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Preach means “to cry out, herald, or exhort.” Preachers should pour out the message with passion and fervor in order to stir souls.
Not all passionate pleading from a pulpit, however, possesses divine authority. When preachers speak as heralds, they must cry out “the Word.” Anything less cannot legitimately pass for Christian preaching.
Yet when they fail to preach the Scriptures, they abandon their authority. No longer do they confront their hearers with a word from God.
God speaks through the Bible. It is the major tool of communication by which he addresses individuals today.
Expository preaching is the communication of a biblical concept, derived from and transmitted through a historical, grammatical, and literary study of a passage in its context, which the Holy Spirit first applies to the personality and experience of the preacher, then through the preacher, applies to the hearers.
First, and above all, the thought of the biblical writer determines the substance of an expository sermon.
“Do you, as a preacher, endeavor to bend your thought to the Scriptures, or do you use the Scriptures to support your thought?”
Although we examine words in the text and sometimes deal with particular words in the sermon, words and phrases should never become ends in themselves.
In their study expositors search for the objective meaning of a passage through their understanding of the language, backgrounds, and setting of the text. Then in the pulpit they present enough of their study to the congregation so that their listeners may check the interpretation for themselves.
“It takes two to speak the truth—one to speak, and another to hear.”
“The Bible is the supreme preacher to the preacher.”
Ultimately God is more interested in developing messengers than messages, and because the Holy Spirit confronts us primarily through the Bible, we must learn to listen to God before speaking for God.
Expositors think in three areas. First, as exegetes we struggle with the meanings of the biblical writer. Then, as people of God we wrestle with how God wants to change us. Finally, as preachers we ponder what God wants to say to the congregation through us.
Of course in speaking to a secular world we dare not speak a secular word. William Willimon observed that some preachers seem to have bent over backward to speak to a secular audience and they have fallen in.
Sermons seldom fail because they have too many ideas; more often they fail because they deal with too many unrelated ideas.
A sermon should be a bullet, not buckshot. Ideally each sermon is the explanation, interpretation, or application of a single dominant idea supported by other ideas, all drawn from one passage or several passages of Scripture.
Homileticians join their voices to insist that a sermon, like any good speech, embodies a single, all-encompassing concept.
Every sermon should have a theme, and that theme should be the theme of the portion of Scripture on which it is based.
Yet Sunday after Sunday men and women leave church unable to state the preacher’s basic idea because the preacher has not bothered to state it in the sermon.
But when God calls us to preach, he calls us to love him with our minds. God deserves that kind of love and so do the people to whom we minister.
First, detailed instruction about how to think may sometimes get in the way of the process.
While all Scripture is profitable, not every Scripture possesses equal profit for a congregation at a particular time.
At the same time, there is no greater betrayal of our calling than putting words in God’s mouth.
Topical exposition differs from the so-called topical sermon, therefore, in that the thought of the Scripture shapes all that is said in defining and developing the topic.
To preach effectively, therefore, expositors must be involved in three different worlds: the world of the Bible, the modern world, and the particular world in which we are called to preach.
We may stand before a congregation and deliver exegetically accurate sermons that are scholarly and organized, but they are dead and powerless because they ignore the life-wrenching problems and questions of our hearers.
Napoleon had three commands for his messengers that apply to any communicator: “Be clear! Be clear! Be clear!”
No one is an outsider to religion. Everyone must understand what God says. In fact, it is a life-and-death matter. Therefore, we must anticipate what our hearers may not know and, by our explanations, help them understand.
We do well, therefore, to adopt the attitude that a statement is not true because it is in the Bible; it is in the Bible because it is true.
We cannot decide what a passage means to us unless first we have determined what the passage meant when the Bible was written.
valid Christian decision is compounded always of both faith and facts. It is likely to be valid in the degree to which the faith is rightly apprehended and the facts are rightly measured.”13 Because our analysis of facts and our interpretation of the faith may differ, Christians disagree on ethical and political issues. Yet unless we struggle with the facts in the light of our faith, no decisions we make can legitimately be called Christian.
While every good sermon is the development of a central idea, not every idea in the biblical text can be turned into a sermon.
No matter how brilliant or biblical a sermon is, without a definite purpose it is not worth preaching.
Samuel Johnson observed that people need to be reminded as much as they need to be informed.
One well-worn formula for sermon development says: “Tell them what you are going to tell them; tell them what you are telling them; then tell them what you have told them.”
When you say something directly, it is simply not as potent as it is when you allow people to discover it for themselves.”
Most people in the pews live in a different intellectual world from yours. Indeed, they support you financially so that you can study what they cannot.
takes effort to think of ways a great truth may be applied to life.
In the final analysis listeners do not hear a sermon. They hear you.
Early in the sermon, therefore, your listeners should realize that you are talking to them about themselves.
Neither should you try to memorize your manuscript. Not only does memorization place a hefty burden on you if you speak several times a week, but an audience senses when you are reading words off the wall of your mind.
we do not understand a passage from the Bible or a point of theology unless we can express it clearly to the men and women sitting before us.
The effectiveness of our sermons depends on two factors: what we say and how we say it.
In a famous study psychologist Albert Mehrabian broke it down to a formula. Only 7 percent of a speaker’s message comes through his words; 38 percent springs from his voice; 55 percent comes from his facial expressions.
In public speaking the amateur says words; the professional, on the other hand, possesses a deep desire to communicate. Amateurs settle for getting their ideas out of their heads, while professionals strive to get ideas into our heads.
In the final analysis dress should not call attention to us but should help us call attention to the Word of God.
As I enter the pulpit, I wonder, “How can what I have prepared possibly feed so many?” My best sermons are little more than some fish and chips, and at times they are a bit greasy. Isn’t it folly to believe that what I have in my hand could possibly meet the hunger of an entire congregation?
Even on our best weeks we have only some fish and bread. But we serve the living Lord. Give him your small lunch and trust him to feed his people.
