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The following examples, all taken from published sermons, show examples of ways that preachers help listeners imagine the difference their sermons ought to encourage. These are portions of longer applications (and longer sermons).
Bill Hybels – Phillipians 2:1-11 – The Often-Overlooked Benefits of Losing
We had an elder’s retreat not so long ago and it got to be one o’clock in the morning. One of the elders sat on the kitchen floor in the house we were using and started telling us about his background, about his father who was an alcoholic and used to come home and beat him and throw his mother around. Some of us sat there for two hours, tears streaming down our faces. He never had told that to anybody, and it took him years to feel safe enough to tell it to us. The level of bondedness that happened that evening, I’ll never, ever forget. We all stood in the loser’s circle with him, and it changed us. And it’s changed our fellowship ever since.
Friends, if a loss can simplify and purify and unify, I had to start asking myself, then, Why am I so deathly afraid of experiencing one? Why are you? Why your exaggerated fear of losing something? Jesus said, “Whoever loses his life – whoever, in a way unplugs from the system and throws his life away – whoever loses his life for my sake is going to be a winner.”
How do we apply a message like this? I have some suggestions in closing. First, be very suspicious of the affects of a string of victories in your life. Many of us work hard and attempt to give God glory in our pursuits, and we experience some victories in the process, vocationally, academically, financially, ministerially, athletically. That’s wonderful. Give God the glory. Worship him for your abilities. But keep watch over your heart and soul when you get on a roll, because winning has diseased more souls than losing ever will. make sure that seeds of pride and independence and self-will don’t take root in your life. Stay suspicious of the effects of winning. Ask a friend, “Is the disease taking root in my life?”
Second, choose to lose once in a while. Seriously. Consider a premeditated loss. Take something that’s rather important to you and give it to someone who needs it. Lose a bag of groceries to a hungry person, to a food pantry. My wife and I periodically double shop and then lose half the stuff by taking it to a food pantry. Cancel a debt someone owes you. Take a plaque of honor off your wall and put it away. Thank God that you achieved it. Give him glory, but take it down and put it away. Lose an hour – an important hour – in worship to God. Lose face to reconcile with somebody you’re fighting with. Stand in the loser’s circle and eat crow and make the call that your pride doesn’t want you to make.
Jesus lost the prerogatives of heaven. Philippians 2 says he didn’t regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but started climbing down the ladder, descending into greatness. Downward mobility. Loss after loss after loss after loss, until he loses his life on the cross. Then Philippians says, “Have that attitude in you.” Take a loss. Choosing to lose once in a while is a smart way to avoid the consequences of a victory-hardened heart. Choosing to lose often brings great spiritual gain.
Notes on Hybels
What I like about this example is the specificity of the application. Hybels offers several tangible things that a listener could do in order to respond faithfully to the message of the sermon. These suggestions will act as a catalyst for other thoughts and ideas as the listener strives to come to terms with the text.
I’m not wild about enumerating three points of application in the conclusion of a sermon. The end of a sermon is not normally the place for making lists. However, as these are things to do more than concepts to understand I think it can be effective.
At the same time, Hybels is emotionally motivating. The story of the elder’s retreat coupled with the question, “Why am I so deathly afraid of experiencing a loss,” is gripping. It is the kind of question that will stick with the listener for a while.
Tying the application back into the text and end is an effective way of anchoring the application in the truth of God’s Word.
Charles H. Spurgeon – Job 35:10 – Songs in the Night
Religion is not a thing merely for your intellect; a thing to prove your own talent upon, by making a syllogism on it; it is a thing that demands your faith. As a messenger of heaven, I demand that faith; if you do not choose to give it, on your own head be the doom, if there be such, if there be not, you are prepared to risk it. But I have done my duty; I have told you the truth; that is enough, and there I leave it. Oh, Christian, instead of disputing, let me tell thee how to prove your religion. Live it out!
Live it out! Give the external as well as the internal evidence; give the external evidence of your own life. You are sick; there is your neighbor who laughs at religion; let him come into your house. When he was sick, he said, “Oh, send for the doctor”; and there he was fretting, and fuming, and whining, and making all manner of noises. When you are sick, send for him, tell him that you are resigned to the Lord’s will; that you will kiss the chastening rod; that you will take the cup, and drink it, because your Father gives it.
