Christ-Centered Preaching

Our tone should always resonate with the humility of one who speaks with authority under the authority of another (2 Tim. 4:2).

There are a number of ways to phrase formal propositions to ensure that they wed principle and application. Two of the most basic are consequential and conditional statements. A proposition in consequential form states something that should be done as a consequence of a truth. The word because is used or implied: Because Jesus commands his follower

Faith that we are new creatures in Christ Jesus provides us with the confidence that we can do what God requires, and thus we employ the power his Spirit has already instilled within us (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15). Without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6). But with the faith that the Spirit within us is greater than the powers of this

Listeners remember the delivery of poor speakers; they remember the content of good speakers.

We may properly feel remorse for the sin we commit, but this subjective guilt that we feel and that grieves the Holy Spirit does not annul the finished work of Christ, which removes all objective guilt from our account.

If both logic and Scripture make it apparent that motivations of selfish fear and gain are a menace to holiness,35 why does the debate persist over whether a divine threat of retaliation or a promise of grace better stimulates holiness? The simple answer is that preachers feel the need for a corrective. We wonder how we can compel others, or even o

We are saved by grace alone. We are sanctified by grace alone. We are secured by grace alone.

These truths of holiness by grace teach us that, as counterintuitive as it may seem, nothing more powerfully compels holy living than consistent adulation of the mercy of God in Christ.

If God did not love, he would not warn. Preaching corrective discipline in the context of divine love should keep us from characterizing the wrath of God toward his people as punitive damage and should enable listeners to understand the occasional need for God’s severe mercy.