Far too many preachers forget the most significant part of Sermon Prep and rush to choosing your sermon text. We should begin with prayer! Before you do anything else, consult the wisdom of the One who inspired the text we preach. After prayer, we can attempt multiple strategies for choosing your sermon text, but until you’ve consulted God, you’re not even ready to consider it.
Our prayer and Bible study time, which we do out of our loving desire to spend time with our best friend, Jesus, will inform this stage of sermon prep. Often, as I read through my devotional Bible reading, I’m inspired to preach a text I’ve read. Sometimes, I pray for the people who will listen to me preach, and God pricks my heart to the needs of those people. On the other hand, times come when it’s time to prepare a message, and I’ve got nothing. I don’t feel inspired, and nothing jumps out. What do I preach then? So, I pray, “Lord, give me the wisdom to understand what you want me to preach.” That prayer or something like it usually results in ideas within a day or so.
Please don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. Preachers need a deeper prayer life than a cursory request for wisdom moments before picking a text during sermon prep. We should, however, never move forward without at least that much prayer.
Preaching Calendar in Sermon Prep
Many preachers handle the “what do I preach?” problem with a preaching calendar they plan out for a given period. If I were more organized, I’d do this for a year like some preachers. I’m not, but I’ve heard of some approaches I’d recommend. You can use a calendar to help in choosing your sermon text.
- Preaching Calendar Retreat: Schedule a regular annual retreat where you’re away from ministry and can pray and plan for a year of preaching.
- Preaching Planning Team: Some pastors work with a staff that can collaborate to plan the year of preaching. They meet quarterly or monthly to work on this plan.
- As You Go: Many people follow this approach. I have to admit that I do. I keep a Word document (see above) with a table of four columns. The first shows the date of each Sunday of the year. The second column shows my Sunday morning messages. The second has the Sunday night messages. The fourth column has Wednesday night messages. I add to the calendar as ideas hit me. I pinned the document to the top of my OneDrive list of Word docs (see image below). Sometimes, the calendar holds months of planning; at other times, It may only contain a few weeks ahead. I also put holidays on this table in addition to special church events or holidays that affect my calendar.
- Preaching Through…: Many preachers pick a book of the Bible, a section of a book, or a list of passages on a topic and preach through them till they’re done.
If you use a different approach in your sermon prep, please leave a comment below, and I’ll update this list and give you credit.
Logos Sermon Manager in Sermon Prep
Logos 9 introduced a new tool called the Sermon Manager. The most recent update from Fall 2024 added some interesting new features. Use the Sermon Manager to organize your preaching calendar. Many users told me that the Sermon Manager inspired their upgrade when it first hit several years ago.
Open the Sermon Manager from the Tools Menu in Logos. A new window will open, showing your Sermon Manager. You’ll see a circle like the image above or a list like the image below. Logos calls those Radial View (above) or Week Grid (below).
Learn more about the Sermon Manager on the Logos support page. The video below is from the company’s YouTube channel. You’ll need to subscribe to Logos Pro, which you can do by using my Partner Link, and get an extra month free (that’s two free months to try it out).
If you Logos in sermon prep and to write your sermons then Faithlife Proclaim will take content from your semon, which you can then present during your church’s worship service, then you should seriously consider using the Sermon Manager and Sermon Builder. It all works together nicely.
A preaching calendar helps speed up your sermon prep because you don’t have to spend time looking for the next passage. It’s already on the list. It also helps you plan out your church discipleship.
I plan to make a full tutorial video and post about using both Sermon Manager and Sermon Builder in Logos Pro.
What is Expository Preaching?
Before you choose your sermon text, consider your preaching strategy. Expository preaching keeps your sermons Biblical in content, application, and format. Here’s what expository preaching is not.
- A running commentary on a verse
- Preaching through books of the Bible
- It’s boring because it sounds like a commentary (see the first two)
Some preachers prefer what we call topical preaching. This means they take a subject like Godly Parenting, develop some Biblical ideas, and then find passages that seem to support what they want to say about the topic. This sermon prep approach comes from public speaking theory, where a speaker selects a subject and then finds supporting material and arguments to prove the truth of their subject or explain the idea. These preachers mistakenly think they’re preaching Biblically, but the source of “truth” is their minds, and the Bible is a prop in this play.
A preacher once said that Jesus preached topically. While that may seem true since we don’t often hear him saying, “The scriptures (law, Torah, etc) says…”. He does say that, but not a lot. However, Jesus is divine; therefore, every word he said was Scripture. Until I can claim divine inspiration for every word of my sermons, I better take a different approach. I should let the Bible speak for me and attempt to make all of my words focused on the primary message of a passage of scripture. That is expository preaching. It takes the passage, explains what it means, illustrates the meaning, proves the truth using scripture and common sense, and then applies the truth to life.
