Preaching Christ-centered Application (Sanctification)

Key Question: What difference does it make to reveal the redemptive nature of all
Scripture? It changes the goal, themes and application of the sermon.

I. The Highest Goal of Preaching

Most preachers examine the text with the sole aim of teaching people what to do (duty) or
what to know (doctrine). But there is a higher goal: teaching people who they are in Christ.
The ultimate goal of a sermon is not simply proclaiming more duty or doctrine but promoting
a dearer relationship with God – love. If the chief end is not so much about performance and
competence but glorifying and enjoying God (a relationship), then how does that change
what you look for in the text, and what you proclaim from God’s Word? You will look for
how the text tells of God’s grace to promote love for him. The goal of the sermon is to get
people to realise God’s loves them. They then in turn love God.

II. The Dominant Themes of Redemptive (i.e., Christ-Centered) Messages

Not sola bootstrapsa or the "deadly B's," but …
A. Grace Despite our Sin (Assurance and Adoption) Typical topics:
Our comfort in God's Love (Sabbath). Israel is in the
Sabbath of God because he provided for their needs. Christ
is the ultimate sabbath rest. Therefore, we abide in Christ.
At the end of time all believers will enter their final from
of Sabbath rest. The point is this: our obedience to the
Sabbath is to communicate his provision for us.
Our confidence of God's Love (Sonship: never loved more or less)
B. Grace Destroying the Guilt of Sin (Justification and Forgiveness) Typical topics:
Our Repentance, God's Cleansing and Pardon,
Christ’s Atonement and Imputed Righteousness. We look into the magic
mirror which shows us in Christ’s image.
C. Grace Defeating the Power of Sin (Sanctification and Enablement) Typical
topics: Victory over the world, flesh and devil
Provision of the H.S. and the Word enabling victory

D. Grace Compelling Holiness (Worship and Obedience are a response to His grace)
Typical Topics: Thanksgiving, praise, gratitude
Loving Service. If you love me, then you will keep my commands.

<>It is this last topic (i.e., loving service) that is often the telltale sign of Christ-
centered Preaching. People worry that emphasizing grace undermines obedience.
Consistently preaching the necessity and proper motivation for holiness
may be the most difficult task evangelical preachers face because we culturally define
grace as license rather than as the biblical power/compulsion of holiness. Grace means
God’s love constrains us. Grace means we love to do what God wants. Grace is the
power of obedience. How do we preach grace and still apply the standards of Scripture?
 <> Recognize that it is not gracious to neglect the law that reflects God’s character
and is the path of safety and blessing he provides for his people in a fallen world. The
law is not antithetical to grace. The law is kept by grace.

III. The Nature of Application in Redemptive (i.e., Christ-Centered) Messages

We have previously understood application to require the answering of four questions:
1) What to do (instruction specificity)? 2) Where to do it (situational specificity)? 3)
Why to do it (motivation)? 4) How to do it (enablement)? Traditional preaching takes
seriously questions one and two; Christ-centered preaching takes as seriously – and
equips us to handle – questions three and four (motivation and enablement).

A. Motivation for Application in Christ-centered Preaching

How Does the Bible Motivate Us to be Holy? (i.e., Your theology of change?)

What makes redeemed people more holy, threat of condemnation or

promise of grace? It is not a new question as a review of Rom. 6:1 will assure
you. Yet the question is debated in every generation of believers.
[Example of Bunyan in prison]
If you keep assuring God’s people of God’s love, then they will seek to honour and obey for love’s
sake.

1. The relationship between Compulsion and Conduct

Reason asks, “Why should people be holy if all you do is keep assuring them of
grace?” Scripture answers:
John 14:15 “If you love me , you will obey what I command.” II Cor. 5:
14 "The love of God constrains us . . ."

Most people (and preachers) think the goal of preaching is to get people to do what
they don’t want to do. Yet, preaching’s highest aim and greatest power lies in
convincing others of the love of God in Christ that makes the heart willing and able
to do what God desires. When we know that he delights in us, we desire to please
him. Conviction of sin is most necessary, but its aim is not simply to make people
feel guilty but to enable them to comprehend the greatness of God’s grace. Grace
liberates from sin’s guilt and power by filling God’s people with love for him that
makes them willing and able to please him (motivation & enablement).

