A CRUCIAL COMMAND

 

Can you imagine if a preacher dared to enter the pulpit drunk?  It is likely (and likely should be) that he would be fired. Yet, how many preachers will stand before the congregation tomorrow—relying on their study, leaning on their skills, trusting in their strength. It may be that none will confront them—in fact, they may please the people and receive a pat on the back. But, they have sinned as much as the drunken preacher slurring his sermon!

“Be filled with the Spirit,” is as much an imperative as “be not drunk with wine.”  To disobey either is sin. It is just that one would be more obvious.  Yet, because it is not so apparent, the failure to be filled with the Spirit may be more insidious!

From the Day of Pentecost, there was this linkage between being filled with wine and being filled with the Spirit. Why?

One who is drunk is mastered by alcohol. It controls everything about them. It changes their thinking, their vision, their speech, their emotions, their walk. To be filled with the Spirit is to be under the Lordship of Jesus Christ—fully. So much so, that His Spirit affects the way we think, how we see, what we say, how we feel, the way we walk. 

This is a crucial command. Jesus demanded the disciples assemble for prayer after His ascension and not cease seeking the Spirit’s power until He came upon them. They did. He did. There were 3000 added to the church that day!  The world has never been the same. 

Pray!  Seek the fullness of the Spirit. Do not cease asking for His anointing on the preaching of the Word and ministries of the church. Be empty of self, that you may be full of the Spirit.

It is a crucial command!

INTAKE BEFORE OUTFLOW

 

 Old Mother Hubbard 
Went to the Cupboard,
 To give the poor Dog a bone;
 When she came there,
 The Cupboard was bare,
 And so the poor Dog had none.

As a preacher of God’s Word, we cannot give what we do not have. There must be intake before there can be outflow. If the spring is not flowing, then we cannot draw out water. Our people come to us, thirsty and longing for the Water of Life. Is the well dry?

We may all feel that way at times. Having given and given and given—we are poured out and exhausted—with nothing left to give. Yet, here comes another Lord’s Day and the assembling of the saints to drink. They are thirsty. The world they have functioned in all week has drained them dry. They look to the pulpit for help. What will you do?  Jesus provides the solution. 

There must be DESIRE. He says, “If anyone thirsts.”  

Self-sufficiency may drain our desire. Pride calls us to self-sufficiency. It’s our job to give the people the Lord’s message and satisfy their spiritual thirst.  We have been to seminary. We are the Bible experts. So, we function as professionals, just doing our job. There will be no outflow of grace from such a pulpit, for there has been no intake. God gives grace to the humble, and not the self-sufficient.

Carnal satisfaction can deplete our desire. Rather than the intake from the tributaries of truth in Scripture, we may satiate ourselves at this world’s well.  Distracted by electronic devices, addicted to worldly amusements, and gorged with fleshly pursuits, we think on Saturday night, we can borrow some other preacher’s bucket and share the contents of his intake with the thirsty Sunday morning crowd. 

Jeremiah speaks to this:  “For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, And hewn themselves cisterns—broken cisterns that can hold no water.” (‭Jer. 2‬:‭13‬‬). 

God forbid that we be a broken cistern!  Let us desire to drink deeply of Christ all week long through the fountain of the Spirit-inspired Scriptures.  Then, no matter how demanding our week has been, we may claim the promise, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled,” (Matt. 5:6). 

There must then be DIRECTION.  Jesus said, “let him come to me.”

Good intentions will not get the job done. We may have meant to dive deeply into the text we are to preach, but so many good things have detoured us from the primary task. I think of the Apostles, in the early days of the church. The congregation was growing exponentially, conflict arose, ministry demands intensified, and the church turned to the leadership. Their response was to install other godly men to care for those needs, for they said, “we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word,” (Acts 6:4). There must be delegation of many tasks, if there is to be the declaration of mighty truths. 

Wrong direction will keep us from the right direction. There is a place for reading commentaries and listening to podcasts. But, we must prioritize seeking Jesus. Our agenda is to drink deeply of Him, before we dive deeply into research. Pray much before you study long—to seek the Savior and not just create a sermon. You will be amazed how if you are in the Word with regularity, the Lord will fill you up, so you can pour out. Prayer and the ministry of the Word are inseparable.

