He has either placed them before God, under the text, or he has located them first within their own world of feeling, struggle, relevance, and self-perception. For this reason, the opening of a sermon is never a neutral preface. It is a theological act.

This point may be seen by asking a series of simple questions. Who stands at the centre of the opening movement? What problem is assumed? Whose viewpoint is that problem coming from? What authority governs the sermon from the outset? Is the biblical text introduced as the ruling speech of God, or is the text brought in only after the sermonic atmosphere has already been established elsewhere? Is the hearer positioned first as sinner before a holy God, or as self-interpreting subject in search of guidance, comfort, or relevance?

These questions matter because introductions do not merely capture attention. They frame reception. They train the congregation what kind of act preaching is. If a sermon begins with God speaking in and through the text, the hearer is summoned into submission before revelation. If a sermon begins with the preacher’s experience or the hearer’s felt world, the hearer is tacitly taught to process the sermon through the self. Even where the text later appears, it will likely be heard within that already-established frame.

Two Competing Sermon Logics

The contrast may be represented schematically.

Much modern man-centred so-called Reformed preaching follows a pattern like this:

ME → TEXT → ME → CULTURE → CHRIST

A genuinely God-centred Reformed sermon is better described by this movement:

GOD → TEXT → SIN → CHRIST → RESPONSE

These patterns are analytic rather than mechanical. They do not claim that every sermon fits perfectly into a single formula. Their value lies in exposing control. The first term tends to govern the whole chain.

Where the opening movement is ME, the sermon begins with human subjectivity. This may appear in the form of an anecdote, an introspective question, a felt-need entry point, or a conversational framing device designed to make the sermon immediately relatable. The text is then introduced, but only after the interpretive mood has already been established. The sermon commonly returns to the self as its practical centre, expands into broader cultural relevance, and finally arrives at Christ as a concluding answer or encouragement.

Where the opening movement is GOD, the sermon begins not with human experience but with divine reality and divine speech. The text is opened as revelation, not as illustrative material. Sin is exposed in relation to God’s holiness and authority. Christ is proclaimed as the necessary centre to which the text itself drives the hearer. Response then follows as the consequence of revelation rather than as the sermon’s organising principle.

Why the First Term Governs the Whole

The force of this contrast lies in the fact that the first movement of a sermon is rarely detachable from what follows. Occasionally, it is detachable though and this forces the question, “why is it there at all”? Normally though, the beginning is often the sermon in embryo. It establishes the hierarchy of concerns, the logic of development, and the posture in which the congregation is trained to hear.

If the sermon begins with ME, then human experience becomes the primary interpretive horizon. The text may still be handled reverently and may even be expounded with some competence, but it has already entered a space structured around the hearer’s world. The congregation has learned that the governing question is likely to be, “How does this connect with me?” rather than, “What has God said here?” In such a setting, the text easily becomes confirmatory rather than controlling. It supports the sermon, but does not rule it.

If the sermon begins with GOD, the situation is fundamentally altered. The hearer is placed under an authority prior to himself. The controlling question is no longer one of self-relevance first, but of revelation: what does this passage disclose about God, man, sin, judgment, mercy, and redemption? Here the biblical text is not a resource to be consulted after the human problem has been framed. It is the divine speech that defines the problem in the first place.

This is why the conclusion of a sermon is often latent in its opening. If the sermon begins with man, Christ will tend to appear later as functional resolution to a humanly defined need. If it begins with God, Christ will arise as the necessary answer to a problem disclosed by revelation itself. In the former, Christ may be included; in the latter, he is organically proclaimed.

Being Under the Text and Merely Hearing Abstract Truth

This distinction clarifies an important issue. A sermon may contain many true statements without bringing the congregation under the text. It may affirm that God is faithful, that sin is real, that Christ saves, and that believers must trust and obey. None of these statements are false. Yet truth in proposition alone is not identical with text-governed preaching.

To be under the text is to be confronted by the actual passage in its own authority, sequence, pressure, and claims. The hearer is not merely offered biblical ideas, but addressed by God through the text itself. Scripture defines the categories. Scripture names the problem. Scripture governs the movement toward Christ and the call to response. The sermon does not simply say things that are biblically defensible. It lets the text rule.

By contrast, abstract truth is truth detached from that governing force. It is truth expressed as theme, principle, or concept, yet no longer pressing upon the hearer as the living speech of God in this passage. The congregation may hear orthodoxy and remain untouched by divine confrontation. They may receive theological statements while never truly standing beneath the authority of the text. This is one of the chief dangers of man-centred sermonic architecture. It can preserve biblical content while muting biblical government.

