How To Plan A Teaching Sermon
A teaching sermon calls for a careful plan, clearly visible. Let us assume that a pastor has begun in good time, that he has a worthy goal with a royal text, and more than enough materials, from both his passage and outside Holy Writ. In the spirit of prayer he sits down to figure out the best way to use the materials in meeting a need today.
Mentally, planning starts with a purpose, as it concerns the hearer, one of many. This aim a man does well to write out, word for word, and then keep in view. He may wish to win the unsaved hearer. Then may come the phrasing of a topic, with both the divine and the human, often in this order. A good topic shows how the minister interprets his text, and how he will proceed in the sermon. This kind of topic dominates all that follows. The topical use of materials from a Bible passage! Unity!
As often with F. W. Robertson, the facts may call for two main divisions; with C. E. Macartney, four; or R. E. Speer, in a long address, five. No more! What about three, which Maclaren is supposed to have preferred? In one of his ablest books, The Secret of Power, thirteen out of twenty sermons have a four-point plan. If the facts call for three, have three. Let the purpose and the materials guide in making the plan. Whatever the number, let the headings stand out like piers in a suspension bridge.
To aid both speaker and hearer, in each main heading use the gist of the topic. Phrase all the headings in a like form, often in sentences, easy for the layman to remember because of parallelism. Each main part may call for subheads, easy for the speaker to recall, but not for the hearer to notice. Somewhere determine which of the main divisions, if any, call for illustrations.
With the main body now in view, decide about the path of approach. Before this consider more than one sort of introduction, but make the final decision after you know what to introduce. The effectiveness of a spoken discourse depends largely on the content and tone color of the opening paragraph. As the senior girls told me at Mary Baldwin College, “On Sunday with a visiting preacher we listen for a sentence or two. Then if he does not interest us we think about something nice!”
Why not put in the opening sentence the gist of the sermon, or the theme? A Simple declarative sentence, once known as the proposition, tells the substance of the discourse. Here listen to John H. Jowett, the most popular evangelical preacher thus far in our century: “No sermon is ready for preaching, ready for writing out, until we can express its theme in a short, pregnant sentence as clear as a crystal. I find the getting of that sentence the hardest, the most exacting, and the most fruitful labor in my study” (The Preacher, His Life and Work, p. 133).
At last the plan lies here, all complete. Tomorrow how make it better? By using four oldtime tests. 1. Unity. As with the Master’s seamless robe, is there unity, or only patchwork? Does everything in the message have to do with the topic? Does the topic relate directly to everything in the sermon? Because of faults here, one cannot preach without notes, and a hearer cannot recall the main parts of a message.
2. Order. Do the various parts follow a visible pattern? After a brief introduction, does the basic idea come first? Does each part lead up to the next? If so, both speaker and hearer can easily follow; the latter can gladly remember.
3. Symmetry. The last important test, in the least conspicuous place. Does the plan call for equal work, relatively, on each main division? Or does it tend toward anti-climax? Many a message at first full of promise oozes out into mediocrity. The reason? Not planned with sufficient skill and care!
4. Climax. Not in spectacular fashion but with growing intensity a real sermon builds up. Since a typical hearer thinks much about himself, the climactic order may be that of our Lord: Love God first, your neighbor next, and yourself last. Then by the grace of God you will begin to have a self with which to love both God and neighbor.
As in a newspaper article, put to the forefront what you wish the hearer to learn. Then make him long for such an experience. At last lead him to do what the Lord desires, in the light of this message from God’s Book. With all sorts of variety, this is the way the masters have planned teaching sermons. Who follows in their train? (For fuller treatment see the author’s The Preparation of Sermons, a teaching book, Abingdon Press, 1948.)
ANDREW W. BLACKWOOD
The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones (Ezek. 37:1).
Prophecy often comes as the gift of God to the imagination. When Ezekiel told the Hebrews about dry bones they had gone into exile. Through this vision they learned to hope in God. Without pushing the analogy too far we may think of that valley as like many a portion of earth today. Could any place seem more God-forsaken? Nevertheless, into that valley came the power of the Holy Spirit. What else do we need today?
I. Power from the Spirit. The prophets often write in terms of power, the power of God. Here the power comes from the Spirit as a Person of the Triune God. Power to bring life and hope here in the homeland, as well as in Africa and Asia. Herein lies the world’s only hope before the end of the present age.
