How to Hear a Sermon

Why Preaching Matters

The Spirit of God maketh the reading, but especially the preaching of the Word, an effectual means of convincing and converting sinners, and of building them up in holiness and comfort, through faith, unto salvation.

Westminster Shorter Catechism Q&A 89

Notice the word especially. Reading the Bible at home is a great gift, but God has made the preached Word his chief means of saving sinners and growing saints. The Larger Catechism says he uses it to drive sinners out of themselves and draw them unto Christ (Q&A 155).

How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10:14-17).

A minister lawfully called is sent. Such men are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us (2 Corinthians 5:20). When he opens the Scriptures faithfully, you are not hearing one man’s opinions but God calling you to be reconciled to him.

Yet the ambassador is still a man, and he must be tested. The Bereans received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so (Acts 17:11).

What God Asks of a Hearer

The Larger Catechism sets out what God requires of hearers (Q&A 160).

1. Attend with diligence, preparation, and prayer. Come ready, having asked God to bless what you will hear. Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear (Ecclesiastes 5:1).
2. Examine what you hear by the Scriptures. Keep your Bible open and ask whether the sermon says what the passage says.
3. Receive the truth with faith, love, meekness, and readiness of mind, as the Word of God. Do not sit as a critic waiting to grade the preacher. The Thessalonians received the word not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God (1 Thessalonians 2:13).
4. Meditate and confer of it. Think it over afterward, and talk about it with others.
5. Hide it in your heart. Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee (Psalm 119:11).
6. Bring forth the fruit of it in your life. A sermon is not finished when the minister sits down. It is finished when you obey it.

Four Kinds of Hearers

Jesus told of a sower whose seed fell on four kinds of ground, and then explained it himself (Luke 8:4-15). The seed is the word of God (Luke 8:11). The ground is the heart of the one who hears.

Some hear, and the devil takes the word away. Some receive it with joy but have no root, and fall away in trouble. In some the cares and riches and pleasures of this life choke it. And some, in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience (Luke 8:15).

The seed, the birds, the rock, and the thorns are pictures. What they picture is real. There is a real devil who wants you to forget the sermon before lunch. Real cares and pleasures crowd the Word out of real hearts in real pews. Jesus means you to ask which one you are.

No heart is good ground by nature. God promised, A new heart also will I give you (Ezekiel 36:26). The Lord opened Lydia’s heart, that she attended unto the things which were spoken (Acts 16:14). If you have heard sermons for years and never come to Christ, read the gospel and come to him now.

Take heed therefore how ye hear: for whosoever hath, to him shall be given; and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have.

Luke 8:18 (KJV)

Hearing is never neutral. The one who receives the Word is given more light. The one who lets it slide past loses even what he thought he had.

Doers, Not Hearers Only

But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.

James 1:22-25 (KJV)

The glass is a mirror. James uses it to picture what God’s Word really does. It shows you your true face, your sin and your need. The forgetful hearer glances, walks off, and is the same man on Monday. The doer keeps looking and keeps obeying, and God blesses him in it.

A man can love good preaching and still never do what he hears. Ask after each sermon, What did God show me in the mirror, and what will I do about it?

When the Sermon Seems Dull

Some Sundays the minister will be tired, or the sermon plain and weak. Do not despise him for it.

1. Look at your own heart first. Often the dullness is in the pew and not the pulpit. Did you come prepared? Did you pray? Desire the sincere milk of the word (1 Peter 2:2), and you will find less to complain of.
2. Remember whose power it is. We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us (2 Corinthians 4:7).
3. Look for the bread. If the text was read and Christ was set forth, there was food for your soul. Take it home.
4. Pray for him. Paul asked the churches to pray that utterance may be given unto me (Ephesians 6:19).
5. Keep your complaints off the table. Children who hear their parents pick apart the preacher learn to despise the Word.

Dull is not the same as false. If a minister teaches against Scripture, go humbly to him or to your elders. Read How to Spot a False Teacher, and if your church has no faithful preaching at all, read How to Find a Faithful Church.

Steps for This Week

1. Prepare on Saturday night. Get to bed in time. Set aside quarrels and grudges, laying aside all malice (1 Peter 2:1). If you know the text, read it. Pray for the minister and for all who will hear. See How to Keep the Lord’s Day.
2. Listen in the pew with your Bible open. Follow the text. When your mind wanders, bring it back without fuss.
3. Bring the children in with you. God told Israel to gather men, and women, and children, that they may hear, and that they may learn (Deuteronomy 31:12). Give each child one thing to listen for, a name, a word, or a question. Do not expect perfect stillness from little ones, only that they are there and hear something.
4. Take notes, or do not. Some listen best with a pen, and older children often do. Others find writing pulls them away from the message. Either is fine. The aim is to remember and obey.
5. Talk it over at the Lord’s Day table. What did we learn about God? Where did the sermon point us to Christ? What does God call us to do this week? Let the children answer first. They that feared the Lord spake often one to another (Malachi 3:16). See With Children and How to Lead Family Worship.
6. Pick one thing to do. Name one duty, one sin to fight, or one promise to hold, and come back to it at family worship during the week.