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The article in the paper told about one of the most influential couples in our county—both of them pastors. It said their church was abuzz with excitement and that the pastors "talk frankly to the church members about the challenges of living a godly life." (Right on, I thought.) Then a recent sermon was summarized. "He [the pastor] said couples have to learn to be patient with each other, accept each other as they are and stop trying so hard to change each other." The other pastor warned men "of women who just want a husband because his looks, assets, and career complement her image." The story said, "Such messages resonated and more people started attending the church."

Reporters don't always do justice to sermons, so maybe that is the case here, but if that report captures the essence of those sermons, they are messages that need to walk the sawdust trail, messages that need a "Come to Jesus" experience; they need an altar call. They are sermons that need to be redeemed.

We hear all the time that people want practical sermons—sermons that tell them how to live life. And what pastor doesn't want to preach such sermons? Who wants to preach impractical, out-of-touch-with-life sermons? So pastors prepare sermons about winning over worry, raising healthy kids, or finding financial freedom. We try to help the scriptural rubber get traction on the road of life.

It's not that sermons like the one reported in the paper aren't useful. Not long ago I channel-surfed into a TV preacher saying some of the same kinds of things about marriage that the reporter heard, and I needed the reminder. But the sermon seemed closer to Dr. Phil than Paul. Jesus wasn't really called in until the end, in case someone wanted to be saved.

All Scripture is practical

Let's get something straight: all Scripture is practical. The Bible is a how-to book from Genesis to Revelation. And every sermon from Scripture ought to be a useful how-to sermon. A thousand times, I've reminded myself of Paul's promise, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is profitable…."

The problem seems to be that the Bible spills a lot of ink on how to do and how to think things that many folks tend to find impractical. God gives us the Book of Romans, for example, and some preachers smile indulgently and nod as we would toward an old man telling us how it was during the Depression. "Lots of interesting stuff there, no doubt about that, but not very practical. Maybe we can find a sermon there in chapter 12 about dealing with difficult people, or in chapter 13 about good citizenship, but there's a lot there in those 16 chapters that isn't…well, handy." We ought to be ashamed!

"Just tell me what you want me to do," we say. "Get to the bullet points." K.I.S.S. Give me a story with a vivid moral. Give me a command in ten words or less, like, "Be kind to one another." Now there's a text that gives a preacher some elbow room! Preachers pick a theme, pull up our Bible software, do a search on the keyword (wealth, time, patience, rest) and—bingo!—we've got our sermon. All that's left are some good illustrations.

The Bible is counterintuitive

God's Word can seem impractical, I suppose, because it is so counterintuitive to the natural man. If we speak to unsaved people (whom we've taken to calling seekers, whether they are or not), a how-to sermon must almost be the same as a do-it-yourself sermon. Otherwise, they may turn us off. And if that happens—if we just give inspirational pep talks—we've turned sermons into mere seminars.

Even God's people, duller than they imagine to spiritual realities, may like sermons that cut to the chase. "What am I supposed to do," they say, having a far higher view of their capacity to do right than they should. They are often quite content—even excited—by sermons of the turn-over-a-new-leaf variety. They hear, for example, that "couples need to be more patient with each other," nod a little, silent amen, laugh at the preacher's close-to-home illustration, and feel they've gotten their money's worth from the sermon.

But the fact is, such a sermon is not practical at all. When my doctor tells me that by losing weight I would enjoy all kinds of benefits, that's not actually a practical message, either. The really practical sermon is not the one that tells me what successful living looks like, but how in the world we, with all our weaknesses, excuses, and distractions, can possibly do it. Hearing that I ought to be patient with my wife is a good reminder, no doubt about it, but I need to know how.

We need how-to sermons that understand the dark interior of our lives and the mysterious ways of God, and that's where the Bible comes in. When that pastor said that couples "need to stop trying to change each other," some bold soul in that church should have jumped up and shouted, "How?!" And then the pastor could have taken up his Bible and said, "Let's open to my text for today: Philippians 2."

The touchpoints of redeemed sermons

Redeemed sermons help people understand that practical improvements in life start with God's work in our minds and hearts. We've come to think that no sermon is worth its salt if it doesn't clearly answer the application question, "What do you want me to do?" But a lot of Bible passages only say: Here's how you need to think. If our minds are renewed (not just informed, but renewed), the doing will come naturally.

