Today on the Evangelist Podcast, we're looking at the power of preaching.
SPEAKER_00The Evangelist Podcast from Revival. Find out what's new in telling people the good news about God, the world, and you. With Andy Brinkley and Glenn Scrivener.
SPEAKER_02Welcome back to the Evangelist Podcast. We're going through this series on the power of evangelism and uh we've reached power evangelism. Power Evangelism. How about that, C and we've got the power of preaching.
SPEAKER_01Yes. So yeah, so we've thought about the power of ordinary Christian living, and we've thought about the power of church. And yeah, it's time it's time to think about the power of the preached word.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So we'll get to that in a mo. Tell us what you've been doing recently, Glenn.
SPEAKER_01What have I I dunno. I've been involved in what have I been involved in? Uh so the uh Valentine's video has just uh come out, so in time for Valentine's Day, and uh if you haven't yet uh seen it, do check it out. If you haven't yet shared it, uh please do, because you know, I mean the the um Fifty Shades of Grey trailers being shared around the world. Let's let's do something on the other side to actually show the the true meaning of love. Even if you don't like my video, I bet you like it better than Fifty Shades of Grey. So why don't you why don't you sh why don't you share uh Beloved and uh and yeah, see if it starts some conversations on your Facebook wall. You never know.
SPEAKER_02And we've got another video coming out soon.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, working on something for for Easter. Easter. Uh cannonball. Uh cannonball is uh yeah, so Jesus is like a cannibal shot from heaven. Um yeah, it it kind of starts with, you know, we're born sinking into quicksand, and it's this idea that uh there we are getting sucked down into the grave. Jesus comes and instead of actually uh giving us a hand out of the grave, he uh is like a cannibal shot from the heart of heaven and he blows a hole through death, comes out the other side and says, Walk this way. Which as an image has really helped me in understanding what death and resurrection is all about. Jesus doesn't just sort of dip a toe in death and then come back up. And he doesn't just yok us out of death. He goes into death, blasts a hole through death and and invites us out the other side. And that then that makes sense of all the sort of things that Jesus says in terms of, you know, come and die, come and take up your cross and follow me, and if any man would come after me, he must deny himself and and all that kind of stuff, because actually he's f he's asking us to go the way of death, the way of giving our lives for others, because that's actually the way of of of life. And so, yeah, as an Easter video, we're thinking about his death and resurrection is the time that he blasts a hole through death and and uh and comes out the other end.
SPEAKER_02And it's our first animated sort of storyboarded It's the f yeah, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01So I guess the three to it's the f yeah, first kind of it's sort of comic book. Um and so uh Alex Webb Peplo, who's a great uh artist, and he's uh done uh a number of Christian comics, like uh The Third Day, uh for instance, an Easter comic. He's gonna be doing the animation and uh the storyboards look fantastic. I just can't wait to see the finished product. Excellent.
SPEAKER_02So please do uh look out for that and and share it where you can. So we're looking at the power of preaching this week. In the last two episodes, you've spoken of the power of ordinary Christian living in the power of church. So this is kind of like you think we should just be the gospel to people?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, or yeah, you get people sort of saying that that um you know you just do friendship evangelism and and there's more friendship than evangelism going on, and and people sometimes make that complaint, and and I don't know, in people's thinking it it it seems to be an either-or, you know, you either make friends with people and actually love them, or you ram the gospel down their throats, and and and people use language like that. And so when you start talking about, hey guys, let's try and be a little bit humanized, let's not try and spiritualise every conversation, let's be, you know, humanized and love people and walk with them and um you know establish those friendships. When you start talking like that, people say, Ah, so you're in the friendship evangelism camp. You don't believe in preaching then. And and you just wish that, you know, can we please have both? Is it too much to ask to say that uh yeah, absolutely that just as the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and Jesus got eyeball to eyeball with us and loved us. Yes, that's that's one side of that truth. He became flesh, but he was also the word becoming flesh. And when the word became flesh, he he was a preacher for goodness sakes, and uh and around around he went everywhere he went, tiny little villages and hamlets and went into synagogues that you know how many people are going to these synagogues, who knows? But they're the Son of God, thought it was worth getting up and proclaiming the Word, and and so can I believe in uh missional living and incarnational ministry and friendship evangelism and in preaching? I hope so, because I think that's what the Bible teaches.
