The Sermon

One more time...a quotation from Francis Chan's Crazy Love: "We've conditioned ourselves to hear messages without responding. Sermons have become Christian entertainment. We go to church to hear a well-developed sermon and a convicting thought. We've trained ourselves to believe that if we're convicted, our job is done. If you're just hearing the Word and not actually doing something with it, you're deceiving yourself" (p. 184).

Is that what the sermon is, "Christian entertainment?" A few weeks ago I was privileged to hear a preacher par exellence. He is a homiletics professor, has written several best-sellers and is a outstanding man of God. As I listened and observed I was impressed by how good he was--easy to hear, friendly, engaging, etc. It's almost as if I was critiquing his message, style, mannerisms, and so on. This preacher was giving me a WORD from God and here I was checking out his style. I almost missed the word from God.

How do you listen to sermons? Ever hear/say any of these? (1) "I just wasn't into it today." Really? Was God for some reason unworthy of your praise on this day? (2) "I just didn't get anything out of the sermon today." Ok, did you give God anything or was it all about you? Worship is designed far more to give God something (praise) that to give you something (good entertainment). (3) "I had trouble staying focused during the sermon." Ok, is that because you stayed up late last night, had plans after church or maybe didn't want to see God and be challenged by his glory? Worship, including the sermon, is not about you. Anyone who comes to worship looking for God will find him. Anyone coming to worship for entertainment will find himself.

The sermon is all about bridge-building, connecting God's eternal world and our world in the anticipation that the gap between the two will be narrowed. The sermon is about learning to reflect God, to look like God, to smell like Christ. The sermon is not about entertainment. Or if it should have any entertainment value at all it is that of entertaining God by displaying him and his calling to hearers.

So, next time you hear a sermon try this: ask yourself what God is calling you to do or be or change as a result of that sermon? Rather than judging the sermon, how about letting the sermon judge you? At least that's what I'm going to try to do the next time I hear a sermon.