Spirit-Led Preaching

The following authors and/or preachers are made reference to or quoted directly in the book: Jay Adams, Danny Akin, E.M Bounds, John Calvin, A.J. Gordon, R. Kent Hughes, Johnny Hunt, Lloyd-Jones, John MacArthur, Al Mohler, David and Stephen Olford, John Piper, Haddon Robinson, R.C. Sproul, Spurgeon, William Still, John Stott, Chuck Swindoll, Jerry Vines, Warren Wiersbe, Hershael York, and others.

Quotes from Chapters

Introduction: Clark Kent or Superman? What Do Spirit-Empowered Preachers Look Like

Judging from the verses quoted above, Paul doesn’t sound like a superhero at all – yet no honest reader of the New Testament would deny the power of God that accompanied Paul’s ministry of the Word. As pastors today, we live in a church culture filled with large egos, super-sized pride, and superhero expectations – pressures some say the man of steel himself could not handle! Yet we must reject any notion that we are Superman called to be a superhero. The hero of our preaching is Jesus Christ, and our goal as preachers is to be Spirit-filled and Spirit-empowered so that our audience knows the difference between supernatural preaching and superhero preaching! Preaching is not an exhibition of the Superman skills you may have learned in a seminary or a seminar – rather, as Paul says, it is a demonstration of the Spirit’s power. The question for us is, how do we get there? (pages 7-8)

My hope is that Spirit-Led Preaching will cause you to approach preaching as a holistic and dynamic process rather than an isolated event on Sunday morning. I pray God uses it to create a fresh dependence upon the Spirit in your life and in your preaching ministry. The book will succeed in my view if it causes you to be more sensitive to the Spirit’s role in your preaching. To take a stand on the Word of God is to take a stand with the Spirit of God who inspired it. To preach the Word is to honor the Spirit, and to honor the Spirit is to preach His Word. Homiletics shall not separate, what God hath joined together! (page 12)

Chapter 1: Missing In Action: Where is the Holy Spirit When We Preach?

Preaching has lost its theological mandate, and as a result we have replaced preachers with speakers because we are told people want dialogue without doctrine and talks without truth. Theology is out, storytellers are in, and as a result we are seeing an entire generation of preachers who are more driven to be effective communicators than to be Spirit-empowered preachers. Methodology trumps theology, and sensitivity to the audience has replaced sensitivity to the Spirit. (page 15)

Our calling as preachers is to proclaim the Bible, plain and simple. We must also deliver God’s Word in an engaging and authentic manner. My conviction is that the Spirit of God and the Word of God come together in the heart and mind of the preacher to produce substantive and compelling sermons that transform the lives of listeners. A preacher’s head and heart must meet together in the Holy Spirit to produce powerful preaching that informs the mind, inflames the heart, moves the will, and transforms the life. The Word of God is the substance of our message – it is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword (Heb. 4:12). The Spirit of God is the fire of our message – He ignites us as we prepare it and deliver it, and He ignites our listeners as the hear it! (Page 16)

Chapter 2: What is Spirit-Driven Preaching?

When we get off the tracks and go “rabbit chasing” in our sermons, then we can expect (and probably have experienced!) sluggishness in our preaching engine because our preaching has gotten off the Spirit-inspired track! And if you don’t get the sermon back on the tracks by returning to the heart of the biblical text, you will eventually come to a grinding and screeching halt because you are working against both the Word and the Spirit. But when we find ourselves on the solid rails of the Spirit-inspired text, empowered by the Spirit’s illuminating presence, and driven by a passionate Christological motive to glorify Jesus, the sermonic train speeds along tracks of the biblical text to its desired destination of spiritual transformation. (Page 28)

Chapter 3: The Biblical Foundation For Spirit-Driven Preaching: Paul, the Prophets, and Jesus

First, Paul believed preaching’s power must come from the Holy Spirit, not human manipulation or “human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power” (I.Cor. 1:17; I Cor. 2:4). Second, Paul believed preaching must center on the person and work of Jesus Christ, with a specific emphasis on the cross as the basis for everything Christian. Paul says, “We preach Christ crucified, the power and wisdom of God” (I. Cor. 1:23). Third, Paul’s preaching was driven by his doctrine of inspiration found in 2 Timothy 3:16 as well as 1 Corinthians 2:12-14. As a result, Paul believed in profitability of all Scripture and preaching the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27). (page 38)

