What (if anything) makes a sermon distinctive?
The task of the preacher is daunting. Every Sunday, week after week, month after month, year after year, he must mount the platform, grasp the pulpit, open the Scriptures, gaze out upon an expectant audience, and say–something! While we pay pious homage to the Holy Spirit working through the Word alone to transform hearts, the truth is that every preacher wants their sermons to be original, memorable, and relevant. Even epic. This is true not only because pastors too are prone to vanity but because, to gain an audience in our content-saturated world where a more engaging and authoritative voice is always just a podcast away, we seek to use every tool at our disposal to faithfully fulfill our vocations.
Yet confusion still surrounds the task of preaching. In a social media-driven soundbite culture where anyone with an iPhone and a YouTube account can establish a platform, sermons easily become conflated with every other form of mass communication. The lines between sermon and speech get increasingly blurry. Is there a difference? Both are persuasive modes of communication directed toward an audience. Both utilize classical elements of rhetoric. Both make use of key points and illustrations and personal anecdotes. So, what (if anything) makes a sermon distinctive? Or is the act of preaching simply one among an ever-increasing array of speech delivery options, on par with a Facebook Reel, TikTok, X, story, YouTube short, or a TedTalk?
To answer that question, we have to ask a more fundamental question: What is the telos of a sermon (its purpose or goal)? The answer may seem self-evident, but if you listen closely to the messages ringing out from pulpits across America on any given Sunday, you’ll quickly discover that it’s not. Sermons are as unique as the pastors who deliver them, and their unspoken telos vary drastically.
Sermons are as unique as the pastors who deliver them, and their unspoken telos vary drastically.
Some use the sermon to entertain. With shrinking attention spans and evergreen content constantly emerging, we’ve come to expect more of our speakers. We expect them to be as engaging as movie stars, as funny as stand-up comedians, and as “un-put-down-able” as a true-crime podcast. The battle for the attention of our audience is on, and in 2023 the weaponry we face couldn’t be more advanced nor fierce. With an ever-increasing plethora of voices clamoring for the attention of our parishioners, some turn to the cheap tricks of street entertainers to garner attention. Whether it’s rhetorical fireworks or an overreliance on video clips or distilling everything down to bite-sized tweets, the unforgivable sin seems to be “being boring,” and an entire ideology develops around holding people’s attention. Was the sermon a success or failure? That can be judged solely in terms of its entertainment value. Did you captivate your audience? Then it’s a job well done. If not, it’s back to the drawing board for next week.
Others view the telos of a sermon as inspiration. The primary goal of the preacher is to inspire his people toward a “You Can Do It” mentality. This temptation is likewise understandable, though just as lamentable (and equally dangerous) as the “entertainment preacher.” Many approach the pulpit with the attitude of a life coach or inspirational speaker. The goal is to give your people enough of a spiritual caffeine boost to get them through another week, and every message can be distilled down to a Christian version of Nike’s “Just Do It” (always, of course, bracketed with a pious dose of “with God’s help.”) The hidden assumption of the inspirational pastor is that the Christian’s primary problem is a lack of motivation. If motivation can be restored, the malady can be remedied, and the way to do that is to inspire a “can do” attitude in the hearts of your hearers. Such positivity, coupled with the limitless power of a sufficiently high anthropology, is the secret sauce that will unlock human potential of our lethargic audiences.
The hidden assumption of the inspirational pastor is that the Christian’s primary problem is a lack of motivation.
Another popular view understands the sermon primarily as a vehicle for information transfer. Its ultimate telos is to inform. The preacher has spent the week performing an in-depth study of a particular passage, delving into the original languages, studying the cultural and historical context, asking the hard questions, and consulting commentaries. Now it’s time to hang all of our exegetical underwear out to dry for the whole congregation to see. We’ve put in the time. We’ve done the work. And our people are expecting new insights about Hebrew grammar, Mesopotamian water cycles, and how much annual rainfall amounts differ between the trans-Jordan region and the valley of Sharon (I’m intentionally being facetious here to make a point). The “information preacher” sees their congregation’s fundamental problem as a lack of knowledge, so his job is to disseminate information. My people show up each week with a massive knowledge gap and it’s my job to fill it. The congregants’ primary problem is cognitive.
