God-Centered Evangelism

FROM Keith Mathison Oct 29, 2010 Category: Book Reviews

God-Centered Evangelism If I have heard it once, I’ve heard it a thousand times: “A Calvinist evangelist?
Isn’t that an oxymoron? Calvinism undermines evangelism.” This accusation has been repeated so many
times that few make the effort to argue it. Instead, it is simply assumed. Never mind that some of the
church’s greatest evangelists have been Calvinists. One need only be reminded of men such as George
Whitefield, David Brainerd, or “the father of modern missions,” William Carey. “Yes,” we are told, “these
men were great evangelists and Calvinists, but that is because they were inconsistent.” But is this true?

The fact of the matter is that Calvinism is not inconsistent with evangelism; it is only inconsistent with
certain evangelistic methods. It is inconsistent, for example, with the emotionally manipulative methods
created by revivalists such as Charles Finney. But these manipulative methods are themselves
inconsistent with Scripture, so it is no fault to reject them. In order for evangelism to be pleasing to God,
it must be consistent with the whole system of biblical teaching. But what does such evangelism look
like?

A classic answer to that question is found in R.B. Kuiper’s little book God-Centred Evangelism (Banner of
Truth). This book surveys the entire biblical scope of teaching on the subject of evangelism. Kuiper
defines evangelism quite simply as “the promulgation of the evangel.” It is, in other words, the
proclamation of the gospel. Kuiper explains that his book “is a plea for God–centered, in
contradistinction to man-centered, evangelism.” The book, then, presents a theology of evangelism.

The first chapters set forth some of the essential theological presuppositions for God-centered
evangelism. Kuiper explains that God Himself is the author of evangelism, in that before the foundation
of the world, He planned the salvation of sinners. This leads directly into chapter-length discussions of
God’s love, His election of sinners, and His covenant. After setting forth these basic theological
foundations, Kuiper then deals with various biblical aspects of evangelism, beginning with the
sovereignty of God and the Great Commission.

In the Great Commission, Jesus commands His followers to make disciples of “all nations.” The scope of
evangelism, then, is universal. The gospel is to be proclaimed to all. If we truly believe what Scripture
tells us about the necessity of faith in Christ for salvation, then the urgency of evangelism will become
evident. A number of heterodox theologies undermine the urgency of evangelism by teaching that
unbelievers will get a “second chance” after death. There is, however, no biblical warrant for such
teaching, and to assert it is pure presumption.

Our primary motivation for evangelism should be love of God and love of neighbor. Those who love God
will joyfully obey His commission to evangelize and disciple. Those who love their neighbor will desire
nothing greater for them than eternal life. Their aim will be to see God glorified through the salvation of
sinners like themselves in order that the church would grow.

The God-ordained means of evangelism is His own Word. It is through the proclamation of God’s Word
that the Holy Spirit effectually works faith in men’s hearts. The specific message of evangelism is the
gospel. Paul summarizes this message in 1 Corinthians 15:3–5: “For I delivered to you as of first
importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he
was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared
to Cephas, then to the twelve.” When those who hear the gospel ask what they must do to be saved,
Scripture tells us that the answer is: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your
household” (Acts 16:31).

In the final chapters of his book, Kuiper surveys issues such as zeal for evangelism, the biblical method of
evangelism, cooperation in evangelism, resistance to evangelism, and the triumph of evangelism. He
reminds us that we can proclaim the gospel with great hope, looking forward to seeing the fruits of our
evangelism, a time when “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all
tribes and peoples and languages” will stand before the throne of the Lamb, clothed in white and crying
out, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Rev. 7:9–10).

For too long, the church has attempted to achieve a worthy goal through worldly means. Let us heed
Kuiper’s plea and leave man-centered Madison Avenue methods behind. May we fulfill the Great
Commission in a God-glorifying manner.

Gospel-Centered Evangelism

Hi friends, I just finished the first draft of my forthcoming book, The High-Definition Leader: Building
Multiethnic Churches in a Multiethnic World. Here is a sneak peek. I sure hope it encourages you.

Ninety-four percent of local churches in America are not growing.

This should break our hearts. This statistic means that more and more people in America don’t know the
redemptive power of Jesus Christ. This fact will increase divorce, addiction, injustice, greed, sexual
immorality, idolatry, oppression, and a multitude of other sins that destroy people’s lives. We need
evangelistic local churches, fueled by Christ-followers who see themselves as missionaries. We need
“Good News” local churches filled with “Good News” people.
So what does high-definition evangelism look like? Here are three characteristics of gospel-centered
evangelism for a multiethnic world:

1) Evangelism must be rooted in a gospel-centered vision.

What is the Good News? It’s the announcement that Israel’s Messiah has accomplished what he came to
do. Jesus has defeated sin, death, and evil through his sinless life, his atoning death on the cross, his
resurrection, and his ascension to the right hand of his father, where he is now our high priest.

Jesus now rules his kingdom at the right hand of God the papa. By grace alone, through the Holy Spirit’s
power, people who trust in Jesus are swept up into his glorious kingdom. This redeemed, multicolored
people become a “chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,” proclaiming the “excellencies of him
who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2:9–10, ESV).

2) Evangelism must be rooted in gospel-centered worship.

Gospel-centered worship is not simply singing, but a lifestyle submerged, interwoven, and united to
Jesus’ very life. When worship is a lifestyle, evangelism is not an activity but an identity. A congregation
that sees all of life as worship is a passionate, Spirit-enabled missionary/evangelist community. When
we live this way we see ourselves as fishers of men in our workplaces, schools and homes. The love of
Christ compels us to live a life of worship in all that we do.

When worship is a lifestyle, evangelism is not an activity but an identity.

3) Evangelism must be rooted in gospel-centered discipleship.

Discipleship isn’t knowing more information about Jesus, but knowing Jesus personally and being
transformed into his image through the constant exposure of the gospel of grace in the context of a
local church. Jesus’ life and mission becomes ours as we live by faith in him in the everydayness of life by
the Spirit’s power as his church. The deeper a person’s discipleship, the deeper they go into the culture
to reach lost people.

A disciple becomes like the teacher, and our teacher is Jesus who came “to seek and save the lost” (Luke
19:10). Our teacher said, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men” (Matt. 4:19). We believe that
spiritually mature people love Jesus and want lost people to love him, too.

Evangelism in the 21st century is the same as the 1st century: saved people longing to see unsaved
people come to know Jesus.

Marinate on that.
FEBRUARY 1, 1994

The Supremacy of God in World Evangelism

Resource by John Piper Topic: World Missions

This is the first message in the series, “The Supremacy of God in World Evangelism.”

The following is a lightly edited transcript.

Thank you, Todd, and thank you all for coming and for inviting me. What I’d like to do to begin with is
bring you right up to speed as to how I understand my mission here today and in my church in words
that are newer and fresh for me. They come from a text in Matthew 24, and I’m going to give it to you
and then try to explain to you why I’m here and why I do what I do at Bethlehem Baptist in Minneapolis.
The text is Matthew 24:12–14:

Because wickedness is multiplied, most men’s love will grow cold. But he who endures to the end will be
saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the world as a testimony to all the
nations and then the end will come.

Now what I hear in those verses is the juxtaposition of two surprising things. The end of the age is going
to be with a glacier. Robert Frost: “Some say the world will end by fire; some say by ice.” Well, this text
says ice. “The love of many will grow cold.” So I picture the end of the age coming with a great glacier of
lovelessness moving across the world and across the church, and the love of many growing cold, verse
12.

