Preaching out to persuade people to move toward God and his purposes. The eternal destiny of the hearer literally hangs in the balance.
W. A. Criswell, while speaking at Moody Bible Institute on The Romance of Expository Preaching, defined preaching as “seeking to move a man’s will God-ward.” He went on to say that teaching is instructing that man in the will and way of the Lord, and that every sermon ought to include both preaching and teaching.
When we stand to preach, we’re doing one of the most dangerous things a person can do. We’re persuading people to make life-altering, eternity-changing decisions. People will leave the building and (hopefully) go do what we’ve challenged them to do.
Obviously this is an extremely heavy responsibility that requires some sober thinking. We must refuse the temptation to manipulate people while also taking the risk to persuade them to make actual decisions.
Aristotle first coined the terms describing the three elements of persuasion: ethos, pathos, and logos.
- Ethos is the Greek word for character and refers to the credibility of the speaker. Every time we preach, people are answering a basic question in their minds: should I listen? The ethos of the speaker weighs heavily in their answer.
- Pathos has to do with the feelings invoked in the listener. We get our words empathy and pathetic from this word. Pathos actually refers to the suffering people feel deep inside.
- Logos refers to the logic or to the content of a message that requires thoughtful consideration.
You might think of logos as the part of a message that speaks to the head, the pathos as the portion that draws the heart, and ethos as the part of the message in which we move the hand and call for people to flesh out what we’ve taught.
All three of these elements can be seen in the preaching ministries of Jesus, Paul, Peter, and the other apostles.
They each appealed to their respective audiences out of who the were (ethos), to consider vital spiritual truth (logos), and to be moved emotionally by the weight of both guilt and grace (pathos).
While the subject of altar calls may be an area open to debate, there is no question that Jesus and those he trained preached to persuade people to think, to feel, and to do based on their messages.
So how, in our current era, do we persuade people to move toward God’s purposes with our preaching?
1. Live out the gospel authentically.
Absolutely nothing destroys the impact of a sermon like the evidence of inauthenticity in the messenger. We’ve always lived in a watching world, but in this social, digital era, mistakes shine more brightly and news travels faster.
We start persuading people before we ever step onto the stage by whether or not we’ve embodied the message we present.
2. Determine to add value to people’s lives.
Essentially speaking, trust is the basis of the relationship between preacher and listener. And in preaching, we have an opportunity to add value – to encourage, motivate, instruct, and inspire – before we ask for action in return.
3. Establish a rapport with the audience.
If you’re familiar with Andy Stanley’s ME-WE-GOD-YOU-WE approach to preaching, this is the transition from ME to WE. It’s the moment near the beginning of the message when we establish that we mutually struggle with what we’re about to talk about.
Rick Warren often says that “we’re never persuasive when we’re abrasive.” Nor are we persuasive for long when we speak down to our audience from a posture of superiority. We need a rapport with our listeners.
4. Faithfully, consistently present truth.
Our congregation needs to trust that we’re going to be consistent in our commitment to the authority, relevance, and awakening power of Scripture. So week-in and week-out, keep doing the hard work of digging into the text and mining for life-changing truth.
5. Connect real truth to real life.
Being vague helps no one. It really just makes it easier to escape the building without making any kind of commitment. Our audience is filled with people from a broad and diverse array of stories. Tap into those stories to illustrate how the truth can be applied.
It’s one thing to say, Replace your fear with faith! It’s quite another to say, when you’re afraid you’re going to fail your spouse, your kids, and your boss, replace that fear with faith! Be specific with the examples you use as application.
6. Dare to get emotionally involved.
Never attempt to manufacture emotion for the sake of persuasion. It cheapens the task and breaks the rule of authenticity. But never be afraid of allowing your emotions to rise to the surface. It is often our passion-on-display that convinces skeptics of our true belief in what we’re saying.
7. Call for action.
This is one of the most underused elements of preaching. Or at least it isn’t used often enough in a way that makes a real difference. An effective call to action presents listeners with a clear and obvious next step and then challenges their will as they consider it.
If you skip over the call to action, fail to prepare for it, or rush through it, you’ll downgrade the value of all that you have just presented. Almost as harmful is remaining vague and obtuse in the appeal. Spell out for people the exact and immediate next course of action to consider in light of the truth just faithfully presented.
8. Empower people with confidence.
If all we ever do is preach more ways to be better humans, we’ll create frustrated and possibly even unconverted congregations. It isn’t enough to talk about what we ought to do. We must go on to how people can do what they ought to do on the basis of the forgiving and empowering grace of God.
It’s a matter of recognizing two things.
- You were created for this challenge. God made you to be up to it.
- You were re-created for this challenge. Your former inability to live it out is solved in the cross.
9. Trust the sovereign Holy Spirit.
God can do what we never can. We can enlighten. We can encourage. We can instruct. But the Holy Spirit alone can convert, regenerate, and spiritually empower his people to live out his truth.
While we ought to become proficient at persuading people, we are forbidden from playing the role of the Holy Spirit. He is quite capable, on his own, to take our words and drive them deep into the souls of our hearers.
This is why it’s so essential to step on the stage absolutely and totally dependent upon what the Holy Spirit can and will do when the truth of God’s word is presented authentically.
As you prepare this weekend’s sermon, don’t just dissect the text to construct good content. Think about these questions:
- What should people know when I’m done?
- How should people feel while I’m teaching?
- What should people do in response to the truth I present?
