An example of gospel persuasion -

Evangelista:

So that all the covenant that believers are to have regard to, for life and salvation, is the free and gracious covenant that is betwixt Christ [or God in Christ] and them. And in this covenant there is not any condition or law to be performed on man's part, by himself; no, there is no more for him to do, but only to know and believe that Christ hath done all for him. Wherefore my dear Neophytus [a new Christian], to turn my speech particularly to you, [because I see you are in heaviness,] I beseech you to be persuaded that here you are to work nothing, here you are to do nothing, here you are to render nothing unto God, but only to receive the treasure, which is Jesus Christ, and apprehend him in your heart by faith, although you be never so great a sinner; and so shall you obtain forgiveness of sins, righteousness, and eternal happiness; not as an agent but as a patient, not by doing, but by receiving. Nothing here comes betwixt but faith only, apprehending Christ in the promise. This, then, is perfect righteousness, to hear nothing, to know nothing, to do nothing of the law of works; but only to know and believe that Jesus Christ is now gone to the Father, and sitteth at his right hand, not as a judge, but is made unto you of God, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Wherefore, as Paul and Silas said to the jailer, so say I unto you, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved"; that is, be verily persuaded in your heart that Jesus Christ is yours, and that you shall have life and salvation by him; that whatsoever Christ did for the redemption of mankind, he did it for you.

Fisher, Edward. The Marrow of Modern Divinity

"Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others (2 Corinthians 5:11a)

"Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God." (2 Corinthians 5:20)  

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Preaching not only has the purpose of presenting accurately the redemptive truths of Scripture, but it is the means of persuading, convincing, and urging listeners of the message preached to believe from the heart in Christ and embrace him, the very One to whom those truths point. Certainly one can appreciate the need to use persuasion and reasoning when preaching to the unsaved, but do pastors not also need persuasion when preaching to those who already have trusted in Christ...?

"Now preaching ought to have the object of promoting faith in Him, so that He may not only be Christ, but a Christ for you and for me, and that what is said of Him, and what He is called, may work in us. And this faith is produced and is maintained by preaching why Christ came, what He has brought us and given to us, and to what profit and advantage He is to be received."

Martin Luther, Concerning Christian Liberty

Some thoughts of mine on the matter of persuasive preaching:

Persuasive preaching seeks to convince not just inform! A battle rages for hearts and souls. 

Persuasive preaching engages Christians, not just the lost, in order that they see their sin and hear afresh the offer of Christ crucified for them in the gospel.  

Persuasive preaching recognizes that the Christian life is a spiritual warfare. 

Persuasive preaching recognizes that Christians by nature do still yield to sin. 

Persuasive preaching recognizes that Christians struggle with their sin and unbelief. 

Persuasive preaching recognizes that Christians struggle with sins in their lives and thus often feel discouraged, even despondent. 

Persuasive preaching presents Christ crucified as the remedy for the sins of not only the unsaved but Christians. 

Persuasive preaching diagnoses sin as a deadly cancer and not merely a flesh wound. 

Persuasive preaching calls for faith and repentance in the hearers. 

Persuasive preaching presents Christ crucified and him alone as the full remedy for the guilt of sin and God's full provision for godly living. 

Persuasive preaching presents Christ's substitutionary-penalty-paying-death on the cross and his resurrection as the power of God that breaks the dominion of sin in believers. 

Persuasive preaching doesn't primarily present Biblical truths for living the Christian life, but rather Christ crucified as the power of God unto justification, sanctification, and salvation. 

Persuasive preaching dares to confront hearers/sinners where Scripture confronts and comforts them where Scripture comforts. 

Persuasive preaching appeals to the hearts of the hearers, believer and unbeliever alike, with the Good News of Christ. 

Persuasive preaching appeals to the hearers, saved and lost, to trust in Christ - "all who labor and are heavy laden." 

Persuasive preaching exposes our lack of trust in Christ, our need of Christ, and presents Christ to us as he is offered in the gospel, the One who is completely trustworthy. 

Persuasive preaching presents the love of God in Christ who died for sinners, believer and unbeliever alike...