What the First Three Minutes Likely Reveals About the Preacher

The opening of a sermon also reveals something about the preacher, though this must be stated with caution. It does not give warrant for speculative judgments about the hidden state of his soul. Yet it does disclose his operative theology of preaching, his instincts concerning authority, and his practical relation to the Word he handles.

A preacher who habitually begins with self, relevance, or felt need may sincerely affirm high views of Scripture in the abstract. Still, his sermonic practice may reveal that he functionally sees preaching as the management of religious experience rather than the heralding of divine revelation. His introduction may show that he feels obliged to secure interest before God may be allowed to speak, or that he fears direct textual government will not hold the hearer’s attention. In that sense, the opening can expose a preacher’s functional confidence, not merely his stated convictions.

By contrast, a preacher who begins with God and the text demonstrates a different posture. He shows that he understands himself primarily as servant of the Word, not curator of relevance. He trusts that divine speech is not a liability to be softened by human framing, but the very power by which the congregation must be addressed. This does not prove superior spirituality in a simplistic sense. But it does reveal something about how he stands in the pulpit before God, before Scripture, and before the church.

For that reason, it is appropriate to say that the first three minutes may reveal something of the preacher’s practical relationship to God, provided the claim is properly limited. What they disclose is not hidden inward experience as such, but visible theological posture.

How The Modern Sequence Works: From Self to Christ by Way of Relevance

The modern sequence may now be traced more closely.

ME → TEXT. The sermon begins with the self and only then turns to the text. By the time Scripture appears, the centre has already been set elsewhere. The passage enters a sermonic world organised by human concern.

TEXT → ME. Having introduced the passage, the sermon returns quickly to the self. The text becomes a mirror for experience more than a master over conscience. Its meaning is filtered through the hearer’s struggles, longings, and practical concerns.

ME → CULTURE. From the self, the sermon often expands into broader relevance. The world of contemporary life, relationships, anxieties, or social concerns becomes the framework through which the text is made usable. The sermon may now sound highly practical, but its practicality has come at the cost of textual rule.

CULTURE → CHRIST. Christ then appears as the resolution to a humanly framed problem. He may be preached warmly and sincerely, yet structurally he arrives late. He functions as answer, model, comfort, or encouragement, rather than as the redemptive centre demanded by the text’s own confrontation of sin before God.

The crucial point is that this sequence is often established in the first three minutes. The sermon’s apparent conclusion is already implicit in its introduction.

A Reformed Alternative: From God to Response by Way of Redemptive Necessity

The alternative sequence follows a different order because it begins from a different principle.

GOD → TEXT. The sermon opens with divine reality and divine speech. The preacher names the passage, its setting, and its claim upon the hearer. God is not brought in later. He is first.

TEXT → SIN. The text is then allowed to expose man truthfully. Sin is not reduced to struggle, dissatisfaction, or misalignment. It is disclosed as guilt, rebellion, uncleanness, blindness, covenant breach, and liability to judgment before a holy God.

SIN → CHRIST. Christ is then proclaimed as necessary, not optional; objective, not merely therapeutic. He does not enter as helpful addition to an already human-centred discourse. He stands forth as the one to whom the text itself directs the condemned sinner.

CHRIST → RESPONSE. Only now does the sermon press toward response. Faith, repentance, obedience, comfort, and perseverance are demanded, but in their proper place. Response is not the sermonic centre. It is the result of revelation and redemption proclaimed.

This structure does not eliminate warmth or pastoral sensitivity. Rather, it grounds them. A sermon is most truly pastoral when it ministers to the hearer by bringing him under God’s Word and to Christ, not by shielding him from that encounter.[8]

Conclusion

The first three minutes of a sermon are not merely introductory. They are architectural, theological, and diagnostic. They establish who stands at the centre, what authority governs, how the text will function, and what kind of hearing the congregation is being trained into. Much contemporary so-called Reformed preaching reveals in its opening moments that it is structured less by divine revelation than by human experience. The result is that biblical truth may be stated, and even sincerely stated, without the hearer being truly brought under the text.

A genuinely God-centred Reformed sermon begins elsewhere. It begins with God speaking in Scripture. It lets the text govern over experience. It exposes sin in theological rather than merely therapeutic terms. It proclaims Christ as the necessary centre disclosed by revelation itself. It calls for response only after God has spoken and Christ has been set forth. The difference is not superficial. It concerns the very nature of preaching.

What is really happening in the first three minutes of a sermon, then, is often this: the preacher is quietly declaring what he believes preaching is, where authority lies, how the congregation should listen, and whether the church is about to hear the living Word of God or merely receive religious truth arranged around itself. He is in fact, revealing whether he regards preaching is relevant at all.