Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 | Date: November 30, 2025 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

1 Corinthians chapter 2. We have been taking a detour from our regular expositions to address the topic or the question of the topic of Christ’s ordering his church. And we’ve looked through a number of subjects to focus our thinking around that, particularly in light of the timing here in our congregation. We are hoping, looking to bring on another pastor here. And so with that in mind, we’ve been chasing this question of what does a New Testament church look like, what should it look like, and what are the major shaping considerations.

And I mentioned last time that I thought I was done with that series, but someone suggested that I address the topic of preaching. What should we expect from the pulpit? What should we expect from a candidate when we bring him in to hear his preaching? What should we be looking for when we hear someone preach? And so we looked at 1 Corinthians 2 where Paul sets himself up as a model in that regard, and we’re trying to learn from that.

Last week, I tried to unpack the significance of verse 1, and then today, verse 2. I’ll take time. Remember, keep in mind the context of chapter 1 that we read through last time, and I’ll take time right now just to read through verses 1 through 5 of chapter 2.

“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling. And my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.”

Let’s bow together for prayer. Our Father, again, we are struck with the privilege that we have to read a word from you. This passage tells us, though, that the word of God preached is not enough. We must have the powerful workings of your Spirit to own it to our minds and our hearts. So we ask that today that you will enable us by your Spirit to hear your Word, to see Christ in it, and to come by it to trust him more fully. We pray in his name. Amen.

As I mentioned, 1 Corinthians chapter 2 here, the apostle Paul sets his example in Corinth up as a model of Christian ministry and what it looks like. Chapter 1, preaching of the gospel of Christ is considered foolishness to the world, and yet it’s the only message that saves. And so, chapter 2, verse 1: “And I,” well, he’s setting himself up. Here was my practice in keeping with chapter 1. When I came to you, I came proclaiming the testimony of God. Now, he doesn’t do it with lofty speech or of wisdom. He doesn’t try to help it out. It’s just unpacking the message of God that he has given.

We mentioned last time, and I want to say it again just to reaffirm it and to settle it in our minds, that Christianity is a revealed religion. That’s our basic distinctive as Christians. We have the audacity to say: God has spoken, here is his word, here is our message that the entire world must believe. God the creator has spoken and we have his word. Now there have been in the history of Christianity and all of its aberrations. There was, over a hundred years ago, a popular “history of religions” school of thought. The world had become so dominated by Darwinian evolution that it began to flavor everything—philosophies and religions as well—and so unbelieving scholars had this brilliant idea that religion itself has evolved and made its way up. There was animism and spiritism and finally it worked its way to polytheism and finally then it made its way to monotheism with the Jews. And now it’s been refined a bit more with Christians and we have a Trinitarian monotheism. But religion has evolved over the centuries. And when you look at religion that way, when you look at Christianity that way, you evacuate Christianity of its very distinctive. It is not—Christianity is not, in any sense—our working our way up to God. It is in every sense, and most fundamentally, God coming to us, revealing himself to us, making himself known, and speaking to us.

More popularly and closer to home with us, we’ve had varying kinds of mysticism in the Christian church, where we look inside ourselves to find the light. Again, we’re reasoning our way up to God, and all of that misses the point. Of course, with mysticism, when you look to see God within yourself and find that inner light, inevitably what happens? You end up confusing yourself with God. What I think ends up determining what is and what is true about God.

But the character of the scriptures is that this is God coming to us. The beliefs, the standards that we hold—these are not in any sense the result of our reasoning our way up to God and figuring things out. It is, in every sense, God coming to us, telling us what is true about him, telling us how we may please him, telling us how we may be made right with him. And that then, we saw last time, is the preacher’s job. Very simply, it is to proclaim the testimony of God.

Verse 1: not with lofty speech or wisdom, not in such a way to draw attention to the speaker. You don’t have to help out the message. You don’t need to enhance it. You don’t need to make it more palatable. Just proclaim the testimony of God. And so the preacher’s job, we said, in keeping with verse one, is simply to choose a passage, however long, however short it is, lay it out in its context, follow its train of thought, and expound its argument, uncover its implications, draw out its applications, but it’s simply proclaiming the testimony of God. And preaching ought to be then the point of the passage is the point of the sermon. And that’s what you look for. So that the first piece of counsel then—what do I look for in Christian preaching? What can you expect of us who preach? You ought to be able to say, “What I’m hearing from the pulpit is what I see here in this passage that God has revealed.”

