How to preach sermons that change lives — with Richard Coekin

Do our sermons actually land in the lives of the people in front of us?

Do they help anxious believers, tired parents, proud leaders, compromised Christians or sceptical guests to hear, trust and obey the living Word of God?

Richard Coekin says application is part of faithful preaching itself. 

But application has dangers, it might come not really from the text, or could be overly directive. Or we could give accurate lectures that fail to shepherd the church.

Richard Coekin leads Reach UK.  Richard has just written ‘Apply the Word: A Practical Guide to Preaching with Application.’

Transcript

Welcome And The Problem

SPEAKER_01 0:08

It is The Pastor's Heart at Stonexteel, and Richard Coken is with us. How to preach sermons that change lives. We are committed to biblical exposition, but our sermons are often missing careful, faithful pastoral application. Some of our sermons are sound but dull, interesting but ineffectual. Others are relevant but dodgy. Richard Coken, former minister of Dundonald Church in London, now leads the UK Reach Ministries. He's with us. He's just written Apply the Word, a practical guide for preaching with application. Richard, it's a pastor's heart for people that's driving you.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

It is. It is. Like every good pastor, I love the Word of God. I hold fiercely to the sufficiency of Scripture, the clarity of Scripture, and the power of Scripture in the power of the Holy Spirit to save and transform people's lives. But I think people, ordinary people, need help. And so I've written a book on application because I think the role of exposition is not finished simply by explaining what the text says. I think we need to also explain what it means for people's lives. And that includes, as the apostle says to um to Titus, teach what accords with sound doctrine. Not just teach sound doctrine, teach what accords with it, and then gives examples as he works through the household, uh household increte with which he was familiar from his mission there. Um drawing out the implications, the necessary implications of God's word for uh people's lives. So what up the book I'm trying to do, should I keep going? I'm trying to steer between two extremes, and pendulums swing sometimes, don't they? Um obviously we want to avoid uh application of this simply inventing um probably often in the sort of motivated by the need to sort of seek relevance, to invent promises

Two Dangers In Sermon Application

SPEAKER_00 2:10

or claims of things that are simply not derived from the text. And of course, we're all aware of charlatans and also um just clumsy preaching down the years, uh, and of course available online, uh manipulating people, which is just invented applications. We know we want to avoid that, uh, but we also want to avoid the the opposite extreme, which is where we simply observe the text like a commentary, which is not only boring and dull, and it will be that, uh, and leaves people struggling to know what to do as a result of what they've just heard, but I think it has it has deeper uh implications than that. If we don't um habitually work out what does the Bible mean for our lives, there'll be a disconnect between hearing sermons on Sunday and our lives during the week. And I think that actually can affect not just sermons but the whole culture of a church. If we're not used to uh talking with one another in love about the implications of God's word for our lives, um we'll just be sort of like um technically knowledgeable but ungodly in behaviour. And I think sometimes behaviours can then become embedded and lives can be ruined by sin. That could have been addressed earlier, if the the church, you know, a church culture is about living by the word of God and not just hearing the word of God. You know, I think God wants Bible obeying churches, not just Bible teaching churches. Um there's lots more obviously to say.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

I'm just thinking um in our tribe, do you think we are um I mean I think we're less in danger of the dodgy application and more in danger of the boring and unapplied?

SPEAKER_00 3:48

Yes, I mean I can't I mean I'm I'm s quite familiar with Australia, but I wouldn't presume to us including your tribe in with the. Well, okay, yeah, okay, in that case. Um Yes, I think we've rightly held over the years to um the centrality and sufficiency of Bible teaching, and and it's right to work hard at uh exegesis and um you know, one of the chapters in the book, um there's a whole chapter on honouring evident human authoral intention that comes through i i in the text of the Bible, though sometimes we don't know who the authors were. Um I don't think that exhausts uh the meaning uh of a text, uh particularly in the Old Testament, of course, where texts are fulfilled in the New Testament. And there is biblical theology and the the the right census plenary of the whole of Scripture to help us understand any part of it. Um I think but we So I think we need to draw out the um necessary implications of the text in the lives of hearers. So, for example, the Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy celebrates that's probably uh the wrong word, but he explores the sufficiency of scripture in chapter three. Um and even there in chapter three, he tells us that scripture is for, makes it able to make us wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. So the first application is to help people come to faith in Christ Jesus, that is, become Christians regularly in our preaching. Uh, but it's also for um um teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. So it's for righteousness in life that we might be fully equipped for every good work. So it's for um our lives of righteous uh deeds and ministry. Uh in other words, the Bible itself is for application, it's for living, it's not simply for hearing, um, it's for responding to. And then he doesn't end the book in chapter three, he adds chapter four, where we learn that this is application is what preachers are for. So he says, preach the word, but he doesn't just say preach the word. So don't just preach it into the air, but correct, rebuke, and train with careful instruction, great patience. Um sorry I've misquoted there, but um the the the the careful rebuking and correcting and training uh in chapter four. In other words, preachers are to do what the Bible is for. Uh the Bible is for application, and preachers are given for application.