But when you juxtapose that with verse 14: “This gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout
the whole world as a testimony to all the nations” — you know somebody’s love has not grown cold.
These are primarily the people that are taking that gospel, because verse 9 says, “When you go to those
nations they’re going to kill you and hate you. You will be hated by all the nations.”

Torching the Glacier

So what you described in verse 14 is a band of people who are going to finish this work. This gospel of
the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world as a testimony to all the nations who will kill
them and hate them, and then the end will come; and those are not cold people. Those are not loveless
people. In other words, the end of the age is not all dark and it is not all cold. My job here at
Westminster is to torch the glacier. I’m going to write a book one of these days called “Torching the
Glacier,” and I hope I get it done before Jesus comes because then it would be pointless.

But there’s a glacier on every seminary campus. There’s a glacier moving in on every church. There’s a
glacier in every city. And God is going to raise up at least fifty of you to torch the glacier, and I hope all of
you will torch the glacier. So my job here in these three messages that I have to give is basically to torch
the glacier of creeping coolness, lukewarmness, indifference, settling in, taking on the contemporary
culture of comfort and letting the world go to Hell without any thought that that might make a
difference in any pastor’s life. I want to torch that glacier in your life this morning. And my pastoral
strategy for torching it at my church and torching it everywhere I go is simply to kindle a vision of God.
And that vision is heavy on God’s heart and is what God is most passionate about.

My job at Bethlehem with regard to missions is to kindle a fervor for missions and recruit missionaries
and stir up support in senders for missionaries and to build missionary budgets and all of that, but that’s
not the strategy. That’s just sort of the few things that have to happen if the job is going to get done. My
strategy is to teach and preach and live the centrality of God in all things and the supremacy of God in all
things. That’s my basic strategy for missions — to teach and preach and live the centrality and the
supremacy of God in all things.

Worship Fuels Mission

One of the effects of that at my church I pray — though in recent days I have had reason to believe there
is more opposition than I ever dreamed — is that earnest heartfelt passionate worship be cultivated in
our life as a family of believers. Because worship is simply the echo of the excellency of God made
supreme in all of life. What echoes out of the life in all of its forms is his worth and his value. And
worship is the fuel and the goal of missions. Without worship, missions won’t be fueled aright and
missions won’t be done all right if its goal is not the worship of the peoples of this great supreme God.

Here’s another way to describe the strategy: missions for us is not the ultimate goal of the church. I’ve
seen books that say it’s the number one priority. But it cannot be the ultimate goal of the church.
Worship is the ultimate goal of the church, and missions exists because worship doesn’t. One of these
days, when the Lord Jesus wraps up this world, missions will be no more — it is a temporary stop-gap
measure because among thousands of people groups in the world he is not duly worshiped. Thus
missions come into being as a temporary, necessary, secondary means of accomplishing the ultimate
purpose, which is the nations worshiping God.

Until we see the greatness of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ and until we are stunned by the
majesty of God’s power and his freedom, we will not have any lasting mission in the church. The worship
is the fuel — you can’t commend God if you haven’t tasted God. You can’t commend him to the nations
if you aren’t ravished with him. It’ll be all work and duty if you haven’t tasted God — that he is good.

And if his word isn’t sweeter than honey to your taste and if it isn’t a reward to you, and if it isn’t more
precious than gold, yea much fine gold; if that experience isn’t on you in worship what will you
commend to the nations? And so worship is the fuel, and when you’re out there you have no other goal
but to draw the nations into that experience of God, which means it’s the fuel and the goal of missions.

Supremacy of God in Everything

Now what I want to do this morning is show you an insight that made this live for me. I think the raw
contours of what I just said I would have nodded to a long time ago growing up in a Christian home. But
it did not hit me until this truth came home to me. That when I say, my goal in life and ministry is to
teach and preach and live the supremacy of God in everything, the everything includes God. Now let me
say it with that.

“The ultimate foundation for our passion to see God glorified is his passion to be glorified himself.”
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The teaching and preaching and living of the supremacy of God is to reveal to the world the supremacy
of God to God, that God is supreme in God’s heart, and when that grips you, that the most ultimate
value to God is God, then, at least for me, the sparks began to fly in my talking about the ultimate value
of God to me and in my ministry. The ultimate foundation for our passion to see God glorified is his
passion to be glorified himself. He is the center of his own affections. He will brook no competition at all,
even in his own heart.

God is not an idolater. He will not be denied the highest pleasures of the universe, namely worship, and
he will not worship anything but what is infinitely worthy — himself namely. This is why the Father,
when he beholds the whole panorama of his perfections in the fullness of his Son says, “This is my loved
son.” I love my son because my Son is me in full perfection, radiant. God is not an idolater.

And when he beholds himself standing forth in the fullness and the perfections of his son, and in his
Holy Spirit loves his Son and his Son loves him, what you find there is a God totally and absolutely self-
sufficient, and thus free and able to be there for his people.

Why Do You Exist, God?

I always asked questions in college like Why do I exist? Why am I here? What is my life for? But I didn’t
ask Why do you exist, God? What’s your reason for being? What do you love with all your heart and soul
and mind and strength? How do you fulfill the great and first commandment? I never even asked that
question, so it had no power over me. But when I began to ask it to Scripture (Jonathan Edwards is the
one who forced me to ask it basically), I began to see that God will not deny himself the highest of
pleasures; he will delight with infinite energy in his glory.

Now I want to show you that reality just from a string of texts. You’ll have time to look these up with
me. I’ll just walk you through a few of the high points of redemptive history to show you. If you want the
whole book, just go to the library and get the works of Edwards and read Dissertation Concerning the
End for Which God Created the World, and you will find hundreds of texts that just absolutely blew me
away in 1970.

Everything to Uphold the Riches of His Glory

Why Did God Create the World?

What you will find in these texts is that God does everything he does, from creation to consummation,
for his glory — to uphold and display the riches of his glory for the enjoyment of a redeemed people
gathered from every people, tongue, tribe, and nation. And until all those peoples are worshiping him,
he will not receive his due glory, and he is so passionate for that glory because he delights in it so fully
that he will not be done until this mission is completed.

You cannot love this glory the way God loves this glory without having a burning heart for missions. You
cannot. You will be phony Calvinists unless you have a passion for the glory of God to be manifest
among all the nations. If you don’t do it the way God does it, you’re just phony.

Why did God choose a people, Israel, for his own possession?

I made the whole house of Israel cling to me, says the Lord, that they might be for me a name, a praise,
and a glory; that’s why I chose Abraham. (Jeremiah 13:11)

Why did he rescue them from bondage in Egypt in?

Our fathers, when they were in Egypt,

did not consider your wondrous works;

they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love,

but rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea.

Yet he saved them for his name’s sake,

that he might make known his mighty power. (Psalm 106:7)

I’d love to linger here over the experiences in recent days at my church, as I’ve discovered awful sin in
the body and wondered why the Lord tolerated it for seven years. It has broken my heart. It has caused
more tears to flow than you can imagine in these recent days.

And as I’ve sought the Lord — why seven years did you tolerate this sin at the heart of our church? —
the answer I got was, The frogs didn’t do it. The locusts didn’t do it. I took ten plagues to do it because I
wanted to show off my power. I have timing and I have ways and I know how to get most glory. I could
have done it after the first plague. I could have done it after the second plague. I could have done it after
the third plague, but I did it after the tenth plague because I had a few things I wanted to show the
Egyptians.

Why did God spare them again and again in the wilderness, these rebel people?

But I acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations among
whom they lived, in whose sight I made myself known to them in bringing them out of the land of Egypt.
(Ezekiel 20:9)

Why, when they chose to have a king to be like the other nations, why didn’t he just wipe them out?