And I mentioned last time, why in the world would anyone go to church for anything else? All right, so Paul says, setting himself up as a model, verse one, “I came proclaiming a message of God.” And now verse two, “I came to proclaim a message from God about the person and work of Jesus Christ.” That’s verse two. “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” That is to say, I have a message from God, and the message from God is about Jesus Christ—who he is and what he has done.

I think it’s difficult, maybe impossible, for us to appreciate fully the stark contrast that Paul is drawing here from chapter 1 to his model in chapter 2. Chapter 1, the message of the cross is foolishness. In that day, when Roman crucifixions were actually conducted and were seen to be such a grotesque, horrible event—a repulsive thing, a topic that is not up for polite conversation. In our day, the cross has been domesticated. We have jewelry shaped into a cross and we put it up on top of our church buildings and it’s been domesticated. In that day, it was a repulsive thing, socially unacceptable in terms of polite conversation. The whole world thinks it’s foolish to think that you have a Savior who was crucified. So you’ve got this crazy idea of someone who died in such a horrible way is actually the triumphant Savior. And Paul says, “That’s my message and that’s all I have to preach. That’s it and that’s all.”

The Exclusiveness Of Paul’s Message

Now, for our purposes this morning, I want you to notice the exclusiveness of what Paul is saying here. Verse 2 again. King James Version translated that, I think, “I determined.” The word in the original here is normally translated “I judged.” The idea is out of a determination. A decision was made after evaluating the alternatives. This is what I’ve decided to do. This is something very intentional. I’ve determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. So Paul intends here to give a definition to the shape and to give shape to Christian preaching. What is Christian ministry all about? Verse 1, I’m proclaiming a message from God. And verse 2, that message from God is about the person and work of Jesus Christ. This is what I’m here for, and this is all I’m here for. I have nothing else to say. I’ve decided—notice the exclusiveness again—I’ve decided, I’ve determined to know nothing else among you, just Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That’s all I have to preach. That’s my whole message.

Well, now then we are left to answer a question. What does that mean? Paul didn’t preach anything but Jesus Christ and Him crucified? It clearly does not mean that Paul in his preaching dwelt only on the scenes of the cross, although he did that in his preaching. That’s not all he did. It does not mean that Paul preached what we would call only evangelistic sermons directed specifically at the lost, aiming at their conversion. He did that. That’s not all he did. We find Paul very often addressing matters of what we call practical Christianity, godly living, things like that. We know from Luke’s record and Paul’s own account that he spoke to subjects of the return of Christ, Christian living, the Christian home, practical godliness. We find all kinds of topics like that in Paul’s preaching and in his writing.

In fact, in Acts chapter 20, when Paul speaks to the elders from the church at Ephesus, reflecting back on his ministry with them, he said, “I was careful. I did not fail to preach the whole counsel of God to you.” And there you have Paul referring back to his ministry in broad strokes: that I preached from Genesis to—can’t say met Revelation—Genesis to Malachi, and now in the fullness of Jesus, who has brought it to full revelation, I preach the whole counsel of God, and in doing that, I preached only Jesus Christ and him crucified.

In Acts chapter 18, we read that Paul was in Corinth for a year and a half preaching to them. Paul was able to write back to his congregations and make references to his previous ministry. “You know that from what I taught you when I was with you, that this and that is so.” And he reflects on topics that he had addressed in their preaching. Matters of practical godliness, relationships in the church, and so on. But still, all of that considered, Paul’s language here is exclusive. I preach nothing else but Jesus Christ and him crucified. So what does that mean? How are we to understand that? Well, here we, I think, get a glimpse into Paul’s—let’s call it the big word—Paul’s hermeneutic. This is how Paul reads his Bible. We get some insight into it. He saw in the Bible that from beginning to end, this is a book about Jesus. And so wherever I am in it, I’m not far from Jesus Christ and him crucified.

