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Where does a sermon actually come from?

In this conversation, Jonathan sits down with Rev Jerry Jones, whose messages have shaped a generation — and asks the question most of us never get to ask: what was the genesis of that message?

Two sermons anchor the conversation. And in both cases, the answer starts in personal devotions, not sermon prep.

"But Amnon Had a Friend."

A sermon that has been preached for over thirty-five years and still lands. It began with a question about youth camp — what breaks through on the first night when students arrive carrying weight from every kind of background? The answer was peer pressure, the one universal struggle. And the text was already there: Amnon, the heir apparent to David's throne, who knew what was right and was winning the fight — until a friend named Jonadab talked him out of it.

The conversation traces how the sermon evolved, how "a friend" broadened over the decades to include culture, society, and now TikTok, X, and Instagram. And how it closes — with a grandmother in the grip of dementia who could not recognize her own grandson, but who said, on the bad days, I sing. What a friend we have in Jesus.

"The Lost Letter."

The 2025 General Conference message. It started in devotion — Paul telling the Colossians to share their letter with Laodicea and to read the one sent there. Except there is no letter to Laodicea. Somewhere along the way, a church that was neither hot nor cold simply let it slide.

And it converged with a story from home: a hat that once belonged to Andrew Urshan, thrown in a trash can because nobody knew what it was, rescued by someone walking past who did. When Urshan's great-granddaughter later asked if she could hold it, something clicked.

The result was a message about what we're teaching when we quietly remove things — altar benches, communion tables, pulpits, songbooks, the preacher on the platform. Not because any of it decides heaven or hell. But because those things were teaching something, and we may not have realized it.

Don't tear a fence down until you know why it was built.

The closing questions. What sermon that someone else preached impacted you the most? And what sermon that you preached impacted you the most? The answers include A.D. Spears on grace, O.R. Fauss on "The Danger of Side Roads," and a message on the glory of God drawn from Moses interceding after the golden calf — where Moses won his appeal not by pleading God's love or grace, but His glory.

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There will come a season in your ministry when you are not sure.

The work is hard. The fruit is thin. And somewhere in the middle of a Tuesday you are going to catch yourself asking the question out loud: Did I actually hear God on this?

When that season comes — and it will come — you are going to need something more substantial than a feeling to stand on.

This episode is drawn from material Jonathan has taught to undergraduate preaching students for over sixteen years. Every semester there are two groups in the room: those wrestling with whether they're called, and those certain about it who have never really examined why. This episode is for both.

The working definition: Calling is a sustained conviction, confirmed by the church, that God has set you apart to proclaim His Word.

What this episode covers:

What calling is not — not a feeling, not excitement, not being good at public speaking, and not your pastor handing you the mic one Wednesday night. None of those things are bad. None of them, by themselves, are a call.

Why sustained means duration, not intensity — a calling that shows up at youth camp in July and disappears by December is an experience, not a calling. Callings hold when it's hard. They hold when nobody claps.

Why you do not call yourself — God calls preachers; the church confirms them. If nobody sees it in you but you, that's not a disqualification, but it is a reason to slow down.

George Peters' four biblical implications of the call — sovereignly exercised by the Holy Spirit, individual and personal, unique to the ministry of the Word, and a call to work. Including the line that convicts: If you love preaching but you do not love people, you are not called to preach. You are called to talk.

Four channels God uses to make the call known — human instrumentality, the Word, crisis experiences, and sound logical thinking. Some of you are waiting for a burning bush while God has already spoken through three pastors and a passage you cannot get away from.

The persuasion of the call — including why a deep sense of personal inadequacy belongs on the list. Moses felt inadequate. Jeremiah said he was too young. The preacher who feels entirely adequate for this work has misunderstood the work.

If you came in certain, this episode is meant to root you deeper. If you came in wrestling — the wrestling is not evidence against your calling.

Books referenced: George Peters, A Biblical Theology of Missions · Stephen Olford, Anointed Expository Preaching

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"We can only go as high as our character is deep."

In this episode, Jonathan sits down with Darin Sargent — author, coach, and a friend of nearly thirty years — for a conversation that goes past sermon mechanics and into the thing most preachers actually struggle with.

Anybody can learn the skill of putting a sermon together. What most preachers struggle with is learning the character.

This conversation is honest, funny, and at points genuinely vulnerable. It's about who you are when nobody's watching, and what happens when that person and the one in the pulpit aren't the same.

What this conversation covers:

Being born with one hand — and why Darin calls it a qualification, not a limitation. How a visible difference shaped his dependence on God, and what Paul meant about glorying in infirmity.

