Presentation 06
Introduction
If the process of preparation of the text of scripture
thus far has neither, stimulated your mind nor, warmed
your affections then that will be conveyed in the pulpit.
No matter how gripping your introduction or
importunate your conclusion you will have failed your
people. Freshness is the result of constant study.
The advice given me by a senior liberal minister on the
night of my ordination was, “Spend the first year
working on a range of sermons and you will have
enough material to last the remainder of your ministry.
You will only need to revamp your sermons a little”!
To have followed such advice would, among other
things, have robbed preaching of its freshness.
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Contents:
Study 1: Introduction: Approach To Scripture
Approach To Culture
Approach To The Hearer
Study 2: Selecting The Passage
Understanding The Passage
Study 3: Determining The Thrust Of The Passage
Formulating The Preaching Idea
Study 4: Determining The Sermon’s Purpose
How To Accomplish That Purpose
Study 5: Outlining And Fleshing Out The Sermon
Study 6: Application, Conclusion And Introduction
Presentation 01
Application
The Westminster Confession speaks of the
‘conscionable hearing’ of the Word of God. In other
words the hearer is to hear the word of God as an act
on conscience binding him to obey God. So that in
response to the sermon he is able to say ‘this is what I
must do’.
Significantly, Peter’s sermon at Pentecost met with
conscionable hearing as the Spirit of God along with
the ally of conscience called out a response, “What
must we do to be saved”. They were saying we have
got the point what is your concluding application? We
need direction! We are ready to obey!
To which Peter replied “repent and be baptised”.
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Application
It is important to remind ourselves when addressing
fallen men and women that, in a very particular way,
we can rely on both conscience and the Holy Spirit to
assist in the business of application. The Holy Spirit’s
role has been published by Jesus, “he will convince the
world of sin, righteousness and judgement to come”.
Jn 16.
While the human conscience can be manipulated and
supressed nevertheless it has a distinctive function
which is engaged as we preach,
‘Conscience is God's spy and man's overseer.
Conscience the domestic chaplain’.
JOHN TRAPP
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Application
That said, application is the area where the
preacher must work hardest but it also tends to
be the area that suffers the greatest neglect. I
suspect that along with prayerlessness and pride
a failure to adequately apply the truths
expounded comes up fairly high on the list in the
minister’s confessional.
Application is often left to a few sentences at the
conclusion of the sermon but can and should be
made at appropriate points throughout. The
reason for doing so is not simply to catch out
seasoned sermon tasters, who judge that the
appropriate time to switch off is in the last 10
minutes lest they be made to feel uncomfortable!
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Application
The reason for making application of truth
throughout the sermon is that it forms a
necessary part of the process of unpacking
scripture. It should be done in a way that
neither interrupts the sermon flow nor
distracts from the sermon’s purpose. And it is
good to ask if we have done before shaping our
conclusion.
John Owen mastered this approach to such an
extent that it was said of him, “all his doctrine
was application and all his application was
doctrine.”
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Application
There are many who think that as long as they expound
doctrine faithfully then it is the task of the Holy Spirit to
apply it. While we do not seek to diminish the significant
part played by the Holy Spirit, it is an abdication of the
preacher’s responsibility to stop short of application.
Thomas Brooks the Puritan preacher argues as follows:
“A general doctrine not applied is as a sword without an
edge, not in itself, but to the people, who by reason of their
own singular sensitiveness and weakness are not able to
apply it to their own estates and conditions; or as a whole
loaf is set before children that will do them no good”.
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Conclusion
Introductions and conclusions have significance in
a sermon that is out of proportion to their length.
During the introduction the hearer will often
decide how much attention he is prepared to give
to your sermon. While the conclusion seeks to
elicit a response which is based upon the text
that has been expounded and answers the
question in the hearer’s mind and heart,
“What must I now do?”
