Preaching Christ in Every Sermon

This is a little bit of inside baseball, but I thought this podcast by Matt Smethurst (a good ol' Baptist like me) and Ligon Duncan (one of my favorite Presbyterians) on preaching Christ in every sermon might be helpful for the person in the pew to understand some of my preaching philosophy.

I preach expostionally first and foremost and then I strive to preach Christ and thus the gospel in every sermon. If he is not explicit in the passage (take for instance Psalm 100 this past week) we'll be asking, "what does this passage teach me about God and what does this passage teach me about myself"? In Psalm 100 we saw that God's steadfast love (ultimately revealed in Christ) is the foundation of our worship. In every passage we'll see, the character of God or the fallenness of man (or the goodness and righteousness of God and our inability to meet his righteous standard). Many passages show man falling short of that standard - a "fallen condition focus". The solution to this fallen condition is always ultimately Christ.

Even passages that have commands we have to ask the question - "how can I fulfill this command"? The answer will always be, "not in my own power, but Christ has the power to enable to obey and to forgive me when I fail". I believe that ultimately if I fail to preach Christ I have not preached a Christian sermon. This is how we preach the gospel week in and week out while staying faithful to the text, even when we are in the Old Testament.

Hopefully this talk between Smethurst and Duncan will help deep your understanding of this important principle!