Westminster Confession (XX. 1; XIX. 6, 7)

The liberty which Christ hath purchased for believers under the Gospel consists in their
freedom from the guilt of sin, the condemning wrath of God, the curse of the moral law; and in their
being delivered from . . . the dominion of sin . . .; as also, in their free access to God and their yielding
obedience to him, not out of a slavish fear, but a child-like love and willing mind.
...(A) man's doing good, and refraining from evil, because the law encourageth to the one and
deterreth from the other, is no evidence of his being under the law; and not under grace.
Neither are the forementioned uses of the law contrary to the grace of the Gospel, but do sweetly
comply with it; the Spirit of Christ subduing and enabling the will of man to do that freely, and cheerfully,
which the will of God, revealed in the law, requireth to be done.
 So, we need to ask again, “What better leads to true holiness threats of
punishment/condemnation or promise of grace?” (Note well Rom 8:1 “There is now
no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”)

2. The relationship between our conduct and God's acceptance

Are we holy for God's acceptance? (conditional)
or
Are we holy from God's acceptance? (unconditional)

[My Experience: Preaching obedience but not seeing spiritual health.]

3. The relationship between the imperative and the indicative

The imperative rests on the indicative and the order are not reversible. Who we are in
Christ is the basis and power for what we do that pleases God (cf. Deut. 5:5)? The
indicatives: justified, adopted, sanctified (positional-Rom. 12:1; Heb. 10:14), united to Christ,
loved – never more and never less.
No less striking in this respect is Colossians 3:3 ff., where in response to 'For you have died and your
life is hid in God,' the command at once resounds: "Put to death therefore your members that are upon the earth:
fornication, uncleanness, ' etc. Having once died to Christ does not render superfluous putting to death the
members that are upon the earth, but is precisely the great urgent reason for it …. The imperative is
thus founded on the indicative … it is immediately clear that the imperative rests on the indicative and that this
order is not reversible. (H. Ridderbos, Paul, An Outline of his Theology, 1975, p 253)

<> In Christ-centered preaching the rules do not change, but the reasons for
obeying do as one preaches with a redemptive approach.
Reiterate: “Neither are the forementioned uses of the law contrary to the grace of the Gospel, but do sweetly
comply with it; the Spirit of Christ subduing and enabling the will of man to do that freely, and cheerfully, which
the will of God, revealed in the law, requireth to be done” (WCF, XIX. 7).

<> Our goal in excavating the grace in every passage is not to minimize biblical
imperatives but to empower their application with proper motivation and
enablement (we are reading Holiness by Grace to explore these further).

B. Priorities of Christ-centered Motivation for Application (note order)

1. Love for God
Revealing grace in all the Scriptures is more than an interpretative scheme; it
is the chief expository means my which the preacher may provide consistent
adulations of the mercy of God in Christ in
order to prompt our love for God that is the most powerful motivation for
Christian obedience. Biblical theology should be more about fostering a
relationship than promoting/arguing a “science.”
Rom. 12: 1 “I urge you brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices,
holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.”

It is not a statement of what you will be but a declaration of what you are.
Consistent focus on Christ’s mercy, rather than building up a dread of
God, most powerfully motivates and enables Christians in their fight
against sin and desire to glorify God.
Titus 2: 11 ff. For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say
"No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this
present age, while we wait for the blessed hope --the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior,
 Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a
people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. These, then, are the things you should teach.

The joy of the Lord is our strength (Neh. 8:10; WCF XX.1).

2. Love for others loved by God (leads to mission, mercy and service towards the
undeserving)
“I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matt.
25:40).

3. Love for self as one loved by God

a. Claiming the rights and privileges of our inheritance in Christ
Grace is bestowed and the relation established by sovereign divine administration. How then are
we to construe the conditions of which we have spoken? …They are simply the reciprocal
responses of faith, love and obedience, apart from which the enjoyment of the covenant blessing
and of the covenant relation is inconceivable. (John Murray, The Covenant of Grace, 1953, rpt.
1988, p. 19).

We are acting upon what God has already accomplished and lain out.

b. Avoidance of the consequences of sin revealed by a loving God. (If God did not love
us, he would not warn us of sin’s consequences. Warnings to believers must be
framed in the context of fatherly love.) cf. saving discipline (expressed toward us
regularly) vs. retributive punishment (inflicted on Christ one for all): We may
experience discipline as a result of our sin but, fatherly discipline even when harsh is
still an expression of love for a child's welfare (Heb. 12:6).
♦ Thus, there are many motivations for obedience – e.g., fear of consequences, desire
for blessing (i.e., love of self), concern for others (i.e., love of others), and love for
God – but since love of God must be the primary motivation in holiness, stimulating
such love must be the primary and most consistent concern of our preaching in order
for our people to have holy power for their obedience. The message of grace is
meant to stimulate love for God and its compelling power. Biblical Theology
enables us to see and expound this grace in all Scripture and, thus, rightly apply the whole
counsel of God to our lives.

