Joy and Agony of Preaching

I have no idea how many sermons I have preached in my 30 years of ministry. There is no way for me to figure out how many hours of my life have been spent studying, reading, listening, and writing in order to preach those sermons. What I do know is that every week of my life as a pastor, preaching is both my greatest joy and my greatest agony.

It is my greatest joy because nothing really compares to the satisfaction of hearing God speak in His word, of having the Holy Spirit illuminate the truths of Scripture, and of having the honor of standing before God's people and to proclaim the glorious Word of God. There is something powerful and joyful that happens when God's people gather to hear God's Word. Each Sunday morning when I rise to preach, I open my sermon by saying, "Take your Bibles and turn to..." Then I hear the rustling of pages turning from passage to passage, and I look into the faces of dozens of trophies of grace, and I watch the saints nod in worshipful agreement with the text, and I get to witness the eyes of the blind opened by the Spirit through the work of the Word. How can this not be a great joy to me?

I agree with John Bunyan, who said of preaching in his autobiography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners: "...my heart hath been so wrapped up in the glory of this excellent work, that I counted myself more blessed and honoured by God by this than if He had made me the emperor of the Christian world..."

This same Bunyan also said, "In my preaching I have really been in pain, and have, as it were, travailed to bring forth children to God." It is joyful, and painful, this work of preaching.

I know a lot of my pastor friends who are depleted after they preach. Many state that they are physically and emotionally spent. Some descend from the pulpit discouraged, self-critical, and exhausted. It is hard work. Incredibly hard. But most Sundays, after the final amen, I'm exhilarated. I have this rush of energy, this sense of joy, and this feeling that if I had to, I could immediately preach another sermon. Now, Monday is different. That's when I experience the adrenaline dump. But, on Sunday, standing in front of God's people with an open Bible and a few notes, proclaiming a message of good news, showing how Jesus is the subject, song, and point of the Scriptures provides great joy for me. I very rarely take a Sunday nap as I feel very "up" after preaching the Sunday morning services, attending my Bible Fellowship class, and engaging with hundreds of saints in fellowship and conversation after the service. If we don't eat lunch after church with friends or a visiting family, I usually come home, change clothes, eat a little, then sit in my den watching TV and reflecting on how thankful I am to the Lord that He would call me to this great and noble task of preaching His Word and serving His people in the local church. I really cannot imagine doing anything else that would bring such continual joy to my soul.

But getting to that point is agony. Seriously. Every week.

This may not be every pastor's experience, but it definitely is mine. The joy of proclaiming God's Word on Sunday is preceded by the agony of preparing the message the week before. Real agony. The kind of struggle that makes me want to quit sometimes, that pummels my soul, that batters my mind. I liken it to having to research and write a major term paper in college, which involves hours of reading, studying, and writing, then having to give an oral presentation in front of hundreds each and every week. It can be a torturous, agonizing task...every single week.

I think I have figured out why. First, there is a weight to preaching that scares me. James 3:1 says, "Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness." There are ample warnings to the church in the New Testament to watch out for false teachers, for those who are in the church, but who are unfaithful to the truth. There were people who were "teaching for shameful gain what they ought not teach" (Titus 1:11). The early Christians were continually warned not to be carried away by empty philosophy and false teaching. Paul seems to indicate that the greatest danger to the church wasn't persecution from without, but false teaching from within.

The last thing I ever want to do is approach the task of preaching in a flippant manner, thinking that it is nothing more than a motivational moment, an opportunity for me to inspire, or seeing it as part of creating an emotional environment that creates some sort of experience for people. I am too afraid of casually thinking that way about preaching. I recognize the seriousness, the weightiness, the awesomeness of the task...and most weeks I agonize under it. I live in constant fear that I will use the Scripture to support my ideas, or worse, replace the truth of Scripture with my own interpretation.

Which leads to the second reason for my agony--each week sermon preparation is an intense wrestling match for me. I wrestle with the text, pouring over word meanings, cross references, context, commentaries and other resources. Some say that writing sermons is both an art and a science. To me it is an exhausting wrestling match, and not just with the text. I have to wrestle against distractions, my own laziness, as well as my own selfish heart. The more I get into the text, the more the text gets into me and I have to wrestle against my pride, hard heart, and sin as the text does its work in me before I ever preach it to others. 

What this means day to day for me is that the sermon is never out of my mind. Every activity, conversation, commute for work or period of rest is affected by a simmering sermon. I never go to bed with a clear mind, but always one that is turning over words and phrases, potential outlines, and searching for an illustration that will drive home a certain point. The sermon is always there. The result of this is that most Saturday nights that I go to bed worn out from a week of wrestling, only to agonize in my sleep over whether or not I have it right, or that I did enough, or that it honors the text enough.

Finally, it is war. Every week when I sit down, open my Bible, and begin to start my study for the sermon, I am ever aware that I have an enemy who hates Jesus, the church, the truth, and those who deliver it. As I am jotting down notes and ideas from the text, I will sometimes become aware of my inadequacies. I will suddenly be reminded of past or present sins that are filled with guilt and shame. There will be tension in my home. I will sense a creeping discouragement coming upon me, or maybe even waves of doubt. My heart idolatry will rage against me. But I know what it is--it is a war, a real, spiritual war each and every week in my study.

I have never prepared a sermon without this great agony. But I am grateful for it. Truly grateful.

This agony has taught me to pray in ways that I otherwise wouldn't have learned. It has taught me to discern the difference between flesh and Spirit when I'm studying or preaching. It has forced me to trust in the illumination of the Spirit. It has humbled me, and reminded me to get out of the way. It has shown me the importance of rest, and proven to me that God is able to take my meager attempts at preaching and use them for His purposes. And it has prepared me to fight well for the glory of God each week in my heart and in my study.

I go to bed each Saturday with my sermon done, and my mind battered and bruised from the battle. But when I wake up on Sunday, the light of joy begins to dawn as I realize that in just a couple of hours I will humbly stand before God's people, leading them to rejoice in the good news of Jesus as shouted from His Word. The agony is worth the joy.