Paul states that his preaching was “a demonstration of the Spirit.” The Greek word for demonstration (apodeixis) occurs only in 1 Corinthians 2:4 and carries with it the meaning of proof. In Paul’s theology of preaching, the Holy Spirit’s unseen dynamic at work in the preacher and the hearers is the “proof” or confirmation that God’s Word is powerful, active, and living. Just as the Spirit testifies to our salvation (Romans 8:16), the Spirit also testifies or “proves” to our listeners that we are preaching the Word of God and they are indeed hearing the Word of God. The Holy Spirit is the divine authenticator – He inspires the Word, illumines the Word, and authenticates it as the Word! Jesus teaches his disciples concerning the “proofing” or “confirming” ministry of the Holy Spirit when he says in John 16:13, “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth.” Hence, Paul’s preaching is powerful because it carries with it the divine confirmation, the divine “proof,” given by means of Holy Spirit’s inward authentication. (Page 42)

Chapter 4: The Hermeneutical Case For Spirit-Driven Preaching: The Doctrine of Illumination

Though the Spirit’s work in our hearts is subjective and unique to each individual believer, that subjective aspect must always be governed by the grammatical-historical method of biblical interpretation that is anchored in authorial intent. Interpretations of the Bible that make no reference to authorial intent almost always end up misreading the text, because the Holy Spirit inspired the biblical text along certain predictable rules and guidelines that we can identify: language, grammar, genre, etc. Therefore, it would not make sense for the Spirit to contradict His work of inspiration by providing “new” illumination that goes against or contradicts what He said in His inspired Word. The Spirit is God, and for the Spirit to illumine the biblical text in a way that does not honor His inspiration would be a contradiction of His divine nature. (Page 50)

When I read of inseparable love of God that I have in Christ Jesus in Romans 8, that nothing in heaven or on earth or in all creation can separate me from his love, my heart is warm and gripped by amazing power of God’s love. It stirs something inside me, and causes me to want to pray and thank God. The Holy Spirit keeps preaching from becoming a completely brain-oriented endeavor. Deep, clear thinking is critical to preaching, but will turn into a dry-as-dust lecture unless the Spirit’s illumination ignites fire in the preacher’s soul. With the Holy Spirit’s illumination, the preacher’s Bible study becomes a passionate engagement with the truth of God that stirs the preacher’s soul and changes the preacher’s life. (Page 63)

 

Chapter 5: The Theological Foundation for Spirit-Driven Preaching: Word and Spirit

In the process of Paul’s speaking, the Bible says that “the Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message” (Acts 16:14). Paul spoke, but the Lord did the opening. One of the mistakes I made early in my preaching ministry was to put an undue pressure on myself trying to figure out how to best get hearts to open up: a tear-jerker story at just the right place, a shocking statistic, and surprise ending nobody saw coming. Yet this passage reminds us as preachers that the ultimate persuasion is the Spirit’s persuasion. Sometimes we overemphasize human rhetoric to the degree that we begin to think we are the persuaders of truth. But if the Spirit convinces, if the Spirit convicts, and if the Spirit opens the heart – then people leave with their faith in God’s Word and God’s Spirit, “so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power” (I Cor. 2:5). Whether or not God chooses to open hearts and pull back the scales of unbelief is His sovereign ministry through the Spirit. I pray intensely and fervently that it will happen every time I preach, but I cannot make it happen. My calling is to preach, and I dare not put my confidence in anything other than the power of the Word of God and the Spirit’s illumination of the Word of God to open hearts darkened by sin. (Page 71)

Together, Word and Spirit form the powerful catalyst that serves as the theological foundation for Spirit-driven preaching. The Word activates the Spirit, and the Spirit authenticates the Word; The Word is the instrument of the Spirit, and the Spirit is the implement of the Word; the Word is the written witness, and the Spirit is the inward witness. In terms of preaching, the Word is the source and substance of our preaching, and the Spirit is the supernatural power of our preaching. (Page 75)

Chapter 6: The Spirit and the Preacher

If you come to Southeastern Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, you will see a sign outside my office that reminds me of the vision God placed on my heart when He called me to the seminary to teach preaching:

VISION: To advance the kingdom of God by raising up a generation of God -called, Spirit -empowered, and Christ -exalting preachers who with Passion and Intensity rightly divide And boldly proclaim the Word of God out of the overflow of a heart set on fire by God!

