My son David recently sent me this description of his pastor’s sermon:

You would have loved …the sermon yesterday. Sermons are never perfect, but it was a great message on getting in the word, based on 2 Timothy 3.16-17:

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (NIV84)

One profound and simple moment you would have enjoyed was when Pastor Jed, talking about “now what” once we believe the Word is important, said, “We over complicate things. Read it. Open the book.” The phrase “Read it” was literally a bullet on the screen by itself.

I love it:

READ IT

I wrote him back: “Love it. Doesn’t matter what you believe about the Word if you don’t read it. By contrast, I listened to an online sermon recently that was well-crafted with a lot of good points, but I have no idea what he wanted us to do.”

If you’re a pastor, I beg you, keep it practical. Tell the folks what you (or God!) want them to do. Don’t assume they can figure it out on their own. I wrote about the importance of practical teaching, quoting Andy Stanley:

Practical teaching that moves people to action is one of the primary things God uses to grow our faith...That being the case, our messages and lesson preparations are not complete until we know what we want our audiences to do with what they are about to hear. To grow our congregants’ faith, we must preach and teach for life change. – Andy Stanley, from Deep and Wide

If you’re not a pastor, encourage your pastor to keep it practical and actionable. Don’t demand that your pastor teach you some deep truth you don’t already know. And make every effort to apply at least one thing from every sermon you hear.

And no matter how your pastor preaches, you are responsible to do with the Word what my son David’s pastor recommended:

READ IT

And, put it into practice:

But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don’t work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach. (Matthew 7.26, MSG)

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. (James 1.22, NIV)