This is a response to an email from a friend. We’re aspiring to be godly preachers of the gospel. We’ve been exploring what it means to preach Christ in the Old Testament.

We have to get away from allegorizing or using fanciful, sensational interpretations.

To be more specific, as preachers of the gospel, when we preach on Old Testament passages, we should always refer to the main truths of the gospel. Although we’re preaching a specific passage, God calls us to also preach the overarching context of the Bible. The overarching context of the Bible is the gospel of Christ.

These simple blocks of the gospel help me tie, or relate, the gospel to my sermons:

Block1
GOD
MAN
JESUS
FAITH

Block2
CREATION
FALL
REDEMPTION
RESTORATION

For example, we talked about your sermon on Adonijah. I’ll use Block1 to tie the gospel into Adonijah’s story.

What’s the immediate context?

Adonijah is selfish and it hurts him and other people. And most importantly, it does not glorify God.

How can we tie the gospel, the overarching context of the Bible, to Adonijah’s story?

[MAN] We should show our listeners that we are like Adonijah. We are selfish sinners that do not want to glorify God. We want to be the center of the universe.

[GOD] We can then show that this sinful, self-addicted, selfish nature of ours is totally opposed to God, since he is sumpremely righteous and holy. In God’s judgment, he should bring his just wrath upon us. It is what we truly deserve.

[JESUS] Our sin puts us in opposition and rebellion against God. However, in love, God himself provided a solution for our sin. The solution is Jesus’ life and death. God was totally unselfish in Jesus’ ministry. And his ultimate act of unselfishness was Jesus’ death at the cross.

With all this in mind, what should be our response? What is our responsibility? How can we be pleasing to God when we have hearts like Adonijah? How can we stand right before a holy God when we act like Adonijah?

[FAITH] Our only hope is the blood of Jesus. Look not to yourself, but trust in the work of Christ on the cross. He was unselfish even to the point of death, so that we might trust in his death and be redeemed from our selfishness and self-addiction.

Hope that helps and makes my views clearer.

For the fame of the Master,

dee