God’s Word is powerful, and when preached clearly and applied pertinently it can change lives. Yet preaching does not always have this impact. When it is concerned merely with teaching information, it can leave congregations unmoved, and when it sacrifices substance for relevance, it short-changes the power of the text.

For preaching to truly change lives, biblical faithfulness and insightful application must work together—a powerful combination.

Murray Capill helps preachers to shape sermons that impact lives with the lasting application. He takes preachers through the “living application” preaching process—moving the Word of God, via the life of the preacher, to the lives of the hearers. His model avoids the pitfalls of tacked-on application and enables preachers to aim at the heart from start to finish, and he outlines how they can do so in some specific preaching challenges. Here are the tools to systematically explore the application potential of any text, in any situation.