So we’re going to take some time and see, try to unpack the significance. What is Paul’s understanding of the Bible through this lens? This specifically is what I was asked to address. I won’t tell you the name of the person who asked me to preach it because I don’t know that Doug Beckley wants to be blamed for my sermon, but we’re gonna take a big overview and see what Paul means then when he says all of the Bible, the whole counsel of God, is about the person and work of Jesus. I determined to know nothing else among you, but Jesus Christ and him crucified.

How do you say that when you’ve preached from Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and so on? Well, we can’t work this out in detail. I’d love to do it in a series of studies sometime. Maybe we can do that. But here, just in broad overview, the Bible, in the whole, moves, as you know. It’s not just a lot of miscellaneous documents. It’s a story. It has a beginning. It has the plot developing. And it has a conclusion. You have it moving from creation to fall to redemption to restoration. There’s the Bible in the whole. In that broad overview, you see Jesus as the center point of it all. Creation, fall, redemption, and restoration.

The Old Testament Anticipation

Let’s break it down. Within the Bible, we have two major divisions. We have the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament is marked by anticipation. Expectation. The whole note of the Old Testament—you’ve heard me say this a hundred times—the whole message of the Old Testament is, “He’s coming.” And it moves from the Old Testament to the New Testament, which is marked by, not expectation, but fulfillment. The Old Testament: he’s coming. New Testament: he has come. He’s here. His name is Jesus. That’s the broad overview.

Back to the Old Testament, we have the Old Testament shaped by some major considerations, primarily the covenants. It’s the backbone of the story of the Old Testament. God making these solemn oath promises sealed in blood that he will do thus and such. We have promises, outstanding promises, and predictions that are made throughout the Old Testament, and these form the backbone and the whole shape and the entire drift of the story of the Old Testament. It establishes the framework of it. Within this, these promises that are given, we have types—that’s the word that’s used, Paul uses that word—patterns, trajectories. We have varied lines of expectations all shaped by those major covenants and promises that are given, and within that you have some other considerations that crop up. We have men, and we have institutions, and we have events, all of which kind of take a life of their own, and they have this anticipatory function pointing ahead to what is finally realized in Jesus.

And with all of that in mind, when Paul preached the Old Testament, he preached it like no other rabbi in town. He sees it from its beginning, its anticipation, to its fulfillment in Jesus. As he opens up the Torah, the books of the law, the Pentateuch—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy—and he sees creation in the fall. And he sees now how that is pointing forward as it’s developed through the Old Testament itself. Pointing forward to a new creation that is coming, which is finally realized in Christ. And then he’ll expound that and say the creation has fallen, but it’s pointing forward. And the prophets tell us of this new creation that is coming. And that new creation has come in Jesus Christ. If any man is in Christ, he’s a new creation. Oh wait, there’s more to come in his return. It’ll be brought to its culmination. Creation to new creation.

When Paul speaks, addresses Adam in the book of Genesis, he sees Adam as a representative head, in whom all of humanity has fallen, and sin has entered into the world through that one act of disobedience of Adam. But Adam, he says, was a type. He was a pattern. He points ahead to Jesus, who was also like Adam, except in a contrasting way. Adam was disobedient, Jesus was obedient. Through Adam’s disobedience, this representative head brought death and condemnation to humanity. Through this Adam’s obedience, he brings life and righteousness and justification to all of those for whom he is a representative.

We have the same with the seventh day, the rest in the book of Genesis. It works its way, this rest that was given that when God rested on the seventh day, it has an anticipatory function. It looks ahead to a rest that is finally accomplished in Christ. There’s another, there’s a rest on the seventh day in Genesis chapter two. There’s the seventh day rest that is given in the law of Moses that Israel is to follow. Israel going into Canaan, into the land, was bringing them into their rest. We get to the New Testament, all of that was pointing forward to a greater rest that was realized in Jesus.

