5. Preparing Sermons

5. Preparing Sermons

A lazy young preacher once decided not to bother preparing his sermons. He was intelligent and spoke well, and his listeners were simple people. So he managed fairly well with his unprepared sermons. To quieten his conscience he made a vow that he would always preach without preparation, putting his trust in the Holy Spirit. Everything was fine until one day, a few minutes before the morning service began, who should walk into church but the bishop, enjoying a Sunday off. The parson was embarrassed. He had managed to fool his uneducated congregation, but he was much less sure that he could fool the bishop. So he went over to welcome his unexpected visitor and, trying to ensure that the bishop would not be critical, told him of the vow he had taken. The bishop seemed to understand, and the service began. Half-­way through the sermon, however, the bishop got up and walked out. After the service a scribbled note from the bishop lay on the preacher’s desk: “I release you from your vow!”

Another young minister’s sin was not laziness but pride. He boasted that he could prepare his Sunday sermon in the few minutes it took him to walk to the church from his manse next door. Guess what his elders did? They bought him a new manse five miles away!

Yet another preacher who did not prepare his sermons was guilty of neither laziness nor pride. His problem was super-­spirituality. He placed his confidence in the Holy Spirit and when challenged by his friends he would quote the words of Jesus, “Do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you” (Matt. 10:19, 20). Unfortunately, he had failed to read the preceding verses, which began, “When they arrest you”. Christ was not referring to speaking in church but in a law court. In such a situation, we may have no time to prepare our defence. It is then that the Holy Spirit will give us words to speak. Jesus’ promise has brought great comfort to prisoners without a lawyer to defend them; it offers no comfort to preachers who are too lazy or too proud or too spiritual to prepare their sermons.

Good preachers prepare conscientiously. They study the text, try to explain it clearly, look for examples and apply it to their listeners’ situation. Their sermons may look effortless, yet behind each sermon lies a lifetime of discipline and hard work.

How, then, should we prepare? There is no one answer, for there is no one way to prepare sermons. Every preacher has to work out a method that suits their personality and situation. It is a mistake to copy others uncritically. Nevertheless, we can learn from one another. So here is my approach to the various steps involved in sermon preparation.

Choosing a Text

How do we decide what text to preach on? If we are regular Bible students and are keeping notes of our study, our memory becomes like a well-­stocked larder with biblical texts lined up, waiting to be preached on. Four factors will help us to choose between them.

The first is the liturgy. Some churches follow a calendar centred round the three main Christian festivals — Advent, Easter and Pentecost. Set readings are used to prepare the listeners for these festivals, to recount the events and to consider their implications. Every year the calendar retells the story of the biblical revelation. It reminds the church how God gradually revealed himself as Creator and Father, as Son of God made flesh, and then in the person and work of the Holy Spirit. Since the set readings are appropriate, the preacher may sometimes, even often, take his text from one of them. However, it is not necessary to follow these slavishly. They are simply pointers to the day’s theme and may be useful even to those whose churches do not follow the calendar. As James Stewart says:

The great landmarks of the Christian year — Advent, Christmas, Lent, Good Friday, Easter, Whitsunday [Pentecost], Trinity — set us our course, and suggest our basic themes. They compel us to keep close to the fundamental doctrines of the faith. They summon us back from the bypaths where we might be prone to linger, to the great highway of redemption. They ensure that in our preaching we shall constantly be returning to those mighty acts of God which the church exists to declare.

Secondly, we need to consider external events, whether some national event (e.g. an election or scandal), some public debate (e.g. on capital punishment, unemployment or divorce), a natural disaster (e.g. a flood, famine or earthquake) or some other catastrophe (e.g. a plane or train crash). When people come to church, they cannot simply shut matters like these out of their minds. They bring these anxieties with them to worship and are asking “Is there any word from the Lord?” and “How should Christian people react to such things?” Preachers need to be sensitive to the big public questions in people’s minds.

Thirdly, there is the pastoral factor — some need we notice in our congregation’s spiritual pilgrimage. It is rightly said that the best preachers are always good pastors, for then they know the needs and problems, doubts, fears and hopes of their people. It is appropriate to ask the congregation what parts of Scripture they are keen to understand better and what issues in life they want the Scriptures to make clear. Lay leaders and other ministry team leaders should be encouraged to suggest topics or sermon series. There are many possible themes: doctrinal courses (e.g. the character of God), practical series (e.g. discipleship, the Ten Commandments), topical issues (e.g. guidance, prayer) and preaching through books of the Bible — chapter by chapter, paragraph by paragraph or even verse by verse for shorter passages.

