Editor’s note: This extract is taken from The Soul-Winning Church: Six Keys to Fostering a Genuine Evangelistic Culture by Doug Logan, Jr. and J.A. Medders, published by The Good Book Company, and is used by kind permission. www.thegoodbook.com
We know salvation belongs to the Lord and that the Spirit moves where he wishes. Yet there are also certain ways in which we ought to think, study, and preach in order to raise the sail that can catch the wind of the Spirit as he blows. After all, “how can they believe without hearing about him? And how can they hear without a preacher?” (Romans 10:14). We want to simply ask you a question about your sermons. It is specific to preaching and teaching the Bible in a soul-winning, conversion-seeking way: are you preaching Christ every week?
To preach for conversion means you relentlessly preach Christ. As Charles Spurgeon said in his book The Soul-Winner, “I believe that those sermons which are fullest of Christ are the most likely to be blessed to the conversion of the hearers. Let your sermons be full of Christ, from beginning to end crammed full of the gospel.”[1] Is Jesus the obvious subject of your sermon? This doesn’t mean that our sermons are only about Jesus. It means that he is the Noun of nouns in our sermons. Look at your most recent manuscript or outline—is it crammed with Jesus or does he only make a cameo appearance? May we never preach a Jesus-less sermon. That’s Satan’s favorite kind.
If you want to bring sinners to Christ, bring Christ to sinners. Preach and teach everything in relation to him who is Lord of all. As Tim Keller wrote:
Every time you expound a Bible text you are not finished unless you demonstrate how it shows us that we cannot save ourselves and that only Jesus can. That means we must preach Christ from every text, which is the same as saying we must preach the gospel every time and not just settle for general inspiration or moralizing.[2]
Think about Paul’s resolution: “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). He made up his mind to make Jesus the radiating core of his ministry. 1 Corinthians touches on almost every subject in the Christian life, but, while Paul talked about more than the gospel, he never did less than talk about the gospel, and he taught everything in light of the gospel. Jesus was always his subject: “We proclaim him, warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ” (Colossians 1:28).
We should always allow the passage at hand to guide us toward Christ. No shoehorning of the Savior into the text is needed. Jesus is the true north of the text. We only need to give the text time in our study and prayers to point us to him. I (Jeff) have found a framework of four Ms that helps ensure that my sermons are crammed full of Christ, while also not formulaic in what I say about Christ. Not all four of these Ms might be present in the text or sermon, but at least one will arise organically from the passage:
- Jesus is the message.
- Jesus is the motivation.
- Jesus is the model.
- Jesus is the means.
Jesus as the message points to how he is our Savior, our Lord, and the ultimate hero of every passage, narrative, book, and genre of the Bible. Everything and everyone in the Bible points to Jesus. And from this reality, we tell unbelievers that he is who they need: straightforward gospel proclamation and invitation. A text on love will lead us to God’s love made incarnate. A passage on holiness ought to eventually usher us to the holy one. And so on.
Jesus is the ultimate motivation for good works, holiness, and loving others. This is vital for true Christian spirituality. Christians live for Christ because “he died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised” (2 Corinthians 5:15). And we connect this point to unbelievers by asking them to think about why they do what they do. We show them the difference that living life for Christ, with him as their ruler, would make to them, and the difference it would make through them to those around them. Life lived with and for Christ is better.
Jesus as the model must be threaded carefully. We should never give the impression that Jesus is merely an aspirational and inspirational Messiah; he is a transformational one. But nevertheless, we can’t underemphasize that being Christ’s disciple means seeking to become like him—to follow his example (Luke 6:40; Romans 8:29). Christ’s love for the church is the model of marriage (Ephesians 5:25). Christians forgive in the way that God has forgiven us in Christ (Ephesians 4:32). Jesus shows us what life looks like. We can show non-Christians that there is a better way to live, a Jesus-like way, the way we were designed to walk through life—and from here we tell unbelievers that not only can Christ be their model but that he must also be their Lord, setting the agenda for their lives, and their Savior, forgiving them for their ongoing inability to live as they should. And this brings us back to Jesus as the message for forgiveness and new life in him, through him, and for him.
Lastly, we preach Jesus as the means—the engine, fuel, muscle—of the Christian life. We locate the root of our obedience, evangelism, repentance—everything!—in the crucified and risen Christ, who said that apart from him we can do nothing (John 15:5) and who sent his Spirit to empower our obedience. He is the only way to eternal life, forgiveness, shame being removed, condemnation being lifted, and us resting in the love of God and being transformed into the people we long to be and that he calls us to be. Jesus does not just show us who to be and forgive us when we fail—he enables us to become what we’re called to be. We can tell non-Christians to give up their efforts to make life work or to find forgiveness in their own strength. We can offer them Christ, the Savior and sustainer of forgiven sinners. We invite hearers to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus—that he died and rose for them, if they want him.
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[1] C.H. Spurgeon, The Soul Winner: How to Lead Sinners to the Saviour (Fleming H. Revell, 1895), p. 99.
[2] Timothy Keller, Preaching: Communicating Faith in an Age of Skepticism (Viking, 2015), p. 48.