Genesis 12, and we have the Abrahamic promise. In your seed, all of the nations, all the families of the world will be blessed. That promise is reaffirmed to Isaac, Jacob, to be affirmed with Judah in a particular kind of way. He’ll be the ruler. He’ll have the ruler’s staff and he’ll be the king. Someone from his tribe will be the ruler. And then throughout the rest of the book of Genesis, we see God preserving his people in order to fulfill that promise that he’d made back to Abraham. And all through the book of Genesis, there’s challenge after challenge after challenge, whether it’s childlessness, or opposition, or seeming death, or maybe the sacrifice of Isaac. There’s just challenge after challenge. How is God going to keep this promise? Old messages, drifts toward God keeping his promise that in Abraham’s seed, all the families of the world will be blessed.

We come to the book of Exodus. We have this great deliverance from Egypt. And that deliverance from Egypt, the great Exodus, becomes in the Old Testament itself, it becomes a template, a pattern, setting a trajectory of what God will do for his people. He delivered his people from slavery. He delivered his people from their enemies under Moses. He delivered his people from their enemies under David. He delivered his people from captivity in Babylon, from their exile. And somewhere along the way, this deliverance, deliverance, deliverance thing takes on a life of its own and has an anticipatory function. It’s looking ahead to a greater deliverance that will come. The people are in exile. God brings them back. The language used to describe it goes far beyond their coming back from Babylon. A greater deliverance will come. We have the Passover. We have the various sacrifices established in the Law of Moses. And we have them repeated, and repeated, and repeated. And every year you have the annual Day of Atonement again, and then next year again, and next year again. And pretty soon you’re asking, after the centuries of all of this, you’re asking, whatever this is doing, it’s not accomplishing a lot. It must be pointing forward to something new.

And you get to the New Testament, and it’s “Christ our Passover is slain for us.” You have the ceremonial institutions established in the law. Temple, priest, sacrifice. The temple—that’s where God meets with men. That’s Jesus; that’s where God meets with men. You have the priesthood who mediates between God and men. That’s Jesus; he’s the priest. But it’s not just a temple and a priest; it’s a temple with a priest there offering sacrifice. That’s sacrifice—that’s Jesus too. He’s a priest like no other. He not only mediates between God and men and offers sacrifice, he is himself the sacrifice that is given in behalf of his people.

We have the covenant promises and the covenant curses in the law. God says he brings Israel out of Egypt and Mount Sinai. He gives them a law—this is their constitution, bringing them together as a nation, forming them as a people as he promised to Abraham. The whole character of the law is: if you, then I. If you are faithful, I will bless. You’re not faithful, I will curse. We have covenant promises and the covenant curses. And the whole problem, of course, is that Israel was never faithful. And over and again, she fails and she fails and she fails until finally, the covenant curses are brought in and she ends up in exile. God brings her back. But all of that, pointing his way forward, Jesus comes. He’s the faithful Israel. He keeps the terms of the covenant and yet he takes the covenant curses on himself in place of his people to bear their punishment for them.

Even the commanding aspects of the law, they have their prospective function. They look forward and point ahead to the law given in Christ with its higher standards. And we turn to the books of history. We have Joshua taking his people into the land, the promised land, into their rest. All of that pointing ahead to a greater Joshua, bringing them into their rest, bringing us into our inheritance that God has promised.

You turn the page, you come to the book of Judges. And over and again, you read that refrain: there was no king in Israel. People did what was right in their own eyes. And there was no king in Israel. People did that which is right in their own eyes, and there was no king in Israel. You read it over and again, and you get through that, and you think, “Okay, this is someone after the fact writing back before there was a king in Israel,” but he’s noting that these people need a king.

Then you turn the page and you read this lovely story, Book of Ruth, the significance of which you wonder, what in the world is that all—beautiful story, but what’s the point? Okay, you’ve got a glimpse of a faithful family here in the midst of an apostate generation, that’s good, but what’s the point? And you don’t get the point until you get to the final verses of the book. It’s Boaz and Ruth, great-grandparents of David. Ah, okay. You’ve read the rest of the chapter of the book, you know where that’s going. Then you turn the page and you go to Samuel. And you’ve got Saul, a failed king, a miserable king, an apostate. But then David. Man after God’s own heart. David blew it too, several times, in some big ways. But he was a man after God’s own heart.

