Another Sermon Template Because — Variety Matters!

Willie Rice of Calvary Baptist Church, in Clearwater, Flordia illustrates a different way to structure a message.

You will have to listen to most of the message to see the structure played out.

(Bring Back the Glory Link)

After a laying out of the historical context from I Samuel 4, Rice makes a simple point — The Glory is Gone — Iccabod

As Rice continues he provides a simple example of some “sea shells” and how the shells lost their beauty after days in the sunlight.  — “Things Change”

Businesses change . . . . Ball Teams change . . . . But I don’t want to talk about business or ball teams.  I want to talk about three very important things that can lose their glory

Then, as you listen, you think that he is doing a “topical”* message with the following three points . . . .

**A Country Can Lose Its Glory

A Church Can Lose Its Glory

A Christian Can Lose His Glory

However, what Pastor Rice does is actually set up three areas of APPLICATION.  It will be those three areas — Country / Church / Christian — which will serve as the area of applying three other principles.

Therefore, as Rice proceeds, he goes back to the passage (I Samuel 4) and lays out three causes of the lost glory from the passage (see below)

He is not preaching the above points, but rather he lays out the above three points for the purpose of using them as areas of application

The following three points (below) COME OUT OF the passage.  They are “expository” in nature and content since they come out of the passage.

I. Glory Departs When Sin Is Tolerated (@15: 00-minute mark)

[Rice then takes that truth or principle and applies it to the original three areas he set up and is reflected in the above section.**]

That happens to a country (@19: 39-minute mark)

That happens to a church (@ 23: 27-minute mark)

That happens to a Christian (@ 23: 58-minute mark)

II. When Symbols Are Trusted (@28: 13-minute mark)

[Rice then takes that truth or principle and applies it to the original three areas he set up and is reflected in the above section.**]

That happens to a country (@28: 52-minute mark)

That happens to a church (@ 30: 41-minute mark)

That happens to a Christian (@ 32: 15-minute mark)

III. When Salvation Is Terminated

[Rice then takes that truth or principle and applies it to the original three areas he set up and is reflected in the above section.**]

That happens to a country (@34: 34-minute mark)

That happens to a church (@ 35: 48-minute mark)

That happens to a Christian (@ 36: 11-minute mark)

Structure Delineated

As we have stated, once someone sees what is being done by a speaker or preacher, one can duplicate the structure or pattern.

It becomes a “template.”

1. Passage: I Samuel 4
2. State The General Theme:  (Things Change / Loss of the Glory)
3. Establish & Explain “Three” Areas of Life & Living Where It Will Be Applied (secular or sacred areas)
4. Go Back To The Passage To Establish Three Main Points Which Come Out Of The Passage
5. State & Apply Point #1) To The Three Areas Of Life & Living
6. State & Apply Point #2) To The Three Areas Of Life & Living
7. State & Apply Point #3) To The Three Areas Of Life & Living
8. Exhortation:  Something Is Missing.  Something Isn’t There. If God’s glory is gone, then today and say, “Oh God fill me again with your glory.”

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* I use the word “topical” in the old sense of the meaning of that word.  “Topical” message was historically seen as coming from the mind of the preacher.  Although a word or phrase might be found in the passage, the points were not coming out of the passage.  The points were not necessarily unbiblical, but the speaker was not exposing what was there.

It should be pointed out that the word “topical” is sometimes contrasted with “expository.”  That is, topical is historically seen as a “spring board” approach where the speaker creates his own three points.  “Expository” is seen as “exposing” the points which are found within the passage.

However, a topical message can be expository if the three points find their source within passages which teach that particular point, though maybe not in a consecutive passage.