The Form of the Sermon. Preaching and Preachers Chapter 4, part 1

An expositor of Scripture is not to divorce yourself from systematic theology. Lloyd-Jones makes a great point here. The preacher must have a grasp of the whole message of the Bible and he must have a systematic theology. However, the systematic theology doesn't impose itself on the text, which is where you get sermons that have the right doctrine from the wrong verse. Truth is spoken, but it did not originate from the text, but from a true, systematic theology.

After the preliminary marks, he gets to the point of the chapter, the form of a sermon. He begins by stating what a sermon is not. The sermon is not an essay. I'm not against manuscripts, if it is a manuscript for preaching and not an essay for reading. We are not writing literature, but declaring truth.

The sermon is not a lecture. A lecture communicates facts. Preaching is for a decision, a call to action, an attack against error or strongholds in the heart. A lecture starts with a subject, but a sermon starts with the text.  

The sermon is not a commentary. Those that object to expository preaching do so, in part, because they misunderstand exposition or they have rarely heard good exposition. Expository preaching is not verse by verse running commentary on the text until you run out of time. That is a commentary, not a sermon. Lloyd-Jones says that if that is all you do, you haven't preached a sermon, but just the introduction to a sermon. After you have explained what the text means and what it clearly says, then you can apply the truths and preach the message that God has given. Don't just give facts. The sermon comes from the text, what the text actually says and what it actually means. Each part of the message, each point is derived from the theme of the meaning of the text. The sermon should be one whole unit, one whole message. If you have three points, they should all come from and be connected to the meaning of the text.