Preaching with God

The Gospel is oxygen, and proclaiming the Gospel is exhaling. It’s just a matter of breathing it in and breathing it out.

Peter Mead and Mike Chalmers run a podcast to help and encourage preachers. The episode today (which I listed to on my 5am-8am shift) was about how to get and keep a good flow to sermons (Episode 43: Flow! (The Biblical Preaching Podcast)). Half way through, Peter talked about something that reminded me of the first sermon I preached. He mentioned three phases: writing the message, pre-preaching the message, and actually preaching the message. The second of these, pre-preaching the message, is what got my memory jogging.

Four years ago, the day before preaching for the first time, I pre-preached my message.

On the advice on my youth pastor, I stood in the room I was going to preach in. Hearing my voice through loudspeakers, getting the bright lights in my eyes, imagining a full room – exposure to these things were a great help practically. The benefit of that exposure paled in comparison to actually pre-preaching.

I spent four hours or so talking over my sermon with God: editing, working on the tone of my voice, reshaping the content. It was one of the best experiences I’ve had. Thinking about the youth, what they needed to hear, how the Bible met those needs, and the richness of what God had in His Word for them to hear – it was thrilling!

During those hours, God filled my heart with a focus on and love for Him and His people. He drove His Word deep into my heart. When I preached the following day, the oxygen in my lungs I breathed out in preaching was what God had breathed into me the day before in those lonely hours we shared together.

For preachers, do this! Pre-preach. Let God edit and retune and re-work your sermon. And let Him fill your heart with His Word.

For Christians, let’s preach to ourselves! Ask God, for the sake of ourselves, our families, churches, friends and neighbours: Help me see what is here that meets us in our challenges and needs. Help me see is the richness of Christ in this text.

Our God is a saving God! He will surely do it.