pad

Lifted in The Accompanying Presence (pt. 2)

An interview with Bill Hybels about how he experiences the Holy Spirit in the preparation and delivery of a message.
Editor's note: This is part two of a two-part series.

PreachingToday.com: Scripture portrays two sides to our experience of the Spirit.Ephesians 5:18 says, "Be filled with the Spirit," and Ephesians 6:18 says, "Pray in the Spirit," suggesting there are things we can do that put us in a place where God's Spirit can be manifest in us. Then again, Jesus says, "The wind blows wherever it pleases." What observations have you had on that?

Bill Hybels: The texts indicate we should do what we can to prepare ourselves for the work of the Spirit in the preparation and delivery of a message. Every great communicator I know could tell you how they "get in the zone." Michael Jordan had a strict regimen of what he did before every big game to get himself in a prepared state to do his best.

I've been fascinated by this. When I'm together with other speakers, I ask them, "What do you do to get in the preparation zone? How do you pray? When do you prepare? Do you prepare in the same place? Do you listen to music? How do you prepare yourself just before the delivery of your message?" Great communicators can say precisely how they up the probability that the Spirit will be strong in their life.

Having done all of that, then, the wind blows where it will. Sometimes it blows stronger than others. I can only do the part that depends on me. I can fast and pray and kneel before God and invite others to pray with me. Sometimes the messages get lifted to fifteen thousand feet. Sometimes they get lifted to twenty thousand, sometimes to twenty-five thousand. Why there are those altitude differences, I don't know.

What have you learned from Scripture and experience about preaching in the power of the Spirit?

It has a lot to do with courage. Look at the great messages delivered in Scripture. Joshua stands before the people and says, "Choose this day what you're going to do. Here's what I'm going to do." Peter stands up in and says, "Here's what you did to the One who was sent from God."

Preaching involves an inordinate amount of courage. You have to be willing to take heat and backlash if you're going to say the words God gave you to say in the spirit he gave you to deliver it. In my own experience, the messages that turned certain corners at Willow and the messages that were greatly used in conference settings were ones that I walked toward the lectern with knees knocking, thinking, There is no way I'm going to be able to say these words to these people. God says, Here we go, and you say them. You feel alone in the moment, and you have to die to audience response, realizing they are probably not going to carry your picture in their wallet anymore. But you know, This is precisely what God wanted me to say. That's a refining, character-building, intensely spiritual process.

Does anything else stand out as an integral part of preaching in the power of the Spirit?

Authenticity. In my opinion one of the downfalls in classic preaching has been an unwillingness for preachers to admit how their sermon is playing out in their own personal lives. People sit in pews and listen to someone wax eloquent, and they think, There's no way he lives that as well as he's talking it. It's just not believable.

I need to be very conscious of this in my preaching. So I need to right-size my personal track record. If I make a strong statement, I need to follow it up by saying, "Now if you're wondering if I live this as well as I'm preaching it, I can only say I wish I did. It's in my heart to want to. I am asking God to help me with this. But I am not batting a thousand, and if you're not, I'm in good company with you. But this is what we need to move toward. This is the way God needs to work in our lives. These are the commitments we have to make and keep."

Courage and authenticity are twin strengths of powerful preaching.

Paul speaks in about the power of Christ resting on him when he was weak. What have you experienced in this regard?

Some of the best preaching I've done came out of times when I was desperately needy.

One message I've probably given five hundred times around the world came to me in the slums outside of Soweto in South Africa when I was supposed to speak to several thousand illiterate people about the nature of the Church of Jesus Christ. I realized this is an impossible task. How can I communicate complex theology to an uneducated, simple-minded, large group of people who have probably never seen what it is that they want me to describe.

I woke up at four o'clock in the morning and prayed, "God, I'm going to stay in this humble, kneeling position until you give me a way to talk about your church in a fashion that these folks can understand." I put together a unique message in which I brought people up on the stage and posed them in certain stances to give listeners pictures of the church. When I delivered the message that day, I knew I had that Accompanying Presence. People got it. It changed their understanding of what a church could be. That message came out of an exhausted, desperate situation where unless God had moved I was done for.

Sign-up for our FREE e-newsletter
How to Use Other People's Sermons with Integrity
Can you copy Preaching Today Sermon transcripts?
Visit our other online resources:

FaithVisuals.com - Hundreds of creative, downloadable videos designed for churches
BuildingChurchLeaders.com - Tools for building faithful and effective church leaders
ChristianBibleStudies.com - Teaching tools for Sunday school and small groups
PreachingToday.com - Top-notch sermon illustrations and preaching tips
ChristianityTodayLibrary.com - The online, comprehensive Christian research library