Scripture And Preachers Are For Living

SPEAKER_00 6:06

And of course, it's what our congregations desperately need. And uh you can sometimes tell, can't you, when the ministry leader finishes in prayer, oh Lord, may your spirit help us to understand how to live by what we've heard, you know, leaving it to the congregation to try and work out what to do with what they've heard, but that's the job of the pastor, uh, at least to to provide some examples. And obviously, when we're not talking about heavy shepherding, uh, we're not talking about coercive demanding that people do things. We are talking about clarifying what are the necessary implications of this text for the lives that we lead and making suggestions for how to live in response to that. Um and that's what we're that's what we're for. It's what congregations are desperate for help with how to respond uh to what the Bible has said. And after all, I think what that means for a pastor is often we need to lead more in the more in the study. It also means that we need to make time in our preparation uh and in our preaching for application, not just rushed add-ons at the end. So I've suggested 20%, uh, just as a practical um standard to work to. Try and make sure that 20% of our preparation is given to clarifying carefully what the implications of this text might be for the lives of the heroes we live amongst.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

Can you let's just play around in that? Yeah. I'm just thinking about 2 Timothy 4. And um, I mean, I've always found it remarkable that he has that that enormously big preach the word, and then those seven times he rolls over them because of this, because of this, because of this in-season, out of season, all that kind of thing. And then he says, Um, can you run that errand for me of um of getting my cloak and my and and I thought that's a fascinating thing.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Well, it's a that I mean that's a that that does um remind us that our preaching ministry is not sort of uh separated from team ministry. Yeah. You know, we often we say a lot that you know preaching is the heart but not the whole.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Um is you know, preaching is for every team ministry, for every preacher, you need somebody on welcoming and you need somebody on car parking. That's right, the body is more than a mouse. And somebody to bring the cloak and the parchments. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

The way we would say that is that um you know prayerful preaching is the heart but not the whole. It is the heart pumping gospel, the gospel, gospel culture throughout all the organs and limbs of the body, so that all the ministries of the church are shaped, motivated, shaped, and conducted in accordance with the word of God. Um but it's not the whole. You you you need someone to turn the lights on and someone to warm the building. And um, and so a lot of what Preach Ministries is about, here and in in the UK, it's about um remembering to equip the saints for their ministries that will grow the church because it's the whole thing as a team game. But prayerful preaching is the heart, and I think I'm the book is about uh helping people to be both faithful to the word of God and thoughtful about the people that we're teaching to. The great encouragement you see is um if you're a teacher in in uh in a church uh anywhere in the in the world, you know, uh whether you're a preacher or or a youth worker uh or or involved in women's

