Video Transcript: The Sermon

All right, welcome back to the effective communication class. With this session, I want to talk about, at least in the realm of ministry, one of the most important  and powerful ways of communicating. And that is the sermon. Maybe you're in a  church where you can give sermons, maybe you're leading a church where  you're doing that all the time. Or maybe once in a while you get to do this. It  might be an informal kind of thing where you're leading a Bible study. So I want  to just, it's part of the whole communication thing, especially ministry, and a lot  of the things that I'm going to say about sermon making, really, you can apply to  any communication that you would do almost anywhere, the principles are the  same. So the sermon, sermon challenge the problem, the biggest problem with  giving a sermon is the audience that you would give this sermon to, has young  and old. You've got little kids, you've got people that are older. You've got  biblically illiterate people and Biblically literate people that know a lot about the  Bible, people that are new to the Bible. You have word people, and picture  people, emotion, people, logic, people. So they're all different from each other.  But they're all in the same class, if you will. You You've got people who love  stories. Tell us another story to illustrate what you're talking about. And then you  have people that hate stories. All our pastor does is tell one story after another,  there's no meat there. Number five, you have people with a short attention span  versus a long attention span. So some people want the sermon to go on for 45  minutes. Other people like a five minute vignette, you've got people that like  deep, let's go into the deep doctrinal discussions and other people like to be  shallow. Number seven, some people like exegetical, some people like topical,  some people like narrative, some people like testimony, some people like  metaphor, some people like variety, some people like the same thing over and  over again. Number eight. Some people like to have more of an experience with  the sermon. Other people just want knowledge, like Teach me something.  Others want to be motivated to do something others just want to get it done.  There's a liturgy, let's say, we went to church, we have a sermon. And we're out  of here. You've got people that are very formal preachers that are very formal,  and people like that formality. They liked a sense of reverence. And then other  people are very informal. They like a sense of community. So, so, so in other  words, what I'm saying is to give a sermon that actually connects with everyone  in the audience, how are you going to do that? You have all these different  people, all in the same place? It's, it's almost a unique thing at school. We have  people at a certain grade level, and here they all are, they're at least together on something. Or if you're at a workplace, these are the people that work at this  company, and they all sort of pitch in to make whatever the company does. They have a commonality about them. Whereas a sermon, it's all this variety. So how  are you going to speak to all of the people or what often happens is, is  preachers will sort of cater to whoever complains the most. Steve's tips is that  I've been doing this preaching thing for over 30, some years, almost 40 years. 

And so over the years, these are the things that I found helpful. First of all, if you start with the text, and you don't always start with the text, but if you start with  the text, read it three times and ask yourself What strikes you. So this week, I'm  doing the book of Ezekiel. And so I read it over and over again, I read, what I  want to talk about are the texts that I want to look at. I'm looking at the Dry  Bones, that whole section. And so I read it over and over and over again. And  then I'm just asking myself, well, what strikes me not not deep theological  questions, just whatever it was, strike me at all. dead bones becoming alive. You know what strikes me? So the word Dead is what struck me. Something that is  Dead is dead. So that becomes a metaphor. What;s dead in my life? What's  dead in people's lives? What have we given up on? Ask yourself, why it strikes  you? Okay, so why is this striking me? Why is the word dead? You know, I could  you know, one part is when the bones come alive, they start walking around.  And that's kind of cool. Why? Why didn't the word resurrection? Why wasn't that  the thing that grabbed my attention? Why dead? I asked myself, Why am I  thinking about death lately? On the way here, I thought about my father. He died four years ago, and a song that he sang a hymn that I recorded him singing it.  And so it just came to my mind and his love for the hymns. And I had a few tears on the way here. Why? Why are these things rattling around? In my mind what's going on in my own life? Ask yourself what God might be saying to you. What is  God saying to me? Why is this grabbing my attention? But what is God's saying  to me? What is dead in my life that needs to be raised? My marriage, my son  and daughter in law and the kids are there at our house. They're staying he  lives. They live in Ecuador, but they're staying here a month. Is there things that  I should be doing? What's going on in my marriage? What's going on in my  family? Among all my kids? I've got one kid in Washington DC. I don't see him  ever hardly. You know, when's the last time I call him? All these things. I started  thinking about my own life. Research the text. So I read it three times, I asked  what strikes me why it strikes me what God is trying to say to me. And now  Okay, so this is just my personal experience with this text. And it can be deep or  can be shallow can be whatever it is. But now, what is this text actually about?  What is the book of Ezekiel all about? Find the application and start with the  problem the application is the answer to So now, I've got to understood the text.  I know the background. But now I have to get to the problem. What problem?  Explore the text that tells me things. What problem is this text trying to solve? If  you start with the application topic, so you might start with the text. But  sometimes you start with an application. Now, some people don't like to preach  this way, they must always start with the text. But that isn't true. Because people have problems in their life. They're going through a certain problem. And then  what you want people to be able to do is to go, I have this problem. What does  the Bible have to say about it? I mean, that's what we want people to do in their  own life. But if we never preach that way, we're not helping people figure out 

how to do that. So we have to model what most people need to do in their own  life. They're struggling with work. Does the Bible have anything to say about  that? Struggling with parenting? Does the Bible have anything to say about that? How would you ask the Bible those questions? So sometimes you're gonna start with the question the problem? Well, if you do, what do you do find the problem,  the application is the answer to ask yourself what the Bible has to say about this problem. Topical preaching is that way you start with the topic, what does the  Bible have to say about this? You know, doctrinal preaching, is just topical  preaching, the doctrine of creation, okay, it's just asking the big questions. How  did this all happen? Why is everything a big mess? The doctrine of sin, it's the  topic of sin, it's the topic of why are, Why is everything a mess? Let's see what  the Bible has to say about why everything is a mess. The doctrine of salvation,  God's plan to fix things. Choose one or more of these texts and preach on it. All  right, number three, make sure you spend enough time in the beginning of the  sermon creating a good sense of the problem that you hope your sermon  solves. This becomes your congregations motivation to listen to you and walk  with you if there's any intense exegetical work to do. last sermon started out  with, Wow, we got all this stuff. Paul wrote this letter to the Philippians. the  Philippian church is over here, and this is the whole thing and it's in present day  Turkey and it's this and that Now this background stuff and why he wrote the  letter, and I'm loading you with all this information, but you have no idea why you need to listen to this, you just gonna have to trust me that we have to go through all of this. And at the very end, I'm going to tell you why we're looking at this.  See, you're gonna lose half the people. You got to get them up front. This is so  important. This can change your life. Are you struggling with this? Are you  struggling with that? This book, this exegetical work that we have to do in the  next 10 minutes, 10, 15 minutes, we're gonna have some are hard, you're  gonna have to put your thinking cap on and work with me. But I'm telling you, it  might just answer this important question. Is there a God? Or isn't there a couple of weeks ago in our church, we looked at the book of Ecclesiastes is, is  following God worthwhile or not? Does God exist? Or doesn't he? How do you  know? What do you do? Right? Now, if you if you walk with me, if you do some  of the hard work with me here, we may just come to an answer to that question.  Number four, take people on a problem solver journey that reveals the answers  slowly. Number five, let people know where they are in the journey. Let them  know how many steps you will go through and on which step you are on in any  given moment. This morning, we're going to look at the eight things that the  Bible says about how to parent Well, number one, and here it comes. Number  two, you know, halfway through number four, number number three was this, but here's number four, how far we're halfway. How far do we gotta go? Well, we got to get it get to eight. People want to know where they're at, they're on this  journey. But if they have no idea how long it's going to go, when we're going to 

get there, how many steps it's going to be they get tired. In most of life, we like  to have a little blueprint of where we're going. We like to be on the map. Here's  here I am here. Here's where I want to go. illustrate with stories and examples.  Okay, you can't just have a list of facts and teaching illustrate. This is like that,  

here's a metaphor. Let me give you a story from my life. Let me give you a story  from current events that are happening. Number seven, give a commercial  every six or seven minutes. People watch television, they're watching this two  hour drama, but every 15 minutes, there's a commercial. You're in this intense  drama. There's people against people on there, who knows how this is going to  work. And then all of a sudden, someone comes on the screen and the they're  selling toothpaste. You know, we're in this intense thing. And all of a sudden,  we're someone's trying to sell me toothpaste or whatever the advertising is. And  then two minutes later, people are right back into the drama. Today, people have short attention spans, and you either give them a commercial, or they will take a  commercial. So every six or seven minutes, you need a commercial what is a  commercial? In the speaking world, a commercial is when you sort of change  what you're doing. So in other words, it's a story maybe, or sometimes I'll say,  Oh, by the way this happened. It has nothing to do with a sermon. But this last  thing I said reminded me of this. And so let me tell it to you. And it's like doesn't  make any sense. It doesn't illustrate anything doesn't help my sermon, but it's a  commercial. And after one minute of this story, that doesn't even make any  sense with this sermon. People are like recharged and they can get back to  listening again. You either give people a well thought out commercial, or they will take one where they want to. Number eight, practice out loud three times in the  sermon space of possible. I tell you, I learned this early on. I remember the first  sermon I ever wrote. And I had it. And it was emotional. It was this it was  everything I wanted to say. And I was in a little bedroom and I was going over  and I got this. And then I went in front of the church is my first sermon ever. I got up there, and I couldn't think straight. I couldn't remember where I was I lost my  place. And it was like, and I'm like, what happened . I had this before. And then  when I get up there, I lost it. And what I learned over time is you have to know it  better than you think you have to know it. Because here's what's going on. In  your study. You're used to your study, you use your room, the decoration the  color The way your voice sounds as you talk out loud, it's, it's all very familiar. So your brain does not spend any time taking in this wall is gray, and it's got these  things in, there's a candle over here, your brain doesn't register any of those  things, because it did long ago. So 100% of your brain is on what you're talking  about. But then you go to the church, and you start talking and now the  microphone sounds different than your study. So you're thinking, wow, my voice  sounds kind of funny. What's that little echo that they got out, they turn the  reverb off on this thing. And then some kid starts rattling the keys to pews away  from you. And then the light is coming in, and you're noticing, you know, those, 

those windows are never noticed, your brain is taking in your surroundings, half  your brain is taking in your surroundings and half your brain is on your sermon.  And you don't know that until you get in this space. So I'm saying so what I used to do when I first started preaching is I would go into the space, I would go up to  

the pulpit. And on Saturday night, I would preach the sermon out loud three  times I'd write down the number, how many minutes it would take. And so my  mind is registering this space. So I don't have to keep registering this space.  Again, and again, with my mind, my mind is used to it. And I can put more focus  on what I'm saying. This is a key thing. It's a simple thing. It takes discipline, but  I guarantee your preaching will be a lot better if you do this. Number nine, make  sure you know the purpose of your sermon. Is this sermon to inform people  about stuff, remind people and stuff, impress them, motivate them to some  specific action. If it is, what's the action? How does what I say? move people to  do something. Number 10. Make your sermon the culmination of all the Bible  study of the entire church for the week leading up to the Sunday, Sunday  sermon, not the surrogate Bible study. Took me a long time to figure this out. I  used to preach, prepare the sermon. No one, of course, is reading their Bible  during the week. They have no idea what I'm going to talk about. They get there  on Sunday and they go pastor, what do you what do you have for us? Last week was okay, the week before wasn't very good. I hope this is a good one. What  work have they done? None. You're doing all the work. See, the goal is to get  people to own their own walk with God. So if I'm doing it for them, I'm the  surrogate walk. I'm the surrogate Bible study. How can I make what I do on  Sunday, the culmination of everyone studying the Bible. Everyone's praying to  God all week long. And then I bring it together. So in our church, I usually make  a little book for every sermon series. And then every day, there's assignments,  there's things to read, there's questions to ask in your family, so that all week  long, you are all working on this. And then on Sunday, I bring it together. I bring  together what we have done. Not you sit back and listen to see if what I do is  any good or not. Preaching methods, we'll talk a little bit about the different  preaching methods just briefly. Number one exegetical exegetical is generally  verse by verse one year, church went through the book of Genesis, there's 50  chapters, we took a chapter every single week. So on Sunday, I just went, you  know, here's chapter one, verse one, verse two, verse three, just went right  down the line, tried to explain the background to verses as, as I went, make  many applications as you go in some ways, exegetical preaching might have  two or three sermons, you're reading one passage, but there might be  application here, a little application there. Don't be boring. The problem with  exegetical sermon sometimes is, let's go by verse by verse, And all I'm doing is  becoming the Study Bible. You know, you buy a study Bible and it's got all these  little helps. This verse means this next verse means that this verse means that it amd there is no application. In some ways, application is the sugar that makes 

the medicine go down. If you're just teaching, people don't know how to apply  teaching to their life, so you have to do it. Alright, thematic, thematic is where  you find one theme and the text so I'm not going verse by verse. I'm reading the  whole passage, Genesis chapter one, and then I'm saying, Okay, what's the big  theme here? What's the chapter about? What's the, what's the point? What's it  all leading to? You know, day one, day two, day three, culminating with God  creating man and putting him in charge of everything. So what's the theme  here? Find the problem, this theme addresses. Okay, I can't just find the theme  and go here it is. Ezekiel gave the theme Dry Bones okay, what's, what's the  problem here? The problem is when life falls apart, it's like we give up hope on  everything. That's what happened to the people that they gave up. Jerusalem's  walls, fallen. Temple looted, destroyed? How can we keep believing in this guy?  Everything is gone? How do we keep going when life takes your hope away  Find the problem. So the problem is the sense of hopelessness when bad things happen. Develop an outline that reflects both the text and the  problem/theme/solution. So we got the problem. What's the solution? How do  the bones come alive again? How do they come alive in your life? Number  three, topical. Find the problem that arises from the topic. So before we are  finding the problem that arises from the text, but sometimes, like we want to,  again, we want to help people to be able to go from their problem to the Bible. I  have a problem with relationships. Where does the Bible have to say about  relationships? I have a problem with trusting God. What does the Bible have to  say about trusting God, I have a problem with doubt. What does the Bible have  to say about doubt? Am I an unbeliever? Because I have doubts. Ask yourself  what the Bible says about the topic problem, develop an outline that puts the  topic problem text in the problem solving outline. Number five testimony is a  method. Consider your testimony. How did you come to Christ? When did God  become alive to you? When did some passage become alive to find the topic  problem text that arises from your testimony. So I had a problem. When I was in  college, I didn't understand how grace in law would go together. I understood  that we were saved by grace. And it had nothing to do with what we did was  100% Jesus dying on the cross for us. But then I heard preachers say that if  you're a Christian, you live a certain way. And I'm like. Well then. So if I don't live that way, I'm not a Christian. So being a Christian is living a certain way. And if I  don't do it, I'm not a Christian. So it isn't 100% Jesus, it's what Jesus did. But  how does this go together? So that was a problem that I was wrestling with.  When I was in college, I couldn't put the two together till I read a book by Paul  chin air where he talked about the prodigal son, in reading that it was like, finally I can put it together. Develop your sermon, sermon application. I want to sort of  finish this whole business on the Sermon on the whole thing of application,  because they think a lot of preachers struggle with this. It's easy to just to  explain a text, there's all kinds of background is commentaries. There's word 

studies, this study Bibles, and all these things will give you information,  information, information, and it feels good to give people information. Okay. And  it's hard to make application. How does this make a difference in someone's  life? You have to be able to exegete people's lives, just like you exegete the  Bible. How do people think, what are they struggling with? And, and what I found is if you don't make the application, people won't do it either. You can't just  preach a sermon and then expect them to apply it to their lives because they  won't. Most of the congregation will not apply the message to their lives on their  own. Unless people can see how the sermon relates to their life. Many will have  a hard time listening. Application is like sugar, it helps the medicine go down.  Without application the pastor might as well read the notes in a good study Bible and be done with it. For most people, it's not enough to have scripture explain  the Old Testament background, the context of the book, the passage, how it  relates to Jesus, etc. They also need to know the purpose for all this explanation what is what is understanding that Matthew was written to a Jewish crowd? And  Luke was written to the more Gentile crowd? Okay, that's just some stuff to  know. But how does it make a difference? When I start looking at the passages  in these different books reminding the goal of any service is to remind people of  stuff the story God's love is grace, not much application and is really boring,  boring, informing the goal is to share some unique insight that cannot be found  in the NIV Study Bible. This is hard to pull off every week, and not much  applications. Comforting. The goal of this sermon is to comfort people in their  troubles, God still loves you, it will be okay hang in there. There's a lot of room  for application here. Encouraging the goal of some sermons is to encourage  hang in their trust God, more opportunity for application. Challenging, the goal is to challenge people to do something, reach out, be hospitable pray every day,  there's a lot of room for application. See, I'm talking about your life. Here's the  thing we looked at, here's the text. Here's the story. But now here's how we can  respond to all this information. Problem solving, the goal is to identify and  understand the problem and figure out how to solve it, again, how to apply this  solution to one's life. hunting for treasure, the goal of the sermon is to find  something that we pastor and congregation may or may not find, for example,  Jesus word on the cross, I thirst. People love to go on a treasure hunt, we're  going to find this thing that we lost. I mean, even you know, when I lose my car  keys, or I can't find my, my wallet, I get up this morning, and we go, Alright,  where's this thing? I'm energized. For five minutes, as I'm tearing the place  apart, trying to find this thing. I have a lot of motivation and energy going on a  hunt energizes people they want to, we have this built in need to seek an  ultimate ultimately then to find so. So take people on that journey. Sermon  application, some ways to do it, stories, how to tell a story that keeps your  audience listening. I got up this morning. First thing I did is I got dressed. And  then when I came down the stairs, I got my keys and I got my billfold. And then I 

