ACT III: Redemption
Regardless of the sermon form you are using, the part of the sermon you need to plan most carefully is the end. This is the moment of highest intensity, the time for decision, the point at which the truth of the sermon comes either to a triumphant climax or a tired fizzle. It is time to “land the plane” and if you do not have a checklist to follow, you may well find yourself circling the runway (or just flying out to sea) until you run out of gas and sputter to a crash landing.
I find it best to have a clear sequence to follow when planning the end of the sermon. This is as true for a story-shaped sermon as it is for a deductive one. Here is the sequence I recommend for Act III:
Homiletical Conclusions
Homiletical Conclusions are the last stop before we begin the actual work of shaping the sermon. As a matter of fact, we could say that the Homiletical Conclusions mark the starting point for building the sermon.
Act II: Quest
Act II is the quiet, persistent workhorse of the three-act plot. Act I grabs attention, introduces conflict and makes promises about where the sermon will lead. Act III gets the thrill of a climactic gospel turn and resolution. Act II inherits the expectations of Act I and carries the longest stretch of the narrative while laying the groundwork for the grand revelation of Act III. It is like a dutiful middle child, living in the shadow of the highly successful older brother while deferring attention and resources to the darling younger sister.
The work of Act II may not be as glamorous, but it is just as essential to the transformation we seek in the story-shaped sermon. It has several important jobs to do.
The Application Question
No sermon is complete that does not apply the truth of the biblical text to life. No gospel-driven theological reflection is complete that does not ask the Application Question.
As we seek the gospel-driven path from text to sermon, we have so far explored three questions. The fourth and final question provides a fitting culmination of all of these by applying the message in light of the gospel as well as the biblical metanarrative: How does this text invite us into God’s Story?
The Redemption Question
If we preach an entire sermon and never mention the Christ, can we claim that it is a Christian sermon? I have come to a firm conviction that our preaching should always, ultimately, be about Jesus. Surprisingly, this conviction is not necessarily shared by all Christian preachers.
Focus, Tension, Discovery
Before we begin to plot our story-shaped sermon, there are three preliminary items we need to define. Consider these to be narrative “add-on’s” to our Homiletical Conclusions. Taking aim in these areas before you begin will save time and establish clarity from the start.
These three components will help you establish the focus of the sermon, the tension of the sermon, and the moment of discovery that will help you get to the sermon climax in the end.
The Brokenness Question
As preachers, whether our objective is to evangelize the lost, to encourage the struggling, to comfort the suffering, or to disciple the growing, the path towards an experience of the gospel will always pass through an awareness of our own brokenness. Most often, this is where it will begin.
The Sermon in Three Acts
“Plot” is the sequence of events through which a story moves. Aristotle saw two fundamental movements common to all plots: the complication and the dénouement. (Poetics, XVIII) Contemporary fiction writers expand the list to five events. It is no coincidence that these correspond almost precisely to the five movements described by Lowry as the “homiletical plot.” (The Homiletical Plot: The Sermon as Narrative Art Form. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001, 27-87) They are time-honored and universal—prominent in all narrative genres and media, from simple storytelling, to literature, to the silver screen. Film makers arrange these five movements into three acts.
The Story Question
I have sought to make a case for “Big Story” preaching. If we are to make disciples who are faithful to the gospel in today’s world, we should lay the foundations of identity, worldview, mission and community by weaving the biblical metanarrative into everything we do. For us preachers, this begins with deliberately including in our sermon process a moment to expand the “story around the text” to include the entire Canon.
Exegetical Conclusions
Once you have studied the literary and historical context of the passage, considered its genre and form, analyzed its structure, defined its words, and verified your findings through some good research, you are ready to summarize your conclusions in some straightforward statements about the text’s meaning in its original setting.
Gospel-Driven Theological Reflection
One of the greatest challenges of biblical preaching is blazing the trail from the ancient text to the contemporary world. Once you have diligently studied the historical and literary context, examined and analyzed the text itself, verified and amplified your thinking through some good research and come to some solid exegetical conclusions about what the text meant, how do you take the next step to determine what the text means for your particular group of hearers?
