July 14, 2026
Sermon Prep
2 Timothy 2:15 – “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.”
Most people who sit in a congregation on Sunday morning have very little sense of what the week looked like for the person standing behind the pulpit. They see the finished product, the message that has been shaped and prayed over and wrestled with until it found its form. What they do not see is the hours that preceded it. The sitting with a passage until it begins to open. The moments of uncertainty about what the text is actually saying versus what would be easy or comfortable to say about it. The prayer that is less about asking for help and more about waiting for clarity that has not arrived yet. The return to the same verses again and again because something is there that has not fully surfaced.
That process is not efficient by any modern measure. It cannot be rushed without showing. A sermon that has not been lived with before it is delivered tends to sound like exactly that, information presented rather than something received and carried. The difference is usually detectable even when the listener cannot articulate why one message sat with them for days and another evaporated before they reached the parking lot.
But the deeper point is that this kind of engagement with Scripture was never intended to be a professional requirement. It is a posture that belongs to every believer. The same Spirit that helps a pastor understand a passage on Tuesday morning is available to the person sitting in the pew on Sunday. Psalm 119:18 asks God to open our eyes that we might see wonderful things in His law, and that is not a prayer reserved for the ordained. It is an invitation extended to anyone willing to slow down long enough to mean it.
The work of understanding what God is saying requires the same thing from everyone it requires from the preacher. Time, stillness, and the willingness to wait until something real arrives.
Today’s Prayer: Lord, teach me to sit with Scripture long enough to let it speak, and open my eyes to what I would miss if I moved through it too quickly. Amen.
Reflection Question: When was the last time you sat with a passage of Scripture long enough to allow it to open up to you?