Once the service begins, you ought to see yourself as a participant, not an observer. Preaching is an act of worship for the preacher, and listening to preaching is an act of worship for the rest of us. Donald Whitney explains: “We normally think of worship as something we do, and since preaching is done by the preacher (and not us), many fail to think of preaching as worship. . . . The reason it is an act of worship is that you are listening to God speak (through His Word).”[1]
Since public worship is an active—not
passive—pursuit, then listening to the sermon—one of the acts of
worship—requires purposeful determination. A myth of communication is that
listening is passive and requires no skill or effort. It’s wrong to say, “In
communicating it is the sender who is entirely responsible for the success of
the communication.”[2]
Listening takes effort and you will need to work hard to stay focused. You’ll
need to fight off distractions to make sure your mind is engaged throughout the
entire sermon. Be purposeful with this and ask the Lord for help to stay on
track. Thought is faster than speech, so you’ll need to determine to engage
your mind on thinking and assessing the point of each sentence the pastor
speaks. William Thompson explains: “We can listen to more material than any
speaker can dole out! Most of us can think about 500 words per minute, while
the normal speaking rate of any public speaker is about 125 words per minute.
That differential gives us around forty five seconds of thinking time in every
sixty seconds we are listening.”[3]
How are you going to use that extra time? Listening and thinking cannot be
compartmentalized when you are in the act of listening to a sermon, but at the
very least we should admit that concentration and focus are needed to make full
use of our intellectual abilities. Let’s acknowledge that fact and determine to
do our best in that moment. Here are some practical steps.
Position Yourself for
Attentiveness
Sit toward the front, if possible. I’m not
suggesting that you fight for the best seats in the house, but from experience
we all know that everything that happens in front of us can be a distraction.
Sitting close to the front means you’re there to do business—you’re serious and
want to be focused. It tells the preacher that you’re going to take his message
seriously and you’re not satisfied being out-of-sight and out-of-mind.
Protect Yourself from Distraction
Turn your cell phone, pager, and other
gadgets off. The ninety minutes you spend in public worship each week are the
most important of the week. There are not many so-called “emergencies” that
need to interrupt this special time involving God and His people. Tim Challies
explains: “Every beep exacts a cost, whether the cost is simply the brief
moment of distraction as our attention turns to the source of the noise, or the
necessity of running from imminent danger. These beeps fill our lives. Often,
they run our lives.”[4]
Don’t let them run your life especially during worship. If you utilize an iPad
or tablet device to access a digital Bible or to take notes during the sermon,
that’s great, but ensure that the mail and txt functions are turned off, so
that you’ll not be tempted to “multitask” when your focus ought to be singular.
Pen Yourself unto Remembrance
Take notes when listening to a sermon.
Hebrews 2:1 says, “We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard,
lest we drift away from it.” We dare not allow the sermons we listen to run
through our minds like water through a sieve. Note-taking is a way to slow down
the information flow. It forces us to think and process things. “No device is
better for grasping what is being said than mentally summarizing the main
points. This quickly becomes a habit and does wonders in pointing up strong
ideas and those that may need clarification.”[5]
There’s no need to make note-taking a burdensome exercise. Simply jot down the
salient points. Record enough to act as reminders of how God challenged you
during the message to change something in your life. These reminders will keep
the sermon alive in the days and weeks that follow as you review the lessons learned.
“The shortest pencil outlasts the longest memory.”[6]
In note-taking, my personal goal is to take
enough notes to make it possible for me to re-teach the lesson myself. I might
not actually be called to do that, but I believe that personal goal keeps me
motivated to listen well. At the very least, I’ll be able to intelligently
discuss the sermon after the service if I have sufficiently noted the main
points. Charles Stanley believes “one of the problems today in the body of
Christ is that too many Christians have been passive listeners for too many
years. That is why after forty years as believers, they won’t teach a Bible
study or lead a class because they ‘don’t know the Word well enough.’ Where
have they been for the past four decades?”[7]
Point Yourself toward Content
Enjoy preaching, not as entertainment but as God’s regular gracious
invitation to walk with Him. Make sure your mind is engaged with the content of
the sermon rather than evaluating the preacher’s sermon delivery. If you are
overly critical about the preacher’s delivery, you will find yourself tuning
out. Instead, try to stay focused on the Bible passage or topic at hand.