I know my vision statement is a run-on sentence and is an English teacher’s nightmare, but that’s not the point. The point is, I need to be continually reminded that teaching preaching involves more than just 5 steps, 7 principles, or 4 skills. Spiritual dynamics such as Word and Spirit, illumination and empowerment, and confession and consecration cannot go unmentioned in the classroom. (Page 91)

Character, preaching, and the Holy Spirit are all intricately intertwined and feed off each another to produce an atmosphere of credibility and integrity. This fragile, interdependent relationship must be protected from sin and fed by a consistent devotional life filled with prayer, consecration, and meditation upon God’s Word for personal growth. Failure to catch fire in the pulpit on Sunday is the result of sacrificing our intimacy with God on the altar of the urgent. Nothing is more urgent or more pressing than fanning into the flame the gift God has given us (2 Tim. 1:6). Sin’s aim is to put out the Spirit’s fire. Sin should grieve you because it grieves the Spirit of God who lives within you. Sin should bother you because it bothers the Holy Spirit. Righteousness should captivate your every thought because it pleases the indwelling Spirit. Purity should motivate your every decision because you are the temple of the Holy Spirit and you are not your own, you were bought at a great price. Sin that is not confessed and repented of undermines the dynamic of the Holy Spirit and will hauntingly follow us into the pulpit and rob us of our power:

Likewise every evasion of duty, every indulgence of self, every compromise with evil, every unworthy thought, word, or deed, will be there at the head of the pulpit stairs to meet the minister on Sunday morning, to take the light from his eye, the power from his blow, the ring from his voice, and the joy from his heart. (McCartney, Preaching Without Notes, 176)) (Page 100)

 

Chapter 7: The Spirit and the Preparation

What are the keys to internalizing the message? How can a preacher more effectively incarnate the truth he will preach? First, the preacher must be committed to prayer. I think praying your sermon back to God as an offering of worship is a powerful way to keep your preaching in the context of worship and to remind yourself who you are preaching for. Ask God to burn the truth on your heart first, so you can deliver it hot to others. Follow the wisdom of sermon preparation that goes, “Read yourself full, think yourself clear, pray yourself hot, and deliver yourself empty!” (Page 117)

Where does passion come from? Why do people who listen to preaching continually list passion as one of the key factors they look for in an effective message? I believe listeners identify with passion because passion is contagious. As for its origin, the Spirit of God births passion in our hearts long before we stand to preach on Sunday. If you’re not passionate about your message before Sunday at 11, no amount of psyching yourself up will help – it’s too late for genuine, heartfelt passion. You can mark your sermon notes with a post-it-note that says, “Get passionate at this point,” but it won’t help, because passion is not planned, it is incarnated. You can yell and sweat and wave a hanky, but folks will know if it is a bogus attempt to work up a crowd. True passion is not contrived or forced passion, but Spirit-induced and Word-created passion. Passion is not a light switch in the on or off position; rather, passion erupts out of an ever-growing, ever-vital, and ever-dynamic relationship with Jesus Christ, The Word of God, and The Holy Spirit. When we are convinced that we are preaching the living, active, and powerful Word of God, we come under the Spirit’s conviction and like Jeremiah express passion because we have fire in our bones. (page 130)

 

Chapter 8: The Spirit and the Presentation

Where does passion come from? Why do people who listen to preaching continually list passion as one of the key factors they look for in an effective message? I believe listeners identify with passion because passion is contagious. As for its origin, the Spirit of God births passion in our hearts long before we stand to preach on Sunday. If you’re not passionate about your message before Sunday at 11, no amount of psyching yourself up will help – it’s too late for genuine, heartfelt passion. You can mark your sermon notes with a post-it-note that says, “Get passionate at this point,” but it won’t help, because passion is not planned, it is incarnated. You can yell and sweat and wave a hanky, but folks will know if it is a bogus attempt to work up a crowd. True passion is not contrived or forced passion, but Spirit-induced and Word-created passion. Passion is not a light switch in the on or off position; rather, passion erupts out of an ever-growing, ever-vital, and ever-dynamic relationship with Jesus Christ, The Word of God, and The Holy Spirit. When we are convinced that we are preaching the living, active, and powerful Word of God, we come under the Spirit’s conviction and like Jeremiah express passion because we have fire in our bones. (page 130)

