Since God designed the Bible to complete us for the purposes of his glory, the necessary implication is that in some sense we are incomplete. We lack the equipment required for every good work. Our lack of wholeness is a consequence of the fallen condition in which we live. Aspects of this fallenness that are reflected in our sinfulness and in our world's brokenness prompt Scripture's instruction and construction.8 Paul writes, "Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope" (Rom. 15:4).

The corrupted state of our world and our beings cries for God's aid. He responds with the truths of Scripture and gives us hope by focusing his grace on a facet of our fallen condition in every portion of his Word. No text was written merely for those in the past; God intends for each passage to give us the "endurance and the encouragement"we need today (cf. l Cor.10:13). Preaching that is true to these purposes (1) focuses on the fallen condition that necessitated the writing of the passage and (2) uses the text's features to explain how the Holy Spirit addresses that concern then and now. The Fallen Condition Focus (FCF) is the mutual human condition that contemporary believers share with those for or by whom the text was written that requires the grace of the passage to manifest God's glory in his people.

By assuring us that all Scripture has a Fallen Condition Focus (FCF), God indicates his abiding care and underscores his preeminent status in preaching. The FCF present in every text demonstrates God's refusal to leave his frail and sinful children without guide or defense in a world antagonistic to their spiritual well-being. However, the FCF not only provides the human context needed for a passage's explanation but also indicates that biblical solutions must be divine and not merely human. Since fallen creatures cannot correct or remove their own fallenness, identification of the FCF forces a sermon to honor God as the only source of hope rather than merely promoting human fix-its or behavior change. In technical terms, though the FCF requires a sermon to deal honestly and directly with the human concerns of the text, this focus simultaneously keeps the sermon from being anthropocentric. The acknowledgment of human fallenness that undergirds the text's explanation and the sermons development automatically requires the preacher to acknowledge the bankruptcy of merely human efforts and to honor the wonders of divine provision.

Because an FCF is a human problem or burden addressed by specific aspects of a scriptural text, informed preaching strives to unveil this purpose in order to explain each passage properly. Obviously, there may be more than one way of stating the purpose for a text since the biblical writer had various mechanisms for stating or implying his purpose. There may also be a variety of purposes within a specific text. Still, a sermon's unity requires a preacher to be selective and ordinarily to concentrate on a Scripture passage's main purpose. The FCF determines the real subject of a message because it is the real purpose behind the Holy Spirit's inspiration of a passage.9 Ultimately, a sermon is about how a text says we are to respond biblically to the FCF as it is experienced in our lives — identifying the gracious means that God provides for us to deal with the human brokenness that deprives us of the full experience and expression of his glory.