The Father As Our Source

Thus says the Lord, “Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength, and whose heart turns away from the Lord. For he will be like a bush in the desert and will not see when prosperity comes, but will live in stony wastes in the wilderness, a land of salt without inhabitant. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is the Lord. For he will be like a tree planted by the water, that extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when the heat comes; but its leaves will be green, and it will not be anxious in a year of drought nor cease to yield fruit." (Jeremiah 17:5-8)

What a powerful warning and promise for all people to hear! But what especially peaked my interest today was the bearing that this text has on my thesis, especially the first chapter entitled, "God Transforms the Receptive Preacher." The receptivity of the preacher is crucial to be able to preach!

To paraphrase the text above, "cursed is the preacher who trusts in the opinions of others and gets by on talent, but whose heart is far from the Lord!" What a dangerous warning to those who claim to be proclaiming God's word. We may be able to fool our churches and we may be able to even fool ourselves, but we will never fool God. He gives us the refreshing we need to become trees that have something to offer, that produce fruit. Without our trusting in Him and Him being our trust, we will dry up.

How many times I have preached a dried up sermon! As Keith Willhite has said, "it is not possible to preach a vital sermon about God when God is somewhere beyond us, out past the borders of our everyday lives." In this sense, preaching is simply put, an overflow of fruit. We only have something to say when we've sought rest in the living water of Jesus Christ. When we've explored the depths of the text and allowed it to saturate our souls. When we've spent more time being transformed by the text, than by cleverly preparing the message.

It is possible to be dried up and to hold peoples attention. In fact, it happens quite often that large numbers of people are mesmerized by Godless speaking. But according to God's word, unless we are making much of Him, both in the study and in the sermon, then we are filling people up with "us". And the danger of this is quite clear, dry, dusty, death. With cleverness of tongue we can soothe people right to sleep and watch them decay before our very eyes. And because of our own dryness we won't even notice what is happening.

Instead, I pray that we might catch a vision for the necessity of drawing on God alone in preaching. It must begin with Him, because without Him our preaching is dead. He is life and has the words of eternal life, therefore let us, "live on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God."

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.

Who's Writing Our Sermons?

"For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." I Corinthians 1:21-25

"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." I Corinthians 2:12-13

Paul was very clear on this matter. He did not author this message of Christ and Christ crucified. Not Paul, nor any Jew, nor any Gentile had authored this message which Paul preached. It's too crazy to the world! How ridiculous does it seem to us that God, the master and creator of the universe would be willing to die for a creation that had rejected Him? How many husbands would naturally be inclined to welcome back a wife who had cheated on him multiple times and had never shown much affection for him? Better yet, what if your friend kept taking back a wife who had cheated on him multiple times? What kind of words would you use to describe that friend? Most of the words would have derived from one, "foolish."

Paul's message was so crazy, that it had to have come from God. Paul takes no credit for the message he preached. How can preachers learn from this? By asking the question, "who writes my sermons?" I am finding that far too often there is a tendency for preachers today to fill their sermons with the wisdom of this world. We begin with a need we see in the world and then search for that scripture which helps us to alleviate the pain of that need. We then get caught up in "writing" sermons, chocked full of ideas, stories, and advice.

But preaching is not a religious advice talk. It is not just another form of communication. It is the means by which God has ordained for the truth of the Gospel to be spread. It is by hearing that sinners are saved, it is by the power of the Word that the dead are brought to life. Life is inherent in the words of Christ and if that life is to be had, then it is the words of Christ that must be spoken in our sermons. We need to be sold out on the fact that God is the author of our sermons. He does the writing, we do the preaching. That's how it worked for Moses, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Paul, Peter, Luther, Spurgeon, and all other faithful ministers of the Word. Where God spoke, they spoke.

So who writes our sermons? Do we spend more time digging for truth in the text or more time thinking of a creative way to explain the text? Is our energy in understanding and applying God's word to our own lives or in figuring out how to captivate people's attention? Are the sermons we preach full of scripture and the power of the cross or are they full of quotations and the power of the laugh? Who is writing your sermons?

Keeping the Word of God and the Spirit of God Together

Another way of putting the same truth is to say that we must keep the Word of God and the Spirit of God together. For apart from the Spirit the Word is dead, while apart from the Word the Spirit is alien. (John R.W. Stott Between Two Worlds, pg 102)

Oh what powerful implications for preaching this has! Far too often we see the caricatures of a boring type of preaching that feels antiquated versus a mindless rambling of "spirit filled" preaching which is nothing more than emotionalism.

