Christ Centered Preaching

Introduction
As Christ is the center of the Gospels and Epistles—the ultimate endpoint of the Old Testament—the epicenter of all human history, and the One Being upon Whom our salvation depends, it is imperative that Christ ultimately be the center of all expository sermons. Even if Christ is only indirectly the heart of expository preaching, the fact is that nothing else can occupy that place. Christ is the “way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). No sermon can be complete without Him. One way to include Christ in one’s preaching, no matter the subject, is to approach the sermon from the theological aspect of Fallen Condition Focus (FCF), which is a way of framing the message within the fact that we are all in need of saving (because of our fallen condition) and that only Christ offers the grace—the means—by which we can be saved (Chapell, 2005). Thus, even if a sermon is focusing wholly on the Old Testament scriptures, it is possible to make Christ the center of the sermon by way of FCF (Wright, 1992). This paper will show why it is necessary to always preach Christ in some type of way in all expository sermons.
Christ as Logos
In the beginning was the Word, as John 1:1, reminds us: and the Word was God. Christ is the Logos—the Word, that John speaks of—and He was there from all time, the second Person of the Holy Trinity. This mystery is helpful in seeing how Christ can be the center of all expository sermons, even if the exposition is focused on a piece of Scripture that is not explicitly related to Christ. Essentially, it must be understood, that all Scripture—from the Old to the New Testament—is directly related to Christ, because Christ is like the North Star shining light upon all the Words of God. Christ is the One Who makes the words meaningful, as He is the Lamb of God, the One foreshadowed through all the various characters of the Old Testament, and the One Who takes away the sins of the world in the New Testament. A connection can be made to Christ from the simplest verse in Scripture to the most complex verses. Christ is the heart of Scripture, because He is, as John says, in the Beginning—the Word—the Logos that illuminates the world with life and grace and meaning.
In textual or topical sermons, a preacher will use a specific idea found in Scripture to make a larger point. These types of sermons are easier in many ways to relate to Christ, as Christian-living is the message that most sermons aim to communicate. The Scripture is used to support the main idea of the sermon. In expository preaching, the Scripture verses are the main idea. They are the focus of the sermon—not just the support used to drive home a separate idea that is developed by the preacher. In expository preaching, the preacher examines a particular passage, places it in context, studies its grammar—the words that are used and that carry significant meaning—and the historical setting of the verses themselves. All of this is used to help give clarity to the passage and to help the preacher better explain it to the audience.
How then does the Logos tie into expository preaching? Simple: The Bible is the Word of God—and Christ is the Word of God. Even in Scripture passages that do not clearly identify the Person of Christ, the Word is operating to bring souls to God and thus to Christ through the Holy Spirit. As Chapell (2005) notes, “Precisely how the Holy Spirit uses scriptural truth to convert souls and change lives we cannot say, but we must sense the dynamics that give us hope when we preach God’s Word. The Bible makes it clear that the Word is not merely powerful; it is without peer or dependence” (p. 27). The Word has in hand in creating, controlling, convicting, purposing, and overriding weakness, as Chapell (2005) goes on to state. And, furthermore, it cannot and must not be forgotten that the Word is has forever been linked to Christ thanks to John 1:1. Chapell (2005) iterates this point as well: “By identifying Jesus as his Word, God indicates that his message and his person are inseparable. The Word embodies him” (p. 27). Christ as Logos is the meaning—the ultimate sub-text—of every word in Scripture: it is the seed from which the life of the Bible springs; it is the soil, the life-giving nutrients that the message requires in order to fully grow into the fruit-bearing tree it is meant to become.
Chapell (2005) explains it thus: “Christ’s redemptive power and the power of his Word coalesce in the New Testament, with Logos (the incarnation of God) and logos (the message about God) becoming so reflexive as to form a conceptual identity” (p. 28). The person of Christ is explained by His divinity, His eternality, His being there from beginning; His presence and omnipresence—His knowledge of all things. Nothing in history, in time, in any place no matter where, is hidden from His mind. So it is that every piece of Scripture, every passage and verse, is ultimately oriented towards Him—because He is oriented towards it and His grace and beauty run through it, even like a phantom thread that is unseen by eyes that do not comprehend the larger canvas that is unfolding before them.
