Sermon Types

There are many different types of sermons.  By "types" of sermons, I mean different ways of approaching and explaining the text(s) and making application to the listener.  A good book on preaching will explain all the different types, but I want to focus on three that I believe every preacher should master and every church member should recognize when they encounter.

Three types of sermons that every preacher should master (in my opinion as a novice preacher of 3 years and an expert sermon critic of 35+ years) are the Expository, Topical and Textual sermons.  I will now attempt to define, explain and discuss each of these.

THE EXPOSITORY SERMON

The Expository sermon is just what it says - it "exposits" a particular Scripture text.  The sermon brings out the meaning of the text, exposing it, exegeting it, explaining it in great detail and applying it to the lives of the listeners.  In a nutshell, the expository preacher tells the listener three things about a passage of Scripture: "This is what the text says.  This is what it means - to the original audience and to us today.  This is how we ought to be applying it to our lives."

The expository sermon is actually defined in the Bible, as Ezra, Nehemiah and the Levites delivered exposition to the returned exiles.  "So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading." - Nehemiah 8:8.  (1) They read it distinctly.  They didn't jump around in the Bible to point out their proof-text for a certain doctrine.  They didn't read one verse and then tell stories and illustrations for 45 minutes like many Baptist preachers.  They didn't go off on a tangent or chase rabbit trails.  They read it distinctly.  They read it in its own context.  They pointed the people toward the word of God, not to their own word.  (2) They gave the sense.  They explained what the text actually means and, if necessary, what it does not mean.  (3) They caused them to understand the reading.  They applied it to the lives of the people.  That is the Expository sermon.

The Expository sermon should be the bread and butter, meat and potatoes of every preacher's ministry.  It should be his natural breath.  It should be what every church member expects from his pastor on a regular basis.  It should be the way the entire church body moves together from Point A to Point B in the Bible over the course of months and years.  It should be the way that, given enough time, entire books of the Bible are preached through, chapter and verse at a time.  It is the best way from the pulpit to build solid, founded, doctrinally sound and behaviorally mature Christians.

It should be all that, but it is not for many preachers.  There are Bible Colleges actually telling their students not to ever preach Expository sermons (such as Hyles-Anderson College and many in their mold).  There are people who will try to convince you that Expository sermons will always be boring.  And there are preachers who simply don't like to preach this way.  The Christians under such a ministry may appear to conform on the exterior but they are not truly maturing as they should.  They are generally being fed milk and not meat.  I'll not expand on that at this time.  I do want to say that every Christian should find a church that moves through the Bible in verse-by-verse exposition week after week.  There will be necessary pauses in the series for other issues as the Lord leads, but you ought to be able to ask the pastor, "What are you preaching through on Sunday mornings?" and hear back that they are so far into a particular book of the Bible.  Not a theme or a topic or a subject, but a particular book of the Bible, chapter by chapter and verse by verse.  That ought to be one of the criteria for finding a church home, and at the top of the criteria list.

The Expository sermon should be the main feature of every preacher's pulpit ministry, but is also the most difficult to prepare.  The Expository sermon takes more and harder study, more time to prepare, more time in prayer and more serious prayer, and quite a bit more maturity.  It takes a long-term vision to move through a book of the Bible this way.  It also takes a better understanding of the Scriptures as a whole, which may be one reason why the more shallow preachers avoid it.

With other forms of sermons, you might get by in the flesh.  I hope you'll never try to, but you could.  You could develop a decent Topical sermon without any prayer or relying on the Lord.  You could do so when backslidden.  You could do so while high on drugs.  You could do so at midnight Saturday night and preach it the next morning.  Again, I hope you'll never do so but I am certain it has happened and people have said, "Great sermon, preacher."  Try that with an Expository sermon and you will be revealed for the fraud that you are.

The Expository sermon requires serious word studies.  It requires you to come to an expert understanding of the text.  It requires meditation over the passage and being open to how the Lord would apply it.  Your time in prayer is spent not only talking to the Lord, but also being silent on your knees and listening to His still, small voice give you the answers you seek.  It requires you to boil down your hours and hours of study into 30 to 60 minutes of speaking time.  It requires you to be able to make the listener almost as much of an expert on the meaning of the text as yourself.  It cannot be done adequately by a part-time preacher.  It cannot be done consistently by someone not in a close walk with the Lord.  It cannot be done in the flesh with any results.  It requires great effort and great reliance on God to speak through you.

The chief satisfaction of preaching the Expository sermon or series is that you know for certain you have simply preached God's word and not your own.  There is not much room for you to slip in your hobby-horse doctrine or preach against your pet peeves.  There is little chance of later regretting what you have said, because you have simply explained the word of God.  This ought to be the case with every sermon, regardless of type, but it is easier to get off into error or into the flesh with a non-Expository sermon.  There is satisfaction in knowing that God used you to bring the people just a little bit farther in their understanding and application of the word of God.  There is satisfaction in seeing the entire church unified in their growth through a particular book of the Bible.  There is satisfaction in knowing that when you've spoken, you've brought nothing into the sermon out of your own heart but simply laid out a particular portion of the word of God for the people to accept or reject.

