Dorothy Vandezande’s Reviews > Christ-Centered Worship: Letting the Gospel Shape Our Practice > Status Update

The reformers...did not intend for the primacy of the Word to eclipse the other elements of worship. Grace preached was to be the context for understanding grace expressed in liturgy and sacrament. The grace presented in these would then work synergistically with the gospel proclaimed in the pulpit to lead the heart to more profound levels of spiritual understanding and appreciation.

The primary reason we must preach the grace of God from all the Scripture is not so that we will master an interpretive skill...Biblical theology practiced merely as a science of interpretation encourages theological debate and spiritual pride... The true goal of redemptive preaching is to expand the ways in which God...shows...His mercy so that we will understand Christ's sacrifice more fully, and...love Him more.

"We need the gospel pattern of our liturgy...because we cannot truly worship Christ apart from the grace by which he has revealed himself to us. This realization makes now-familiar aspects of the gospel pattern of Christ-centered worship take on new significance. For now we must consider whether Christ can be truly known and worshiped if we neglect the grace-revealing aspects of the liturgy."

"We do not gather simply to extol some attribute of God or to reflect the relationships of the Trinity. Heaven's glories would only devastate us, if God's grace did not shelter us. We do not gather merely to confess our sin. Our shame would destroy us, if his grace did not provide our pardon. We also do not worship only to learn our obligations. God's law would be our death, if the Lamb had not been slain for us."