What shall I preach about this Sunday?

"I would never preach a sermon - the Lord forgive me if I do - which is not full to overflowing with my Master. I know one who said I was always on the old string, and he would come and hear me no more; but he said if I preached a sermon without Christ in it, he would come. Ah, he will never come while this tongue moves—for a sermon without Christ in it—a Christless sermon? A brook without water? A cloud without rain? A well which mocks the traveller? A tree twice dead, plucked up by the roots? A sky without a sun? A night without a star? It would be a realm of death—a place of mourning for angels, and laughter for devils! O Christian, we must have Christ!" (C H Spurgeon, Sermon: A Bundle of Myrrh, 8 March 1864)

"It is to feed sheep on Christ that men are called to churches and congregations, whatever they may think they are called to do. If you think that you are called to keep a largely worldly organisation (miscalled a church) going with... sub-Christian drugs or stimulants, then the only hope I can give you is to advise you to give up the hope of the ministry... [rather] than cluttering the church with a lot of worldly claptrap in the delusion you are doing a job for God." (William Still, The Work of the Pastor)

"To the evangelical preacher, then, I would address one simple but pointed question, a question every one of us should ask ourselves as we prepare to preach: How does this passage of Scripture, and consequently my sermon, testify to Christ?" (Graeme Goldsworthy, Preaching the whole Bible as Christian Scripture)

"We never 'arrive' or 'have cracked it' when it comes to preaching Christ. But as we come to know the Scriptures more intimately, as we see patterns deeply embedded in the Bible and - just as crucially - as we come to know Christ himself more intimately and to love him better, we shall surely develop the instinct to reason, explain and prove from all the Scriptures the riches of grace which are proclaimed in Jesus, the Christ, the Saviour of the world." (Sinclair Ferguson, Preaching Christ from the Old Testament)

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A prayer for the summer

LORD God, our God, the Maker of Heaven and Earth, our Father, as your children in the northern hemisphere enter this season of the academic year, please give us fresh grace to walk, stand and sit aright. May those of us who enjoy running and walking in your creation give thanks to you for that privilege but not be as concerned about the daily step count on our trackers as in taking practical steps this summer in kindness, in compassion, in forgiveness, in building others up, in pleasing the Lord - steps of progress in gracious, sacrificial, Christ-like loving (Ephesians 4-5). May those of us who look forward to getting out of the city give thanks to you for the privilege of travel but not ultimately be as concerned about the physical location in which we stand (whether "beneath the boughs" or on a hot and sweaty tube train) as about our location "in Christ" - the address of every spiritual blessing, complete forgiveness, intimate sonship, total security (Ephesians ...

Everlasting gobstopper theology

The idea here is that there are layers to Christ's fullness and when the biblical authors present Christ to us they might only explicitly refer to one layer but as they do that the underlying layers are also implied. Or to put it another way, the glory of the underlying layers shines through the layer that is presented to us. That might sound strange, abstract and not particularly helpful but let me try to explain. The incarnation implies the pre-existent Word When John identifies "Jesus Christ has come in the flesh" as the key test of orthodoxy, Augustine asks (Homily 6 on 1 John) how can this be when so many heretics happily affirm the humanity of Jesus but deny his deity? Augustine then asks us to dig a bit deeper and consider: From whence did he come? "Was he not God?" Simon Gathercole demonstrated (in his 2006 book, The Pre-existent Son ) that Jesus' phrase in the synoptic gospels, "I have come", implies divine pre-existence. So whenever we ...

The virtue of stability

We live in a culture where stability, stick-ability and consistency are not really seen as virtues but disabilities. We told that it’s good to be flexible, agile, constantly shifting, morphing, evolving, jumping from one thing to another. Everyone offers us change – politicians, internet providers, management gurus. To stick with one thing, to be the same person yesterday, today and tomorrow is strange, boring, old-fashioned, impractical and probably deadly. Change becomes the new constant, flux and flex the new buzz words. That culture affects us personally and as churches. And there are some things about willingness to change (reformation?) that are hugely positive. We've talked about the need to be willing to change as a good farmer seeking growth . And how change is often spiritually good for us . But there are negative aspects to a culture that makes a virtue of constant instability. Is it good for customers and companies if employees change jobs every year? Is it good for chi...

Looking at Christ

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