Finally, this calls for DECISION. Our Lord said, “drink.”

The old adage is, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.”  I can present this, but you can ignore it. You may nod your head and say, “Amen,” with your lips, while returning to the old rut of doing what you’ve always done. You may feel guilty and so drained as to despair and quit the ministry. Some preachers go down in flames of moral failure, while others just fade away.  

It is time to come and drink. Open your heart to Christ anew. The Holy Spirit promises to flow into you and then out of you!  That outflow will be “rivers of living water,” not a trickle, but a torrent!  You may be drained, but the Spirit within you never is—not even a bit—from His boundless supply. 

Let us seek the Lord, brothers. God will supply the outflow if you take care of the intake.

THE PROMISE OF POWERFUL PREACHING

There is a puny, pitiful, punchless, powerless preaching that is pointless!  It is tragic and worthless. Concerning this, Paul spoke of God, “who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” (2 Corinthians‬ ‭3‬:‭6‬‬). “Letter” preaching may be “by the Book.”  That is, the content is Biblically based and doctrinally sound—as it should be—yet, is dry and deadening to the hearer. Old Vance Havner said, “You can be straight as a gun barrel theologically, and empty as one spiritually.”  It is the Spirit who gives life. He is the promised power in our preaching. Remember how in the vision of a valley of dry, dead bones, Ezekiel was told to preach to them—and this we must. But, it was when the Word of God was accompanied by the Wind of God—that same Divine Breath of Pentecost—coming into them, that they had life, (cf. Ezek.37:1-14). 

With this in mind, consider the promise of our Lord in Mark 13:11. “But when they arrest you and deliver you up, do not worry beforehand, or premeditate what you will speak. But whatever is given you in that hour, speak that; for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit.”  (Mark‬ ‭13‬:‭11‬‬). In the context, where the preacher is arrested and will be indicted before a judge for preaching the Gospel, he will have no library, no Bible, no occasion of sermon preparation. Yet, there is no need to fear, for the Spirit will give the right message—an anointed one—in such an occasion. This does not mean under normal circumstances that we should not study and prepare, instead trusting spontaneity in proclamation. Should such need arise, God will provide. Yet, if we can prepare, we must. Do not be like the old boy that said, “Sometimes I preach from notes and sometimes I just talk out of my head.”  That is apparent from some sermons you hear! God does not bless laziness.  Study and have something to say.

Yet, there must not be reliance on preparation in your study, but dependence on the Spirit. He is the One who breathes life into dead bones. Preaching “by the letter,” is deadening. It may induce nodding heads of agreement as to content, but then leads to nodding  heads of slumber. It is promised, “the Spirit gives life.”  God’s man can claim the promise of the Lord not just when summoned from a prison, but when standing in a pulpit: “But whether is given you in that hour, speak that; for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit.” 

How does this happen?  I heard Stephen Olford say years ago, that there must be “emptiness, prayerfulness, and yielded-ness.”

There must be emptiness. God does not fill a man with His Spirit that is  full of himself. A glass cannot be filled with milk, if even a quarter of it is full of lemonade.  You must empty the glass and then you can fill it. Spiritually, this demands our repentance. We confess our sin and claim God’s forgiveness.  We head to the cross and die to all that we are in order to live in all He is.

There must be prayerfulness. James said, “Yet you do not have because you do not ask,” (4:2d). We must pray in faith, asking God to fill us. It is His will to do so, for He has commanded, “Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit,”. (Eph. 5‬:‭17‬-‭18‬‬). 

There must be yielded-ness. This is the surrendered life of utter dependence on the Spirit of God. As being filled with wine means one is under the control of alcohol, so being filled with the Spirit demands we be under the mastery of God. When I stand to preach, I need to be gloriously intoxicated with God!  As alcohol will impact every dimension of my life—how I think, see, speak, feel, and walk, thus the one who is filled with the Spirit will find his mind directed by Scripture, his vision focused on eternity, his mouth declaring transformative truth, his heart full of love, and his walk aligned with the Word.

This is the promise of powerful preaching!  May the Lord bless us with preachers on this Lord’s Day who stand and speak in the anointing of God’s Spirit!

