It doesn't matter what the audience is
Whether one ministers in a big city or a small town; whether one is trying to reach the cultural elite or the illiterate and uneducated; whether one is involved in a student or senior ministry; whether one leads a single adult ministry or teaches classes to married young people; In any of these cases, Christ crucified must be the dominant message. With a trumpet voice for all to hear, Jesus Christ must be the note that resounds in the preaching.
This foundational truth of Christ, and Him crucified, must be engraved in the soul of every preacher. This is what God requires of every man He calls to proclaim His Word. The predominant theme in preaching should be the person and work of Christ.
I ask: does this Christ-centered message describe your preaching? Are you known for proclaiming Christ, and Him crucified? Is your ministry summed up in this concise statement: We preach Christ, and Him crucified?
The preeminence and centrality of Jesus Christ must be a truth in every pulpit.
A direct path to the cross
A great preacher who proclaimed Christ crucified with unparalleled success was the nineteenth-century British minister Charles Haddon Spurgeon. This “Prince of Preachers” believed that Christ should be the focus of every sermon. Whatever his passage, Spurgeon announced: “I take my text and go straight to the cross.” In other words, every time he stood in the pulpit, he was persistent in fixing his attention firmly on Christ, and on Him crucified.
A sermon without Christ, Spurgeon insisted, is a sermon without grace. Such a sermon, he claimed, has no good news to announce:
A sermon without Christ is a horrible, horrible thing. It is an empty well; a cloud without rain; a tree twice dead, uprooted. It is an abominable thing to give men stones instead of bread and scorpions instead of eggs, but that is what those who do not preach Jesus do. A sermon without Christ is like talking about a piece of bread without any flour! How could I feed the soul? Men die and perish because Christ is not present.
Preaching that God honors
Simply put, God the Father honors preaching that honors His Son. If our proclamation departs from its glorious focus, God's blessing will depart from it. God will abandon preaching that abandons Christ.
Therefore, let us commit ourselves to preaching Christ, and Him crucified. While we are in our pulpit, let us never lose sight of the cross. Let us always preach as if we were under the shadow of Calvary. Christ crucified must remain the central matter of everything we say.
The main thing is to keep the main thing as the main thing; and that is simply preaching Christ.
Excerpted from the book "Preaching That God Blesses" by Steve J. Lawson
