God grants life, both physical and spiritual, through His Word, which is gloriously recorded for us in Scripture. Christians, as a people devoted to The Book, prioritize teaching the truth, goodness, and beauty of God’s Incarnate Son as he is revealed in God’s inscripturated Word (Colossians 1:28-29). By explaining with words and validating by our deeds, our aim is to make known God’s life-giving Word for the good of His people and His glory. Despite the importance of preaching and teaching God’s Word, the task isn’t safe. Sin, Satan, and the World are incessantly working against those teaching God’s Word seeking to derail them at every step. Therefore, it’s essential for teachers and preachers to examine their own hearts during preparation for the legion of temptations, fears, disbelief, or sins that lurk in our study. As Paul said, saving ourselves and our hearers requires close scrutiny of both our doctrine and lives (2 Timothy 4:16).

To that end, my teaching friend, here is a short list of questions intended to guide your own self-examination in light of God’s Word.

Questions to Examine Your Heart Before Preaching

You’ll likely only read this list, and I hope it helps as you do, but I’d encourage you, if you find these questions helpful, to grab a piece of paper or your journal (free advice, you should definitely make a habit of journaling) and write the questions by hand and record your answers by hand directly under them. Take your time and don’t think you have to do this all at once. In fact, it may be good to take one question for each sitting and then take a break.

Examine Your Sermon: What Are You Preaching? Although our task is simple – read, explain, and apply God’s Word – our sermons can easily end up preaching something else such as our opinions, our hobby-horses, our favorite punching bags, our traditions, our experiences, our favorite cliches, culturally accepted slogans, vague theological niceties (e.g. God’s unconditional love, prayer changes things, bold faith). As you think about your sermon preparation thus far and look at what you have, are you confident that you are saying nothing more than what the text says or implies or is something else being preached in your sermon?

Examine Your Motives: Why Are You Preaching? Ministers of the gospel are to love God with a pure heart (Hebrews 10:22) and serve God’s people with a pure heart (1 Peter 1:22). Our preaching of God’s Word is to be motivated by God’s love (2 Cor. 5:14-15). However, there are often other hidden motives our heart nurtures as we prepare to preach such as pride, fear, guilt, covetousness of reputation, honor, money, or respect, making yourself feel righteous or fulfilled. Make a list of the various impure or sinful motives you think may be fueling your preparation.

Examine Your Goal(s): What Are You Seeking? The goal of every preacher should be to teach God’s Word faithfully, plainly, and practically (2 Tim. 4:1-5) so God’s people would fix their eyes on Jesus (Col. 1:28-29) and be transformed by the Spirit’s power (2 Cor. 3:18) that God may be trusted, obeyed, and honored above all else (1 Cor. 10:31). But, to our shame, other goals are often sought. What sinful goals are you tempted to achieve through your sermon. Are your goals Godward or Manward – to be praised, respected, liked, esteemed, accepted by people? Are you seeking to fulfill your responsibilities or achieve some earthly end like money, career opportunities, speaking invitations? Search your heart and expose whatever lurks there.

Examine Your Trust: What Are You Trusting? As Paul recalled his preaching ministry to the Corinthians as he sought to plant a church there, he said this:

“When I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. ² For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. ³ And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, ⁴ and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power…” 1 Corinthians 2:1-4

For Paul, his trust was in the power of the Spirit to transforms the hearts and minds of his hearers as he preached “Christ crucified,” a message he knew would be scoffed at and rejected by most of them (1 Cor. 1:21-25), but he trusted would save those who heard. Paul believed that the Word of God alone would accomplish the work of God and he didn’t trust in wisdom, eloquence, humor, emotional stories, plagiarized sections of his sermon taken from popular preachers, PowerPoints, musicians, or fog machines. As you prepare to preach God’s Son from God’s Word, do you find yourself trusting in something other than or in addition to God’s Spirit to do God’s Work? What else do you find yourself leaning on to make this sermon “work?” Where do you trust the power of your preaching will come from?

The heart is the well-spring of all we think, say, and do (Prov. 4:23). Therefore, it’s essential to guard it. But, we can only do that when we’ve successfully examined our heart with the help of God’s Spirit in the light of God’s Word.