Do You Always Speak Without Notes?

“So, as much as is in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you….” (Romans 1:15)

I am loving preaching more these days than in all the half-century I’ve been at it.

Recently, when a pastor invited me to supply in his church for a Sunday, he made an unusual request. “Give me some choices as to what you will preach.”

I loved the request, and quickly wrote him back, sending summaries of a half-dozen messages.  He picked two, specifying one for morning and the other for Sunday evening.

When I brought the messages to his people, everything about the experience was wonderful. He was a gracious host, attentive to every detail, and his people were so responsive. I can’t wait to go back.

Later, in a quiet conversation, he asked if I always preach without notes as I had done that day. “And,” he added, “when you were pastoring and having to come up with two new sermons for each Sunday, did you preach the same way you do now?”

By way of explanation, the “way I do now” is this. I take my Bible into the pulpit, but only to read the scripture. Thereafter, every scripture mentioned in the sermon I have memorized. The sermon is an open-hearted time of sharing. All the “notes” are in my head and heart.

What my sermon is not, I admit, is a well-crafted, finely honed specimen of hermeneutical art.

I admire a sermon which is so wonderfully planned and lovingly shaped and carefully crafted that it would be at home in a collection of the best essays.  I just don’t preach that way.

My sermons are an outpouring of my heart, the result of a lifetime of learning and growing, falling and repenting and getting back up, hurting and being blessed. I laugh and cry, teach and tease, exegete and apply.

I said to my pastor friend, “But it would be a mistake to call these sermons my ‘sugar sticks.'” They are not a collection of “messages that work well” or even “tried and proven sermons” from fifty years of preaching.

They are bone and marrow of my life.

I’m amused sometimes to read that a pastor lost his luggage or had his briefcase stolen which included his Bible and several of his best sermons. Now, he is up the creek.

What I wonder is, if these are his best sermons, why aren’t they living in his heart, carved on his soul, imbedded in his mind, and ready to be preached at a moment’s notice.

What, some reader is wondering, are these sermons of mine which define me, which are not ‘sugar sticks’ but bone and marrow of my existence? Here are quick takes on several….

1) “When God gets ready to do something big, He often starts in the most undramatic ways and uses the most ordinary people.”  Texts: Zechariah 4:10; Matthew 13:31-32; I Samuel 14:6; and I Corinthians 1:26. This is encouragement to anyone who feels “I can’t do anything; I’m a nobody.” And it rules that out as an excuse.

2) “Whatever you do to the Church, Jesus takes personally.”  Matthew 16:18; Matthew 25:40,45; Acts 20:28, Ephesians 5:25; Acts 9; and Hebrews 6:10.  This elevates our service to one another and to the Church itself to the highest level. This is everything I know to say about the Church.

3) “Blind Bartimaeus: the smartest man in town was a blind beggar.” Luke 18:35ff. God wants us to see even the beggar as one whom God loves and for whom Jesus died, and to have a part in bringing them to Him. This is my strongest evangelistic message.

4) “Rejoice Regardless.” Habakkuk 3:17-19.  Anyone can praise God when life is good, but let’s see you do it when the bottom drops out.  Luke 10:20 and Philippians 4:4. We can always choose our attitude. This is about praising the Lord anyway.

5) “Five Things God Wants You to Know About the Rest of Your Life.” Jeremiah 29:11.  God has big plans for you; He’s not going to tell you what they are; He’s getting you ready for the future right now. Your job is to be faithful today where He put you, but He will not force His blessings on you–you will have to choose. We’ve all seen people who said, “I could serve the Lord if I lived somewhere else, was married to someone different, or had a different job.” This closes the door on that foolishness. This sermon has a special appeal to young people.

6) “Why is the Gospel good news? And if it’s so good, why aren’t people breaking the doors down to get in on it?” Romans 1:16.  Answer: it’s good news because it solves the biggest problem for the longest period and is available for the most people in the simplest of ways. People want it, but they want it on their own terms. A parable in Matthew 22 forever destroys that option.  Jesus is the Door, the only way to God; Come by Him or forget it.  An evangelistic sermon.

7) “God is for you. He’s on your side, and wants you to do better than even you do.”  Romans 8:31-32; Romans 5:8; and Mark 1:41; 2:5; and 3:5. Luke 23:34.  The enemy slanders God as hostile to us or disinterested at best. But Jesus set the record straight in Matthew 7:7-11. He said, “Give God credit for being at least as loving a parent as you are. You wouldn’t play a dirty trick on your child, and He won’t either.”  You can trust the One who died for you. This message has many facets: apologetics, evangelistic, etc.

The bottom line being what?

The bottom line is that I could preach these messages in a moment, but not because I have gone to lengths to memorize them.

They are simply part of the person God has made me.

Just as I could give a reasonably coherent answer to someone asking where I went to school and what was my major with no preparation simply because this is my life, so with any of these and several other sermons.

I’m not against sermon notes. When I was serving a church, I learned the hard way to carry a few notes in my Bible just in case my mind went blank as happened a few times.

But don’t bury your head in the notes.  They are merely there in case you need them.

Sermons can focus on any of four areas: a) on the preacher (“I hope I can recall this next point; how am I doing? what are people thinking of me?”); b) on the sermon (“I hope I can explain this sufficiently; what is my next point? is this working? this is a hard doctrine.”); c) on the congregation (you’re giving them eye contact, aware of everything going on in the auditorium, reaching out emotionally to connect with each one, particularly those responding visually); and d) on the Lord Himself.

I’ve not reached the fourth level yet, and am not sure what that would be like.  But I sure am enjoying the third level.

For years I have prayed–and still pray–four things concerning my preaching:

1) Lord, give me a good grasp of the message. I want to understand it well.

2) Give the message a good grasp of me. I want to feel it deeply.

3) Give me good rapport with the people. I’m tired of that glazed over look in their eyes.

4) Bring people (including me) closer to Jesus as a result of this sermon.

No tricks, no memorization feats. Just experiencing the Lord and sharing the message He has given me in the way He has shaped me.

There is no greater joy for a God-called preacher than this.

2 thoughts on “Do You Always Speak Without Notes?

  1. There is just something to be said for good eye contact and how it personalizes the words. As a member of the congregation I can often tell when what I am hearing is an intellectual path or a well worn road the speaker himself has traveled. I love it when you can see the speaker had a revelation in the process of recieving the sermon. Unfortunately notes are often tossed aside for popular yet predictable rants against the lost and dying world which truthfully, I never expected the world to act any other way than lost and dying. I welcome accountablility questions on how I am actively making ways to be Christ to them. I welcome fresh ways to realize how radically different God’s ways are from mine or from “common sense”. I welcome testimonies of God’s miracles. To quote Dr. Freed, I welcome “fresh bread”, even if you are baking it with 2000 year old dough, Pastor we can tell if it’s fresh (living) in your life. On the flipside I cannot imagine the massive pressure it must be to produce a “fresh living word” every week. I guess it’s like everything- you just point blank cannot do it and you have to admit it. Once you do Christ can finally walk in the door humility opened and do it for you.

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