Preaching: What Does It Mean To Us?

By: Nathaniel Iddings

May 16th, 2013

What does preaching mean to us as Christians? While we should be interested that the Bible is preached to us soundly, we also need to mind just what our attitude is towards what we hear. By "our attitude" I am not so much talking about whether we believe the truth or not, but what do we do with it? We as Christians are all able to apply the Word in our lives, but just because we apply it does not mean we are necessarily applying it correctly. Looking at my life in retrospect, I notice that countless times I have heavily applied what I learn, but by my misapplications I demonstrated I was not truly taking the Bible seriously. A good portion of this essay I'll be sharing with you some of the ways in which I have mishandled biblical preaching, and I hope we may all be encouraged and challenged to keep a proper mindset.

I was once privileged to hear an excerpt from a sermon by Pastor Albert N. Martin on God's wrath. My fellow brother who I was also going to watch it was so kind as to give me the heads up that I should find a good pillow to hug while we listened to the message, but being the tough guy that I am, I endured the whole video without a tear! It was a very concise but intense sermon bit about hell. What was my attitude towards this kind of preaching? I went "Wow! That's a good sermon! That is some hard core preaching!" Sure, it was a dramatic presentation; it was indeed a sound presentation -- But where was a greater sense humility to be found in me? Where was the personal application? I applied it, but my application was essentially "That was a great message, I agree with it" and "I endured listening to a hellfire sermon! I'm tough! I bet not many Christians nowadays could handle that!" I should have had sensitivity to the truths being preached to me. It is not a sign of hard-heartedness if you are not emotional while listening to preaching, but if this stems from a lack of personal application of the message, there is a problem. What is the message of hell to us? When we hear about hell, are we puffed up because we can handle listening to it, or are we genuinely moved to compassion for the unsaved? Do we come away with a greater sense of how great God is, and how desperately we need Christ, or do we leave thinking "I'm so hardcore"? What does it all mean to us?  

Maybe we like listening to preaching because as we hear about sin, we can shine the spotlight on everybody else. Do we go to church and listen to the message preached with the attitude of "Yea, these doctrines/ teachers/churches/philosophers/atheists/false religions are so foolish! Preach it! Amen!" when we ought to shine the spotlight on ourselves? One of the biggest points in listening to the Bible preached to us is so that we would be personally convicted of our own personal sin, in order that we would be humbled and brought to repentance. I had a season of my life when I greatly appreciated hearing the Word preached, because I got this perverse sense of enjoyment in casting down others. Under ordinary circumstances, that's wrong, right? That's the great part about listening to preaching; is that when the preacher demonstrates from the Bible that somebody else's beliefs and attitudes are wrong, I can have an excuse to say "Look, you are wrong, I am right! Hah!" I have biblical authority to tell people they are wrong, and I have biblical authority to tell others about how other people are wrong, because they are wrong. The truth is that I really just enjoyed exalting myself and putting others down. When I was a kid, that's why I got in heated arguments; because I was insistent that I was the one who had things all figured out, and you had to live by my rules if we could have peace. That's the same thing this "religious" mindset of mine really was. I believe the Bible, and so (since the Bible is my set of rules this time) I can boss and criticize anyone who disagrees with me, because I have authority from God to criticize and boss you!

Yes, people need to be held accountable to what the Bible says. Yet, even when we have Biblical authority to say to somebody "You are wrong, and God says so" we can still abuse this authority. We do have authority from God to tell somebody if they are right or wrong, but do we exercise that authority lovingly and appropriately according to need and opportunity; or, are we abusing that authority just because we like having a sense of power and control?

Mabye I'm listening, but instead of listening to grow in Christlikeness, I listen so that I can give my critique of the sermon afterwards. I remember the first time I went to Bible camp, this was the mindset I had. I was a new believer, but I was extremely prideful. I was listening to the messages as they were preached, but I was listening not with an attitude of eagerness for the Word, but instead I was listening so that I could see if the sermons measured up to my standards. I was not seeking humility. I was not rejoicing in the very fact that God was so merciful as to reveal the truth to me in His word; I was simply wanting to hear a message that meets my approval. If a message does not meet my approval, then the sermon was weak/unbiblical and if it met my approval, then good for you; keep up the good work. It is one thing to be zealous to hear a system of your favorite doctrines proclaimed; but it is another thing to be listening with eagerness to know God. Yes, we should always check things to make sure they line up with the Bible; but we should not come to church with a skeptical attitude. When we are only listening to make sure things are according to our personal liking (even if our personal liking is doctrinally sound), we really will miss out on a lot of encouragement we would otherwise recieve because we will be too busy focusing on what we didn't like/agree with. Let's listen with thankfulness for the Word instead! Should we still check the Bible to verify what is preached? Of course! Let's take everything sound we hear and grow in grace with it!