Additionally, as Wright (1992) points out, the Old Testament is best understood in the light of the Christian revelation—and Christ is best understood in the light of the Old Testament. He is the fulfillment of the Old Testament narrative—the climax that is promised but delayed. He is foreshadowed by so many characters from Adam to Isaac to Moses to David and on. The Old Testament points to Him just as He points to His Father in Heaven. It is a circuitous route: the Father creates, man falls, Christ redeems and brings man back to the Father. Yet Christ is truly present throughout it all—throughout the entire narrative, as He is the Logos Who is there from the beginning: “So when we turn the page from the Old to the New Testament, we find a link between the two that is more important than the attention we usually give it. It is a central historical interface binding together the two great acts of God’s drama of salvation. The Old Testament tells the story that Jesus completes” (Wright, 1992, p. 16).
Identifying the Theme
Christ also speaks to us and to the preacher’s audience through the themes that can be found continuously through all of Scripture—themes of Redemption, Covenant, Inheritance, and so on. The main theme that runs through Scripture, of course, is the theme of the fall from Grace. Constantly, Scripture is telling the reader or reminding the reader of the fallen human condition and the need for grace and for redemption. A preacher who adopts the FCF approach to Scripture and to expository preaching cannot fail to find Christ at the heart of whatever passage he is examining. Christ’s heart pulses within every word of Scripture because the entire history of the Jews and Christians is bound to the heart of God by this pulse—the pulse of the fallen, in need of the Blood of the Lamb to renew it.
As Chapell (2005) states, “Since the Word is the mediate presence of Christ, service is due” to the text of Scripture in the same sense that service is due to the Church, to God, to the faithful, to one’s neighbor (p. 28). Just as the Holy Spirit finds in each person a Temple, the preacher must find in the words of Scripture the heart of Christ, and in these words he must meditate: “Scriptural truth is not a passive object for examination and presentation,” as Chapell (2005) explains, but rather a goal that must be actively sought. It requires understanding, prayer, contemplation, diligence, perseverance—just as following in the Way of God requires fasting, prayer, petition, and all the virtues extolled by God. By engaging with texts of Scripture, through expository preaching, the preacher is engaging with the Word in a dynamic way—just as God wants it. God is not static and Christ is not stagnant: Christ is for all men in all times. The preacher can bring this realization to life through expository preaching, but only if he is conscious of the fact that Christ is not only the Word—the Logos—but the source of reoccurring themes that highlight the passages of Scripture from beginning to end. Every line is like a vision of the horizon, beyond which lies the Logos—the Redemption.
By adopting the Fallen Condition Focus as a type of lens for interpreting Scripture, the preacher can turn that lens towards the horizon and bring into focus the Christ Who is there—waiting to be identified as the Redeemer, the One Who cleanses those who accept Him. Using this lens, it becomes easy for the preacher to do his job. Indeed, with it, “expository preaching presents the power of the Word” (Chapell, 2005, p. 30) to the audience and grants them a much deeper and clearer look at the reality, at the whole, at the big picture, at the passage being discussed, at themselves, and at their relationship with God.
Thus, even in non-redemptive messages, it is possible—and necessary—to approach Christ in the expository sermon. Christ is the Redeemer—but He is also the teacher, the neighbor, the friend, the companion, the leader, the way. He is the source of all that is good, the man whose character we should strive to emulate. Nonetheless, Chapell (2005) tells us that “preachers should make God’s redemptive work the content, the motive, and the power behind all biblical exposition” (p. 327) because it is really the essence of the meaning in the Word. Every theme that is encountered can be connected to our need for redemption. Even in non-redemptive passages, the fact of our redemption by the Blood of Christ, is so pressing that it makes itself felt in verses where there seems to be no hint of it whatsoever. It echoes throughout the chambers and halls of Scripture, so that even if one is examining passages on the Law or on the trials of David or on the Acts of the Apostles, Christ is there.