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Gleaned and adapted from Tim Keller's book on preaching...

Persuasive preaching seeks to convince hearers to put their trust in Christ alone and renounce all trust and hope in themselves. 

Persuasive preaching not only understands the Biblical text, presenting it with a clear theme, but presents it with a persuasive argument that engages the hearer's heart. 

Persuasive preaching presents Christ as the key to understanding each biblical text and also the key to bringing the Word persuasively home to the heart and life of the listener. 

Neglecting persuasion in preaching neglects the heart of the listener and undermines the purpose of preaching. 

Persuasive preaching is offering Christ as a living reality - the One to be believed in, encountered, and embraced by those who listen. 

Persuasive preaching engages listeners' with the truth of Scripture on a level of where they live. Christ is thus presented as coming to them. 

Persuasive preaching preaches Christ from the whole Word of God and preaches him not only to the mind but to the heart of the listener. 

Persuasive preaching presents to the listener the Bible's unique, divine, living power with the Word's own penetrating power (Heb. 4:12). 

Persuasive preaching seeks to change people by not only logically engaging listeners' minds with Scripture's truth but by moving their hearts with the love of God in Christ. 

"3. Another thing required for this is, experience of the power of the things we preach to others. I think, truly, that no man preaches a sermon well to others who does not first preach it to his own heart. If someone does not feed on, digest, and thrive by what he prepares for his people, he may give them poison as far as he knows; for unless he finds the power of it in his own heart, he cannot have any ground of confidence that it will have power in the hearts of others. It is an easier thing to bring our heads to preach than our hearts to preach. To bring our heads to preach, is nothing more than to fill our minds and memories with some notions of truth, of our own or other men, and speak them out to give satisfaction to ourselves and others: this is very easy. But to bring our hearts to preach, is to be transformed into the power of these truths; or to find the power of them, both before (in preparing our minds and hearts), and in delivering them so that we may benefit; and to be presented with zeal for God and compassion to the souls of men. A man may preach every day in the week, and not have his heart engaged once. This has lost us powerful preaching in the world and set up quaint orations instead; for such men never seek the experience of it in their own hearts. And so it has come to pass that some men’s preaching, and some men’s not preaching, have lost us the power of what we call the ministry. Though there be twenty or thirty thousand preachers, the nation perishes for lack of knowledge, and it is overwhelmed by all kinds of sins, and it is not delivered from them to this day."

"The year was 1768. A twenty-eight year old preacher by the name of Augustus Toplady, who wrote many of our best hymns, including "Rock of Ages", spent the afternoon in London with Mr. Brewer — an older, veteran Gospel preacher, whom he greatly admired and from whom he learned much. This is what Mr. Brewer said to the young Toplady, as Toplady later recorded in his diary:"

I cannot conclude without reminding you, my young brother, of some things that may be of use to you in the course of your ministry:

1. Preach Christ crucified, and dwell chiefly on the blessings resulting from His righteousness, atonement, and intercession. 

2. Avoid all needless controversies in the pulpit; except it be when your subject necessarily requires it; or when the truths of God are likely to suffer by your silence. 

3. When you ascend the pulpit, leave your learning behind you. Endeavor to preach more to the hearts of your people — than to their heads. 

4. Do not affect too much oratory. Seek rather to profit your hearers — than to be admired by them.

HT: Grace Gems

A few weeks ago Rick Philips wrote a post asking whether a gospel-centered ministry is sufficient for the church's ministry. To answer that question he focused on the ministry of Jesus as presented in the book of Mark. Philips writes:

This raises the question to me as to whether Jesus himself can be said to have a "gospel-centeredTM ministry?"

To satisfy my curiosity, I turned to the Gospel of Mark, which is currently being read during the morning worship services of the church I serve. I do realize that the Gospels are not given as a statistical sample of Jesus' ministry day-to-day. Still, we should be able to get a fair sense of our Lord's own priorities if we categorize the types of messages recorded in his Gospels...