Preaching as trialogue means the presentation of the message becomes a three-way conversation between the preacher, the audience, and the Holy Spirit. What are they all talking about? The Word of God! Preaching as trialogue reminds us of the dynamic and interactive element of preaching, because preaching does not happen in a vacuum. The Spirit’s desire is not to take a back seat and simply “overhear” or “oversee” the preacher/audience conversation – The Spirit wants to actively and directly contribute to the trialogue by quickening the hearts and minds of the audience to hear and respond to the Word, and by empowering and guiding the preacher’s presentation of the Word of God. (Page 135)

Chapter 9: The Spirit and the Power: Understanding the Anointing

Does the preaching of the gospel today still require the attendant power of the Holy Spirit? Can we expect the “proclamation and Spirit” paradigm established in Luke-Acts to accompany our preaching of the gospel today? I believe that the Spirit and proclamation are still necessary, because we are preaching the same message and we are up against the same sin-hardened hearts that can only be opened by the Holy Spirit (Acts 16:14). The Spirit’s illumination, testimonium, conviction, guidance, and Christological witness are all available and necessary for the preaching of the gospel today! I do not believe that the Spirit’s power for preaching ended in the apostolic age. Just as Jesus was empowered by the Spirit to reveal to us the glory of the Father, so the Spirit empowers us to bring glory to the Son. By the Spirit, Jesus completed the work the Father had given Him to do on earth (John 17:4), and by the same Spirit, we work to complete the mission Jesus has given to us to preach the gospel until every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. (Page 154)

In Colossians 1:9, Paul’s prayer for the church begins by asking that the believers in Colossae “be filled with the knowledge of His will.” The verb speaks of a continuous filling and carries the idea that whatever we are filled with, we will ultimately be controlled by. Paul is saying let the knowledge of God’s will – His Word – fill and control you. The Spirit’s anointing works in much the same way. When our lives are Spirit-filled, we are Spirit-led. The Spirit fills us and controls us, and God is confident He can use us in our surrendered state, so He blesses us with the attendant power of the Holy Spirit for preaching. Ephesians 5:18 talks about the ability of alcohol to come into our bodies and control us – “do not get drunk with wine, which leads to debauchery, but be filled with the Holy Spirit.” In both Colossians 1:9 and Ephesians 5:18, the idea is one of possession and control. Colossians 1:9 calls us to be filled and controlled by the knowledge of His will as it is revealed in Scripture – the Word. Ephesians 5:18 calls us to be filled with and controlled by the indwelling Holy Spirit – the Spirit. So the preacher who is anointed for preaching and empowered by the Holy Spirit will be filled and controlled by both Word and Spirit. Vines and Shaddix agree:

The anointing is the spiritual fervor that flows through a man in the preaching event. Though the effects of this divine work often are not noticed until the delivery of the sermon, the man of God must build his entire preaching ministry on its presence. Consequently, attention must be given to the need for this anointing long before the sermon-building process begins. (Vines and Shaddix, Power in the Pulpit, 64) (page 155)

The preacher not only knows he is weak apart from the Holy Spirit, he also knows he has no message apart from God’s Word. He never takes the credit or glory, because he knows it totally belongs to God. The preacher knows he is a servant, not a superstar. You don’t preach very longer before you realize how unworthy you are to be a preacher of God’s Holy Word. This is the angst of preaching, the fact that as preachers we feel so unworthy to preach, yet we are compelled by the Spirit to do it. The thought of preaching repels us and compels us at the same time. When we compare our own sinfulness with the sinless one of whom we preach, we are repulsed by a sense of unworthiness. Yet when the Spirit of God takes hold of us and fires us through His Word to a red-hot passion, we are compelled to preach because we see the glory of God and we cannot keep silent, we cannot hold it in! (169)

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