I'm sure every one of us have some pet-peeve that we hate with profound intensity. There are various lies of the world -- from church heresies to unbiblical philosophy -- that we each used to believe before God saved us. As for me, my personal pet-peeve would be secular humanism. Before I was converted, I was thoroughly brainwashed with those "trust your heart" and "follow your dreams" messages.  Finally and providentially, God was good to me and crushed my dreams. Several years down the road in my unbelief, I was in church and had decided to actually listen to the sermon to see if there was anything in it that could fix my problems in life. I don't remember the first sermon I truly listened to; all I remember was this: I heard humanism being relentlessly assaulted from the pulpit, and I loved that. Sweet revenge! This was my unbeliever response to preaching. Does this characterize the way we as Christians listen to preaching? Are we listening to hear the gospel, or do we find our joy in hearing the lies we used to believe be attacked? Granted, I think it is okay to personally get fired up inside about old lies that we were once blinded by. We are made in the image of God, and as such we are to be treated with respect; it is no sin for us to be offended when we are wronged. Yet, in being offended by the old lies that used to define us, we need to keep biblical glasses on -- That is, we need to 1) make sure our anger over the deception does not take our focus off of God, and 2) we excerise meekness, controlling our anger appropriately. So what then are we really interested in? Are we paying close attention because we want to hear our pastor bash some false idea we used to believe, or do we want to grow in Christlikeness?

Last but not least: Are we thankful for sound preaching? In times past, I have visited some churches that did not always line up 100% with what the Bible teaches, and where the sermons did not have as much depth nor length as what I am used to. I considered myself to have only gotten but an appetizer of spiritual food to live on for the week. The problem with my thinking is that it was actually unthankfulness in disguise. Under the cloak of religious zeal, I can find myself going "The sermon was so watered down. It had so little depth, and this statement was unbiblical. What a waste of my Sunday morning." It sounds really good at first, especially since there sometimes is some truth to this complaint. There is such a thing as a watered down message -- but even sermons that were comparatively shallow and may even have some unbiblical theology in parts, can still be profitable. The key here is this; don't focus on what was bad, but focus on what is good. In other words; even if a sermon is shallow, you can still appreciate what biblical doctrine the preacher did preach. Consider: Which one of us deserves to have God and His will revealed to us? The answer should be clear; none of us do. Yet, God is merciful and gracious in that He does reveal Himself to us in the Bible. When we come home from some church and complain all about how much was wrong with the sermon without taking into account what was right in it, what is that but unthankfulness? What is that but to take Scripture for granted? We can be thankful even for preaching when it is not perfect. We should test everything with Scripture to make sure it is true; yes. Yet, we ought always to look first for whatever is good and sound as diligently as possible, and be thankful to God for what He does provide.  

By now we probably have enough of an idea of some of our wrong attitudes we can hold about preaching, but what good does it do us to stop there? We don't learn biblical truth by process of lie-elimination! What is the right attitude? As is fairly apparent by this point, I believe one of our first attitudes should be that of thankfulness and humility. We ought to listen with eagerness and appreciation, because what we are listening to is far greater than a lecture in theology; it is what God uses to save and sanctify His beloved children! Where there is no gospel preached, there is no salvation. In a very real sense, hearing the gospel preached to us is a matter of life and death. Far more than just some sermon, it is the means God has appointed to bring eternal life to those who believe, and damnation to those who do not believe. What else is the gospel for? The gospel was also given to us so that we may do good works (Ephesians 2:8-10). For those of us who have been saved, God has freed us from the domination of sin. We are not doomed to have all the wrong attitudes anymore; we now are free to turn from those ways and serve Christ! We can take action and work towards cultivating a proper mindset of love, gratitude, and compassion for others. Let's take advantage of the freedom God has purchased for those of us who believe; next time we listen to the gospel preached, let's listen with an expectation of personal edification. Let's listen with the willingness to put aside our pet-peeves, frustrations with others and the world, and complaints about the message or preacher, and put on a willingness to focus our attention first and foremost on the good. When we learn how to bring out the greatest virtues in others and let go of our various "sanctified" complaints, we may very well discover Christian joy and contentment in ways like never before!