How to Land the Sermon
Most preachers spend the least time on the part that matters most
It was 1992. The world’s attention had turned to Barcelona for the Summer Olympic Games, and Derek Redmond was one of the athletes who had boarded the plane with everything on the line. Four years earlier, an Achilles tendon injury had forced him out of the same race. This year was supposed to be different.
Derek was running the 400 meters. His father Jim had made the trip with him, and the two had agreed: no matter what happened, Derek was going to finish the race.
At the starting block, Derek cleared his mind, let the noise of the crowd fade, and waited for the gun. The shot fired. He was in full stride, sitting in second place, all but assured of advancing to the next round. And then it happened.
A loud pop. Excruciating pain tearing through his right leg. He went down immediately — his hamstring had torn. Kneeling on the track, tears streaming, he realized that once again he would not compete for a medal.
He surrendered to that thought for only a moment. Then he pulled himself to his feet.
As the medical staff rushed the track, Derek waved them off. He wanted to finish. The cameras caught it all — including the desperate figure of a man in the background pushing past security and running toward him. It was Jim. He reached his son, put his arms around him, and told him he didn’t have to finish. Derek wouldn’t hear it. So Jim said the only thing left to say: “We will finish the race together.”
The crowd was standing, cheering, weeping. The race was over. Everyone else had finished. But every eye in the stadium was on Derek and Jim as they crossed the finish line together. Derek didn’t win a medal that day. But he won every heart in that place.
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The Finish Is What Makes It Worth Telling
Yes, that story is about the human spirit. Yes, it highlights the resolve of someone who refused to let adversity stop him. But the reason anyone tells that story at all is because of how it ended. The conclusion is what makes the story worth telling.
Preaching works the same way. The finish is everything. And the problem is, most preachers spend the least amount of time on their conclusions. They pour energy into the study, the outline, the illustrations — and then trail off at the end because they ran out of time, ran out of energy, or never planned the landing in the first place.
If you can learn to end well, you can make up for a certain amount of deficiencies in the first part of the sermon.
That’s not an exaggeration. A sermon with a mediocre opening but a powerful conclusion will leave people moved. A sermon with a brilliant opening that fizzles at the end will leave people confused. The last thing they hear is the thing they carry out the door.
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What a Good Conclusion Does
A conclusion is a final summation of your thoughts. But it’s more than a summary — it’s the moment of the sermon’s purpose being fulfilled. Everything you’ve built has been leading here. The introduction opened the door. The body walked them through it. The conclusion tells them what to do now that they’re on the other side.
A good conclusion reviews the sermon’s main idea and key points — not by rehashing everything, but by crystallizing it. It applies the truth directly to people’s lives so they can see themselves in it. And it gives clear direction: what decision should be made, what step should be taken, in response to what they’ve just heard from the Word of God.
Without all three — review, application, and direction — the conclusion is incomplete. You’ve built the plane but never landed it.
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The 10-80-10 Rule
Here’s a practical framework that has shaped the way I think about sermon proportion: 10-80-10. Ten percent of your time for the introduction. Eighty percent for the body. Ten percent for the conclusion. In a thirty-minute sermon, that means your conclusion gets about three to four minutes.
That may not sound like much. But a well-crafted three minutes will do more than a rambling ten. The issue isn’t time — it’s intentionality. Most weak conclusions aren’t too short. They’re unplanned.
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Four Non-Negotiables
Dr. Ben Awbrey identifies four things that must be true of any effective conclusion, and I’ve found them to be a reliable checklist:
It must be composed through careful preparation. The conclusion is the most important part of the sermon. It deserves your best effort in crafting — every word, every phrase, every designed layout. This is not where you wing it.
It must be unmistakably personal in its aim. No vague, pie-in-the-sky generalities. The conclusion has to touch people right where they are. If you can’t explain how something is relevant to your audience, don’t share it. Be specific. Be concise. Be direct.
It must bring the message to a fitting end. The audience should feel a sense of finality. No loose ends. No trailing off. No leaving them with unanswered questions or confused expressions. The conclusion says, “This is where we’ve arrived, and here is what it means.”
It must affect the will and emotions of the hearers. A conclusion that only informs but doesn’t move is a missed opportunity. People should feel something — conviction, hope, urgency, tenderness — and that feeling should lead them toward a decision.
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Planned, Not Performed
One of the best things you can do for your conclusion is know it well enough to deliver it from memory. Not because memorization is inherently better, but because when you’re free from your notes in the final moments of the sermon, you can look your people in the eye. You can make the application personal. You can read the room and respond to what the Spirit is doing.
That kind of freedom doesn’t come from improvisation. It comes from preparation so thorough that the words are already in you. The conclusion should feel spontaneous to the listener. But behind that feeling is a preacher who planned every step of the landing.
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Finish the Race
Derek Redmond’s story didn’t become legendary because of how fast he ran. It became legendary because of how he finished. With a torn hamstring. In tears. Leaning on his father.
Your sermons will be remembered the same way — not for how they started, but for how they ended. Did you land it? Did you give your people something clear to respond to? Did you bring the truth home in a way they could carry into Monday morning?
Preaching is all about finishing well.
So this week, don’t leave the conclusion for last. Start there. Build toward it. Know exactly where you’re taking your people, and then take them there with everything you’ve got.
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Learn the full process.
The conclusion is the finish line — but a great sermon is built from the ground up. The Clear Preaching email course covers everything from finding your sermon idea to constructing the introduction, body, and conclusion with clarity and purpose.
Start the free course at clearpreaching.com.
