One of the courses every aspiring young minister is required to take in seminary is called homiletics. In a homiletics class you are taught the art of sermon building. People who have never tried to preach a sermon may think it is easy, but it isn’t. This is especially true when you consider that most ministers have to prepare at least two sermons every week, week after week, and year after year.
Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary defines a homily as: (1) “A religious discourse usually delivered to a congregation: SERMON: an informal exposition of Scripture; (2) A lecture on moral conduct.” That describes what a sermon is, but it doesn’t tell you how to prepare and deliver a sermon in a way that will gain a desirable response. You have to learn that by hard work and lots of experience.
My homiletics professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in the 1950’s was Dr. M. Ray McKay. Every aspiring pastor was required to prepare and preach a sermon in class. Following your sermon the other students were given the opportunity to evaluate what you said and the way you said it. Then Dr. McKay would add his comments and suggestions. When you had worked diligently on what you were going to say, and the way you were going to say it, you went to class on your appointed day and anxiously for your name to be called. After you had done your best, you listened to the criticism and hoped that it would be mostly constructive.
Obviously the first objective in preaching a sermon is to base what you say on Scripture – every sermon should be a message from God. Second, the sermon should address the issues people face every day. It should find them on the street where they live. Otherwise it would be a speech, not a sermon. And no sermon will find lodging in the hearts of listeners until the minister delivering it has allowed God to prepare his or her own heart.
I remember a particular sermon I preached many years ago when the National Aeronautics Space Administration propelled our first astronaut into space. It was an exciting time for our country. Everything about the space age had captured my imagination. I wanted to preach a sermon that captured the thrill of mankind entering the final frontier. I did lots of reading dealing with the space age and all that it would make possible in the future for mankind.
I entitled the sermon “Conquering Inner Space.” My purpose was to use space age terminology and apply it to our effort to deal with our personal spiritual problems and needs. I had worked long and hard on the sermon, and I was proud of it. However, when I delivered it, it blew up on the launching pad. Why is this true? My pride in what I wanted to say, and the way I wanted to say it, caused it to be a total flop. It was a valuable lesson I needed to learn, and one every minister should learn: “Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18).
Sherwood Eliot Wirt, in The Book of Joy, tells the story of a young preacher who had been called to a small rural church and appeared for his first sermon on Sunday morning. To his dismay he found that one of the parishioners had brought his dog to the service. He spoke politely to the dog’s owner and asked if he would kindly remove the animal. The man obligingly took the dog out, and then returned to his seat.
After the service, one of the church deacons rebuked the new preacher for insulting one of their best members. They pointed out that the dog made no trouble and that he had been accompanying his master to church for years. He had, in fact, attended church more regularly than many of the members.
That afternoon the young preacher called at the home of the dog’s owner and apologized.
“Don’t worry about it, Reverend,” the man replied, “It all worked out. I wouldn’t have had my dog hear that sermon for anything in the world.”
The Paper Pulpit 
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