What does a Gospel focused church service look like?

A little while back I had a conversation with a friend after he had gone to church with me at Grace Presbyterian. It was his view that the Gospel had not been presented during that service. He even stated that most weeks it is not presented, but occasionally it is. This is a very serious accusation. So I had to ask myself, is the Gospel being faithfully proclaimed at Grace?  In my view, and I believe the view of Scripture, it is.

What my friend was looking for was a specific formula to be presented in the sermon every week. It was Fall -> Sin -> Hell -> Repentance -> Salvation -> Eternal Life -> Victory of Sin -> Live Accordingly.

These are all certainly elements of the Gospel. But I'm not so sure it's a simple formula. All of these things are presented clearly each church service. Every element may not be covered every week in the sermon, but I doubt anyone would want to sit through three hour sermons every week. (Read sermons by the Puritans and see if you could sit still for that long.) And in particular, they are not covered in the exact terminology that my friend wanted to hear. But I have no doubt that they are in every church service.

This is one of the strengths of having liturgy in your church service. It takes a lot of the weight off of the sermon. We publicly express adoration for who God is and what He has done through liturgy and the first hymn. We confess corporately and privately of sins. This is followed by a hymn expressing our sinful nature. Then our worship leader reads a passage of Scripture that tells us that we have forgiveness of our sins in Christ. Following this we sing the Doxology.

We then confess positively what we believe, either the Apostle's or Nicene Creed. This captures all of the elements my friend desires to hear except the victory over sin portion. It goes into greater detail concerning the unique person and funtion of each member of the Trinity, however. After this we sing a hymn of thanksgiving.

With all of these things done every week, and explained why we do them, both in the bulletin and by the worship leader or minister, I feel comfortable in saying that regardless of the sermon, the full Gospel message is presented each and every week.

Tomorrow I will provide my thoughts on the Gospel in the sermon.