Last night I got to preach my fourth sermon. The thing is, I didn't know I was going to preach it until the evening before. The person who was supposed to preach to the youth Tuesday night couldn't do it. So they needed someone else to preach. They weren't sure what to do about it. I found this all out Monday evening. I talked to my wife about it and she asked if I wanted to offer to preach. I did. I will take any opportunity I can to preach so I can improve. So I called and asked and they told me to go for it!
For my first three sermons I've spent many hours preparing them. Probably in the range of at least 25 hours, likely more. Studying the text, reading it over and over again. Asking questions and trying to come up with all the answers on my own, then after studying it thoroughly turning to several bible commentaries to make sure my conclusions agree with those of much wiser and more experienced bible teachers than I. This time I only had one night to get it all done.
After getting the kids to bed I spent about six hours on it. I spent a lot of time studying the text for myself and coming up with an outline that pulled from the text what I thought it was saying. I looked up all the cross references, and did some further study. Then I started writing up the sermon. I was very thankful for the commentaries I had taken pictures of on my phone from the libraries of two pastor's at my church, but just as thankful for the two study bibles I had at home. The NIV study bible, and the ESV study bible came in really handy. After studying the text myself I used them to help me better put into words what I felt the text was teaching. It's great to see the finished hard work of bible scholars in brief notes below the text in a study bible. Such a great resource. I plan to buy some more good study bibles before I ever take the plunge into buying the much more expensive Bible Commentaries.
I've heard on a lot of interviews with pastors that study bibles and bible commentaries are a useful tool, especially if you find yourself short on time. The ideal situation is to spend a ton of time studying the text for yourself and then turning to those resources last, which I did, but I also knew I had to get a full half hour sermon written in one night so I relied on those study tools much earlier on in my process.
I wrote and studied and wrote some more until 1:20 in the morning. I had my laptop and the two study bibles on either side of me on our couch, and over 50 pages of bible commentaries. I would write and read the text and then read the two study bibles on the section I was trying to exposit. They and the bible commentaries were helpful to make sure I was on the right track as I wrote out my sermon manuscript. All in all I spent about 6 hours on it and fit a little more time in tinkering with it the next day. I also made slides to put some of the cross references on the screen while I preached. I'm guessing I spent about 7 hours total preparing and writing my sermon and making the slides.
Hopefully I'll never have to do that again with such little time but it was an amazing blessing to be pushed in that way and see that I could do it. I am very thankful for the opportunity. I want to keep being stretched and grow in my ability to preach the word well. It was an awesome rush to write the whole sermon the night before and preach it the next day.
Thankfully it seemed to have gone well too. One of the pastors told me that you couldn't tell I wrote it all the night before and that it may have been my best sermon yet as far as the content I preached. I was looking down at my notes more, but I'm okay with that as I wasn't able to practice it more than two times before preaching.
Last night may have been the highlight of the pastoral internship for me. It was a great privilege to be trusted to rise to the occasion and come up with a sermon the night before preaching it. I am very thankful they trusted me enough to let me do it. It was an amazing crazy experience. I get to preach again next Friday night to adults for the first time at an wonderful place called Union Gospel Mission. They provide a pathway out of homelessness for people and teach them the gospel. It will be a great privilege to preach to them next Friday. I'm going to combine my two sermons on Titus 3:5-6 into one gospel packed sermon. I can't wait!
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