If you’re a preacher, it’s inevitable you’ll preach some lousy sermons.
It’s not possible to hit a home run every single week.
Hitting Home Runs
Last Sunday I preached a lousy sermon. It felt awful and embarrassing. I was so discouraged on Sunday. Let me tell you the story and offer a few thoughts to help you the next time you preach a lousy sermon.
I just finished preaching a six-week sermon series on Jonah. It was awesome. I felt like I kept hitting home runs, a few grand slams even, through that series. I’ve never felt so much joy in preaching and never seen God use my preaching as much as he did through that series. Our whole church was being gripped by God as we went through this series together. I was in my sweet spot as a preacher. I like being in this spot.
Then, two Sundays ago, we had a guest preacher: Francis Chan. Francis Chan is a great preacher. He did a really good job for us. It was our first Sunday of year two as a church, and our biggest Sunday yet at Garden City.
So, for this last Sunday, I was pumped up to launch a new sermon series on the Gospel of John and capitalize on all the momentum in the church. Preachers, you all know how important it is to nail that first sermon in a new series. It can set the tone for the whole sermon series. Our whole church was also pumped up to begin the new series.
Striking Out
All week long I wrestled and wrestled with the text (John 1:1-18). Honestly, I’ve never had a harder time figuring out how to preach a text. I just couldn’t get my mind and heart around this Prologue to John’s Gospel—I couldn’t find handles. I actually woke up on Sunday morning, trashed the sermon I’d written and wrote a whole new one.
I got up to preach on Sunday afternoon, and it was tough from the start. The microphone kept bugging out. Some babies in the service were loud and were distracting me.
And, worst of all, “the click” never happened for me. Normally, sometime during the week as I’m preparing to preach, I feel something click deep inside my heart, I know I’ve heard from God and I have his message to deliver to the people. With how I’m wired, most of the time I find myself crying a few tears when this click happens—my heart just feels so full, I feel at once a deep sense of inadequacy, passion and excitement to preach.
But I never experienced this when preparing for last week. The message wasn’t really in my heart. I’ve vowed to never preach a sermon unless it’s traveled through my gut, but the reality is when you preach every week, sometimes that doesn’t happen in the way you want it to.
So I slogged through the sermon. Even during the act of preaching I felt drained, like energy was leaving me, when normally I feel increasingly energized while I preach. I love my church and my city so much, and I felt like I was giving them a little snack when I wanted to give them a feast.
I finished preaching and walked back to the pews to sit next to my wife. She knew. She squeezed my hand three times (our signal for saying “I-love-you”) and put her hand on my back.
