The Dead Flies Of Preaching

"Dead flies make a perfumer's oil stink, so a little foolishness is weightier than wisdom and honor." (Ecclesiastes 10:1)

I am coming to believe more and more that the basis for true spiritual authority in preaching is the spiritual formation in the life of the preacher. Spiritual formation has been described in many ways. Some say that there needs to be evidence that these men "have been with Jesus." Others might say that they have devoted themselves to the spiritual disciplines. Some might call it ministry "experience." I think Solomon would have us to see that spiritual formation is the abscence of dead flies.

Jesus and Paul figuratively call it leaven. Solomon calls it dead flies and folly. The Bible expresses this great obstacle to spiritual growth with many words and images. But they are all pointing us to the same stinking heap of garbage known as sin. It is the "fly in the ointment", the leaven in the dough. And the more that sin is mingled into the life of the preacher, the further he gets from true spiritual authority, which only comes from Jesus and who entrusts it only to those who have been with him. So how do we become a perfumers oil that does not smell like dead flies?

We must first realize that nothing we do will get the sin out of our life. The more we try to fight that battle, the more flies get in the ointment. Surrendering myself to Jesus and to His atoning death will be the only way that the decisive battle over sin will be won in my own heart. Does that feel strangely elementary to the doctrines of christianity? Of course it is, but what else is there! This is THE greatest truth that man has ever known. That God Himself might give Himself to us so that we can behold His glory, power, and authority. Why would I want anything else? No matter how elementary we perceive this truth to be, it is also the most forgotten truth. We tend to think things like...

"Now that I am in the ministry, I should be able to fight these sin battles on my own. I will hide my struggles. God and I will both fight the battle of pornography (or gossip, or homosexuality, or drug abuse, or pride, or hatred, or any dark thing that we hide away in our corners.) We'll beat this thing together."

What lies Satan uses! You can not beat the sin in you. Jesus' death alone defeats that sin. How arrogant I have been in thinking that I can defeat Satan and sin all on my own. Jesus is our dread champion, our Christus Victor. He is truth and life and we defeat sin in no other way but through Him.

I hear your slight objection. Certainly we must do something. I would say not SOME thing but ONE thing. Pursue wisdom and honor. Or more plainly, pursue Jesus. Do not spend one second of your day not captivated by Him. Run to Him with full force. Wake up praying, drive listening to His words, sing about Him, talk about Him, look for opportunities to be an extension of Him, but just cling to Him. Flies get into the ointment because we leave it exposed to the outside conditions. If we flee every form of immorality and close ourselves off to only be exposed to Jesus, sin has no opportunity to lay ahold of us. Do not give sin the opportunity. Spiritual formation is simply this, to have been with Jesus and no one else. That was always Jesus' call to discipleship. If a preacher lacks true spiritual authority, you can almost certainly be guaranteed that he has been with something or someone besides Jesus. Let Jesus pick out the flies, then close the lid and be with Him for the rest of eternity.

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.

Trinitarian Preaching

"Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness;"
Genesis 1:26a

In the last week, I have done a lot of thinking. I have been looking into the power of the Holy Spirit in preaching and I think that is an important piece of the preaching puzzle. But I realize that God is much bigger than just power in preaching. The Holy Spirit is hovering over us, just as He was in the beginning of creation. But let me bring some other things to the forefront of our minds.

The Spirit of God hovers over and empowers and strengthens and enlightens our preaching. But what good would the preaching be without the Word? I find it eternally fascinating to compare John 1 and Genesis 1. Jesus is the Word and all creation came into being through God speaking. Consider that for a moment. Stop and meditate on that for a day. When God speaks, Jesus comes out. Can we say the same for our preaching? Our material in preaching is really like a broken record. Or as Derek Webb has stated, we are like mockingbirds with no new songs to sing. It is Jesus. Jesus yesterday, today, and forever. The power of the Gospel comes alive in the Spirit, but truthfully the power of the Gospel is Jesus. So when we preach, the power and the force in the room might be the Holy Spirit, but the foundation (corner stone) for that power is the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus. What happens in our spirit when we hear preaching matters, but what comes out of the mouth of the preacher matters just as much. And if it's not the Word, then it ain't preaching. (Yes I know that ain't ain't a word.)