God made David a promise. He says, “I’ll give you a son. And he’ll reign on your throne forever universally.” Now he must be a faithful son. If he disobeys, I’ll punish him with the rod of men. But your son will reign on your throne forever. And you get this tension built into the storyline. God’s made a solemn promise to David. He’ll have a son, but he’s got to be faithful.

But who in the world—and you turn the page and you come to the book of Kings and Chronicles, and you have one son of David after another, after another, and they blow it, and they blow it, and they blow it. You got a few sprinkled in there who are faithful, but overall they blow it, and they blow it, and they blow it. They’re unfaithful, and God punishes them with the rod of man. He sends them off into exile. But where is this promised son?

A little bit of hope left open at the end of Chronicles. Cyrus says, “Go back to your home.” Okay, the hope is still there. It’s just a shadow of what it was, but the hope is still there. And then there’s Ezra and Nehemiah. They’re back in the land and the nation is just a shadow of what it once was, but they’re there and the hope is still alive. And you have this glimpse of Esther back in Persia and the people of God are about to be exterminated and God miraculously saves them and hope again. God is keeping his promise and keeping his promise. All of history moving forward to what God has now brought to pass in Jesus.

You turn to the book of Psalms and here we read of a king. And he’s presented in his ideal. We’ve been seeing this in our series of studies. The king is presented in his ideal. He’s a faithful king. He loves and treasures God’s word. He’s a righteous man. He rules in righteousness. He cares for his people. He has an eye for the poor and the disadvantaged and he protects them. And in fact, his kingdom is universal. He reigns everywhere over all people in righteousness. And you read through the Psalms and you see this ideal king and ideal kingdom over and over again.

Who in the world is that talking about? None of David’s sons in the past have lived up to that. Okay, God’s promise is still alive. You turn the page, you come from the writings to the prophets. And here the prophets tell us some stupendous things that God is going to do. There’s this marvelous Day of the Lord coming. The world’s had its day, but the day is coming when it’s gonna be God’s day. He’s moving into history and the wicked will be destroyed. All of his enemies put out and all of his people will be vindicated. And God will establish his kingdom the world over. He’ll send his servant David, like we read this morning, Ezekiel chapter 34. God will move in and he’ll establish his king over the entire earth.

The prophets tell us he’ll be virgin born. He’ll be a royal son, a son of David. He’ll take the government on his own shoulders. He’ll reign universally. At the same time, he’ll be the faithful servant of the Lord. Not only a servant to the Lord, but he will suffer. Suffer, but not for his own sins. He’ll suffer in awful kinds of ways, in an unprecedented way. And yet, the servant is one before whom princes and kings will prostrate themselves.

Who is this servant who is coming? He’ll establish a new covenant. It’s not going to be like that old covenant. God established a covenant with Israel at Mount Sinai. That didn’t work. Nothing wrong with the covenant. It was pure and holy and just and all of that. But the people—there’s something wrong with them. So they couldn’t keep the terms of that covenant. That covenant said, “Do this and I’ll bless you and don’t do it and you’ll be judged for it.” And that just doesn’t work for a sinful people.

And so the prophet says, God’s going to establish a new covenant and it’ll be new terms entirely. God says, “Under the terms of this covenant, I’ll forgive their sins and I’ll put it in their heart to follow me.” Paul reads through all of that and he says, “Don’t you see? All of it is pushing us forward. It’s driving us relentlessly to what has now come about here at the end of the ages in Jesus Christ.”

So the Old Testament is not just about Jesus in the sense that it’s a prediction here and there and there again, but the whole drift of the Old Testament is moving us forward in terms of its broad structure, in terms of the particulars working its way forward. It has this anticipatory look, looking ahead to Jesus.

The New Testament Fulfillment

And then we come to the New Testament, where we have the fullest revelation of God given. And again, the whole subject of it all is Jesus. The gospel writers portray Jesus in light of the Old Testament and how he fulfills it. He’s here, he’s the king, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. He has unprecedented authority over every possible realm, even the authority to forgive sins. His name, by the way, is Jesus, Yeshua. The Lord saves, and his name is “the Lord saves” because he is the Lord who saves. Or if you like to ask John, he’s the lamb who takes away the sin of the world. He’s here. All of that was pointing forward. And finally he has come.

