Too many people sitting in pews on Sunday morning consider the preaching event as if it were simply a one-way street. All the responsibility rests on the preacher. I wrote an article addressing the topic a short time ago, titled “Sermon Listeners, Help Wanted!”, but I think the topic deserves greater attention.

In the case of artists, sculptors, authors, and many other professions, the work is completed and then presented to others. In the case of the preacher, there is undoubtedly a great deal of work done before the sermon is preached; however, the sermon itself is what is preached, and that takes place in the presence of the congregational listeners. The study the preacher has done is not the sermon; the preacher’s notes are not the sermon. The sermon is an oral event; it is what the preacher says. 

A sermon is the man of God, in the presence of the people of God, with the Word of God, empowered by the Spirit of God, proclaiming the truth of God, for the glory of God, at a particular time to a particular assembled people. All should be gathered to hear from God. 

What is happening in faithful preaching is not a particular person identifying with his listeners, talking about God, but rather an occasion where God Himself speaks through His called-out shepherd to a people Christ purchased with his own blood. All have been summoned to the occasion, preacher and congregants, by the resurrected Christ, and everyone has a responsibility to receive gladly the word God has for His people and to make much of Jesus.

We are overwhelmed with books and studies that claim to reveal spiritual growth and offer practical guidance toward spiritual maturity. Rarely ever do those books even mention the foundational importance of sermon listening. I fear that we have more sermon critics in the pews than hungry spiritual hearers longing for a word from God. 

Effective congregational sermon listening is a foundational means of spiritual growth that cannot be bypassed. Every believer needs a congregation to worship with and God-called congregational shepherds who shape congregational life in a cruciform way according to the truth of God’s word by the power of God speaking through their biblical preaching.

Jesus, referring to Isaiah’s prophetic warning (Matt 13:13-15), says: “This is why I speak to them in parables, because … hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.” According to Jesus, some hear the word of God proclaimed, but they do not hear God. But then Jesus says, “But blessed are … your ears, for they hear” (Matt 13:16). Luke’s Gospel account commands, “Take care then how you hear” (Luke 8:18). 

In Romans 10, Paul likewise emphasizes the reality that in faithful preaching the listener is to hear God; “How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear [Him] without a preacher?” (Rom 10:14). Leon Morris notes, “The point is that Christ is present in the preachers; to hear them is to hear Him.”

I plan to write a series of articles on this topic, but in this article, I want to advocate for a particular practice and focus on becoming a better sermon listener.

• Pray on Saturday night and Sunday morning that God would give you ears to hear and that you would take care how you hear from God through the sermon. 
• Pray for the one who preaches the word of God to be faithful to the Scripture and anointed by the Holy Spirit. 
• And pray that you would not merely hear the words of the preacher but that you would hear Christ through Him.