But how was Jesus gospel-centered? The answer is that he revealed himself as the divine Messiah and enlightened man about God, he showed the power and grace to live a new kind of life, he exposed darkness and unbelief as false and ungodly, and he offered forgiveness to broken sinners.

Do a word search for union in your bible and see what you come up with. I did one with my Concordance app (ASV) on my iPad and interestingly enough, though not surprisingly, didn't come up with one single
occurrence of the word. Yet union is a word that today litters Christian essays, articles, sermons, and books. I use the verb 'litters' not to belittle the proper use of the doctrine, but to highlight what I think is often its overuse as the supposed overarching meta-soteriological doctrine explaining salvation in the New Testament.

26.  The spiritual Jerusalem corresponds to Sarah, the true lady and free woman who is the mother of us all, bringing us into liberty, and not into slavery as Hagar does..The heavenly Jerusalem is the church--that is to say, the faithful scattered throughout the world, who have one and the same Gospel, one and the same faith in Christ, the same Holy Spirit, and the same sacraments.

The word above should not be understood of the church triumphant in heaven, but the church militant here on earth. Godly people are said to be citizens of heaven (Philippians 3:20), but Christians are in heaven when they believe and lay hold of those inestimable, heavenly, and eternal gifts (Ephesians 1:3).  We must distinguish heavenly and spiritual blessing from the earthly.  The earthly blessing is to have a good civil government, to have children, peace, riches, fruits of the earth, and other physical things.  But the heavenly blessing is to be delivered from the law, sin, and death; to be justified and brought to life; to have peace with God; to have a faithful heart, a joyful conscience, and spiritual consolation; to have the knowledge of Jesus Christ; to have the gift of prophecy and the revelation of the Scriptures; to have the gift of the Holy Spirit and to rejoice in God.  These are the heavenly blessings that Christ gives the church.

Therefore, the Jerusalem that is above--the heavenly Jerusalem--is the church that is in the world now, not the city of the life to come or the church triumphant.  She gives birth through the Holy Spirit, by the ministry of the Word and sacraments, and not physically.

So Sarah, or Jerusalem, our free... mother, is the church itself, the spouse of Christ, of whom we are all born.  This mother gives birth to free children unceasingly, to the end of the world, as long as she preaches the Gospel, for this is truly to give birth.  She teaches the Gospel in this way:  we are delivered from  the curse of the law, from sin, death, and all other evils, by Jesus Christ, and not by the law or by doing what it commands.  Therefore, the Jerusalem that is above--that is to say, the church--is not subject to the law and its obedience, but is free and a mother without the law, sin, and death.  That is the sort of mother she is, and that is the sort of children she bears.

From Dennis Johnson's book, Him We Proclaim - Preaching Christ From All The Scriptures:

Christians are united to Christ by faith, both representatively and vitally.  Our representative union with the Savior entails the objective gospel truths that he obeyed God's law for us, suffered the law's curse for us, and was raised and vindicated for us.  Therefore we have obeyed, been condemned, and been vindicated in him, our covenant head.  Our vital union with Christ entails the subjectively applied gospel truth that he imparts his resurrection life to us by the Holy Spirit, initially and invincibly drawing us out of death and into the life of the new creation and subsequently producing covenant faithfulness - the fruit of the Spirit - in us...

... Christ's saving work is not only forensic, outside of us (justification, adoption) but also dynamic, within us (new creation, regeneration, sanctification) - and the two strands will converge in glorification on that day, when our lowly bodies are transformed to be like Jesus' glorious body (Phil.3:21), our resurrection not only will be the public demonstration that God has declared us righteous and adopted us as his children through faith in Christ (Rom. 5:17-18; 8:23), it will also complete the project of subjective vivification and conformity to Christ's holiness that the Spirit began in our regeneration (Rom. 8:10-11, 29-30; 1 John 3:2-3).  So redemptive-historical preaching, as the apostles practiced it, addresses not only what Christ has done for us as the faithful covenant Servant but also what Christ is doing in us to make us into faithful covenant servants. [p. 237]