Local Pastors Beat Online Stars

SPEAKER_00 9:20

ministries, uh you are actually more necessary to the lives of the people that you're speaking to than the great preachers online. I mean, Paige Benton Brown, if you listen to her teaching on the on the uh from America, she's a fantastic Bible teacher, Bible expositor. You know, Thabiti Anya Buile, Kevin DeYoung, you know, Tim Keller, all the greats. Um but actually we are more important because to our the people in our local church, because we live amongst them. And you know how it is. We apply it to them, isn't it? Yeah, we know the the challenges they face. Uh we know uh the place where they live, the context in which they live. And so it's wonderful to hear you know John Piper preach online, and what a glorious preacher. But he doesn't know what it's like to live in Wimbledon or or here in um is this are you um? Anandale. Um so actually, you are necessary to Anandale. I take it that's why the apostles said to um to Titus, you know, appoint elders in every town, not be a roving preacher and just make sure you pop in as often as you can. Every local congregation needs a preacher uh set aside um uh to to prepare sermons. Yeah, or 20 percent. 20 percent. Now, um how does that work for you in I mean in the busy life of I mean So whatever time you've got and and uh it varies when you start out, uh you know, as a young preacher, for example, you I would I would have needed you know two weeks in the first couple of years or my but let's say twenty hours to prepare a fresh sermon. Because I'm reading the commentaries for the first time. As you get older over the years, you can get quicker. And as a senior pastor, you have to try and work out you know regular preaching, ordinary preaching, you're gonna have to do it in in eight hours. Um, you know, maybe it's ten, maybe it's six, but you're gonna you you know, you know which you've done it before, two or three times, there's lots that has um uh fed into it. Nevertheless, if all your time is spent on the exegesis and you don't think about the implications for the lives of your hearers, you'll either just not say anything about what it means, or you'll rush it and be clumsy. And actually, you really don't want to be clumsy uh when you're talking about people's lives. You know, when you're talking about the impact of this passage upon someone's response to suffering, you know, to childlessness or cancer or to losing their job, you don't want to be clumsy about that. You want to think really carefully, or you can really hurt people. And it's not it's not true, you see, that the all the although the same thing is said in the text for everyone to hear, it doesn't have the same implications for everybody. For example, if you're preaching on uh Jesus' letter to the churches from Revelation 2 and 3, the messages to the seven different churches, they're different churches, they're in different spiritual conditions. If you preach every message as if it applies exactly the same way to everybody in your congregation, you're just gonna be yelling. You're warning all the people in your church, you know, they get that God is gonna strike their children dead for the sins of Thyatira. You know, that is so cruel. Now, exegesis

Planning Time And Structure For Application

SPEAKER_00 12:20

has to be the beginning of the process, and you'll be thinking about your application all the way through, but you need to leave enough time in your preparation uh to think through the application.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

Um How has your outlines, have your outlines changed over the years? Uh they've got simpler.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

So I used to think that um I think it is helpful to have an outline visible to people, um, and just to connect that with uh what you were then saying, how does that mean in practice? Rather than just leaving all your application to the end in a speedy summary because you've spent some more time on your exegesis and you run out of time, the lights have gone red and you've got to finish. Um, to plan all the way through to apply your points on the way through. So in the outline, I would include application at the end of each major point. Um if you like get out of the the lift and apply it to people's lives, then get back in the lift and and and then travel down the passage. Um, of course, you may want to be taking uh detours to address either contemporary issues or big doctrinal issues that you just think for the church's sake, but you want to stick mainly with the text. Um, but you need to prepare that so that there's constantly application of what you're teaching uh all the way through uh a passage. How has it changed? I don't put so much up on the screen, but I do think it's important for people to have a visible outline to follow that is clear and obvious. Because what happens is if their minds wander, because we've a bit a bit dull, when we come to the next point, people can climb back on board and re-refocus and they know where they're going. I think it helps people focus on the big picture of what we're talking about and not just get lost in the detail as we're going through. So that helps them follow. And I think this book is really trying to help preachers help people uh learn to live by the word of God. Uh Jesus and look, it describes his his uh family, are those who not only hear the word of God but live by it.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

How might a preacher move from biblical application to illegitimate control and how not to do that?

SPEAKER_00 14:26

We do need to be careful to work at our exegesis, uh, to be to observe evident human authoral intention, to think about biblical theology fulfillment in Christ, uh, to make sure that we are um working hard at what the Bible says. But then the third part is then how do we apply it uh to people's lives? And that involves um both thinking about people, thinking about their circumstances, their stage of life uh in maturity, uh, the circumstances of the the the culture, the context in which they're living, uh, the events that are prominent in their mind. And that doesn't mean we have to all have to be sociologists and uh you know expert psych psychiatrists, and you know, we can't all be uh great, but it doesn't it helps not to preach like a cloistered monk, completely unaware of the lives, the context in which people are living. Um we help us uh pre uh congregations understand how to live by God's word if we suggest to people how the what the necessary implications of the text are for uh their their lives. And so the aim of the book is to try and help people do that more thoughtfully. Um and those who have read it, I'm saying it is helping them to think more about the people that we're preaching to. You know, sometimes a young preacher, you know, I say when you're fresh out of college, you've got lots of things you want to share. You tend to give a talk into the air, and then after two years, you're starting giving talking for the elders and the expository police and the congregation uh trying to preach for them. And I want to say, and then eventually you start to learn, well, let's try and preach for the people, let's try and serve them and love them uh with God's word. Because although God's word wasn't written about them, it was written for them. And under God, our job is to help them, to draw alongside them, to see what the word of God means for their lives, uh, whether if they're non-Christians, to become Christians, uh what it would mean to be if they became a Christian, and for Christians to live by God's word uh every day of the week.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Um so that's what the book is for. Um how do you diagnose a congregation?

SPEAKER_00 16:36

Diagnosing a congregation, um uh what'd say obviously it helps over time. Uh there's a number of ways, aren't there? Firstly, to live with them uh helps. These are not absolutes, you know. You there's still great help that you can get from you know uh um an Andrew Heard sermon can help you if you're in if you're in um in London. Uh but it helps to live amongst the people and talk about the implications of the text for their lives. So that does mean the longer you stay, it helps. It also means if you pay attention and listen well to people in the congregation. Um I don't mean that you have to become spend all your time out of the office uh out of your study, I mean. Um but it does mean uh listening well to people, asking people uh to be involved in people's lives as best you can. Because as a preacher, you're not just a professional who produces sermons, you are also a Christian. So you're involved in the life of the church and um uh listening to people. And I think it also means when you're preaching through passages, when you come to points of application, you're thinking, I wonder what that would mean. Uh perhaps to ask people, I mean, that's the blessing if you have a family that you can ask them uh what do you think about this issue? You can ask a wife if you're married, um, you know, what does she think about saying this? Um ask staff members. I've often rung up members of staff and said, What do you think about uh I was thinking that means this, what do you think? And they often give really helpful correctives. Um but oh in other words, I'm wanting to encourage the same care with application um that we bring to our care in exegesis. We should be really careful in understanding the text because we want to explain the truth and not falsehood. We want to be also very careful when we apply to people's lives because this is where the rubber of the text hits hits the road of their lives. And we don't want to hurt people. Um these are these are God's children. This is the bride of Christ. Uh, and often we we sort of you know rattle off some application that's just we just thought of at the last minute.

Diagnosing Hearers And Applying Gently

SPEAKER_01 18:40

What do you do? Um, I mean, there are some passages where actually the exegesis is really simple, and yet there's a really clear, wide and deep pastoral application that needs to be worked through. And yet, the day you're preaching on Romans 9, do you know it? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Um Yes, I think um Philip Jensen wrote that book about the archer and the arrow many years ago, and he helpfully likened um, you know, the feathers that steer the arrow to the doctrine, the biblical doctrine, uh biblical theology, and the shaft of the arrow to the exegesis of the text, and then the point of the arrow is the application. And um it is true that um different sermons require different emphasis. You know, if you're in a complex area uh with a complex doctrinal issue, you may need to spend more time, if you like, with the feathers, if you like, setting up the context in which you give the talk. Um uh in other texts, you know, the application will be obvious, but you do need to work through the details of the text. Although in general, we tend to, I think often pastors choose passages that are just too long, you know, you've got a whole chapter, it's just so much exegesis, just too much, and better to go a bit slower. Um, or pick a key paragraph within the chapter. Um and then sometimes um the application is so big, as you say, uh it needs lots of time. It's also worth saying that different tribes have strengths and weaknesses. Some tribes have lots of doctrine, uh, but can be a bit dull and boring. Uh, some people spend all their time on the text, so it's very interesting, but unapplied and irrelevant. And some people spend too much time on the on the arrow. Uh it's all application, but if you're not careful, it's dodgy because it's not really related to the direct implication of the text. So um it's and also as per personally we have strengths and weaknesses. So it's worth asking those we trust in the congregation, how are they hearing our sermons? And if they're saying, brother, you need to spend more time on the exegesis, you spend too much time on application, then listen to them. Uh but usually in the kind of churches I'm in, we spend too much time on the text explaining what it says, and and hard not enough time explaining the implications of people's lives. Now, some past parts of the Bible, uh, it's obvious even as you teach the text what it means. And so some of the great preachers, you know, Dick Lucas, for example, would often take us back into the world of the Old Testament or the of the passage that we're speaking from, and then use some, you know, as Paul is you know making himself a cup of coffee and sitting down in front of his desk, you know, he he says this. So he takes us back into the world of Paul, but uses sort of rhetorical um um tools to sort of help us understand what he's doing. So he's taking us back there rather than drawing out implications for today. But that's not an excuse, I think, for just leaving people in the world of the Old Testament uh or in the world of the Bible and helping not helping people with the pressing issues of their lives, you know, the implications for how do I uh endure through LGBQTI ideology, or how do I discuss these things with my children as and their their usage of the mobile phones and uh what does it mean for ecology and and for the political scene of our um you you know, we need to draw out the implications for life. It's all driven by the text. Uh so we don't want to swing back to the other extreme and Your application. I mean, I point out in that I go through the structure of a how to prepare a sermon. So I hope it's helpful for young preachers as well as old preachers.