As you listen to the content, hold fire on
judging too quickly. Some preachers build their sermon around a solid outline
with clear progression from one point to the next. These sermons make it easy
to take logically ordered notes. Other preachers have a more holistic approach,
which can be harder to follow, and yet still build to reveal biblical
principles that mold Christian thinking. In the case of the later, wait till
you have a full comprehension of the overall message before you jump on any
small concerns.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones enjoyed listening to
others preach, saying, “It is a great thing to be a listener. You want
something for your soul, you want help.”[8]
But he warned against taking a ‘professional’ approach to ministry: “I don’t
want a great sermon. I want to feel the presence of God—that I am worshipping
Him, and considering something great and glorious. If I do get that I do not
care how poor the sermon is.”[9]
Lloyd-Jones’s expectation was fair. He judged the content and heart of a sermon
not the delivery. In fact, he was critical of those who perfected their sermon
delivery but gave no thought to the presence of God or the power of His Word.
He suggested, “Our greatest danger is the danger of professionalism.”[10]
So try to be fair to your pastor. He probably cannot compete with
the polished delivery of today’s rockstar-preachers, so don’t expect him to.
Instead, engage with the substance of the sermon. You must do this for two
reasons. First, you have a responsibility to check the message being preached.
And second, you have a responsibility to respond to that message. Ask yourself,
“Did the preacher say what the passage says?” “Did the preacher prove his points
from the Bible?” If he did, then you must humbly submit to the Word of God. Do
whatever is needed to ensure that your mind is engaged with content not
delivery.
Prepare Yourself for Action
“We shouldn’t be passive observers. How we
listen and apply what we hear either honors or dishonors God.”[11]
During the sermon, you can already be thinking about application. Ask yourself
questions throughout the sermon: What are you going to think as a result of
this sermon? What are you going to do as a result of this sermon? Do not wait
until after the sermon to be application-oriented. Jot down your points of
application as they come to mind so you don’t forget them later. As obedient
Christians, we should always be pursuing Christ-likeness, and this requires
deliberate action.
John MacArthur suggests asking the
following seven questions of a Bible text:[12]
1.
Are there examples to follow?
2.
Are there commands to obey?
3.
Are there errors to avoid?
4.
Are there sins to forsake?
5.
Are there promises to claim?
6.
Are there new thoughts about
God?
7.
Are there principles to live
by?
Every Scripture passage will inevitably
lead to a conclusion in one or more of these areas. Don’t let yourself off the
hook. Your answers to these questions will spur you into action during and
after the sermon and will show you how serious you are about your Christian
walk.
Ex-slave trader, turned Christian and pastor,
John Newton warns:
Be cautious that you do not degenerate into the spirit of a mere hearer, so as to place the chief
stress of your profession upon running hither and thither after preachers.
There are many who . . . seem to think that they were sent into this world only
to hear sermons, and to hear as many in a day as they possibly can. . . . If
the twelve apostles were again upon the earth, and you could hear them all
every week, yet, if you were not attentive to the duties of the closet [i.e.,
private prayer], if you did not allow yourself time for reading, meditation,
and prayer . . . I should be more ready to blame your indiscretion than to admire
your zeal.[13]
Joel Beeke summarizes well: “We must not
listen to sermons as spectators but as participants. The minister should not be
the only one working. Good listening is hard work; it involves worshipping God
continuously. An attentive listener responds quickly—whether with repentance,
resolution, determination, or praise—and God is honored in this.”[14]
Next week, we’ll see that sermon-listening
doesn’t stop when the preacher stops. There is yet more to do. An unapplied sermon is a waste. Check back next week for some really
important sermon application principles.
[1] Donald D. Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines within the Church:
Participating Fully in the Body of Christ (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 1996),
69.
[2] Lyman K. Steil, Joanne Summerfield, and George de Mare, Listening,
It Can Change Your Life (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1985), 41.
[3] William D. Thompson, Listening on Sunday for Sharing on Monday (Valley
Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1983), 36.
[4] Tim Challies, The Next Story: Life and Faith After the Digital
Explosion (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing, 2011), 115.
[5] Steil, Summerfield, and de Mare, Listening, It Can Change Your
Life, 129.
[6] Ibid., 131.
[7] Charles Stanley, How to Listen to God (Nashville, TN: Thomas
Nelson Publishers, 1985), 17.
[8] Iain H. Murray, Lloyd-Jones: Messenger of Grace (Edinburgh:
Banner of Truth, 2008), 101.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Joshua Harris, Stop Dating the Church (Sisters, OR:
Multnomah Publishers, 2004), 111.
[12] John MacArthur, “A Study Method for Expository Preaching,” in John MacArthur,
Jr. and The Master’s Seminary Faculty, Rediscovering Expository Preaching
(Dallas, TX: Word Publishing, 1992), 217–8.
[13] J. Todd Murray, Beyond
Amazing Grace (Webster, NY: Evangelical Press, 2007), 160.
[14] Joel R. Beeke, The Family at Church: Listening to Sermons and
Attending Prayer Meetings (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2008),
18.
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