The wonder of God's Word

A number of years ago when I was still a pastor one of my members  left the sanctuary after the service and expressed his surprise at my message that morning.  He told me that when I read my text he assumed he knew the theme of the message and was prepared to shut me off and think of other things.  Suddenly, he realized my message was going in a completely different direction than he assumed so he decided to pay attention.  He meant it as a compliment when he told me he had never heard anyone preach that message from that particular text.  Although he was complimenting me, his comments bothered me for a couple of reasons.

One, they reminded me that we should never assume that people are paying attention to what we are saying.  For some, it is pretty obvious.  As the message begins their eyes begin to close not to open again until the invitational hymn wakens them.  However, we should never assume that just because someone is looking at us while we preach that they are paying attention.  Their thoughts may be on the dinner they are planning for that afternoon, an upcoming activity, or stresses related to work or family issues.  They may have completely tuned us out.

This is often the case when our sermons are delivered without passion, conviction, or application to real world struggles.  I have sat through too many sermons in the past several years that could not hold my attention for very long, and it didn't take my mind long to wander.  (I should say that I have also preached a few messages that I realized about half way through that they were unlikely to hold anyone's attention.  It was even hard for me to listen to my own message!)  This is really a shame because God's Word holds such power and truth and truly does have the power to change one's life.

The second thing that concerned me is that after we have been Christians for some time it becomes easy to take God's Word for granted.  We lose the mystery and wonder of the Scriptures.  When my friend heard my text that morning his mental file immediately pulled up all the previous sermons he heard from that text and assumed that he already knew the content of my message.  Aren't we all at risk of doing that?  Yet, the more time we spend in God's Word the more we find that it can speak to us in new ways.  How many times have I read a familiar passage of Scripture or heard someone preach from a passage and saw something new that I had never seen before?  I am convinced that God is always wanting to reveal Himself in new ways to us, but if we begin to treat His Word as common and lose the wonder of that Word we run the risk of missing what He wants to reveal to us.

The challenge for us who preach from the Scriptures is to keep the wonder of that Word we handle.  A creator God has revealed Himself to mankind through His Word, and through that Word He wants to change lives.  Listen to His still small voice through the pages of that book and allow their words to bring change to your life.  Then you'll be ready to preach with a passion and conviction that will speak to the hearts of your listeners.