People today expect a pretty low level of intelligence and a pretty high level of arrogance from the pulpit. They expect to find a low level of sincerity and a low level of vulnerability. If we just flip the highs and lows on each of these, we will be a fairly compelling spokesperson. If we speak intelligently and humbly with sincerity, genuineness, and an openness about our struggles, the walls come crumbling down. People listen.
Yet there are times when we must put on the prophet’s hat. We proclaim “Thus saith the Lord,” and if there’s a steady stream of people going out the exits, that’s their problem.
But we’ve got to pick our spots to become highly authoritative. Some preachers pull “thus-saith-the-Lords” for voting Republican and rooting for the Cubs. I choose to invoke prophetic authority only in areas that are clear-cut and beyond the possibility of being misinterpreted.
When I preached on the Ninth Commandment, “Refuse to lie,” for example, I told everybody there are four airtight truths that come from the lips of a God who cannot tell a lie.
1. Every single one of you is a sinner. You’ve failed the moral test. You have violated the standards of the holiness of God. That’s airtight; that’s true.
2. There’s a judgment day on which you’re going to stand before a holy God and give an account of your life. You can tell yourself until you’re blue in the face that it isn’t going to happen to you, but it is.
3. People who repent of their sins and trust Christ will, on his merits, gain eternal life. Those who don’t will pay for their sins in hell. Two options. That’s true.
4. What you decide about the first three truths determines where you go for all of eternity.
Those are four absolutely airtight truths, but people don’t want to hear them, and they don’t want to decide on them. But they must.
There comes a time when you just step up to the plate with the bat in your hand and say, “You’re gonna hear it, and you’re gonna hear it straight. I’m not going to apologize, mince words, or get crafty about it.”
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–Bill Hybels is pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois
Copyright (c) 1995 Christianity Today, Inc./LEADERSHIP Journal
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Copyright © 1995 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
