How to Listen to a Sermon
- Mark Rice
- Aug 29, 2025
- 6 min read
Because of sin, no one is born a good listener to God’s Word. We must discipline ourselves to listen carefully so that we become doers, not merely hearers (James 1:19–27). What follows are some life-changing principles for listening to God’s Word as if your life depended on it.
YOU WERE BORN A POOR LISTENER
Since the beginning of creation, God has been giving His people instructions that are vital to life and a proper relationship with Him. Listening obediently to God’s commandments is how God’s people love and serve Him (Deut 6:1-12; 11:13-28). Forgetfulness of God’s Word is tantamount to rebellion and false worship.
Jesus warns that “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter” (Matt. 7:21-24). It is easy for people to associate themselves with Jesus but not listen carefully to Him. It’s essential to recognize that we’re saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, not as a result of our own works (Eph 2:8-9). At the same time, we’re saved by grace for good works which God has prepared for us (Eph 2:10). But we won’t do these good works if we’re not listening carefully to God’s Word.
The problem is that we’re all born not listening well. We are born elevating our own opinion (Rom 12:3), which foolishly leads us to trust our own intuition on spiritual matters. We are born spiritually blind and dead, which makes us horrible listeners to God’s Word. The natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised (1 Cor 2:14).
If you have not done so already, you need to admit that you have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Confess your sins and inability to listen to God (1 John 1:9). Trust Jesus to save you and give you a new heart that can understand and obey God’s Word (Rom 10:9).
If you are a genuine believer, you must understand that listening carefully to God’s Word is the primary tool the Holy Spirit uses to grow and transform you. God’s Word is the tool of your sanctification (John 17:17). Careful listening to God’s Word will transform you by God’s power so that you’ll be kept from presumptuous sins that would otherwise rule over you. Careful listening to God’s Word will transform you so that the words of your mouth and the meditation of your heart will be acceptable in God’s sight (Rom 12:1-2). Becoming a careful listener to God’s Word doesn’t happen automatically once God saves you. You must train yourself to be a careful listener.
TRAIN TO BE A CAREFUL LISTENER
After Jesus taught the parable of the soils, He called out “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (Luke 8:8). Then, after explaining the parable to His disciples, he further emphasized the importance of listening carefully to what He had taught them: “So beware how you listen” (Luke 8:18). How can the people of God be careful in how they listen to the preaching of God’s Word? [1]
Listen for the voice of God in the preaching of Scripture
Receive expository preaching “not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also is at work in you who believe” (1 Th 2:13).
Listen to feed your soul
Receive expository preaching as food for your soul: “man does not live by bread alone, but by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of Yahweh” (Dt 8:3). God’s Word is as necessary to your spiritual health as food is to your physical health.
Listen with a cultivated heart
Unless we listen carefully, our hearts can grow cold and hard by the deceitfulness of sin (Heb 3:7-13). To keep your heart soft, receiving the Word of God with careful attention, you must cultivate your heart as a farmer cultivates his field. How can God’s people cultivate their hearts to listen carefully to the preaching of God’s Word?
• Intake the Word regularly and meditate on it (Psalm 1:2).
• Consider how God wants to teach, correct, reprove, or instruct you in
righteousness (2 Tim 3:16-17).
• Share what you are reading and learning with your family (Eph 6:4).
• Pray for help throughout the week (Ps 119:18).
• Confess sin as necessary preparation for receiving God’s Word (Jas 1:21).
• Reduce media to limit conformity to this world and to provide more time and
energy for studying God’s Word (Rom 12:1-2).
In a recent Just Thinking podcast, Darrell Harrison noted that, globally, the average person spends 2½ hours daily on social media—about 900 hours a year, the equivalent of 38 full days. [2] Imagine the transformation Christians would see if they got off social media and devoted that time to the intake of God’s Word and applying it.
• Prioritize the ministry of the Word in corporate worship (2 Tim 4:1-2).
Since pastors are charged with the responsibility of preaching the Word of God, Christians are charged with the responsibility of listening to their sermons (2 Tim 4:1-2). This task of listening to your pastor preach must be as much of a priority to you as preaching is to your pastor. Make Sunday morning worship a priority.
“For the majority of people, even church members, church is not the priority of their week…They make the mistake of letting their time be ordered by the world, which views the weekends as a time to relax, to play sports, and to stay up late and sleep in. For Christians, however, Sunday should be the most important day of the week.” [3]
• Be consistent in church attendance (Heb 10:24-25).
“Regular attendance in church is an aid to listening well, especially when your pastor is preaching through a book of the Bible or a special series. Patchy attendance breaks the continuity of a sermon service. Like skipping a chapter in a book or going to the restroom in the middle of a movie, you miss key information that is critical to understanding what is going on.” [4]
• Go to church with a humble and expectant heart (Ps 119:33; 2 Tim 3:16-17).
“It should be that you just can’t wait to see what you’re going to learn and how God is going to use His Word to convict you, correct you, comfort you, and change you.” [5]
Listen with a prepared mind and body
Part of our problem with listening is that we don’t take the time to prepare our minds and bodies for Sunday worship. Here are some practical recommendations.
• Start Sunday preparations on Saturday evening. Make it a habit to be home relatively early on Saturday night to help you prepare for Sunday and to get enough rest.
• Guard what you do, watch, and read on Saturday so that you do not cause lingering distractions in your mind the next day.
• Make all of Sunday a day of worship, not just the couple of hours in the church building. Seek to establish and maintain a godly, worshipful atmosphere on the way to and from church.
• Give yourself some transition time by arriving early before the start of the service.
Listen worshipfully
To listen carefully as an act of worship to God, consider the following practical recommendations:
• Follow along in your Bible as your pastor preaches.
• Listen attentively. Fight sleepiness and distracting thoughts. If necessary, stand in the back to stay alert.
• Take notes of the main point, highlights, key points, convictions, and applications as a means to keep yourself actively listening.
• Listen with discernment (Acts 17:11).
• Listen to obey (James 1:22-25).
CONCLUSION
Diligently training yourself to be a careful listener requires discipline and hard work, but it rewards believers with rich benefits in Christ. The benefits of becoming a careful listener include a joyful and productive life (Ps 1:1-3), a secured and transformed life (Jas 1:21), a God-glorifying life (John 15:8), an assured life (1 John 2:3), and a rewarding life (1 Cor 3:12-15).
Hear C.H. Spurgeon’s sage counsel to his congregation on the necessity of discipling themselves to be careful listeners to the Word of God:
We are told that men ought not to preach without preparation. Granted. But we add, men ought not to hear without preparation. Which do you think needs the most preparation, the sower or the ground? I would have the sower come with clean hands, but I would have the ground well-plowed and harrowed, well-turned over, and the clods broken before the seed comes in. It seems to me that there is more preparation needed by the ground than by the sower, more by the hearer than by the preacher. [6]
[1] Expository Listening by Ken Ramey provides helpful and practical guidance.
[3] Ramey, 43.
[4] Ramey, 44
[5] Ramey, 45.
[6] Spurgeon in Ken Ramey, Expository Listening, (Woodlands, Texas: Kress Biblical Resources, 2010), 34. Spurgeon delivered this sermon on NOVEMBER 24, 1861 to those at the Metropolitan Tabernacle.
Mark Rice is the pastor of Medina Bible Church in Medina, Ohio.
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