What is a Healthy Church Member? Mark #1: An Expositional Listener

REVIEW OF MARK 1, CONDENSED FROM THE BOOK:
Expositional preaching is the first and most important mark of a healthy church.  Do we really believe that? I do. What does our culture seem to say about the most important mark of a healthy church?  Numerical growth, baptisms, offerings, budgets???  We must be driven by Scripture and its meaning must drive the agenda.

What does that mean for members? It means our listening agenda must be tuned to the meaning of Scripture.  During preaching we shouldn’t be first listening for “how-to advice” but rather how Scripture, God’s Word, God is relevant for everyday matters.  We’re not to look at sermons for bolstering our self-esteem or even that motivate us to political or social causes.  We should be listening primarily for the voice and message of God as revealed in the Word.  Expositional listening is listening for the meaning of a passage of Scripture and accepting the meaning as the main idea to be grasped for our personal and corporate lives as Christians.

What are the benefits of listening this way?
#1: Cultivating a hunger for God’s Word. By tuning our ears to hear expositional preaching that makes the primary point of the sermon the primary point of a particular passage of Scripture, we get accustomed to listening to God.  We become fluent in the language of the Word and can become conversant with its themes.  Expositional listening gives us a clear ear with which to hear God.

#2: Helps us focus on God’s will and to follow Him. When we start listening to His agenda, ours becomes secondary, the preacher’s agenda becomes secondary.  Expositional preaching removes others agendas and inserts God’s.  And when we get God’s agenda we being to reorder our priorities in a direction that most honors Him.  John 10:27.

#3:  Protects the gospel and our lives from corruption. 2 Tim.3:4 warns us of a time when people will not endure sound teaching, they will have itching ears, they will wander off into myths.  The failure to listen expositionally is disastrous, truth is sacrificed for myths, false teachers invade the church.  Expositional listening guards against this and protects the gospel.

#4: Encourages faithful pastors. Few things are more discouraging to pastors as an inattentive congregation to the Word of God.  Pastors flourish at the fertile reception of the preached Word.  They become more bold in the Word when they see people listening and being changed by the Word.

#5:  Benefits the Gathered Congregation. Expositional listening  promotes unity within the body.  It shapes us into one body, united in understanding and purpose, which is a great testimony to the truth of the gospel.  When we listen with our own interests and agendas, we develop “private interpretations” and idiosyncratic views, and thus risk breaking the unity, provoking disputes over doubtful matters, and weakening our corporate gospel witness.

How Can Church Members Cultivate the Habit of Expositional Listening?
#1: Mediate on the sermon passage during your quite time
#2: Invest in a good set of commentaries
#3: Talk and pray with friends about the sermon after church
#4: Listen to and act on the sermon throughout the week
#5: Develop the habit of addressing any questions about the text itself
#6: Cultivate humility

It is the hearing of the word of God that leads to saving faith (Romans 10:17).  Church members are healthy when they give themselves to hearing the message as a regular discipline.  It promotes personal spiritual health and corporate spiritual health.

Reflection Questions:
1.    How would you rate your ability to listen for the meaning of the Word during private devotions? During sermons?
2.    How do you plan to strengthen your listening ability?

My comments tomorrow…