4 goals I have with every sermon I preach

I’ve had the privilege of preaching over 450 sermons. In every sermon, I have four goals and those never change.

1. To be faithful to the text

Preaching must begin with the text itself. That might sound like stating the obvious, but it’s not actually where every pastor starts. Many pastors start with an idea “how to be a good parent,” “how to be a good financial steward,” “how to have a happy marriage,” etc. From that thesis, they seek out Biblical texts or passages which support that idea.

It’s my conviction that the better place to begin in preaching is with a Biblical text itself.

Sermons around topics can often take or leave the Bible.

I believe that the best sermons are the ones that are so intimately tied to the Biblical text that they would be incomprehensible without it. The sermon must be grounded in the text. My goal is to let the text speak for itself and to preach that faithfully.

2. To preach the gospel

This is just as important as the first goal. Every sermon should be a gospel sermon. Every sermon should be an opportunity to communicate the Good News of Jesus Christ and that we have an offer of grace and forgiveness from a good and loving savior.

There are two key reasons why every sermon should be a gospel sermon. First, because Christians need to constantly be reminded of the gospel.

In Romans 1:16-17, Paul says:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. ¹⁷ For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” 

Secondly, there will almost always be someone listening to the sermon who does not actually believe in the gospel. For that reason, every sermon should be taken as an opportunity to proclaim the message of salvation.

3. To explain how the text applies to life

If the sermon has no real world application, it’s not a sermon. It’s a lecture!

The great 20th century expositor and preacher John Stott said “if there is no summons, there is no sermon.” His point was that if a sermon isn’t calling on the congregation to do something, it’s not truly a sermon.

Application can be challenging. Good application requires having an understanding of the true heart of the text. If the great takeaway from every sermon is “read the Bible more and pray more,” then it is ultimately lazy preaching. Great preaching must be mining for gold in the passage.

4. To preach with clarity

I’ve heard many a sermon that began well and then wandered off into incoherence.

I’ve been in the middle of sermons and thought “what is the preacher even talking about?” Clarity is important in good preaching.

I think the easiest way to preach with clarity is to have a clear outline for the sermon. Honestly, a good outline can be one of the biggest challenges of writing a sermon. Studying the passage is the easy part. Arranging the sermon in a logical way is where a lot of the real work of sermon writing comes in. But it’s the difference between a good sermon and a bad sermon.

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