Task 1: Determine the purpose the sermon should achieve in light of your interpretation and application of the passage
Essence of the task
In light of your interpretation and application of the passage, determine the purpose that the sermon should achieve in the lives of your listeners.
Detailed description
In this assignment, we want to clarify what we want to achieve with our sermon. It is not enough simply to preach a given content, no matter how correct we may be in what we say about it. The assumption is that if God has a message for his people, he wants something to happen as a result. Therefore, our goal with this task is to gain great clarity about what we want to happen. In other words, what does the passage itself intend should happen in the lives of the hearers?
We must also keep in mind that the purpose of the sermon and the main idea of the sermon are not the same thing. Again, Haddon Robinson helps us by describing the difference as follows: «The purpose points to what one hopes will happen in the hearer as a result of the sermon being preached. The purpose differs from the idea of the sermon, like the target differs from the arrow… The idea affirms the truth while the purpose defines what that truth should accomplish” (Biblical Preaching, 108).
That is why I present the task of determining the purpose of the sermon now. In Thursday’s last assignment we drafted the main idea of our sermon, so now we have something to work with.
To Do
This is possibly one of the tasks I have performed the worst throughout my entire career so far (at least in a formal way). I have suffered too much under the notion that my purpose is none other than to preach the truth of my passage. To some extent, that is true. My duty is to preach the truth of the passage. However, that objective falls short because it does not adequately highlight why the truth of the passage should be preached.
There would be several ways to determine what that motive might be. However, I will limit myself in what follows to two main approaches. The first arises from the overall purpose and argument of the biblical book. The second is gleaned from the contents of the very passage we are going to preach.
- Why was this passage included in the biblical text? As we identified in Monday’s task 3, “Determine the contribution to the context,” the passage before us was included because it adds something to the overall message of the biblical book in which it is found. It may well be that our purpose for the sermon will be found there.
- What is our passage meant to accomplish in the reader? It is also helpful for us to have clearly identified and summarized the applied interpretations of the most important statements in our passage. A truth’s application itself will lead us in the direction of the purpose. It tells us about things that need to happen in the lives of our listeners as a consequence of what is stated. In a similar way, thinking about the homiletical idea with an eye to what God wants to accomplish in the lives of the hearers can also suggest the purpose the sermon should have.
Drawing on these approaches, write down some visible and measurable results that we believe God wants to achieve in our listeners through the sermon. A good way to do this is to write purpose statements for the sermon that incorporate “action” verbs in one of four possible areas: (1) knowledge, (2) understanding, (3) attitudes, and (4) skills. (In his book, Robinson includes a table of these verbs on p. 113, and some examples of purposes that employ them on p. 111,).
For the sake of ambiguity, here is an example from 1 Timothy 3:14-16.
- Believers should understand (understanding) that not all behavior is valid in the church and be willing (attitude) to limit their behavior to that which corresponds to such a magnificent reality as the church of God.
- Likewise, based on our study of 1 Timothy, every committed member should create a list (knowledge) with behaviors and attitudes that Paul defines as acceptable in the church and create another list (knowledge) with behaviors and attitudes that Paul defines as unacceptable in the church and suggest (ability), accordingly, at least one practical change that we would wish to see in our congregation.
To Keep in Mind
As you can see above, it is possible to have more than one purpose for a sermon. This has much to do with the particular passage you are preaching in a given week. It will also have to do with the particular people in the audience and their particular needs.
For example, depending on the passage you are preaching, there may be both knowledge and attitude purposes, or understanding, attitudes and skills. Our task is to highlight those that arise from the passage and that, at a minimum, correspond to the majority of the congregation.
On the other hand, on a normal Sunday, there will always be at least three classes of people in the audience. The more mature believer, the less mature believer, and the non-believer. Often there can be different purposes with respect to each of these groups. Many times, so as not to overload one sermon too much, I end up focusing on each of these groups in the closing prayer, as a means of helping listeners to dialogue with God Himself about how they are to respond to him in regard to the message of the Word.