Christ-Centered Preaching: Redeeming the Expository Sermon

by Bryan Chapell

Passion comes naturally to sermons when preachers speak as though they are addressing a real concern with a friend. If a friend were to come to our door one evening and confess that his teenage son is destroying his family, we would invite the friend to sit at our kitchen table, and we would talk plainly. The hurt in our friend’s eyes would dissuade us from pompous idealisms, the need to offer real help would make us turn to the Bible for practical aid, and our friendship would keep us speaking with love even if we had to say hard things. The best preaching offers no less. Application presented as though we are speaking to a friend across a kitchen table has more spiritual potential than a dozen sermons designed for delivery from Mount Sinai. When Jesus spoke, the Bible records, the common people delighted to hear him because he spoke so plainly about their concerns. Preaching that represents him should still speak as he did.

A mark of naive or inexperienced preaching is the expectation that, because the preacher says the right thing, the people will do the right thing, right away. Some sins are corrected in a conversation, and some require faithful preaching over a generation—or more. Faithful preachers must be able to tell people what the Bible requires and still love them when they act as though the words were never spoken. Frustration, anger, and despair are the sure companions of a preacher who cannot forgive the regular failure of God’s people to apply his Word. Such attitudes inevitably diminish the joy and zeal of the preacher. Application that remains strong and steady week after week arises from a mind fixed on God and from a heart that beats for broken people in a fallen world.

The assumption that one’s listeners automatically share one’s own interest in the sermon is a mark of an inexperienced preacher.1 Such a preacher reasons that because God’s people should be interested in God’s Word, they will be interested in a discussion of it. Only in a perfect world would such an expectation have merit.

An introduction may pique curiosity, concern, mirth, or wonder, but no matter what avenue a preacher takes, the task remains the same: Get their attention! If the opening sentence does not stimulate interest when it stands alone, reject it. Make the opening words count. After you step forward to begin the sermon, pause, square your shoulders to the congregation, look directly at your listeners, gather your breath, and then speak with evident confidence in your first words.

What makes an introduction most interesting are features that indicate that the message will have an impact on listeners’ lives.

No hearer has reason to progress beyond a sermon’s introduction if it does not point to an obvious personal consequence.

In an introduction, a preacher indicates why listeners should listen to the message by identifying the Fallen Condition Focus (FCF) of the sermon.10 The failure to do so is one of the most common and deadly omissions in evangelical preaching.

Contrary to the traditional approach to homiletics, which holds the application until the conclusion, application starts in the introduction.

There should be no question what the FCF of a message is by the end of the introduction. Normally, a preacher states the precise FCF toward the end of the introduction in a concise sentence that acts as the obvious launching pad for the rest of the sermon.

The introduction, therefore, should prepare for the proposition in concept and terminology. All key terms of the proposition should beacon in the introduction before they appear in the proposition. For formally worded propositions, this means that the key words of both the application and the principle clause should appear in the introduction.

Reference to the Scripture passage certainly has a place in traditional sermon introductions—not through a reading of the text but by an indication of how the text will address the FCF. After stating the FCF, a preacher usually ties the sermon to Scripture by indicating how (or at least that) the text addresses the subject.20 This bonding to Scripture usually occurs through a brief sentence or two immediately preceding the proposition and establishes (1) hope for an FCF solution and (2) authority for the proposition’s assertions.21

Because of their natural ability to involve listeners’ thoughts and emotions, human-interest accounts are ordinarily the most dependable and effective way to introduce sermons.24

Startling statement. This brief form of introduction is designed to jolt a congregation to attention. Jay Adams offers this wonderful example: There is a murderer sitting in this congregation today. . . . Yes, I mean it. Just yesterday he murdered someone. He didn’t think that anyone saw him, but he was wrong. I have a written statement from an eyewitness that I am going to read. Here is what it says, “Everybody who hates his brother is a murderer.” [1 John 3:15]25

Interesting quotations, striking statistics, biblical accounts with contemporary descriptions, correspondence excerpts, parables, familiar or pithy poetry, object lessons, and a host of other creative options may also serve well as sermon introductions.

After announcing the text, two obligations immediately fall on the preacher. The first of these obligations (although it may not come first in actual sequence) is to contextualize the text so that listeners will understand the reading. This may involve offering brief background comments (a sentence or two at most), providing definitions for unfamiliar words, or otherwise quickly orienting listeners to the passage. Second, the preacher must create a longing for the Word (see table 9.2). For many listeners, the Bible is simply a fog too dense for navigation. Others look at the Bible as a mountain of trite and tired truths they have scaled too often and from which they expect no new vistas. Those eager to read, those scared to read, and those calloused to reading all sit before the minister, who must draw each within the confines of the Word.

This caution also advises against the tendency to quote Scripture passages other than the text the sermon should expound. An introduction should act like a directional beacon leading all airborne thoughts to a single landing strip.

Instead of opening a message with textbook principles (e.g., “God saves us by faith alone.”), speak of the human concern (“When will you be good enough for God?”).

Dynamic delivery and consistent eye contact are requisites for effective introductions and credible speakers.

Preachers should write out the opening paragraphs so they are sure what to say, and then they should commit the opening sentence(s) to memory so that they have immediate credibility with listeners.