Preparing a sermon is the work of bringing a passage of Scripture to the point where it can be heard, understood and obeyed by actual people. It is not writing a religious talk about a topic; it is standing between a text and a congregation.
This guide walks through the seven stages of that work, in the order they actually happen.
Stage 1 — Choose the text
The question that precedes "what will I preach on?" is "how do I choose what to preach?".
Continuous preaching through a book is the healthiest option for regular ministry. It forces on the preacher themes he would not have chosen, protects the church from his private obsessions, and teaches — by practice — how a whole book works.
Topical series have their place, in short blocks of four to six weeks, for issues the church must face.
Occasions (funerals, weddings, calendar dates) call for a fitting text, chosen carefully so the passage is not forced to say what the occasion wants.
In every case, the text should be a complete unit of thought — a paragraph, a scene, an argument. Not half an argument.
Stage 2 — Exegete before you outline
Most of the work lives here, and this is the stage most often skipped.
- 1
Read the passage ten times
In two different translations. Note what changes between them — divergence between translations signals an interpretive decision. - 2
Observe before interpreting
Repetitions, contrasts, connectives, lists, changes of verb tense, who does what. Record without explaining. - 3
Reconstruct the context
Purpose of the book, recipients, situation. What comes before the passage and what comes after. - 4
Identify the genre and apply its rules
Narrative, epistle, poetry and prophecy are not read the same way. - 5
Only then consult commentaries
A commentary read before your own observation atrophies your ability to see. Read afterwards, it corrects and deepens.
Stage 3 — Find the central idea
This is the decisive stage. The central idea is the single proposition that summarizes what the text asserts, stated as a complete sentence.
Two questions produce it:
- What is the author talking about? (the subject)
- What is he saying about it? (the complement)
A subject without a complement is a topic, not an idea. "Prayer" is a topic. "Persistent prayer is encouraged because God is not like the unjust judge, but better" is a central idea — and it already contains the sermon’s structure.
Stage 4 — Structure
The sermon’s structure should mirror the text’s structure. If the passage has two movements, the sermon has two points. If it has five, five. The fixed three-point format is a convention, not a rule — and forcing the text to fit it is the most polite way to distort it.
Each division must:
- Derive from the text, with the supporting verses identified.
- Serve the central idea. If it does not, it goes — however interesting it may be.
- Be stated clearly. Alliteration aids memory but often trades the right word for the word starting with the right letter. Prefer precision.
Write the introduction and conclusion out in full. These are the two moments where improvisation costs the most: the introduction decides whether people will listen, and the conclusion decides what they take home.
Stage 5 — Illustrate
An illustration exists to make an abstract idea visible. It is not there to be funny, nor to fill time.
Criteria for a good illustration:
- It illuminates the point rather than competing with it. If people remember the story and forget the truth, the illustration failed.
- It is true. Do not invent statistics, do not attribute quotations to authors without verifying, do not turn someone else’s story into your own experience.
- It is proportionate. One illustration per division is usually enough.
- It exposes no one. Counseling stories require explicit permission, and even then it is better to anonymize.
Stage 6 — Apply
Application is where a sermon stops being a lecture. And it is where moralism lurks — preaching that says "do this" without saying what God has done.
The New Testament pattern is indicative before imperative: first what God accomplished, then what is expected of us. Ephesians is the cleanest demonstration — three chapters of doctrine before three of exhortation, with the "therefore" of chapter 4 making the hinge.
I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to walk worthily of the calling with which you were called.
The calling comes first; the walking follows from it. Application without gospel becomes a to-do list. Gospel without application becomes abstraction.
Good application is specific ("what changes on your Tuesday?"), varied (the text touches different life situations differently) and honest (the preacher stands under the text, not above it).
Stage 7 — Revise and internalize
Writing the full sermon disciplines your thinking and exposes imprecision that an outline hides. But reading a manuscript in the pulpit costs eye contact and naturalness.
The middle road works like this: write everything, then reduce it to a one-page outline and internalize the sequence. What you wrote is not lost — it stays in the structure of the reasoning.
In revision, cut:
- Everything that does not serve the central idea.
- Explanations of things nobody asked about.
- Digressions you find interesting and the congregation will not.
How long this takes
The traditional benchmark is one hour of preparation per minute of preaching — ten to twenty hours a week for a thirty-minute sermon. Experienced preachers cut that down, but rarely below eight hours for a new text.
A realistic weekly distribution:
| Stage | Share of time |
|---|---|
| Exegesis and observation | ~50% |
| Central idea and structure | ~20% |
| Illustration and application | ~20% |
| Revision and internalization | ~10% |
If the proportion is inverted — much time on illustration, little on exegesis — the sermon will sound good and teach little.
What sustains the preacher
Preach the word; be urgent in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort with all patience and teaching.
The command is to preach the word — not impressions about it, not opinions illustrated with it. The work of preparation exists so that what the congregation hears is, as far as possible, what the text says.
Keep going
The next step is turning all of this into a document usable in the pulpit: how to write a sermon outline covers the anatomy of an outline plus a complete worked example. If the question is which format to use, the guide on types of sermons compares expository, textual and topical.