And then in the gospels, remarkably, we find Jesus himself preaching. He says several times that purpose calls. “I’ve come to preach. I’ve come to proclaim, to preach.” And what is it he’s come to proclaim? The remarkable thing about the preaching of Jesus—the whole subject of his preaching is himself. It’s an amazing thing. Why would you think of that? If the subject of my preaching was bread, it’s a horrible thing. But with Jesus, the whole subject of his preaching was himself. He comes and announces, “Moses wrote of me. If you’d believe Moses, you’d believe me because Moses wrote of me.” And those marvelous “I am” sayings that Pastor Boyd is taking us through. “I am the door, I am the true vine.” Everything that Israel was supposed to be, I am. “I am the way, I am the truth, I’m the life, I’m the resurrection.” His whole preaching was himself.

Matthew 20, he positions himself as Isaiah’s servant. “I’ve not come to be served, I’ve come to serve and to give my life a ransom for many.” Matthew chapter 28, and in fact all of the four of the Gospels. Just before his death: “This blood, this cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” It is in my death that I’m enacting this promised covenant in which God will move in grace to forgive sins. He presents himself as the king. Demands utter allegiance over everything else. Matthew chapter five, his famous Sermon on the Mount. He lays out the charter of his kingdom. Here are the demands. Here’s what you will be like if you are in my kingdom.

And from there we move to the epistles. And the epistles are all given to expounding the implications of Jesus. He’s the Lord of glory. He’s the one who brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. The epistles throughout are unpacking and unfolding the wonderful dimensions of Jesus’ saving work. He accomplishes forgiveness of sins by paying the debt that his people owed. Having given himself in sacrifice for sins in place of his people, God’s wrath is satisfied. And as a result of the satisfaction of God’s anger against sinners, we are reconciled, redeemed from the curse, set free from it and reconciled to God. In fact, we’re made God’s sons because we’re now in union with Jesus, his son. And with all of that then there’s the various moral and ethical implications of what it looks like to be raised with Christ and to live with him. And then finally we end up in the book of Revelation with this grand drama of conflict between the world and Christ and Christ’s final triumph over it all. And finally we have the full realization of God’s rule in the earth. Genesis to Revelation, the whole book is about Jesus.

I’d love to pick apart particulars and all of that—that’s for another time. But that’s what Paul has in mind evidently in verse two here when he says, “Jesus Christ and him crucified is all that I preach.” I proclaim the whole counsel of God, but it all centers on Jesus.

The Means Of Moral Transformation

Now, as I said, Paul is intending here in this passage to set up his example as a model for us. So what does this tell us about Christian preaching? What should we look for? What is the distinction of Christian preaching? And it is simply this: wherever we begin, whatever text, we’re not far from Jesus Christ and him crucified. I’ve told my students, if you preach from the book of Psalms or the book of Proverbs in such a way that a rabbi could sit there and listen and say, “That was really good, I could give that to my people,” you’ve missed something. There’s a Christian distinctive now to the whole of Scripture. In the Old Testament it’s pointing forward and it’s preparing the way. We get to the book of Psalms, as I’ve said before in our series, it’s not about you. It’s about Jesus. Now it’s for you and it’s for your benefit, but it’s for you and for your benefit only because first it’s about Jesus.

And it’s the same as we go through; we get to the Gospels. I’m sure we’ve all heard it. You get to the Gospels and somehow each little story is about you instead of about Jesus. So Jesus is caught out in a storm, calms the storm. And the sermon is, “Jesus can calm the storms of your life.” We forget this is not about you. What that passage is about, by the way, as Mark tells us very plainly—the disciples are out in a boat and they say, “What kind of man is this that even the wind and the seas obey him?” It’s about him. Opening chapters of the Gospels, Matthew in particular, Luke—this is the turning point of history. He’s here, it’s all about him, God has promised, and here he has come.

And you get to the epistles. And what the apostles are intent to do in the epistles is simply expound the glories of Christ, person and work, in all of their implications, including their implications with regard to Christian living. So when he deals with salvation, salvation is not just a thing that God gives you. It’s not just a privilege that God gives you. It’s a safety you have precisely because and only because you are in faith union with Jesus Christ, the Savior. And I want to take a moment with this as well. This Christ-centeredness of scripture shapes the apostolic exhortations to Christian living and godly living—practical Christian living as we call it. This Christ-centeredness shapes all of that as well.