SPEAKER_02So sometimes we talk about earning the right to preach the gospel. Yes. Um a famous saying that I've heard a preacher say is you can't drive a ten-tongue truck over a tiny bridge, a little broke bridge. You've got to build the bridge first. You've got to build the bridge. That's a biblical idea.
SPEAKER_01I think the problem with that, I mean, we all understand it, because we all understand that you know you've barely been on speaking terms with your neighbour, and then like all of a sudden they they mention something about I don't know, you know, the weather, and you sort of you sort of say, ah, but you know, when the Son of Man comes, the lightning will light up one side of the sky to the next, and and you know, you and then you you know try and launch into a massive gospel you know presentation. We all understand that in those scenarios that actually the this tenuous rope bridge of your friendship is not able to handle the ten ton freight of of what you're trying to communicate. We understand that as an image, but I I think it's it can be an unhelpful image in that the bridge between me and my friend, ultimately it's not the strength of my friendship. Ultimately, there is the strength of the Holy Spirit by his word communicating Christ, who is the bridge. If any if anything's gonna be the bridge in an evangelistic encounter, um I understand why we might want to think that our you know the quality of our friendship is the bridge, but let's think a little bit theologically about it. Actually, Jesus is the way, he's the bridge, and his word has a power to communicate itself that goes beyond our friendship, our ability to you know, to speak well or you know, persuasively, that let's let's get a confidence that actually the word is able to create the bridge that goes deeper than than simply friendship. And let's let's realise that, you know, while friendship evangelism will reach, you know, many, many people, and and we can pray that my friendship with so-and-so will convert them, and then their friendship groups will convert them, and their friendship groups will convert them, and it will exponenti exponentially spread like that. We can hope for that, but actually w you know we won't reach the nation just through friendships. There there does need to be proclamation. Proclamation in a in a much broader sense. So what is the power of preaching then? The power of preaching, a couple of different places, well, loads of different places in the Bible you can go to, but a couple spring to mind, and and and one is kind of one Corinthians, which we had a look at um in the last couple of episodes when we thought about the power of ordinary living and the power of the church. That even though the church looks like a bunch of losers in 1 Corinthians 1, you know, not many of us in the church are wise by human standards, not many are influential, not many are of noble birth. God chose the foolish things of the world, that is the church, to shame the wise. So that's a kind of a cross-shaped people who are communicating the gospel. But uh, in the midst of all that, Paul says he's got a cross-shaped message. Um and in chapter 1, verse 17, he says, Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with uh wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. Um and and he seems to think that verse 18, the message of the cross, is the power of God. That the words about Jesus and him crucified actually have power, and they have such power that, you know, verse 23, we preach Christ crucified, who is a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, it's Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. That that actually through preaching, through the foolishness, verse 21, of what is preached, he can save those who believe. There is power to preaching. And so Paul talks about how you know he he comes in chapter two, verse one, without eloquence or human wisdom, but he proclaimed the testimony about God. And actually, as he as he you know resolves to know nothing except Christ and him crucified, so verse four, the message in his preaching, and not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom but on God's power. Just through foolish looking preaching, the power of God is unleashed. And of course Paul says, you know, similarly in in Romans 1, I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation. He's in particular talking about the gospel proclaimed, because he's saying, I'm I want to come to you here in Rome, and I want to proclaim to you this gospel. Why do I want to proclaim it? Because it's the power of God. So yeah, the gospel is the gospel in Paul is so so often not um an idea that has power, but it's a it's a sermon that has power, it's a proclamation that has power, and it needs to be preached, it needs to be proclaimed, even though it looks weak and stupid in people's eyes. And like and that sort of brings me to the other scripture I'm always thinking about when it comes to the power of preaching. You know, Jesus says in Mark chapter 4 that the sower sows the seed, and he sows it everywhere, no matter how unpromising it looks, he sows it on the path, he sows it on uh rocky soil, he s sows it on thorny soil. This is all in Mark chapter four. And he s sows it in good soil. So he just scatters it abroad, and you sort of look at a seed and you think, how weak, how stupid, how foolish, apathetic, what good will this do? And you sow the seed and you come back the next day and there's nothing, and the next day and there's nothing, and the next day there's nothing. But you wait till harvest and there's this thirty, sixty hundredfold thing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well often when I've been preaching and I've I've sat down after preaching and I've thought, oh dear. I'll never preach again, you know. Yeah. And then uh see what the Lord does with it. Yeah. You know, thankfully it's not in the scattering. Yes, in the quality of the seed. Exactly, yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's uh doesn't look powerful preaching. No. It really it really looks weak and pathetic and stupid. Which is why people sideline it. Yeah. And and nobody wants to look as vulnerable as a sower of seed. We all want to do something that looks like we're landscaping, you know, in a in a much more tangible sense. Yeah. But Jesus doesn't call us to landscape, he calls us to sow the seed.
SPEAKER_02Do you think we've lost confidence in preaching? Yes. I mean the last two churches that I've been to that were my own, yeah. Once at Christmas and once the other weekend, they didn't have any sermon at all.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And I've tried to come to terms with it, you know, and I think yeah, they were trying to make it not too not too difficult for people to connect with and understand what's going on. Um someone did a survey and said that the average sermon in the UK was seven minutes. Okay, yeah. And uh, you know, uh maybe that's because that there are churches that are not preaching at all.
SPEAKER_01At all, exactly.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You know, and it's uh In our sermon, in our you know, church we get sort of half an hour. So how many churches are are getting one minute to to bring the average down?
SPEAKER_02I mean I don't I don't want to sort of bash churches and and you know the way they do things, but yeah, surely if people believe that preaching was more powerful, it would feature more prominently. It would happen.
SPEAKER_01And and I think the attacks on preaching come from all sorts of sides. So um you can get the sort of the more missional church people, um uh many of whom are big believers in preaching, but some of whom sort of say, well, it's it's just about you know incarnational stuff and getting alongside people and we don't want to ram the gospel down people's throats. Um or you get uh pressure from uh people who say, Well, we're we're we're just not a monological culture, nobody listens to a single voice anymore. Which is true, you know. You you even go onto news websites, and even as the BBC is telling you the news, you want your opportunity to comment on the news story, you know. You go to the Guardian website to read a news story, you don't want to just listen to the news, you want to contribute, you want to have your say and and uh and to all that, and and then people sort of say, well, in in in church, you know, people don't want to just hear one voice. They want to get into a conversation and interact. And I just want to I want to say, well, could just like for an hour can people just sit down and shut up? For an hour can people just listen? Like without having to oh I've got something to say. No, just s shut up, sit down, listen to the you know, listen to the the voice of the Lord. Um I preached on Psalm 29 um a little while back on on the power of preaching, and and it's got this incredible language. You know, the voice of the Lord is over the waters, the gl the God of glory thunders. The Lord thunders over the mighty waters, the voice of the Lord is powerful, the voice of the Lord is majestic, the voice of the Lord breaks into cedars, uh breaks the cedars, the voice of the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon. Uh the voice of the Lord twists the oak and strips the forest bare, and all in his temple cry glory. Apart from some who'd like a more dialogical approach to preaching. Like, no, shut up, sit down, shut up, hear the voice of the Lord that is powerful to twist the oaks. It's like a hurricane, and you're meant to sit down, shut up, and go, glory. And we we don't. We don't want to sit down and we want to have our say. And like what kind of sick kind of vision of ourselves and the vision of God is it that we we just can't sit down and shut up just for, you know, just for 20 minutes, half an hour, just to listen to actually what God wants to say. But there are so many pressures th that that want to sideline preaching. I was speaking to a woman um a couple of years back, and and she, picking up on the Mark chapter four kind of language, sort of said, you know, I used to believe in preaching, and then I just I just saw that my words were just so ineffective. And and I and and she said, I got a vision from the Lord who said the soil is too stony, you know, so you need to you need to start removing the stones from the soil. And so then she says, like, you know, I spent the next year of my life trying to do, you know, this bit of social action, this bit of social action to try and remove the stones. Um and and then she sa and then she developed the parable even further than that, and then then she realized that even that was was too much, um, and she needed to to take a crowbar to the soil um and to and to get to work, and and she took that to mean some other, you know, bit of pre-evangelism that is required before you actually sow the seed. And and you just think you you're just travelling so far from Mark chapter four at that point. Jesus no Jesus like doesn't even say break up the path. He doesn't say do any weeding. He just says sow the seed. And we just don't want to do it because we don't want to look as stupid and foolish and ineffectual as the sower of seed looks. But we've got to. There's there's power in preaching.
