Picture a lone prospector peering into a cave on a barren Arizona mountainside. He has heard “there is gold in them thar hills” so with nothing more than some grub, a lamp, and a pickaxe he has come to this mountain looking for a vein of gold. He lights his lamp and heads into the darkness in hope of striking it rich.
Preparing to preach is like that. For most of us it is quiet, solitary prospecting. In school we learned how to study the Bible, the pickaxe work. Diligent study is harder and longer than most people imagine. If we are decent preachers the Word seems so clear by the time our people hear it they might be inclined to think that we just found scriptural nuggets glittering on the ground.
When we prepare our souls as well as our texts, Jesus walks with us incognito, the way He did with the two Emmaus-bound disciples in Luke 24.
As difficult as study is, I at least know what I am doing in that realm. I was taught well in the skills of exegesis, hermeneutics, and homiletics. But intertwined with our preparation of the Word is the weekly preparation of our own souls. I do not know which part takes longer but soul work for me is more unpredictable and often troublesome.
Once I asked several pastors just exactly how they prayed for their sermons. A common response was, “Well, before I start I ask GOD to help me and to bless my work. Then I get at it.” That is a good start but it does not have much to do with the preparation of our souls. Apart from suffering, sermon preparation is the most rigorous soul work I know. Although there are exceptions, I suspect that sermons only go as deep into the hearts of our hearers as they have into our own.
GET QUIET
Nothing inhibits my study more than the noise within. Spiritual work cannot tolerate many distractions. My “to do list,” emails, and Post-It notes chatter on in my head so that GOD Himself can hardly get a word in edgewise. Even more, my dull headed weariness drums on like a 4 p.m. lecture. “Be still and know that I am God” is no small command. Prayer at this stage is not a matter of what we say, it is just trying to quiet the relentless noise of the crowd inside.
Besides that, every single time I sit down to study I feel I am already behind. Too much to do; too little time left to do it. I always feel like the White Rabbit who raced by Alice in a constant panic, “I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date.” When we feel like that, prayer can seem horribly inefficient; a luxury even. “I would like to pray, of course.“ I tell myself, “but God understands. I have got to get this done.“ GOD does understand and He will help. But I just can not hear Him very well if I do not quiet my soul. I study the words but miss the message. “Though hearing, they do not hear or understand.”
GET SMALL
When our son was young we would take him to a nearby park to play on one of those huge “recreational structures,” a wooden wonderland full of passages and hideouts, swinging bridges and towers. A guy could get lost in there. Or in my case, stuck. It was an environment meant for small people. GOD’s kingdom is like that, as is the study of Scripture. You have to be small to maneuver without getting stuck or banging your head. Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
The gate into every passage of Scripture is low and narrow. We can try to squeeze in, big lunks that we are, or we can allow the Holy Spirit and the sacred text to make us small. Every passage carries a kind of humility potion. Every role Scripture takes “teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness”, resizes us if we drink it down. If we let the Word work itself into our hearts.
To begin with, take stock of your heart. That can be like asking a shifty-eyed three-year-old what he has been up to. You are not likely to get a straight answer at first. Persistence is necessary. Not all our sin and dishonesty lays brazen on the surface. We do not always see how swollen we have become inwardly. It is not easy to tell when you have gotten too big for your britches. So we pray often, “Search me, GOD, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.” GOD will use your text like a stethoscope.
Our ministry work, especially preaching, should make us great-hearted but it can backfire and just make us big-headed. You can start to think, “All these people came to hear me.” We can become like a kid with a Superman cape ready to jump from the roof. Of all the Bible’s failures, Samson is the one who makes me most twitchy. I have never forgotten a time many years ago when I got up to preach even while sin, like Delilah, snipped away at my GOD given strength. My words that day had no lift, no life, no muscle. I do not want to ever forget the ominous shadow of the sightless Samson.
Besides making us right-sized, humility is a relief. Humility is rarely comfortable, but it is a relief. It is hard to hold in all that spiritual helium. A humble soul can maneuver gracefully in the passages of the GOD’s Word. Small preachers are the best preachers.
Work with me
We never come to sermon preparation in a neutral frame of mind. Frustration or enthusiasm, weariness or worry, all crowd up to the desk with us when we study. Such things are actually part of our soul’s preparation. GOD intended you to preach this text in the midst of this week. Thus, I cannot ignore what is happening inwardly. Good sermons, like pearls, are often GOD’s beautiful Word coating an irritating grain of sand.
Gordon T. Smith writes about a time when he was frustrated with some colleagues. His spiritual director told him, “Well, Gordon, it is sometimes helpful to remember that ‘difficult people are the faculty of the soul.'” Sometimes before I can preach I have to deal with the toxins that have built up inside. That soul work brings an authenticity and thoughtfulness to my sermon.
Prepare to serve
You have been in a restaurant where your waiter greets you, “Hi, I am Jack, and I will be your server this evening.” Server did not used to be a word. I think restaurants made it up because most waiters are not willing to say, “I will be your servant this evening.”
Many of us love preaching GOD’s Word so much that we are sort of amazed anyone would pay us to do it. We want to serve Scripture. We love the privilege. However, Scripture does not always let me say what I want to say. Have you ever hammered out part of a sermon only to hear your Bible whisper, “That is not what I am saying”? Has the Holy Spirit ever scolded you, “Enough with the clichés!” or “That story you want to tell is more about you than me.” Scripture can be a tough customer.
Paul wrote in Colossians 3:16, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom …” STOP!!! Look at it again.
“Let the Word of Christ”
- That is our text, whether it is from Deuteronomy, John, or Hebrews.
- Jesus Christ is speaking and He is the text come alive.
“Dwell“
- Like the GOD in His wilderness tabernacle.
- Like Jesus incarnate in this dark world.
“In You“
- Like manna or the bread and wine.
- Like the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
“Richly“
- In all its glory.
- Filling you till it is fulfilled in you.
A prepared soul requires the rich residency of the Word. Then we are ready to teach and admonish. Not before.
Paul continues in that verse, “singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to GOD.” When we have served Scripture well teaching and singing are hard to tell apart. Good preaching has a kind of melody, like harmonizing with the Lord. When I was a boy standing next to my aunt in church I would hear her singing alto during the hymns. I still remember when I figured out how to do that, how to find the pitch a third below the melody and harmonize. Prayer during sermon preparation is how we find our pitch and bring our voice into harmony with GOD’s Word. It is a beautiful thing.
Being a servant also requires me to consciously serve the congregation. They are not sitting out there for me. I am there for them. Whether it suits me or not, I must meet them where they are.
Recently a couple of my most gifted men’s Bible study leaders came to me in frustration. Most of the men in the group they lead just would not participate. Neither of these two experienced leaders could get them to respond or share on subject. The leaders were thinking about starting another group for men who would do their homework and participate. After we had talked awhile something dawned on me. “You know, we should thank GOD that they are coming,” I said. “These are men who love the Lord and make it a point to be there. Even if they do not say a word or prepare as we would like, we would rather have them there than not coming! After all, we are the servants.”
A couple days later one of leaders wrote me that he had been reading in Luke how the crowds came to Jesus. He wrote, “Jesus did not turn them away just because the people had a different agenda than he did. No, he welcomed them.” He went on, “Here is where the mens’ study comes in and where I think GOD is taking me: I need to get over myself. It is not all about me and me not using my gifts. These men are coming, I need to welcome them, and share with them about the kingdom of GOD.” Now his soul is ready to take up the Word.
Flexing Faith
Some parts of faith come easily to me as I study. For example, I trust that Scripture is really GOD speaking and that these are the Words of life. I trust that GOD will use me to preach, a gift of grace. I trust that the people who listen will become better disciples of Jesus by listening. Those things are usually easy for me to believe.
The hard part of faith is often more subtle than those things. Faith is not only thinking a thing is true. Faith is also the spiritual openness, the vulnerability, to draw that truth into my actual thinking and actions. For example, I believe Jesus when he said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.” But before I can preach it I need to believe it enough that I feel the hunger pains and realize how parched for righteousness I am. That is where faith is not so easy. Getting my soul situated can take more time than reading commentaries! In that sense, soul preparation means putting off my laziness and taking up my spiritual responsibilities because I believe that will lead to the GOD blessed life. I believe that if I love Jesus I will obey Him.
Recently I saw a more elusive side of faith in the story of Martha, Mary, and their houseful of guests (Luke 10:38-42). The sisters had disciples to feed and the Lord Jesus Himself to serve. Just like me when I get up to preach, disciples to feed and the Lord Jesus Himself to serve.
“Now it came to pass, as they went, that He entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received Him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard His word. But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to Him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me. And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.“ (Luke 10:38-42 KJV)
Let us assume for a moment that Martha would have loved to listen to Jesus but her sense of responsibility over ruled. Luke says Martha was “distracted by much service.” I suppose Martha should have remembered how Jesus fed the five thousand and sat down next to Mary. But unless Jesus did that again, her guests were going to go hungry. Duty called. Responsibility snapped its fingers. I know that feeling. The responsibility of preaching, of feeding all those disciples and pleasing the Lord Jesus, stresses me out, too.
The thing Martha never imagined was that Jesus was not her guest. She was His! She was not there to serve Jesus. He was there to serve her. I do not know how Mary, who I assume was as responsible a hostess as her sister, showed such extraordinary faith that she could stop to listen. Not one in a thousand responsible people would have done what she did. Some how she trusted that Jesus wanted to feed her even more than she wanted to care for Him and His followers. Which of those two sisters would you rather hear preach?
To prepare our souls to preach we must allow Jesus to serve us. And that takes a unique stretch of faith, faith enough to shift the weight of responsibility from me to Him. Faith enough to be quiet and listen.
WOW!
When we prepare our souls as well as our texts, Jesus walks with us incognito, the way He did with the two Emmaus bound disciples in Luke 24. He meets the yearning of our hearts with Scripture till we know what they meant when they said, “Were not our hearts burning within us while He talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us”?
“And, behold , two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about three score furlongs. And they talked together of all these things which had happened. And it came to pass, that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus Himself drew near, and went with them. But their eyes were holden that they should not know Him. And He said unto them, What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad? And the one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answering said unto Him, Art thou only astranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days? And He said unto them, What things? And they said unto Him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before GOD and all the people: And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death, and have crucified Him. But we trusted that it had been He which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, today is the third day since these things were done. Yea, and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulchre; And when they found not His body, they came, saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that He was alive. And certain of them which were with us went to the sepulchre, and found it even so as the women had said: but Him they saw not. Then He said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into His glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself. And they drew nigh unto the village, whither they went: and He made as though He would have gone further. But they constrained Him, saying, Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And He went in to tarry with them. And it came to pass, as He sat at meat with them, He took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew Him; and He vanished out of their sight. And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while He talked with us by the way, and while He opened to us the scriptures?” (Luke 24:13-32)
Like the prospector we go alone into the mine with our lamp and pick axe. Jesus said in Matthew 13:52, “Every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.” When we prepare our souls as thoroughly as our text, GOD’s people receive great and godly treasures. But they also hear us shout for joy;
“WOW! Look what I found!”
Seeking the face of GOD
His Always
Darrin Sparks
Touching Heaven Ministries
