Closing The Sermon With Power
Chapter 4: My Assumptions for a Powerful Close
So now you have the ingredients. There are a few things that we will repeat that you must have for a powerful celebration. Some of these are repeated in what we have seen before. Here are the things I assume you will to ensure a powerful close.
I Assume, You Address the Emotive Dimension of Humanity is the Emphasis
Remember when you put together your sermon conclusion that you are attempting to address the emotive primarily and
not the intellectual. This is not to ignore the intellectual, just that the close is not about that, it is about an emotive celebration.
I Assume Your Close is Based in the Intellectual Truth of the Message
Another thing to remember is that the celebrative close is based in the intellectual truth of the sermon that has been presented. If you haven’t presented it in the message, you don’t bring it up in the celebrative close. You only celebrate what you have said in the sermon.
In addition, if you haven’t said anything, then you can’t have genuine celebration. If your people are shouting and you ain’t said nothing, then you need to really think about what you are doing. Celebration is powerful and should be used with integrity. Don’t use it to cover up your own lack of hard core work.
I Assume You Only Have One Main Point
Effective sermons have one main point. Yeah, I know you may not believe that, but ask your people what they remember about your sermon. It will be one or close to one thing. If you only present one main point, at least there is a good chance the one thing they remember is what you have prepared.
There are other sub points no doubt, but there is one main point. If I ask you the main point of your sermon and you don’t know, I am 100% sure that your people will not know either. If I ask you what the main point of your sermons is and you say five things, then some of your people will remember the first point, some will remeber the last point, some will make up a point, and some will remember just the whoop.
Always ask yourself, “What is the number one point of the message that you are giving?” This is one of the big problems that many preachers face in their sermons. They don’t have one clear point.. Somebody sent me a sermon outline to evaluate before he preached that particular sermon. As I looked at the sermon outline, I told the budding preacher, “This is not a sermon outline, this is a sermon series outline, because you have got way too much information in this outline for one sermon.”
So what is a sermon? You entice people to want to hear about ONE point. You introduce that one point. You present that one point in the body of your sermon. And finally you celebrate the truth of that one point.
To repeat, you will have other sub-points, but they will be clearly supportive of and subordinate to that one truth.
I Assume that People Understand the Message
Finally, another assumption that I’m making is that the people understand the message. There is one truth. You present that one truth clearly to the people. You provide subpoints and illustrations to help people to more clearly understand that one truth.
So if the people clearly understand the truth presented. And the truth you present is good news. Then genuine celebration can happen.
To repeat, The preacher presents one truth, the people hear and understand that one truth, and then the people
celebrate that one truth. That is the basic steps to bring to celebration.
One of the most important things you can do as a preacher to foster celebration is to clearly present one aspect of the good news.
I Assume that Celebration Without Understanding is Simply Noise
Finally, celebration without understanding is simply noise that cannot help anybody. Now this is a categorical
statement. Certainly, if God can use a donkey to talk in the Bible, then certainly God can use us when we go up there “half-steppin.”
So yes, God can use it, but we as preachers are not falling back on the idea of God using our sloth for his glory. Yes God may, but that doesn’t mean that we are without excuse by presenting it. No, we should do our best as preachers. And the number one job is to present a clear message given to us by the Spirit.
To conclude, True celebration can happen if we present one truth clearly and powerfully in an understandable manner so that the people must celebrate the truth of the presentation.
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