Recently in Gospel-centered Preaching Category

Charles Garland, co-author of "The Current Intellectual State of Affairs in America" with Tim Keller, preached a very helpful sermon on law and gospel from Exodus 20:1-3 on August 19th.. Listen to it here. Dowload it here.

Check out these two sermons by Charlie Boyd of Southside Fellowship.

How the Gospel Changes Everything: Rescued (Galatians 1:1-5) How the Gospel Changes Everything: No Other Gospel (Galatians 1:6-12)

Tim Keller preached these two sermons at St. George's-Tron Church in Glasgow.

The Prodigal Sons
Jesus, the Church, and the City

(HT: Steve McCoy)

This is so very good and helpful!

“The great gospel imperatives to holiness are ever rooted in indicatives of grace that are able to sustain the weight of those imperatives. The Apostles do not make the mistake that’s often made in Christian ministry. [For the Apostles] the indicatives are more powerful than the imperatives in gospel preaching. So often in our preaching our indicatives are not strong enough, great enough, holy enough, or gracious enough to sustain the power of the imperatives. And so our teaching on holiness becomes a whip or a rod to beat our people’s backs because we’ve looked at the New Testament and that’s all we ourselves have seen. We’ve seen our own failure and we’ve seen the imperatives to holiness and we’ve lost sight of the great indicatives of the gospel that sustain those imperatives. … Woven into the warp and woof of the New Testament’s exposition of what it means for us to be holy is the great groundwork that the self-existent, thrice holy, triune God has — in Himself, by Himself and for Himself — committed Himself and all three Persons of His being to bringing about the holiness of His own people. This is the Father’s purpose, the Son’s purchase and the Spirit’s ministry” (Sinclair Ferguson).

(HT: John Fonville)

You can listen to the plenary sessions of The Gospel Coalition 2007. Since I've been without internet at home for over a month, I've just started to listen to them. Click here to go to the media page. Here's what you'll find:

Don Carson - What is the Gospel? Tim Keller - What Does Gospel Centered Ministry Look Like? Don Carson - Plans and Purposes of the Gospel Coalition John Piper - The Triumph of the Gospel in the New Heavens and the New Earth Crawford Loritts - Passing the Torch

Sinclair Ferguson preached the sermon for Richard Phillips' Sunday night installation service at Second Presbyterian Church, located in downtown Greenville (SC), this past Sunday. I heard from someone who attended the service that it was vintage Sinclair. You can download the mp3 here: Becoming a Model Church. Richard Phillips preached on John 1:1-3 for the morning service (download it here: The Word).

I had a brief opportunity to talk with Richard Phillips and welcome him to Greenville at the CBA convention early this week. I'm very excited that he's here and eager to see how God uses his ministry in this unique city. Richard was kind enough to give me (and many other people) a free signed copy of his latest book, Jesus the Evangelist: Learning to share the gospel from the book of John.

The following lecture is by Dr. Richard Kaufmann, former staff member with Tim Keller in NYC, on preparing and preaching sermons that are centered on the gospel. You'll find it very helpful even if you're not a preacher. You could say that it's really about preaching the gospel to your own heart. If you desire to grow in your ability to apply the gospel to your own life, you'll definitely benefit from listening to it.

Audio: Preaching and Preparing a Gospel-Centered Message

Here are Rob Mitchell's notes on the lecture.

Justin Buzzard has interviewed Graeme Goldsworthy over at his blog. If you are not familiar with Goldsworthy (or even if you are) or are new to gospel-centeredness discussion, particularly as it relates to interpretation, you'll want to check this interview out. Thanks, Justin, for making this Goldsworthy interview available.

How important is it that the preaching of the church be informed and shaped by biblical theology, that is, by the story of God's redemptive activity within human history? Graeme Goldsworthy writes:

If a pastor does not understand or teach biblical theology, the members of the congregation are likely to suffer thus:

1. Congregations will not understand the unity of the Bible or the progressive nature of revelation. They will fall prey to those proclaiming the disunity of the biblical message; and a fragmented Bible cannot be recognized as the inspired word of God.

2. Congregations will not understand the centrality of Christ for interpreting Scripture and the meaning of life in our world. Recourse to people and events—particularly those of the Old Testament—will be valued mainly for their exemplary lessons, and not for their typological contribution to understanding the person and work of Christ. They will not see that Christ in his gospel is the interpreting principle for Scripture and, indeed, for all reality.

3. Grace will be eroded by legalism. Preaching that principally points to the examples of Bible characters leads almost inevitably to legalism since the connection with the gospel of grace will be clouded or even completely lost.

