Acts 17:11
When a man of God stands to preach to a congregation of people, what he says to them carries major implications for their lives and they should listen well to what he is presenting to them. Prior to the preaching of the message of the day, that man which has been called by a church as their Pastor, has hopefully, spent a lot of time (as she should) developing what he feels the Lord wants him to say to the people. It is an awesome job to be speaking to God’s people in an effort to lead and guide them through life. A man is not capable of doing the task so it is incumbent upon the preacher to make sure that he is speaking what God’ Spirit has told him to bring to the people that day. The reason that is so crucial is that a man is incapable of bringing God’s message to His people without it having been first planted in his spirit and mind by the Spirit of God Himself. The preaching time is an awesome time when God is speaking to His people through His servant.
After having preached for many years, (I was ordained to preach in December of 1973), I have had ample opportunity to experience many kinds of churches and thousands of people as I have preached to them. God gives his preacher the ability to “feel” the people as he presents the message of the hour to them. The Spirit of God will show a preacher a number of things about the congregation to which he is preaching. He will point out people who are “with him” and who are “tuned in” to what is being taught and preached. They are easily identified and are much appreciated. There will be others who don’t like or they simply disagree with the preacher. They too are easily identified. There is something that bleeds off of them which tells the man of God that this particular person has a negative attitude and that they are simply not going to “hear” what he is saying. They are in every group of people and the preacher has to learn to keep himself focused on the issues at hand and not on those who are negative for some reason or another.
There are also those people in every congregation who are not tuned in and won’t be. They are just “there.” Intellectually they are a thousand miles from what is happening in the preaching service. Most of them simply come to church because it is the “thing” they do on Sunday. They always have and they always will. It’s where they think they “ought” to be and there they are in their spot. Many of these people use the worship hour simply to relax and some of them carry it to the extreme with eyes closed and drooping heads. If a person is on medication that causes them to drop off to sleep when they are still for a while then the Pastor will understand that and keep on going with his message in an undeterred way.
The people who use the service as a point of relaxation and escape from the every day problems and aggravations of life, have put their intellect and spiritual life in neutral. They will get little out of the Sunday message because everything is in neutral. They are easy to spot by the pastor with their bland emotionless look on their faces.
A good question for a person to be asked is this: “Are you intellectually involved in an intentional way or are you in neutral.” Are you “just here” and that’s about it. Are you drifting through the hour in sort of a “numb” way or are you actually thinking about what the preacher is saying and trying to apply the truths of scripture to your life? I’m afraid that too many of the people in church are in the “drifting” mode and will remember little and get almost nothing from being in attendance. The only thing that they will benefit from is the social interaction of the day and the idea that because they came to church they are all right with God and heaven bound.
If a man is truly called of God to preach the truths of the Bible to people, he will take is vitally serious and totally put himself into the sermon he delivers.
I believe that what is delivered should come from God, through the Holy Spirit and delivered to the people by God’s anointed preacher. There is a spiritual struggle in that process in that satan will impede the man of God at every turn. So, when God’s servant stands to preach, he deserves for people to be tuned it intellectually and spiritually in order to hear what God has for them that day.
In this modern day, there has arisen a danger for the preachers. The internet provides them with the opportunity to present a sermon that they are not invested in themselves. One cannot download sermons to be preached. They have been born in some else’s heart, written, preached and then put on the internet. Many preachers today, especially young ones who have been brought up on the computer, simply download and deliver. They are not invested. The sermon sounded good. It was preached by a good man that they probably follow. But, it does not have the heart of that particular preacher in it. It didn’t come from him and he really has nothing to give to the people except what someone else thought up and created.
Another even more dangerous thing that has arisen is AI…artificial intelligence. A person can actually go to an AI site, describe what they want a sermon to deal with…suggest some scripture and the AI site will write a sermon for them. A computer had done the work for the preacher or speaker and all they have to do is download the sermon and deliver it.
I don’t think God is in that at all. But, it shows us how things have changed and not for the better either. Plagiarism used to be a practice that, if detected in a preacher or any notable person, it would result in their immediate release from their duties. People would not put up with it, but in todays world, it is accepted more and more. Most people don’t know that they are hearing sermons that have been plagiarized but they are so “tuned out” that they don’t care. Just give us the sermon and we will go home and eat lunch. That’s the basic attitude of many people whether they will admit it or not.
So, as the title of this article asks: Where Are You? Are you in worship, tuned it, intellectually sharp, listening to what God wants to say to you today? Or, are you just doing what you always do? Tuned out, relaxing, forgetting the world for a few minutes, thinking about family, musing about some subject, or just floating through the hour? When you walk out of the service, do you dutifully thank the Pastor for a “great” sermon that you really didn’t hear or have forgotten by the time you get to the car?
I don’t want to leave our readers with the idea that I am trying to be negative. But, much of what I am saying is sadly true. Let me suggest that you analyze yourself and make sure that none of this applies to you. Be sure that you are eager to learn the scripture, eager to hear what God has for you from His Word and willing to apply the truths to your life. Ask yourself the question: Where Am I? What am I seeking to do? Tell yourself that you don’t want to be what has been discussed today and determine to fully realize where you are in relation to all of this. God will abundantly reward you.