What younger Darin got wrong. The honest admission that early in ministry he was very concerned about what people thought about his preaching — and where he's landed after thirty-five years: if he ministers to one person something God gave him, that's enough.

Preaching past conviction. Why so many young preachers keep going when hearts are already ready to respond — because there are still three pages of notes left. The word produces faith. And we preach right past it.

Character and calling. Why we elevate people based on talent and ability, what happens when their character doesn't match their gifting, and the honest claim that we have been the cause of a lot of burnout in preachers by pushing them to stages they weren't ready for. Paul told Timothy not to exalt a novice. There's a reason.

Volume does not equal anointing. A frank exchange about whether congregations actually see the gap in a preacher who lacks depth — and Darin's answer, that maybe our measurements are wrong.

Comparison — the lion that attacks preachers most. From memorizing sermons on tape in Bible college to the conclusion that saved him: I have to be Darin Sargent. I can't be Jonathan McClintock. Figure out who you are, and go in that vein.

Benaiah and the lion in the pit. Why going on offense against what's beneath the surface is so counterintuitive — and why you'd better take care of some things in your twenties so they don't destroy you in your forties.

The most vulnerable moment in the episode. Darin on things that came out in his preaching he wishes he could take back: "Please don't take frustrations to the pulpit." What's in the heart eventually leaks — you may be able to control behavior, but speech is harder.

The four-part filter for every decision — faith, family, friends, future — and the sobering line underneath it: one decision can derail your destiny.

Two takeaways for the developing preacher. Life moves at the speed of relationships. And there are some things you'll never know unless you're willing to grow.

Darin is the author of Battle of the Beasts: Defeating the Lions That Oppose Your Destiny and Parenting with Purpose, with more on the way. Find him on the Darin Sargent Podcast.

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A preacher who has been married five times can preach the greatest sermon about the home you've ever heard. The exegesis flawless. The structure airtight. Every word of it true.

And it won't land.

Not because the message is wrong — but because in preaching, the messenger is never separate from the message.

Christian preachers have long tipped their clerical hats to Aristotle's three rhetorical categories: logos — the message, ethos — the speaker, and pathos — the audience. Secular rhetoricians like Quintilian and Cicero paid homage to them. Christians from Augustine forward have done the same. And what all of them have borne witness to across twenty centuries is this: more than the words count.

In this episode, Jonathan McClintock works through what happens when those three categories don't line up — when a preacher's ethos undermines his logos, or when a dry, monotone delivery lets pathos overwhelm a message that was entirely true.

What this episode covers:

Why your integrity carries content — and why the congregation hears your words through what they know about your life.

Why a sermon can be doctrinally sound and still fail to land, and what that means for how you think about delivery.

The quiet trap some preachers fall into — diminishing their own role in the preaching event out of a desire to give God the glory, until they almost fear preaching with passion. As the episode puts it: it's as though they feel they aren't actually preaching unless they give the Holy Spirit an obstacle to overcome.

Solomon Stoddard's challenge — the grandfather and greatest influence of Jonathan Edwards, who argued that sermons read are not delivered with authority, that they savor the sermons of the scribes, and that the liveliness of the preacher is a means God uses to stir the affections of the hearer.

And the sentence that holds it all together: God uses the passion of the messenger to stir the passions of the listener, and to confront his mind with the urgency of a decision to accept or reject the message.

Your passion is not a distraction from the Spirit's work. It is one of the instruments the Spirit uses. Your delivery is not the packaging around the truth — it is part of how the truth arrives.

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What happens when a preacher stops trying to control the sermon and starts trusting the structure the Spirit is building?

In this episode, Jonathan McClintock sits down with Pastor Joel Urshan who has spent decades navigating that exact question — a preacher who carries minimal notes to the pulpit, believes deeply in structure, and has spent years learning the difference between what is from him and what is from God.

The conversation covers far more ground than preaching mechanics. It moves into the theology of how a sermon gets built, what prayer actually looks like in the preparation process, and how the Holy Ghost shapes not just the content of a message but the order of it.

What this conversation covers:

Preaching without a manuscript — how a minimal-notes approach developed, what the family preaching heritage behind it looks like, why structure is still paramount even without notes, and why this approach isn't for everyone.

A two-to-three year season where the Spirit would not allow the notes to be written ahead of time — and what that unusual season taught about trust, structure, and the difference between a preacher's preparation and God's preparation.

The discipline of winnowing — one of the most honest moments in the conversation: the ongoing work of separating what is me from what is God in the sermon, and why that discernment is part of the preacher's calling.

Sunday versus conference preaching — how the weight and dynamics of the audience shape preparation differently, and why preaching to pastors and church leaders carries a distinct sense of responsibility.

