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Skip the Sound Bites: Recover the Lost Art of Listening to Sermons
We’re surrounded by sound bites. Scroll through your social media feed and you’ll find what appears to be an endless stream of highlight reels of recently preached sermons. I’m not saying there’s no value in a powerfully preached snippet, but I do wonder what this does to our capacity to listen to full sermons.
In an age increasingly dependent on snippets and sound bites, we need to recover the lost art of listening to sermons.
Fight to Listen
It’s easy to listen to a short Scripture reading, but what about listening to the sermon? This is usually the longest portion of the church service and the longest stretch of time with no response from us. That makes it an active spiritual battlefield. We’ve got to fight to listen—against distractions, intrusive thoughts, and, at times, drowsiness.
Just ask Eutychus about that last one. In Acts 20, Paul is preaching into the late hours on the Lord’s Day. Luke doesn’t say this, but the upper room was probably jam-packed; the young Eutychus is pushed to the fringes, so much so that he sits at the window.
Luke records that as Eutychus sat listening to Paul’s long sermon, he drifted asleep and fell from the window to his death—though, thankfully, he was raised to life again. While your pastor is unlikely to preach until midnight, you’ll still have to fight to listen.
Every Sunday, a spiritual war is waged as we seek to receive what God has for us from his Word. We come to worship with a real need—and desire—to silence the competing voices clamoring for our attention: the morning scramble with the kids to get out the door, the frustration of traffic or parking, the lingering tension from last night’s disagreement with our spouse, the anxious weight of what Monday might bring.
That only scratches the surface of the unseen, life-stealing enemies battling to keep us from hearing God’s voice and the gospel we so desperately need.
Listen Well
Consider the advice from the Westminster divines in the Larger Catechism:
Q. 160. What is required of those that hear the Word preached?
A. It is required of those that hear the Word preached, that they attend upon it with diligence, preparation, and prayer; examine what they hear by the Scriptures; receive the truth with faith, love, meekness, and readiness of mind, as the Word of God; meditate, and confer of it; hide it in their hearts, and bring forth the fruit of it in their lives.
This answer offers help in three areas: preparation, reception, and practice.
1. Preparation
We need to do some work before we listen. The Sunday work needs to begin Saturday night, and prayer is the place to start. We need ears to hear what the Spirit is saying (Rev. 2:7), so let’s pray that God would open the ears of our hearts to hear. The Devil wants to steal the Word (Mark 4:15); praying for protection will make our hearts fertile soil to receive the seeds of God’s sown Word.
Every Sunday, a spiritual war is waged as we seek to receive what God has for us from his Word.
We also need to increase our holy desire. The apostle Peter says as much: “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation” (1 Pet. 2:2). He encourages his audience to come to church with a spiritual appetite (longing) for God’s Word. So if you want to listen to a sermon well, come hungry to receive.
2. Reception
Listening to a sermon well requires that we receive God’s Word with a humble spirit: “Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls” (James 1:21).
James touches on something we dare not miss. The gospel word that saved didn’t simply pass through us; it took root. It was sown deep within our hearts and continues to grow there. In his gracious wisdom, God calls his people each Sunday to receive that same gospel anew—ever the same truth, yet ever speaking freshly to our hearts.
During the natural act of preaching, a parallel supernatural act of God occurs within the hearts of all listening. To listen and recieve, we need a right heart posture. This will give the message meaning and effect in our lives. Spiritual posture is what separates hearing a truth that takes deep hold of the heart from merely receiving a pleasant thought that descends and then quickly disappears.
The key to this posture is humility of heart. Meekness is the pathway that renounces pride and opens the soul to receive God’s living Word. Our readiness begins well before the sermon starts. We prepare for worship with intentional prayer, seeking God before we ever step into the sanctuary, asking him to help us set aside distractions and pride and to prepare us to humbly receive his Word as he intends.
Consider these questions from Joel Beeke and Michael Reeves:
Do I humbly examine myself under the preaching of God’s Word, trembling at its impact (Isa. 66:2)? Do I relish having the Word of God applied to my life? Do I pray that the Spirit may apply His Word?
3. Practice
Listening well to sermons doesn’t end with hearing. We don’t leave the message deeply buried in our hearts; instead, we move it outward into how we’re living. We put it into practice by applying God’s truth to our unique situations, struggles, desires, and concerns.
In essence, what we hear needs to move from our hearts to our hands and feet. This is how God’s message becomes real and powerful in our lives—through the courage of application.
Our readiness begins well before the sermon starts. We prepare with intentional prayer, seeking God before we ever step into the sanctuary.
It’s the husband who, after hearing a sermon on humility, apologizes instead of defending himself. It’s the young professional who, reminded of God’s generosity, loosens her fearful grip on money and gives sacrificially. It’s the anxious believer who, resting in God’s sovereignty, prays instead of giving in to panic. And it’s every time we remember God’s goodness and, trusting his sovereignty, resist the impulse to take matters into our own hands.
James captures this call to active faith with piercing clarity:
Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. (James 1:22–24)
The sermon isn’t meant to be merely informative but formative. Spiritual formation is what God is after (1 Thess. 4:3), and how well we listen to the sermon plays an important role in that formation. So this Sunday, be sure to prepare, receive, and put into practice what you hear.
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