Sermons that Stick

3. Pull Back the Curtain

If you want your sermon to stick, you must pull back the curtain to reveal who God is, who we are and what He really wants. It is too easy for preachers to slip into becoming moral teachers—religious instructors who pass out rules for spiritual living without pulling back the curtain on God and ourselves; pulling back that curtain is what our people need the most!

Your hearers need a clear word about exactly who God is in His character, work and will. People have come to worship with

assumptions, presuppositions and all kinds of religious baggage that wrongly has informed their view of God's character and what

He wants from us. It is only the Word of God rightly explained that can show them the truth and confront these misunderstandings.

I'm not just talking about pulling back the curtain on who God is, but who we are, as well. Many need to see they are not what they

believe themselves to be. Some need to be confronted with the hard truth that they are, at bottom, corrupt and ruined by sin. Others

need to see they are created in the image of God and were made to know and enjoy Him. Yet others must come to grips with the fact that their faith is dead, and they are asleep in their faith.

Here's the thing: You cannot pull back the curtain unless you can exegete their world (point 1) and exegete Scripture (point 2).

While our study did not focus on these areas, I suspect they are areas of weakness in much of our preaching. We need to avoid

preaching mere ought-to and how-to messages, and instead preach law and Gospel together. This displays God as He is, His law for our lives, our fallen nature and how God offers us grace in Christ. In pulling back the curtain, we then can focus on the need for our hearers to respond to all that God has revealed in His Word.

4. Call for a Response

Preaching never should aim merely at the head, but also at the heart and will. Intellectual preaching changes the mind for a while.

Convictional preaching changes the heart for eternity. God gave us His Word that we might be transformed, not just informed.

Therefore, solid preaching always calls for a response.

On the simplest level, this response is faith and repentance. We are called to leave something and believe something; but calling for

faith and repentance is only helpful when it is specific, clear and seen in light of the gospel.

Jesus constantly was asking people for a response to His message. From the very beginning of His ministry, He gave specific instructions about how to live as a disciple. From "come and follow Me" to the Great Commission, Jesus didn't just give His hearers talking points; He invited them to Himself and His kingdom. The first call from Christ is to transformation through personal relationship.