There are good and bad sermons, but how does a preacher design and deliver a perfect sermon? Here are 10 ways to preach a perfect sermon. The attention span of adults is now shorter than a goldfish. So, culturally speaking, sermons need to be shorter. Gone are the days of hour-long sermons, unless you are T. Jakes who does it without you knowing it has been that long. As a preacher, you have a bunch to say, but you cannot say it all. Say all you must, not all you can.
A sermon is a succinct argument of a Biblical text. A sermon is not the time to prove your worth in words; rather, it is a divine moment to shine just enough light for someone to see their way forward in life. Develop a thesis and two to three supporting arguments, and seal it with a celebration. With good exegesis, your argument should be enough and maybe have some leftovers. I give an exercise to my preaching students in their first class.
Go home and find 10 topics or ideas in one Bible verse. After the first class, they return enthusiastically with their assignment in hand. They do not know that they will have to find 10 new topics or ideas for each class each week.
By week five, their enthusiasm wanes, and they still have three weeks left. I do this assignment to prove they have what it takes to discover more if they learn to look for it. Secondly, and most importantly, is that Scripture is inexhaustible. We should never get too comfortable finalizing Scripture with a sermon. We must dig up more divinity where we are preaching and not be too quick to supplement Scripture with Scripture.
Do this not to sound deep, but to inspire under-the-surface looking and living in the life of the hearers. As time progresses in your preaching life, you develop a way you see Scripture.
