When I first started pastoring, my biggest hurdle was coming up with a good sermon every week. I was working part-time besides pastoring, so finding the time to study for and write sermons was challenging. About six months after starting to preach, I had a counseling session with a great seminary professor who taught preaching. One of the things he recommended was to listen to good preachers a lot, at least one sermon a day. He recommended listening to various preachers, but as I did, he said certain ones would resonate with me, and then zero in on my top four to six. He emphasized listening to things that made it easy to listen to and that helped hold my attention. I religiously did that daily sermon listening discipline for years, usually listening to about ten a week. I would listen while driving, milking cows, and mowing the lawn. One of my favorites was John MacArthur. I bought hundreds of cassettes of his sermons over the years. He died a couple of days ago. He was certainly ready to step into heaven, but the news made me very sad. I never met him, but I considered him a good friend. He had a significant influence on my life and my ministry over the years. The main thing that I got from him was to teach the Bible accurately and in a way that held people’s attention and not bore people with poor preaching of the Bible.