II. Power through Preaching. In terms of today, “Preach to dead souls.” So the fathers spoke of a sermon as “thirty minutes to raise the dead.” The Spirit alone has the right to determine who shall preach and where, as well as what and how. Here he calls for a message of hope. Hope for dry bones? Ah, yes, life from the dead!
In early life Charles Darwin visited one of the Fuegian Islands so besotted he declared that no power could change them in a thousand years. A few decades later he sent the London Missionary Society five pounds as an unbeliever’s testimony that in less than a generation the simple Gospel of Jesus Christ had transformed the island.
III. Power through Prayer. In an oldtime valley after the preaching came a commotion, but the valley still was full of bodies dead. Such a commotion we have witnessed of late in Africa, largely because of preaching by our missionaries. But preaching alone can never bring life to dead souls. Life comes from power, and power comes from God, often in response to prayer. Why is it that we do not pray?
My friend, do you ever feel helpless in our atomic age, Yes; except when we look up, we all feel so because we forget the super-atomic power of Almighty God, waiting now to be released through the right sort of preaching, in response to the right sort of prayer. Pray for the Holy Spirit to bring life into many a valley of dry bones, and first of all, here at home.
If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? and if in the land of peace, wherein thou trustedst, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan? (Jer. 12:5).
[The first sermon Gossip preached after his wife’s “dramatically sudden death.” Perhaps the most noteworthy pulpit message in our century thus far. No one can fitly reduce it to halting prose. The two main parts, equal in length, have to do with how a believer shows faith while in the hour of testing.]
In the providence of God—
I. Every Man Has an Hour of Testing. “Never morning wore to evening but some heart did break.” When yours breaks, what then? How are you, so querulous and easily fretted by minor worries, to make shift at all in the swelling of the Jordan? With the cold of it catching away your breath, and the rush of it plucking away at your footing?
So many people’s religion is a fair-weather affair. I do not understand this life of ours. Still less can I see how people in bereavement can fling away peevishly from the Christian faith. In God’s name, fling away to what? By and by the gale dies down, and the moon rises, and throws us a lane of gold across the blackness and the heaving of the troubled waters. It is in the dark that faith becomes biggest and bravest, that its wonder grows yet more and more. So that by the grace of God—
II. Every Man Can Meet the Hour of Testing. The faith fulfills itself, is real, and the most audacious promises are true. The glorious assertions of Scripture are not propositions and guesses. There is about them no mere perhaps. These are splendid truths that human hands like ours have plucked in the garden of actual experience. Further, one becomes certain about the life everlasting.
One thing I should like to say, which I never have said before, not feeling that I had the right. In the mass we Christian people are entirely unchristian in our thoughts about death. We think aggrievedly of what it means to us. That is all wrong. In the New Testament you hear little of the families with the aching gap, huddled together in their desolate little homes on some back street; but on the other hand you hear a great deal about the saints in glory, and the sunshine, and the singing, and the splendor yonder.
And so, back to life again. Like a healthy-minded lad at some boarding school who after the first hour of homesickness resolves that he will throw himself into the life about him and enjoy every minute of it, always his eyes look for the term’s end, always his heart thrills at the thought of that wonderful day when he will again be with the loved ones.
You need not be afraid of life. Our hearts are frail. Ofttimes the road is steep and lonely. But we have a wonderful God. Who can separate us from his love? Not death. No, not death. Standing in the roaring of the Jordan, cold to the heart with its dreadful chill, and conscious of the terror of its rushing, like Hopeful I too can say to you who some day will have your turn to cross it: “Be of good cheer, my brother, for I feel the bottom, and it is sound.”—From The Protestant Pulpit, compiled by A. W. Blackwood, Abingdon Press, 1947.
Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon (Isa. 55:7; read vv. 1–13).
This verse is central to the chapter. The chapter comes from a supreme moment when the seer is borne aloft into the future. Here he beholds people who suffer because they have forgotten God and have rebelled against Him. Then he shows the breadth and the blessedness of God’s will for his disobedient children. Let us deal with the message as it relates to conditions here and now.