4. Therefore, it is not the principal part of a sacrament simply to hold forth the body of Christ to us without any higher consideration, but rather to seal and confirm that promise by which he testifies that his flesh is meat indeed, and his blood drink indeed, nourishing us unto life eternal, and by which he affirms that he is the bread of life, of which, whosoever shall eat, shall live for ever — I say, to seal and confirm that promise, and in order to do so, it sends us to the cross of Christ, where that promise was performed and fulfilled in all its parts. For we do not eat Christ duly and savingly unless as crucified, while with lively apprehension we perceive the efficacy of his death. When he called himself the bread of life, he did not take that appellation from the sacrament, as some perversely interpret; but such as he was given to us by the Father, such he exhibited himself when becoming partaker of our human mortality, he made us partakers of his divine immortality; when offering himself in sacrifice, he took our curse upon himself, that he might cover us with his blessing, when by his death he devoured and swallowed up death, when in his resurrection he raised our corruptible flesh, which he had put on, to glory and incorruption. 

5. It only remains that the whole become ours by application. This is done by means of the gospel, and more clearly by the sacred Supper, where Christ offers himself to us with all his blessings, and we receive him in faith. The sacrament, therefore, does not make Christ become for the first time the bread of life; but, while it calls to remembrance that Christ was made the bread of life that we may constantly eat him, it gives us a taste and relish for that bread, and makes us feel its efficacy. For it assures us, first, that whatever Christ did or suffered was done to give us life; and, secondly, that this quickening is eternal; by it we are ceaselessly nourished, sustained, and preserved in life. For as Christ would not have not been the bread of life to us if he had not been born, if he had not died and risen again; so he could not now be the bread of life, were not the efficacy and fruit of his nativity, death, and resurrection, eternal. All this Christ has elegantly expressed in these words, "The bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world" (John 6:51); doubtless intimating, that his body will be as bread in regard to the spiritual life of the soul, because it was to be delivered to death for our salvation, and that he extends it to us for food when he makes us partakers of it by faith. Wherefore he once gave himself that he might become bread, when he gave himself to he crucified for the redemption of the world; and he gives himself daily, when in the word of the gospel he offers himself to be partaken by us, inasmuch as he was crucified, when he seals that offer by the sacred mystery of the Supper, and when he accomplishes inwardly what he externally designates.

This whole matter of sanctification and holiness is peculiarly joined with and limited unto the doctrine, truth, and grace of the gospel; for holiness is nothing but the implanting, writing, and realizing of the gospel in our souls...

The “law,” indeed, for certain ends, “was given by Moses,” but all “grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” There neither is, nor ever was, in the world, nor ever shall be, the least dram of holiness, but what, flowing from Jesus Christ, is communicated by the Spirit, according to the truth and promise of the gospel.

(1.) He requires nothing of us (which we had all the reason in the world to expect that he would) to make atonement or satisfaction for our sins...

If there was only one book that a pastor had to read on preaching from the pulpit, my enthusiastic recommendation would be Him We Proclaim - Preaching Christ From All The Scriptures by  Dr. Dennis E. Johnson, Professor of Practical Theology at Westminster Calif.  But not only pastors... this is a valuable resource for any Christian who wants to understand how to read the Scriptures in order to strengthen faith and hold fast the hope of the gospel.

Early on in my Christian life I was exposed, like many, to the understanding that the purpose of preaching was to present Christ to the listeners.  Depending on one's template that can mean different things.  Is the purpose of preaching to edify believers? to lead them into a mystical experience of Christ? to encourage Christians to live as Jesus did by the Spirit's power?  to heal hurts and correct dysfunctional living?   Dr. Johnson addresses this question and more as he clearly sets forth the Christ to be preached as the Christ of the gospel of grace as revealed throughout God's redemptive history in the Bible - a proclamation sufficient for both our justification and sanctification.  To paraphrase the Westminster Shorter Catechism, sinners effectually convinced and converted by the Word through the Spirit of God are, by that very same Word, built up in holiness and comfort through faith unto salvation; faith that continues to grow as it is nourished by and relies upon the gospel of grace found in the finished work of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

At The White Horse Inn Michael Horton conducts an excellent interview with Dr. Johnson on the topic of the book.  Please listen, it is really worth the time.