But now consider this. Preaching doesn't just end with the Word and the Spirit. God sent Jesus to bring us back to God. His coming wasn't just so that we would fall in love with the man Jesus, but that we would fall in love with the God who was manifested in the man Jesus.

"Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." (2 Corinthians 5:18-21)

That is why I preach. To be an ambassador, a herald if you will. But why preach the Word and why do it in the Spirit? To beg you on behalf of Christ, "be reconciled to God!" God sent the Son to reconcile the world to Himself. He sent the Spirit to teach us and guide us to Him. All of this to the end that we might know Him. If preaching doesn't seek to reconcile you to God, through the work of Christ Jesus and by the power of God's Holy Spirit, then it ain't preaching. So that leaves the question, how trinitarian is our preaching?

From my own personal observations, it seems that preaching has become something of a topical mess. Most preachers use their time to proclaim moral encouragements, logical arguments, or exciting entertainment. But very little of what is today called preaching is seeking to reconcile people to God through Jesus. Sure there is often an invitation offered at the end to invite people to believe. But when the sermon is all about how to be a better you, the Gospel becomes muddled and people have nothing to respond to. Do you want to know if preaching is trinitarian? Look for these things. Is Christ magnified? Is He made much of? Does the preacher want you to hear the cross, hear the Word? Does the preacher seem to be speaking in the power of the Spirit? Does it seem that God is using the words of this mere man to communicate great truths? Are you convicted in your own spirit by God's? And finally, has the whole goal been to be reconciled to God? Have you been influenced to move closer into relationship with God? If these things are happening you might be involved in trinitarian preaching. And may God pull you close to Himself through it.

The Holy Conversation of Preaching

Homily (from which we get our area of study, homiletics) is a word at its most basic definition meaning discourse, dialogue, or conversation. This is what preaching is. It is discourse, dialogue, and conversation. But the question needs to be asked, who is engaged in the conversation?

When we encounter a sermon or preach one, we are so often tempted to think that this is a conversation between the preacher and the audience. That is why preachers have so many tricks up their sleeves. In this understanding of preaching, it is my job as the preacher to engage the audience in the hearing of God's word. So I must be charming or condemning, creative or logical, funny or serious, and so on.

As a listener, I expect to be engaged by this preacher. He is to make me think or laugh or bore me or whatever I might expect him to do with our conversation. And not only is there just one of these listeners, but many. They all bring their various expectations and desires to the conversation. Some are broken inside and need to be lifted up, others are joyful and just want to be encouraged, and even others are confused and need answers. What a complicated mess this conversation has quickly become. How is the preacher to know all the needs of his listeners? And when does the listener get their chance to engage in the dialogue? Maybe by text messaging?

Let me suggest this for our thinking. The conversation of preaching is not two way. There is a third party involved. This is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit acts as comforter, teacher, guide, and power supply for both the preacher and the audience. When the preacher has spent time with the Holy Spirit, the conversation lines will be open from his side. When the audience has been held captive by the work of the Holy Spirit, then they will be ready to hear the power of the Gospel. Consider the implications of that for our preaching. The Holy Spirit is the force in the room when the preaching begins to speak. It is a power that flows and is felt.

Two things to consider. One, as preachers, are we speaking in the Spirit? Have we opened ourselves up to the power of the Holy Spirit wherever that may lead us? I'm willing to bet that if we did this, we would enter the pulpit with a sense of the "numinous." The awe-inspiring greatness of God. We would find ourselves amazed at what God can do with a sinner like us. Secondly, as an audience, are we listening in the Spirit? Are we prepared to hear the words of God spoken to us? If you feel that power is missing from the preaching in your church, don't immediately blame the preacher. What if he's tapped into the Spirit and you're not? Community is not God, but God is communal. You are involved in this sermon just as much as the preacher by the power of the Holy Spirit. Examine yourself for power outages in your own life.

Wherever preaching lacks power to transform lives, I am almost certain that at least one member of the conversation is not tapped into the Holy Spirit. If only our churches would reconnect with the power of God's Spirit and allow Him to draw us in to Himself, what amazing conversations we might have!