[Video] The purpose of a sermon

One Sunday morning when I was preaching, a guest had come to the church service. He was a quiet fellow and very nice but soft-spoken. As the sermon gained speed and I declared truths about the identity of Jesus Christ, the congregation began shouting “Amen!” and “Hallelujah!” and spontaneously worshiping the Lord from time to time.

I noticed that this man’s eyes grew wide as he glanced around the room at the people yelling back at the preacher. This kind of call-and-response preaching was foreign to his whole life of church attendance in another assembly.

Those who have never been in a Spirit-filled church might not know what to think of a Pentecostal sermon. Is it a motivational speech? A shouting match? There is a purpose to a sermon, although I am not sure all preachers or congregants understand what it is.

In some ways, sermon preaching has become something other than what the Lord intended, I am afraid. Anything we do is worth examining so that we do it better. I would like to offer points of awareness for both preachers and listeners.

Warning signs of the wrong focus

It shocked me when I heard a preacher say, “At our church, we don’t let worship prevent preaching.” It took me a while to grasp what he was saying. His reference was to those “blow out” services where God swept into the church and everyone abandoned all schedule, decorum, and self-consciousness to worship the Lord. I love those moments. People are delivered in those services, eyes are opened to truth, and hearts surrender to the call of God in those times.

This pastor’s point was in reference to services where worship response was so strong that afterward we say “The preacher didn’t even get to preach.” Some would say that if God moves “What good is it for any human to speak?” However, this assumes that the purpose of a sermon is to generate an emotional response from the audience. If everyone is spiritually moved—or at least emotionally moved (and some do not even know the difference)—many think the job is done.

As a teen, I remember being swept away in the presence of God at a certain conference. It was like a river that swept through that place right in the middle of the man of God’s message. I was caught up in the moment and greatly moved by what we experienced that day.

When the burst of the Spirit had calmed, I was disappointed to see that the preacher did not finish his sermon. He was halfway through and I wanted to see where it was going because it was very interesting. I did not understand why he did not get up and finish. Since then, I have seen church cultures where “the preacher didn’t even get to preach” appeared to be the goal of every service.

I understand some services being like that and being out of our control. However, the goal of every service is not an emotional response. The Kingdom of God comes with teaching—we need to be educated, we need to be instructed in the way of Truth, we need to learn and understand. Without teaching—yes even the long-winded kind that causes people to fall asleep (Acts 20:9)—we will not grow.

When we value dramatics

I have seen some bad side effects of this trend of “preaching for a response.” Preaching should be to inform and inspire us about the greatness of God, not just elicit a response. In some cases, I began to wonder if the goal of every sermon was to get people to cry. Surely, there is more to the call of preaching than that!

I have sat in services where I felt like a puppet and the preacher was pulling the strings. Such experiences continually remind me never to treat people that way. Human response is not the point of a service—that is what comedians and entertainers work toward. More importantly, we preachers should ask our selves, “What will those listeners do the rest of their lives because of my sermon?”

When the purpose is getting an emotional response, surprise has to be one technique of choice. This shows up when a preacher acts like “I’m going to show you something you have never seen before.” It is sad, embarrassing, and just plain wrong when that speaker then takes a rare Greek word or personal opinion and twists out some new meaning of the Scriptures. False doctrines have begun because one group was trying to look smarter than another.

One missionary told me how frustrating it was to preach in the USA. In his impoverished country, he just expounded the simple truths from God’s Word and the people responded and obeyed the Word. In the U. S., he found himself having to tell jokes, flail his arms, and yell to get people to respond. If we as listeners were more hungry for Truth, our preachers would not feel the need to impress us or outdo each other.

The fallacy of “That’ll preach!”

One popular expression I hear often is “That’ll preach!” In fact, I have been guilty of saying this before. However, the Lord has relieved me from the continual quest of finding another good sermon topic. The Lord did not call me to build sermons but to build people. I am in it for the long haul. It will take preaching to motivate action, it will take teaching to reshape the mind, and it will take correction to retrain bad habits.

The Lord has given me a specific outcome to look for in the lives of the people the Lord has sent me to reach. It might take a few weeks on the same topic, approaching it from several angles before I sense we are ready to move on. The Lord will not call me to account for not preaching fancy, amazing sermons. I will answer to Him for how I invested into the lives of others.

I know a counselor who ministers to people who attend emotional church services every week but have developed no skills in overcoming temptation or being a good parent or spouse because they get no teaching at their church. Rather than going to services that only drive for an emotional response, the congregants would be better citizens and better believers by having some solid teaching. Jesus sent His disciples ahead of Himself so He could follow up and TEACH in all the cities where they started works.

Rather than just try to get people to weep after a sermon, for example, what if the Lord wants them to experience joy? Rather than only trying to get people to shout and worship, what if the Lord wanted to impart peace to them? What if the thing for them to gain was self-control? Humility? Let’s not make the mistake of Israel and think that the replica of heaven (God’s presence in our midst) is what it is all about. We are on a journey and some are going to need some direction to get there.

A movement needs direction!

Perhaps we need to see church more as military training rather than pep rally. The message a preacher gives often meets people where they are. If the congregants are constantly on the fringe, reaching for worldliness, the sermons will be pep talks to keep them in the game.

What if the church attenders showed up ready for action? They had their armor on and a desire to defeat the enemy? Sermons could focus more on strategy and skill development rather than the rah-rah stuff of “stay in this” and “you can make it” sermons every Sunday.

In every sermon, there should be something practical that we do. There should also be the Spirit-powered impulse—the motivation from above. The preacher calls for action but so does the Spirit. I might feel fulfilled as a preacher to see an emotional response—but are we accomplishing lasting change?

How lasting change comes

The most change I have seen occur has not been in the loud times but in the still, small voice of Bible teaching—the kind where someone might even fall asleep. Paul was preaching in Ephesus not to hype them up but to prepare them to endure after he was off the scene. He would never see them again. They needed more than an adrenaline high—they needed substance. Paul warned them against the dangers that were coming and gave them direction on how to navigate the future.

Preaching for a response is like getting likes and shares on social media. You feel good, but perhaps not much gets done. I think people only like and share memes and statements that they already believed. I hope I do not send you into a depression here when I say that few lives are changed by social media.

Similarly, in a sermon, many people respond to what they already believe. I have learned to recognize not just when the congregation is in agreement but to look for those eye-opening moments where old mistaken mindsets end. Such moments are often silent and then followed by worship as the Spirit of revelation breaks forth with a new understanding from the biblical truths they have just heard.

[VIdeo] Jesus had a mission to accomplish: