Do you attend at least two church services per week? If so, you will spend as much as 75 hours every year listening to preaching. And if you went to church as a child and faithfully attend your whole life, you will spend well over seven months—solid 24-hour days—just listening to sermons.
That’s a lot of listening! But is it doing us any good? Not necessarily. In fact, listening to preaching could be bad for us, and not because the preaching is bad. The prophet Isaiah’s preaching was a torrent of truth and eloquence, but many in his audience went away more hardened than ever (Isaiah 6:9-10). The twelve apostles’ sermons left some hearers worse off than even the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah (Matthew 10:15). And Jesus himself preached messages that for many hearers meant doom (Matthew 7:26-27).
It’s tempting for us to think that if only our pastor were a better preacher—if only we could sit at the feet of David Platt or John Piper or Chuck Swindoll—we would be more spiritual, more in love with God, and more sanctified. But the Bible tells us that God’s Word yields fruit, not when it pours through the lips of a renowned expositor or a dynamic Christian leader, but when it takes root in the fertile soil of an obedient heart (Matthew 13:18). In order to produce a bumper crop, great preaching needs great listening.
With some Scriptural principles in mind, and aided by input from several pastor friends, I sat down to think through what makes “good listening.” I urge you to let the following actions shape the way you listen to preaching this coming Sunday.
1. Be convinced that you need it.
We should walk into the auditorium on Sunday morning feeling hunger pangs for God’s Word—the deep conviction that we desperately need to hear what our pastor will deliver from the Bible. It is the preaching of Christ that brings about Christian maturity (Colossians 1:28), and without it we will remain underdeveloped and malformed.
We must also be convinced that it is this message from this preacher we need—not another message from another preacher in some distant city. While there may be value in listening to sermons online, it is the man who stands behind the pulpit in your church who must, in God’s sovereign arrangement, give an account for how he shepherded your soul (Hebrews 13:17).
2. Resist a critical attitude.
A critical attitude toward your preacher can be Satan’s swooping fowls sent to snatch the seed of God’s Word from your heart (Mark 4:15). Don’t feed the devil’s pets!
But what if your preacher says things that contradict Scripture? This is a serious question. I recommend that you prayerfully examine Paul’s terse admonitions from 1 Thessalonians 5:19-22. He warns us against doing anything that would douse the work of the Holy Spirit. He forbids us to despise prophesyings (preaching), but to test all things (including preaching), clinging to what is good and abstaining from every manifestation of evil. The limits of our toleration should be defined by the clarity and weight Scripture places on a particular teaching.
Often, however, it is not unbiblical preaching that rouses our inner critic, but the preacher’s idiosyncrasies, leadership decisions, or even a past unpleasant confrontation. Whether we will allow these ants to carry away the picnic is completely our choice—but it will be disastrous to our spiritual life if we do.
3. Forget About the Time.
Many of us tend to set an imaginary alarm clock for our pastor. It may not ring audibly during the service, but the effect is the same. “Time’s up!” we say, and any further words fall on agitated, distracted ears. Do we really believe that the Spirit is constrained to work only before noon on Sunday? It’s possible that our obsession with the clock has robbed us of many spiritual delights.
4. Eliminate distractions.
Distractions come in many forms, and technology might be one of the worst offenders. Your phone or tablet can be a great way to engage with the Word of God during a preaching service. But if you find yourself getting distracted by e-mail or social media, it’s time to go back to paper and ink. Don’t let your electronic device drown out the preacher. Use something that can will focus, not fray your attention.
I should also mention another distraction: being involved in a ministry that keeps you from hearing preaching at all. There are many Christians who attend church, but rarely, if ever, hear the preaching because they are working in children’s church, ushering, or on parking lot duty. Jesus himself commended the lady who sat at his feet and not the one who bustled around in the kitchen. Fulfill the ministry God has given you, but remember that there is really only one thing that is needed–sitting at the feet of Jesus, listening to his words. Don’t neglect “that better part.”
5. Listen for the preacher’s main point, not just sound bites or “tweetable” phrases.
Sometimes we listen to preaching like we eat at a wedding reception—browsing for a few isolated morsels and avoiding the stuff we don’t like. We’ll never get a full meal that way. And we’ll never get the nourishment we need from a sermon if we drift in and out of consciousness, grasping only an isolated phrase or sentence from the sermon. Good listening means sustained concentration on the whole message. Rather than sifting for sound bites or little zingers, strive to understand the main point your preacher is making.
6. Obey.
The proper response to God’s Word is obedience. As you listen to preaching, resolve to obey whatever God shows you through the preaching of His word. James put it this way: “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22). Christians who hear sermon after sermon but fail to put the truth into action will eventually be lulled into the false sense that their lives are charting a good direction, when in fact they may be disastrously off course.
Listening to preaching is dangerous business. We can never be neutral to it, because it always leaves us better or worse—better if we obey it, worse if we ignore it.
