God Transforms The Receptive Preacher (Why It Starts With God)

"Preaching, in one sense, merely discharges the firearm that God has loaded in the silent places." Calvin Miller, Spirit, Word, and Story, pg35

In my thesis, the goal is to show why God is the author, subject, and power of our preaching. To some it might seem obvious that this should be the case. But a visit to most churches in our communities will tell us a different story. There is a lot of good sermonizing, story telling, moralistic teaching, and "showmanship." There is also a lot of bad versions of those things. However, I would contend that when we walk into these "sermons" we are not actually hearing sermons. Maybe speeches under the church guise of sermons, but they are speeches nonetheless. They may inform, motivate, or tug at our heart strings, but they rarely transform. I am convinced by the word of God that true transformational preaching only occurs when our starting point is God. Allow me to explain.

God, by being His very nature, is a free being to do whatever He pleases, as long as it does not go against His nature. Therefore, truth about God can only be known to us by whatever means He pleases to reveal Himself. The very act of God's creation of this world is His revelation of Himself. For whatever reason that He saw fit, He created all things according to His word, just as described in Genesis 1 and 2. This is the powerful revelation of Himself in creation. The psalmist praises the glory of creation in Psalm 19 and Paul says that we are all without excuse as a result of this creation in Romans 1. Our very existence begins by the power of God. And what's more, it came about as a result of His word.

8 times God speaks and something comes into being in Genesis 1. God speaks and it is done. He has the power to reveal Himself through His word(s). And this is why preaching must start with God. If all of life begins with the word of God, how much more then the preaching of God's Word? Preaching is not born out of our cleverness, nor our talent for speaking, nor our ability to grip the audience, nor our ideas that we'd like to talk about. Preaching is born out of the silence of listening for God's whispers of revelation.

In Matthew 13, Jesus tells a parable of a sower and 4 different types of soils. When asked why He spoke in parables, Jesus answered, "Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand." (Matthew 13:13). This is the state of many a preacher today. Speaking they do not speak (the things of God). In order to be able to truly preach the word of God, we must come to Him waiting patiently to hear. And if we are not careful, we will walk into the pulpit blind, deaf, and dumb. We will know that the preacher has been with God because, as Albert Mohler Jr. says, "no man can give at once the impression that he himself is clever and that Christ is mighty to save."

We must begin with God, because if we do not, we have nothing to say. Our wisdom and eloquence may be enough to captivate an audience, although usually it is not, but the wisdom of God is the only wisdom with any power. Speaking of the power of plainly preaching the Gospel Paul says in I Corinthians 2:1-13:

And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.

Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away; but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory; the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory; but just as it is written, “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, And which have not entered the heart of man, All that God has prepared for those who love Him.”

For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.

Truly transformational preaching is marked by the words of John the Baptizer. He must increase, I must decrease. Or to say it differently, the louder I get, the quieter God gets in my preaching. A right understanding of preaching will lead us to the same conclusion as Calvin Miller. "A great preacher brings to the pulpit great sermons from the presence of God." Only when the preacher has been with God, in prayer and the word, will he be able to come before the church body ready to preach. Anything offered not from the presence of God is at best a grand speech and at worst a pointless one. And yes, I have been guilty of both. But may God grab hold of His heralds and whisper the words of life into their ears.