In this sermon titled 'God-Centered Exposition', speaker Scott Brown discusses the importance of Christ-centered preaching. He extracts thoughts from Brian Chappell's book 'Christ-Centered Preaching', emphasizing the need to find the redemptive focus and the message of the gospel in every passage of Scripture. Brown states that every word of the Bible points to Christ, and it is crucial for preachers to avoid man-centered messages and instead focus on the grace and power of God through Jesus. He outlines three things that should be extracted from a passage of Scripture: what the text says, what spiritual concerns the text addresses, and what spiritual concerns listeners share with those the text is written about.

The subject we'll be dealing with is Christ-centered preaching this morning, and I'm going to really extract the thoughts for this time from this book by Brian Chappell, Christ-Centered Preaching. We're going to actually take a passage of Scripture and look at it from the perspective of exalting Christ in a particular passage. And you'll see this theme run through the day in particular ways. You'll hear it as well in Andy's exposition of a passage in Romans that really exalts the Lord Jesus Christ in a marvelous way. You'll see it again as we look at particular text types and how Christ appears there.

You'll see it again when Jonathan Sides leads us in a session called the expository reading of Scripture. To me, this session is one of the most important sessions of everything that we do because we read our Bible so often. To read the Bible, to give it the voice that God intended is a beautiful thing. Anytime you give a text of Scripture its voice, you're giving it the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so this is I think a very special day that we get to experience together.

The lines of Christian doctrine all lead to Christ. Every word of the Bible is a word of the Lord Jesus Christ. So it doesn't matter where we are, the Lord Jesus is there in the midst of it, embodying it, explaining it through his deeds and through his works. And so to have a sense of Christ-centered preaching is so important. I'm amazed at what the Bible says about itself and how powerful this tool, this sword of the Spirit is to illuminate the Lord Jesus.

Psalm 19 says that the law of the Lord is perfect. And what does it do? It restores the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, and what do they do?

They rejoice the heart. The judgments of the Lord are true. And what does that do? It enlightens the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean.

And what does it do? It endures forever. And the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yes than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey, and the honeycomb. They are sweet because the Lord Jesus is sweet.

Sweeter than a honeycomb. It's the best food out there in all of life. It's amazing to think about the power of this sword of the Spirit that God has given. This fire, this hammer. The Bible says that the Word of God is so powerful that it created the world.

In Genesis 1 3 we read, God said, let there be light and there was light. It was a word of God that created all that there is. When we handle the word of God, we ought to be in Such awe in the power that's there. In Psalm 33 we read, For he spoke and it came to be, he commanded and it was firm. That's the power of the Word of God.

The Word of God controls in Psalm 147 verse 15 we read, He sends His command to the earth. His word runs swiftly. He spreads like wool and scatters the frost like ashes. He hurls down his hail like pebbles. He sends his word and melts them.

That's a picture of the Word controlling everything that it comes in contact with. The Word of God convicts. The Word of God does not return empty. Isaiah 55, one of my favorite passages in the book of Isaiah. He says, As rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth, so is my word that goes out from my mouth.

It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. Whenever we are faithful to handle the Word, we have to know that we're doing a good work. We're doing a faithful work. Even if we, as the deliverer of the Word, even though we are poor, even though we are wretched and naked and blind, the Word itself is not wretched and naked and blind. It is perfect and it does convert the soul.

In the midst of our weakness and our sinfulness, our poor style, our poor thinking, God's Word is true. Whenever we can exalt the Word of God, we have done something very, very powerful. So we've been talking about how important it is to take the message of our preaching from the text of Scripture, that we go into the text and we pull the words out and we interpret them, we actually let the words of the text and the concepts there form the outline of the text. We don't give it our own outline, It gives us its own outline. We give it its voice.

We give it its meaning, not our own. This is how we are faithful to the text so that the meaning of the passage is the meaning of the sermon. In that sense, we are faithful stewards in that we put ourselves in the yoke. We regulate ourselves by the yoke of scripture and we let it rule the day as much as we can. Yesterday we passed out a book on memorizing Scripture that Andy Davis has written.

How important it is that we have the words of Scripture in our minds so that they become part of the natural outflow of everything that we do. I don't know if any of you have read David McCullough's history books on John Adams, 1776, and some of these others. Well, he was being interviewed recently and he was asked about his experience. He said, I determined not just to read Adams, but I went into Adams' library and I read what Adams read. I wanted to know what was in the soul of this man.

And here's what he said. What I found out was when I would read Defoe and the other books that Adams read. I found that Adams, he had absorbed the language, even complete phrases from these other authors that he read, and they would appear in the text of his writing just unconsciously because they'd become a part of him. That's what we need to do. That our souls are so saturated with Holy Scripture that the phraseology, the ideas, even sentences come out of our mouths unconsciously.