SPEAKER_01 22:12

I'm thinking about different people in the room. I might have somebody who is they're feeling wounded and fragile, and then I apply a passage which is rebuking them. Or um uh there's somebody who is complacent, you know, and you've got the same people in the room on the same moment in the same application.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Well, I think that's the challenge of preaching. It's also the joy of preaching. It's one of the reasons I sit at the back of church before I preach. Because I want to be reminded of who the people are. You know, who the people are not singing because they're they're not Christians. Or, oh, why is she crying? Oh yes. Didn't her mother die recently? Oh yes. Um, it's great to see them, haven't seen them for a while. Oh, that's right, because he's been in hospital for a while. Now, obviously, I don't know everybody in the room, especially as the church gets bigger, but it does help to be reminded of who's there. And then that's what the purpose of working your application is. For those of us who are um grieved and struggling, can can I say gently, um, you know, the Lord loves you and whatever it would. For those of us who are feeling pretty defiant and and uh, you know, can I just say to us, um, the Lord is loving, but it doesn't mean he was not going to judge us. So you'll be saying different things for different people, um, which are all the implications of the same passage. Um, you know, for example, in the book, I look at the passage, you know, when um the woman is weeping over the feet of Jesus uh as she breaks open her alabaster jar, and you've got Simon the Pharisee looking scornfully on, you know, at the whole thing. You just think that one passage has different implications for different hearers, you know. For the cynic, the cynical non-Christian is thinking, why are all these Christians so excited? You know, they're all getting so excitable, you know, praising the Lord or blah, blah, blah. Um, there's a message that text says to that guy, um, yeah, when you've had your sins forgiven, then you'll love Jesus. Um, but then there might be the cynical non-Christian who says, all this emotion, you know, keep your hands down and stop singing so heartily, um, as this woman is weeping away. Uh well, Jesus defends that emotion and says, This woman knows how much she's been forgiven. Don't you dare mock her for her passion for Jesus. How dare you look down on her? But then for the person who's made great sacrifices for Jesus, you know, financial sacrifices, what an encouragement that Jesus um accepts those sacrifices and celebrates it. And for people who've lived a sexually promiscuous life before they became a Christian, what a special encouragement for them. That Jesus accepts this devotion from this notorious woman and and defends her and appreciates her and reassures her that our sins are forgiven. Um what a wonderful encouragement, uh, if you're, as we all are, sinners by degrees in church. Well, not by degrees. I mean, all of us are terrible sinners. Um, and to know that to hear those reassurances from Jesus, so different reassurances from the same passage. And to just preach it uh kind of without any application misses the opportunity for profound uh biblical transformation in people's lives. We're just leaving them to try and work it out for themselves. I think that's irresponsible because what we're doing as preachers, we're to apply the word. Uh that's the great joy of preaching uh to serve people and bring the word of God to bear upon their personal lives.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

Thanks so much for coming in.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

It's a pleasure. Thank you, Dominic.

SPEAKER_01 25:40

Richard Coken and the book is Apply the Word a Practical Guide to Preaching with Application. My name is Dominic Steele. You've been with us on the Pastor's Heart, and we'll look forward to your company next Tuesday afternoon.