What makes a sermon good or bad?

What Makes a Sermon True to the Text

So, what makes a sermon good or bad? Well, what I've done is gone through and listed some of the things that you might want to consider when examining a sermon, when seeing how a preacher is doing. Now, the following contains stuff that I've learned in seminary, through preaching and teaching in many churches and in prisons, and examining preaching of others for many, many years.

Now, I'm not saying I'm a great preacher or anything, but at least I can take a look at some of these issues that should be included in sermons. I think not in every single sermon has to have all these points.

There is, however, one point that I want to talk about later on in the sermon that I think is critical, and it's something I learned in seminary, and I'll talk about that later. All right, so basics should be simple.

The sermon should be true to the text. Now, is the sermon content related to the text, or is the preacher using the text as a launching point for something else? Now, I've seen this happen so many times.

You go to the text, they preach, and it's not about the text. It's something else. I don't like that. I think it's really bad. Now, there's what we call exegesis and eisegesis. So what is it? Is the sermon exegetical or is it eisegetical?

Exegesis means finding out what the text actually says and drawing out of that text what is actually there. And eisegesis means reading into the text what is not there. Sometimes preachers will force the text to say what they want it to say, or they go off on a tangent not related to the text.

That's not good. All right, so referencing commentaries and the Greek and the Hebrew is usually very helpful. It doesn't have to be done in every sermon, but they tend to add validity and insight to the text.

And they're not necessary, but they're often very helpful. So there are all kinds of tools that the preacher can have at his disposal. When I preach and teach, sometimes I'll put up Greek words or Hebrew words, and I'll show things.

I'll put definitions of terms and things like that, and they usually appreciate that a lot. So doing this kind of a thing helps the congregation to understand that the preacher is really studying and giving more in-depth information.

Good stuff. All right, now here's one that's the pet peeve of mine, is the sermon milk or meat. But generally a good sermon advances the listener's knowledge of the Christian faith. Some sermons are meant to be easy and comforting, and other sermons are designed to make us feel uncomfortable and bring us to a change of thought and behavior.

Milk, Meat, and Doctrine in Preaching

All right, no problem. But if all sermons make you feel comfortable, then that is a problem. We need the whole of Scripture, not just the parts that make us feel good. And as I talk about here a little bit later, does it contain doctrine?

All right, so milk or meat, what's going on? Well, sometimes it's coochie-coochie-coo stuff. They don't get into the doctrine of the Trinity, the hypostatic union, justification, imputation. They don't do very many of these kinds of things, and they just teach mamby-pamby stuff.

Often it's because they want unbelievers to come into the church, and it's not the job of the pastor to get unbelievers to come in. It's his job to equip the Christians, not just to babysit. So he's supposed to equip them for the good work.

That's Ephesians 4, 11, and 12. All right, also is the sermon Christ-centered? Now, Jesus is the standard for everything that we would do and learn. He's the standard of our behavior, our motives, and our thought.

We are to be faithful to who Christ is. And also something that's very, very important is the issue of a sermon being cross-centered. See, the cross is the reason. The sacrifice of Jesus is the reason.

See, we change, repent, do, stop doing. We live, we think, we help, whatever it is, because we've been bought by the blood of Christ, as Acts 20, 28. Otherwise, sermons can become moral lessons instead of based on the redemptive work of Christ.

Now, moralism, this is important. See, moralism is a teaching of doing what is right for the sake of doing what is right. You know, something like, don't lie because—I've got to fix that typo—don't lie because lying is bad.

Not because of the work of Jesus, but don't lie because we've been bought with the blood of Christ. We've got to make sure that people understand we don't just simply not lie because, well, that's a good thing to do, to be honest.

No, we don't lie, we don't steal, because we've been bought with the blood of Christ. We have been purchased out of the fallen world. We belong to the Lord, and we ought to serve Him. And it's because of what He did on the cross that we don't lie, that we are faithful to our wives and our husbands and our children and honest days work, because of who we are in Christ.

And it should be cross-centered. Without the cross, usually a sermon then becomes moralism. Be good because being is good. Being good is good.

You should be good.

Be right. Be nice. Be whatever. And that's just not good. All right, does the message, does the sermon exalt God or man? Now, that's an important one. And a lot of sermons, they exalt man. You know, you're good, you're this, you're free will, you're sovereignty.

It's up to you to do. It's just bad stuff. And we have to make sure that the sermon ultimately is exalting God in His work and His greatness in our lives and in situations. So you've got to ask, does the sermon promote faith in God and the trust in God and how great God is?

Or does the sermon focus on what we can do, what we feel, what we can accomplish because of our free will and our abilities? These are the kinds of things we've got to be careful of too. All right, does the message include doctrine?

So doctrine can include such things as the Trinity, the deity of Christ, justification by faith alone in Christ, sanctification, imputation, propitiation, a lot of big words. But they're necessary to occasionally be mentioned in a sermon when those relative topics come up.

And I've done this through sermons. I used to preach pulpit supply in Southern California for many years. I'd preach in different churches all over the place. And I love doing that. And I would often put a bit of doctrine into a sermon if it related to that sermon.

And I found that the congregation members were very, very appreciative of that. They really liked it. They said, we never hear anybody preach doctrine at all or include it in sermons. And so I never forgot that, that people liked that.

So it can go a long way. Doctrine can go a long way to ground the people in the truth so they won't be deceived by false teachers later on in their lives. All right, these are some of the things you should watch to be included.

Guarding Against False Churches, Illustrations, and Self-Help Sermons

But what are the things you watch out for? See, this is the point I was saying earlier. Could the sermon be preached unchanged in a false church? So when I was in seminary and I was preaching and my professor friend and I had a meeting about sermons and he asked me a question.