4. The application of Bible texts will often be short-circuited. The Bible is reduced to a lucky-dip of texts all of which are perceived as standing in the same essential relationship to the Christian believer, and the progressive nature of biblical revelation in salvation-history is ignored.

5. The presuppositions of the New Testament in portraying Christ as the fulfiller of the Old Testament will be overlooked so that the fullness of Christ’s person and work is undermined. Teaching from the Old Testament is particularly at risk.

6. The doctrinal formulations of the church will be seen as less important in that their relationship to the progressive revelation of the Bible will not be evident. Biblical theology and doctrine work together for a robust understanding of God and his purposes for his people and the world.

Graeme Goldsworthy is the visiting lecturer in hermeneutics at Moore Theological College in Sydney, Australia.

Note to Readers: Those of you who regularly visit Eucatastrophe are well aware of the fact that my blogging has been almost non-existent the past three months.� I’ve only posted 15 times since July 28^th!� My intention is to begin� posting regularly once this particular semester is over.

The Bible identifies idolatry as the sin which is under every other sin. The reason man commits any particular sin is because there is another god before the God (see Exodus 20). Idolatry is not just one sin among many. It is the sin out of which every other sin grows (see David Powlison’s article). It seems to me, therefore, that another way to determine whether a sermon is Christ-centered or not is to answer this question: How does a Christ-centered / gospel-centered sermon address man’s problem with idolatry? If idolatry is man’s foundational problem, then our preaching should address it. So, how might a gospel-centered sermon address man’s problem of idolatry in contrast to a non-gospel-centered sermon? Keller writes:

The “Moralizing” Approach. A very typical approach to personal change among orthodox and conservative Christians can best be called the “moralizing” approach. Basic analysis: Your problem is that you are doing wrong. Repent! This focuses on behavior—but doesn’t go deep enough. We must find out the why of our behavior. Why do I find I want to do the wrong things? What inordinate desires are drawing me to do so? What are the idols and false beliefs behind them? To simply tell a [depressed] person (or yourself) to ‘repent and change [your] behavior’ is insufficient, because the lack of self-control is coming from a belief that says, ‘even if you live up to moral standards, but you don’t have this, then you are still a failure.’ You must replace this belief through repentance for the one sin under it all—your particular idolatry.

The “Psychologizing” Approach. A very typical approach to personal change among more liberal religious groups can best be called the “psychologizing” approach. Basic analysis: Your problem is that you don’t see that God loves you as you are. Rejoice! This focuses on feelings, which seems to be “deeper” than behavior—but it fails to go deep enough. We must also find out the why of our feelings. Why do I have such strong feelings of despair (or fear, or anger) when this or that happens? What are the inordinate desires that are being frustrated? What are the idols and false beliefs behind them? To simply tell an [depressed] person (or yourself) “God loves you—rejoice!” is insufficient, because the unhappiness is coming from a belief that says, ‘even if God loves you, but you don’t have this, then you are still a failure.’ You must replace this belief through repentance for the one sin under it all—your particular idolatry.

The “Gospel” Approach. Basic Analysis: Your problem is that you are looking to something besides Christ for your happiness. Repent and Rejoice! This confronts a person with the real sin under the sins and behind the bad feelings. Our problem is that we have given ourselves over to idols. Every idol-system is a way of works-salvation, and thus it keeps us “under the law.” Paul tells us that the bondage of sin is broken when we come out from under the law—when we begin to believe the gospel of Christ-salvation. Only when we realize in a new way that we are righteous in Christ is the idol’s power over us broken. Sin shall not be your master for you are not under law, but under grace (Romans 6:14). You will only be “under grace” [functionally] and free from the controlling effects of idols to the degree that you have both: (1) repented of your idols, and (2) rested and rejoiced in the saving work and love of Christ instead (Preaching the Gospel in a Post-Modern World, 99-100).

The “moralistic” sermon or the “Christ-as-God-of-Gaps” sermon or the “Christ-as-Example” sermon will only address man’s idolatry on a superficial level. Exemplary sermons do not go deep enough when seeking to provide the hearers with the solution to their sin problems. “Christ was not selfish…You are selfish…So repent of your selfishness” sermons are not the kind of sermons that will shepherd people along the path of substantive spiritual transformation. Only Christ-centered / gospel-centered sermons are able to address man’s real problem, namely, idolatry. Moralistic sermons shoot at the fruit. Christ-centered sermons cut out the root.

This entire series of blog posts thus far can be found here.

*Also, check out this blogger's posts on Gospel-Centered Preaching, here and here.