Embracing the Call to Preach: A Guide to Crafting and Delivering Sermons That Change Lives

Introduction

Have you ever been asked to speak or share somewhere and felt your heart sink? That familiar feeling of “Why me?” or “I’m not ready for this”?

I want to encourage you today: don’t run from it—embrace it.

When you’re invited to share or speak about something, it’s an opportunity for everybody to grow. The speaker grows. The hearers grow. The body of Christ grows together. So before we dive into the practical mechanics of sermon preparation, let’s bow our heads and invite the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Our dear heavenly Father, we pray for showers of blessing. Lord, the rain is falling around us. We thank You that You water the earth in season. We thank You that Your promise to Noah—that there’ll be sunshine and rain, harvest and heat and cold—we see that faithfulness being fulfilled all around us today. Lord, we pray now for showers of blessing within this tent. I pray for the outpouring of Your Holy Spirit to guide us, to equip us, to prepare us, and to shape us for what’s coming tomorrow. I ask You, Lord, speak through me and for me. This is my prayer in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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Part One: The Three Basic Kinds of Sermons

Let’s begin with a brief review. This morning we spoke about three basic kinds of sermons. Does anybody remember what they are?

1. Topical Sermons

The most common type of sermon in America.

A topical sermon addresses specific topics—perhaps doctrinal subjects like the Sabbath, stewardship, or creation. It may also address common life experiences: dealing with depression, grief, anxiety, fear, or pain.

The most common structure for a topical sermon is the “triple-decker”:

• Introduction

• A – B – C (three main points)

• Conclusion

This structure can be either inductive (starting with a question, giving partial answers in A, B, and C, then arriving at a solid biblical conclusion) or deductive (starting with the principle and then applying it).

2. Exegetical Sermons

The least common type in America—but deeply important.

An exegetical sermon asks foundational questions:

• Who wrote this?

• To whom was it written?

• Why was it written?

• What was actually written?

• How would they have understood it?

• How would we understand it today?

With a good study Bible (like the Andrews Study Bible), the first three questions are already answered for you in the introduction to each book. This gives you a head start.

Exegetical preaching tends to go verse by verse through a passage. For example, preaching through the Psalms or Romans, taking one verse—or even one word—at a time.

Understanding Gospel Structures:

Mark’s Gospel can be outlined simply:

• Mark 1 — The arrival of Jesus, His baptism, and John the Baptist

• Mark 2-9 — Jesus’ ministry in Galilee

• Mark 9-10 — The journey from Galilee to Jerusalem

• Mark 11-15 — The triumphal entry through to His death

• Mark 16 — Resurrection and ascension

Notice that half of Mark’s Gospel is devoted to the last week of Christ’s life. What does that tell you about Mark’s emphasis? The death and resurrection of Jesus is the most important thing we need to know.

Matthew, by contrast, is structured around five long sermons:

• The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7)

• Matthew 10 (the commissioning of the disciples)

• Matthew 13 (the parables)

• Matthew 18 (church life and forgiveness)

• Matthew 23-25 (the “mini-apocalypse”)

Interspersed between these sermons are miracle and healing stories. Each Gospel writer structures their writing differently, and understanding that structure helps you preach more effectively.

3. Narrative Sermons

A narrative sermon follows somebody through a story in the Bible. It could be:

• The life of Abraham

• Mary at the grave of Lazarus (John 11)

• Joseph’s journey

Joseph’s journey:

1. Down to Egypt as a slave

2. To prison as a criminal

3. To the palace as prime minister

At each stage, you ask: “What was his spiritual experience? How was God working in his life in that moment?” Then by implication: “If you find yourself on a similar journey today, what is God doing in your life?”

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Part Two: Crafting the Topical Sermon

Now let’s dive deeper into the topical sermon, since that’s what most sermons are.

The Introduction: Your First 30 Seconds

The last thing you want to hear as an audience is: “I was standing in the shower this morning asking myself what I’m going to preach about today.”

Why? Because that tells you you’re getting “survival bread”—not a proper loaf. No disrespect to survival bread, but if given a choice, we’d rather have a freshly baked loaf.

Your introduction has got to grab people’s attention because you lose people in the first 30 seconds—or you manage to keep them for the rest of the sermon. If you don’t capture their attention and make them see that this sermon is relevant to their lives, it doesn’t matter what else you say. They may be physically present, but their minds are somewhere else.

What to Put in a Good Introduction:

1. A Current News Item
For example, if there’s been a major earthquake in Venezuela, you could show video of skyscrapers collapsing and ask: “Does your world seem secure? Might this happen to you tomorrow?”

2. A Provocative Question
“Can Jimmy become Jane?” People will be interested in what you have to say after that.

3. A Moral Dilemma
Pastor David Shin recently asked: “Is it morally okay to lie in order to save life?” This poses a dilemma that engages people’s thinking.

