Preaching with Purpose: The Urgent Task of Homiletics (Jay Adams Library)

by Jay E. Adams

First, there is a need to examine and to stress purpose because there is so much purposeless preaching today in which the preacher has only the vaguest idea of what he wants to achieve.

Secondly, the amazing lack of concern for purpose among homileticians and preachers has spawned a brood of preachers who are dull, lifeless, abstract, and impersonal; it has obscured truth, hindered joyous Christian living, destroyed dedication and initiative, and stifled service for Christ.

Purpose is the central issue. The preacher’s purpose in preaching, the purpose of the text, the purpose of the sermon content, of the organization, of the style, of the illustrative materials, of the type of delivery used—all of these and much more are crucial to good preaching.

Whatever you do in a sermon, you should do consciously and deliberately to achieve some purpose.

There are, then, two kinds of preaching (because of a deeply impressed use of the English word I shall use the term “preaching” to cover both evangelistic and pastoral speaking): evangelistic preaching (heralding, announcing the good news) and pastoral or edificational preaching (teaching).

The pastoral preacher must be prepared at each gathering of the saints to use the Word in some way in order to “equip” them for their work of ministry. That is paramount. To honor God (the ultimate objective of all that a believer does), the preacher’s purpose must be God’s purpose. There can be no doubt that the pastoral preacher is obligated to meet that need: “And He gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists and some as shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for a work of service leading to the building up of Christ’s body” (Eph. 4:11, 12). Pastoral preaching is a prime means for doing so. Faithful fulfillment of his weekly task, then, entails edificational preaching. The minister of the Word is a mason who goes to church each week to lay block. He builds on a foundation, and to be faithful he must build that which will be able to withstand the fires of testing (I Cor. 3:10-15).

The purpose of preaching, then, is to effect changes among the members of God’s church that build them up individually and that build up the body as a whole. Individually, good pastoral preaching helps each person in the congregation to grow in his faith, conforming his life more and more to biblical standards. Corporately, such preaching builds up the church as a body in the relationship of the parts to the whole, and the whole to God and to the world.

The most fundamental purpose in preaching from a Scripture portion is to obey Jesus and follow His example. Today we can “teach” Christians to “observe all” that Jesus “commanded” only by turning to the pages of the New Testament on which those commandments are found. So, again, as in Old Testament times, we must turn to the Scriptures as the sole source of what we teach. And, according to synagogue practice, Jesus’ example, His order to teach all He commanded, and the task of the pastor recorded in I Timothy 4:3, we must publicly2 read a portion of the Scriptures, explain its meaning, and apply it to the congregation.

the passage from which you preach serves as your authoritative source of truth.

Preachers today have no authority for preaching their own notions and opinions;

You must never preach on a passage until you are certain you understand why the Holy Spirit included that passage in the Bible.

So, it must be understood that when I say that the intention of the Holy Spirit must be discovered, I do not mean merely His intention in its limited application to an event at the time when the passage was written, but any and all valid applications that He intended to make from any principles that may be generalized from the basic thrust of the passage.

The thing to be avoided at all costs is to impose your own purposes on the passage.

That is to say, there should be purpose in doing what is done.

Fundamentally, there are three general purposes in view: to inform, to convince (to believe or disbelieve), or to motivate the members of the congregation in ways that will bring glory to God’s Name by building up His church.

I expect a certain kind of response to my request, and you, surely, would give me one.

His response, and consequently theirs as well, is to say, “Well, now I understand it,” and that’s that! That is not preaching. True preaching does all of the above, but it also identifies the telos (purpose) of the passage, builds the message around it, and calls on the congregation for a response that is appropriate to it. It works for change.

Preaching that stops short of asking for change that is appropriate to the Holy Spirit’s letters to His church is not preaching at all; at best, it is lecturing.

First, the preacher searches for and discovers the telos in his preaching portion and makes the Spirit’s purpose his own.

The lecturer has but one purpose: to inform. Rarely, if ever, do the Scriptures merely inform.

All three are wrapped up in something that is taking place at the moment, or ought to take place in the near future. There is involvement in the facts. Because the preacher’s concern is not to communicate facts but to produce change by facts, he will speak largely in the present tense to the congregation, about God and themselves on the basis of what God said and did to others and to them in Bible times.

Few more important facts could be said about outlining. I have put the emphasis where it belongs: be sure your outline is truly a preaching outline.

Some preachers conclude weakly with a verse of poetry or a line or two from a hymn.

And, while we are at it, let me condemn outright the singing of a hymn following the sermon.