SPEAKER_02Okay, but from a non-Christian's point of view, you know, I could I could understand them being quite afraid of having the gospel shoved down the neck.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um how should we go about preaching to them?
SPEAKER_01Well, I I think at that stage, because it is such a powerful thing, you know, you can use it sparingly. And we'll we'll think about this next week as we think about just the the power of ordinary words in conversation and that kind of thing. You know, it's it's interesting that the in One Peter, when Peter he's just about to say one Peter 3.15, you know, always be prepared to give an answer to anyone who asks you. So always be prepared with words. Just like a paragraph earlier, he said that actually Christian wives can convert their non-Christian husbands without a word. Just through the way that they live and act and and you know, th there is a time and a place for shutting up, actually. And that there is a time and a place for for being wise and not always, you know, giving giving words, and and we'll we'll think about that next week. But I think that actually together with church, this is going back an episode, going together with church, it's a case of in our ordinary conversations with friends saying, Yeah, that's interesting. I've I've got a different view myself, but you know, I tell you what, why don't you come to church and have a listen and we'll chat about it over lunch? And it's that kind of thing and and or not always giving an answer and shoving things down people's throats, but sometimes saying, Oh, you know what, I've got I've actually got a YouTube video on that. Can I send that to you? And then we'll chat about it. Not always shoving things down down people's throats, but sometimes saying, you know, I've got I've got a book that you know, c would you just read a a a l a chapter from this book and then we'll talk about it. Um and at that stage you're sort of honouring that there is a power of preaching, but you're also saying that you don't always have to bring an answer to bear to somebody. 'Cause cause that can so often the answer that we give is not the answer that they're looking for, and it uh and they feel like they're being shut up rather than being loved and and answered in in in a lot of ways. So I think you I think uh there is a time and a place for saying, well, I'm not gonna use words every single opportunity I get, and I'm gonna be wise. But because I believe in preaching, maybe I will let my preacher at church do the job for me and then over Sunday lunch they can hate the preacher and still be friends with me.
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SPEAKER_01Um So I I think there's ways of using church and using books and using sermons and YouTube videos and all that all that sort of stuff that you can send to send to friends where the power of preaching is upheld, but it's not always you who are ramming it down people's throats.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Good. Okay, well, uh should we leave it there? Because yeah. We've got to get on to uh the power of words next time. So if you have any comments about this show, just go to revivalmedia.org slash tep83 and you can leave a comment there. Also, we'll have the link to the beloved video and opportunity to share, etc. If you go there, you'll find uh we've got a new design of website. Um it would be handy as you're our good, friendly, regular listener, that uh give us some feedback, it will help us to develop it. It's in its early stages of the new design, so any comments you make would be helpful. It'd be great. We'll leave it there. Thanks very much, and see you next time. See you next time.