The fourth factor is personal. The best sermons we ever preach to others are those we have first preached to ourselves. When God himself speaks to us through a text of Scripture and it becomes clear and helpful to us, we feel compelled to share the insight and blessing. This does not mean that every sermon has to arise from our personal experience. Some of us preach on marriage while remaining unmarried, or on divorce while remaining married, and all of us have to preach on death before we have died! Yet sermons arising from deep personal conviction have a richness that James Stalker called “the blood-­streak of experience”. He added that “truth is doubly and trebly true when it comes from a man who speaks as if he had learned it by his own work and suffering.” We should keep a notebook handy so that when the light comes on and we see something clearly, we can capture the thought.

On the basis of these four factors, we can then select a single unit of thought — never less than a verse, though usually a paragraph or more. Since God gave us Scripture in books, the best long-­term strategy would be to preach the units of thought in a biblical book consecutively so that the truths and the aim of the book are expounded in context and our reasoning can reflect that of the biblical author.

Studying the Text

We are now ready for the second stage of preparation. This takes time, so we should start early. The sooner we choose our text, the longer we have to mine its riches. This involves reading it over and over. Dietrich Bonhoeffer would consider it every day and “try to sink deeply into it, so as really to hear what it is saying”.

It is very important that we determine what the text meant when it was first spoken or written. E. D. Hirsch is right to emphasize that “a text means what its author meant”. We must thus discipline ourselves to think about the text’s historical, geographical and cultural setting as well as its words and images. We should stop at every word and phrase and check how these are connected. We must distinguish between generalizations and the specific examples given to clarify them. We must notice the genre, that is, the type of writing style. Poetry such as is found in the psalms and in much prophetic material uses different techniques than historical accounts or letters. In a poem we find images and vivid words packed together to inspire as well as to teach.

This type of detailed study, taking notes of all we see, is very important before we try to isolate the dominant thought that we will be preaching on. You may find the following six questions helpful as you tackle this task and work to crystallize what you have seen. They will help you to remain faithful to the content and intent of the biblical text:

1. What is the function of the text in its context? Is it a command, an example, an explanation, a promise or some combination of these? This question is extremely important since we want the sermon to reflect what the text is doing, not just what it is saying.

2. What is the main thing the author is talking about? What word or phrase best captures the subject of the verse?

3. What is the author saying about this subject? Everything in the rest of the text must relate in some way to the main issue.

4. What response does the Holy Spirit want to this text? Our answer to the first question will give us a clue. If the section is a command, then obedience is required; we just need to determine what that obedience involves. If the text is an explanation, it should bring understanding that can lead to faith. We must take care not to base our answer to this question on mere guesswork or our own experience. We must allow the text and its context to explain how the Holy Spirit wants us to respond.

5. How does this text evoke this response? For instance, does the author present arguments (as Paul does in Romans) or create a word picture (as in Psalm 23)? The best preachers use their answer to this question as the key to determining how to influence their listeners to respond. They let the text do what the text wants to do!

6. How does this text fit into the history of salvation, the broader drama of redemption? We must understand how our text contributes to the story line of the Bible and, therefore, how it points to Christ.

When we get accurate answers to these questions we shall have removed at least some of the obstacles to faithful preaching. If we capture what the text is saying and doing, we will know what the passage is talking about, what it is saying about that subject, what response it actually calls for, how it stirs up that response and what it contributes to the larger picture of God’s saving work. If, on the other hand, we do not notice these things, we are likely to preach merely what comes to our minds, what happens to occur to us when we read the passage, instead of what the text is designed by God to say and do.

Meditating on the Text

Next we must take time to meditate on our text, to think carefully about it until it touches and moves us. We should turn it over and over in our minds, like Mary the mother of Jesus who treasured all the things the shepherds told her and “pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:18, 19). We should extract the sweetness like a bee with a blossom; gnaw it like a dog with a bone; suck it as a child sucks an orange; and chew it as a cow chews its cud.