A similar understanding sees the sermon as the place to dispense good advice. In this paradigm, the final telos of the sermon is to make recommendations and throw down life lessons. Rather than simply filling heads with more information like the “information preacher,” the “advice preacher” understands their role as that of wisdom (albeit Biblical wisdom) guru. Individuals and families show up on a Sunday morning looking for answers to very practical questions about how they should live their lives. The pastor’s job is to provide a robust and specific response to each of those felt needs. Sermons series like “7 Tips for A Better Marriage,” “How to Win At Life,” and “10 Secrets to Financial Freedom” fall into this category. Life is confusing. People are lost. There is a dearth of good advice. So the preacher’s task in the sermon is to become a kind of Christian Dr. Phil who tells people how to live their lives.
The “advice preacher” understands their role as that of wisdom (albeit Biblical wisdom) guru.
But are these the only options? There is, in fact, another telos of a sermon that is increasingly rarified in our day and age. This alternate approach treats the sermon not as a means to entertain, inspire, inform, or advise (though there may be elements of some or all of these), but rather to deliver. The ultimate goal of the sermon is to actually deliver something–namely, a good, Gospel word that the Holy Spirit uses to change hearts.
The ultimate goal of the sermon is to actually deliver something–namely, a good, Gospel word that the Holy Spirit uses to change hearts.
Reading through some of the first Christian “sermons” ever preached in the book of Acts, it’s fascinate to note how boring we might consider them by today’s standards. Peter and Paul don’t seem particularly interested in whether their illustrations were landing or if their Jewish and Greek audiences left feeling inspired. Instead, what we see in these early messages is an unflinching, laser-focus on Jesus Christ and His work. If, as the Apostle Paul says, the gospel truly is “the power of God for salvation to everyone believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Rom 1:16), then the efficacy of the message is based solely and squarely on this good news which alone has the power to transforms hearts and minds. And the beautiful thing about the book of Acts is that we see this transformation happening in spades. Peter’s Pentecost sermon results in 3,000 souls being saved (Acts 2:41). When Peter & John are thrown into prison after preaching in Solomon’s portico, 5,000+ more come to faith (Acts 4:4). Multitudes of men and women were later added (Acts 5:14), the disciples continued to increase in number (Acts 6:1), and even Jewish priests became obedient to the faith (Acts 6:7b). Paul’s preaching in Jerusalem leads to further growth (Acts 9:31), and Peter’s conversion at the house of Cornelius leads to the Holy Spirit being poured out even on the Gentiles (Acts 10:45). Gospel proliferation is everywhere, and how did all of it happen? Through the power of the preached Word (Acts 6:7a)! “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Rom 10:17). The unifying thread connecting every single one of their sermons was the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, whose death and Resurrection had turned the world upside down. This was the message they were entrusted with–a message they were to deliver to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the end of the earth (Acts 1:8). And it is the same message we are entrusted with as well.
The unifying thread connecting every single one of their sermons was the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, whose death and Resurrection had turned the world upside down.
The telos of the sermon is to deliver good news. Lexically-speaking, the word we translate as “preach” (euangelizo) means “to proclaim good news.” At its core, this is what distinguishes biblical preaching from every other form of public communication. Preaching delivers the good news (aka Jesus) to sinners in bondage to their own sin-sick hearts. So, if you are regularly hearing sermons where good news is absent, then what you are hearing is not actually preaching. It may be good. It may be helpful. It may even be godly and edifying. But it is not preaching. This of course does not imply that preaching is exclusively good news; the “bad news” revealed by the law must always pave the way for the Gospel. But preaching in the true, biblical sense of the word cannot exist apart from good news.
Entertainment, inspiration, information, and advice are all good and helpful, but they cannot save. Only the Gospel, unleashed in all of its unbridled virility, can do that. And the Gospel always needs someone to deliver it.
