3. Empower, Equip, Encourage, and Challenge
What I love most about the Holy Spirit’s work through preaching is that God is doing so many things in the congregation simultaneously. Several weeks ago on a Sunday afternoon, a number of people sent me texts to let me know what God had been doing during the morning’s message. One person said they received a ton of hope about a situation they were facing and felt like they could trust God. Another said they hadn’t ever really thought about their role in the kingdom and they were challenged. Yet another felt like they could start praying for people and be more present in people’s lives. It’s important that we recognize how God can do a variety of things in the sermon space and that we can design our sermons to accomplish many different “things” in what we say.
4. Stir people’s emotions
What preacher doesn’t want people to fall more in love with Jesus through their preaching? And shouldn’t the affections for people also be stirred? Shouldn’t our feelings of repentance and our desires for holiness spring out of hearing of the beauty and majesty of God? Yes!
5. Relate to Listener’s Lives
All sermons need to have Scripture. They should also have a proportional amount of illustrations and applications. People need to be able to hear stories about how Scripture can be related to their lives and how they can apply what they are hearing, especially in a world that has an increasingly uninformed understanding of the Bible.
Preaching is a means by which God speaks through women and men about Jesus and the stories of God to both win them and to encourage them. Preaching can be used by God to communicate his presence and his power and point people to Jesus. And that’s what the church is all about!
For practical help with preaching I recommend Communicating for a Change: Seven Keys to Irresistible Communication by Andy Stanley
For a great survey of the biblical foundations for preaching, I highly recommend Inspired Preaching: A Survey of Preaching Found in the New Testament and Preaching: A Biblical Theology).
This article on good preaching originally appeared here, and is used by permission.
