Preparing Talks and Sermons: Peter Adam

Peter Adam offers some valuable tips to continue our Preparing Talks and Sermons series. 

Time

Don’t be surprised if a sermon takes you a long time to prepare. Most of us take 8-10 hours. If you are starting to preach or do so infrequently it will take you longer. One-off sermons also take longer to prepare. Most people find it best to use 1-2 hour blocks of preparation time over several weeks.
I usually spend half my preparation time on steps one and two, and then half on steps three and four.

Task

‘Sermon’, and ‘Bible talk’ are words that describe what you are doing. ‘Exhortation’/’encouragement’ are the Bible words which describes what you are hoping to achieve. You may be preaching a sermon, or giving a Bible talk, but your aim is to: correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction (2 Tim 4:2).

You may be preaching a sermon, or giving a Bible talk, but your aim is to: correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction (2 Tim 4:2)

This is because the purposes of the Bible are: to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus … teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness … (2 Tim 3:15,16).

Step One – Pray!

Pray that God will give you:

• Love for his Spirit-inspired words, the Bible passage you are serving. Pray that you will study them carefully, learn them deeply, and serve their particular meaning and purpose in your ministry. Pray that you will not distort them or misuse them or misquote them.
• Love for his people, those you will serve in this ministry. Pray that they will receive, retain, respond, remember, be transformed, learn how to read the Bible themselves, and be trained to teach others what they have learnt.
• Love for God’s glory, so that you will not serve to meet your own needs, worry about your own reputation, or do this ministry to win the approval of others.

Step Two – Focus on the Bible passage!

• Choose your Bible passage. It may be given to you, or you may have to choose one. Make sure that it is not so short that it is meaningless, nor so long that it is unmanageable.
• Find the meaning of Bible passage and its intended impact. Work through the passage word by word, asking yourself, ‘What does this word mean?’, ‘Why is this sentence here?’ ‘What is this and why is it here?’ You may find the commentaries a help at this stage. Or discuss the passage with some friends.
• Find the theological meaning of the passage. Ask yourself: ‘What basic and important theological themes are reflected in the passage?’ ‘What particular aspect is expressed through the passage?’ ‘What does the passage say about God and his purposes?’ Go deeper than immediate practical application.
• Look not only for the meaning, but also the purpose, the intended outcome, the respected response. Look for the God-given intented impact of the passage, as well as the God-given meaning.

Look not only for the meaning, but also the purpose, the intended outcome, the respected response. Look for the God-given intented impact of the passage, as well as the God-given meaning.

Step Three – Focus on the people!

• Pray again for the people who will hear your talk or sermon. If you know them, pray for them collectively, and pray for individuals you know. Pray again that you will serve them, and pray again that they will receive God’s words with faith and obedience.
• What questions will the congregation have when they read this passage? Think of the people who will hear this sermon, such as enquirers, new believers, mature Christians, wandering Christians, Christians from other Christian backgrounds, outsiders, atheists. Think of the full range from people with high Biblical literacy, to those with no Bible knowledge. When they hear this passage read-out? What questions will they have, what will they find difficult? What are they likely to misunderstand? What do they need to know, and how can they be encouraged to respond?
• How it applies. This is the stage where you have the passage before you and you ask yourself the question, ‘How does it apply to the particular congregation to whom I will preach?’ It may help you to think of particular individuals or types of people, and ask yourself the question, ‘If they lived according to this passage what difference would it make to their lives?’

Step Four – Make it as effective as possible! 

• Decide what aspect you will preach. Almost any passage you choose will have far more in it than you can possibly cover in one sermon. You have to decide which one aspect you will preach on. Write a one sentence summary of your theme ‘What I really want to preach on is …’
• Write your one sentence. Write down the aim of your sermon in one sentence, and that sentence will include the content, the means, and the end or the purpose of the sermon. Use interactive language; not ‘my topic is … ‘, but, ’I want you to … because … so that … ‘Unless you can give the purpose of your sermon in one sentence, your congregation will never understand it. Write your ministry aim in preaching the sermon. Don’t just teach the word: reprove, rebuke, encourage, remind, train, exhort, and teach with love, and lots of patience.
• Find the key words in the Bible passage, and use them in the title and theme of the sermon. This will help the congregation see the connection between the Bible passage and your sermon. Make them active instructions. Find one or two relevant pithy sayings, like ‘saved to serve’, ‘God first’, ‘loveless, lifeless’, ‘grace or disgrace’ etc, and sprinkle them through the sermon to clarify the meaning.
• Use applicatory illustrations, which both clarify the meaning and prompt and show the right reaction.
• Clarify and intensify the emotions, the choices, the drama, the conflict, the characters, the contrasts.
• Prune away the rest This is a most important step where you discard what you will not preach on this time. You have to prune away what you won’t preach on, so that what you will preach on is left in simple clarity.

You have to prune away what you won’t preach on, so that what you will preach on is left in simple clarity. Clarity of thought and expression increases intensity of emotion and likelihood of response.