The first is practiced every Sunday in a church near you, under the cover of "Bible based" preaching. In reality the Word of God has been robbed of all it's power and authority. In reality, it is not the commandments of God that are being preached but the traditions of men. It is boring, dull, and old, because there is no conviction that the Spirit is alive, that Jesus is alive, that God is active. We sit and wonder, for the few moments before we fall off into thoughts about what wonders lunch will hold for us, what in the world does this sermon have to do anything. It appears, either by the preachers life or his tone or his content, that even he does not believe what he is proclaiming. The Word of God has become devoid of the Spirit of God and it is dead.

However, flip on your television and catch one of the entertaining acts of religious programming. Full of "spirit" and activity, there is no chance that you will fall asleep while watching one of their acts. "But what about all the amazing things they do and how God has blessed them?" What about those things? All they have accomplished is to convince us that this individual who is preaching is quite charismatic and resourceful. But in actuality it has nothing to do with how God has blessed them. Certainly they have a "spirit" but it is one alien to the Spirit of God. And if there is any spirit alien to God's Holy Spirit, I will let you judge for yourself what kind of Spirit that is. I can speak like this because as you listen to these spiritual entertainers you will find a huge gaping hole where God's word ought to be. They might briefly mention a text of scripture, but only as a comma in the sentence of their great words. They will call on the name of Jesus, but I imagine, (as in Acts 19), the demons are saying "Jesus I know, Paul I have heard of, but who are you?" They do not handle the Word of God with any care and therefore practice bad, sick doctrine. And when a doctor handles a patient with bad medicine, they kill them. So, as many of these men claim, they are prophets, just of the false kind. Wolves in sheep's clothing. Aliens to the people of God.

What we are to find is a place where the preacher has come to the Word. Where in it he has found the Words of life and is seeking to have them abundantly. What we are to find is a preacher who relies upon the Spirit of God to do the work of growing the seeds he is planting. What will embolden our churches is a preacher who, like Paul, can say, "Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men. For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God." (Acts 20:26-27) Preaching is needed to send forth the glorious Gospel of God's salvation and His saving acts. But the Spirit is the teacher and power by which those things are understood. Without the Spirit, the sermon is dead. Without the Word, the sermon is demonic. But with the Word and with the Spirit, the sermon is the thunder and lightning of God almighty. The Word will penetrate the heart and the Spirit will ignite it like dynamite. That kind of preaching is powerful and effective. When God speaks to us through what He spoke in His Word.

God's Whisper

"What I tell you in the darkness, speak in the light; and what you hear whispered in your ear, proclaim upon the housetops." Matthew 10:27

"Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him For the help of His countenance." Psalm 42:5 NKJV

"The word of God at the ear is a whisper, at the mouth it is a shout." Preaching by Fred Craddock

What is all this talk about whispering and shouting?First, let us begin with the whispering. I realized something today in a bit of study. The rabbi's used to ask a question about the creation account in Genesis. What did God do before He spoke in Genesis 1:3? The natural conclusion would be that He was silent. I do not even pretend to understand the depth of this, but I think it can teach me something. When God speaks, things happen. His Word is powerful, transformational, creational. When God opens His mouth and His Word comes forth, it will bring men to their knees. But His word has power because of His silence. His silence is just as authoritative as His word. Can you imagine the agony of God's silence? It is difficult enough for us to find 1 minute of silence in our world today and not feel uncomfortable. But can you imagine the consuming agony of experiencing divine silence? I would venture to guess that it feels a lot like death. That when we perceive that God has been silent, we need to realize that there is death in that. What a scary and fearful thought that we would not be able to hear God.

