What ought pastors to include in their sermons?

Joel Beeke explains in this video that the Reformers and the Puritans desired to go after people and their souls. They wanted their congregation to see their guilt before God. They wanted their congregation to repent. A pastor must aim to cultivate repentance. 

A pastor must also preach a full and free offer of the Gospel to poor, needy, penitent sinners. No one has sinned too much for Jesus to save. Christ makes trophies of grace out of impossible cases. When you preach repentance, you also preach the fullness of Christ. He has come to seek and to save the lost. 

1 Timothy 1:15 (NKJV) – “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.”  

The reformers in the Puritans said, we want to go after people, we want to go after their souls. One Puritan said, I want to take the stick of a law and beat behind every bush until I find an Adam hiding behind it and draw him out and stand him naked before God because I want him to become guilty before God. If you don't become guilty before God, you're never going to truly repent. And so we call people to repentance. We say things that hopefully motivate them to think about themselves.

We have, we should have, What the Puritans called a convicting ministry Isn't that what the Apostle Peter did in the famous acts to sermon? Where three thousand people were converted? Twice he told him and that one sermon as he preached Jesus to them. He told them this same Jesus whom you with your wicked hands have slain and crucified. He showed them the enormity of their sin.

They were so pricked in their heart that they interrupted his sermon and cried out and said, what must we do to be saved? So a pastor must aim to cultivate repentance, aim to bring people under repentance. But secondly, and what is equally important, is a pastor must preach a full and free offer of the gospel to poor needy penitent coming sinners And say no one has sinned too much. No one is too old. No one is too bankrupt no one is too hard for Jesus to save.

Jesus loves to make trophies of grace out of impossible cases. And so when you preach repentance deeply, widely, when you preach Luke 13, 3, except you repent, you shall likewise perish, you also preach the fullness of Christ and he has come to seek and to save the lost and it is to be received by all, even chief sinners, says Paul. First Timothy 1.50.