In June 2020 I was encouraged (and a little bit convicted) while re-reading “Preach” by Mark Dever, and Greg Gilbert.
The conviction came from a renewed understanding that preaching is what God called me to do…..
And I didn’t give it the respect it deserves
Ministry is busy! So if we aren’t careful we can become caught up running from one task to the next, and overlook the incredibly important task of sermon prep.
I found myself in the past trying to put together a sermon for Sunday during Saturday. There’s nothing sinful about this, but experience taught that leads to a poor sermon because it hasn’t been prayed over, thought through, and personally applied to life.
The thing is sermon preps hard work!
So it’s easy to put that off till later….
and then later…….
until Saturdays come and you aren’t ready!
The point isn’t actually when we put together our sermon. But the effort and time we put into our sermons. The sermon we preach on Sunday must be well-crafted to clearly proclaim God’s truth. More than once I’ve brought a half-done sermon into the pulpit, and immediately regretted it!
I’m thankful for this book because it reminded me the hard work of sermon prep must take place during the week if I expect God to use it on Sunday.
Johnhwilburn.org 