All this time we should be praying, crying humbly to God for light from the Spirit of truth. Like Moses, we must beg him to show us his glory (Ex. 33:18). Study is no substitute for prayer; prayer is no substitute for study. We must do both. It may help to study on our knees, because this attitude reminds us that we worship the God who reveals himself in the Bible, and we are humble before him. In Daniel 9 we find an excellent example of this. Study of the Scriptures (9:2) led to a humble prayer of confession and petition (9:3-19). The Lord heard and gave Daniel greater understanding (9:20-23).

As we meditate prayerfully, we should write down our insights and further questions. Sometimes there will be a flash of insight. Don’t lose it! It will help you to convey the meaning of the passage to your listeners.

There is no substitute for individual study, but that does not mean that we cannot get help from others. We can get valuable insights from commentaries. There is also value in inviting a group — a ministry team, small group leaders or other pastors — to look at the text with us. They may well see things that our eyes miss.

We can also benefit from using our computers as we study. Bible software programs offer access to older commentaries and facilitate word searches that would have taken many hours just a few years ago. The Internet enables us to do research so easily that factual errors in our sermons are almost inexcusable.

But computers offer temptations as well as opportunities. Our own study and application of the text can be short-­circuited if we simply download and preach someone else’s sermon, using their illustrations and ideas. Such plagiarism, or stealing of sermons, is at least as old as Jeremiah’s time (Jer. 23:30), but it is still immoral. Moreover preachers may be tempted to draw dubious analogies using only half-­understood information. Or they may try to cultivate an image as someone who is extremely knowledgeable — which may be neither true nor desirable.

There is no quick substitute for sustained, personal reflection on the text.

Isolating the Dominant Thought

As we continue to meditate through reading, prayer and study, we should be searching for the dominant idea in our text. Every text has a main thought, a big idea, a main thrust. We should persevere in meditation until it emerges and becomes clear. This is necessary because “every sermon should be ruthlessly unitary in its theme.”

If, as we argued in chapter three, God speaks through what he has spoken, then it is essential to ask ourselves “What is he saying?” and “Where does his emphasis lie?” True, there may be several acceptable ways of handling a text and several different lessons to learn from it. For example, it would be permissible to use the parable of the Good Samaritan to teach that love expresses itself in sacrificial service. Yet the main thrust of Jesus’ story is the shocking fact that a despised Samaritan outsider did what two religious Jews were unwilling to do. It is not possible to discuss the parable accurately without stressing this racial point and its implied criticism of all religion that, however strict, is false because it is loveless. Every text has an overriding thrust. We must have the integrity to discover this and resist the temptation to give the text a twist or stress of our own.

A sermon, unlike a lecture, should convey only one major message. Students are expected to take notes because lecturers provide so much information during the class. A sermon, however, is quite different. As a living word from God to his people, it should make its impact on them then and there. They will not remember the details. We should not expect them to do so. But they should remember the dominant thought, because all the sermon’s details have been structured to help them grasp its message, feel its power and respond.

No sermon is ready for preaching . . . until we can express its theme in a short, pregnant sentence as clear as a crystal. I find the getting of that sentence is the hardest, the most exacting and the most fruitful labour in my study . . . I do not think any sermon ought to be preached, or even written, until that sentence has emerged, clear and lucid as a cloudless moon.

Ideally the whole service should be built around this theme. The early part of the service should begin to draw the minds and hearts of the congregation towards the biblical theme and to prepare them to receive it. The opening hymns and worship songs, as well as the intercessionary prayer, may be more general, but the Bible readings should be relevant. So should the spiritual song or hymn before the sermon. And the song or hymn after the sermon should help us to express our response. We should not be afraid of such repetition.

In our sermon preparation, we must not bypass the discipline of waiting patiently for the dominant thought to reveal itself. We have to be ready to pray and think ourselves deep into the text, until we become its humble and obedient servant. Then there will be no danger of text-­twisting. Instead, the word of God will dominate our mind, set fire to our hearts and control the development of our sermon. Then his word will make a lasting impression on the congregation.

Arranging the Material

So far we have gathered many ideas about the text and tried to isolate its dominant thought. Now we have to organize our ideas so that they all point to that thought. We are not trying to produce a masterpiece; we are trying to ensure that the main idea of the text will have maximum impact, accomplishing the same thing in our listeners that it set out to do in the lives of its first hearers (or readers).