We might not even know where they were, but they came out of us because they had become formative aspects of our soul. And this is why it's so critical that we immerse ourselves in holy scripture. So expository preaching presents the authority of God in His Word and illuminates everything about the Lord Jesus Christ, the hope of the gospel. And this session on Christ-centered preaching is about exposing the gospel in all of our preaching. You know, what is our message ultimately?

It's ultimately the message of the redemptive God who sent His Son. And everything in Scripture points back to it. Scripture is Christ-centered and so should our preaching be as well. I'd like to pass out these handouts if I could get a little bit of help here to pass them out. What I've done with these handouts is I've just simply extracted statements from this book, Christ-Centered Preaching.

It's a fascinating book, and he talks about the difference between Christ-centered preaching and preaching that's based on two do's. There's preaching that says here are the five steps to a better marriage. Here are the ten steps to see your prayers answered. That's one kind of sermon. But Brian Chappell says these are more damaging to faith than you can even imagine.

He said they're man-centered messages. He says ultimately we are either man-centered in our messages or we are God-centered. We can be the kind of people who what he calls give be like messages. You need to be like this. They focus on the perhaps the accomplishments of these wonderful characters in Scripture.

He says then there are the be good messages that end up to be moralistic lessons And then there are the Be Discipline messages that would improve our relationship with God by particular disciplines. And he says this is often no more than just that ancient old doctrine, sola bootstrappa, just bootstrappa yourself-a-pa, and get yourself together, slap yourself around a little bit, get that character shined on up. He says Christ-centered preaching though might lead us in a different direction it leads us though to the power of the gospel which is why Paul said I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it's the power of God unto salvation. And how important it is that we connect all of our preaching to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what his book is about.

What I would like to do is to run through this and then what we'll do is we're going to open actually to a passage of Scripture that we're going to be handling in our worship service tomorrow. Acts 20 verse 17. So this is going to be a workshop time. I'm going to write down on the board the findings. So what we're seeing right now here, I want us to already get our wheels moving regarding looking at a particular passage of Scripture because we're going to be looking at Acts chapter 20 through this grid and we're going to share together whatever wisdom God might give us to help us see this passage in its redemptive context.

The first thing that he says that I have on this page for you is this, without understanding our daily dependence on grace, we have little hope of reflecting the character that endorses the integrity of our messages. And then he comes up with a handle, a fallen condition focus. That's how he builds this argument. And he terms it FCF, fallen condition focus, and he is encouraging us to find the text purpose in this fallen conditioned focus and he says we do not fully understand the text purpose without considering the spiritual burden of the text for people in the real and the daily struggles of their life. So he's saying look for the impact of the gospel on the daily struggles that are implied in this passage of Scripture.

He says everything that is written in the past is written to teach us so that through endurance and encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope and this he's quoting Romans 15 for everything that is written is so that we would have hope there's no better way to have hope than to see all of life in the context of the grace of God through the Lord Jesus Christ. He says that this fallen condition focus helps us see a couple of things. First, it focuses on the fallen condition that necessitated the writing of the passage. Okay, so we're going to jump into Acts 20 in a minute. What is the fallen condition that necessitated the writing of this passage?

We're going to ask that question and we're going to write our findings on the board. Secondly, use the text features to explain how the Holy Spirit addresses that concern then and now. And then Chapel says, The fallen condition focus is the mutual human condition that contemporary believers share with those who or about whom the text was written that requires the grace of passage for God's people to glorify and enjoy him and then he says the fallen condition focus present in every text demonstrates God's refusal to leave His frail and sinful children without guide or defense in a world antagonistic to their spiritual well-being. And then he says the fallen condition focus forces a sermon to honor God as the only source of hope rather than merely promoting human fix-its or behavior change You know we've been reading John Owen. Remember that amazing graphic beautiful image he gave us that often when we see our sins it's like We see the bad fruit on the tree and we go and we just knock the fruit off the tree and it comes off only for a while because we haven't dealt with the root of it and it just grows again and we're trapped in this endless cycle of just knocking off bad fruit, fixing the outside, not dealing with the inside of the cup at all.

This fallen condition focus, Chappell says, determines the real subject of a message by revealing the Holy Spirit's purpose in inspiring a passage. Ultimately a sermon is about how a text says we respond biblically to the fallen condition focus and how it's experienced in lives. Identifying gracious means that God provides for us to deal with the human brokenness that deprives us of the full experience of glory. So he gives us three things we need to extract. What does the text say?

Number two, what spiritual concern or what spiritual concerns did the text address in its context? And then thirdly, what spiritual concerns do listeners share in common with those about whom the text is written. So he says clear articulation of a fallen condition focus drives a messages application and ensures the Christ centeredness of a sermon just to summarize all of this again I'm just taking words off of his own page these are not my own interpretations of these are direct quotations identify the redemptive principles evident in the text reveal aspects of the divine nature which provides redemption reveal aspects of human nature which requires redemption Determine what application these redemptive principles were to have in the lives of the original hearers of the text. And then lastly, apply the redemptive principles to contemporary lives in light of common human characteristics or conditions contemporary believers share with the original hearers. Okay, so let's turn to Acts chapter 20.

