I preached my first sermon at the age of eleven.

The first thing I did when I stood up was to pray. No one instructed me to do this. My father never prayed when he stood to preach. And none of the preachers I heard regularly or looked up to prayed at the beginning of the sermons.

For some reason, I did.

I remember a seasoned pastor advising me, “If you haven’t prayed before you stand up to preach, it’s too late. And if you have already prayed, it’s not necessary.”

I couldn’t argue with this logic. Yet I have continued to pray before I read my scripture and begin my sermon. And I still do it to this day.

Let me be clear. This is not a measure of one’s spirituality. Whether a preacher does this is not a moral issue. No one is right or wrong here.

But there are two specific reasons why I pray before I preach.

I need God to help me speak. The call to preach has been a part of the Lord’s sanctifying process in my life. My great sense of neediness in private study and public speaking drive me to God in prayer. And this sense of dependence grows the closer I get to preaching time. I always carry a great deal of anxiety with me to the pulpit. I know what Paul meant when he spoke of preaching with weakness, fear, and trembling (1 Co. 2:3). But when I finish with my pulpit prayer, I am fine. The anxiety immediately goes away. And I am ready to preach. On the other hand, there are times when I have to fight my ego from getting engaged in the preaching moment. Prayer humbles me, clarifies my focus, and sets my heart on the sacred task of proclaiming the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.

The congregation needs God to help them hear. I believe there is a reason why Jesus often said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Just because you have ears does not mean you can hear the truth. Hearing is a miracle that is wrought by the power of the Holy Spirit. So I pray that the Lord would cause the good seed of the word to fall on good ground that will bear fruit. I also pray so that the congregation will recognize that the preaching (and hearing) of the word is serious business. And they will be held accountable for what they hear. The sermon is not a performance for the congregation to enjoy. It is to be a mirror that causes them to see themselves as God sees them. I want the congregation to take the message as seriously as I do as I deliver it. Only God can transform an indifferent audience into a waiting congregation that is ready to trust and obey the word of truth.

Do you pray publicly before you preach? Why? Why not?

“Help me to speak your word with faithfulness, clarity, authority, passion, wisdom, humility, and liberty…”

These are words I often pray publicly, as I lead the congregation in prayer before I read my text and begin my sermon.

I do not know when I started praying this prayer. And I don’t remember forming these words intentionally. But they have become a regular part of my prayers.

I do not pray this out of vain repetition. I pray this because I need the Lord to do the same thing for me every time I stand to preach.

Whether I pray this publicly or privately, these are seven things I want the Lord to do in and through me as I preach.

Faithfulness. I want to obey the divine command to preach the word (2 Tim. 4:2). This requires that I understand what the text means by what it says. Then I must prepare and present a message that submits to the authorial intent of the text. I want to bring out of the text what’s in the text, rather than imposing my own ideas upon it. I want my thoughts and words to be consistent with sound doctrine.

Clarity. One of the best compliments a person can give me is to say that my preaching is clear. I do not want the listener to be confused about what I am saying. Even if they do not agree with me, I want the explanation of the text and the point of the message to be clear. I also believe that clarity is its own style. There is something attractive about a message that is clear.

Authority. When I began my first pastorate as a teenager, I had no personal authority to draw from. But I quickly learned that truth is truth whether I experience it or not. Several decades later, I am still convinced that the preacher’s ultimate authority is found in the word of God. I want to preach with biblical authority that reflects the fact that the text is the word of God, not the words of man.

Passion. I do not want to preach like a news reporter that is dispassionately reading copy from a teleprompter. I want my preaching to be with a head and heart that have been gripped by the truth. The people in the pew may not believe what I am saying. But I want it to be evident that I believe it. If preaching is “logic on fire,” we should preach with convinced minds and enflamed hearts.

Wisdom. In Colossians 1:28, Paul writes of the priority of proclaiming Christ, warning and teaching every with all wisdom. Wisdom should mark our preaching. Of course, the content of our preaching should reflect the wisdom of God, rather than the foolishness of the world. Likewise, we need wisdom for the presentation of the word. Wisdom will guide us as to what to say and how to say it.

Humility. We are called to preach Jesus and not ourselves (2 Co. 4:5). It is impossible to exalt Christ and exalt self at the same time. We are just friends of the groom, like John the Baptist (John 3:29). We must decrease that Christ may increase (John 3:30). Our job is to preach in such a way that brings the hearer before the living God. Then we are to get out of the way!

Liberty. I recently began to pray this after reading a biography of an influence preacher of the last century. In letters to supporters, he would often ask them to pray that he would have liberty when he preached. That stuck with me. I don’t know how to explain it. But anyone who has been preaching for a while knows what’s it’s like to preach with liberty and what it is to preach without it. So I ask for freedom to preach my heart and convictions to the glory of God.

What do you pray before you preach?