3 Philosophies of Sermon Application

Composing and preaching a faithful, Christ-exalting sermon is a difficult task. Oftentimes, especially if you are a lay-elder or have not had formal theological training, you might struggle with questions such as “how should I structure the sermon?” or “where should I stick to expositing the text directly and where should I apply the text to the congregation?” The former question I answered in a past post, so today I want to give you three philosophies of sermon application that I have seen and heard from different faithful preachers.

It is important to note that I don’t think any one of these is the perfect approach or automatically will make you a great preacher. As I have listened to and read great sermons by great preachers, each one deals with sermon application differently. Spurgeon does it differently than MacArthur who does it differently than J. C. Ryle who does it differently than John Flavel. These three sermon application philosophies are merely the common ways I have seen Pastors of the past and present use.

1. No explicit or structured application section

In this approach, you spend all your preaching time explaining what the text means. You go into detail, you explain it thoroughly but you don’t extract any (or many) specific applications for your particular congregation. Instead, you simply preach the text faithfully and trust that the Holy Spirit will apply the sermon to the individual hearts and specific life-circumstances of the congregation.

A variation of this approach is to sprinkle in occasional application points as you go. In this case, you are primarily focused on simply preaching the text, but if you come to a section of your exposition that warrants a specific word to the congregation, you give a brief direct application. But in both cases, this approach does not have a structured section or approach to sermon application. You simply focus on explaining the passage and leave only limited time for explicit application.

I would argue against using this approach very often because I think part of the job of a faithful preacher is not only to faithfully expound Scripture, but also to explicitly and directly call their congregation to live it out. But there are times when this approach to sermon application is useful. In general, if your text is direct in it’s application, then you can more likely use this sermon application philosophy effectively. For example, if you are preaching “let him who stole, steal no longer”, the application to your congregation is clear. You don’t need a whole “application section” of your sermon to show the text’s relevance to your Church. However, if you are preaching a text that does not have a clear application built in, you might need to use one of the following sermon application philosophies instead.

2. Apply the text as you go through each point

In this philosophy, after each point of exposition in your sermon, you apply that point to the congregation. Let’s say you had a three point sermon structure. You would apply each sermon point right after you teach that point, like you see below:

1. Point 1
   1. Application of point 1
2. Point 2
   1. Application of point 2
3. Point 3
   1. Application of point 3

The advantage of this approach is you are able to give the congregation practical applications throughout the length of the sermon. Additionally, this clear flow helps the Church remember each sermon point and its corresponding application(s). A Church member does not have to wait until the end of the sermon to start hearing and meditating on what the passage implies for their life. Rather, they are given multiple applications throughout the sermon based on each of the main points.

This approach shines when you have a complicated passage with several different main points in your sermon outline. If you are teaching on a large block of narrative, for example, and you extract several main ideas from the text, then you probably want to use this approach. Anytime you find in your sermon outline that there are more than one “main point” you find in the text, then you should likely think of applications for each of the main points. The downside of this approach is you can only do a limited amount of applications on any one point before your sermon becomes too long.

3. Sermon application at the end of the exposition

This philosophy of sermon application you readily find in Puritan sermons. In this approach, you spend the final section of your sermon applying the text your just preached. This type of sermon clearly separates exposition from application in it’s structure. If you used the three point example above, the sermon structure would become something like:

1. Point 1
2. Point 2
3. Point 3
4. Application
   1. Application of Point 1
   2. Application of Point 2
   3. Application of Point 3

You can see that in this philosophy of sermon application, the application is given as much weight as a single main sermon point. Additionally, the sermon application is the last thing your congregation hears since it is an extended final section of the sermon. Since you are applying all that you exposited in the sermon, you can apply not only your main points, but also apply combinations of those points.

This philosophy of sermon application allows you to spend the most time applying your text to your congregation. By spending the entire latter section of your sermon on application, you can approach text application from a lot of different angles and points of view. This method excels when you are expositing a shorter passage or a passage that has one overarching point to apply. If you can summarize the content of the passage in a single sentence without losing a lot of its nuance, then this sermon application method might be best. However, if you are dealing with a long, complicated, or multi-faceted passage, it might be best to use the “apply as you go” method

Summary of Sermon Application Philosophies

The table below summarizes the different philosophies of sermon application.

Type	Use when	Users of this philosophy
No structured application section	Text already has a clear application i.e. passages in epistles, Proverbs, Gospels, etc.	John MacArthur
Apply each point as you go	Text has multiple and distinct “main points” i.e. longer passages, narrative passages, complicated passages	Martin Lloyd-Jones, Charles Spurgeon
Application section at end of the sermon	Text can be effectively reduced to a single central point, when a text warrants extensive application i.e. shorter passages, simpler passages, 1-3 verse sections	J. C. Ryle, most every Puritan pastor

As I mentioned at the beginning, there is no “one size fits all” approach to how and were you apply the Biblical text in your sermon. Each of these philosophies excel in different contexts and Pastors should have each in their “tool box.” My recommendation is after spending time studying your text and outlining your sermon, look and see which of these sermon application methods makes the most sense for your particular sermon.

Clear and insightful application of a Biblical text is one of the marks of a good Preacher.

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