One thing is definitive for an expositional sermon: It lays out the meaning and purpose of a biblical text clearly. It says, “Here is the point of this text, and it’s relevant to you, no matter who you are, where you are from, or what’s happening in your life right now.” The preacher concentrates all his powers on reproducing the burden of the Bible in the hearts and minds of the people, and he avoids letting anything in his person get in the way of that goal. He’d rather risk boring or offending his congregation than depriving them of the opportunity to hear what God says… He knows that he gives his hearers a chance at true life only insofar as he succeeds in faithfully reproducing what God has already said.