Earlier, I noted that preaching is of two sorts: evangelistic and edificational. Evangelism in the Scriptures is done “out there,” where the unbelieving are, not primarily in the services of the church. Of course, the gospel relates to everything else that is preached, and no sermon—even in a basically edificational setting—ever should be preached unless it is related to the good news. But that fact does not mean that in edificational preaching only (or even primarily) the gospel should be preached. In evangelistic preaching, the gospel is dominant; in edificational preaching the focus is on the implications of the gospel for the lives of believers.

The gospel must be proclaimed in evangelism, or listeners will not know what to believe. But it must also be proclaimed properly.

Style is language usage.

The purpose of style is to provide an appropriate and effective medium for communicating content.

Technical language has its place, but not in the pulpit.

A good preaching style is a plain (but not drab), unaffected (but not unstudied) style that gets in there and gets the job done without calling attention to itself. It is clear and appropriate at every point to the message. Content should control this style. When content is relaxed, the style should relax; when it is tense, style must reflect that too. Style is content’s right-hand man, ready to run any errand that content requests of him. He will not dawdle along the roadside, playing with flowers. Nor will he run ahead of his leader when strolling along together. Indeed, his task is to anticipate and assist content’s every intent. The more they work together, the more readily they begin to approximate one another.

What you should be looking for at the end of all this effort is full fluency.

What you lack is not a recognition vocabulary; it is a vital, everyday, working vocabulary that you lack.

truth

attain. Indeed, because they see so little change in the lives of their members, they sense that something is wrong, but they never suspect the trouble stems from a faulty understanding of those very members themselves.

“An excuse is the skin of a reason stuffed with a lie.”

Excuse-making is a way of avoiding responsibility, deflecting blame, and justifying sin.

When preaching, a counseling preacher will know at which points excuse makers tend to bail out of sermons and will be waiting for them at the door.

They were ignoring His message.

One of the most popular forms of excuse-making, a form that involves and alienates other people, is blame-shifting:

Many persons in your congregation lack discipline. That is to say, they lack order, method, regularity, planning and scheduling ability, perseverance, and/or commitment (all of which are vital ingredients of discipline).

So, in preparing a given message, it will be well to ask yourself such questions as 1. Will it require discipline for my congregation to do this? 2. Should I warn the congregation that this particular task can be accomplished only by a commitment to work at it prayerfully every day until it becomes habitual? 3. What aspects of discipline will my undisciplined members be most likely to stumble over, and how can I help them to avoid tripping and falling?

The only way to solve the discipline problem is to clearly expose it and give instruction in biblical discipline.

While it is absolutely necessary for undisciplined persons to become disciplined, the problem is that they find it very difficult to do so without help because they are caught in the discipline dilemma: it takes discipline to become disciplined. That is why, in the Book of Proverbs, the need for outside help in bringing about discipline is so frequently emphasized. Discipline rarely comes easily. What is needed in most cases is heavy structure, with someone riding herd until the habitual side of the behavior begins to take form. Then the structure may be removed and supervision may be relaxed.

Complicating problems are not integrally related to the initial problem, but, nevertheless, in some way or another have intruded themselves into it and now block edificational progress.

That repentance truly is “a precondition to all biblical change that has to do with overcoming sin” should be apparent immediately.

1. When seeking to bring about change, never attempt to do so in the abstract; people change only in concrete ways.11 2. Always give hope. People will not persevere during the often difficult process of change without hope. 3. Never minimize the severity of problems; instead always maximize Christ and His power to solve problems. 4. If a person has a life-dominating problem, aim at total restructuring. 5. Always approach seemingly hopeless situations with emphatic disagreement. Empathy alone removes all possibility of help. Disagree when the counselee says “It’s hopeless.” Say, “It is difficult, but not too difficult for God.” 6. Don’t become oriented toward people’s problems, but toward God’s solutions. 7. Gauge how much change is now feasible; too little is boring, too much is discouraging. 8. Don’t let people settle for less than the scriptural solution. 9. Use biblical, or biblically derived, language when analyzing and labeling problems, and when planning solutions to them. 10. Be commandment-oriented rather than feeling-oriented.

application. The truth, when given, was already applied to the whole church by God, who Himself determined its application. It is not as though it is necessary for you to find some way to apply it. You must apply truth as God does.

people. The truth was revealed into a situation to which it applied.

Jesus Christ must be at the heart of every sermon you preach. That is just as true of edificational preaching as it is of evangelistic preaching.

Today, one of the greatest threats to evangelical preaching comes from the invasion of the church by the Adler-Maslow, etc., self-image, self-worth dogmas.