Presentation 06
Conclusion
Like a pilot, the preacher must not be uncertain about where his sermon will
land. Don’t leave your conclusion to the inspiration of the preaching moment!
The conclusion is generally drafted before the introduction, because you know
exactly where the sermon is intended to lead your hearers. It is used to drive
home your proposition by calling for the response it told us the text requires.
The purpose of the conclusion is to conclude not merely to stop. There is a
difference! Many young preachers fly in a holding pattern stacked for landing
but fail to land!
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Conclusion
In the conclusion more is required than the
vague generalisation, ‘May God help us all to live
in the light of these great truths’. The application
of Christ to man’s need should never be a bland,
‘And of course we couldn’t do this without the
grace of God in Christ’.
So often Christ is left out of the sermon only to
be pulled like a rabbit out of a magician’s hat at
the very last minute.
In the process of drawing to a close it has been
said that “a preacher should never say ‘finally’,
and certainly not more than once”.
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Conclusion
In your conclusion you are urging upon your
listeners a practical response and pleading with
them to take seriously what God has said
through his word. You are drawing the threads of
your outline together indicating how they
undergird the proposition you have presented.
Ensure that your recapitulation does not sound
like a mindless summary of what you have just
told them.
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Conclusion
The ‘mindless summary,’ danger can be avoided
by recasting your language, by coming at the
truth from a slightly different angle that says the
same thing but in a different way.
This can be done by presenting a believable,
contemporary example of response to the text.
In this way the hearer is able to see how the
Holy Spirit might work this text into their lives
too. Be sure to be brief and don’t add new
teaching material at this point. You should be
focussing your hearers thoughts and not
diffusing them.
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Conclusion
During the troubles in Northern Ireland I had been
preaching though the Lord’s Prayer and the text for the
following Sunday was “forgive us our debts…”. Days
before there had been an explosion at the Remembrance
Day service and Gordon Wilson’s young daughter had
been killed. Interviewed by the media, the reporter
clearly expected him to pour out invective and hatred on
those responsible. However, his words impacted all who
heard. He said, “I bear them no ill-will, I am a Christian
and I have tasted God’s forgiveness. I readily forgive these
men, they are regularly in my prayers.” What better way
to close a sermon on forgiveness as people are thinking,
‘its not easy to forgive those who have done us harm’.
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Conclusion
We aim for response BUT we do not seek to
manipulate response. We are not called upon be
‘string pullers’. We do not rely upon our crafted
sermon or thoughtful delivery but on the
faithfulness of God to accomplish
his purpose in the hearts of our hearers.
Now that conviction needs to be reflected in the
way in which we conclude our sermon. We will
make it clear that we expect response to the word
as our hearers engage with God in the light of what
has been presented.
In this context, prayer is often appropriate at the
conclusion of a sermon.
Presentation 06
Introduction
The introduction should be drafted last of all even though
it comes first in our delivery. That is because until you
know where your sermon is going you do not know how
best to start the journey. You are not taking your hearer’s
on a mystery tour! During the introduction the hearer will
often decide how much attention he is prepared to give
to your sermon is it really relevant to them for they live in
the ‘hear and now’!
An introduction should command attention and give our
hearers a reason for listening while at the same time it
helps establish our credibility as messengers. We want to
present ourselves as people who are to be taken seriously
and jokes and humorous stories which have no bearing
on our subject fail to do this.
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Mystery Tour
Introduction
The opening words of a sermon need not be dramatic but
they must go after the minds and hearts of the hearers to
force them to listen. Most of us need to be reminded that
God has a word for us today, that he continues through
scripture to speak into our situation today.
Do not feel obliged to use the introduction to demonstrate
every conceivable truth that might be dug up from the text
before announcing which one you plan to unpack. This
simply confuses them and might even cause them to
develop one of these lines of thought while you are
preaching! One student had six introductory comments
concerning the truths that he could have excavated from the
text. He wanted to let his hearers know that he knew they
were there even although he would not deal with them.
