One of the things I believe young pastors often underestimate is the weight of preaching week in and week out, year in and year out. Especially over the long-haul in one church. They may begin with a holy eagerness to preach the Word of God and then realize that Sunday is always coming.

For the sake of transparency, I can remember feeling a bit of panic and a sense of being overwhelmed in my first pastoral ministry assignment. I thought to myself, I have to do this every week? Add to this the fact that I was preaching three different worship services EVERY week.

I determined early on that I had only one subject for preaching, the Bible. Although I was barely equipped to do so, I began by plowing through books of the Bible. In most cases I went too quickly, but by God’s grace He used my feeble attempts to communicate His Word and grew me along the way. I have learned a lot since then and estimate conservatively that I have preached over 3500 different sermons over the years.

In my preaching I live by several key principles:

First, the Word of God is true from start to finish. The more I study and preach, the more clearly I can see the unity of truth in it. God is trustworthy and His Word is trustworthy.

Second, the subject is Jesus. There is a scarlet thread that runs through it from Genesis to Revelation (a statement attributed to D.L. Moody). He is the theme of it all.

Third, the role of the Holy Spirit is of great importance. He is the one who inspired the Word of God and He is the one who illuminates the Word of God and always points to Jesus. Depend on Him in prepration, in preaching, and for application of the Word to the hearts of the people being preached to. Pray and ask God for His help every time you get ready to preach and throughout the entire process.

Fourth, at the core of my preaching, I am committed to preaching through books of the Bible. I heard conventional wisdom early in preaching that a sermon series should be no longer than 12 or 13 weeks. I thought that was absurd when I heard it then, and I still do. Part of my practice is to take brief breaks from book studies for seasonal emphases, or one day special messages. There are times that I will step back from a book study even for several months like in the summer season. Then I quickly return to it and continue on. I also am well aware of the uneven nature of church attendance for many along with visitors being present weekly. So I seek to have each individual message stanrd on its own. I weave the message into the overall theme of the book and the path I have taken in it, but the single message could be understood if a hearer was unfamiliar with the other messages in the series.

Fifth, I am most concerned with pleasing an audience of One in preaching. I want to accurately, and effectively communicate God’s Word so people can know Him and walk with Him by faith. Concern yourself with consistency in preaching, and trust God with the results. God forbid that we would ever stand before His people without having prepared ourselves, and the message in a way that faithfully makes Him known!

2 Timothy 4:2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.