What Kind of Language? Outlining a Preaching Text
Most biblical texts fall into one of three broad language categories: Prose, Poetry, or Story. Though they often overlap in many ways, each of these communicates, challenges, and shapes us differently. In fact, like the three modes of transportation to Australia, they give us such different journeys that the perspectives they give of the same truth might seem widely divergent, even when the destination is the same.
In your preparation process, these differences become impossible to ignore the moment you begin to try to outline the meaning of the text. Let’s think about each of these language categories specifically from the perspective of how we would outline the text.
What Kind of Literature?
True fishermen never stop looking for just the right combination of bait and technique to catch a fish in any given pond or stream. Lure, minnow, worms or stink bait? Spinner, jig, or fly? They study fish and habitats endlessly, to make the best possible choices, and increase their chances of catching the “big one.”
I’m no fisherman, but I think I understand their drive. As a preacher, I’m always looking for the “big one” — the big idea of a given passage. But each passage is unique, and it swims in a particular pond or stream. Different kinds of texts work differently and communicate their truths in distinctive ways. If I am to coax the right truth consistently out of every text, I must learn to read each text according to its own rules. Like a fisherman who never stops studying fish and habitats, a preacher must make a life-long endeavour of studying literary genres and forms.
Examine the Text
Once you have chosen a text and gotten the big picture of the story around the text and the story behind the text, it’s time to have your own dialogue with the text. Resist the temptation to jump right into the verse by verse discussion in your favorite commentary, or listen to a sermon from your favorite preacher on the same passage. This will only give you second-hand information. You need to have your own conversation, your own encounter.
The Story Around the Text
Politicians and marketers may deliberately take words out of context to serve their own purposes, but could preachers do the same thing? We should give one another the benefit of a doubt. We need not assume deliberately malicious intent. But we should acknowledge that we sometimes pluck words, phrases, and verses out of their context to make a point that we want to make, regardless of their actual meaning.
Here’s the good news: Ignoring the literary context of a passage may be the most frequently-committed exegetical error among preachers, but it is also the easiest to correct. Here are some steps you can take to get the context right.
Planning a Topical Sermon Series
Many preachers who share my conviction that the best preaching is “expository preaching” would also say that “expository preaching” requires that every sermon series be a meticulous verse-by-verse walk through a book of the Bible. Certainly there is great value and rich rewards in this kind of preaching ministry. However, you may at least occasionally (and perhaps quite often) feel you need to preach a series of sermons on a particular topic. Is it possible to be an expository preacher without limiting yourself to expository sermon series? I believe it is, but how you approach the planning of your topical series is important.
The Story Behind the Text
Not knowing the story behind a text can be like walking blindly into the middle of a conversation. There’s a very good chance you could miss the meaning altogether. This is why we begin to gain an understanding the big picture of a biblical text by studying its historical context.
Which Comes First — The Need or the Text?
Where do you begin your sermon preparation – with a contemporary need, or with a biblical text? This is a trick question, and you should not fall for it. Be careful neither to emphasize human need to the neglect of the text, nor to emphasize the text to the neglect of human need. To do the former is to wallow in a quagmire of questions with no real answers. To do the latter is to try to preach the Bible while missing the point of the Bible.
Getting Started Without Getting Stuck
Maybe your pastor, for a reason clear to him but a mystery to you, has asked you to preach. Or you are going on a mission trip, and every member of the team must be prepared to speak. Or you are the designated preacher for your family reunion. Or perhaps you are a new pastor, suddenly overwhelmed with the responsibility of preaching at least once each week.
Whatever the reason, you are faced with the daunting task of bringing a word from God to the people of God. Where do you begin?
Bible-Based
No evangelical preacher I know would think of making a list of “qualities of a good sermon” without including “Biblical” at or near the top of the list. But what do we mean when we say the sermon should be biblical? We may not have such a ready answer for that one!