1 Intro to Preaching

2 Intro to Expository Preaching

3 I-Beam Overview

4 Interpretation

5 Incompletion

6 Impression

7 Implication

8 Intention

9 Indentation

10 Identification

11 Introduction

12 Ingression

13 Inspiration

14 Itemization

15 Ideation

16 Instruction

17 Illustration

18 Implementation

19 Interconnection

20 Imploration

I-Beam Worksheets

Growing up I attended church services somewhat frequently. Like many children and adolescents I “endured” my fair share of sermons. Whether it reflects my listening skills or the pastors’ preaching skills I cannot say. I can say, however, I struggle to recall a memorable sermon I heard. That is until I was a freshman in college. Then our church welcomed a young new pastor, Robert Morgan. His sermons were noticeably different from any I had heard in namely two respects. First, I always learned something from his preaching. Second, I wanted to listen.

Rob always opened his Bible, read a passage, and then explained what it meant. We went verse by verse through books of the Bible. First Mark, then Ruth, then Philippians and on and on we went. I actually learned to understand the Bible from Rob’s preaching.

Next, Rob not only explained the Bible passage, he told me how to live it. His sermons always made practical application to my life so I wanted to listen. I was listening to the Bible, learning from the Bible, and then living the Bible.

Not long after his arrival I joined a discipleship class Rob led. He literally took me under his wing equipping me to study and preach the Word. After several years under his tutelage I launched out into my own preaching ministry trying to mimic what Rob modeled for me. I desired to preach in such a way that people wanted to listen, therefore, subsequently would learn from the Bible and then live what they learned.

During my apprenticeship with Rob and my early preaching experiences I learned two primary principles for preaching which have guided my preaching for over 25 years. Sermons must be:

• Faithful to the Text

• Functional for Today

Faithful to the Text

We expect to:

• taste coconut in a coconut cake

• see a baseball at a baseball game

• watch Andy Griffith in the Andy Griffith Show

We should, therefore, expect to hear the Bible in biblical preaching. Paul told us to, Preach the Word (2 Timothy 4:2). The Bible, not personal opinions and ideas, should be the source and content of sermons.

Unfortunately this isn’t always the case today. Much of modern preaching more closely resembles a comedy routine, political stump speech, or motivational talk. “Thus says the Lord” has been replaced with “this is what I think you’ll like to hear.”

We preachers are under the Lord’s commission to preach the Word; therefore, our sermons must be faithful to the text. We must preach what it says and means. To be faithful to the text we must possess a high view of Scripture. I’ve observed that the best biblical preachers hold the Scripture in high regard. We can have a ...