And yet, we see from the scripture that when God speaks, we may not hear it because of our own loudness. Psalm 42 carefully uses the word disquieted. That sounds very old english, but break it down. The word literally can just mean LOUD! I can't hear God because I'm too LOUD! Unless we are still and quiet before God, we can not hear Him. If we are making too much noise with our lives, then we will not hear the whisper that Jesus speaks of in Matthew 10:27. This is also the paradox of the Gospel. Many are called, but few are chosen. Hearing they do not hear and seeing they do not see. God has spoken to us in His Son and yet there are so many who did not, do not, can not hear it. Why? Because they do not have ears to hear the voice of God in a simple whisper. We want the shouting of signs and wonders. We want Him to write it in the sky or send us a flashy email. We like our word from God in a shout and yet He gives it to us in parables. But the problem is not that God is not speaking up, the problem is that we can not hear. He has given enough word, enough signs, enough manifestation. We should not need any other thing than Jesus, the Word.

Now, here is the magnificent thing. Once we have heard that whisper of God, we then are told to shout it from the rooftops. Wait a second, I thought God spoke in whispers? No, God speaks in shouts, we hear in whispers. Remember when Jesus was in Jerusalem and the Father's voice thundered from heaven? Only Jesus understood the words. Remember when Paul was on the road to Damascus and there was a great flash of light and Jesus spoke to him? But only Paul, not his traveling companions, heard what Jesus said. When we preach the word we shout, not necessarily in form of course, the revelations of God to His people and to the world. We can do nothing about whether they hear the whisper of God in that or not. All I can do is to proclaim the truths of God and pray that one lonely, lost soul might hear the voice of the Good Shepherd in that. I plant seeds and hope that it finds good soil, knowing that most of it will be scattered on the path. I proclaim the gospel with all my might, hoping that they hear whatever it was Elijah heard in the cleft of that mountain. I shout from the rooftops, because I hope that somebody might hear what Jesus whispers:

Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling, 
calling for you and for me; 
see, on the portals he's waiting and watching, 
watching for you and for me. 

Why should we tary when Jesus is pleading, 
pleading for you and for me? 
Why should we linger and heed not his mercies, 
mercies for you and for me? 

Time is now fleeting, the moments are passing, 
passing from you and from me; 
shadows are gathering, deathbeds are coming, 
coming for you and for me.  

O for the wonderful love he has promised, 
promised for you and for me! 
Though we have sinned, he has mercy and pardon, 
pardon for you and for me. 

Is All Authority Created Equal?

(That's a joke for those of you who think I'm being serious.)

"And there arose also a dispute among them as to which one of them was regarded to be greatest. And He said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who have authority over them are called ‘Benefactors.’ “But it is not this way with you, but the one who is the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like the servant. “For who is greater, the one who reclines at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at the table? But I am among you as the one who serves." Luke 22:24-27

I am wrestling with a major part of my thesis right now. It is the question of spiritual authority in preaching. And by authority I mean, "what power source does the preacher draw upon to give him the right to say the things he says?" Why should I listen to him? Is it because he gets paid? Because he's a good person? Because he wears a suit or clerical robe? Because he's behind a pulpit? Because he has a doctorate? Why should we listen to the preacher?

Based on my postings, I would hope that it has become evident what my answer to this question would be. The preacher has authority only if he has "been with Jesus." The only thing that gives the preacher an anointed authority is if Christ, the only truly "anointed one", is bursting forth in the sermon. This was Moses' power base, Joshua's, David's, Isaiah's, Jeremiah's, the 12, the 70, and Paul's. They had authority only because God had given it to them as a gift (check out Acts 8:4-24 for an interesting discussion on authority as a gift.) But here is my dilemma. The most common word in the NT for authority is also used to refer to men like Pilate, Caesar, and the Jewish authorities. So do they have the same kind of authority as the 12, Paul, and David?

This has really been a tough question for me. If we just examine the word usage and texts like Romans 13, it is clear that governing authorities are established by God and used as His servants. But in the Luke verse above, it seems clear that there is a clear cut distinction between this kind of authority and real authority in the kingdom. Like in Matthew 7:28-29, when the people realize that Jesus was teaching as one having authority, not as their scribes. How did they recognize this distinction? The scribes certainly had a positional authority, but Jesus had something else.

I think Matthew 23:1-12 helps us to begin to unpack this idea. I will quote verses 11-12 because they summarize the overarching point.

"But the greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted."

God is the one who grants authority. If we accumulate and abuse position and authority, then we will be humbled. Let us submit to the real teacher, father, and master and from Him receive authority. In reality it is His authority, we are all slaves under that authority, representing it. Each preacher has to give an answer for how they represented the authority of Christ, the anointed one. Because if we are preaching the word, then we are preaching Him. And if we are preaching Him, then we are His ambassadors and heralds. And how would a king react to a servant that misrepresented His authority? Well check out Numbers 12, 16-17, the rest of Matthew 23, and James 3.