The first step in doing this is to discard irrelevant thoughts. This is easier said than done. During our hours of meditation, many blessed thoughts and wonderful ideas may have occurred to us. It is tempting to drag them all in somehow. Do not give in to the temptation! Irrelevant material will weaken the sermon’s effect and those other ideas will be useful some other time. We need the strength of mind to keep them until then. Positively, we have to shape our material to our theme so that our main idea stands out boldly. In order to do this, we need a structure, words and illustrations.

The second step is to organize our thoughts into a structure. An unstructured sermon is like a jellyfish, all flesh and no bones. However, a sermon whose structure is too noticeable is like a skeleton, all bones and no flesh. Neither jellyfish nor skeletons make good sermons!

The structure of a sermon is too visible when it is too clever (e.g. every point starts with the same letter of the alphabet) or too complicated (e.g. a sermon by Richard Baxter that had sixty-­five points!). Outlines which advertise themselves like this are always distracting. The purpose of the outline, like the purpose of the skeleton, is to support the body while keeping itself largely out of sight.

This is not to say that pastors should never disclose the structure of their sermon to their listeners. Sometimes it can be helpful to do this, either verbally or by projecting it on a screen. But the structure should be simple and the visual representation of it should only be an aid. It is all too easy for PowerPoint slides to block person-­to-­person communication because the congregation look at the screen and not at the preacher.

A second danger to watch out for is an unnatural structure. Some preachers force an outline on their text, muddying the clear waters of truth and confusing the listeners. The golden rule for sermon outlines is that each text must be allowed to supply its own structure. The skilful expositor allows the text to open itself up before our eyes, like a rose unfolding to the morning sun and displaying its previously hidden beauty. Dr. Alexander McLaren, for example, was said to be able to touch the text “with a silver hammer, and it immediately broke up into natural and memorable divisions”. Spurgeon uses the same image, saying that after much labour one will at last find a text that “sparkles as it falls in pieces and you perceive jewels of the rarest radiance flashing from within”.

There are many ways of structuring a sermon, and different texts demand different treatment. We need to practise different techniques and not get stuck on a single method. For example, sometimes we may start with the big idea and then draw out particular conclusions, anchoring each part of our exposition in the text. On other occasions, we will develop the main theme slowly, dealing with individual points and only at the end indicating what everything adds up to. This method is especially useful when we are dealing with narratives. The climax of a story usually comes at the end, and we would be foolish to tell it at the beginning. Often, however, we can combine these methods.

Once we have the structure clear in our minds, we need to flesh it out with words. It is impossible to convey a precise message without choosing precise words. We should be like the Preacher in Ecclesiastes who “searched to find just the right words, and what he wrote was upright and true”. Such words are “like goads” that prick the conscience and stimulate the mind; they are “like firmly embedded nails” because they stick in the memory and are not easily dislodged (Eccles. 12:10, 11). So it is worth taking trouble over our words.

The words we choose should be as simple and clear as possible, and should be used in short sentences. Moreover, they should be vivid, painting pictures in the minds of our listeners.

C. S. Lewis gave common-­sense advice on this topic when he advised writers to

So, we must search for simple words which our listeners will understand, vivid words which will help them to picture what we are saying and honest words which tell the plain truth without exaggeration.

Remember in all this that words have meaning only in context. Choose the right word, but don’t assume that posting it next to a bullet point on your PowerPoint will adequately communicate your idea.

What we put in words we must always supplement with images or illustrations. The word “illustrate” means to illuminate, to throw light on a dark object, and this is what our sermon illustrations should do. People find it very difficult to handle abstract ideas; we need to convert them either into symbols (as in mathematics) or into pictures. It has been well said that a picture is worth a thousand words.

Do you remember that Paul reminded the Galatians that “Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified” (Gal. 3:1). The crucifixion had taken place some twenty years previously, and none of Paul’s Galatian readers had witnessed it. Yet by his vivid preaching Paul had been able to bring this event out of the past into the present, as a dramatic visual image. This is the purpose of every illustration: to stimulate people’s imagination and to help them to see things clearly in their minds. Illustrations transform the abstract into the concrete, the ancient into the present, the unfamiliar into the familiar, the general into the particular, the vague into the precise, the unreal into the real, and the invisible into the visible. A good speaker “turns his hearers’ ears into eyes, and makes them see what he speaks of”.