For more details on developing an idea, check out my articles on sermon development.
Choosing Your Sermon Text or Texts for Topical Preaching
If you still want to preach a topical message, you can use Logos. I wrote about choosing passages for topical sermons using Logos Bible Software. That article used the Bible Word Study Guide or the Topical Guide in Logos to find a good sermon subject. You can follow that approach, but I don’t recommend using it often. It’s easy to run afoul of Biblical truth and makes for lazy preachers.
Logos includes five different Guides that a Topical Preacher might want to look at as they choose topics for sermons. Find them under the Guides menu in Logos. You’ll need to scroll down to the Guides section of that menu. They are…
- Sermon Starter Guide – enter a topic, and it will find content from your library about that topic that you can use to write a sermon. It shows you key verses, sermons, sermon outlines, and themes from topic-based tools in Logos.
- Theology Guide – focuses on theological tools and shows results in theological topics, key verses, entries in systematic theological books, and other kinds of books.
- Topic Guide – like the other guides, it finds topics from topic-based books and tools. It gives a more comprehensive list, so you should usually start here.
- Bible Word Study Guide – this guide focuses more on the meaning of a word and searching for it in dictionaries and lexicons.
- Counseling Guide – this guide will help if you’re trying to preach on a theme related to counseling, like marriage or burnout.
I would start with the Topic Guide and then jump to the Sermon Starter Guide. If you need a more narrow search, then use one of the other three.
Expository Preaching is the Best Approach Most of the Time
There are times and places for topical sermons, but they’re rare. Preach expository 98-100% of the time. A topical survey of texts during a Bible study might work at times. Instead, I’d advise creating a sermon series of five texts focused on a topic. Five sermons let you go deeper and avoid creating a sermon or study that’s mostly your opinion instead of God’s divinely inspired word.
I don’t have the space to look at all the benefits of expository preaching versus topical preaching. Check out LifeWay’s helpful list of 9 Benefits of Expository Preaching by Tony Merida. However, let me quickly define what I mean by Expository Preaching. Expository preaching includes the following:
- One single text that dominates the sermon’s content.
- The main message comes out of the text. Some call this the Big Idea, as Haddon Robinson did in Biblical Preaching.
- The text will also dominate the tone and style of preaching. Poetry should have a poetic feel, while narrative should include the story as a primary part of the sermon. Texts with a positive tone should not result in a harsh sermon with a negative tone.
- The preacher will explain, illustrate, prove and apply the text’s Big Idea.
- Visual passages should include visual imagery in the sermon. Appeal to all the senses that the text appeals to as you preach.
That final item helps us preach creatively. Let the creativity of Biblical writers guide your creativity as you prepare your sermon.
Choosing Your Sermon Text – What Kind of Passage?
Your expository preaching can include the following:
- A single passage or pericope of scripture, like a sermon I recently preached on John 13:31-35.
- Part of a book like The Sermon on the Mount or Jesus’ Farewell Discourse in John. This will become a series of expository sermons.
- A full book of the Bible, like John’s Epistles or the book of Ezekiel.
I’ve preached using all three approaches, taking anywhere from a single message on a passage to multiple years covering the book of Ezekiel. Recently, I preached on John 13:31-35 but I’m not preaching through John or the Farewell Discourse of Jesus in John’s Gospel. I’ve preached through the Sermon on the Mount, but not through the book of Matthew … yet. And I once preached through all three of John’s letters. All of the above sermons or series of sermons were expository sermons. I covered a single pericope in each sermon and let the passage dictate the Big Idea, tone, style, and sensory appeal. Every sermon tried to explain, illustrate, prove, and apply the main idea and supporting ideas.
Choosing Your Sermon Text Using Logos Bible Software in Sermon Prep
Bible software often includes tools that will help you choose your sermon text. For example, Logos Bible Software enables you to find passages about a given topic. Choosing your sermon text includes a few steps as follows:
- Pray.
- Choose a passage or choose a theological idea.
- Find a scripture section covering that idea if that’s your approach. You can also choose a section of the scripture that might include themes you need to cover with your congregation.
- Narrow the text and pick the specific verses to preach in a single sermon or for each of a series of sermons.
Assume you’re choosing a book to preach. For example, if I choose to preach through the book of Hebrews because I want to help my congregation understand the theology behind Jesus as the Passover Lamb and High Priest of our faith, then I will of course begin in Hebrews 1:1.
