How Hard Do You Prepare For Sermons?

Howard Hendricks shares this insight about the value of preparing and study for sermons...

" When I was a college student—I worked in the college dining hall, and on my way to work at 5:30 am. every morning I walked past the home of one of my professors. Through a window I could see the light on at his desk, morning after morning. At night I stayed late at the library to take advantage of evening study hours, and returning home at 10:30 or 11 o’clock I would again see his desk light on. He was always pouring over his books. One day he invited me home for lunch, and after the meal I said to him, “Would you mind if I asked you a question?” “Of course not,” he said.

“What keeps you studying? You never seem to stop.”

His answer, “Son, I would rather have my students drink from a running stream than a stagnant pool.”

In preparing sermons for your people......are you drinking from a running stream of fresh new manna from Heaven. Or do you just run to the old sermon file and pull out a used outline from a stagnant pool. Your people know the difference. And, above all, God knows the difference.