Not surprisingly, one of the most important elements in coming up with good illustrations is imagination, that is, the ability to imagine “invisible things, and . . . to present them as though they were visible to others”.

There are four dangers, however, that we must watch out for. The first is that illustrations can be too prominent, thrusting themselves into the spotlight instead of shining light on something difficult to understand. This kind of illustration is remembered for itself long after the truth which it was illustrating has been forgotten. This danger is particularly acute when we use technology to incorporate film clips into sermons. It can be difficult to recapture the listeners’ attention, and so before using a clip, we need to think about whether it is appropriate and tasteful, whether it requires an explanation, and whether it will transport the viewers into a world of fantasy rather than lead them towards reality.

The second danger is that the analogy may be inappropriate. We have to make clear what part of the likeness is important. For example, when Jesus told us to become like little children, he did not mean that we are to be childlike in every respect. He was not recommending childish immaturity, naughtiness, irresponsibility, innocence or ignorance. He was focusing on a child’s humility — children know that they cannot cope on their own. In the same way, we are as dependent on grace, as children are on their parents. There are other biblical passages in which we are told not to be like children (Jer. 1:7; 1 Cor. 3:1, 2; 14:20; Heb. 5:11-14). So it is always dangerous, and often misleading, to build too much on an analogy. It is wrong to suggest that, because two objects or events are similar in one way, they must be totally the same.

The third danger is the temptation to use too many or too few illustrations. “A sermon that is entirely without pictures, without illustrations, is likely to reach only those whose intellectual discipline makes it possible for them to appreciate abstractions.” On the other hand, “a sermon with too many illustrations is like a woman with too many jewels, and the jewels which are originally intended to enhance the figure, hide it”.

Finally, we must take great care about how we present illustrations. If we are careless and have the facts wrong, or claim a story as our own when it came from another source, over-­generalize from the story, or play to the listeners by gratuitous use of humour or manipulate them with emotionally wrenching stories, we may find that we lose our credibility with careful listeners. We cannot afford this.

Where do we find illustrations? One good source is the Bible. It is packed with illustrations. Think of the Old Testament. “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him” (Ps. 103:13). “The wicked . . . are like the chaff that the wind blows away” (Ps. 1:4). “I will be like the dew to Israel; he will blossom like a lily. Like a cedar of Lebanon he will send down his roots” (Hos. 14:5). “They will soar on wings like eagles” (Isa. 40:31). “Is not my word like fire . . . and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?” (Jer. 23:29). Or take the New Testament. “You are the salt of the earth. . . . You are the light of the world” (Matt. 5:13, 14). “The Son of Man in his day will be like the lightning which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other” (Luke 17:24). “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead” (Matt. 23:27). “Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, so we cared for you” (1 Thess. 2:7, 8). “What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (James 4:14). Then there are the parables that Jesus told. Our list could be much longer.

Some preachers have great skill in retelling biblical stories and parables in modern language, while others are able to invent fresh, modern parables. The most effective illustrations, however, are probably stories from history or biography, from current affairs or our own experience. Then the biblical truth connects with the widest possible circumstances.

It is also important to remember that some illustrations may be no more than a word or a phrase that conveys a dramatic picture. When we talk of God “breaking through our defences”, people can visualize defending themselves against attacks. When we say that the Holy Spirit is “prying open” our closed minds to new truth, our listeners can almost hear the creaking of the box lid as it reluctantly opens under the pressure of the hammer or screwdriver.

Every preacher must be constantly on the lookout for illustrations. Not that we read books and listen to people only to collect sermon material! Yet we would be wise to write down ideas which come to us, as well as the best quotations from every book we read.

Adding the Conclusion

Only after preparing the body of the sermon, are we ready to write our introduction and conclusion. Strangely enough, the conclusion should be written before the introduction, for in writing the conclusion we bring the message to its final focus and application. Only after doing this, will we be sufficiently clear about what we are introducing.