What NOT to Do in an Introduction:

1. Don’t Apologize
Never say: “I’ve had a really tough week. I didn’t have any time to prepare, so we’ll just have to trust the Holy Spirit to carry us through.” You’ve lost your audience in that moment.

2. Don’t Tell Long Stories
Many people start with a 20-minute tearjerker about “Sandy in San Diego” that has nothing to do with the Word of God. You’re transferring authority from Scripture to human experience.

3. Don’t Wander Aimlessly
The congregation thinks: “Oh, that’s a good question. Oh, he’s on to another question. Now there’s another question. When are we going to get to the main point?”

4. Don’t State a Problem Unless You Intend to Answer It
Don’t say: “I’m sure we’re all wondering whether Johnny, who committed suicide, can be in the kingdom of heaven” and then discuss something else. Don’t raise questions you won’t touch.

The Main Body: Structure and Flow

Write It Out

I encourage you to write out your sermons and have your text ready. Some people use flashcards, but if you know the topic intimately, that’s fine. For most people, nerves take over, and sometimes you get tongue-tied. Having it written helps.

Logical Flow

These three sections (A, B, C) need to hang together logically:

Unity: People need a sense that we’re going logically from A to B to C to the conclusion.

Progression: B logically follows A. C logically follows B. The conclusion makes sense of all of it.

What You Don’t Want: A and B are connected, but C is off somewhere else, and then you come back to the conclusion. People leave mystified, unable to follow what you said.

Proportion

The three sections should be approximately the same length. If your first point is 30 minutes, and you have three points, everyone’s mentally checking their watches thinking, “We’ve got another hour and a half to go!” The hypoglycemics are worrying about crashing before the conclusion comes.

Avoid Rabbit Trails

Once you start talking, it starts flowing out. You’re trying to regulate the flow, but sometimes it goes in unexpected directions. Fight hard to keep it going in the right direction.

The Conclusion: What Are You Asking?

You need to know what kind of response you’re looking for. If you as the preacher don’t know, the audience will have no idea what you’re asking of them.

You’re not just looking for intellectual edification—you’re looking for a change in their lives.

• A positive choice for Christ

• Following one of His teachings more closely in greater obedience

• Going home to forgive somebody

Even if people aren’t coming to the front, you’re asking them to make a commitment in their minds: “I’m going to do this from this day forward.”

What NOT to Do in a Conclusion:

Don’t say “And in conclusion” and still have 25 minutes to go.

When you say “in conclusion,” people mentally wrap up and move on. They can smell the potluck downstairs. After 10 minutes, you say it again—then a third time—and suddenly a big D appears. People have already had their three-course meal; they’re not interested in a roast pig at this stage.

Don’t spring a “bear trap” on them—going down a hobby horse that you should have left for another day.

Be definite. Don’t be afraid to ask people to make commitments. We’re not preaching so people might have knowledge; we’re preaching so people might have changed lives.

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Part Three: Standing in the Pulpit

Your Identity

When you’re in the pulpit, you’re an ambassador for Christ. Remember 2 Corinthians 5: we are a new creation, and we are sent by God to be ambassadors of Christ with a ministry of reconciliation. That’s our identity.

When you stand in the pulpit, you’re representing not the church—you’re representing Jesus Christ.

Your Appearance

If you’re appearing in court with “Love” and “Hate” tattooed across your neck, your defense attorney is going to tell you to cover it up. People will vote against you—or won’t listen to you—not because of what you said or did, but because they don’t like something about your personal appearance.

Take away reasons for people to make an excuse not to listen to your message.

For Men:

Wear a wedding band (especially in countries where it’s expected). If I preach in England without one, I’d be accused of looking for an affair. In America, wedding bands are sometimes an issue for Adventists, but I bring greetings from my wife and kids so people know I’m married.

Don’t wear novelty ties—Mickey Mouse, political figures, or anything that distracts.

Keep colors simple: A single-tone black, gray, or blue shirt; a single-tone jacket; a white or light blue shirt; a single-tone tie. Nobody will remember what you wore, which is exactly what you want.

For Women:

Dress judiciously and cautiously. Be careful of your skirt length.

I sat in front of someone recently and spent the whole hour trying not to look in the wrong direction because of poor positioning. This is deadly serious—dress in a way that nobody can remember what you wore, and nothing is showing that causes people to stumble.

Grooming:

• If you decide to grow a beard, don’t do it that morning. Take a two-week summer vacation and see what happens. If it looks good, keep it. But don’t show up scruffy.

• Clean your teeth—especially important in the era of high-definition cameras. A little black spot will appear on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube shorts for years to come.

• Keep your nails clean and at a decent length.

• Avoid garlic 24 hours before preaching. When you kneel with other pastors or greet people at the door, you don’t want them recoiling.

