What makes a sermon good or bad?

CARM

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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

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The following contains stuff that I've learned in seminary through preaching and teaching in many churches and in prisons

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And examining a preaching of others for many many years now I'm not saying I'm a great preacher or anything

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But at least I can take a look at some of these issues that should be Included in sermons.

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I think not in every single sermon every 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

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And it's something I learned in seminary and I'll talk about that later. All right, so Basics should be simple

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The sermon should be true to the text now is the sermon content related to the text or is the preacher

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Using the text as a launching point for something else. I've seen this happen so many times you'll go to the text they preach and It's not about the text.

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It's something else and I'm you know, I don't like that. I think it's really bad now There's what we call exegesis or and isogesis.

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Excuse me So what is it is the sermon exegetical or is it isogetical exegesis means finding out what the text actually says and drawing out of that text what is actually there and Isogesis means reading into the text what is not there and sometimes preachers will force the text to say what they want it to say

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Or they go off on a tangent not related to the text. That's not good all right, so Referencing commentaries and the

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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

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So there are all kinds of tools that the preacher can have at his disposal

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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 and they usually appreciate that a lot.

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So they 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

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All right. Now, here's one that The pet peeve of mine is the sermon milk or meat, but generally a good sermon advances the listeners knowledge of the

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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.

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All right, no problem But if all sermons make you feel comfortable then that is a problem

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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?

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All right, so milk or meat what's going on? Well, sometimes it's coochie -coochie -coo

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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

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Mamby -pamby stuff often is because they want Unbelievers to come into the church and it's not the job of the the pastor to get unbelievers to come in It's his job to equip the

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Christians not to to just a babysit So he's supposed to equip them for the good work.

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That's Ephesians 4 11 and 12 All right, also is the sermon

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Christ centered now Jesus is the standard for Everything that we would do and learn

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He's the standard of our behavior our motives and our thought we are to be faithful to who

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Christ is and Also, something is very very important is the issue of something being a sermon being cross centered

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See the cross is the reason the sacrifice of Jesus is the reason see we change repent do

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Stop doing we live we think we help with whatever it is because we've been bought by the blood of Christ as X 2028 otherwise sermons can become

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Moral lessons instead of based on the redemptive work of Christ now moralism.

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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'm gonna fix that typo.

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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.

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We got to make sure that people understand We don't just simply lie or not lie because that's a good thing to do is to be honest

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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 the fallen world

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We belong to the Lord and we ought to serve him and it's because of what he did in the cross that we don't lie that we are faithful to our our wives and our 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

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Usually a sermon then becomes Moralism be good because being is good being good is good.

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It should be good be right be nice be whatever and that's it's just not Good. All right. Does the message there's a sermon exalt

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God or man? Now that's an important one and a lot of sermons.

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They exalt man, you know, you're good. You're this Your free will your sovereignty it's up to you to do it's just bad stuff and We have to make sure that the sermon

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Ultimately is exalting God in his work and his greatness in our lives and in situations so you got to ask does a sermon promote faith in God and the

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Trust in God and how great God is or does the sermon focus on what we can do what we feel

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What we can accomplish because of our free will and our abilities These are the kinds of things we've got to be careful up to all right does the message include doctrine?

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So doctrine can include such things as a trinity the deity of Christ justification by faith alone in Christ sanctification imputation

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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 and uh,

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I used to preach pulpit supply in Southern, California for many years I'd preach in different churches all over the place

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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 they the congregation members were very very appreciative of that.

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They really liked it They said we never hear anybody preach doctrine at all or include it in sermons

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And so I never forgot that that people like that So it can go a long way doctrine can go a long way to ground the people in the truth

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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

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To be included but where are the things you watch out for? She could this this is the point of saying earlier.

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Could the sermon be preached unchanged in a false church? so when I was in seminary and I was preaching and my

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Professor friend and I had a meeting about sermons and he asked me a question said

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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

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I said, you know what you got a point there because what I preach in the class, you know I was practicing and learning

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I said what I preached 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 was just this came on it was one of those those critical moments that I realized that if I'm gonna preach a sermon that it cannot be accepted as Is in a

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Mormon Church a Jehovah's Witness Church the Catholic Church East Orthodox Church or places like those?

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Those are those are false churches. It cannot be received in those If I just preach it a standard way if they can accept it

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Something's wrong with the sermon and so it was a good lesson for me to learn. Here's something else.

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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?

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I can't tell you how many times I've gone to a church listen to a sermon and it's full of Illustrations the last church

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I went to that did this. I literally walked out on the sermon The gentleman got up opened a book not the

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Bible started reading a long quote out of it Then went to the Bible text really didn't focus on the

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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

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I'm done and I just walked up and walked out and Illustrations are okay, but they should be there for the service of Elevating and pointing out to the truth

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That's in the word and they should not be the dominant aspect of a sermon The Word of God is powerful

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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

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Word of God not the illustration because in my opinion anybody who who uses illustrations as a primary means of conveying the truth of God then has not understood the

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Word of God doesn't believe in the power of the Word of God and has to do something else with the

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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

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Some pastors are guilty of is a sermon a list of steps for a better whatever it is

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Now this reduces God's work to a self -help book and that's something the secular world seeks

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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

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Bible says we should do and That can occasionally be valid. It could be true.

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We've got to make sure that we don't just assume that The sermon is to be a you know

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There's the seven steps to having a better marriage the three ways of having better diet

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Whatever it might be let the Word of God do its power Unleash it open it up focus on it.

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Let the Holy Spirit Convict the people about the Word of Truth. Let the Word of God be let loose

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Don't couch it in the illustrations and turn it into a self -help book Now here's something else this is important does it include a positive confession?

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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 it basically

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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 the bad teachers next to teach this kind of stuff you got to be careful of so One of the things that I will watch for do they reference or quote?

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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 and There's many quotes what you talk about, but this is just an example

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Kenneth Copeland said that heaven is a planet Joyce Meyer said Jesus paid for our sins in hell

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Joel Osteen once said Mormons are Christians, so These 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

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Word of God to God's people So that's something to consider very much. Here's something else.

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This is just the end of this video here, but personal preferences Delivery style so monotone excitement gesticulations now.

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I'm different than a lot of people I like to see a little bit of excitement in a sermon. I like to see You know good good movement and excitement

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I'd 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

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So let's turn to this bitch. Oh my 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

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I was at one church where the pastor would constantly pause after every three four five words and it was this long pause

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Every time and it drove me crazy I can't go back there, you know, he'd be saying and Jesus walked the path

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And then what he said was to the man and then I'm like we just stopped that and so I you know

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It's a personal preference and people like that. I not for me and I'm not saying this you had to be like me I'm just saying these are certain certain things.

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You gotta get away and Here's something to to focus on to what does the minister do when he messes up?

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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

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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?

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Let me try it again and 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?

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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?

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we don't want to be there three hours, but You know, so these are these are things to look out for and be well beware of inside of sermons

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I hope it was helpful. Hope it was Is beneficial to you so may the