Some of us seem incapable of concluding anything, let alone our sermons! We circle around, like a plane without instruments on a foggy day, unable to land. Others of us stop too abruptly. Our sermons are like a play without a finale, like music without a crescendo or climax. So it is worth looking at the conclusion in more detail.

The first task of the conclusion is to sum up, to repeat the main ideas of the sermon. We should not be afraid to repeat ourselves. “It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again,” said Paul, “and it is a safeguard for you” (Phil. 3:1). Peter was of the same opinion: “I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them . . . I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live (2 Pet. 1:12, 13). Some skilful carpenters can drive a nail in with one mighty blow; most find it safer to hammer it in with several blows. Just so, our listeners need the truth to be driven home by the hammer-­blows of repetition. But we should guard against mere repetition; we have to find a different way to make our point.

A conclusion also requires personal application. Our expectation as the sermon comes to an end is not merely that people will understand or remember or enjoy our teaching, but that they will respond to it. Not that this response should come only at the end, for we should be applying the truths as we go along. But it is a mistake to reveal our conclusion too soon in case we lose our listeners’ sense of expectation. It is better to keep something back. Then, at the end, by the Holy Spirit’s power, we can urge our listeners to take action or do whatever the text calls them to do.

The biblical authors were quite clear that this was the purpose of their teaching. Ezekiel was appointed as “a watchman for the house of Israel” in order to warn them of God’s judgment and to call them to repentance. The great pain of his prophetic ministry was that the people refused to respond. God said to him, “You are nothing more than one who sings love songs with a beautiful voice and plays an instrument well, for they hear your words, but do not put them into practice” (Ezek. 3:17; 33:30-32). Listening to sermons and listening to concerts should be two very different experiences: music is to be enjoyed; Scripture is to be obeyed. Jesus told his disciples, “Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them” (John 13:17; see also John 3:18-21). The apostles make it plain that truth brings with it moral demands: it is to be obeyed, not merely heard or believed (Rom. 1:18-23; 2 Thess. 2:10-12; James 1:22-25; 1 John 1:6, 8; 2 John 4, 6; 3 John 3, 4).

How we apply our sermon depends on our text and our congregation. We meditated on our text until it yielded its main idea. This is the idea we want our listeners to feel and to go away determined to act on. Does the text call for repentance or increase our faith? Does it encourage worship, demand obedience, call on us to witness, or challenge us to serve? The text itself determines the response we long for.

As for our congregation, we have already emphasized the need to know them and their spiritual condition. Richard Bernard writing in 1607 listed some of what the preacher should hope to do:

Inform the ignorant, confirm such as have understanding, reclaim the vicious, encourage the virtuous, convince the erroneous, strengthen the weak, recover again the backslider, resolve those that doubt, feed with milk and strong meat continually, in season and out of season.

The only way to do this is to use our God-­given imagination to picture our congregation, and relate their lives to the text we have been studying. Susan’s husband has recently died. She is experiencing the shock of bereavement and loneliness: what has my text to say to her? Or to Angela, who has never come to terms with her singleness? Or to Samuel, who is feeling the weight of new responsibilities following his promotion? Or to John and Mary, who have just got married and are setting up their home? Or to those students facing final exams and wondering about their careers? Or to that Thomas who is full of doubts, that Agrippa who is still thinking about the gospel, or that Paul who is newly committed to Christ? It is good to let our mind wander over the church family and ask prayerfully what message God might have for each one from our text. George Whitefield practised this by actually naming the sort of people he knew were listening to his preaching:

I know that many of you come here out of curiosity: though you come only to see the congregation, yet if you come to Jesus Christ, Christ will accept of you. Are there any cursing, swearing soldiers here? Will you come to Christ, and list yourselves under the banner of the dear Redeemer? You are all welcome to Christ. Are there any little boys or little girls here? Come to Christ, and he will erect his kingdom in you . . . you that are old and gray headed, come to Jesus Christ, and you shall be kings and priests to your God . . . If there be any of you ambitious of honour, do you want a crown, a sceptre? Come to Christ, and the Lord Jesus Christ will give you a kingdom that no man shall take from you.