When Paul preaches ethics and morals and says you should behave like this and you should talk like that, you should think like the other, you should feel like this, it’s not mere moralism. There’s a Christ context to all of it. And that’s the significance, by the way, of the “therefores” that we have characteristically in Paul’s epistles. He expounds the person and work of Christ and says “therefore,” and he starts expounding on Christian living as well.

There is always in the epistles, consistently through them all—the back half of the epistles very often get to practical exhortation about how to live and so on. But consistently, we have in the epistles, if not an explicit “therefore,” we have a specific Christian context to the exhortation.

So for example, in Romans chapter six, Paul does not simply say, “Don’t sin.” What he says is, “You are in union with Jesus Christ. In him, you have died. That old life is gone. In Jesus, you’ve been raised to a new life. You are not the old person you used to be.” This union with Christ is not just a mere theoretical thing. There’s an experiential aspect to it. You’ve been raised to new life in Christ. Therefore, live like it. Therefore, don’t sin.

Or in Romans chapter eight: You don’t sin. Why? Why shouldn’t you? Because you don’t have to anymore. A new dominating factor has come in your life. You are to mortify sin, put sin to death. Why? Because now you are led by the Spirit. You’re no longer dominated by sin, you’re no longer dominated by the flesh. The dominating factor in your life now is the Spirit of God has come, purchased by Jesus Christ himself, and he has come to take control of your life. Therefore, the law of the Lord can be fulfilled in you.

Philippians chapter two, the apostle Paul doesn’t just say, “Work out your own salvation.” He says, “Work out your salvation because… because it is God who works in you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” Ephesians chapter one, the very power of God at work in raising Christ from the dead is at work in you. All of the thrust of the exhortations that Paul gives are grounded in what Christ has done. And so it’s: be faithful because now you can. And the thrust of it is not simply “do this and do the other.” The thrust of it is: be what you are. You’ve been made something in Jesus. Now live accordingly.

He deals with Christian relationships with one another. There’s that gospel standard if it’s sin in the church. Unconfessed sin in the church by some member, also put him out. Why? Well, because Scripture tells us, “Purge out the old leaven. Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed for us.” When it comes to personal relationships in the church, it’s the same. “Be tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ’s sake, has forgiven you. Love one another as Christ has loved you. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” Always there’s this Christ context of the exhortations.

My time is about up. There’s one more matter I want to press. I want you to follow this. This is extremely important. The significance of preaching Christ goes further than that. It not only provides the context, it’s not only the leading subject of our preaching, but the preaching of Christ is itself—the preaching of Christ is itself the means of moral transformation. If we want people’s lives to be transformed from the heart outward, scriptures say: preach Christ. That’s Paul’s argument here in chapter one as well.

The argument is simply the gospel message is foolish to the people. They hear it and naturally think, “This just makes no sense. It’s foolish.” But Paul says, “Look at what it did for you. It’s changed your life.” Paul does the same in 2 Corinthians 3. You preach Christ and you hear of him and somehow our character is transformed by it. From one level of glory to the next and so on.

There’s one passage I want you to see here. We’ll just look at it quickly, but look at Titus chapter 3. Titus chapter 3. Notice verse 4: “When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out richly on us through Jesus Christ, our Savior, so that, being justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

Now we could spend our whole hour here, but just quickly notice, this is a marvelous summary of the person and work of Christ. This is Paul’s whole message. Jesus is the appearance of the goodness and loving-kindness of God our Savior. His work, verse 5, “he saved us.” Verse 7, “he justified us by his grace.” In all of that we have encapsulized the whole message of Paul: that in the cross work of Christ, he has taken our place, borne our sin, borne the curse of our sin for it, and his righteousness given to us, and we are saved then, justified before God, not by anything we have done, but because of what Christ has done for us.

