I used to end almost every sermon the same way. After nailing the exegesis and making the theological case, I'd then tell people how to live it out this week. It looked something like this: 1) Pray with fervor. 2) Trust God when things get difficult. 3) Don't forget to give thanks.
Those might very well have been true, but they just aren't specific enough. What does praying with fervor look like on Wednesday during the board meeting? What does trusting God in difficulty look like when your son is lonely and doesn't want to leave his room? How can someone cultivate a practice of giving thanks?
Without specificity, my application was more like a suggestion. And suggestions don't make it home from church and into daily practice.
I was strong on content as most seminary-trained pastors are. What I didn't see for years was how often my application landed soft. True, biblical, and forgettable by Tuesday. "We all struggle with idolatry" is a sentence nobody argues with and nobody remembers. It touches everyone and changes no one.
Here's the test I run now, every week, before I preach: I picture one real person in the room. One person, in one situation, this Sunday. Then write the sentence in a way that would make that person sit up.
Example: Trusting God — "If you're the dad who can't stop checking work email at the dinner table, this text is speaking directly to you. Close the computer or put your phone down as an act of worship to God." That's a different impact than "we all struggle with idolatry." It's narrower, and it's also the only version that actually lands.
The gap between those two examples is the whole ballgame. One application is true in general. The other is true of somebody, this week, in the room who needs to hear from God and be shown how to live it out.
Preach to the one person you can see, not a nameless crowd you're guessing at.