Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

by Bryan Chapell

These priorities indicate that the goal of preaching is not merely to impart information but to provide the means of transformation ordained by a sovereign God that will affect the lives and destinies of eternal souls committed to a preacher’s spiritual

“Christ is the only King of your studies, but homiletics is the queen.”1

When we face real people with eternal souls balanced between heaven and hell, the nobility of preaching both awes us and makes us acutely aware of our inadequacies (cf. 1 Cor. 2:3).

Honest evaluation inevitably causes us to conclude that we do not have sufficient eloquence, wisdom, or character to be capable of turning others from spiritual death to eternal life. Such a realization can cause young preachers to run from their first preaching assignment and experienced pastors to despair in their pulpits.

Ultimately, preaching accomplishes its spiritual purposes not because of the skills or the wisdom of a preacher but because of the power of the Scripture proclaimed (1 Cor. 2:4–5).

but his Spirit uses the Word itself to fulfill his saving and sanctifying purposes. The human efforts of the greatest preachers are still too weak and sin-tainted to be responsible for others’ eternal destinies. For this reason, God infuses his Word with his own spiritual power. The efficacy of the truths in God’s message, rather than any virtue in the messenger, transforms hearts.

The Bible makes it clear that the Word is not merely powerful; it functions without literary peer or human limitation. The Word of God

creates:

controls:

convicts:

performs his purposes:

overrides human weakness:

portrayal of its own potency challenges us always to remember that the Word preached, rather than the preaching of the Word, accomplishes heaven’s purposes. Preaching that is true to Scripture converts, convicts, and eternally changes the souls of men and women because God’s Word is the instrument of divine compulsion, not because preachers have any power in themselves to stimulate such godly transformations (although human powers can certainly bring about all kinds of worldly changes, including those that masquerade as the products of heaven).

God fully reveals the dynamic power of his Word in the New Testament, where he identifies his Son as the divine Logos, or Word (John 1:1). By identifying Jesus as his Word, God indicates that his message and his person are inseparable.