Preaching With the Power of the Holy Spirit

Introduction
To preach is to be called by God, to serve in the glorious undertaking of disseminating scriptural truths. Unlike any ordinary endeavor, preaching requires spiritual strength and conviction. Most importantly, preaching depends on the Grace of god, received as the Holy Spirit, as well as by and for the Holy Spirit. To take preaching lightly would be to commit the sin of pride, in assuming that the undertaking is about charisma or even just about spiritual counseling. As admirable as charisma is, and as noble as counseling, preaching is something different altogether. In the 40th anniversary edition of his classic book Preaching and Preachers, Martyn Lloyd-Jones explicates the nature of preaching with dutiful attention to scriptural authority. Ultimately, Lloyd-Jones shows how preachers can transform their sermons from mere motivational speeches into the transformative means by which listeners can achieve union with God. Lloyd-Jones presents the purpose of preaching as reaching towards unction, or anointing.
Preparation
Without discounting the importance of preparation in planning a sermon, Lloyd-Jones also extols the need to remain open to being moved by the spirit during delivery. The unction “will come upon” the corpus of work completed by the preacher during the planning and preparation phrases (Lloyd-Jones, 2011, p. 304). There is a chronology to the process of sermon development and delivery, according to the author, which is grounded in scripture: traceable to the story of Elijah but also to “many other examples of the same thing,” (Lloyd-Jones, 2011, p. 304). God ascribes a certain order of things, paralleling the divine order and structure of Creation. First one things happens, then another; first Moses obeys God’s will in detail and then Moses receives the unction in the form of the burning bush. The novice preacher will recognize a more mundane parallel in Lloyd-Jones’s analysis, in the saying “God helps those who help themselves,” (Lloyd-Jones, 2011, p 304). First, the preacher does the hard work, careful scrutiny of correspondences, and deep textual research. Then, the preacher transmutes that learning and knowledge into a purer form of wisdom guided by the Holy Spirit. The more prepared the preacher, the more powerful the sermon. Through the sermon, God is “giving power,” an act of Grace (Lloyd-Jones, 2011, p. 304).
Scriptural Support for Preparation and Anointing
Scripture unequivocally stresses the salience of the Holy Spirit in enlightened preaching, beginning with the Old Testament and reaching a peak with the ministry of Jesus Christ. All the Old Testament prophets were exemplary in their receptivity to the Holy Spirit, the anointing, even prior to God’s revelation in Christ (Lloyd-Jones, 2011). When the prophets of the Old Testament preached, there was a deep-rooted conviction that their work was preparatory in nature: starting from Elijah and onto John the Baptist, who truly paved the way for Christ’s ministry. As Lloyd-Jones points out, John the Baptist received the Holy Spirit, consumed with the love of God, which he was able to transmit to a wide enough audience to prepare them for the coming of Christ. Thus prepared, “the people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah,” (Luke 3:15). Of course, Luke knew full well that he was only the first course, the appetizer to a special spiritual feast. “I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire,” (Luke 3:16). Herein lies the crux of the reason why the anointing remains critical to all preaching. All preaching is the delivery of Christ’s baptismal font; not the baptism in water but that of the Holy Spirit.
The Cyclical Nature of Preparation and Anointing
First comes preparation, and then the unction, but the work of the preacher is far from done when the sermon concludes. It is not a matter of merely preparing for the next sermon. With each sermon, the community of Christ grows. The preacher is entrusted with the responsibility of not just preparing another sermon for the following Sunday but for preparing each person’s heart to receive the Holy Spirit. As each individual listener receives the Grace of God, redemption becomes possible. The preacher helps lay the foundation for the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. The Holy Spirit descends on the preacher during the sermon, and also into the hearts of those who are open to receive the blessing, the anointing, the unction. When this happens, the heart is catalyzed and spiritually prepared for the baptism of fire. Thus prepared, each individual becomes a servant of Christ in his or her own way. Some will even be called to the ministry, others to different ways of spreading the gospel through the world.
A great deal of patience is needed to be a preacher, who often fails to see the flourishing of the flock in its fullest form. The Holy Spirit bestows deep and meaningful patience in the heart and mind of the preacher and all members of the congregation open to God’s grace. Any number of human variables can hinder one’s openness to the Holy Spirit; the preacher’s goal is to produce meaningful and profound change in the lives of individuals and in the collective life of the spiritual community. These types of deep changes do not happen for everyone at once, at the same time, or in any expected time frame. Every day, through prayer, and every week through the gathering together of Christians in His name, the cycle of preparation and anointing begins anew. With each week, the preacher can bring new ideas, new understandings, and new insights into Biblical truths. New sermons reach new people or existing listeners in new ways, helping to gradually awaken the human spirit to the Grace of God.
Beyond the Expository Sermon
The expository sermon is the cornerstone of preaching but with the unction also comes liberation and freedom. A sermon flounders without the Holy Spirit. The preacher can and should move beyond the mundane words and into the passageway through which the Holy Spirit may enter. Reflecting on the nature of Lloyd-Jones’s own sermon delivery and preaching style, Mark Driscoll (2014) notes, “he would often wander from his planned talks as the Spirit led and the length of his messages varied greatly,” (p. 1). It was not as if Lloyd-Jones lacked the discipline to remain faithful to an expository sermon. Rather, the effective preacher can remain steady at the center point of scripture—the formal thesis of the sermon—while also allowing the Holy Spirit to carry the sermon in the correct direction. The sermon ceases to belong to the preacher; it is now in the hands of God. There is no other, and certainly no greater, function of a sermon than to become transcendent. Naturally, Lloyd-Jones welcomes spiritual gifts and other signs of the Holy Spirit (Piper, 1991). Such gifts deepened faith, the key to salvation, and cultivated a “vital spiritual experience,” albeit one that was remarkably devoid of showmanship, crass commercialism, or superficiality (Piper, 1991, p. 1). Faithfulness to scripture comes before the unction; preparation precedes the Holy Spirit.
The Purpose of Preaching
If the purpose of preaching is to produce change and deliverance unto God, the preacher is neither teacher nor counselor but facilitator or even a spiritual midwife. The preacher can also be considered a catalyst for change. Considering that any number of listeners may not yet be believers, the preacher needs to consider the different needs of the audience. Some will have developed a deep and unwavering conviction; others will waver in their faith; some may lack the eyes to see Christ yet but are nevertheless present to listen. No matter how large or diverse the audience, the effective preacher reaches into all hearts with the unction. The unction touches each person in a unique way, a way that is suitable to that person’s current needs or temperament. For all people, the experience of the anointing is revitalization. It is a revival of faith. The baptism in the Holy Spirit is an ongoing, never-ending process until His Kingdom comes.
Another goal of preaching is to allow the Holy Spirit to fill all who are open to receive. The preacher cannot achieve that goal without first receiving the unction, necessitating a move beyond the formalism of the expository sermon into the rarer terrain of the anointing. The anointing cannot ride on an empty, emotional sermon, though. Only a sermon that has been carefully, studiously crafted beforehand prepares the preacher for the right state of heart, mind, body, and soul. In that position of righteousness, the preacher is prepared and can prepare the congregation for the unction. Through the preacher, Scripture is transmitted as living history and truth. The congregation participates in Christ’s ministry directly. As Lloyd-Jones (2011) points out, the early church was founded on the principle foundation of preaching: “She was commissioned, sent out to preach and teach, and this is the thing that she proceeded to do,” (p. 22). That self-same structure remains, no matter how many historical and cultural changes have taken place, no matter how many disagreements over church polity, policy, or doctrine. The church is the body of Christ. Christ is God’s anointed One, and in participating in the Church, each member of Christ’s body receives the unction.
Preaching the Truth
Yielding to the power of the Holy Ghost allows the truth to flow forth. The truth is embedded in Scripture, but it is cloaked in words. With the anointing, the truth is directly transmitted and transmuted from the preacher to the congregation. The preacher cannot preach that which is false; doing so would be the work of the charlatan. The Holy Sprit emits from the truth in the sermon. “As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard,” (Acts 4:20). Christ’s disciples were only relaying what they had seen and heard; likewise, the preacher does the same in that he only relays what he sees and hears in Scripture.
The early Church grew exponentially, spreading like wildfire in the true spirit of Christ. Throughout the world, the Word of God has taken root. A genuinely universal faith, Christianity has not accidentally reached the hearts of billions. The reason for this is preaching. There is no other way to fulfill God’s will than to carry out Christ’s commission. “This is the primary task of the Church, the primary task of the leaders of the Church, people who are set in this position of authority,” (Lloyd-Jones, 2011, p. 23). Preachers who heeded the calling need to be resolute in their task, even through times of personal turmoil, doubt, or community upheaval. Nothing changes the truth; it is eternal and ever-present. To yield means to give way; the preacher needs to stand aside and let the truth speak rather than speaking from personal experience or ego.
The Dual Nature of Revivalism
Lloyd-Jones was a revivalist in two ways. First, he recognized the way preaching corresponds with the promulgation of faith in direct ways, and ways that are scripturally proven. Second, Lloyd-Jones sees how preaching causes the revival of the human spirit. Regarding the revival of faith, Lloyd-Jones draws attention to the history of the Church and notices that when preaching falls out of favor, so too does faith. During its darkest hours, when its mission stagnated, Church leadership has proven corrupt or inept (Lloyd-Jones, 2011, p. 24). The “greatest need in the world,” according to Lloyd-Jones (2011), is faith, and preaching is the best way to stimulate faith (p. 29). Individual faith is necessary to build the Church. The Church is the body of Christ and like any other body, it depends on the healthy functioning of all its constituent parts. The preacher serves a peculiar role or function in the Church, a divinely ordained role. The preacher’s role in the corpus of Christ is somewhat akin to the Church’s autonomic nervous system in that it keeps the body alive through an ineffable, mystical force: the Holy Spirit.
Revivalism is in fact experienced in a third way, in addition to the collective revival of Christian communities or global Christianity and the individual revival of faith. That is, the preacher himself is also revived—resurrected, reborn—in each moment as he receives the Holy Spirit through the anointing. There is tremendous spiritual power in this, manifest as the power to uplift the congregation and its individual members and deliver then unto Christ. There is also power in the anointing because it has direct healing potential. Lloyd-Jones (2011) testifies to the power of the Holy Spirit in helping individuals—including the preacher--to “deal with personal problems,” including physical ailments (p. 37). One needs no further intermediary for these miraculous transformations to take place; it only requires the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
Preaching revives the body of Christ in many ways, such as by improving the relationships between its members. As Lloyd-Jones (2011) states, the preacher’s power on the pulpit extends far beyond the transmission of a scriptural truth. The Truth is transmitted directly through the Holy Spirit, which can then dwell and take up residence in the hearts and minds of people. Also, the Truth becomes the thread binding together people of faith. The people in the congregation feel the power of their connection to one another, which is felt as brotherly love. Brotherly love is also palpably felt by and for the preacher.
Revivalism also refers to Scripture, which in the hands of a preacher who is not ready to receive the unction, can become simply the Good Book. The Good Book is not a history text or a self-help book, but the living Word of God. One of the preacher’s main roles in the church is to continually engage with the Word of God, page by page, passage by passage, and with each new reading breathe new life into Scripture. Scriptural meanings change over time, as each generation of Christians encounters the words with fresh ears, attuned to the zeitgeist of their generation. The preacher is born into that generation for a reason, to serve a grand purpose of facilitating the Holy Spirit in that moment. Scripture is not a stagnant tome penned once because the preacher participates actively in its revival.
Conclusions
To preach means to yield to the power of the Holy Spirit. For this to occur, the preacher needs to take certain specific steps. Those steps begin of course with the calling, the willingness to heed the calling, and then the actions necessary to prepare the intellect for the role of preacher. Theological seminary and any other preparatory means by which the preacher becomes immersed in the scholarly approach to Scripture is the next step. From the point of hermeneutics comes the real work of the preacher: the anointing.
The anointing is the reception of the Grace of God, the blessing of the Holy Spirit that Christ allowed through his life, death, and resurrection. Knowing this, the preacher humbly accepts the unction and brings it forth to the community, joyful in the knowing that his work is aligned with God’s will. The transformative, redemptive power of Christ depends on preaching the Truth.






References

Driscoll, M. (2014). Martin Lloyd-Jones on the Holy Spirit. Resurgence. http://theresurgencereport.com/resurgence/2009/03/21/martyn-lloyd-jones-on-the-holy-spirit
Lloyd-Jones, M. (2011). Preaching & preachers: 40th anniversary edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan
Piper, J. (1991). A passion for Christ-exalting power. Desiring God. https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/a-passion-for-christ-exalting-power