TODAY
- Connecting the sermon with your audience requires careful attention.
- The people are the point. While it is true that ministry would be much easier without the people, there would be no point in the ministry without the people.
- It isn’t enough to know about the people, you need to love the people to whom you are called to preach.
- Sometimes this just means loving all people with an evangelistic fervor.
- D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: “To love to preach is one thing, to love those to whom we preach quite another.”
- I meet many men who love to hear themselves talk, but do not love the people to whom God has called them.
- I also meet men occasionally who love the people, but don’t love them enough to put in the necessary work to craft a good message.
- Know your church.
- If you are called to pastor, know the people. Go to the places where they are outside of church.
- Know your city.
- Follow Paul’s example in Athens.
- Interpersonal
- Integrated
- Follow Paul’s example in Athens.
- Knock on the door of heaven
- Always be in prayer
- Don’t get too creative in your construction
- Arrange your material for clarity and simplicity. Remember, the people are the point.
- Allow the text to drive the sermon, and in so doing teach your people to study and teach the Bible.
- Apply the text
- Where application begins, there the sermon begins.
- Always give an invitation
- There is always a path to the gospel.
- Aim at the heart