I. Two Conditions of Life Today. On the one hand, men in the desert, thirsting for water, hungry for bread, a picture of life, hot, restless, feverish, without water, without bread, without peace. In the garden men listen to the anthem of the hills, the applause of the trees. What does all of this mean?
A picture of the godless life! There are men whose birthright is among the mountains, men who have lost the rivers of God. This is a picture, not of Babylon alone but of our city today.
II. The Wicket Gate into the Garden. The text reveals God’s way of salvation.
Let a man forsake his evil way, by giving up his thoughts of evil, and by returning to God. A man does not come back by giving up specific sins, but by giving up his own ways and his own thoughts, for they are not those of God. A man sins as long as he chooses his own path. He never worships, never prays, has no commerce with heaven, no traffic with eternity, no fellowship with God. But God’s thoughts are higher by far. He thinks a great deal more of you than you do yourself if you think you can do without him. The difference is that between the height of heaven and the meanness of earth.
III. The Way Back into the Garden. Return unto the Lord. This is the Evangel. I wish I could put into words all the music in my soul when I say: “He will abundantly pardon.” “He will have mercy.” My brother, had it not been easy for you and me, we could never have found salvation, but it was not easy for God. In this hour we are gathered under the shelter of the Cross. Turn back to Him, knowing that by the touch of thy weak hand the gate will swing open and thou shalt pass into the garden of God. But know this also, that the very heart of God, the God who was in Christ, was bruised and broken to make sure thy welcome home.—From The Westminster Pulpit, London, March 3, 1911.
… Thy God whom thou servest continually, he will deliver thee (Dan. 6:16b; read vv. 12–23).
In a den of lions this believer hears words of hope from an unbelieving king. In ways far different each of the two shows that in time of extreme peril belief in God affords the only sure protection. A case study for everyone likely to meet peril today.
I. The Believer’s Trust in God. “My God is able!” Note here the believer’s Loyalty to God—Fixity of Purpose—Certainty of Deliverance—and Clarity of Statement. “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so!”
II. The Lord’s Care of His Believer. Note God’s Miraculous Deliverance—Complete Deliverance—Instructive Deliverance—Convincing Deliverance. “My God will deliver!” And so he did! He always does, according to his holy will, when a would-be believer trusts.
My friend, is your God able? Your answer: “Of course my God is able!” If so, how completely do you trust him? Trust him for eternity, and begin by trusting him now.—Adapted from Mark These Men, London, 1949.
… Is thy servant a dog …? (2 Kings 8:13; read vv. 7–15).
“Who would have thought it?” The exclamation comes to mind when you think, not only of military disasters, but of those crushing moral ambushes that suddenly overwhelm the soul of a man. The passage before us affords a case.
I. The Ignorance of Yourself. “Dog or no dog, he did it!” Mere disinclination is no guarantee against doing evil. The worst doer of evil may be the man who thinks he would never do such a wrong. “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.”
II. The Inside Man of Sin. This is not complimentary to human nature, but a preacher is not here to praise human nature, alienated from God. Because you share the common nature of mankind, God warns you to be always on guard. Every man has his own ladder down to hell.
III. The Desire that Leads to Sin. With any suppressed desire to do wrong the opportunity to gratify that desire may soon arise. What in the distance may seem unthinkable and detestable takes on a far more appealing guise when desire and opportunity meet. In a moment ambition and opportunity to meet it are married. The issue of that marriage is sin.
IV. The Way of Unconscious Deterioration. As with a rotting log, the collapse comes suddenly, under a new stress. But the log has been rotting for years. Beware! “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my thoughts.”
With fear and trembling accept the Bible account of your heart. In order to be secure against sin, have Christ in your soul. Pray that he may dwell in your heart. Since all of your resolutions have failed, try the Lord. He is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of God.
“Well,” you say, “what a strange sermon in a theological seminary!” But remember our alumni. They had hardly put on their armor before some fell into perversions of Christianity. Others have become highly paid vendors of the small talk of the world. Still others have fallen into unspeakable sin, as though they never had been anointed with holy oil. These are facts, facts that ought to burn into your heart. You have a soul to be saved, a soul to be lost. “My soul, be on thy guard, ten thousand foes arise!”—From The Protestant Pulpit, ed. by A. W. Blackwood, Abingdon Press, 1947.