LED THAT WE MIGHT LEAD

 

Joseph provides an example of how those in church leadership should be led by the Lord. We can only be effective if we are directed by Him. Unlike Joseph, we may not expect an angel to guide us, but we have God’s Word to speak to us and the Spirit of God to specifically apply the principles revealed in our current context. The issue in much of our leadership is not so much a failure of knowing what to do, but knowing it and failing to do it!  Certainly, we must ask God for clear direction, but my problem has often been knowing more than I have been doing!  

The three responses of Joseph, as underscored by Olford here are vital in being led that we might lead. Preacher, stand fast, shun fear, and show faith!  In these days of doctrinal and moral compromise, may God give us a backbone of steel—clarity and courage of conviction!

OPPORTUNITY FOR GOSPEL MINISTRY

The church at Philadelphia was a church with an open door. Every church needs to be!  By that, it is not meant that the door is open to invite people in, but to send people out. Inviting people to attend an evangelistic, Biblically grounded fellowship is a good thing. Yet, this is not what is meant. Rather, God had given the Philadelphian saints opportunity for Gospel ministry. They were sharing their faith and people were being reached. Now it seems that most churches do not go and tell or even invite people to come and see.

Pastors are not to blame—exclusively. This is not meant to make church leadership feel guilty—unless we are!  In these seven letters where Christ shows His vital interest in the affairs of the local church, it is the preacher who is first addressed. He is the angelos—“angel”—the messenger, for so the word means. His eyes will be first to read Christ’s words and his mouth will be the one to proclaim them. The saints at Philadelphia were seizing the opportunity for missions, and doubtless the pastor was leading them to do so.

Three traits enabled them to be successful in soul-winning, and we can experience these.

1.  THEIR FORCEFULNESS, “for you have a little strength.”  The power of the Spirit was the driving force behind their accomplishment.  The church’s witness began at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came upon them, with nearly 3,000 saved.  When any church is successful in reaching people there is a supernatural forcefulness possessed by pastor and people. 

2.  THEIR FAITHFULNESS, “have kept My word.”  They did not compromise the message to tickle the ears of the world. They were not driven by pragmatic reasoning to seek to reach people by stealth. When people come to genuine faith they are not manipulated by carnal methodology, but by Biblical accuracy. God has promised to bless His Word; do not be ashamed of it (cf.Rom.1:16).

3. THEIR FEARLESSNESS“have not denied My name.”  Those were days of growing hostility to the church.  As John penned this letter, he was imprisoned on an island for preaching the Gospel.  In many places in our world, following Christ is dangerous. This may soon come to America. Will we be fearless in the face of opposition?  The Devil will always oppose a missionary church. In the face of the Dragon, we must be fearless, whatever the cost.

Jesus promises reward if we are forceful, faithful, and fearless.  “Behold, I am coming quickly! Hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown.” (Rev.3:11).  No one can shut the door of opportunity, unless the church itself does so—and in that case we are no longer truly a church, but a country club with a steeple on top!

“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches,”(‭3:13).‬‬

FOR HIS GLORY

 

Our service to God is not to promote ourselves, but to glorify God. Let us beware of pursuing ministry as glory hounds hunting church celebrity status.

OUR SPEECH SHOULD BE ROOTED IN GOD’S AUTHORITY. “If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God.” It is not our eloquence with words, but the exposition of the Word that redounds to His glory. Our intention in the sermon is to accurately present the sacred text as though God Himself were speaking though us. It is not the messenger, but the message that matters.  That Word has transforming power. We cannot change people, but God can through His oracles—and thus, He receives all the glory.

OUR SERVICE SHOULD BE RELIANT ON GOD’S ABILITY. “If anyone ministers, let him do it with the ability which God supplies.” If we want the honor of man, then we will offer them the help of a man—which will be of no eternal significance. Our passion should be for the honor of God, that He might help men and women with a power that is of enduring importance.  Church leaders are mere channels through which the mighty river of God’s blessing flows. No one is awed by a river bank, but focuses on the mighty stream that washes through it.

When servants of the Lord attend to these two matters, the result is: “that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”