The Expository sermon is what Paul had in mind when he told Timothy, "Preach the word."  Just stand up and tell people what the Bible says.  Preach the word; don't preach your ideas.  Preach the word; don't read a text and then bring your made-up list of seven different points that somehow kind of relate to one little phrase in the text.  Preach the word; draw all your water up out of the well of Scripture and give it to the thirsting souls.  The word; the word; the word; you are a preacher not a philospher.  Preach the word.

In later posts, I will give example outlines for Expository sermons and point out the chief features.  I hope to also blog about my process for developing the Expository sermon.  There has to be a better way and I'd like someone to teach me, but at this point I only know my way.  If it can be of help to someone else who struggles as much as I do, then I pray it will benefit.

THE TOPICAL SERMON

The Topical sermon is how the people are taught to apply a specific doctrine or topic to their lives.  Whereas an Expository sermon chiefly sticks to one portion of Scripture text (with other relevant texts brought in as necessary), the Topical sermon typically jumps around from text to text, all dealing with a particular topic.  For example, a sermon on the Rapture might have seven points.  It would typically then take you to seven different texts which develop and apply each of those points - one point per text, give or take.

The Topical sermon is more or less defined in the Bible this way:

Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.  For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little.  Isaiah 28:9-10.

This gives us the formula for a Topical sermon.  You develop and build the doctrine as precept upon precept, like laying bricks.  Each separate Scripture text for the sermon presents a precept - a specific doctrinal point and its obvious application.  You gather a little from over here and a little from over there (i.e., different precepts from different portions of Scripture) and you cement them all together with a common theme to build them into the whole.

I know others do it differently, but in my mind the ideal Topical sermon ought to be a bunch of mini-Expository sermons.  A three point Topical message could be three miniature Expository messages from three different texts all forming a unified sermon together.  In other words, in this method of Topical preaching, you don't just turn to each text, read it and talk about it for a while.  You carefully exposit and apply each text with as much precision as you would in regular Expository preaching.

This practice would make Topical sermons just as time-consuming to prepare as Expository sermons, or even more so.  I confess I have not done much preaching like this.  I have done Topical preaching that fell short of this ideal method, instead using familiar texts that need little exposition to the average Christian.  That is actually how most Topical sermons are carried out and it is not very time consuming or difficult to prepare with practice.  It is not ideal as I said, but it is common and sometimes necessary.

For example, you could preach on child rearing and use various familiar passages in Proverbs as simple springboards for illustrations and applications.  Many familiar verses need little in the way of actual explanation, just "expansion."  You would not need to do very many (if any) word studies or sentence diagramming or even consult any commentaries.  (I'm not saying you should not, I am saying many do not).  You can easily form your outline based on the verses you wish (or better said, feel led) to use and come up with something to talk about for each verse.  Don't stray into unfamiliar territory or discuss anything that needs great elaboration.  Basically just remind people of what most church members already know about child rearing and urge them to put it into practice or keep it up.  So you see how the Topical message can be the lazy preacher's main tool, as it could be easily prepared.  It can be preached by a doctrinal light-weight preacher.  It can be preached by an immature preacher.  It can be preached by a shallow preacher.  It can be preached by a pastor who is working two other full-time jobs.  It can be preached by a backslider.  It can be preached off the cuff by a solid deacon when the pastor gets sick.  Anyone with a fair grasp of the Bible and the ability to speak effectively in public can preach this kind of Topical sermon.  But this kind of Topical preaching is not ideal.  It should be used very sparingly and with great care, prayer and certainty that this is exactly what the Lord wants for the sermon.  Don't ever slip into it as an excuse not to study.  In my opinion it should be extremely rare from the Sunday morning pulpit.  It is more suited for Sunday nights, special meetings and other times.  On the other hand, my "ideal" Topical sermon that is several miniature Expository sermons is well suited to any time the saints gather.

I will try to put together some sample Topical sermon outlines for later posts.

THE TEXTUAL SERMON

The Textual sermon is where God will use your poetic and artistic side.  Every preacher has to be creative.  The Textual sermon brings that out like no other.  For that reason, it should be used sparingly so that we are certain to let the Holy Spirit and not our creative side do the leading.  For some reason, I have found that Textual sermons tend to be employed a lot by itinerant (travelling) preachers.  More on that in a later post.

What exactly is the Textual sermon?  I do not have a Bible definition or explanation, but I do have biblical examples.  The parables of the Lord Jesus Christ and others were good patterns for Textual sermons.  They were stories of people used to illustrate spiritual principles.