Some preachers like to preach through a book by first giving an introduction to the message. They will preach a single sermon that hits the highlights of the overall message of a book. I don’t like this approach because it isn’t the way the author of Hebrews intended his readers to read his letter. It’s possible a local church pastor read the book and said something like, “We received this letter from (fill in the blank with your pick for the author of the book of Hebrews, like Luke) and in the book, he wrote…” at which point he summarizes the book. But he will then read the opening verses of the book. Did he stop and summarize? Possibly, but we can’t be sure how each local pastor read the book. I’ve always assumed he just read the letter out loud.
Now the preacher needs to decide what verse to start with and what verse to end with. The first sermon will begin with Hebrews 1:1. Will the sermon end with verse four as the HCSB, Lexham English Bible, or NRSV divides it? Should we preach the entire chapter, which is how the NIV, ESV, or NASB lays out the text?
Consult multiple translations and look at the way it divides the pericope. A pericope is a section of scripture. Think about how a modern translation divides chapters into sections with a heading before each section (see the above screenshot). That’s a pericope. The original text didn’t divide the passage this way. Modern translators made it easier for contemporary readers to understand what each section talks about by adding a summary heading.
Don’t rely too much on translation divisions or verse and chapter divisions, which the original writers didn’t include either.
You can turn off the headings in Logos by opening the Reformat menu under Formatting. Check the Bible text option and then uncheck Non-bible text. See the image below.
Instead of relying on the pericope divisions alone, read the text without them and go by subject. How does the author move from one idea to another, one story to another, and one message to another?
Key Tools for Choosing Your Sermon Text for Expository Preaching
I can pick the verses to include in my sermon using the above tools to find a text. I start by reading the text in context multiple times. In Logos, open your favorite translation. Go to your library by clicking the Library button on the toolbar. If you want only to see Bibles, click on the Bible facet (see #2 above) and then choose your Bible from the list on the right. You can drag the Bible to your toolbar so it’s always available with one click. Or click in the Command Box (see #3 above) and type Go to John 13:31-35 or whatever text you want to study.
Read the text in context as follows:
- Narrative: Read the story and read those passages before and after. If possible, read the entire book to see how it fits into the whole story.
- Poetry: Find the poem’s beginning and end in the context of a greater passage, then read the parts before and after the poem. Psalms are a single unit of text, so just read the chapter.
- Proverbs: Read the chapter and decide if your Proverb is part of a collection of Proverbs about a single subject. If so, then pay attention to the other Proverbs about this topic. If it’s not part of a section of Proverbs on a single topic, read your single Proverb (note that some Proverbs might include multiple verses).
- Didactic: Teaching passages like the epistles require us to find the letter’s overall argument and then look for this particular part of the argument to find how your text fits in the overall argument. This overall argument might include the entire book or a large section of the book, like Romans 1-11 or Ephesians 1-3.
- Prophetic: Find the overall prophecy, often in the poetic genre and other times as part of a narrative. One prophetic message will become one preaching text.
- Legal: Read laws in the context of their overall application, like laws about the priesthood in Leviticus or the feast days, etc., and choose your text based on this overall section.
You can do this in any software. Logos doesn’t do it better or worse than any other program. You can even do it in a paper Bible (shudder to imagine it).
Using the Passage Analysis Tool in Logos While Choosing Your Sermon Text
Checking out multiple translations can help you choose your sermon text during sermon prep. The Passage Analysis Tool in Logos Bible Software helps you choose the verses to include in your sermon.
Go to Tools and click on Passage Analysis. Type your passage into the command box in the upper left corner. It will visually show the boundaries of the various pericopes in your top translations. You might need to click on Compare Pericopes in the lower left corner.
Next to the command box, you’ll see a drop-down box that reads Pericope Sets. Click it to choose your translations by putting a check in the check box of your preferred translations. If you own too many books with pericopes, you may need to scroll to show them all. (What is a pericope?)
After you choose your translations in the previous step, they will appear in columns in order of your library rankings. Along the left, you’ll see links to the text that you can click to open your preferred Bible to that verse.
The columns will show boxes that represent a pericope. For example, in the image above, notice that the ESV (dark blue column on the left) has more pericopes than the NLT (green column third from the right above). Click on a pericope title in one of the boxes, and it opens in your top translation, but not that specific translation that you clicked. I’d expect it to open in that translation, but it doesn’t. It opens in your favorite translation.
How does this help you choose your text? You can see how all the various translation teams chose to break up the pericopes. They often vary wildly, as in our chosen passage in John 13 above. The ESV, HCSB, NKJV, NRSV, and UBS4 all agree that John 13:31-35 forms a single unit or pericope. However, the NASB, NIV 1984, and NLT all include John 13:31-38. If you scroll up, you’ll see that all but the NASB 1995 agree that the pericope begins with verse 31 (see below).
