The Scriptures just handed me another blade with which to continue my ongoing crusade to reintroduce the Gospel to Evangelicalism. I was listening to the book of 1 Peter on CD, when I heard that Peter writes that we were born again through the living and abiding word of God, he ended the passage clarifying what the “word” is that gave us new life: “And this word is the good news that was preached to you” (1 Peter 1:25b).

“And this word is the good news that was preached to you” (1 Peter 1:25b)

I’ve been amazed in the past couple of years how deaf the ears are on which this message falls. The constant reply to my constant pleas that every sermon should always be explicitly built on the foundation of the Gospel of the sinless life of Jesus, the death of Jesus because of our sins and the resurrection of Jesus because those who come to faith are justified is that “we are to preach ‘the Word’.

“And this word is the good news that was preached to you” (1 Peter 1:25b)

What my dear brethren mean is that we should preach the “whole counsel of God.” We should preach more than just the Gospel, the Bible talks about all kinds of other things than just the Gospel, if we always preach the Gospel, we won’t have time to preach the rest of the Bible. What they miss is that I’m not talking about preaching the Gospel instead of the rest of the Bible, I’m talking about (and so did the Reformers, who recovered the Gospel out of the ash heap of Romanism, the “Founding Fathers” of “Evangelicalism”) preaching all of the Bible in context.

What is the context? The Gospel.

Everything that comes before the sinless Christ crucified and risen for sinners points to and reaches its pinnacle and therefore its ultimate point in the sinless Christ crucified and risen for sinners; likewise, everything that is revealed in Scripture after the sinless Christ crucified and risen for sinners (you know, all that “practical” and “relevant” stuff) flows out of and is built on the foundation of the sinless Christ crucified and risen for sinners.

If we talk about everything that leads up to the Gospel but leave out any explicit reference to the Gospel as the point of that material, and get off on things other than that ultimate point, then we are not preaching the Word.

“And this word is the good news that was preached to you” (1 Peter 1:25b)

If we talk about all that practical stuff that is built on the foundation of the Gospel and flows from the source of the Gospel, assuming everyone understands that the Gospel is the source, foundation and reason we do these things, then we are not preaching the Gospel, because I don’t care how long people have been involved in church, if they don’t get reminded constantly (in every sermon) that all that stuff they are to do which is taught in Scripture is founded on, has it source in, and is done because of, and by the power of the Gospel, the Power of God for Salvation to Everyone who Believes, then they’re going to wind up doing it by their own power and for their own reasons. And therefore, the Word hasn’t been preached.

“And this word is the good news that was preached to you” (1 Peter 1:25b).

Are the sermons you hear Christ-centered or Man-centered?

Get your pad and pencil or pen ready the next time you sit under the preaching of the Word of God, and see how you fare with the following three questions:

1. Is Jesus mentioned in this sermon?
2. Is Jesus the subject of the verbs?
3. If so, what are the verbs?

Among other considerations, there are two primary objectives that must be communicated in any sermon:

• Indicatives (What God or Christ does for or to sinful and/or saved man)
• Imperative (What sinful and saved men are to do for God and Christ)

For example, the Law (what God is and does, and so what man ought to be and do) is imperative, and the Gospel (what Christ has done for sinners) is indicative.

In Christ-centered preaching, the logic will flow from indicative to imperative; from what God does, in Christ, to what man ought to do. We derive the proper motive and power to perform the imperatives of Scripture from the proclamation of the indicatives of Scripture.

Whenever the focus of the sermon is imperative, what we can or should be doing, and the indicatives of God’s work on our behalf rates as a secondary concern in the sermon, we unintentionally slip into thinking we’ll earn the indicatives (that which God grants by his grace) by performing the imperatives (that which God gave us to prove to us we must rely only on his grace). This is the danger of man-centered preaching.

Is Jesus mentioned in the sermons you hear? If he is, is he the subject of the verbs; is he the one doing the work, or is Man? If Jesus is the one doing the work, what work of his is being proclaimed? Is he proclaimed as our Problem-Solver, Example (WWJD), Therapist or Sugar Daddy? Or is he proclaimed as our Creator, Redeemer, Advocate, Mediator, Judge, Prophet, Priest or King?

The reason this matters is because “the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16). Salvation is an all-encompassing work, including not only our justification, but also our sanctification and our glorification. Preaching on sanctification is vitally important; there is much for us to do, in dependence on God’s gracious empowerment, to grow in sanctification, but this is not achieved by majoring on detailing all the imperatives alone, but the imperatives of preaching, what we normally call “application” of God’s Word, must be built on the foundation of the indicative of the Gospel preached alone.

So, don’t forget to ask these three questions the next time you hear a sermon, and may it provoke you to pray that your preacher makes the Gospel plain to instill faith in the lost and to strengthen the faith of the saved.