A live walk-through of a Melchizedek sermon — one of the most practical and compelling portions of the episode. Using Genesis 14 and Hebrews 7, the guest walks through exactly how structure is created, how doctrine is woven in without losing the thread, and how the message lands on a single conclusion that most people have never articulated but recognize the moment they hear it:

You cannot have peace until you have righteousness. And you can only have righteousness in the name of Jesus Christ.

That sentence can be said in ten seconds. The structure of the sermon is what prepares the heart to receive it.

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Here's a conviction I hold with everything in me: if you're a developing preacher, learn to let the text speak before you learn to do anything else.

In this episode, I make the case for mastering textual, expository preaching first — before topical, before thematic, before the clever series. I walk through why the text is enough on its own, how depending on the original author's intent becomes a guardrail that protects your whole ministry, and why starting here doesn't limit you… it equips you for everything else.

I'll also be honest about the other side. Topical preaching has its place, and I'll tell you where. But first things first.

I close with one practical challenge you can put to work on your very next sermon.

If you want your next sermon to be your best sermon, this one's for you. I'm pulling for you.

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Most preachers develop one approach to sermon preparation and use it for everything.

The way they were trained. The style they've always used. The method they admire in someone they respect. And they preach that way every week — regardless of what the passage is, regardless of what the congregation needs, regardless of whether it fits.

That's not versatility. That's a habit.

In this episode, Jonathan McClintock walks through four approaches every preacher should know — textual, expository, topical, and narrative — and makes the case that a skilled preacher doesn't pick one and stay there. They develop all four, and they know when to reach for each one.

The four approaches:

Textual Preaching — Takes a short text, often a single verse or small cluster, and lets that text control the sermon. The strength is focus. The danger is decontextualization — a verse ripped from its context can be made to say things the passage never says.

Expository Preaching — Lets the sermon unfold the flow and argument of a longer passage. The sermon's structure follows the text's structure. The strength is faithfulness. The danger is running commentary — explaining what every verse means without ever landing on what the passage requires of the congregation. Teaching with a Bible open is not preaching.

Topical Preaching — Starts with a topic and gathers multiple passages that address it. The strength is directness — it goes straight at the need and brings the full weight of Scripture to bear on what the congregation is actually facing right now. The danger is opinion dressed up as preaching. Topical preaching without exegetical discipline is not preaching. It is opinion with citations. A note for Apostolic preachers: the strength of our topical tradition depends entirely on textual discipline underneath it.

Narrative Preaching — Lets the story shape of a passage carry the sermon. The strength is engagement — stories hold attention, drive imagination, and reach people in ways propositional preaching cannot. The danger is storytelling without theology. The congregation should walk out changed, not just entertained. The story is never the point. What the story reveals is the point.

These are not competing philosophies. They are different tools. The question before every sermon is not What is my approach? — as if you've already decided. The question is What does this text ask of me? What does this congregation need? What approach serves both?

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Last night I watched a movie and came away stirred in a way I wasn't fully expecting.

A Great Awakening — released this past April by Sight and Sound Films — tells the story of the unlikely friendship between George Whitefield and Benjamin Franklin, and Whitefield's role in igniting the First Great Awakening. It's a film about preaching, prayer, passion, and perseverance. And it pressed on something I've been carrying for a long time.

The authority of preaching does not come from my ability to speak or to build a sermon. It comes from the Word of God. I am simply called to preach it.

That's what this episode is about.

Whitefield didn't preach because the conditions were favorable. He preached because he was called to. He preached outdoors when the churches closed their doors to him. He preached to coal miners with blackened faces who had never heard the gospel. He preached across the Atlantic — thirteen crossings between England and the American colonies. He preached until the day he died, literally — his last sermon delivered standing on a barrel outside a tavern in Newburyport, Massachusetts, holding a candle that burned down to a stub as he spoke.

That kind of preaching doesn't come from confidence in your craft. It comes from confidence in what you've been called to proclaim.

There's also the thread of Benjamin Franklin that I can't stop thinking about. Whitefield appealed to Franklin to trust Christ — and Franklin didn't respond in the moment. But decades later, the seed was still working. He remembered Whitefield's words in 1789 and called the Constitutional Convention to pray.

Most preachers will never know the full reach of what they said on a given Sunday. Whitefield didn't know what his last conversation with Franklin would produce. He just preached. He just kept preaching.

Three things to carry into this week: pray before you preach, trust the Word not the outline, and keep preaching — no matter what the days ahead look like.

Preach and pray. Pray and preach. Trusting God will awaken our churches, our nation, and our world.

That's still the call.