Fruitful Hearing
In our prayer meeting before the service on Sunday, we always pray for the man who is preaching. We pray for what our spiritual forebears called “divine unction” – that the preacher’s mind will be clear and that God’s Spirit will use him to deliver His Word to His people.
But we also pray for the hearers. Why? Because the listener plays as much of a role as the speaker. The hearer can play the role of any of the soils in Jesus’ parable (Mark 4:1-20): distracted, superficial, compromised, or fruitful.
What does fruitful hearing look like? I recently came across an article that explores that topic. Scott Hubbard’s “How to Hear a Sermon Well” got me thinking about this.
WE BEGIN LISTENING ON SATURDAY
I heard a story once about a woman who came to church every Sunday morning with all her six young children in tow. She was a single mom, and everyone wondered how she did it. The kids always looked a little rumpled, but they were always there, on time, faithfully, week after week.
Someone once asked her how she could get so many young children ready for church in the morning. She laughed. Her secret was that she got them ready for church on Saturday night and they slept in their church clothes.
That accounted for both their regular attendance and their rumpled appearance.
But that mom was onto something. If I cram Saturday night full of activity (work or fun) and especially if I stay up late Saturday night, I can hardly expect to be ready to worship God with my whole mind and heart Sunday morning.
Hearing well on Sunday morning begins on Saturday night.
WE LISTEN WITH EXPECTATION
I have a friend, a journalist, who pointed out to me that his job is to produce disposable literature. Of the hundreds of articles produced every day in print and online, very few will make an impact beyond the 24 hour news cycle.
My friend told me he got a vivid lesson in the disposability of journalistic writing one day when he complained that he was having trouble house-training his puppy. His girlfriend told him it was simple. She grabbed a copy of the newspaper and stuck it under the puppy, who then urinated on a column my friend had spent hours laboring over.
It’s true. For centuries people have been using old newspapers to wrap fish at the market or line the drawers of their cabinets or start fires in the grate. No matter how great the prose in the newspaper, it’s going to be in the garbage the next day.
I have learned the hard way that no matter how much effort the preacher puts into preparation – no matter how much he studies, no matter how fervently he prays – the sermon itself is more like journalism than a novel. A single sermon probably isn’t going to change anyone’s life.
In fact, I have discovered that I don’t even remember sermons I’ve preached even a few months later. As deeply as I’ve thought about the text, the rush of life has a way of washing away those vivid impressions that meant so much when I was studying and preaching.
If that is true of the preacher, it is even more so for the hearer. It is unlikely that one single sermon will be life-changing and forever memorable.
So why should I bother with hearing the preaching of the Word if it isn’t going to change my life, if I’m going to forget the particulars in a few days?
We commit ourselves to the habit of hearing God’s Word preached for the same reason we eat food: not because any particular sermon or meal is life-changing but because we need the constant source of nourishment.
Hubbard’s article notes that the Puritans believed that listening well is not just the matter of missing an opportunity; the honor of God Himself is at stake. John Owens puts it this way: “To make a pretense of coming unto God, and not with expectation of receiving good and great things from him, is to despise God himself . . . and deprive our own souls of all benefit thereby.”
“So,” says Hubbard, “if you would both honor God and serve your own soul, go to the gathering as a mother might go to a weekly market: eager, prepared, and expecting to bring something good home.”
Our expectation is that hearing God’s Word week after week will continue to shape our hearts and our lives. We come to the sermon prayerfully expecting not dramatic change but slow and gradual change over time.
WE LISTEN TO REMEMBER
One way that the weekly sermon shapes our hearts and minds is by reminding us of what is true.
All week we are bombarded with false and misleading messages…
…about what makes us valuable…
…about where the world is going…
…about how we fit into the overall scheme of things…
In other words, the world encourages us to forget essential truths about who we are, who God is, and what He is doing in the world. And the sermon refreshes our memory about these vital truths.
We are valuable not because of our inherent goodness or because of our accomplishments but because the High King of Heaven has smiled on us in Christ. The preaching and teaching of God’s Word reminds us of our status as the beloved children of the King.
The world looks as if it is spiraling out of control. But it is not. The wheel that steers history is under the firm hand of the Almighty, who is guiding human history toward a glorious conclusion, when all things will finally be made right. The preaching and teaching of God’s Word reminds us that no matter how dark the circumstances of the moment, this is not the Final Chapter. The Author knows what He’s doing.
And our place in the overall scheme of things? I heard it put this way: “You can be either the main character in your own small story or an extra in God’s Big Story.” The weekly sermon reminds us of the Grand Narrative God is writing and encourages us to play our small role in that Great Story.
In the weekly sermon we are reminding ourselves who we are, who God is, and what He is doing in the world.
But our hearing will be fruitful only if we listen well.
This Sunday, let’s listen well.
Let’s commit ourselves to fruitful hearing.
Persevere,
Paul Pyle
Discipleship Pastor