How the preacher approaches the text used for expository preaching will depend to some measure on the preacher’s personality. Some preachers might go about it thus: “I read myself full, think myself clear, pray myself hot, and then let myself go,” while others may go about it more methodically: “Read the text, research the material, then focus everything on a single idea” (Chapell, 2005, p. 344). The point is that no matter how the preacher engages with the passages used in expository preaching, the preacher must be mindful of how Christ is connected to and, indeed, inherent in the text. Christ, as the embodiment of virtue, serves as the perfect lens for understanding the passages of Scripture: “The God who acted for justice at the exodus remained committed to maintaining it among his people” (Wright, 1992, p. 31). The life of Christ itself is a source of material that reaches out like the roots of a tree, operating under the ground and intermingling with the roots of all plants so that they become tied together and united. One cannot be uprooted without bringing up the other.
So goes it with the exposition of any set of verses from Scripture. They are not meant to be understood or read in isolation, as though there was no connection between a passage penned three thousand years ago and a passage penned a thousand years later. Time is not an obstacle for God. God is above time and Christ exists beyond time and before we even understood the concept of time. Indeed, time is only conscious to us because of our fall from grace. Before the fall, there was no sense of time because we were already in a state of happiness, not having incurred the wrath of God or been doomed to die in this life. Time was not felt; it was not known. It is not necessarily to lock out the Old Testament verses from our knowledge of Christ through the New Testament, just because they came hundreds of years before. They are still connected and joined by the same roots, the same themes, the same ideas, the same Word, the same God. Christ is there, in between the lines, waiting to come into focus. Even today, He is there and the preacher must make the audience realize that: “God evaluates the moral health of society as a whole, from international treaties to market economies, from military strategy to local court procedures, from national politics to the local harvest” (Wright, 1992, p. 31).
The Old Testament prepares the way for Christ-centered messages, describing the history of the Jews so that the need for and expectation of Christ’s coming can be felt, seen, understood. This is why Christ came to the Jews and sought their friendship and turned to the Gentiles when the Jews rejected Him: He was the Messiah, the One they were taught to look for. John the Baptist saw it and understood it—but many of the Jews did not, because they wanted to maintain their own lifestyles, their own ways of being, their own self-importance. They did not want to see their stories, their past, their lives in the light of Christ, in the light of God. They wanted only to bask in their own light, in their own glory.
The aim of the preacher, therefore, must not be to glorify himself or to glorify his listeners, but rather to glorify God—and in conducting expository preaching, there can be no other aim but to glorify God. And in glorying God, the preacher must give glory to Christ Jesus Who serves as the Redeemer—the Messiah Who came to save all men and to re-unite them with God.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Christ is the center of all things—the center of history, the center of Scripture, the center of all preaching. He is the Word of God—the Logos, identified by John in the first verse of his gospel. In expository preaching, it is necessary for the preacher to communicate this fact in some way to the audience, no matter what the passages used for exposition may be. Christ is the Word that runs through all things and thus He must be pronounced at some point in the sermon in order to give it its fullest and most complete meaning. Christ cannot be left out of any expository preaching exercise, because focusing only on details—on academic juxtapositions, or on various interpretations of certain words or phrases, or on historical minutiae—will leave something to be desired. The audience is there waiting for the Word, they are there because they have desired to hear the Word of God—and Christ is the Word made Flesh. Christ therefore cannot be left out of the expository sermon. The exposition has to be shown in some way to be related to Christ, because in truth it is. Christ is the Redeemer, and the Scriptures are there to remind us of the fact that we are in need of saving—that we all need His Redemption.
References
Chapell, B. (2005). Christ-centered preaching: Redeeming the expository sermon. Grand
Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.
Wright, C. (1992). Knowing Jesus through the Old Testament. Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press.