To give another example, a young man invited to preach on “You shall not commit adultery” gave a sermon that was biblical, brave, direct and practical. He ended with four applications: single young people should keep themselves pure for their future partner and learn to be strong when temptation comes; people in an adulterous relationship should break it off, despite the pain; married people should work at their marriage and set an example to the many young people who come from broken homes and have no role models; and the local church should have the courage to accuse and discipline offenders, in obedience to Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 18:15-17.

We need also to be aware that people hear sermons through different filters. Some will be open to our message. Others will resist it because they see it as a threat to their world view, or culture, or family unity, or self-­worth, or sinful way of life, or economic lifestyle. If we are aware of this resistance, we may need to be like the apostles and resort to persuasion in the conclusion (Acts 17:4; 18:4; 19:8; 2 Cor. 5:11). We may seek to persuade by argument as we anticipate and answer people’s objections, or by warning them of the consequences of disobedience. We may need to work indirectly, first arousing a moral judgment in them and then turning it upon themselves, as Nathan did with David. We may need to plead, applying the gentle pressure of God’s love.

Then, as the sermon ends, it is good to invite the people to pray. Sometimes we will pray aloud, seeking to express the congregation’s response to God’s word. At other times it may be wiser to call the people to silent prayer. The Holy Spirit may be prompting different responses in different hearts, which a single prayer could never cover.

Planning the Introduction

Now that we are clear about where our sermon will end, we can work on our introduction. If this is too long, it will distract from the sermon itself, but the more common mistake is to shorten it too much, or even to do away with it altogether, in order to jump into the subject immediately. This is unwise.

A good introduction serves at least three purposes. First, it awakes interest, stimulates curiosity and makes us long to know God’s perspective on this matter. Secondly, it enables the listeners to sense that they are listening to someone who is qualified to speak for God from this text. If the preacher is living a godly life before the congregation and has spoken truthfully and accurately in the past, they may already know this, but it cannot be taken for granted. We must stand before them as faithful servants of the word whose aim, like Paul, is that “the message of the Lord may spread rapidly and be honoured” in the lives of our listeners (2 Thess. 3:1). Thirdly, it introduces the dominant idea and leads the hearers into it. It is reasonably easy to construct introductions which fulfil one of these functions. But we need to do all three — and without using too many words!

The first aim is achieved by using an example, a quotation, a question or an event to bring the message into focus. The second is achieved by prayer, asking God to help us avoid anything — no matter how trivial — that would disqualify us as stewards of God’s word. The third is achieved by avoiding any introductory story, quotation, question or thought that does not directly prepare listeners to hear the message of the text before us.

Some preachers simply announce and read their text, but people may see this as very traditional and very dull. Most of the time, we would be wise to begin with a situation relating to the topic the text discusses, instead of the text itself. I remember, for example, conducting a pastors’ seminar in Guatemala City soon after a terrible earthquake had killed 23,000 people and left more than a million homeless. Would it have been appropriate for the local preachers to start their sermon that Sunday with, “My text this morning is . . .”? Would it not have been more natural to begin: “We meet this morning in great sorrow. Many of us have lost a relative or friend. Others have lost their home and possessions. Why does God allow such disasters? That is the question in all our hearts and minds. How can we still believe in a God of love?” If we then announced and read a text that related directly to the problem of God’s provision or the assurance of his love, we would be more likely to keep the congregation’s attention. We need to start where the people are, rather than where we hope to take them.

Writing Out the Message and Praying Over It

The question now arises as to whether to write the sermon out. Since God has made us all different and given us distinct personalities and talents, there can be no fixed rule for everybody. Nevertheless, there seems to be agreement that we should avoid two extremes. The first is complete improvisation. Few people are such clear thinkers and talkers that they can express themselves well without written preparation. Charles Simeon advised his students not to preach without notes until they had preached 300 to 400 written sermons.

The opposite extreme is slavery to our notes so that we read a sermon word for word. Jonathan Edwards, for example, “wrote his sermons; and in so fine and so illegible a hand, that they could be read only by being brought near to the eye. He carried his notes with him into the desk, and read most that he wrote: still, he was not confined to them.” While God’s blessing rested on him, this approach will not work in our generation, which demands face-­to-­face interaction between the preacher and congregation.

