The nature of saving faith makes preaching Christ necessary devotionally. While saving faith receives the whole Word of God because it is God’s Word, “the principal acts of saving faith are accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace” (WCF 14.1).

When a man and a woman are engaged to be married they can hardly talk about anything else. In fact, we might suspect that something is wrong if they don’t express excitement about the wedding. The church is espoused to Christ and looks forward to the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:6-9). Christ’s love compelled Paul’s preaching (2 Cor. 5:14) and he denounced himself with maledictions if he failed to preach the gospel (1 Cor. 9:16). In the end, ministers must preach Christ because they want to preach Christ. Christ should be central to their sermons because both preachers and listeners cannot bear to be without him whom their souls love (Song 3:1).

This post is the third and final one treating the proper methods of preaching Christ. It shows that preaching Christ is more a matter of the heart than the application of method. Preaching Christ is not ultimately a technique. Preaching Christ is a devotionally necessary response to the preacher’s relation to Christ. Paul summarized the aims of the gospel in terms of preaching “repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21). The nature of saving faith and repentance, through which we exercise hope and love, highlights the reasons behind this devotional necessity.

The nature of saving faith makes preaching Christ necessary devotionally. While saving faith receives the whole Word of God because it is God’s Word, “the principal acts of saving faith are accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace” (WCF 14.1). Christ is the pioneer and the perfector of our faith (Heb. 12:2). Faith involves being confident that God is able to perform whatever he promises (Rom. 4:21). Christ is both the example and object of faith for believers. Without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6). Faith trusts that if we pray according to God’s will he hears us (1 Jn. 5:14-15). Faith teaches us to pray in Christ’s name (Jn. 14:13-14), asking mercy from God for his sake and “drawing our encouragement to pray, and our boldness, strength, and hope of acceptance in prayer, from Christ and his mediation” (WLC 180). Ministers preach hoping that those hearing them will either come to faith in Christ or that they will grow in their faith in Christ (Eph. 4:13). Their own faith in Christ and their desire to foster saving faith in others must always lead them to preach Christ as the object of faith.

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