I'm going to read it and then we're going to look for the message and the redemptive focus of the passage and the Christ centeredness of it. Acts chapter 20, we're going to begin at verse 17. Paul is with the elders of the church of Ephesus on the beach of Miletus. Paul spent three years in Ephesus previously. He says he fought with wild beasts in Ephesus.

It was a wild scene. He taught for three months in the synagogue, was kicked out. Then the bitterness was so great he went to the school of Taranis. I picture it as a building somewhat like this honestly. He rented a building and taught for a period of over two and a half years in the school of Tyrannus.

His teaching caused an economic explosion in the city. The word of the cross was destructive to the economy of the town because it was dependent on pornography, on magic, it was dependent upon the production of idols in every wicked thing and the word of the gospel was destroying the economy. The bottom lines of the businessmen were being affected. Nobody ever comes to the Lord Jesus Christ without having his pocketbook affected and that's what was happening in Ephesus and so Paul is now he has called the elders of the Church of Ephesus to come and meet with them they've traveled an entire day's journey at least 30 miles to come and meet with them there and they're gonna have to make that trip back again. Paul could have gone directly there but he sailed past them for some reason and he called to meet with the elders of the church and here he is on the beach with them now in verse 17.

So the text opens with these words. From Miletus he sent to Ephesus and called for the elders of the church. And when they had come to him, he said to them, You know from the first day that I came to Asia what manner I always lived among you, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and trials which happened to me by the plotting of the Jews, how I kept back nothing that was helpful but proclaimed it to you and taught you both publicly and from house to house testifying to Jews and also to Greeks repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. And see, now I go bound to the Spirit, in the Spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that will happen to me there. Except that the Holy Spirit testifies in every city saying that chains and tribulations await me.

But none of these things move me nor do I count my life dear to myself so that I may finish my race with joy and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God And indeed now I know that you all among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God will see my face no more. Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to shepherd the Church of God which he purchased with his own blood for I know this that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you not sparing the flock and also from among yourselves men will rise up speaking perverse things and drawing the disciples after themselves therefore watch and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone, night and day with tears. So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up, give you an inheritance among those who are sanctified.

I've coveted no one's silver or gold or apparel. You yourselves know that these hands are provided for my necessities and for those who are with me. And I've shown you in every way by laboring like this that you must support the weak. And remember the words of the Lord Jesus said, it is more blessed to give than receive. And when he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all.

And then they all wept freely and fell on Paul's neck and kissed him, sorrowing most of all for the words which he spoke that they would see his face no more and they accompanied him to the ship. Well this is one of the most, no this is the most wonderful passage of Scripture. It's the best text in all of Scripture, isn't it? Don't you feel that way? That every text is just so blessed, so precious.

Well, this is one of those as well. Okay, so that's the fallen condition focus. It's an interesting grid with which to look at a passage of scripture. It's certainly not the only thing we should do, but what I like about the Chapel's message is it helps us to look for the Lord Jesus everywhere, lest we somehow become blinded by the moralism that is in the Bible, the commands that are in the Bible. When I say blinded, I don't mean that commands are negative.

Commands are absolutely necessary for us. We must obey them. God has given them to us. There are things to do, for sure. But that's not the end of the story.

How would we do them without the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. We can absolutely be crushed by the things that we have not been able to do as a result of the grace of the Lord Jesus. So I think it's a helpful grid to see us through finding the gospel and its message. Here in this passage we see our sins played right before us. And what about those?

What do we do with those? Well our only hope is to take them to the cross and beg God for help. That He would energize our spirits to save us from our sins judicially and then also practically in everyday life progressively as we grow on and on in the Lord Jesus Christ. It would be for us to find the message of the cross in everything that we preach, that we see the Lord Jesus Christ speaking in every place in Scripture. In doing so, we give the world what it needs the most, the Lord Jesus Christ.

He is our message. I trust that God would help us to handle scripture in a way that breathes of the love of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Oh Lord, this sword, this tool to transform us, this law that is perfect, converting our souls, this powerful force in the world that creates all that there is. We, Lord, desire to be faithful to You in serving it up well.

Lord, that You would help us because we need so much help to serve it up in faithfulness, that we would serve it up regularly in our homes and in our churches. I pray, Father, that you would give us great energy for these marvelous, wonderful words of life. In Jesus' name, Amen. For more messages, articles, and videos on the subject of conforming the church and the family to the word of God, and for more information about the National Center for Family Integrated Churches, where you can search our online network to find family integrated churches in your area, log on to our website ncfic.org.