• Wash your hair—preferably Sabbath morning.

• Polish your shoes.

Bad breath, tooth decay, body odor, smelly clothes, greasy hair, dirty collars, dirty fingernails—all become stumbling blocks that give people reason not to listen.

Eye Contact and Connection

Look at people in the eyes—it makes a personal connection. When you nod, they nod back.

If You’re Nervous:

Look at the bridge of their nose. They think you’re looking them straight in the face, but you’re not looking into their eyes. This protects you from the emotional connection that can be scary, especially with difficult topics.

Or look at the back row. Choose two or three bricks to focus on. One over there, one over there, one over there. People think you’re making a personal connection, but you’re just looking at bricks.

Video Yourself

Video yourself delivering the sermon at home and watch it with a trusted friend. The Bible says (paraphrased): “The wounds of a friend are to be trusted more than the kisses of an enemy.”

Ask for brutal feedback. Watch for:

Fillers: Everybody has them—”um,” “like,” “you know.” As a boy, my twin brother and I would count how many times a preacher used “um” in a sermon. We weren’t listening to the content; we were just listening to the fillers.

Mannerisms: Are you always pushing your glasses up? Scratching your ears? Cleaning your glasses? These quirks drive people crazy.

Once you’re conscious of them, put a little Post-it at the top of the pulpit: “Don’t scratch your nose. Don’t clean your glasses.”

Spiritual Realities

Spiritual things are spiritually discerned. Not everybody in the pews is there by conviction. Some are there out of conviction, some out of convenience, and some out of compulsion.

• Some people’s hearts and minds are literally closed to everything you have to say.

• Some are there because Mommy told them they have to.

• Some are hoping to get a $50 Walmart card at the end.

• Some are seekers. Some are driven by despair.

Don’t assume that people actually want to hear what you have to say or that they’re open to the workings of the Holy Spirit. That just goes with the normal mix of an average congregation.

Seek Common Ground

If you’re preaching to a group with a different worldview, start with what you have in common.

Example: Preaching to animists in Papua New Guinea

• We both believe spirits exist.

• We both believe there are good spirits and bad spirits.

• We both believe evil spirits try to hurt us.

• We both believe a sacrifice must be made to get them off our backs.

In Cambodia, that means killing a buffalo, chicken, goat, or lamb. From the Christian perspective, it’s the death of Christ on Calvary once and for all. Which is a better sacrifice? A once-and-for-all sacrifice or a daily sacrifice? One that cost the Son of God His life, or one that costs you the life of a chicken every single day?

Example: Preaching to the LGBTQ movement
We actually have common ground. The LGBTQ movement comes out of postmodernism, which is a philosophy of despair that says life has no purpose and no meaning. People are seeking to find purpose and meaning by creating identities for themselves.

We agree that life without God has no purpose and is meaningless. So you can try to find meaning by walking in pride parades, or you can try to find meaning by accepting the Son of God as your Savior. If walking in pride parades year after year still leaves you with the same old heartache and empty inner feeling, why not try Jesus Christ today?

Anticipate Objections

Preachers should think about what they say, think about what people think about what they say, and learn to answer those questions in the sermon.

Add a Q&A section near the end. If you know your sermon is going to raise people’s hackles, say: “Some people may have questions about what we’re saying today.” Then ask the questions you know people will object to, and give the biblical answer.

Deal with objections before you get to the conclusion and the appeal. If people still have objections, they’re not going to respond to the appeal.

Use Illustrations Wisely

You can use a simile or metaphor to great effect. You don’t need to tell a 15-minute tearjerking story about a drug addict in Boston.

An illustration illustrates the biblical point. But if you’ve got only illustration and no biblical point, you’ve got no Scripture left in your sermon.

You want the Word of God to be the authority in people’s lives—not human experience, not what the preacher says. Illustrations must illustrate and point to and explain something in Scripture.

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Conclusion: Embrace the Call

Don’t run away from opportunities to preach. Embrace them as:

1. An opportunity to go deeper into the Word of God

2. An opportunity to personally meet God afresh

3. An opportunity to be filled with the joy of discovery

When you’re filled with the joy of discovery, then you can preach to other people the good news of a coming Savior and who Jesus is and what He means.

Where to Start?

The Gospels are the best place to start. The whole of the Bible is about Jesus:

• The Old Testament points to the Messiah

• The New Testament explains the Messiah

• The Gospels tell the story of the Messiah

Don’t be afraid of being invited to preach. Take it as a great opportunity to grow in Christ, to grow in knowledge, to grow in your abilities, and to develop new gifts you never thought you had.

I first preached when I was 13. I was asked to step in at some big event celebrating the British church in the north of England. I’d never spoken publicly in my life. I stood up there in front of hundreds of people and thought, “I really like this.”

That same opportunity is waiting for you. Embrace it.