Presentation 06
Introduction
A number of devices can be used to get you
started - human interest stories, provocative
statements , news reports, cultural commentary.
In addition a sermon can start with a paradox,
‘Many children of God live as though they are
orphans’. Rhetorical questions can be used, ‘If
God were to die this morning how long would it
take you to find out?’ A startling statistic can
gain the hearer’s attention, ‘One out of three
marriages end in divorce.’ A quotation might be
employed, ‘Religion is the opium of the masses”
Presentation 06
Introduction
The social scientist, Arthur Cohen, has argued that
when audiences receive information that meets felt
needs, more learning takes place and opinions
change faster and more permanently.
A good introduction will make people listen not
because they ought to but because they want to.
Early in the sermon the congregation should realise
we are talking to them about them!
Our goal is to raise the issue that the text addresses
so that we are pointing to a problem, a deficiency,
need, challenge or an opportunity to which the
Bible gives the solution and provision.
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Reviewing The Language Used
The preacher in Ecclesiastes tells us of his search to find
just the right words [12v9-10]. Though reading from a
full manuscript can deaden communication, the
discipline of writing out one’s sermon in full
concentrates the mind on the choice of vocabulary that
will best communicate your subject matter. Avoid
clichés, slogans, and ‘general’ truths.
Bear in mind that clarity decreases as sentence length
grows. Beware too of using jargon and specialised
vocabulary that the hearer will not understand. Your
goal is not to impress others with the richness of your
vocabulary or the breadth of your grasp of the great
doctrines of grace but to clearly drive home the Word
that God has given you.
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Reviewing The Language Used
Legend has it that a few years ago a young copywriter came up with an advert
for a new kind of soap. It read as follows; "The alkaline element and fats in this
product are blended in such a way as to secure the highest quality of
saponification, along with a specific gravity that keeps it on top of the water,
relieving the bather of the trouble and annoyance of fishing around for it at the
bottom of the tub during his ablution." A more experienced ad man captured
the same idea in two simple words, ‘It floats’.
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Holding Interest
Many preachers have heard the criticism. “The
sermon was too long”. Now that can often be
because the hearer has no appetite for spiritual
truth. But it may also be because the preacher has
failed to gain or hold his hearer’s interest.
John Stott’s advice to those who are told their
sermon’s are too long is to make them more
interesting. It is better to leave your hearers wishing
they could hear more than wish you had stopped 20
minutes ago. An influential Scottish preacher,
William Still, would regularly preach for 1 ½ hours
but it seemed like just a few minutes.
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A Cautionary Note
“My lifetime has been a preparation for preaching. But more particularly I
prepare my sermons for others by preparing my own heart. In this prayer
and Bible study are chief factory. When I read books other than the Bible
they are read not that parts of them might be included in my address but
to enrich my own thought and to quicken and inspire my faith. Thus I
spend a deal more time in preparing myself for preaching. Many make
the mistake of giving more time to the preparation of their address, than
to the preparation of their own hearts affections, emotions and faith; the
result often is beautiful, brilliant words that have the same effect of
holding up glittering icicles before a freezing man. To warm others, and is
this not the purpose in preaching, a man must keep the fire burning hot
in his own heart”. SAMUEL BRENGLE
Presentation 01
Conclusion
The purpose of these presentations has been to try to help the preacher to
approach the subject and process of sermon preparation with some thought.
It is an abdication of responsibility to say, “The Holy Spirit will put the words
into my mouth, I don’t need to prepare”.
While you certainly do not need to follow all the suggestions that have been
made, try to use or modify them as you see fit. Whatever your response
ensure that your communication is biblical, clear, and captivating.
Ask, “Am I honouring Christ as I preach. Do I aim to
build up God’s people in their faith? Do I seek to
present Christ and his gospel compellingly and
winsomely to unbelievers?”
To this end we are all learners in the glorious task of
gospel communication.
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