This Easter sermon, preached by Brett Peatman at Aspendale Presbyterian Church, is best described as a warm evangelical message of comfort rather than a Reformed proclamation of the crucified and risen Christ. It is not liberal, sceptical, or Christless. It affirms that Jesus is risen, alive forever, divine, sovereign, and present with his church. The preacher clearly says that “Jesus is the risen one,” that he “was dead and is alive forever and ever,” and that he can “pull us through death into his future.” These are good and necessary truths, even if this last quote is somewhat novel and imprecise.
The sermon also contains a strong devotional Christology. Its use of Daniel 7 and Revelation 1 presents Christ as the exalted Son of Man who receives “authority, glory and sovereign power” and whose kingdom will never be destroyed. It even draws the Ancient of Days imagery into the portrait of Jesus and states plainly, “Jesus is God.” That is no small thing.
Yet the sermon’s controlling pastoral frame is not sin and salvation, guilt and grace, wrath and reconciliation, death in Adam and life in Christ.
Its frame is crisis and comfort. The opening question is, “What do you think we need in a crisis?” The answer is: “We need a friend and we need a future.” The resurrection is then presented as giving us “the greatest friend ever.”
That framing determines the whole sermon. Jesus is preached primarily as the risen Friend who is in charge, present, reassuring, and able to carry his people into the future. Near the conclusion the preacher says John “had a friend and a future” and “knew that Jesus was in control.” The hearers are then told that they do not need to pretend to be in control, but are called to “trust the living one who is.”
What has been stripped out are the doctrines that give Reformed preaching its searching and saving edge. There is no substantial doctrine of sin. The hearer is not addressed as guilty before God, dead in Adam, corrupt in nature, under judgment, or helpless apart from sovereign grace. There is no serious of atonement. Jesus is said to have been dead and now alive, but the sermon does not explain that he died as the sin-bearing substitute, satisfying divine justice and reconciling sinners to God. By contrast, the Westminster Confession describes Christ’s saving work as his “perfect obedience” and “sacrifice of Himself,” by which he “fully satisfied the justice of His Father” and purchased reconciliation and an everlasting inheritance for his people.
Nor is there much of justification, imputed righteousness, union with Christ, regeneration, repentance, effectual calling, or covenant theology. The call to respond is present, but vague: “Do business with Jesus. Come to Him… Is He your Lord?” That is an earnest evangelical appeal, but it is clearly not a Reformed summons to flee from sin and judgment to the crucified and risen Mediator by repentance and faith.
Most seriously, the doctrine of the new birth has been exiled. The sermon speaks of comfort, hope, divine presence, and Christ’s sovereign control, but it does not tell hearers that they must be born again. It does not distinguish between religious interest and spiritual life, between church attendance and regeneration, between admiration for the risen Christ and Spirit-wrought union with him. The unconverted hearer is not confronted as one who is spiritually dead and in need of resurrection life now. Easter is therefore preached as reassurance for the vulnerable more than as the announcement that dead sinners must be made alive in Christ.
For true believers, the sermon offers real comfort but little spiritual formation. It tells them that the risen Christ is with them and ruling over them, but it does not press the implications of their new birth: that they have been raised with Christ, must seek the things above, must put sin to death, must walk in newness of life, and must live as those whose old life has been crucified with Christ. Nor does it tell them, in Westminster terms, what their comfort consists of: the benefits that accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification — assurance of God’s love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Ghost, increase of grace, and perseverance therein to the end.
The result is a sermon highly palatable to a hearer seeking comfort in life. It tells the anxious person: you are vulnerable, but Jesus is with you. It tells the insecure churchgoer: Christianity may seem diminished, but Jesus is walking among his churches. It tells the overwhelmed person: you are not in control, but Jesus is. These are pastorally useful truths. But the sermon does not press the more offensive and saving truths: you are a sinner; you are not merely insecure but guilty; you do not merely need comfort but redemption; Christ did not merely rise to be your Friend, but died and rose as Surety, Substitute, Lord, Judge, and Life-giving Head.
So, the critique here, is not that the sermon is false. It is that it is evangelical comfort with the harder Reformed doctrines removed. It keeps the risen Christ’s majesty, nearness, and sovereignty, but largely removes sin, atonement, justification, regeneration, repentance, covenantal fulfilment, and experiential self-examination. Indeed, the doctrine of the new birth has been truly exiled. The sermon offers Christ as a consoling presence for life’s crises more than as the crucified and risen Saviour who gives life to dead sinners.
A full copy of the sermon is available at The Reformed Pastor YouTube channel
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