Let Your Sermons Be Full of Christ
I recently finished a book by Dr. Steve Gaines, pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis. Gaines book, When God Comes to Church: Experiencing the Fullness of His Presence offers a number of excellent insights about planning and leading worship. I like this quote from C.H. Spurgeon (1834-1892) that Gaines uses to emphasize the need of Christ-centered worship services. In the quote Spurgeon is addressing young preachers when he states:
“Let your sermons be full of Christ, from beginning to end crammed full of the Gospel. As for myself, brethren, I cannot preach anything else but Christ and His cross, for I know nothing else, and long ago, like the Apostle Paul, I determined not to know anything else save Jesus Christ and Him crucified [a reference to I Cor. 2:2] . . . . Preach Jesus Christ, brethren, always and everywhere; and every time you preach be sure to have much of Jesus Christ in your sermon . . . . We preach Jesus Christ to those who want Him, and we also preach Him to those who do not want Him, and we keep on preaching Christ until we make them feel that they do want Him, and cannot do without Him.” (Gaines, p. 42-43)
I agree with Spurgeon and Gaines. Our services should focus on Christ. There should be a Gospel, cross-centered theme in our corporate worship services each time we gather. More times that I want to remember I have attended Christian worship services where Christ or His cross were not mentioned the whole service. Our songs, our prayers, our testimonies and our sermons should point to Christ.
When a Christian tells his pastor he does not need to hear the Gospel story any more because he has matured beyond that point, we are in dangerous territory. Christ is our Savior and Lord, our Great High Priest before the Throne, the Lamb of God. We must preach Christ.
Gaines closes his chapter stating that “a worship service without the awareness of Jesus’ obvious presence is a waste of time. He is the One who deserves the spotlight. He is the focus for every part of geniune worship.” (44).
Worship Leader - is your service full of Christ and His cross? As David Prior once said: “We never move on from the cross of Christ, only into a more profound understanding of the cross.”
When God Comes to Church, Steve Gaines, Broadman and Holman, 2007, ISBN: 978-0-8054-4398-1.
There are many issues addressed in Scripture; I don’t know that each one can be explicitly tied to Jesus within a thirty-minute sermon. But all of Scripture is inherently laced with Christ, and of course every sermon must avoid contradicting Him. The thirty-minute sermon itself (or music styles, or carpet) is a good example of one reason that a sermon might not mention Christ as much as others: On the subject of customs, we can only reference the apostles speaking about Christ in a rather indirect manner. (That is, unless you go to Jesus’ comment about taxes, dissect His logic, and apply it to other conventions - which might be what the apostles did.)
Hebrews 6:1-2, NKJV
Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.
Chris,
When I talk about sermons being full of the Gospel, I realize there are other important biblical issues on which to preach. At some point in the sermon, the pastor needs to help his congregation see how this teaching relates in light of the Gospel.
If I knew the pastor was preaching on an issue that was not directly focused on the Gospel, I would also plan worship songs and Scripture readings in the first part of the service that did focus on the Cross.
Our worship services should be full of the Gospel. I guess I have been in too many services where I felt the Gospel was absent or unclear so I strive to keep that Gospel focus in the services I plan.