Fear not, you have done all this evil in desiring for yourself a king, yet do not turn aside from following
the Lord, for the Lord will not cast away his people for his great namesake. (1 Samuel 12:20)

Why did God bring them back from bondage after they went to Babylon? Why didn’t he just let them go,
start over with some other group?

For my namesake I defer my anger; for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, for my own sake, for
my own sake I do it for how should my name be profaned; my glory I will not give to another. (Isaiah
48:9)

His passion, the zeal of his heart was his glory in rescuing his people from Babylon.

The Son of Man for His Father’s Glory

You come over into the New Testament and ask why did the Son of God come into the world; you could
pick many texts.

Father, the hour has come now; glorify thy Son that the Son may glorify thee. (John 17:1)

This conspiracy of trinitarian glory, where the Father will glorify the Son that the Son may glorify the
Father and in glorifying the Father bring more glory to the Son — all done through the power, the
glorious power of the Holy Spirit.

And why will He come back? Why is this age going to end the way it’s going to end with Jesus coming on
the clouds?

He will come on that day to be glorified in his saints and to be marveled at in all who have believed. (2
Thessalonians 1:9)
We Can’t Fail in Missions

Now missions is simply the reflex of people gripped by that passion in God’s heart. It’s in God’s heart.
God wills to be glorified. God is passionately in love with his glory, and its exultation in the world.

All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord; and shall glorify thy
name. (Psalm 86:9 KJV)

You can’t fail in missions. It’s going to happen. You can either get on board or be left behind. It is going
to be done. This gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world as a testimony to
all the nations, and in the end, will come in that way on board or not. All you can do is choose to be
involved or left behind. It’s going to happen.

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Yesterday on the plane, I was pondering this point, right here in the message, and was drawn back to
Numbers 14:21, and it just hit me like it never had before. God took an oath in that verse to say why the
people in the wilderness who had opposed him would not enter the Promised Land. And he took the
oath on two things. He laid his hand on two things. You know, we lay our hand on the Bible in court. He
said, “As I live.” Okay, he laid his hand on his being. “And as this world will be filled with the glory of the
Lord,” and then he made the promise.

Just think of that. He took an oath on two things. He put his hand on two things: his existence, and the
completion of the great commission. “As this world will be filled with the glory of the Lord when that
redeemed people from every tongue and tribe and nation are reached and drawn into the family, as I
live and as that will happen, I swear,” which means, that the filling of the earth with the glory of the Lord
through the finishing of the great commission is as sure as his existence.

This is no peripheral thing; you don’t go to your churches to become pastors and say, “Well, some
pastors are mission oriented and some pastors are doing other things.” You can’t think that way as
Calvinists who care about the glory of God, as Reformed people who know what the banner over life is
and what the universe is all about. You can’t unless you have your head absolutely in the sand biblically.

The Center of God’s Universe

“For my own sake, for my own sake I act, says the Lord. My glory I will not give to another.” Now I like to
say these things everywhere I go. I just kind of put the torch in people’s face and say, “Will you, will you
see this centrality of God to God and if to God then to everything? And I find that it doesn’t sit well with
a lot of people, because the culture you will minister to is in another universe from the universe I’m
talking about right now.

We are at the center of God’s heart, not him. You’ve never seen a child bring home a Sunday school
paper with the words God loves himself more than he loves you. Never. And therefore, generation after
generation of little Evangelicals grow up with themselves square at the center of God’s universe. And
they have no capacity or even categories to grasp what I’m saying, except maybe by the grace of God
after ten years of preaching the light might go on.

God is at the center of God’s universe, and at the center of God’s heart. We get drawn into that vortex
as he becomes the center of our universe, and it’s a glorious walk, a sword — what’s the air thing? Not
hurricane — tornado. Thank you. It’s a glorious tornado to be sucked into.

In a Class by Himself

There’s a biblical objection, however, not just a cultural man-centered one. There’s a biblical objection
to what I’ve just said, and those are the objections I care most about wrestling with. Paul said in 1
Corinthians 13:5: “Love seeks not its own.” And here you are, Piper, telling us that God is driven totally
by his own glory, and a love for his glory.

So he’s not loving. Biblically, he’s not loving. In other words, what you’ve just said just doesn’t sound like
John 3:16. It doesn’t sound like the loving Father that I desperately need so badly. And my answer to
that objection is this: Since God is unique as the most glorious of all beings and the source of all being,
and is totally self-sufficient, he must be for himself. He must be radically, primarily, fundamentally
committed to the exultation of his glory if he is to be loving.

He’s in a class by himself. You can’t bring God down and make him in love with something more than
himself, which we have to be if we are to be human. We have to love God more than we love the things
of the world. But not God; God would be an idolater and be unrighteous and would fail in his self-
sufficiency if we required of God that he be that way.

In view of God’s infinitely admirable beauty and power and wisdom, we have to ask now, what would
love look like? Love is when you give someone the very best thing that you can give them for their very
best good, and ask what would God give to me if he loved me infinitely. You’ve got it — himself.

Now that’s very arrogant of God. I mean, if you asked me, what’s the best gift you can give and I said,
me, you would say, You are an egomaniac. So let this hit you. You answered it. You got the right answer,
but let this hit you. The best gift God can give to a person is himself. This is something we can never say
of ourselves. And so he’s in a class by himself.

Praise Completes Our Enjoyment

But now here’s the second step in my thinking of how this is loving. I learned this from C.S. Lewis. When
you love something and a gift is given to you and you delight in that gift, that delight is not complete
until it is expressed in some kind of praise. Let me read you the quote where I learned this from Lewis:

The most obvious fact about praise, whether of God or anything, strangely escaped me. I thought of it in
terms of complement or approval, or the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment, all
enjoyment, spontaneously overflows in praise, unless shyness or the fear of boring others in deliberately
brought in to check it. The world rings with praise; lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite
poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game, praise of weather, wines,
dishes, actors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare
stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians and scholars. My whole more general difficulty about
the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us as regards to the supremely valuable; what
we delight to do, what indeed we cannot help doing about everything else we value.

I was just down talking with the counselors down the hill and mentioned this experience I had with a
fellow who said, “Well, I don’t delight in God and can’t delight in God the way you talk about it.” And I
said, “I don’t believe you. Tell me, has there ever been an experience where you felt tremendous joy?”
And he said, “Well, in the boundary waters one time on a starry night I had this experience.” I said,
“Okay, that’s enough. Now I know you’re capable of it. Everybody has that capacity down there hidden
away to praise and delight.” Let me finish the quote from Lewis:

I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the
enjoyment. It is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment or duty that lovers keep on
telling one another how beautiful they are. The delight is incomplete until it is expressed.

The Twins have won two World Series in the last so many years and my church is four blocks from the
Dome. You can hear the Dome at those moments at my church. Now suppose you handed out little slips
of paper as people walked in on the seventh game and said — at the big top it said — enjoy yourself.
And then it said, but for circumstances beyond our control no sounds will be allowed out of your
mouths. No cheering, no booing, no hollering, but enjoy yourself fully.

That would not be possible, because a delight reaches consummation, not just expression, when it’s
expressed. You can’t just sit there and say, “I’m experiencing the fullest possible delight I could have in
this game, and the jumping out of my seat and the waving of my arms and the hollering is just totally
irrelevant to that joy.” It is not true. It is not true.