To give the reader a taste of  Dr. Johnson's book, below are some excerpts from early parts of the book.

Dr. Johnson provides this helpful quote of Jay Adam's to set the stage:
"I am convinced that the purpose is of such vital importance to all a preacher does that it ought to control his thinking and actions from start to finish in the preparation and delivery of sermons." (p. 25)

Regarding the purpose of preaching:
"Second, one's understanding of the purpose of preaching is controlled by one's theology proper, theological anthropology, and soteriology... A particular diagnosis of our human malady and corresponding prescription of divine cure will produce one sort of sermon rather than another, and will seek one sort of response from the hearers rather than another." (p.26)

Dr. Johnson highlights Tim Keller's view:
"Christians are constantly tempted to relapse into legalistic attitudes in their pursuit of sanctification, so we never out grow our need to hear the good news of God's free and sovereign grace in Christ.  Sanctification, no less than justification must come by grace alone, through faith alone - we grow more like Christ only growing more consistent in trusting Christ alone, thinking, feeling, acting in line with the truth of the gospel (Gal. 2:14).  From this grace alone can flow true sanctification, motivated by gratitude and empowered by the Spirit.  We need to repent not only of our sins but also of our righteousness - our efforts at self-atonement in lieu of surrender to the all-sufficient grace of Christ... Keller insists that the same gospel that introduces people into the family of God is the power that transforms them as children of God... The gospel is not just the A-B-C's but the A to Z of Christianity [footnote 71]" (pp. 55-56, 59)

Dr. Johnson:
"We cannot evaluate our own strengths and weaknesses in preaching, nor our progress in strengthening strengths and minimizing weaknesses, unless we know what preaching is suppose to do, what purpose it is to accomplish." (p. 63)

"Preaching is God's instrument to elicit faith, thereby uniting us to Christ and his community." (p.67)

"Therefore, the same gospel that initially called us to faith is the means that perfects us in faith.  As surely as Christ's obedience, death, and resurrection constitute the all-sufficient, once-for-all ground of our justification by faith, so also Christ's righteous life, sacrificial death, and vindication in resurrection power are the fount from which flows our sanctification by faith as we now grow in grace.  The preaching that matures and edifies, no less than the preaching that evangelizes and converts, calls believers not beyond the gospel to deeper mysteries (as some were promising the Colossian Christians - Col. 2:16-23) but more deeply into the gospel and its implications for our attitudes, affections, motivations, and actions... [see Col. 2:6-7, Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him...]... The Christian walk follows the path already laid out in the gospel by which Christ was first received, namely the path of faith, with thanksgiving for amazing grace." (pp 68-69)

"Apostolic preaching addresses human needs in all their diversity and depth.  It does not just apply bandages to felt needs, which are symptoms of secret infection.  When God does the diagnosis through his whole Word, he pierces through the surface symptoms all the way to the heart, with the radical cure of God's holy truth exposing our infection n all its ugliness and applying Christ's amazing grace in all its sweetness and strength." (p.71)

"Paul preached nothing but Christ because he knew Jesus to be the supreme revealer of God the Creator and the only reconciler of God's people." (p. 75)

"... Paul's single, Christocentric message:  redemptive history and grace... Preaching Christ is preaching the fulfillment of God's redemptive plan for history."  (p. 78)

"Preaching Christ is preaching grace... Preaching Christ as Paul preached Christ, however, is preaching grace as the sole source and rationale of salvation and transformation from start to finish:  grace that imparts life to the spiritually dead, grace that imputes righteousness to the guilty, grace that instills the Spirit's power in those otherwise impotent to want or to do good, grace that holds fast the feeble and fainting, securing pilgrim's arrival at the destination in glory.  Grace points hearers to the sovereign, saving initiative and intervention of God to do for guilty and paralyzed sinners what we could never do for ourselves, not even with heavenly help" (p. 81)

Get Him We Proclaim here and read it!