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The following examples, all taken from published sermons, show examples of ways that preachers help listeners understand the argument made by the text. In most cases, these are portions of longer arguments (and longer sermons). The nature of the presentation varies according to the text. There are many ways to make a point.
Colin Smith – 1Cor.15:12-28 – The Most Miserable People in the World
Some people are so addicted to religion they will tell you that even if Christianity is not true, Christian faith is still the best way to live. You’ve probably heard people say things like this: “Even if it turned out Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead and there was no such place as heaven, I would still have no regrets about living the Christian life.” You might have said that yourself at some point.
I want you to notice from the Bible, at 1 Corinthians 15:17, the apostle Paul absolutely disagrees with that position. He says in verse 19, “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.” If Christ is not risen, you folks are the most miserable people in the world. That’s what Paul says in the Bible. If Christ is not risen, folks like you are a bunch of sad cases.
Our faith would be futile. Paul gives four reasons for rather striking conclusion. First he says, verse 17, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile.” It’s useless. You think it will deliver something to you, but if Christ is not risen, it doesn’t. It can’t.
Christians build their lives around the conviction that if you have faith in Christ, God does something in your life and makes you a new person and will eventually welcome you into everlasting life. But Paul is quite clear here. If Christ is not risen, that is a fallacy, an illusion. You’ve trusted a lie under these circumstances. You’ve staked everything on something that has no substance and that’s sad. If Christ is not risen, folks like these are playing a mind game. They talk about trusting Christ, but if Christ is not risen, there is no Christ to trust.
Notes on Smith
In this excerpt Smith uses logic to establish the point. The argument is built on the assumption of the authority of the text.
Smith plays with the listener, suggesting that some Christians are the “most miserable people on the earth.” Of course, the comment is qualified by “if Christ is not risen.”
Smith’s reasons continue beyond this excerpt. Further reasons for his big idea (If Christ is not risen, Christians are the most miserable people on earth) are… we would still be in our sins; and we would be holding to a false hope.
Donald McCullough – Mt.5:8 – Blessed Are the Pure in Heart
Robert Pirsig, in his book, which has become a classic, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, says that the place to change the world is to begin with one’s heart and work outward from there. He was saying we should begin at the center. That’s a good way to understand how the Bible uses the term heart. In Hebrew psychology, the heart is the center of the person – the seat of personal will, feeling, and thinking. “Blessed are the pure in heart,” Jesus said. Blessed are those who are pure at the center of their beings.
Whoa! Pure to the center of our beings? That’s a lot to ask. What does it mean to be pure in heart? The basic meaning of the Greek word pure is “unmixed, unadulterated, unalloyed.” We use the word in this sense in English when we speak of pure gold or pure maple syrup. There is a singularity about something that is pure without any mixture of anything else.
Purity of heart, therefore, has to do with single-mindedness. The pure in heart are not double-minded. They don’t waffle and waver in their convictions. Soren Kierkegaard, the great Danish philosopher wrote a remarkable book titled, Purity of the Heart Is to Will One Thing. That’s a good way to describe it. Purity of heart is to will one thing. There is a single-mindedness about the pure in heart.
Notes on McCullough
McCullough’s text does not give him a great deal of material to work with. Just six simpls words. McCullough begins by defining terms. Understanding comes through clarifying what the words actually mean. The preacher includes a couple of eclectic resources to support his idea and he even uses Greek. The whole thing, however, drives toward the main thought which has to do with singularity.
Haddon Robinson – Lk.18:9-14 – Good Guys, Bad Guys, and Us Guys
The trouble with this Pharisee was not conceit, not pimples on the skin. The trouble was in the bloodstream. He is standing in the temple – in the presence of God – and thinking that the differences that matter among men matter with the Almighty. The problem with the Pharisee was pride.
Luke tells us that Jesus told this parable to those who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else. One of the symptoms of self-righteousness is a critical spirit, be ause one of the ways we feed our self-righteousness is by comparing ourselves with others. We usually look at their vices and think of our virtuess, and that, we assume, gives us special standing with God. We have a way of cutting other people off at the knees and putting ourselves up on stilts. In comparison, we seem to stand tall.
Whenever you hear somebody always criticizing other people, see it as a manifestation of a self-righteous spirit. It’s a kind of insanity that says, “If I pull your house down, my house stands taller.” That is self-righteousness and the way proud people feed their pride.
Pope Gregory the Great said of this Pharisee that he was like a man who had killed an elephant, but who was killed by the elephant’s fall. The stench, the smell that comes out of this passage – this horrible aroma that has aobut it the brimstone of hell – is the smell of grace gone sour.
Notes on Robinson
Robinson is working from a gospel narrative, which requires a different approach to point-making. He begins the sermon by telling the story in the text. Quickly, however, he is able to focus attention on what he understands to be the primary issue – that being pride.
Robinson, then, develops the pride concept through analysis, description, and quotation. This example takes the theme from the world of the text into the life and the world of the listener.