Fullest Satisfaction

Therefore, if you’re thinking with me you’ve got it. Now you know where I’m heading. God in his utter
self-centeredness says to us again and again, praise me, praise me, praise me, praise me, and this
bothered Lewis when he read the psalms. Not realizing that if God gives us himself to enjoy and his love
is full enough to bring that joy to consummation, he cannot be indifferent to whether it reaches
consummation in praise.

And therefore his command, praise me, praise me among the nations, praise me among the peoples,
gather the peoples to praise me is love. It’s the consummation of love because he is the satisfaction of
all of our longings and those longings reach their fullest satisfaction when we render back to him praise
and honor and glory verbally, and in lives lived as expressions of our valuing of God.
So the unique thing about God is that when he seeks his own glory and his own praise, he’s doing that
without which he could not be loving. God is the one being in the universe for whom self-exaltation is
the highest virtue and the most loving act. If he did not exalt himself in my life and require my exalting
of him, he would not love me. And the reason the world can’t hear this is because they don’t know him.
They don’t know anything about what it means to taste and see that he is good.

And therefore, the preaching of the gospel and the elevation of people’s hearts in the missions has to be
a radically God-centered message that just awakens people to the majesty and beauty and glory and
satisfying worth of God. Until they have those spiritual taste buds awakened, God’s self-centeredness
won’t make any sense as love.

Because if you give somebody a gift they don’t want and then you tell them, now praise the gift, like give
a kid black socks for Christmas. Now, I love you and you want to keep your feet warm, so thank me.
Praise me. Well, he could say the words, which is what a lot of worship is, thank you for the socks, God.
Thank you for the socks. There’s a lot of Reformed worship like that, isn’t there? Thank you for the socks
— just read it out of a book. O, God, thank you for the socks.

We don’t have a passion that’s socks. It’s an ice cream sundae that will last forever and ever, and it’s a
big red fire truck. But God isn’t a big red fire truck to a lot of people; he’s a duty; he’s just socks.

A Heart for the Nations

Okay, back to the torching strategy. What you’ve just been hearing is a response to objections to saying
that God is supreme to God. Because when I heard from Jonathan Edwards and then saw all over the
Bible that at the center of God’s heart is the glory of God, the sparks started to fly for my own living, for
the glory of God.

“The center of God’s heart is the glory of God.” Tweet Share on Facebook

So I come back now to where we started and try to wrap things up here and relate them to missions
again. He’s infinitely worthy and infinitely beautiful. He loves that. He has a passion that beauty and
glory be upheld in the world. He’s committed to it. This is his righteousness. His unswerving allegiance to
doing right by his glory is his righteousness. And therefore, he’s utterly, utterly self-sufficient.

Now I came to Bethlehem in 1980. I’ve been here thirteen and a half years at the church. And in 1980 I
began to sound these notes, and I was not a world Christian in any real rigorous or serious sense.
Missions wasn’t top priority or second or third. And I began to preach. In 1983 Tom Steller, my
associate, and a little green book out there is dedicated to him, and he’s been my right-hand man for
thirteen years. In 1983 during a missions conference, God did something to him and he did something to
me.

It was in the middle of the night and Tom couldn’t sleep during missions week. And he got up and he
turned on John Michael Talbot and he sat on the couch in the living room so he wouldn’t bother his wife
and daughters and listened to John Michael Talbot sing a song, and I don’t remember which one it was,
about the glory of God filling the earth. And Tom said he began to weep, because God was putting
together in his heart his love, his Reformed love, for the glory of God with God’s infinite passion that
that glory be known and worshipped among all the nations. And a world Christian was born that night in
an hour of weeping.

The Battle Cry

I was in a sermon series called Desiring God, which became the book in 1986. And I was at sermon
number nine, and for the first time in the history of my being at Bethlehem, the missions committee
asked me to preach one of the missions messages, a dangerous thing to do for a pastor. If you want your
pastor not to become a missions pastor, don’t have him preach on missions.

Well, they asked me, and I preached the “The Battle Cry of Christian Hedonism: Missions.” And I began
to see the connections more clearly than ever. And God has been very gracious. For Tom and me, we
changed his job description and made him Associate Pastor for Missions and Leadership Development. I
began to read missionary biographies, and I began to see the Bible through new eyes, and my theology
of God-centeredness so kicked in to God’s passion to be glorified among the nations that the two have
never, since 1983, been able to be separated very far.

And so I leave you with the passion to torch the glacier of lovelessness. The means of torching the
glacier is a radically God-centered ministry that elevates God’s God-centeredness so that people can see
it and be shocked and be drawn up into it and then, as I hope you will see in the next couple of lectures
even more clearly, why a commitment to that kind of God-centeredness makes you into a pastoral or
faculty or missionary world Christian that never has these things separated into little boxes.

The Danger of “Assuming” Evangelism

Trevin Wax

“Don’t assume the gospel!” has become a rallying cry for gospel-centered pastors and leaders. D. A.
Carson has warned against this slow but sad progression:

From a generation that believes the gospel and all its implications…

To a generation that assumes the gospel but identifies more with its implications…

To a generation that loses the gospel altogether.

“Make the gospel explicit!” we say, in an effort to ensure that the good news of Jesus – the only news
that has the power to transform lives – stays front and center in our message, our methods, and our
ministries.

But what happens when it’s not the evangel that gets assumed, but evangelism?
Is it possible that a generation deeply committed to making the gospel present and explicit in the
church’s preaching and teaching, might assume that Christians know how to share the gospel? Or that
Christians understand just how vital evangelism is?

I wonder about “assuming evangelism” because of some of the books I’ve read recently, books that lay
out various aspects of Christian responsibility and the church’s mission in the world. Many authors
assume the need for personal repentance and faith is understood by their readers (perhaps because
such is indeed the case within the tradition the authors come from); so their focus then shifts to the
cosmic dimension of redemption.

Let me say at the outset that individualistic Christianity which is only about “me and Jesus” and my
personal ticket to heaven is inadequate as a presentation of Christianity. It minimizes the importance of
the local church, the Old Testament narrative, and misses the world-transforming power of the gospel
here and now. I sympathize with authors and pastors who want to help Christians to understand
salvation holistically.

That said, there is a danger is saying something like, “Of course, evangelism and missions are important,
but let’s not forget…” and then continuing with all sorts of other good Christian responsibilities. As a
corrective to myopic visions of salvation, this kind of statement can be helpful. But if we want to put
forth a Christian worldview that is truly comprehensive, we can’t simply assume the existence of
personal evangelism with an “of course!” before giving most of our attention to all the other good deeds
a Christian may do in the world.

Most authors would agree that it’s a “both-and;” both evangelism and good works. But too many times I
see the focus more on the “and” rather than the “both.”

If the church is to embrace the fullness of her mission, we need to be clear on the urgent need for
evangelism. Christians are “good news people.” And good news people announce news.

So let’s not assume that everyone in our churches knows why and how to look for opportunities to talk
about Jesus and call for repentance and faith. Just as we’re explicit about the gospel, let’s also be explicit
about what the gospel makes us – God’s gospel-speaking people for a lost world.

Because what we assume today may be lost tomorrow.

ACTS 29: CHURCHES PLANTING CHURCHES

“If you build it, they will come.”

I like the movie Field of Dreams, but it’s a terrible evangelism strategy for church planters.

Most unbelievers have no interest in joining you this Sunday. Simply offering a “good product” isn’t
enough in this post-Christian world. It doesn’t matter how cool your venue is, how good your music and
coffee are, or how hip your pastor looks.
The unbelievers who do show up are there because someone has befriended and invited them outside
the walls of a church building. Most outsiders aren’t waking up saying, “I wonder if they have good
coffee. I’m going to check it out.” Or “I bet the music is great there. I should go visit.”

