Can You Hear Me Now?

“For all the people were hanging on his words.” ~Luke 19:48

Do you hear God in His Word? What is your heart’s posture when reading His Word silently in private worship; listening to His Word preached by His ministers; hearing His Word read aloud by one of His Spirit-appointed elders? Do you “attend upon it with diligence, preparation, and prayer” (WLC 160) and accept it “not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God” (1 Thess 2:13)?

We’ve all heard the saying, “familiarity breeds contempt.” I wonder if this has crept into our reception of God’s Word. Many of us grew up hearing the Bible read and preached. Some of you may have listened to thousands of sermons throughout your lifetime. It’s no wonder that a person might reach the point where they sit in the service and hear the noise, but never tune in to what’s being said. We don’t do this with food, do we? How many of us just sit at the table staring at our plate and expecting to get nourishment?

I want to challenge each of us to consider how great an act of foolishness it is to listen to God’s Word as anything other than the very words of God! What would you do if Jesus Himself showed up in the pulpit to read Paul’s letter to Titus? What if He stood behind the lectern and read a psalm? Would you mentally check out, thinking to yourself, “I’ve heard this a thousand times”? Would you leave wishing He had talked about something different? Surely not! Don’t forget that when His Word is read and preached today, it is still (as Paul said to the Thessalonians Christians) “the [very] word of God.”

Many years ago, the Puritan George Swinnock said, “Make godliness your business in the ordinances of God, and you may get much spiritual good, and meet Christ in them, and receive grace through them, and thrive as a healthy nursing baby.” Put simply, he is admonishing us to attend unto the ordinary means of grace (of which the preaching the Word takes primacy) in such a way that we strive after spiritual health and personal holiness (i.e., godliness). I ask you, therefore, is it your goal each Lord’s Day to leave worship more godly than when you arrived? Is it your aim to gather up as much “spiritual good” as you can so that you leave full of grace and truth for the week ahead? Do you attend unto the reading and preaching of the Word like Ruth gathering grain in the fields — as if your life depended upon it?

My dear brothers and sisters, listen to God’s Word as though you will actually meet Christ in it. Remember how needy you are for His grace. Think of yourself like a nursing baby and come to His Word for the nourishment that only He can provide. And ready yourself for this Lord’s Day with diligence, preparation, and much fervent prayer.

Rev. Kyle Lockhart, Associate Pastor