I’ve been talking this week about how we preach at Revolution. You can read part 1, part 2 and part 3 in this series if you missed them.

For part 4 I want to talk about preaching from your own journey. Pastors often talk about if you should preach from your devotional life or keep that separate. Personally I’m not sure the answer to this question matters. As a pastor, you need to have a personal devotional time with Jesus each day. You need to be in his word, allowing it to soak your soul and speak into your idols and sin patterns. You need the gospel. If you haven’t read Joe Thorn’s book Note to Self, this is a book worth checking out on preaching the gospel to yourself.

For me, my devotional life is directly linked to my sermon prep. Each week, before diving into the commentaries, I spend hours meditating and praying through the passage I’m preaching on. Books I’m planning to preach through I use for my devotional time.

Because I plan our sermon calendar 12 – 18 months in advance, by the time I get up to preach a sermon, I’ve been thinking about the passage for over a year. My preaching is simply an overflow of that. This is one of the reasons I’m able to preach with very few notes. When I get up to preach, I have my big idea, main things I want to say, but the rest of what I say comes out of my study, prayer and thinking on a passage and topic.

This helps me to preach not because it is the weekend and I’m supposed to preach but because I have something to say.