As church-planting pastors, we have to overemphasize evangelism. It’s a challenge for us to be both

But if a church is to flourish, evangelism must be central to the life of the body.

Models of Evangelism

In years past, two forms of evangelism have been most common: event evangelism and cold-call
evangelism. Indeed, when people hear “evangelism” today, they often think of either big
events/crusades or door-to-door outreach.

The Lord has used both of these approaches, and in some contexts, they continue to be effective.
However, in other places—particularly in many post-Christian contexts—these approaches are often less
fruitful.

I don’t want to insinuate we should reject these approaches. We shouldn’t. But I want to highlight
another approach that has historic precedent—one that is both culturally appropriate and personally
achievable: network evangelism.

Network evangelism isn’t an event; it’s not a program; it’s not something you only do on Tuesday nights
at 6 p.m. It’s a lifestyle.

Network evangelism isn’t an event; it’s not a program; it’s not something you only do on Tuesday nights
at 6 p.m. It’s a lifestyle. It’s about living with gospel intentionality in the everyday rhythms of life. It’s
done among the people who fall into your current web of relationships.

When planting a church, network evangelism becomes a practical way to emphasize how every member
can live as a missionary.

In order to cultivate and sustain an evangelistic culture in our young church, I’ve preached a number of
sermons on this topic. The first series came after the elders had a long discussion about why we weren’t
seeing more people converted. As I was praying and thinking about how to lead our people, I came
across this statement in Tim Keller’s Church Planter Manual:

There must be an atmosphere of expectation that every member will always have two to four people in
the incubator, a force-field in which people are being prayed for, given literature, brought to church or
other events.
We’ve sought to expand and build on this idea.

Why Network Evangelism?

Network evangelism first recognizes the sovereignty of God. It develops a mindset that every person in
our sphere of life matters, and it helps us remember that God has us living in this time and place in
history, surrounded by particular image-bearers he has sovereignly put in our path (Acts 17:26).

Additionally, network evangelism has historic precedent. In his book Cities of God, sociologist Rodney
Stark describes how Christianity became an urban movement that transformed the Roman world:

Social networks are the basic mechanism through which conversion takes place. . . . Most conversions
are not produced by professional missionaries conveying a new message, but by rank-and-file members
who share their faith with their friends and relatives. . . . The principle that conversions spread through
social networks is quite consistent with the fact that the earliest followers of Jesus shared many family
ties and long-standing associations. . . . Although the very first Christian converts in the West may have
been by full-time missionaries, the conversion process soon became self-sustaining as new converts
accepted the obligation to spread their faith and did so by missionizing their immediate circle of
intimates.

Did you see that? The movement advanced because new converts accepted the obligation to spread the
gospel within their own circles of everyday influence.

Further, network evangelism promotes faithfulness and patience. Evangelistic methods often involve
only “on the spot” presentations. They can be impersonal as well. They can be about generating
numbers, not valuing people. They can allow us to simply “check a box” to appease our guilt, and then
move on.

In planting a church, network evangelism becomes a practical way to emphasize how every member can
live as a missionary.

But when you’re reaching out to people you see regularly, it demands faithfulness and perseverance.
You can do the necessary pre-evangelism, answer questions, slowly and gradually watch defenses go
down, and hopefully—by God’s grace—see your friend, family member, co-worker, or neighbor declare,
“Jesus is Lord.”

Who’s in Your Networks?

We could organize our web of relationships in a variety of ways, but it has been helpful for our church to
think within five categories:

Familial Network—people in your family.

Geographical Network—people in your neighborhood.

Recreational Network—people you hang out with.

Commercial Network—people you see at shops.

We encouraged our church members to identify at least five people in each of these networks—or if
they’re low in one area, to increase the number of people in the other networks. And we’ve encouraged
them to do one of five tasks:

Pray for them—You’ll be surprised what happens when you begin to pray for the people in your path.
You may experience the joy C. S. Lewis expressed: “I have two lists of names in my prayers, those for
whose conversions I pray and those for whose conversions I give thanks. The little trickle of
transferences from List A to List B is a great comfort.”

Invite them—Invite them over to eat dinner, to play sports, to go to a movie, to come with you to a
church event.

Serve them—Identify a way that you can bless those in your networks. Babysit for them, pick up
groceries for them, cut their grass, and so on.

Give resources to them—Ask them to read a book or article with you, or to listen to a sermon or
podcast. Discuss these resources with them.

Share the gospel with them—Look for various places where you can talk about your faith. Let your
friend know you are part of a church, and see if they ask questions. Listen to their problems with real
concern, and then seize the opportunity to address the problems with gospel hope. Share some of your
own struggles, and talk about how you deal with them in light of your faith. Simply ask them what they
believe, and just let them talk.

From this plan—five people in each of the five categories, doing one of the five tasks—we developed
this evangelism card for individuals and small groups:

May God use ordinary saints like us, who overflow with love for the Savior, to lead outsiders to faith as
we live with gospel intentionality in our everyday networks.

Tony Merida is the founding pastor of Imago Dei Church in Raleigh, North Carolina, content director for
Acts 29, dean of Grimke Seminary, and a Council member of The Gospel Coalition. He is the author of a
number of books, including, The Christ-Centered Expositor, Ordinary, and Orphanology. He and his wife,
Kimberly, have five adopted children.

5 Myths about Evangelism

June 27, 2018 by: Kathleen Nielson

This article is part of the 5 Myths series.

The call to carry out the Great Commission feels heavy when we picture ourselves alone, laboring away
to share good news. Anything in the Christian life feels heavy if I’m envisioning a rough road and myself
walking along it by myself.

Stories from fellow travelers help light up the landscape. Stories, for example, of those who are reaching
from Christ’s body outward—those who invite neighbors to a church Bible study group and who see
those neighbors and their families gradually transformed by the gospel; those who host international
students in their home, regularly bring them to church, and see some of them believe in Jesus; women
whose brothers and sisters in Christ’s body have prayed for years with them for their husbands to come
to faith. Interwoven through these stories are the hospitality and prayers of God’s people—specific
prayers for the salvation of those they name together in God’s presence.

As a redeemed people, we bear witness to the good news that Jesus died on the cross, bore our sin, and
rose from the grave, conquering death. Believing this good news makes us part of a body that lives and
moves together toward seeing Jesus. We don’t do this evangelism thing alone.

Better to picture a road full of people walking together, sort of like we picture the Israelites walking up
to the Jerusalem temple at feast time—whole groups and families, talking and singing and taking in
others along the way. We’re God’s people. This is all God’s work. By his Spirit, God calls people to
himself and gives them new life through faith in Christ. Those who have believed get to participate. He
uses us. He uses us.

Myth #2: We don’t have to speak the gospel—we just live it. Or at least wait and earn the right to speak.

Should our lives touch people and transform culture first, before we speak? Do we need to speak? How
do we manage this tension between verbal and nonverbal witness?

As believers, we can run to God’s Word to address and even embrace this tension. And the Word will tell
us that God’s good news is a message to be proclaimed and believed: “Faith comes from hearing, and
hearing through the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17). We withhold the ultimate help if we withhold “the
sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim.
3:15).

But the Word also tells us that the gospel transforms lives, empowering doers and not just hearers—
doers who, for example, care for orphans and widows in need (James 1:22, 27). If we have received the
ultimate help, then we’ll offer it not just through words but also through transformed and transforming
lives.