There seems to be only one way to combine careful use of language with person-­to-­person contact: we must write the sermon in our study, but must not merely read it from the pulpit. This writing is a most worthwhile discipline. First, it ensures that we think clearly. Wordy preachers can hide careless thinking with clever speech; it is much more difficult to get away with a ­cover-­up on paper. In fact, it is impossible if we are honest. Secondly, writing helps us to avoid using the same old phrases over and over again. It challenges us to develop new ways of expressing old truths.

These days, it may be tempting to replace writing the sermon with cutting and pasting material from the Web. While we can use the Web to check the accuracy of illustrations, we still need to take the time to draft our own sermon. The physical act of writing or typing will help us to remember what we want to say and will encourage us to adapt what we have read to the congregation to which we are to preach.

Once we have written out the sermon, we should not try to memorize it so that we can recite it in the pulpit. This would require far too much time and work, and there is a real danger that we might forget our lines. What is more, we would have to concentrate far more on remembering than on our message and congregation.

One use of the written sermon that lies between memorizing it and reading it is illustrated by Joseph Pilmore:

He wrote his sermons, and . . . his manuscript was always before him. He began not only by reading, but by reading very deliberately, and with little animation; but he would gradually wax warm, and you would see his eyes begin to kindle, and the muscles of his face to move and expand, until at length his soul would be all on fire, and he would be rushing onward extemporaneously almost with the fury of a cataract. And the only use he would make of his manuscript in such cases would be to roll it up in his hand, and literally shake it at his audience.

A better alternative is to rewrite the sermon in note form, and to take these notes into the pulpit with us. If we have prepared carefully and written out the sermon and prayed over it, much of it will come back to our minds easily when we are preaching. At the same time, we will have a certain amount of freedom to depart from our notes or to elaborate on them. Professor James Stewart, a wonderfully fluent preacher, told me that this was his method: “I did try always to write the morning sermon at least out in full. . . . On the Saturday morning I would reduce this to a one-­ or two-­page summary, which then accompanied me to church on the Sunday.”

After the writing comes the praying. Of course we prayed before we began to prepare, and we have tried to continue in an attitude of prayer throughout our preparation. But now that the sermon is finished and written, we need to pray over it. I recommend that we do this before leaving for church on Sunday. It is on our knees before the Lord that we can make the message our own, possess or repossess it until it possesses us. Then, when we preach it, it will come neither from our notes, nor from our memory, but out of the depths of our personal faith, as a genuine cry from our heart. As Baxter wrote, “a minister should take some special pains with his heart before he is to go to the congregation”. Every preacher knows the difference between a heavy sermon which trundles along the runway like an overloaded passenger jet and never gets airborne, and a sermon which has “what a bird has, a sense of direction and wings”.

The prophets and wise men spoke of this in the olden days. Jeremiah said, “But if I say, ‘I will not mention his word or speak any more in his name’, his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed I cannot” (Jer. 20:9). Job’s younger “comforter”, Elihu, angry because the first three speakers had found no answer to Job’s situation, had a similar experience: “I am full of words, and the spirit within me compels me; inside I am like bottled-­up wine, like new wineskins ready to burst. I must speak and find relief” (Job 32:18-20). The psalmist, oppressed by the wicked around him, said, “My heart grew hot within me. While I meditated, the fire burned; then I spoke with my tongue” (Ps. 39:3). God’s message within us should be like burning fire or fermenting wine. The pressure should begin to build inside us, until we feel we can contain it no longer. It is then that we are ready to preach.

The whole process of sermon preparation, from beginning to end, was excellently summed up by an African American preacher who said, “First, I reads myself full, next I thinks myself clear, next I prays myself hot, and then I lets go.”

How Long Does It Take?

Students and young preachers want to know how long it takes to prepare a sermon. It is impossible to give a simple reply. The best answer is “your whole life!” In a way, every sermon is influenced by everything we have ever learned, and is a reflection of the kind of person we have become over the years. The reason it is difficult to calculate the actual hours is because no-­one can say precisely when the process begins. Shall we include the time spent in background reading? After we have been studying and preparing for a few years, we never come to a verse or passage which we have not read or thought about before. So we come to it with the ideas we have gathered over time.

However, as a rough guideline, I think that beginners will need ten to twelve hours from the moment the text is chosen to the moment the sermon is written out. Experienced preachers are not likely to reduce this to less than five to six hours. On average, one needs at least one hour’s preparation for every five minutes preached.

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