How Can You Miss The Gospel In Sermon Preparation?

During this season where I am in the middle of getting a church plant started in Wichita Falls, my family and I have been visiting other churches in the city. We have friends in each church that has invited us and we have accepted their invitation to attend a worship service. We have visited some churches more than once while other we have visited and expressed never attend that church again for various reasons.

This past Sunday, we attended a church (which I will not name), where the pastor was my wife's former youth pastor and we have many friends there. The song portion of the worship service was alright. I had no problem with the songs they chose to lead the church in worship. Then came the sermon which was on Ephesians 2:1-13. One would think this would be a gospel-centered sermon talking about our spiritual condition before we met Jesus and who we are now in Christ. That was not the case.

The sermon was about hope and why we should not lose hope. The pastor did not even lead his congregation in a corporate reading of the text which is what some pastors in our area sometimes do. The approach in this sermon was not gospel-centered nor was it to equip the saints. It felt more like a counseling session where the pastor was just giving encouragement. Don't get me wrong, preachers need to be encouraging to their congregations with the hope of the gospel but not to the point where it almost sounds like Jesus is my boyfriend rather than our Lord and Savior.

My question, not just for this pastor, but to any pastor, is how can you miss the gospel in your sermon preparation? Take this sermon on Ephesians 2 for example. How can a preacher not see the beauty of the gospel in this passage? We were dead in our trespasses and sins while following Satan and the desires of our flesh (Ephesians 2:1-3). That's not good news. Now we are alive in Christ, seated in the heavenly places by God's grace not our works and God has called us in Christ to do good works which have been prepared beforehand (Ephesians 2:4-10). That's good news.

How can a preacher miss the gospel in that? For some, they are not looking for the gospel. I think the problem in a lot of churches is that they believe Christians have graduated from the gospel. Pastors, at times, present themselves as ones who have move beyond the gospel. Preachers should never think they have moved beyond the gospel because the gospel is what we need everyday regardless of how long we have been in the faith.

The gospel is the A to Z of the Christian faith as Tim Keller once said. Tullian Tchividjian said, "The gospel is the fuel for Christians to keep going and growing." Our churches need deep theological sermons but they also need the gospel. We need to address the issues of our day while preaching the gospel in our sermons. There is hope for those in Christ and it is show in the gospel.

Preachers and teachers, do not miss the gospel as you prepare your sermon, lesson, or whatever you are teaching. Christians need it today as they did when they first believed.