How is that? Well, it’s not by works done by us in righteousness, but by his mercy, by the washing of regeneration, renewal by the Holy Spirit. It’s all of grace. God is at work in us to do it. Well, how did that work of the regeneration come to us? Answer, verse six: the Holy Spirit whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior. And the result is, being justified by his grace, we become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

Now, marvelous summary of Paul’s gospel ministry. A message of grace in Christ. Now notice verse eight. The message of gospel of Christ is not just an evangelistic message to the lost. And notice verse 8 carefully: “This saying,” that is what he has just said in verses 4 and following regarding the person and the work of Christ, “this saying is trustworthy. And I want you to insist on these things so that,” here’s the purpose clause, “you insist on this message of Christ so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works.”

You see that? It’s fascinating. Preach the gospel of Christ to believers so that they will live godly lives. Isn’t that fascinating? The gospel is not just a message for the lost. The gospel is a message to be preached to believers precisely so that they will learn to live godly lives. I dare say that’s your experience and it’s mine. We need the law preached. We need to have the exhortations how to live. We have to have it informing our conscience, directing our thinking. We got to know what it is God requires of me. And all of that has a necessary and a shaping influence in the Christian message. And in fact, you preach the whole counsel of God. There are endless life lessons and so on. And all of that is a necessary part of Christian preaching.

But we learn here that there’s nothing that moves the heart of the believer to be like Christ like hearing about him. Preach him in all of his grace, in the glories of his work and of his person, so that his people will be careful to live godly lives.

When I hear, when you hear a preacher say, “You must do this, you must be like this, you must live like that,” we need to hear that. It informs our conscience, and if you’re a believer, you go away from something like that resolved. But when Christ is preached in his glory and his grace, something distinctive happens. And that is the heart is moved, the will is transformed to comply, and our ambitions are shaped in simply what he says here in verse eight: those who have believed, believers, they become careful to devote themselves to good works.

So Paul preaches morals and he preaches ethics often. It’s a regular feature of his letters, but consistently it’s because of what Christ has done in you. This then is the distinctive of Christianity. Jesus Christ and Him crucified—it is our specific focus. He’s the hero of the message. And that message alone has the power to change a heart, to transform a life.

So back to the question we asked last time: what is it we should look for? Both here, those of us who preach here, for a new guy coming in, what is it you should look for?

Number one, verse one: what you hear from the pulpit is what you see in the passage. And number two: when he expounds the passage at hand, you hear a lot about Jesus. Each passage has its context, each context has its larger context, and that’s the preacher’s job. Paul calls it laboring in the word. It’s demanding, but that’s the job.

Now that doesn’t mean, of course, that the specific focus of every sermon is the same; it’s not. Focus varies from context to context. Isaiah 53 is not 1 Timothy 3, Qualification of Deacons. Philippians 2 and the great descent of Christ and his work is not the same as Romans 14 exhorting us how to live with one another and so on.

But Jesus Christ and him crucified is not reserved only to those passages that expound those themes specifically. In every exhortation, there’s this context. Gospel, Christ is not left to the atmosphere.

So what do we expect from the preacher? You expect to see in the passage what you’re hearing from the pulpit. And as you listen, you hear a lot about Jesus. And I’ll say it again what I said last week: why in the world else would you go to church? This is what you have a right to expect from the pulpit. And why else would you go to church? What else would you want to hear?

Whatever your specific circumstances, whatever the context you come to church from, what other message would you want to hear? You’re suffering, bereaved, disappointed, concerned, tempted, fallen. What other message would you want to hear? Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

When I was a kid in church, the auditorium in the church, on the wall above the baptistry behind the pulpit, had it on the wall, the words: “We preach Christ crucified, risen, and coming again.” You want to know what we preach? That’s it. That’s what we’re about. I’ve seen it in other churches; they take their cue from John chapter 12, where the Greeks come to the disciples, “Sirs, we would see Jesus.”

Our purpose today is to take into consideration what we should look for in light of the place where we are in the history of the church, but this is what we are to look for. Pray for us who do it, expect it of us. This is what we are here to do.

Amen. Let’s pray. Our Father, what a wonderful book this is, written over so many centuries by so many different human authors, and yet to see above it all, the hand of God directing all things toward his redemptive purpose that centers in Christ. We pray that you will strengthen our faith because of it. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen.