![]() I don’t know about other preachers, but I need freedom to preach. Most of all, I pray for fidelity because I don’t trust myself–– I need divine guardrail, otherwise I will end up in a ditch. By this I mean, I don’t want to use the text illegitimately, even if I am trying to make a biblical point. I even want to guard against saying right things from wrong passages. This request is especially important because there are words, phrases, and ideas that are improvised into the sermon that were not part of the preparation process.Įverything I say from the pulpit I want to be faithful to God’s character, the gospel, and to the text being taught. Certainly, this must be a request that is being prayed during the week of preparation as well. The danger that comes with preaching reps is that fidelity loses its omnipresent concern that it possessed at the start of our ministries.Įach Sunday I pray that God would help me to be faithful to the text and context of the Scripture that I will be expositing. The sermon delivery could be hot garbage, just so long as we didn’t accidentally deny the historic orthodox view on the trinity. When we were young preaching students in Bible College, our biggest fear was saying something heretical. It’s easy for me to remember and helps to focus my heart and mind to where it should be and serves to beat back the many and varied assaults against my mind. Over the past fourteen years of preaching, I have come up with my own pattern of praying before preaching. With the inevitable mental assault coming, the sure and best response for anyone who stands to proclaim God’s Word is prayer.īut what should a preacher pray? I have read that Charles Haddon Spurgeon allegedly used to ascend the steps to his pulpit at the Metropolitan Tabernacle repeating “I believe in the Holy Spirit” over and over again. I’m convinced that the mind of a preacher is never more vulnerable than in the hours and minutes leading up to their approach to the pulpit. But what is on the preacher’s mind? Naturally, there are a lot of pressures weighing down preachers in the time preceding preaching. The entire week of study, prayer, and preparation is about to come to the culmination of the sermon. Sunday mornings are such a unique time in the life of a preacher. I found myself derailed from my preaching mindset, and instead was on my hands and knees cleaning up hundreds of pieces of soiled diaper and trying to console my poor morning-sick wife. To make matters worse, the smell of the incident triggered my wife’s morning sickness. It was not a good scream! Our dog got a hold of one of our young son’s dirty diapers and tore it apart in our dining room. I am about to leave my house to preach God’s Word and herald the excellencies of Jesus, when I hear my pregnant wife scream.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |