Vance Havner was an evangelist and Bible conference speaker, who was also sort of the “Will Rogers” of the evangelical world. He died in 1986, but there are so many wonderful quotes from this old preacher still circulating. I think my favorite is this: “I’ve never heard a sermon where God didn’t speak to me…but I’ve had some very close calls!”
Most people think the word sermon is synonymous with boring. Too often their opinion is based on sad experience. It is a tragic thing when a preacher takes the world’s most amazing book – the Bible – and makes the world’s most wonderful truth – the Gospel of Jesus Christ – seem boring.
Sometimes it’s because the preacher doesn’t really preach from the Bible. I’ve always wondered how liberal preachers-those who do not believe the bible is God’s Word-can get up to preach, Sunday after Sunday. I mean, what do they have to say? They will usually read a portion of Scripture, but then embark on a series of remarks that have little or nothing to do with the text they just read.
I wrestle every week with trying to understand what God said in a portion of Scripture, and then to know how to present it in a way that captures people’s attention. Sometimes the Bible preacher hits the mark, and often we miss it. But I can’t imagine what it’s like to try to get up in front of a congregation every week and say something to them apart from the Bible. I remember one “sermon” I heard in which the preacher read from a soldier’s letters to his mother. He never tied it to the Bible. I’m sure he had a point, but for the life of me I don’t know what it was. Maybe if Vance Havner had heard that sermon it wouldn’t have been a close call!
The word sermon comes from the old Latin word serere, which meant “to link together”, i.e., in a series. So a sermon is a series of thoughts or remarks linked together. A Bible sermon is a series of thoughts or remarks based on the Bible, linked together in a message.
In recent years some have tried to make the claim that almost everything the modern church does comes from pagan sources, including the sermon. They say that the church incorporated the practice of a Greek or Roman orator making speeches into their worship.
That idea would have come as a real surprise to Ezra the scribe. In Nehemiah 8 the people gathered in one of the public squares in Jerusalem, and asked Ezra to “bring the Book of the Law of Moses that the LORD had commanded Israel (Nehemiah 8:1). So Ezra stood on a wooden platform (not a stage; a stage is for performers), accompanied by thirteen other godly men. He began reading from God’s Word, and, with the help of some Levites (assistants to the priests) scattered throughout the crowd, here’s what they did: “They read from the book, from the Law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.” (Neh. 8:8)
The Gospel of Matthew records this: “From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” (Matthew 4:17) And then in Matthew 5-7 we have recorded a series of remarks Jesus made, popularly called The Sermon On the Mount. Someone once said that God had only one Son, and He was a preacher.
Ezra and Jesus weren’t copying Greek or Roman orators. (There’s a reason why no church historian takes these claims seriously.)
God spoke the worlds into existence by His word (Hebrews 11: 3). He made human beings with the capacity of thought and speech, and then gave us His message written down (Exodus 24:4a). Jesus sent His disciples to preach the Gospel to the whole world, and teach all that He said and did (Mark 16:15; Matthew 28:20). And Paul told young Timothy to “preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke and exhort with complete patience and teaching.” (2 Timothy 4:2)
And preachers have been teaching the Bible and announcing the Good News of Jesus ever since.
Sometimes we do better than at other times. Sometimes the Presence of God is there, and the Spirit of God moves in the preacher and the congregation, and we know of a certainty that God has been among us that day.
And sometimes it’s like” wading through peanut butter”, as one old preacher put it. I once stopped in the middle of a sermon, looked down at my notes, and thought: “I am so bored with my own preaching that, if I could figure out a way to do it without anyone noticing, I’d go home right now.” When you get bored during the preacher’s sermon, you can whisper, sleep or pass notes. But the preacher’s stuck!
So how do you listen to a sermon?
If you come in to sit there with your arms folded to see how much you might be entertained by the performers on the stage, then you might as well forget it. God probably isn’t going to speak to you, unless it’s to tell you to repent.
But if you come in with a humble, teachable spirit, understanding that the singers and the preacher are just human instruments that God can use to lead you in worship…if you pray humbly, asking God to speak to your heart, and then listen actively, trying to follow what’s being sung and said… then you just might be surprised: God may very well speak to your heart!
But it doesn’t just depend on how the preacher preaches.
It depends on how you listen, too.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Pastor David