Preaching with Power 2
Aug 6th, 2007 | By art rogers | Category: PreachingMy plan was to post another thought and some questions about preaching with power for the next installment on my series, but I had the most extraordinary day, yesterday. I had two aspects of powerful preaching happen in very different ways in the morning and then in the evening services at Skelly Drive.
In the morning service, I preached the fourth in a series on “Surrender,” working through selected Scriptures in Philippians. Yesterday the text was the powerful 2nd chapter, verses 5-11. Christ as our example of surrender. I won’t give you the full outline, as that is not the point.
During the sermon yesterday morning, I really felt as though I struggled. We had a visiting worship leader as ours is on vacation this week. I filled in and did the welcome and forgot to ask the visitors to identify themselves so we could get them an information packet and I felt that it kid of spiraled from there. I just never felt like I was “on a roll” at any point in the day. The service was long and I felt like it dragged, as did my sermon. Nevertheless, I had several people tell me that they were powerfully challenged and moved deeply. Several indicated that there were things that they had kept between them and God – areas where they had yet to surrender to God’s authority, that they were having to deal with under the conviction of the Holy Spirit.
My first observation here is that the power of the preaching is in the simple exegesis of the Word. It doesn’t take an articulate, polished presentation of a moving set of ideas. It takes God’s Word and me not getting in the way of God’s Word. As Paul said…
1 When I came to you, brothers, announcing the testimony of God to you, I did not come with brilliance of speech or wisdom. 2 For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. 4 My speech and my proclamation were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and power, 5 so that your faith might not be based on men’s wisdom but on God’s power. 1 Cor. 2:1-5, HCSB
In the evening, I had a completely different experience. I felt a sense of excitement leading into the sermon. I am preaching through Romans on Sunday nights and the text was Romans 3:9-26 – The wickedness of all men, our need for redemption, the law is incapable to redeem, the law and the prophets point to the redemption offered in the propitiation that is Christ’s death.
Let me say that I had thoroughly prepared the sermon. There was so much there and I looked forward to mining the depths of these Scriptures. Things were going well, but when I was near the end and exegeting the word “propitiation,” I began to talk about the ramifications of Christ absorbing the wrath of God – what it truly means to have substitutionary atonement. Thoughts began to come, rapid fire, to my mind in sequence that led to a powerful plea for all Christians who were bound by the chains of sin to turn back to God. He has no wrath left for you – only love. He has poured out His wrath on the propitiation and that cup is empty. Whatever shame or guilt or idea that God is holding sin against the child of God is a lie of the devil that only has power in our belief that it is true, and it is nothing like being true. Though I had thoroughly prepared, these conclusions weren’t originally in my sermon.
Also, as I preached, the truth overwhelmed my own mind and I had the sense of my heart breaking as well. I spoke with passion and trembling voice, pleading for the Christian caught in sin to come home. There is love and redemption waiting.
The response, this time, was immediate. People were visibly shaken and there were vocal responses and even a raised hand. One person started to clap, they were so excited.
Now, the second experience and second observation is not that I was persuasive in the second sermon. It is that the Holy Spirit was in charge and the things I said were spoken first to my mind by Him. Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t in a trance, nor was I “possessed” by the Holy Spirit. Rather, I had prayed earnestly for Him to speak and that He did.
Can’t He do that while you prepare the sermon? I hope that He does with EVERY sermon. I don’t want to show up with my thoughts and pray for God to do something different in the middle of the delivery. I want the whole process to be bathed in the direction of God, but I admit that I am just a very fallible man and I sometimes don’t get the memo.
Power in preaching happens in many ways.
Have you ever been skewered by a “dry” sermon that seemed to bore everyone else? Have you ever been there when “God showed up?” What do you think?
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Sometimes you’re the candle, sometimes just the mirror!
He has no wrath left for you – only love… Whatever shame or guilt or idea that God is holding sin against the child of God is a lie of the devil that only has power in our belief that it is true, and it is nothing like being true… There is love and redemption waiting.
I realize this post is about the power of preaching, not blogging, but this part of your post was exactly what I needed to hear. It echoes the words God spoke to me last night as I sat on the floor weeping over sin that has held me captive for most of my life. It occurred to me as I read it this afternoon that you were probably preaching it at the same time God was speaking it to me. —The timing of it all just amazes me…
Thanks for sharing it and once again being God’s conduit for Truth.
I have preached sermons I thought were embarrassingly horrible and many times they have been the sermons that get the most genuine positive comments. Then again there have been times when I stepped into the pulpit thinking I had one hum-dinger (sp?) of a sermon only to watch it fall flat. As one lady in my church put it while I was still glowing inside…”That was …well…o.k.” :0 ?!?
Like you, the most incredible times have been when God took over a sermon while I was preaching providing me with awesome illustrations or tying ends and points together in ways I hadn’t gotten all week.
I told me church when they called me that I felt like one of the disciples at the feeding of the five thousand. I wasn’t coming to them with amazing skills or all the answers. In fact I had no idea how to do what God had called me to do. I was simply going to have to go to Him, take what He gave me, and hand it out. He has never let me down. I’ve gotten in His way at times but He has never failed to provide. It boogles my mind every day that God uses worthless me to do His work. Our God is good isn’t He?
Michael
I was really pumped about this past Sunday. It was one of those times of study alot like what you talked about. I mean, it was like the Scripture was just leaping out. One of the reasons it’s like this right now is that I am staying on the same passage. I’m preaching through the pastoral epistles. The first couple of weeks it was hard. I mean, there’s so much. But, as I just meditated on these books, God began to show me which way to go, how to bring the eternal truth to the contemporary context. It’s not really about contextualizing the Scripture. It’s about scripturalizing the culture. I mean, we can either decide that Scripture will direct culture or vice versa. Anyway, Sunday was good. It just made sense. And, then I still had some of the same experiences you had. The sermon wasn’t long, for me, and still there were a couple of times that it seemed to drag. Sometimes I try to say something to jar people out of what I perceive to be a dead space. I think alot of it is just spiritual warfare and flesh. I’ve found that I just need to keep on preaching the truth, maybe louder, maybe quicker, maybe with a little more excitement. One thing that did come to me Sunday is this. We need to practice what we preach, but we also need to preach what we practice. I think that some preachers are afraid of being preachy. In other words, they shut off their gift when the service ends. I think that makes us irrelevant. I’d rather be preachy all the time than communicate that I’m somehow ashamed of the Word of God by my silence.
Great post!
I tell people that my passion comes from two sources: 1) I am passionate because I had to deal with the text – personally. Once I see my sinfulness and inability, then experience the grace of God in the completed work of Christ – I really get “fired up”. 2) I needed to get out of the mindset that I am a craftsman, and the sermon (and ministry) is my tool to do something for God. God had to show me, sometimes painfully, that He is the craftsman and that He wants to do the work. I am just as much a tool as the sermon. It makes me rely on His Word and Spirit that much more.
Anyway…those are my thoughts.
Great thoughts on a important topic.
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