• Shape what remains. Here your task is to organise your material according to the one sentence purpose you have just decided, for within that one sentence there will be a number of steps – now is the time to choose and shape those steps.
• Arrange the application. Decide whether to leave all the application to the end of the sermon, or whether to integrate it into the body of the sermon, so that you are continually moving from the passage to the people in front of you. Or you could begin with the application, to give the congregation motivation to listen to the rest of the sermon.
• Write the conclusion. You are now ready to write the end of your sermon which will include a summary of the sermon, that one sentence repeated, and the specific action which you expect to occur on the part of your hearers.
• Write the introduction. Now that you written the body of the sermon, and the conclusion of the sermon, you can write the introduction. It is good to begin with a question, or a statement of the problem that leads directly and naturally into the sermon.
• Check back to the Bible passage. You have your sermon before you. Now check back to the Bible passage to make sure that you have picked up what the passage is saying and have not read your own ideas into it.
• Pray again. Praise God that he will use your hard work for his glory.

Peter Adam offers some valuable tips to continue our Preparing Talks and Sermons series. 

Time

Don’t be surprised if a sermon takes you a long time to prepare. Most of us take 8-10 hours. If you are starting to preach or do so infrequently it will take you longer. One-off sermons also take longer to prepare. Most people find it best to use 1-2 hour blocks of preparation time over several weeks.

I usually spend half my preparation time on steps one and two, and then half on steps three and four.

Task

‘Sermon’, and ‘Bible talk’ are words that describe what you are doing. ‘Exhortation’/’encouragement’ are the Bible words which describes what you are hoping to achieve. Biblical exhortation includes Biblical and theological content, practical application, and urging and encouraging and warning people to respond. It includes what you need to know/learn/relearn; what you should do about it; why you should respond, and personal encouragement to respond. See Hebrews as a fine example of this kind of ’exhortation’/’encouragement’ (Heb 13:22): and see that it includes all of these features.
You may be preaching a sermon, or giving a Bible talk, but your aim is to: correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction (2 Tim 4:2).

You may be preaching a sermon, or giving a Bible talk, but your aim is to: correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction (2 Tim 4:2)

This is because the purposes of the Bible are: to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus … teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness … (2 Tim 3:15,16).

Step One – Pray!

Pray that God will give you:

• Love for his Spirit-inspired words, the Bible passage you are serving. Pray that you will study them carefully, learn them deeply, and serve their particular meaning and purpose in your ministry. Pray that you will not distort them or misuse them or misquote them.
• Love for his people, those you will serve in this ministry. Pray that they will receive, retain, respond, remember, be transformed, learn how to read the Bible themselves, and be trained to teach others what they have learnt.
• Love for God’s glory, so that you will not serve to meet your own needs, worry about your own reputation, or do this ministry to win the approval of others.

Step Two – Focus on the Bible passage!

• Choose your Bible passage. It may be given to you, or you may have to choose one. Make sure that it is not so short that it is meaningless, nor so long that it is unmanageable. Topical sermons are more difficult to preach: if you are asked to give one, then preach on the Bible passage that is most relevant.
• Find the meaning of Bible passage and its intended impact. Work through the passage word by word, asking yourself, ‘What does this word mean?’, ‘Why is this sentence here?’ ‘What is this and why is it here?’ You may find the commentaries a help at this stage. Or discuss the passage with some friends.
• Find the theological meaning of the passage. Ask yourself: ‘What basic and important theological themes are reflected in the passage?’ ‘What particular aspect is expressed through the passage?’ ‘What does the passage say about God and his purposes?’ Go deeper than immediate practical application.
• Look not only for the meaning, but also the purpose, the intended outcome, the respected response. Look for the God-given intented impact of the passage, as well as the God-given meaning.

Look not only for the meaning, but also the purpose, the intended outcome, the respected response. Look for the God-given intented impact of the passage, as well as the God-given meaning.

• Look not only for the meaning, but also the drama, the people, the emotions, the motivations, the interactions, the themes, the repetitions, the contrasts, the rhetoric: make the most of all the God-give methods as well as the God-given message.
• Study the passage in its context in the chapter and section of the book. Look for major themes, repeated ideas, the shape or drama of the passage, developing themes or ideas.
• Study the passage in its context of the whole book in which it occurs. What is the pastoral purpose of the whole book? How does this passage fit into that pastoral purpose?
• Study the passage in the context of the whole Bible. How does this passage fit into the whole Bible, in the light of its gradual revelation, from promise to fulfilment in Christ, in the light of Salvation History, and Biblical Theology?
• Focus on the question, ‘Why was it written?’ We often focus on what is happening in the passage, or on what it means to us. We need to ask the questions: ‘What did the person who wrote these words hope they would do to the people who first received them?’ ‘What did God intend by these words at that time?’
• Don’t individualise a passage that addresses the people of God as a whole. Most Bible books are addressed to the people of God, the church, as a whole. Don’t individualise their message.
• Don’t universalise the message of the passage. No one passage of the Bible says all that the Bible teaches on a topic, so don’t pretend that it does. Refer briefly to other complementary Bible passages.

Step Three – Focus on the people!