The two steps above should help you find a single pericope. You can probably preach a single sermon on that passage. Or it may take too long to preach in a single message, and you break it up into a series that covers over a few weeks.
Using the Sermon Starter Guide in Logos While Choosing Your Sermon Text
If you still can’t choose which verse to include in your expository sermon, consider firing up the Logos Sermon Starter Guide. Thanks to Graham Criddle in the Logos forums for this suggestion.
You’ll find it under Guides/Workflows on the toolbar. Click on Sermon Starter Guide. This opens the guide to the passage in your open Bible. You can type in your text and run the guide, a helpful tool in sermon prep with Logos.
For this step of the sermon prep, we’ll focus on three sections of the Sermon Starter Guide: Sermons, Sermon Outlines, and Outline sections. Your guide might present them differently, because I edited mine.
Under each, you can see how other preachers or scholars have divided the passage, preached it, or handled it in a commentary. You’ll have to own books that include these three kinds of information. Open them and read over them to see what these other preachers chose as their text.
At this early stage, be careful to use these tools only as a guide for picking your sermon text. Please don’t read too much of the content because it might push you in the wrong direction and keep you from discovering your own Big Idea or sermon thesis. You can return to it later when you’ve finished your own inductive Bible study of the passage.
Use Propositional Outlines in Logos While Choosing Your Sermon Text
Logos includes something called Propositional Outlines. Look under the Formatting tab in your Bible. Select Reformat and then check Propositional Outlines from the list. Your Bible text will now look like the screenshot below. Look how this helps simplify your sermon prep.
Notice that we have one section labeled with a Topic introduced in verse one. Everything in the rest of verse one through verse three branches off the introduction of a new topic at the beginning of verse one. Hover over the labels in the left hand column to see a popup box that explains the concept for each line in the outline. You will see a new topic in verse four.
The visual arrangement of the text helps us see the flow of thought and youc an use these outlines to help you in selecting a text.
Select the First and Final Verse for Your Sermon
Now that you’ve looked at the text in multiple translations, checked out the Passage Analysis Tool, reviewed the Sermon Starter Guide, and looked at the Propositional Outline of the passage, it’s time to jump to the the end of this first phase of sermon prep. You will pick the beginning and end of the text.
You’ll want to consider another issue in our sermon prep: How much can you cover in the time given? I preach in Baptist Churches, and the people typically expect 25—to 35-minute sermons. I can stretch that to 45 minutes on occasion. Sometimes, I can get away with preaching for 45 minutes.
Based on the research above, choose the first and final verses and stick with your choice. Prayer will also help throughout the process, before, during, and after you prepare to preach. Use the above tools and your prayer time to help you get close.
Consider the following:
- What are the subject units of an argument in the didactic passages, like the epistles? Try not to divide them.
- Avoid dividing Psalms or stories.
- It’s better to keep these kinds of passages together in one sermon and cover them more broadly than to divide them and go deeper.
- If you must divide thought units, review them extensively at the beginning of subsequent sermons to show how the following message fits into the overall context.
Pick a Book or Longer Passage to Preach
The above steps help preachers pick a passage for a single sermon. How do we find longer passages or books to preach in a sermon series using Logos Bible Software? You’ll still use the above techniques to divide a book of the Bible or a section of a book, like the Sermon on the Mount, into sermons.
You may find that an entire section will make up a good sermon series through a chapter of the Bible. For example, let’s say you searched for a passage on prayer. You opened the Sermon Starter Guide and typed in Prayer. It returned the Lexham Theological Workbook. You opened it and found John 15:7. You decide to cover the idea of remaining in Jesus from John 15 instead of only verse 7. You’ll do this over a series of weeks.
Maybe you would like to preach through a book of the Bible. Search for some topics that you’re concerned about in your church. Use the following steps to search through your commentaries. If you don’t already have a Logos Collection that includes your commentaries, create one using the steps in the company’s helpful Logos Pro Training.
Open the Logos Search feature from the search button on the toolbar. Choose a Basic search and then click the link labeled Everything. Type the name of your new Collection in the box that pops up. Click it from the list below the search box. Now click in the Search box and type the topic. You’ll find commentaries that include that word. Focus on the Introduction sections of the commentaries. You may find that a book of the Bible talks a lot about a topic. Consider preaching through one of those books based on this search method.
Plan Out Your Sermons in Sermon Manager
Use the Sermon Manager in Logos to record your preaching plan. Enter as much information for each sermon you add in the Sermon Manager. You can always edit this and add more later. At the very least enter the Passage, Occasion, and any notes to remind you what the passage generally says. If you know your’re preaching through a book or an extended passage, put that in the Series section.