Redeemed sermons are always and inevitably, at least in some part, doctrinal sermons. There is a reason why all of Paul's epistles are frontloaded with doctrine to set up the "practical application." There are at least four key doctrinal touchpoints that must be evident in varying degrees in redeemed sermons.

• Sin frustrates our best intentions. I remember stewing in our dark living room late one night after a jolting argument with my wife. What went wrong? I wondered. Did I need more listening skills? Had we forgotten to "document our observations"? Then it hit me: we fought because we were sinning. We were selfish—or at least I certainly was. And James the Just elbowed his way into my thoughts: "What causes fights and quarrels among you?" he barked. It's usually my wife, I muttered defensively; "No!" old camel-knees shouted back. "Don't they come from your desires that battle within you?" In a word, sin.

Our failures with money or kids or ecology aren't primarily because we're unenlightened, but because we're sinners. If it isn't our sin at the root of the problem, you can be sure it is someone else's. Whether we are victim or perpetrator, sin is why it's "not the way it's supposed to be."

If a sermon is to be truly practical, we had better address the reality of sin and explain repentance as one of the Bible's most practical secrets.

• Grace is more potent than law. "Practical" sermons are sometimes nothing more than legalism in comfortable jeans. If a sermon ultimately comes down to "shape up or ship out," to do-it-yourself morality, we are no better than those Pharisaical whited sepulchers who heaped burdens on helpless parishioners. We're spreading the old contagion of the Law and smiling while we do it. The Law tells us the right things to do, to be sure, and the very things God wants of us, but ultimately, the Law is only good for helping us face our weakness and sin. To tell people "to accept each other as they are" is a crippling law if we don't tie it to the grace of God.

Redeemed sermons are full of grace found through Christ. God's "love that wilt not let me go" sets me free to be patient, generous, or prayerful for the sheer love of the Lord. By preaching grace in practical sermons, we give people God's freedom to shake off the failures dog-piled on top of them and start fresh.

• Christlike behavior is powered by the indwelling Holy Spirit. Practical Christian sermons ought to ask more of people than mortals can rightfully do. More sacrifice, more gentleness, more wisdom, more boldness. As agents of Christ in the world—his hands and feet—we are equipped with inward supernatural potency thanks to the Holy Spirit. Practical sermons have a way of saying, "Don't try this on your own!" Practical sermons teach people to pray, because it is through prayer that we engage the Spirit to wrap our wills around the Word of God.

Christians have in the Holy Spirit more power than they know what to do with. Preachers teach them how to delight the Spirit, to respond to his promptings and convicting, to pray, confident of his intercession, and to enlist his mighty aid.

• Christians live by faith for treasures kept safely out of view. Practical sermons emphasize sanctified, deferred gratification. We help people see how practical and profitable it is to be the servant of all, to forgo treasures on Earth, or to be salt and light even when it is painful. A solid how-to sermon gives people a view of Mt. Zion and teaches people how to be certain of what we do not see.

Again, for the walk of faith, one of the most practical things we can teach people is how to pray and how to worship. We teach them the spiritual disciplines and graces and, like that poetic pilot, we "slip the surly bonds of Earth and touch the face of God."

Putting it all together

If we had to piece all these things together every Sunday on our own, we'd be up a homiletical creek. Too much to remember! But actually all we need to do is simply preach the text. Every text of Scripture—every how-to principle, command or promise—is tethered to the tent peg of a nearby doctrine. Our task as preachers is simply to let the Bible speak in paragraphs and passages rather than in sound bites. We aren't helping anyone when we preach some biblical principle—a sacred bottom line—without walking them down the path from the unique Christian doctrine nearby.

This is the chief reason I believe so strongly in expository preaching. I do not mean by that what some mean—a verse-by-verse commentary with the prayer tag, "And now may the Holy Spirit apply these truths to our lives." Rather, I mean redeemed, how-to sermons that dig into everyday life but have been to the altar to face sin, and to find grace, the Spirit's power, and heaven-bound faith.

Lee Eclov recently retired after 40 years of local pastoral ministry and now focuses on ministry among pastors. He writes a weekly devotional for preachers on Preaching Today.