You do not need to make a boast of this, or it will lose all its power; but do it because you cannot help doing it. Your neighbor will say, “There is something in that.” And when you come to the borders of the grave – he was there once, and you heard how he shrieked, and how frightened he was – give him your hand, and say to him, “Ah! I have a Christ that will do to die by; I have a religion that will make me sing in the night.” Let me hear how you can sing, “Victory, victory, victory!” through Him that loved you. I tell you, we may preach fifty thousand sermons to prove the gospel, but we shall not prove it half so well as you will through singing in the night. Keep a cheerful frame; keep a happy heart; keep a contented spirit; keep your eye up, and your heart aloft, and you prove Christianity better than all the Butlers, and all the wise men that ever lived. Give them the analogy of a holy life, and then you will prove religion to them; give them the evidence of internal piety, developed externally, and you will give the best possible proof of Christianity.
Notes on Spurgeon
This is one of Charles Haddon Spurgeon’s most famous sermons. Of course the language shows its 19th century timeframe, nevertheless, it offers a good example of the kind of motivational exhortation that preacher’s ought to aspire to in the final stages of their sermons.
I love the picture he paints of the doctor who comes into the house, fuming and fretting, only to find his patient “singing in the night.” The image is very compelling, suggesting any number of other ways the concept could be applied.
Most of all, Spurgeon shows us passion. He clearly cares about what he is saying and he will press it upon the listener.
Jeremiah Wright – 1 Samuel 1:1-18 – The Audacity to Hope
That’s almost an echo of what the prophet Isaiah said: “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.” The vertical dimension balances out what is going on in the horizontal dimension.
There may not be any visible sign of a change in your individual situation, whatever your private hell is. But that’s just the horizontal level. keep the vertical level itnact, like Hannah. You may, like the African slaves, be able to sing, “Over my head I hear music in the air. Over my head I hear music in the air. Over my head I hear music in the air. There must be a God somewhere.”
Keep the vertical dimension intact like Hannah. Have the audacity to hope for that child of yours. Have the audacity of hope for that home of yours. Have the audacity to hope for that church of yours. Whatever it is you’ve been praying for, keep on praying, and you may find, like my grandmother sings, “There’s a bright side somewhere; there is a bright side somewhere. Don’t you rest until you find it, for there is a bright side somewhere.”
The real lesson Hannah gives us from this chapter – the most important word God would have us hear – is how to hope when the love of God is not plainly evident. It’s easy to hope when there are evidences all around of how good God is. But to have the audacity to hope when that love is not evident – you don’t know where that somewhere is that my grandmother sang about, or if there will ever be that brighter day – that is a true test of a Hannah-type faith. To take the one string you hav eleft and to have the audacity to hope – make music and praise God on and with whatever it is you’ve got left, even though you can’t see what God is going to do – that’s the real word God will have us hear from this passage and from Watt’s painting.
There’s a true-life illustration that demonstrates the principles portrayed so powerfully in this pericope. And I close with it. My mom and my dad used to sing a song that I’ve not been able to find in any of the published hymnals. It’s an old song out of the black religious tradition called “Thank you, Jesus.” It’s a very simple song. Some of you have heard it. It simply goes, “Thank you Jesus. I thank you Jesus. I thank you Jesus. I thank you Lord.” To me they always sang that song at the strangest times – when the money got low, or when the food was running out. When I was getting in trouble, they would start singing that song. And I never understood it, because as a child it seemed to me they were thanking God that we didn’t have any money, or thanking God that we had no food, or thanking God that I was making a fool out of myself as a kid.
But I was only looking at the horizontal level. I did not understand nor could I see back then the vertical hookup that my mother and my father had. I did not know then that they were thanking him in advance for all they dared to hope he would do one day to their sin, in their son, and through their son. That’s why they prayed. That’s why they hoped. That’s why they kept on praying with no visible sign on the horizon. And I thank God I had praying parents, because now some thirty-five years later, when I look at what God has done in my life, I understand clearly why Hannah had the audacity to hope. Why my parents had the audacity to hope.
And that’s why I say to you, hope is what saves us. Keep on hoping; keep on praying. God does hear and answer prayer.
Notes on Wright
Wright, an African-American preacher, shows many of the traits of Black preaching in his use of repetition, his use of familiar songs (familiar in his setting at least), and the biblical text to elevate the sermon and bring people to a place of passionate response.
Having expounded the text, now he is talking about real life as he has personally experienced it in his mother and father’s home and how the listener experiences it in his or her own life.
We have all known times when resources were running down and it was hard to hope. Wright taps into those experiences and those memories, bringing the text to bear with an encouragement to hope.
There is no question as to what the preacher is asking for. There will be no confusion as to how to apply this sermon. It is now up to the listener to go out and respond hopefully and prayerfully, no matter what kind of circumstances will come.