Worth Remembering

 

Pay attention and listen to the sayings of the wise; apply your heart to what I teach, for it is pleasing when you keep them in your heart and have all of them ready on your lips;

—Proverbs 22:17-19

Do you take notes during the sermon in church? No, I didn’t ask if you wrote notes to the person sitting next to you while you’re supposed to be listening to the sermon. I asked if you take notes during the sermon preached as a part of the church service you attend? Well, do you?

When I was a teenager, back in the early 1960s, we had two outward signs of the depth of our new-found “spirituality”: every day in school, we carried our bright red Youth for Christ Bibles on top of our school books and we always, and I mean always, took notes during the sermon in church.

Now this may seem very foreign to you. In fact, you may well be one of the countless thousands, if not tens of thousands, of believers who attend church each week and never bring your own Bible to church with you. Instead, you gladly use the Bible provided in the pew rack in front of you, or in the book rack beneath your chair. You may reason:

“Why bother to carry my own Bible when I can easily use the one provided?”

I applaud your economy regarding what you carry with you to church. But, I could never do it. I have to have my own Bible. Why? Well, it has all my notes in it. Notes I have taken with great care over almost seven decades of sermon listening.

You see, old habits die hard. Having learned as a kid that taking notes helps focus my attention on what the preacher says in his or her sermon, I simply can’t discard the practice.

But, in the last twenty-five years or so, I’ve come up with a new note-taking procedure. I now take notes after the service. That’s right. About two o’clock on a Sunday afternoon, I spend a few moments jotting down the answer to five questions about the morning’s sermon.

1. Subject?
2. Response?
3. How-To?
4. How Long?

And, then, just for good measure, I ask one more question:

5. Key Sentence?

Let me explain a bit. A few hours after hearing a sermon, I ask myself this first question:

What subject did the preacher preach about today?

Let me be clear. I’m not asking, “What Bible text did he or she preach about?” No. I’m asking what subject, topic, main thrust the preacher spoke about in his or her sermon today.

I then ask myself this second question:

“What response did the preacher ask me to make as a result of hearing his or her sermon?”

In other words, what did the preacher suggest that I am supposed to do in response to the subject he or she preached about today?

I next ask myself this third question:

What suggestions did the preacher give me as to how to respond to his or her sermon?

Having already asked, in Question No. 2, what response the preacher was asking me to make, I now ask what concrete suggestions the preacher gave me as to how I am to respond to the sermon. The second question asks: “What response should I make?” The third question asks: “How do I respond?” This third question is looking for some tried and true suggestions.

For example: if the subject of the sermon was “Showing God’s love to others,” did the pastor give me some concrete steps to take in the week ahead that would prompt me to show love to others. You might call these instructions the “How-Tos.”

For my fourth question, I ask the following:

How long did the preacher suggest it might take before I begin to see results from following his or her advice in today’s sermon?

In other words, as I reflect on the sermon that I heard in church this morning, I am asking myself if I do what the preacher suggested that I do, will I see immediate results? Will I see results in one week, one month, within a year? The answer to this question will help me know what to expect from my obedient response to the teaching I heard in today’s sermon.

Then, just for good measure, I ask this fifth question:

Can I write, in a single key sentence, the main thrust of today’s sermon?

Said another way, can I extract and put into a sentence what the preacher tried to teach me today? I believe that if I can create such a sentence, then I must have truly heard and understood what the preacher was trying to share with me.

You may wonder what difference my five questions may make to me. Well, I decided long ago that, if I’m going to spend time in church listening to someone share from God’s written Word, I had better remember what the preacher said. In order to remember, I have to have some “hooks” to hang that memory on during the week ahead. Without those “hooks,” I most likely won’t remember what he or she preached about.

You see, I realize that most pastors spend a great deal of time meditating on Scripture, praying, and then writing their sermons. They put a significant effort into crafting a sermon that will communicate the truth of God’s written Word. Since they have spent so much time in my behalf, it behooves me to make certain I listen carefully, understand, and then remember what the pastor said in his or her sermon.

The Psalmist wrote in Psalm 119:11:

I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.

Reading this verse makes it seem important that I remember God’s written Word and the teaching and preaching from God’s written Word.

Let me make a suggestion. A few hours after you have listened to the next sermon that you hear, take a few moments to see if you can answer those five questions. Let me review them for you:

1. Subject?
2. Response?
3. How-To?
4. How Long?
5. Key Sentence?

If you can answer these five questions, then you will have gone a long way toward remembering what your preacher preached about this weekend. If you can’t answer those questions, give serious thought as to whether you didn’t pay close enough attention to what your pastor said. Or, maybe—just maybe—he or she did not even share with you the answer to these five questions in his or her sermon.

If the latter seems to be the case—and if your pastor is open to some help and you can offer that help without embarrassing him or her—suggest that he or she pay a visit to the “Sermon-Coach Podcast” available by clicking here. By listening to this Podcast, your pastor will find help to create effective, life-transforming sermons that answer those five questions.

Whether you share this tip with your pastor or not, please keep asking the five questions each week. And, more importantly, as the end of the week draws near, please take some time to pray for your pastor. Ask God to give your pastor liberty in preaching the truth that God has laid on your pastor’s heart. That, my friend, is one of the very best things you can do to help your pastor help you.

 

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