That is what you do with a Textual sermon, only you don't make up a story.  You have plenty of true stories in the Bible to use.  You take your Scripture text from the narrative sections of the Bible (the "stories" of the Bible, not the epistles or the prophetic or poetic books).  You take an event or a situation that happened to someone in the Bible and you turn the true story into a sort of parable for our learning.  Take the story and let God speak through it in a symbolic fashion.  You are not explaining the story per se, you are looking at it strictly through the lens of application.

An example might make that more clear.  My first foray into Textual preaching was from Exodus 2:1-10 on Mother's Day several years ago.  The main points were about godly and wise motherhood and we drew the applications from the mother of Moses.  (I.) She Sees (v. 2), "and when she saw him that he was a goodly child...."  A mother often sees things that nobody else sees in a child: problems, potential, etc.  She should be observant of her children, not caught up in her own pursuits or career, etc.  (II.) She Shelters (v. 2), "she hid him three months."  A mother has to protect her children for a time.  Certain things should not come into the house or into their lives, etc.  (III.) She Surrenders (v. 3), "And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes...."  There comes a time when the sheltering has to stop.  There comes a time when the child is grown and mother can't always be there for the kids and solve their problems for them.  They grow stronger by her refusing to shelter them any more or be the mother hen.  (III.a.) She makes every effort to prepare the child (she made an ark, for example).  But (III.b.) She ultimately leaves the child in God’s hands.  (IV.) She Stands By (vv. 4, 7-9), "And his sister stood afar off, to wit what would be done to him...."  Even when the sheltering stops, the mother does not forsake her children.  Somtimes they will still need some help.  (IV.a.) Sometimes all she can do is watch from afar (v. 4).  (IV.b.) But she is always ready to offer help (v. 7).

Hopefully you see from the example what a Textual sermon is.  The lessons are not directly explicit in the text, they are drawn from it as if the text were a parable.  The text did not say, "A godly and wise mother sees, shelters, surrenders and stands by."  The text was not even about motherhood, it was about the Providence of God in baby Moses' life.  The application about motherhood is easy to see if you're looking for it; not at all a stretch of the imagination.  For example, "She surrenders" - application: she doesn't have to pay the kid's electric bill or bail him out of jail; maybe it would teach him a bigger lesson to have the electricity shut off or to spend the night in lock-up.  That's not anywhere in the text; it is an application you can arrive at once you treat the story as a springboard for practical lessons.  So you see how a Textual sermon takes the Bible's literal account of something and uses it in much the same way a parable is used to teach a spiritual lesson.

Textual sermons are enjoyable to listen to because no two preachers will ever apply a particular text the same way.  The potential problem is that you are not explaining what the text actually says (the story is usually self-explanatory), you are simply applying some lessons from it.  You have to be sure the lessons you apply are biblical and that is where many go wrong.  The Textual sermon is where the preacher's pet peeves and hobby doctrines tend to come up.  You have to be careful about that.

Textual sermons will come a bit more easily to anybody with a large creative streak than they will to others.  Any preacher that has written much fiction or poetry will find himself drawn to occasional Textual preaching.  I find myself using it more on special occasions, such as Mother's Day as I mentioned in my example.  Christmas, Resurrection Day, Palm Sunday, Independence Day, etc, these all lend themselves to Textual sermons.

The key with Textual sermons is not to "force" the lessons from the text.  They should come naturally and if they don't, abandon that text and go elsewhere (first to your knees).  God has to speak to you to give you the lessons.  A keyword or phrase from the text is always a good springboard.  In the example above, the first point was "She Sees," taken from the verse "when she SAW...."  Ordinarily I stumble onto Textual sermons as I'm simply doing my daily Bible reading.  Something will jump out at me from a text - a particular lesson, maybe the first point of the sermon - and as I continue reading with that in mind I start seeing the other lessons that will make up the sermon.  Everyone's brain works differently but that's how I find Textual sermons.

Again, use them sparingly and carefully to be sure you are not simply interjecting your opinion.  All the lessons and applications in a Textual sermon, though they don't arise explicitly from the text, should be taught explicitly in the Bible elsewhere or you are not speaking for God.

I will post more Textual sermon outlines as time goes on.

CONCLUSION

The most important thing is simply to preach the sermon God leads you through.  God has gifted every preacher differently for the purposes known to Himself.  It is a biblical principle that Christians need a steady diet of Expository preaching, but the Textual, Topical and other sermon types are a good change of pace and God uses them too.  You may be right in the middle of an Expository series and God shows you a Textual or impresses upon you a Topical message.  It is important to be sensitive to God's leading on when to preach it.  Don't let the calendar dictate your preaching.  Stay in prayer and in the word daily and you will never lack for a sermon to deliver.