If we have received the ultimate help, then we’ll offer it not just through words but also through
transformed and transforming lives.
We should perhaps take with more grains of salt the view that lengthy relationship-building is required
before we earn the right to speak gospel truth. It does take time to minister in mercy and to build
relationships. But I’d rather do that building with someone who is hearing me talk about Jesus in the
process—with sensitivity and restraint, yes, but with confidence that the gospel is the best, most urgent
news in the universe. If we wait a long time to speak, it usually becomes harder, more awkward, and
more like there’s an elephant in the room.

I’m reminded of a woman who moved across the globe to a country not generally friendly to
Christianity. In her (successful) interview for a job at a local business, she told her potential employers
about her Christian faith—because she figured that to be initially clear about her commitments would
pave the way for more fruitful interactions on the subject. And indeed it has. Another friend across town
has been able to show and explain the gospel through years of work in church-based ESL classes—and
some of those students are now brothers and sisters in the Lord.

In her early years of marriage, a friend of mine didn’t know the Lord but was restless and searching. A
man who showed up to fix a household appliance told her that Jesus loved her. That’s all he said. But
she couldn’t get the words out of her mind. She got a Bible and read it, found a nearby church where in
God’s providence the Bible was taught, and, in the end, both she and her husband came to faith in
Christ.

I know: it doesn’t always or even usually happen that way. It did in that case, though. May we not
underestimate the words that can be spoken during a plane or taxi ride, with a sales person or table
server, or in the process of building a relationship.

Myth #3: Evangelism requires special training.

Don’t get me wrong: training in evangelism is extremely valuable. We can sharpen our articulation of the
gospel, better grasp the Bible’s call to share it, learn more effective ways to listen and ask questions of
people, and so forth.

But we don’t need to wait until we’re some sort of trained experts. The Samaritan woman who met
Jesus at the well called the people of her town to come and see the man she had just met (John 4:29).
She was so overjoyed by having met Jesus and found the promised Messiah that her joy naturally
overflowed.

If we’ve just seen a great movie, that movie will often find its way into our conversation . . . usually with
a lot of enthusiasm. It’s got to be true that if we’re regularly encountering the God of the universe
speaking to us through his Word, then his Word will probably overflow into our conversations. Wouldn’t
it be strange if it didn’t?

“Your daughter is living a life that shocks you, and you just don’t know how to relate to her? You know, I
was just reading this amazing story about how Jesus related to a woman he met . . . ”
Maybe the best ongoing training is wholehearted participation in church body life, Bible study, prayer,
service—those basic elements of the Christian life that help us grow to maturity.

Myth #4: It’s better not to talk about hell.

It must have been in second grade that I told one of my best friends about Jesus. The details are hazy,
but what is not hazy is the experience of this friend asking me if I thought she would go to hell when she
died if she didn’t believe in Jesus. As I recall, I told her I’d tell her the next day and then went home and
asked my parents what to say—and I can’t remember what happened after that. I do remember being
best of friends with her until we moved away, the summer after second grade.

It’s a dilemma that doesn’t go away as we get older. In some ways, it gets increasingly painful. We read
and grapple with the Bible’s teaching about the final judgment of Jesus “in flaming fire, inflicting
vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.
They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the
glory of his might . . .” (2 Thess. 1:8-9).

It becomes so painful that a lot of people these days choose not to believe in hell, particularly as a place
of torment “day and night forever and ever” (Rev. 20:10). Even as I type the words, I want to delete
them. It’s tempting not to include this point. There would have been a lot of other, more positive ones
to include, with a cap of just five myths.

I hope my parents told me to be honest about hell; I’m guessing they did. The Bible—from beginning to
end—is agonizingly honest about the wrath of God toward sin. The irony is that only in understanding a
holy God’s just wrath can we take in the cross, where Jesus suffered that wrath in our place, bearing our
sin.

This is something to talk about. In a recent conversation, a woman told me she wouldn’t want to have
anything to do with a God who would ask a person to kill his son, like he asked Abraham to do. I asked
this woman if she had read that story in the Bible and if she knew how it ended. She hadn’t and she
didn’t. And I got to tell her about the ram God provided as a sacrifice on that mountain.

With a clear articulation of the gospel alongside practical examples from ten women, this book supplies
role models for learning how to faithfully and effectively share the gospel in any context.

Myth #5: I’ll get to it eventually.

If the eternal torment of hell is not a myth, but true, then the myth that we’ll eventually get to the task
of evangelism is not only self-deluding but ultimately selfish. The question is whether invisible, eternal
reality is or isn’t more real to me than visible, present comfort.
It was for Jesus. Recently reading through the gospel of John, I noticed again how often Jesus talks about
his Father and being with his Father, in a way that shows how real to him was the invisible reality of God
and heaven—it’s right there. That heaven-mindedness only intensified his earthly work, day by day, all
the way to the cross. May God help us set our minds on the real things above—the things that will, in a
moment, burst through and become visible.

And then evangelism will be over. Think of it. The Lord God will call every single person who has ever
lived, from all the corners of the globe and out of all the graves in the earth and seas, to stand before his
throne. Do we believe this?

It’s Monday morning as I’m writing. Emails and deadlines are waiting. Family is waiting. In the midst of it,
may God grant me grace to live today with my eyes open and my mind and heart full of the Word I
heard just yesterday with my brothers and sisters and again this morning, as I set out for the day. May
he make me ready to speak the good news, even as I aim to live it out. I’ll fail. I’ll bumble my words. But
please, Lord, use me, use us, today.

Systematic Evangelism

“There arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all
scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles” (v. 1b). - Acts 8:1–8

Regrettably, we often overlook what today’s passage tells us about evangelism in the early church.
Immediately after the stoning of Stephen (Acts 7:54–60), a “great persecution arose against the church
in Jerusalem,” which caused all of the Christians there, except the apostles, to be scattered throughout
Judea and Samaria (8:1b). In other words, the laity in Jerusalem were forced to flee the city and leave
those ordained to church office behind. This is significant because it was these scattered laypeople who
began preaching the Word beyond Jerusalem (v. 4), beginning the spread of the Gospel to the ends of
the earth as Jesus predicted (1:6–8). From the church’s earliest days, lay Christians have been faithful
and effective evangelists.

Nevertheless, many believers in the church today feel unequipped to proclaim the Gospel, or they think
the responsibility to preach Christ to non-Christians lies solely with the pastor. Such sentiments are
easily explainable: No one has taught them how to share the good news of Jesus Christ. If people are to
proclaim the Gospel, they must learn how to share it with others.

All Christians can benefit from systematic evangelism, that is, some kind of evangelistic program that is
easy to memorize and use for spreading God’s Word. Getting to the basic facts of the Gospel — the
demands of the Lord’s holiness, our sin, the atonement and resurrection of Christ — and packaging
them in a way that is easy to learn and repeat can go a long way towards helping people evangelize.
Many different programs exist, one of the most popular being Evangelism Explosion by Dr. D. James
Kennedy. Churches that have used this program testify to its success in getting people involved in
evangelism.
Of course, we run the risk of distortion any time we try to reduce the Gospel to its simplest points.
However, even the apostles worked with a simplified message when they went to those who knew
nothing of the Bible. The apostolic sermons in Acts show us that the kerygma, the basic message of the
Gospel, was delivered to the Gentiles who knew nothing of God’s Word. Only after people were
converted did systematic, in-depth teaching of the Scriptures begin.

Coram Deo

Many people leave evangelism up to Sunday school teachers and the preaching of the pastor. However,
this confuses teaching with evangelism. The teaching ministry of the church is essential to the growth of
the kingdom, but its primary task is to educate those who are already Christians — any evangelism that
happens is secondary. If you feel unequipped to share the Gospel, seek a program designed to help you
preach the Gospel to those who do not know Jesus.

