It is important to start early in your planning. Six months in advance will give you time to start reading through the book and even having your devotions from the book from which you will be eventually preaching. This is the method of Jim Rose. Haddon W. Robinson features twelve preachers in Biblical Sermons (click to open). Robinson provides a sermon by each preacher. Next, Robinson gives his commentary on the sermon. Finally, Robinson interviews each preacher. The first question in the interview with Rose was: How long does it usually take you to prepare a message? Rose answered:
The genesis of a message starts a year before I preach it. I put together a sermon calendar for that year (I take a week off and put this together, including sermon titles, big ideas, and the chunk of Scripture for each sermon). Then I center my devotions on what I’ll be preaching a year from that date. At the most, I put in two hours per chapter then. A week and a half before I give the actual message, I pull out what I’ve done. I keep all of the material that I’ve been collecting for that sermon in a file. I usually spend an hour just looking over this material. The week of the message I put in seventeen to twenty-two hours on a sermon (Haddon W. Robinson, Biblical Sermon: How Twelve Preachers Apply the Principles of Biblical Preaching, Grand Rapid: Baker Book House, 1989, 65). (click to open). Robinson takes a similar approach in Models for Biblical Preaching (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014). To answer the debated question “Must a Pastor's Devotions be Separate from his Sermon Preparation?” click and answer for yourself.
I believe Ezra in 7:10 provides Biblical justification for this approach. Like Ezra, we read the Book, apply the Book, fall on our knees in confession because of the Book, and are changed by the Book long before we preach the Book to others.
Also, this will give you time to order audio, and video sermons, and listen to podcasts on the book and to some of the great preachers and teachers on your subject. Not only will you gain great content but hopefully some of their preaching skill will rub off. Augustine, who wrote the first book on homiletics On Christian Doctrine (click to open) taught his students to listen to great preaching and read great sermons to become better preachers: “For men of quick intellect and glowing temperament find it easier to become eloquent by reading and listening to eloquent speakers than by following rules for eloquence” (The Church Fathers. The Complete Ante-Nicene & Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Collection: Catholic Way Publishing. Kindle Edition).
One time in preparation to preach through Nehemiah, I order audio sermons by Warren Wiersbe, Adrian Rogers, and John Whitcomb on Nehemiah. I was chomping at the bits when it came time to start the series. A source for sermons is Stephen Davey's sermons found at Wisdom for the Heart. These sermons are well-researched with great explanations, illustrations, and applications.
I like to use Donald Sunukjians process and balance of exegetical commentaries with expositional commentaries and sermonic commentaries. The combination of these commentaries helps the preacher to answer the four rhetorical questions that develop each main division and also answer the questions your listeners are asking while you preach:
Main Division
A. Explanation: "What do these verses mean that the preacher just read?"
B. Argumentation of the explanation: "How does he know that is the meaning?" (The Expositional and Exegetical commentaries help answer these questions).
C. Illustration: "What does that explanation look like?"(The sermonic commentary will help answer this question and the Application question).
D. Application: "What does all this have to do with my life?"
Before I delve into the heavy exegetical commentaries, I like Donald Sunukjian's suggestion, that the preacher starts with the expositional or synthesis commentary which "will quickly give you the large units of thought and the lines of argument of the text" (Invitation to Biblical Preaching, page 25, click to open). The expositional commentary gives you the big picture that is helpful before studying the verses in the pericope. For a series on Ephesians, I used The Bible Knowledge Commentary for this purpose. Thomas Constable’s commentaries on all sixty-six books in NetBible.org (click to open) also serve this purpose.
After I get the big picture from BCK, then for the explanation of the text I reach for the exegetical or critical commentary. These are usually the hard copies that give you "sticker shock." In the series on Ephesians, you can use Harold W. Hoehner's Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary (click to open). This scholarly work of over 900 pages in my opinion is the standard for Ephesians. Hoehner will give you about twenty pages of exegesis for each paragraph in Ephesians. This volume gives the preacher the explanation and the argumentation of the text. If you sentence diagram and block outline, Hoehner can help. I use other exegetical commentaries as well.
There is a third kind of commentary that the preacher needs. In addition to the expositional or synthesis commentary and exegetical commentaries, the preacher needs the sermonic commentary. To balance Hoehner's heavy exegetical work, I use John MacArthur's sermonic commentary on Ephesians. MacArthur first preached this material to his congregation and therefore he provides application and occasional illustrations which, of course, Hoehner does not. Another excellent source for Ephesians is the sermon series by Steven Cole (click to open) at preceptaustin.org.
The order of the commentaries I have discussed is the order you should follow. Here is Sunukfjian's wise advice: "Study thoroughly in the first two categories before you read the third. If you start with sermonic commentaries, you will be tempted to prematurely conclude, 'That'll preach!' without first determining whether the printed sermon accurately reflects the meaning of the biblical author" (page 25).
When I was preaching through the book of Ephesians where a doctrine is prominent such as the Church, I like to read, in addition to good commentaries, related books such as Mark Dever's book on what marks a healthy church The Nine Marks of a Healthy Church, and The Deliberate Church (click to open). I also used John S. Hammett's book on ecclesiology, Biblical Foundations for Baptist Churches (click to open). Dever's and Hammett's books give relevancy to my preaching. Their books help me make current applications to the church in our generation and culture.
Mark Dever in Nine Marks of a Healthy Church categorizes the first three marks as essential: Expositional preaching, biblical theology, and biblical understanding of the gospel. The balance of the marks is important but not essential: A biblical understanding of conversion, a biblical understanding of evangelism, a biblical understanding of membership, a biblical understanding of church discipline, biblical discipleship and growth, and biblical church leadership.
For the essential doctrines, Dever says, there must be a complete agreement for a healthy church. On the important doctrines, there does not have to be complete agreement. "Churches without these important marks can be places to pray, to be patient, and to set a good example by your own life." When preaching on "the unity of the faith" in Ephesians 4:13, this insight will become invaluable to my congregation.
These are some practical tips for series preaching through a book of the Bible that has helped me. I welcome any input you have found beneficial in your series preaching through a book.