John Piper first became well-known as a result of his 1990 book, “The Supremacy of God in Preaching.” At the very beginning, he wrote the memorable statement that every sermon should be about God. That seems so obvious, but when one listens to much preaching today, from both liberal and conservative pulpits, it is very disappointing to discover how seldom that is the case. Sermons are too often about us: how we feel, how we should act, how our lives can be improved, how to do a better job raising our kids, or managing our finances, or overcoming anxiety. It’s as if the pulpit has been turned into a psychologist’s counseling couch for a group therapy session! The gospel of what God has done for us in Christ has been exchanged for a false gospel of what should do to make the world a better place.
What we often refer to as the sovereignty of God is what Piper meant by the supremacy of God. And this perspective transfers inevitably from preaching into living, as our sermons ought to be helping us live more continually and consistently with a God-focused world and life view. The more we hear about the greatness of God in the sermons that feed our souls, the more we will instinctively think about everything happening around us and within us with the realization that He is at the center of everything. How desperately we need that reminder when the world, the flesh, and the devil keep trying to override that thought.
The theology of John Piper is nothing new or novel. This God-centeredness fills the pages of Scripture as well as the annals of history, from King David to the Apostle Paul to St. Augustine to John Calvin to Charles Spurgeon. We hear it and read it today in the publications of Al Mohler and R. C. Sproul and James Montgomery Boice and Sinclair Ferguson and Steven Nichols. And in recent music we hear it from the writers associated with Getty Music and Sovereign Grace Music.