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It is so easy to turn the book of Genesis, and most that is in it, into one cliche
after another. There is a great deal of preaching from Genesis, but here, since I
had decided to preach through the Bible, book by book, week upon week, for a
year or more, I was starting with Genesis. I actually postponed the start of my
"tour of the Bible" because preparing a good sermon that caught the overview
of Genesis--at the same time catching what I took to be its core--was more
difficult than I anticipated. As with all of my preaching without notes, I work
intensely on a fashioning as good an outline as possible of what I want to say.
The outline must be substantive, well-arranged, and simply stated enough so
that I can memorize it easily and know that it will carry me in a logical fashion
from beginning to end. The outline is everything. I talk through the outline as it
is coming into view. But my final work on the outline takes place during the
time that I preach the sermon. Remembering, thinking, and speaking are the
three tasks of the pulpit that, in my view, must be done simultaneously. The
outline of Genesis was particularly challenging. Listen for the outline in the
sermon. You will be surprised how simple and straight-forward it is, and yet my
view is that it covers and speaks candidly about the great book and its message.
This kind of sermon needs maximum believability, and, in my judgment, only
preaching it without notes, speaking thoughtfully, spontaneously, and clearly,
can fully accomplish that.