I have no authority, I only want to submit myself to the authority of my king, Jesus.

Preaching With Silence

I have been doing an overview of the corporate worship of the nation of Israel in the OT for an Elder's retreat that begins this evening. Something has captured my attention in this preparation. God always takes the initiative. With Abraham, God did the calling. With Moses, God started the fire on Mt. Horeb. With the nation, God came down onto Mt. Sinai. With Joshua, God revealed the sin of Aichan. Even when David had the idea to build a Temple, God says, "we'll do it on my time." Josiah found the book of Law. Nehemiah was sent back to Jerusalem. All of these initiations by God were either the formulation of corporate worship or the start of great revival among the people. God did something to make them bow low, He spoke, and then the people were to act. What if we functioned more like this?

When was the last time you searched out God to just speak to you? Not to speak to you about this decision or that decision or this idea or that idea, but just simply allowed God to speak. I feel that our Sunday morning gatherings are so full of our own words and speaking, that God is hushed so that we might hear what we have to say. Our own competing ideas about singing, our own creative initiatives using art, our own lengthy prayers, our own fascinating sermons that captivate the audience. But what would God say? I wonder if He closes His ears to our noise, just like He did in the days of Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the rest of the prophets.

I am convinced that we should spend much more time in quiet submission before God than we should in saying anything to Him. Let God speak first, then we may respond when the time is right. In preaching, God should always be the initiator of a sermon. Until God has spoken, then you don't have anything to say. "But what if God does not speak to me that week?" Then either you have not been in His word or you should keep your mouth closed. I am completely struck by how many times Israel returned to the word of the Lord and they responded to the truth. Outward reforms did not accomplish much, but when God's word was read, things happened. You don't need more outward reform in your life. What you need is for God's word to be inscribed upon your heart. Then, and only then, will the words that we speak have any weight to them. Silence first, then preaching.

Wake Thy Slumbering Children

"Go to the ant, O sluggard, Observe her ways and be wise,
Which, having no chief, Officer or ruler, Prepares her food in the summer
And gathers her provision in the harvest.

How long will you lie down, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep?
“A little sleep, a little slumber, A little folding of the hands to rest”—
Your poverty will come in like a vagabond
And your need like an armed man."
(Proverbs 6:6-11)

How often has this been used as a banner to wave about the need for God's people to be hard workers? I don't disagree that we should be hard workers, but let us consider for a moment the spiritual depths of this proverb. It has huge implications for our churches and for the work of preaching.

Indelible Grace music released a CD entitled, "Wake Thy Slumbering Children." Besides this being a great collection of puritan hymns with a modern twist, there is obviously a message embedded within the album. And verses 9-10 of Proverbs 6 captures that meaning. When God's people fall asleep, they must be awakened.

We run to I Thessalonians 4 and are comforted by the fact that those who have died believing in Jesus Christ are only "asleep" until His return. And what comfort this does bring us. It is because of this truth that I no longer mourn the sleeping of my grandparents. But there is a kind of sleep in scripture that brings us no comfort whatsoever. It is a spiritual sleep. It is the kind of sleep that causes indifference, inactivity, and ignorance. This spiritual sleep has fallen upon our churches in America like a great plague. We are the slumbering children.

Sometimes sleep comes because we are too comfortable. Sometimes it is because we have been overfed, like at Thanksgiving. Sometimes sleep is a result of being lazy. Sometimes sleep comes upon us because we are not alert. But I Thessalonians 5:6 declares, "so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober." Alert means to keep watch and sober means to be self-controlled. The disciples could not keep watch with Jesus for even one hour. In this last hour, before Jesus returns, can we keep watch? Or will we be lulled to sleep by work, family, recreation, comfort, America, or any other thing? The role of the preacher is to shout from the rooftops, "WAKE UP SLUMBERING CHILDREN!!!" We are a city on a hill, the light of the world. If the light house workers fall asleep, what happens to the ships? If the watchmen in the city sleep at their posts, what becomes of the city? I will pray to God, along with the men and women of indelible grace music, that He will wake His slumbering children. And in the mean time, may I never rest until that final year of Jubilee when Christ returns.