got in my car. It's very interesting. As I was driving along, I saw some signs on  the side of the road. A little farther, there was another sign. Then finally there  was one last sign is the exit that I wanted to get off. And so I got off. But I drove  some some side roads and I made a left and came around the corner. And then  I turn left again. And then I made a real tight right turn. And I arrived to Christian  leaders Institute. I have no story at all. I just got you know, I got up. I drove here  this morning to do this lecture here. But see how you tell it. You're taking people  on a journey. And you're giving them the sense of expectation, something going  on? What's what the sign business? What sign is he going to see you and I  didn't have a sign of them. I can't recall any of the signs. But see, I'm telling this,  I'm taking you on the journey and letting you see going right and going left.  That's what people need. You need to take them on a journey. Tell a story. Put  them in the middle of it. She was only seven years old when it happened.  Shivering. That's how I started. That's the story of the Titanic. I start with one  seven year old who's in one of the lifeboats. And I want you to feel what's going  on? metaphors, Titanic, house. Studying, fixing the car. Life is like building a  house. You need a strong foundation and then you build the walls and you can  and people can picture they can put it together the things that you want to say  have some structure and unity in the metaphor that you use. Vignettes, I love  these little made up stories highlighting the application of a sermon to different  people in your audience. So his name was John John Jr. and his father of  course was John Sr.. John Sr. had a tough time talking to John Jr. They didn't  seem to connect. Once in a while he would feel bad about not connecting to a  son. So he really tried, but it never worked. And if you understood something  about grandpa John, you'd understand why father, John has a hard time talking  to John Jr. Because grandpa, John didn't have time for his son. He had time for  work. He had time for other people. He had time for church people, but he didn't  have time for his own son. So dad, John, he never had that father son  relationship. And so now he doesn't know how to pass it on to his child. So that's a vignette. I'm just making up the story. But I'm trying to give a little picture into a relationship of Father and Son, because I know there's people that are gonna  relate to that one. Then another vignette. Okay. Father, Bill had a great  relationship with his son. In fact, Bill was every game, he wanted to join when,  when the when the friends come over, he wanted to be involved in, you know, so now I'm talking and telling a story where the father is smothering his son and not letting him live his own life, because there's people that can relate to them. So  when you think about the application, instead of saying, this might apply to you  this way, this might apply to you this way, you tell four stories. You tell them to  short little two minutes stories that somebody's going to relate to. And because  it's a story, it gets past the defenses. Your own stories, how to tell your own story without it being about you, when I tell a story about myself, I tell it in such a way  that people can see their own story. If I tell about some colossal failure that I 

went through, I'm speaking in such a way that I know other people are now  thinking about their own failure. See, it's not my story that I want them walking  away thinking about, I want them thinking about their story. My story, you know,  when I was eight years old, and I went to this new school, and I remember  sitting in the chair, and all everyone walked in, and they all looked at me like  there's the new kid. And I felt, I never felt so alone. When have you felt that  way? The new job, or the new situation, you move to a different place. If you  have felt that way? See, I want them to think about their own story. Now my  story, my story is just to get them to think about their own story, parallel to the  text application in the present just like the past. So just like in the days of Israel,  they went after the Baals, they went after other gods who were looking for a  better deal. And so do you, and I was looking for a better deal. Yeah, we believe  in God, okay, I'll go to church. But, you know, maybe God isn't real, I better enjoy what I can right now. Because maybe tomorrow we die. That's all there is. So I'm gonna eat and drink and be merry. We do the same thing that people did many  years ago. So that's parallel to the text or opposite to the text. This is what it was like in Israel day. But here we have a different problem, an opposite problem.  Make your application the points of your sermon, your text illustrates your  application. So instead of saying, you know, Paul is in the ship, and they throw  out the anchors, and there's a big storm. And you know, all my points are the  points of the story. It'd be like no, my points are. Anchor number one, and that  becomes a metaphor for what we need to do. In other words, it's not or if I'm  talking about the book of Jonah, it's not Jonah. Gets called Jonah runs. Jonah  gets in trouble. Jonah repents, Jonah does what he should do. It's like the whole thing is about Jonah. No, it's not about Jonah, it's about you. You get called, you run away. You go through trouble and you end up repenting, you end up you  know, it's about you not about Jonah. So I'm going to make my points that my  points aren't Jonah my points are you sermon application Jesus responds to  needs so what did Jesus do rich young ruler comes and says, What  commandment must I do? God says, you know, love God above all else in your  neighbor as yourself and the guy says, Well, I've done that since my youth and  Jesus said well you lack one thing sell everything you have and come follow Me. Jesus responded to the question. Jesus didn't come and say my sermon to you  all today is this. Someone came to him Here's my problem. Here's my situation.  In the book of Mark, a leper wants to be healed, but Jesus doesn't just heal him.  Jesus touches him before he heals the leprosy. You know, people shun the  lepers, they had to be off in a different community and this leper comes by, and  he wants to be healed. And Jesus does heal him. But before he feels, he  touches him. The text tells us that this guy probably hadn't been touched by  another human being in years. Jesus sees the real need, he responds to the  needs around him. Luke 15, Jesus responds to the complaint of the religious,  the religious leaders, they saw Jesus was, was eating with the tax collectors and

