Hear the Word of the Lord

In "Hear the Word of the Lord," preached on Dream Church's ninth anniversary, Pastor Joshua takes up Jeremiah 22:29 and Hebrews 4:12 to ask why the word of God is both gentle and cutting, and answers that the difference lies not in the word but in the hearer. The Hebrew shama means to hear intelligently, to comprehend, and Jeremiah's lonely witness shows a people who heard without hearing, warping the word to fit their own vision until exile exposed the poverty of the foundation. The sermon traces the two responses God still meets today: changing the word to fit how we hear, which builds a house on sand, or letting the word divide soul from spirit, testing our traditions and doctrines so that we become soft fruit rather than hard bread before the same knife. From Luther's theses to George MacDonald's consuming fire, this is a call to a church that would rather be cut by the true word than comforted by a word remade in its own image.