In the first two stages of your preparation, you study the text to determine the exegetical idea and its development. You want to state the subject and the complement of what the biblical writer wrote to his readers. Also make a rough outline, or sketch, of the passage. While every good sermon is the development of a central idea, not every idea in the biblical text can be turned into a sermon. In the next stage, therefore, you submit your exegetical idea and its development to the three functional questions:

• What does this mean?

• Is this true? Do I believe it?

• So what? What difference does this make?

These three questions deal with the meaning, validity, and implications of any idea. The questions should be addressed not only to the main idea but to the supporting ideas and the details of the passage as well.

As you work through these questions, jot down what you must explain, prove, or apply to your hearers. You will soon know whether you have anything to preach and what research you must do. You will see the general direction your sermon must go and what you must deal with in your sermon.

Stage 5: In light of the audience’s knowledge and experience, think through your exegetical idea and state it in the most exact, memorable sentence possible#

This sentence is your homiletical idea. Remember that you are not lecturing to people about the Bible. You are talking to people about themselves from the Bible. This statement, therefore, should be in fresh, vital, contemporary language.

Some statements of the homiletical idea may be identical to the statement of the exegetical idea. That is the case when you are dealing with universal principles that apply to anyone at any time: “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not steal,” or “Love your neighbor as you love yourself” need no translation into the twenty-first century. They are already there.

Other exegetical ideas, however, are turned into homiletical ideas when you make them more up-to-date or personal. The exegetical idea of 1 Thessalonians 1:2-10 might be, “Paul thanked God for the Thessalonians because through the apostle’s ministry, God had brought them to himself and made a noticeable difference in their lives.” The preaching idea should be more direct and personal: “Thank God regularly for the Christians you know because of what God has done for them and is doing through them.”

The homiletical idea is simply the biblical truth applied to life. Here are some general suggestions for framing a homiletical idea:

• State the idea as simply and as memorably as possible. Make each word count. State it for the ear. Listeners should not have to work to remember it.

• State the idea in concrete and familiar words. Study ads in magazines for slogans you remember. If you were given one sentence in which to communicate your idea to someone who didn’t know religious jargon and who couldn’t write it down, how would you say it?

• State the idea so that it focuses on response. How do you want your listeners to respond? Instead of “You can rejoice in trials because they lead to maturity,” try “Rejoice when hard times come.” If you know what your listeners should do, tell them.

• State the idea so that your listeners sense you are talking to them about them.

THE POWER OF PURPOSE#

No matter how brilliant or biblical a sermon is, without a definite purpose it is not worth preaching. We have no adequate idea of why we are speaking. Why preach this sermon? We do an assortment of things when we face our congregation. We explain, illustrate, exhort, exegete, and gesture, to list a few. But we are to be pitied if we fail to understand that this particular sermon should change lives in some specific way.

The purpose behind each individual sermon is to secure some moral action. We need to know what that action is.

Stage 6: Determine the purpose for this sermon#

The purpose states what you expect to happen in your hearers as a result of preaching your sermon. George Sweazey maintains that a purpose distinguishes a sermon from an essay: “An essay looks at ideas, but a sermon looks at people.” Whereas the idea states the truth, the purpose defines what that truth should accomplish.

How then do you determine the purpose of your sermon? You do so by discovering the purpose behind the passage you are preaching. As part of your exegesis, you should ask, “Why did the author write this? What effect did he expect it to have on his readers?” No biblical writer took up his pen to jot down “a few appropriate remarks” on a religious subject. Each one wrote to affect lives. For instance, when Paul wrote to Timothy, he did it “so that you may know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15 NASB).

Whole books, as well as sections within books, were written to make something happen in the thinking and the actions of the readers. An expository sermon, therefore, finds its purpose in line with the biblical purposes. You must first figure out why a particular passage was included in the Bible, and with this in mind decide what God desires to accomplish through your sermon in your hearers today.

The inspired Scriptures were given so that we could be “adequate, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16-17 NASB). It follows from this that you should be able to put into words what beliefs, attitudes, or values should change or be confirmed, or what quality of life or what good works should result from the preaching and hearing of your sermon. You accomplish that purpose, Paul told Timothy, through (1) teaching a doctrine, (2) refuting some error in belief or action, (3) correcting what is wrong, and (4) instructing people on the proper handling of life.

Educators realize that an effective statement of purpose goes beyond procedure and describes the observable behavior that should come as a result of teaching. A purpose statement not only describes our destination and the route we will follow to get there, but, if possible, tells how we can know if we have arrived. If we are not clear about where we are going, we will probably land someplace else.

While preaching differs significantly from lecturing, stating the purpose of a sermon as though it were an instructional objective makes the sermon more direct and effective. Here are some purposes stated in measurable terms:

• The listener should understand justification by faith and be able to write out a simple definition of the doctrine. (Whether the hearers actually write out the definition or not, you will be much more specific if you preach as though they will.)

• A listener should be able to list the spiritual gifts and determine which gifts he or she has been given.

• A listener should be able to write down the name of at least one non-Christian and should resolve to pray for that individual each day for the next two weeks. (If listeners do something for two weeks, they have a better chance of doing it for several months.)

• My hearers should identify one morally indifferent situation about which Christians disagree and be able to think through how to act in that situation.

• Members of the congregation should understand how God loves them and explain at least one way in which that love makes them secure.

• Christians should be able to explain what people must believe to become Christians and should plan to speak to at least one person about the Lord in the coming week.

• Listeners should be convinced of the necessity to study the Bible and should enroll in a church Bible class, a home Bible class, or a Bible correspondence course.

Framing purposes that describe measurable results forces you to reflect on how attitudes and behavior should be altered. That, in turn, will enable you to be more concrete in your application of truth to life. After all, if a sermon accomplishes anything, it must accomplish something.

One effective means of incorporating the purpose into the sermon, therefore, lies in writing out a conclusion with the purpose in mind. State in a rough way what you are asking the congregation to do as a result of what you have preached. Be as specific as possible. Picture the truth you have preached being acted upon in some specific situations. Then put that into your conclusion. Here are some examples:

• “Is there someone with whom you have a broken relationship? A spouse, a parent, a friend? As a follower of Jesus Christ, you need to take the first step today to make it right. Is there a letter you should write? Is there a phone call you should make? Is there a visit you should make or a conversation you should have? Then will you ask God for the courage to make that contact and take that step to get that matter settled?”

• “Your job is the will of God for you. Tomorrow when you go to your work, take out a Post-it note and write ‘God has put me here to serve Him today’ and then place it on your desk or in your locker—some place where you can see it easily. Whenever you look at that note, breathe a prayer, ‘Lord, I’m working this job for you. Help me to do it to please you.’ In that way you can remember the workday to keep it holy.”

You may change the conclusion later in your preparation, but you have determined where you purpose to go. You concentrate your thought with greater efficiency if when you begin, you know what you intend to accomplish.

SUMMARIZE#

Measurable results - the purpose of the sermon stated in terms of observable behavior.

Purpose - what one expects to happen in the hearer as a result of hearing this sermon.