He said, Matt, could your sermon be preached in a Mormon church, a Jehovah's Witness church unchanged? And that question was so profound because it caused me to think and to realize. And I looked at him at one point and I said, you know what, you got a point there because what I preach in the class, you know, as we're practicing and learning.

I said, what I preach there could be preached in one of those churches unchanged. And he said, then what's the problem with that? And it was a light that just came on. It was one of those critical moments that I realized that if I'm going to preach a sermon that it cannot be accepted as is in a Mormon church, a Jehovah's Witness church, the Catholic church, East Orthodox church or places like that.

Those are false churches. It cannot be received in those if I just preach it a standard way. If they can accept it, something's wrong with the sermon. And so that was a good lesson for me to learn. Here's something else that's really important.

Illustrations. Are the illustrations the focus of the message or are they a tool to bring out the truth of that message? And I can't tell you how many times I've gone to a church, listened to a sermon and it's full of illustrations.

The last church I went to that did this, I literally walked out on the sermon. The gentleman got up, opened a book, not the Bible, started reading a long quote out of it, then went to the Bible text, really didn't focus on the Bible text that much, kind of mentioned something in it.

They went back to the book and talked about the book's quote. And I said, I'm done. And I just got up and walked out. And illustrations are okay, but they should be there for the service of elevating and pointing out to the truth that's in the word.

And they should not be the dominant aspect of a sermon. The word of God is powerful, Isaiah 55, 11. The word of God will not come back empty without accomplishing what God desires. So a sermon should be focused on the word of God, not the illustration.

Because in my opinion, anybody who uses illustrations as a primary means of conveying the truth of God then has not understood the word of God, doesn't believe in the power of the word of God and has to do something else with the word of God to make it acceptable to people.

And I think that's a serious problem. Here's another issue that a lot of times some pastors are guilty of, is a sermon a list of steps for a better whatever it is. Now, this reduces God's work to a self-help book.

And that's something the secular world seeks. I know a lot of people like the seven steps to a better whatever it is. But we've got to be careful not to turn the book into a series of steps that just make our lives better.

Now, that's not to say that there aren't certain things in Scripture that the Bible says we should do. And that can occasionally be valid. It can be true. But we've got to make sure that we don't just assume that the sermon is to be, you know, the seven steps to having a better marriage, the three ways of having better diet, whatever it might be.

Let the word of God do its power. Unleash it. Open it up. Focus on it. Let the Holy Spirit convict the people about the word of truth. Let the word of God be let loose. Don't couch it in illustrations and turn it into a self-help book.

Rejecting Positive Confession and False Teachers

Now, here's something else that's important. Does it include a positive confession? I put this kind of stuff in here because the positive confession movement is a dangerous movement that is gaining ground in churches around the world.

And basically, you know, you deserve to be healthy and financially secure because you're a child of God. It's the basic preaching of God wants you healthy and wealthy.

He may.

He may not.

And you should not preach those kind of things. And I'll get into some of the bad teachers next who teach this kind of stuff. You've got to be careful of. So, one of the things that I will watch for, do they reference or quote like Kenneth Copeland or Joyce Meyer or Joel Osteen?

And if they do, it better be because they're exposing error, not because they're using them as good sources of information. There's many quotes that you talk about, but this is just an example. Kenneth Copeland said that heaven is a planet.

Joyce Meyer said Jesus paid for our sins in hell. Joel Osteen once said Mormons are Christians. So, these teachers don't know what they're talking about. They should not be allowed to preach and teach because they're false teachers.

You start saying things like this. It means they don't understand biblical theology and they are not qualified to preach the Word of God to God's people. So, that's something to consider very much. Here's something else.

Delivery Style, Personal Preferences, and How Long a Sermon Should Be

This is just the end of this video here. But personal preferences, delivery style, so monotone, excitement, gesticulations. Now, I'm different than a lot of people. I like to see a little bit of excitement in a sermon.

I like to see good movement and excitement. I like to see that. But I've been to places where they teach in a monotone. You know, they just say, and God loves you so much that if you trust in Him, things will be fine.

So, let's turn to this picture. I'm like, God, you're killing me. And I'm not saying you have to all be excited all the time, but it's a personal preference. I was at one church where the pastor would constantly pause after every three, four, five words.

And it was this long pause every time.

And it drove me crazy.

I can't go back there.

You know, he'd be saying, and Jesus walked the path. And then what he said was to the man. And then I'm like, would you stop that? And so, you know, it's a personal preference.

And people like that.

Not for me. And I'm not saying this, you have to be like me. I'm just saying, these are certain things you've got to get away. And here's something to focus on too. What does the minister do when he messes up?

How does he handle it? Just like I messed up earlier, there's a little typo up there. Well, what do you do? You know, if he gets really embarrassed and it really destroys him, he needs more practice. And I've certainly messed up in the pulpit before.

You just say, well, you know, they didn't come out right. Let me try it again. And that usually causes the congregation to kind of relax. And they kind of chuckle with you because they know no one's perfect.

And so these are, you know, personal preference things about the deliverance of a sermon. And they know how long should the sermon be? You know, just like Abraham Lincoln said when he was asked, how long should a man's legs be?

And he answered, long enough to reach the ground. And so how long should a sermon be? Long enough to get the job done. We don't want to be there three hours. But, you know, so these are things to look out for and be well, be aware of inside of sermons.

I hope it was helpful. Hope it was beneficial to you. So may the Lord bless you. And we will talk to you later.

God bless. Bye.