Passages for Further Study

Psalm 86:11

Luke 10:1–12

Acts 13:13–52

Galatians 2:1–10

The God-Centered Gospel

by Michael Horton

One of the benefits of the older liturgies is that they provided a framework for our prayers to the Father
in the Son by the Spirit. They taught our hearts to preach, pray, sing, and witness in a Trinitarian way.
Yet, even in our circles it’s commonplace to hear prayers that end: “In your name. Amen.” We even hear
prayers that thank the Father for dying for our sins or other examples of the same confusion of the
persons with the essence. Known technically as the heresy of “modalism,” a perennial tendency
(especially in the West) is to treat the three persons of the Godhead as if they were one person
manifesting Himself in three different personas, like an actor on the stage playing different roles. As
Christians, we affirm that God is one in essence, but we also affirm with equal zeal that this one God
exists in three persons. Whenever God acts, there are three persons on the stage.

John Calvin and his heirs have often invoked the formula of the ancient church father Basil the Great:
everything that God does comes from the Father in the Son through the Spirit. However, this important
way of putting things often gets lost in the way we talk about creation under the Father, redemption
under the Son, and the application of redemption under the Spirit. Actually, in all of these works, each
person of the Trinity is involved mutually and yet in His own distinct way. In creation, the Father creates
everything in His Son and brings it to completion by the Spirit. It’s the same in redemption and its
application.
One of the great places where this gets worked out in Reformed theology is the covenant of
redemption. Also known by its fancy Latin name, the pactum salutis, this covenant was made in eternity
between the persons of the Trinity. The Father gave the Son a people whom the Spirit would eventually
unite to Him in history. In this covenant, the Son signed His death warrant, joyfully assuming the office
of Mediator between God and man.

We see this covenant of redemption implied and explicitly mentioned in Jesus’ ministry, especially in
John’s gospel. Jesus speaks of having been given a people by the Father (John 6:39; 10:29; 17:2, 6–10;
see also Eph. 1:4–12; Heb. 2:13), who are called and kept by the Holy Spirit for the consummation of the
new creation (Rom. 8:29–30; Eph. 1:11–13; Titus 3:5; 1 Peter 1:5). In fact, to affirm the covenant of
redemption is little more than affirming that the Son’s self-giving and the Spirit’s regenerative work
were the execution of the Father’s eternal plan. Not only were we chosen in Christ “before the
foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4), Christ Himself is spoken of as the Lamb slain from the foundation of
the world (Rev. 13:8).

The covenant of redemption underscores not only God’s sovereignty and freedom in electing grace, but
the Trinitarian and, specifically, Christ-centered character of that divine purpose. It all takes place “in
Christ”; hence, the emphasis in covenant theology on the theme of “Christ the Mediator.” And yet, it’s
not just Christ-centered but Trinity-centered.

It’s terrific to see so many younger Christians excited about being “God-centered.” However, Islam and
Orthodox Judaism claim to be “Godcentered,” too. The Christian faith is distinguished by its claim that
God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and we know this from Scripture, preeminently in the
Son’s entrance into a fallen world in our own flesh. We dare not approach “God” in His blinding majesty
apart from Christ our Mediator. Apart from Christ, the Father is our Judge, and His glory is the worst
thing we could ever encounter. That’s not because the Father is less loving than the Son, but because we
are sinners. And we can say our “amen” to the Son only because of the Spirit who indwells us.

A Trinitarian understanding of the gospel clears up a lot of popular misunderstandings. For example, it
challenges presentations of the gospel that make it sound as if a wrathful Father took out His anger
toward us on His passive Son. On the contrary, the Father “so loved the world, that he gave his only
Son” (John 3:16). It was the Father who chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4).
And as for the Son, He was hardly a passive victim; He gave Himself up for His people. Jesus, “for the joy
that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the
throne of God” (Heb. 12:2; see Isa. 53). He was a willing sacrifice: “No one takes [my life] from me,” He
said. “I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again” (John 4:34; 10:11, 18; see
also Matt. 16:23; Luke 9:51; Heb 10:5–10). He went to the cross knowing that His suffering would lead to
glory not only for Him but for His people. In spite of His grief, He determined, “Shall I not drink the cup
that the Father has given me?” (John 18:11). The cross itself was far from a joy, but He endured it for the
joy that lay beyond it. He had embraced the cross in eternity.

Wherever God’s sovereignty in predestination is strongly defended apart from such a covenantal
framework, the concrete revelation of our election in Christ according to the gospel’s promise is often
surrendered to theoretical debates and endless speculation on God’s hidden counsels. It is dangerous to
talk about the glory and sovereignty of God unless the God we have in mind is the Trinity, to whom we
have access only in the Son as He is revealed in the gospel.

To be God-centered in this Trinitarian sense is also to give equal weight to the Holy Spirit, the person
who turns a house into a home. He hovered over the waters in creation to prepare dry land, led Israel
through the sea to the Promised Land, and filled the temple. It was the Spirit who hovered over the
waters of a virgin’s womb so that what was born of her was the Son of God. This same Spirit led Jesus
through His trial in the wilderness, upheld Him and empowered His ministry of signs and wonders, and
raised Him from the dead as the firstfruits of the new creation. And now, the Spirit has filled the temple
that is Christ’s body, indwelling each believer and the church corporately as the deposit guaranteeing
our participation in Christ’s resurrection. As Geerhardus Vos writes concerning the covenant of
redemption, “Just as the blessedness of God exists in the free relationship of the three Persons of the
adorable Being, so man shall also find his blessedness in the covenantal relationship with God.”

Gospel-Centered vs. Christ-Centered Preaching

Is there a difference between centering one’s preaching around the propositional gospel and the
personal gospel that is Jesus Christ?

David Cheng on December 1, 2015

In the tribe of New Calvinists, “gospel-centered” is a buzzword become vernacular, so much so that
people barely bat an eye on a given Sunday when it is written on their bulletins, term-dropped in their
sermons, and used in conversations post-service. Even the curators of this movement feel compelled to
comment on its ubiquity and warn against its potential loss of meaning from use ad nauseam.

“Gospel-centered” has become the choice prefix for anything and everything under the sun. Gospel-
centered church. Gospel-centered ministry. Gospel-centered evangelism. Gospel-centered discipleship.
Gospel-centered preaching. Yet I’ll say upfront that I like this term. I think it is good and useful. In all
aspects of our Christian lives it is necessary to be reminded that the gospel is central, for the human
heart moves naturally toward pride or despair, humanism or nihilism, and the message that “we are
more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more
loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope” [1] takes us by the hand away from those
dark valleys.

All in all, the gospel-centered movement is a well-intentioned attempt to filter all of what it means to be
Christian through a comprehensive paradigm—and a helpful one at that. It has been and continues to be
a useful corrective against the human tendency towards self-effort. But like every human paradigm that
attempts to be comprehensive, I would argue that it falls short, and I see and sense its shortcomings
most keenly in the area of preaching.

Defining gospel-centered preaching is a slippery task as definitions can differ from community to
community, but this article by Trevin Wax does a great job of capturing what is usually meant by the
term in New Calvinism. Gospel-centered preaching could thus be paraphrased as: Preaching that makes
central the proclamation of Christ’s death and resurrection as not only the ignition for the Christian life,
but the fuel for the entire journey as well (to borrow some of Wax’s imagery). Gospel-centered
preaching then is distinct from say exposition-centered preaching—where the focus is on explaining
Scripture. In such cases, even if the gospel is mentioned, it is not the blazing sun in the solar system of
that sermon, but more like a scrap of a tail, fastened slightly askew by the last contestant in a game of
pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey.

