Jun 14
21
EVERY SERMON
Mt 28:20: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you:
Every sermon, no matter the text or subject, must be preached with the awareness that there are sinners listening who do not know Christ, do not know themselves to be ruined in sin, nor do they know that God saves sinners by grace, through God’s gift of faith in Christ, altogether by the finished work of Christ alone. Every sermon must be preached with the awareness that the only way sinners, believers or otherwise, are profited, reproved, corrected, and instructed in righteousness, and that by the effectual grace of God, is by preaching Christ and him crucified—absolutely no other way!
Therefore, every sermon must clearly declare who Christ is, why Christ came, what Christ accomplished, where Christ is now and what Christ is doing now. Every verse or passage is best expounded by first, and as quickly as possible, declaring how Christ fulfilled it, how Christ glorified the Father and how Christ accomplished the salvation of the elect thereby. Then, if the verse or passage applies to the believers walk, if God gives a spiritual understanding in the heart, the believer will be comforted that Christ alone has made them the righteousness of God thereby; their flesh will be mortified as they behold how far short they come of heeding the instruction; and they will be given a desire in the inward man to heed the instruction constrained only by the love of Christ for them—our only motive.
Before every sermon is preached it is best to ask oneself, “If I were a lost sinner, after hearing this sermon will I be shut up to the truth that salvation is by God’s sovereign grace alone, through God’s gift of life and faith in Christ alone, and left with absolutely no room to conclude anything else but that my flesh profits nothing.” If so the sermon will declare the one thing needful; if not, it must be discarded for a sermon that does!
Clay Curtis.