sinners. And so the religious people said, What's with this guy is they were  complaining to Jesus disciples, that you see the kind of people he hangs  around. So then Jesus tells famous, these three famous parables, the lost coin,  the lost sheep, and the lost son, the parable of the prodigal son, he tells these  stories in response to the problem. The problem, the perceived problem, Jesus  spends all his time with sinners, so let me tell you a story. In response to that.  The Parable of the Sower, okay, Jesus tells us, you know, the sower goes on  he's throw some seeds, some falls on the hard ground, some of the birds take  up some of the weeds grow up and some goes on the good soil, and it grows  and it flourishes and produces a crop ten fold or 100 fold. Okay, simple. How  much more simple can you get? It's a simple story. And yet, Jesus then has to  explain the story. Let me tell you, what's each one of these things in case you're  not thinking about. Let me explain each one of those. Let me apply it to your  lives. The seed over here means this, the seed over there means that Jesus  takes the time to explain to apply it to their lives. Luke 4 we have Jesus only  sermon in church goes into a synagogue. He spent zero time in exegesis with  his texts from Isaiah is handed the scroll from Isaiah. He reads the texts he went right to the application and then spent the rest of his time jumping around the  Bible trying to defend his application. He doesn't go into the background of  Isaiah doesn't say Isaiah was a prophet during the hard time in Israel's history,  just before the walls of Jerusalem are destroyed, the temple is destroyed doesn't say any of that. He just reads from the scroll of Isaiah and says, This thing has  been fulfilled in your hearing and then he goes on to talk about how he's the  Messiah. And then they want to kill him. Need based checklist I have this  checklist you can just copy it, take a picture of it. But this is a good way to start  thinking about application. And I'll just list these off we get defeatism self  absorbed loss, guilt, fear, anger, depression, arrogance, worry sadness, and the  other side is sort of the opposite. So people are the defeatist attitude. What they  need is the can do attitude, self absorbed they need more of a sense of team  loss comfort guilts forgiven fear safe anger acceptance depression, optimism,  arrogance, humility, worry, faith, sadness, joy. So in a lot a lot of speakers have  trouble with application. They want to explain the textbook when it comes to  application they're like I don't even know how to think about this. Start with  needs. Application always tries to meet a need these or needs. The one side is  the need, the other side is sort of the answer to get you starting to think. Need  based checklist let me give you a whole bunch of other ones discouraged  encouraged addiction control tired energize wishy washy conviction,  procrastination, just do it argumentative patients, add priorities, chaos, rules,  loneliness, friendship, insecurity, belonging. So if you just if you have a hard time with application, you have the sermon a lot of explanation in the text, but you  just have a hard time applying. And I know a lot of guys do. Start thinking about  needs, get used to. You spend a lot of time studying the Bible. Now you need to 

study needs. What do human beings struggle with? Where do they need? What  do they need? Every day they get up and they need certain things. If you're  more aware of needs, you will see the answers in the Bible and in the texts that  you want to present So this is just a fly by. It's a broad overview of sermon. We  have a whole course on making sermons. Make sure you take that, but I thought in this communication class, I should at least touch base with sermons.  Hopefully you can apply some of these things and your sermons will be more  effective. Thanks for listening