How to Get More Out of Your Pastor’s Sermons

I always enjoy reading and recommending books on how to become a better Church member. There are many books on becoming a better preacher, counselor, or pastor but not as many focused on the average Church attender. Many believers don’t fully understand what their role is as a normal Church member. One outworking of this uncertainty is how people respond to their Pastor’s sermon. A question commonly asked is how to get more out of your pastor’s sermons?

One of my favorite books to recommend for instructing normal Church members is “Duties of Christian Fellowship” by John Owen. It is short, accessible, and intensely practical. If you have not read this book, I recommend you do so and then purchase a few dozen to give out at your Church. It truly is gold and I cannot possibly recommend it enough. Drop whatever you are currently reading and get through this book first; it is that important.

The first section of the book deals with the question of how to get more out of your pastor’s sermons. The quote below is worthy of consideration, particularly the last sentence.

The failure to consider these principles is the cause of all the negligence, carelessness, laziness, and indiscipline while hearing the world, which has taken hold of so many these days. Only a respect for the truth and authority of God in the preaching of his word will bring men to hear it soberly and profitably. It is also the case that men grow tired of hearing the word only after they have grown tired of putting it into practice.

“Duties of Christian Fellowship” by John Owen, emphasis added

What the quote means

“Duties of Christian Fellowship” is organized around “rules” for Church members. The first 7 deal with how Church members should interact with the Pastor and the second set of 15 focuses on how Church members should interact with each other. The quote given above comes after the very first rule Owen gives: Christians should regularly attend a local Church to listen to preaching and to partake in the ordinances.

But as in every era of Church history, not every person puts a high emphasis on the public preaching of God’s word. Owen’s answer is given in the quote: most of the time believers tire of hearing the word preached because they have long since stopped trying to apply the sermons they here. In other words:

If you fail to correct your life based on the sermons you hear, you will eventually become a passive listener.

What Owen does here is shift the focus of the question “how can you get more from your pastor’s sermons” from the pastor to the Church member in the pew. If you aren’t “getting anything” from the faithful preaching of God’s word, the first problem to examine is in the mirror, not the Pastor. What Owen writes is right in line with the first chapter of James:

But 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. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

James 1:22-25 ESV, emphasis added

Why it is important

It is easy to approach Sunday morning as a consumer rather than as a worshiper. This means going to Church thinking to get some type of “product” whether that is a “good sermon” or “authentic worship”. If you are not pleased with what you get, then the consumer-mindset blames the Pastor or the worship leader or someone else. And there is no aspect of corporate worship in which it is easier to think as a consumer than preaching.

In today’s culture, congregants can often attend Church wanting entertainment, a “positive, inspiring message”, or a practical self-help type talk. When you come to service with any of these expectations and those expectations are not met, you naturally blame the Pastor. “That sermon wasn’t his best,” you might say or “It was alright, but I wish it was more relevant or practical.” Worst of all, you can give the Sunday sermon the epitaph of “I just didn’t get much out of it.”

What I love about this Owen quote is it directly challenges anyone who listens to a sermon as a consumer. There are only two questions for you to ask after listening to your Pastor’s sermon:

1. Did the sermon faithfully and clearly explain the truth of Scripture as God has communicated it?
2. If so, how does my life need to change based on what God has communicated to me through the pastor?

Owen says to the person who “didn’t get much out” of their Pastor’s sermon that the problem is most likely a passive, rather than an active mindset. A believer with an active mindset goes to Church to hear the Word preached so their lives can be confronted and conformed to Scripture. A passive mindset leads to a “eh, I’ll take it or leave it” response to preaching.

Your heart as you drive to Church on Sunday should be brimming with anticipation not because you expect some entertainment or life-changing emotional moment. Rather, you should be excited that God is going to teach you through your Pastor so that your life can change to better reflect Christ in the coming week.

Takeaways

1. Spend more time reflecting on the sermon than on critiquing it

If you want to get more out of your Pastor’s sermon, step one is humility: your job is not to be the resident “sermon reviewer”. Rather, your job is the mull over the Pastor’s exposition in your mind until you are gripped by the truth of the text. To get really practical, watch closely how you talk to other people about your Pastor’s sermon. If you find yourself saying things along the lines of “this is how well I think my Pastor preached” instead of “this is what God taught me through the Pastor”, you might be taking on the role of sermon critic.

Focus your energy on reflection rather than critique and you will begin to get more out of your Pastor’s sermons.

2. Set aside times during the week to remind yourself of what your Pastor preached on Sunday

One of the reasons I have spent time designing tools to help you reflect on your Pastor’s sermon is most of the time you forget what last Sunday’s sermon was about by the time you get to the next week. Humans are forgetful, especially when we don’t use the information we hear. So if you want to better remember what your Pastor preached on, start building in times throughout the week where you revisit the sermon text, your sermon notes, or even listen to the sermon itself a second time.

This is also a great action to take with others. If your Church has a small group, that is a great context to reflect on the previous Sunday’s sermon. Perhaps you meet up informally with Church members during the week. That is also a great time to reflect as a group on what God is teaching you corporately.

3. Prayerfully consider what God wants you to start doing, stop doing, or continue doing based on your Sunday sermon

There are dozens of sermon application questions out there to help you practically live out the truths you hear. But if you want three simple and memorable questions to ask after a sermon, look no further:

• What do I need to start doing in light of the sermon?
• What do I need to stop doing in light of the sermon?
• What things should I continue to do in light of the sermon?

I love this list because it is so easy to remember and gets at three aspects of God’s word: it instructs us what we should do, it corrects our behavior when it is sinful, and it encourages us to persevere in doing what is right. By thinking in terms of “start, stop, continue”, you can figure out what God’s word is communicating to you each week. Like I discussed above, both the Epistle to James and John Owen make it clear if you stop trying to apply God’s word, you are going to forget what you heard or think there was “nothing in it for me”.

If you want to get more out of your Pastor’s sermons, come to your Sunday service ready for your life to change.

Don’t get tired of hearing sermons every week: even on your Pastor’s worst Sunday preaching there is some truth God is sovereignly ordaining you to hear. Let us be doers of the Word when we hear it for there is no greater stewardship then obediently responding to God’s glorious Word.

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