I believe that gospel-centered preaching is an essential aspect of good preaching, a part that constitutes
the whole and a necessary condition, but it is not sufficient for good preaching. A good sermon should
be gospel-centered, but it should also be more—it should be Christ-centered as well.

Now the difference between the two terms, gospel-centered and Christ-centered, is the difference
between the propositional and the personal. Note in the definition above that gospel-centered
preaching “makes central the proclamation of Christ’s death and resurrection.” Gospel-centered
preaching has a tendency to focus on the gospel as a set of propositions—statements, facts, or
declarations. And for good reason, since the gospel is typically defined as the good news, and news is
typically viewed as a set of statements, facts, or declarations. Yet the danger is to focus so heavily on the
gospel as such that it becomes a gospel-out-there, several very good, true, amazing facts—(1) we are all
sinners, (2) we need a Savior, (3) God provided that Savior in Jesus Christ, etc.—but still a set of facts
that seem to be at a certain distance from the life of a Christian. A gospel-centered sermon will remind
people of these true statements time and time again, calling people to trust in them, to believe in them,
and to apply them to their lives. Yet with each progressive hearing, such sermons can begin to feel static
and lifeless because the focus is on a static set of propositions that do not live and move and sing with
the dynamism of a person.

In contrast, a defining characteristic of the Triune God is that he is personal. He is personal in both in his
oneness as the one God and his threeness as the three persons. The personal aspect of God has existed
from eternity as the three persons have lived and loved in community from eternity. Thus, a great
profundity actually underlies the overused and much-maligned Christian slogan, “It’s not about a
religion, but it’s about a relationship.” The slogan recognizes that one of Christianity’s most attractive
features is a God who longs to relate and does relate to his creation. A God who is not abstract but
personal, who comes near and condescends by assuming human nature and becoming God with us, as
Jesus.

So as much as people need to be reminded of the propositional gospel, they also need to be reminded
of the personal gospel—Jesus Christ. Jesus is the good news, and good news is not just propositional.
Imagine if your loved one became quite ill and was bedridden in the hospital. Good news is hearing from
a friend that he or she is better. But good news is also drawing back the curtains in that hospital room
and seeing a beaming face smiling back at you. In the same way, when preaching shows Christ for all of
who he is, as one with scars in his hands and side, but who now sits upon the throne, that is the gospel
because seeing Jesus is seeing the good news of death conquered and resurrection secured right in front
of us.
In Galatians 3:1, Paul admonishes the Galatians for returning to a works-righteousness when “It was
before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.” Paul did not merely speak about
Jesus to the Galatians in a set of propositions, but he made Jesus real to them in their preaching. There
was an intensely personal aspect to this preaching, where Paul could say that it was as if Jesus was
actually crucified before them. This personal aspect to preaching, where the hearer is brought into
contact with the living Word of God, where Jesus is presented in a real, personal way to those listening
is why Christ-centered preaching is so important.

Because we are created in the image of a relational God, we too are fundamentally relational. Almost
nothing can shape, change, and transform a person more than his or her relationship with another
human being. We all know of friends who have fallen in love and suddenly seem re-energized about life,
career, and hygiene. How much more then would an encounter with the risen Christ be transformative?
Paul knew this very well given his own dramatic encounter with the risen Christ on the Damascus road,
and thus he was committed to know nothing among the Corinthians “except Jesus Christ and him
crucified.”

Christ-centered preaching aims to show people Christ in all his multi-faceted splendor. Our hearts need
to see Christ in ways we’ve never seen him before. We need to see him in all parts of our Bible, both Old
and New. We need more than a set of propositions about truth and good news, we need to see the
good news, and to know the person who is the gospel.

1. Tim Keller, The Meaning of Marriage, 40. But really any Keller book will do.

FEBRUARY 15, 2019

Two Dangers in ‘Gospel-Centered’ Preaching

Message Excerpt by John Piper Topic: Preaching & Teaching

This clip is from a message John Piper preached at the Bethlehem 2019 Conference for Pastors + Church
Leaders, “Is It Right to Seek More Joy Than We Have Through Justification?”

First, there is a preaching that almost never highlights the truth that Christ died not only to secure our
forgiveness, but also to secure our sin-killing obedience.

It almost never draws people’s attention to it. It’s like 99 percent of the time, you’re drawing attention
to the fact that he died so that you could be justified, and your guilt can be taken away, and your sins
can be forgiven, which is, of course, glorious.

“Christ died not only to secure our forgiveness, but also to secure our sin-killing obedience.” Tweet
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But you know what? Most of the New Testament is not talking that way. Read it. It’s talking about how
to do stuff — how to be the church. And as you read the Epistles, they don’t sound like that.
So what I’m saying is 1 Peter 2:24 doesn’t get its fair shake: “[Christ] bore our sins in his body on the
tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” Christ died to purchase your obedience to
hundreds of commands, and he died to purchase the Spirit who dwells within you, who causes you to
walk in his statutes.

The beauty and the power of the cross of Christ is seen and enjoyed in the blood-bought experience of
obedience to Christ’s commands. Experiencing this is a dimension of joy that can be had no other way,
and a Christian Hedonist will not be content without it.

That’s my first concern. There’s some preaching that is deficient in showing the whole purchase of the
cross in its new covenant implications. And so the cross can be diminished by highlighting the cross
alone.

Here’s another way of saying it. These preachers tend to shrink back from the apostolic intention of the
law of Christ (1 Corinthians 9:21) — the law of Christ unfolded in hundreds of New Testament
commands that define the path of love that leads to life.

If you ask, “What’s the point of all these hundreds of commands in the New Testament? Don’t we just
need the Spirit?” then the answer is, No, evidently not. Evidently, God’s way is to give you the
commands and give you the Spirit who makes you love the commands. He could have done it another
way. The New Testament could be one-third as long as it is: Christ died for you and purchased the Spirit.
Go live by the Spirit. End of book.

Why? Why are there hundreds of particular commandments? It’s because he has another way to do it.
He’s going to do it another way. It’s a better way. There’s more joy to be had in figuring out how the
Spirit relates to the commandments than if you only had the Spirit without the commandments. It’s a
better way. Or the Bible is false. I love the Bible. We love it. God, show me how these hundreds of
commands are so good for us.

“The beauty of the cross of Christ is enjoyed in the blood-bought experience of obedience to Christ.”
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So here’s my second concern. Some preachers are reticent to draw attention to the law of Christ, but
instead of calling for obedience to all these commandments, they say things like this. And this comes
from a very artificial law-gospel distinction. This is not good. Here’s what the commandments are for:
“Show hospitality? Live without grumbling? You can’t do that. Christ did it for you. Perfectly hospitable.
Never murmured. Trust the imputation of Christ’s obedience.” End of sermon. Celebrate.

That’s just so foreign to the New Testament to talk like that. That’s half a gospel based on half-grace
offering half-joy. He accomplished more — so much more — by pouring out his blood for us. It’s a blood-
bought holiness. It’s a blood-bought obedience. It’s a blood-bought suffering through patient endurance
and fresh joy in him and his achievements on the cross. Don’t preach a half-gospel. All those commands
are there to highlight the power of the Spirit bought by the blood of Jesus in your life.
It’s a grand achievement, what he did in dying for us. All those commandments in the New Testament
are not given merely to expose our sin. They are given to show us the kind of life Christ died to create in
his church — really create in his church. They are given so that by doing them, by faith in Christ — blood-
bought power, gospel power — we might have more joy than only by circling back to justification, as
precious and as often as we must do that.