I agree that preaching too easily becomes moralistic. We can’t be too Christ-centered, only Christ centered.

In this context, Bryan Chappell’s book is a good one, Christ-centered preaching.

I totally get the emphasis on Scripture and “biblical” as the focus of the content. But what is the focus of Scripture? Jesus.

Too many — who rightly want to keep the Bible as God’s authoritative and living Word (awesome!) — miss the point and preach a moralistic message where Jesus is not the Hero. The Bible is authoritative, and sufficient. It’s sufficient because Jesus is the Hero of the text, of the universe, and when His bullet hits us, He becomes the Hero of our lives.

I am currently writing about this and I use the summary statement that expository preaching should be, “A biblical bullet fired at the life of the listener in the clear light of day.”

I think Mohler’s statement makes a good point (which is why I posted it) – - but, it could easily be taken out of context.

[I'm sure Mohler agrees with that as well, and the quote above may be more pointed at those "preachers" who tell a story (about themselves) and make their sermon supremely obey-able — 3 easy things you can do this week to make God happy, etc. Which means the sermon is 'good news,' but Jesus is not the Hero and it's not The Good News.]

Agree?

—
As for expository preaching, Stott writes in Between Two Worlds:

It is my contention that all true Christian preaching is expository preaching. Of course, if by an “expository” sermon is meant a verse-by-verse explanation of a lengthy passage of Scripture, then indeed it is only on possible way of preaching, but this would be a misuse of the word.

Properly speaking, “exposition” has a much broader meaning. It refers to the content of the sermon (biblical truth) rather than its style (a running commentary). To expound Scripture is to bring out of the text what is there and expose it to view. The expositor pries open what appears to be closed, makes plain what is obscure, unravels what is knotted and unfolds what is tightly packed. The opposite of exposition is “imposition”, which is to impose on the text what is not there. But the “text” in question could be a verse, or a sentence, or even a single word. It could equally be a paragraph, or a chapter, or a whole book. The size of the text is immaterial, so long as it is biblical. What matters is what we do with it. Whether it is long or short, our responsibility as expositors is to open it up in such a way that it speaks its message clearly, plainly, accurately, relevantly. . . .
—John Stott, Between Two Worlds, pp. 125-26

What’s in the text? God’s prior work in Jesus.