Struggling with Sin? Lay Off the Diet Gospel.

You can tell if your heart is in a gospel-like moment or if you're in a gospel-like church where they are pushing you towards the flesh and they aren't pushing you towards Christ.

You don't have to be a false teacher in order to inculcate this kind of law-heavy mentality because the question is, all right, what is the emphasis and the tone and the tincture of preaching? Sunday over Sunday, is the emphasis Christ or is it me, something I'm doing?

When I'm left, what am I left with? If you were to ask your people, what is the ringing note of the sermon? Is it something that we need to be doing, law, or is it Jesus for us, gospel?

The Difference Between Law-Heavy Preaching and Gospel Preaching

If you look up and say, wow, that guy's a powerful preacher versus that man preaches the power of the gospel, there's a difference. This is why Paul's like, I came to you in much weakness. He's like, I didn't try and use flowery language that would impress you.

I wanted to make sure I didn't obscure the gospel. So when we're thinking about pointing to things and saying, there is my significance, there is my assurance, Satan always wants us to point to ourselves because at the end of the day, he can knock us over.

He can get to us.

He can get to us multiple ways. Just to be reductionistic for a second, Satan does want us to look at ourselves because he will cause us either to boast in the things that we think we can do or the things that we've done, or he'll cause us to despair of the things that we haven't done and can't.

Do.

That's right.

And so he gets at us multiple ways. When our eyes are off of Christ and on ourselves, it never goes well.

No, I mean, just going back, he goes, he's shooting fiery darts at you, whatever that.

Means.

We'll get into that a whole nother day. But then he says, stand in the strength of the Lord. Well, everything we're talking about, Law Heavy, is standing in your own strength. You would not go Law Heavy unless you think you could do it.

Right.

And I mean, to be fair, you know, when we say Law Heavy, we acknowledge that many people that are legal preachers will acknowledge the gospel and will even preach, you know, the plan of salvation. And we'll even talk about now by the spirit, by God's grace, stand, you know, but then it still is like the emphasis is still on how we're standing, you know, and what we're doing.

Why Legal Preaching Misses the Gospel Emphasis

So even when the there's kind of the acknowledgement and the tip of the cap to grace and the spirit of God, et cetera, the emphasis and the sounding note is still law. You can open the Bible and say a lot of good things.

You can say a lot of good law stuff. But if you have not held Jesus Christ out for sinners as their everything, forgiveness, righteousness and eternal life by grace, not works through faith alone, then you are not preaching Christian sermons.

And it does not have this kind of power.