challenging passage to preach today. It’s the sort of text that preachers like to avoid because it raises troubling questions about the complete destruction of the Canaanite people as part of the conquest. Yet Block has presented it in such a way that most of us can’t wait to get home and preach it.

It’s a good reminder again that some of the most neglected passages of Scripture are highly relevant to us today, and that our job is not to make them relevance, but to discover and demonstrate their relevance. This is the challenge and the joy of preaching.

I used to subscribe to the tape ministry - remember the days before digital downloads? - of a large church. I remember getting the Easter Sunday message one particular year. The main idea of the sermon was something like, “You’re good, but you could be better.” The preacher used the illustration of Tiger Woods’ golf swing. It was good, but Tiger went back and and learned a new swing to be even better. We can do the same with our lives when we come to Christ, he said.

I remember being shocked. The message of Easter isn’t that we’re good but Christ came to make us a little bit better. Earl Creps has said that Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good, or good people better. He came to make dead people live. I agree. Dead people need the message of Easter, and nothing else will do.

At Easter we get to proclaim the timeless story of God in Christ taking the place of sinners so that we who were dead could live. There are so many riches within this story, so many angles, so much depth, that we don’t have to drift from the meaning of Easter to be relevant.

Let’s stick with the message of Easter. It’s far better than any other message we could offer, and it’s one that people desperately need to hear.

How do you help people with busyness from Scripture without preaching a therapeutic, self-help message? Tim Chester gives us an example of how to do this:

For most us, our busyness is self-induced…Some of us are busy because we can’t say ‘No’. We crave people’s approval or we fear people’s rejection. The Bible calls this ‘the fear of man’. And the good news is that God is bigger. And living for him sets us free from being controlled by other people’s approval or disapproval…

There’s nothing wrong with being busy. Most of us enjoy being busy. What creates stress is the feeling that we cannot meet the expectations of others or of God. But Jesus offers rest from the burden of self-justification. We are accepted by God. This is how we find meaning and value. At the most fundamental level, Tim Chester is a justified sinner. I’m not fundamentally a writer, or preacher, or even a husband and father. I am a sinner saved by grace and all I contribute to that identity is the sin bit. I don’t need to prove myself as a sinner saved by grace. Instead I praise the gracious embrace of the Father, the complete atonement of the Son and the Spirit’s enabling presence. This is who I am. And it’s a gift. I don’t need to earn it…

‘So what can I do about my busyness?’ Perhaps that’s what you hoped I would tell you. But the question itself is flawed. What if I told you five things you could do about your busyness. Where would that leave you? With five extra things to fit into your schedule, you’d be busier than ever! Busyness is one problem we can’t solve by doing more! But the situation is not hopeless. We’re not doomed to be busy. Someone has done something about our busyness - the Lord Jesus Christ. You don’t need to ‘do’ more to overcome busyness because Jesus has already done all that is required. ‘It is finished’ he cried. ‘The job is done. The work is complete.’

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(photo from Subversive Influence)

Last year I heard a Christmas sermon on CD based on Luke 1. The story highlighted the stress Mary and Joseph faced in their relationship as they reacted to Mary’s surprise pregnancy. The sermon used Mary and Joseph as an example of how to handle stress in our marriages today.

What surprised me most about this sermon is that it came recommended as a good way to preach a Christmas sermon!

On one hand, it’s pretty hard to preach Mary and Joseph’s story without highlighting this as a significant issue. And, to be sure, marriage stress is a very relevant issue to people today. It’s fair to bring this up and even comment on it as we preach this passage. But there are all kinds of dangers in making marriage stress the center of this story.

Luke 1 is not ultimately about marriage stress. We need to be on guard against inserting ourselves and our needs into the center of every passage. Luke 1 is ultimately about one of the most significant events ever - the announcement of the arrival of the Messiah. It’s a pivotal moment in all of history. We risk trivializing the passage when we make it a how-to sermon on dealing with marriage stress.

As preachers, let’s help our people find their place in the grand story of God’s mission. Preach Christ and what his arrival means for the world today. It’s a story that deals with marriage and all the other stresses we face - but it is much bigger than that. Preach Christ this Christmas. It’s not all about us!

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.