C. Improper Motivations contrary to the Whole Counsel of God

1. Making self-promotion or self-protection the primary motivations of
obedience (cf. Rom. 15:1-3; Col. 3:16).
Self-promotion = God as “vending machine in the sky” plugged by our
good works (contra. Is. 54:6).
Self-protection = God as “ogre in the sky” placated by our good works
(contra. Luke 17:10).
J.I. Packer, Rediscovering Holiness, p. 75.
The secular world never understands Christian motivation. Faced with the question of what
makes Christians tick, unbelievers maintain that Christianity is practiced only out of self-serving
purposes. They see Christians as fearing the consequences of not being Christians (religion as fire
insurance), or feeling the need of help and support to achieve their goals (religion as crutch), or
wishing to sustain a social identity (religions as a badge of respectability). No doubt all of these
motivations can be found among the membership of churches: it would be futile to dispute that.
But just as a horse brought into a house is not thereby made human, so a self-seeking motivation
 brought into the church is not thereby made Christian, nor will holiness ever be the right name for
religious routines thus motivated. From the plan of salvation I learn that the true driving force for
authentic Christian living is, and ever must be, not the hope of gain, but the heart of gratitude.

Heidelberg Catechism Question #86

Question: Since we are redeemed from our sin and its wretched consequences by grace through
Christ without any merit of our own, why must we do good works?
Answer: … [S]o that with our whole life we may show ourselves grateful to God for his goodness and
that he may be glorified through us …. (cf. Rom. 12:1-2; Col. 3:16).

2. Using “slavish” (selfish) fear rather than godly fear as motivation

Not: personal protection from the “ogre in the sky” (contra., “Perfect love drives
out fear” - 1 Jn. 4:18; and, he came “to enable us to serve him without fear”-Luke
1:74).

But: proper regard for all God’s attributes = awe and love (cf. Is. 11:2)
{Doctor to child: “I may hurt you, but I’ll not harm you.”}
3. Failing to distinguish objective guilt from subjective guilt as motivation
+subjective guilt = what we feel in grieving the Holy Spirit (conviction)
vs.
+objective guilt = the penalty for past, present and future sin placed on Christ
and fully reconciled on the Cross (condemnation)

V. Proper Enablement in Christ-centered Preaching: Answering the How Question A.

The what is the how (we are enabled by knowledge of what is true)

- Knowledge of imperatives. Instructions made known through the

explanation of the text, enable us to obey its imperatives.
- Knowledge of our nature (Posse non peccare).
- Confidence in Word and Spirit (The walk of faith-1Jn. 4:4 "Greater is he...”)

B. The why is the how (we are enabled by love of God)

1. Love is power
We answer the why question because, when people truly grasp the love of
God, they have his strength. The reason that sin has power over us is that
we love it. If sin has no attraction to us, then it has no power over us.
How we undermine the power of sin is by filling the heart with love for
Christ; i.e., revealing the grace that is why we love him. “The way that
you remove the power of anything is by taking away its life source; the
life source of sin is our love for it. Take that away and sin has no power”
(John Owen, The Mortification of Sin, paraphrase).
The way that we diminish love for sin is by displacing it with love for God
stimulated by greater understanding of his grace through Christ (e.g.,
Thomas Chalmer’s, “The Expulsive Power of a New Affection.”
2. The Power of the Disciplines (to grow in love, not earn it)
a. To gain knowledge of God’s expectations, provision and nature.

Law Spirit Redeeming

 b. To walk in the faith of our new affections, position and nature.
Love Sonship New Creature

In contrast to bargaining (the earning theory), balancing (the leverage theory) or

topping off (the “fill ‘er up” theory) by which disciplines are used to placate or
satisfy God through works of sacrificial devotion.
Charles Spurgeon, Morning, June, 28 reading
[T]he Holy Spirit turns our eyes entirely away from self: He tells us that we are nothing, but that
"Christ is all in all." Remember, therefore, it is not thy hold of Christ that saves thee--it is Christ; it is
not thy joy in Christ that saves thee--it is Christ; it is not even faith in Christ, though that be the
instrument--it is Christ's blood and merits; therefore, look not so much to thy hand with which thou
art grasping Christ, as to Christ....
We shall never find happiness by looking at our prayers, our doings, or our feelings; it is
what Jesus is, not what we are, that gives rest to the soul. If we would at once overcome Satan and
have peace with God, it must be by "looking unto Jesus."
Keep thine eye simply on Him; let His death, His sufferings, His merits, His glories, His
intercession, be fresh upon thy mind; when thou wakest in the morning look to Him; when thou liest
down at night look to Him.

Conclusion:
Preach God's provision of grace as the motivation and enablement behind every instruction.
Bottom line of Christ- centered Preaching: Take people away from themselves as
the instrument of healing, and teach them from all the Scriptures of the hope they
have through God’s grace in Christ that will engender the love that is their power.
Francis Schaeffer: Bowing twice. We must bow to the divine provision before we bow to obedience.