Dear Pastor, Sermon Prep Is Worth the Effort

This article is part of the Dear Pastor series.

Dear Pastor,

Sometimes it can be hard to remember that in the Lord’s goodness and grace he has called us to take up the most significant and fulfilling task in the world—to be a pastor-teacher, an under-shepherd of God’s flock. Life in the ministry is so demanding. In my study I have two framed cartoons, both given to me by friends. One cartoon pictures the pastor at his desk, surrounded by books and papers, with his wife entering the room with still more papers. “Smile!” she says. “God loves you, and everyone else has a wonderful plan for your life.” In the other cartoon, the pastor is on his phone saying, “No, Thursday is no good for me either. How about never? Is never good for you?”

Plenty of people to set your agenda, innumerable demands pastorally, increasing amounts of administration, personal family concerns—they all have the potential to send stress levels rocketing. But perhaps the greatest danger is their ability to divert us from our main priority, memorably encapsulated in Paul’s parting charge to Timothy: “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” (2 Tim. 4:2).

So how is your preaching these days? It can so easily become just one of the many things we have to do that it almost imperceptibly slips down our order of priorities so that we find preaching becoming more of a burden than a delight. If that happens, we shall inevitably spend less time in preparation, recycle more old material, look for the shortcuts and the well-worn illustrations, and generally scramble together what we hope may be an “uplifting” message for Sunday morning. But these things ought not to be so! We need to find a permanent way out of the traumas of Saturday night fever, which so many pastors suffer.

The indispensable requirement for consistent fruitfulness and fulfillment in ministry is schedule control. The most important issue to decide is what you will invest your time in, because that reveals what your actual priorities are in practice, irrespective of your theoretical stance. We need to thoughtfully and prayerfully revisit our time commitments, reestablish what really matters most in our lives and ministries, and then make the necessary changes and stick to them. Those precious minutes every Sunday morning, when you open God’s word to God’s people, are the most important and influential means by which you can exercise the spiritual leadership and pastoral care responsibilities to which God has called you. For the rest of the week, God’s sheep are deluged and often overwhelmed by the unremitting messages and demands of a fallen world and a hostile culture. Yet for that precious half-hour or so, we have most of our people together in order to teach and apply the living and enduring word of the Lord, to stimulate a deepening desire to know Christ better, and to empower them to live and work for his praise and glory through the days of the coming week.

But how can that happen? First, make a solid commitment to your preaching being expository—a faithful explanation of the Bible’s text. Then, schedule in your weekly calendar the time needed to enable you to do the necessary work. When I was pastoring a growing church, I made it my resolve to give ten hours a week (two and a half hours on each day, Tuesday through Friday) for my preparation time. That was a fixed appointment time with the Lord in his word, which would only be changed if there was a genuine emergency. I explained to my congregation that I would be serving them best if I fed them the nourishing word week by week, but that I could not do that without its preparation dominating my morning routines. Effective expository ministry requires adequate time, good energy, and hard work.

The most important issue to decide is what you will invest your time in, because that reveals what your actual priorities are in practice, irrespective of your theoretical stance.

The essence of expository preaching is that the Bible is in the driver’s seat, both in the textual content of the sermon and its intended transformational purpose. The application is already inherent in the text, but it has to be drawn out so that the hearers understand and become convinced of its implications for life. Exposition addresses the mind as the truth is identified, stated and explained. It moves to the heart, where it has to be received in faith for obedience. It energizes the will so that as the Spirit teaches the meaning of the word, he also stimulates and enables the hearer to respond in practical action. This is best achieved by preaching consecutively through whole books or major sections with the great advantage that individual passages are then always being related to the wider context. In this approach, both the preacher and the hearers are learning to understand Scripture in the way that God has chosen to give it to us—whole books, each with its own distinctive message and contribution to the overall metanarrative. Understanding and interpretation increase incrementally by working on a book consecutively and consistently, week by week, so that its message becomes increasingly clear and powerful. For the preacher, it provides daily spiritual refreshment through the preparation process; and for the congregation, a growing appreciation that “all Scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable . . . ” (2 Tim 3:16).

Perhaps an example pattern may help. In my first preparation session, I would work at the exegesis of the text. What is it actually saying? Sometimes I would be met with surprises and often with difficulties. But as my understanding of the text in its context grew, I was able to work towards a summary or theme sentence, which provided me with a statement of what I must teach in order to be faithful to this Scripture. Moving on, in session two I would study the significance of the text. If this is the meaning, then what is its aim? Why has it been written for us? What changes does it require in our thinking and behavior? What are its implications? In the third session, I would concentrate on the structure of the sermon and its strategy. What will be my main points and how am I going to seek to engage my hearers with the implications of this Scripture’s teaching? My final session would be devoted to thinking out exactly what I wanted to say and how to say it, together with the illustrations, introduction, and conclusion. Then I would write up my notes. All of this would be begin with prayer, continue with prayer, and conclude in prayer, because unless the Lord builds the house, we labor in vain.

Preaching can be many things—entertaining, rhetorically impressive, academic, performance-oriented. But in my privileged fifty years of ministry around the world, I have observed over and again that the churches which are strong, stable, and growing are those that are built on consistent, faithful expository ministry. You don’t have to emulate popular preachers or try to be like them; you have to be yourself in Christ. First, sit humbly under God’s word yourself in your study time, applying it to your own life and then prayerfully depending on the Lord to empower your proclamation. Through the work of his own life-giving Spirit, he will be faithful in developing, refining, and using your preaching for his glory and the blessing of your hearers.

Jesus told his disciples, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is of no avail. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:63). There can be no greater privilege or responsibility than to be a messenger of the life-giving word. So let us not squander what God has given us. Yes, it is hard work. But as we proclaim Christ, “warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom,” it is so that “we may present everyone mature in Christ” (Col. 1:28–29). Paul’s testimony begins with “for this I toil, struggling . . . ”—but he triumphantly concludes—“with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.” If we will embrace his priority, that can be our experience too.

David Jackman is the author of Proclaiming the Word: Principles and Practices for Expository Preaching.

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