• Pray again for the people who will hear your talk or sermon. If you know them, pray for them collectively, and pray for individuals you know. Pray again that you will serve them, and pray again that they will receive God’s words with faith and obedience.
• What questions will the congregation have when they read this passage? Think of the people who will hear this sermon, such as enquirers, new believers, mature Christians, wandering Christians, Christians from other Christian backgrounds, outsiders, atheists. Think of the full range from people with high Biblical literacy, to those with no Bible knowledge. When they hear this passage read-out? What questions will they have, what will they find difficult? What are they likely to misunderstand? What do they need to know, and how can they be encouraged to respond?
• How it applies. This is the stage where you have the passage before you and you ask yourself the question, ‘How does it apply to the particular congregation to whom I will preach?’ It may help you to think of particular individuals or types of people, and ask yourself the question, ‘If they lived according to this passage what difference would it make to their lives?’ Think about the people who will hear it. What reminders do they need from this passage, what challenges, what changes to their beliefs, understandings, emotions, imaginations, assumptions, life-style, attitudes, actions, relationships? How should it affect them in their attitudes to themselves, to others, to families, to friends, to church, to work (paid or unpaid), to society, to the world?

Step Four – Make it as effective as possible! 

• Decide what aspect you will preach. Almost any passage you choose will have far more in it than you can possibly cover in one sermon. You have to decide which one aspect you will preach on. Write a one sentence summary of your theme ‘What I really want to preach on is …’
• Write your one sentence. Write down the aim of your sermon in one sentence, and that sentence will include the content, the means, and the end or the purpose of the sermon. Use interactive language; not ‘my topic is … ‘, but, ’I want you to … because … so that … ‘Unless you can give the purpose of your sermon in one sentence, your congregation will never understand it. Write your ministry aim in preaching the sermon. Don’t just teach the word: reprove, rebuke, encourage, remind, train, exhort, and teach with love, and lots of patience.
• Find the key words in the Bible passage, and use them in the title and theme of the sermon. This will help the congregation see the connection between the Bible passage and your sermon. Make them active instructions. Find one or two relevant pithy sayings, like ‘saved to serve’, ‘God first’, ‘loveless, lifeless’, ‘grace or disgrace’ etc, and sprinkle them through the sermon to clarify the meaning.
• Use applicatory illustrations, which both clarify the meaning and prompt and show the right reaction.
• Clarify and intensify the emotions, the choices, the drama, the conflict, the characters, the contrasts.
• Prune away the rest This is a most important step where you discard what you will not preach on this time. You have to prune away what you won’t preach on, so that what you will preach on is left in simple clarity. Clarity of thought and expression increases intensity of emotion and likelihood of response. Confusion or too many different ideas diminishes emotional impact, and diminishes practical response.

You have to prune away what you won’t preach on, so that what you will preach on is left in simple clarity. Clarity of thought and expression increases intensity of emotion and likelihood of response.

• Shape what remains. Here your task is to organise your material according to the one sentence purpose you have just decided, for within that one sentence there will be a number of steps – now is the time to choose and shape those steps.
• Arrange the application. Decide whether to leave all the application to the end of the sermon, or whether to integrate it into the body of the sermon, so that you are continually moving from the passage to the people in front of you. Or you could begin with the application, to give the congregation motivation to listen to the rest of the sermon.
• Include one point on the methodology of reading the Bible, to train people to do this. E.g. ‘We know this is important, because this word comes three times in the passage’.
• Use the sermon to train people to teach others, as well as learn and change themselves. Equip them to do this important ministry.
• Write the conclusion. You are now ready to write the end of your sermon which will include a summary of the sermon, that one sentence repeated, and the specific action which you expect to occur on the part of your hearers.
• Write the introduction. Now that you written the body of the sermon, and the conclusion of the sermon, you can write the introduction. It is good to begin with a question, or a statement of the problem that leads directly and naturally into the sermon.
• Check back to the Bible passage. You have your sermon before you. Now check back to the Bible passage to make sure that you have picked up what the passage is saying and have not read your own ideas into it.
• Review for hearing. Hearing something is very different to reading it. Make sure that you present your sermon with the right language and style for hearing. This will mean that the steps will need to be simple, and that you will need to summarise continually all the way through what you have done and where it fits in the shape of the sermon. Perhaps preach it to a few friends in the place where you will preach it later.
• Arrange your notes. You may choose to have your sermon written out entirely, you may choose full notes or brief notes. Make sure that you can read them without squinting. If you have brief notes, make sure that you have your one sentence summary clear and perhaps a one sentence summary of each of the paragraphs or main points of the sermon.
• Know it. Spend time reflecting on the sermon and reading it through so that you know it well.
• Pray again. Praise God that he will use your hard work for his glory, that he will use the Bible to build up his church, and convert unbelievers to Christ. Prayer that you will be a humble, faithful and loving servant of God, his word, his people, and his gospel plan. Pray that those who hear will be doers of the word, not just hearers. Pray that they will receive God’s words with good and honest hearts, and bear fruit with patience: pray that the devil may not snatch away God’s words, that those who hear would not fall away in times of testing, or that the words would not be choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life.