Thank God for Boring Sermons: A C. S. Lewis Story

That was a real stinker, my inner thoughts declared as I reflected on a past sermon. When I consider many of my past sermons, I know that some of the illustrations did not land, a few of the applications were not applicable, and sometimes the sermon was just plain boring. But what if I told you that God can use your boring sermons?

If you preach regularly, you will preach a boring sermon. And yet, we know that God works amid our sermons, whether we think that they are phenomenal or puny. One poignant example comes from the life of C. S. Lewis as he listened to a boring sermon.

On a Sunday in July 21, 1940, C. S. Lewis attended his local church for what he remarked was an unprofitable sermon. He wrote to his brother, Warren, about that fateful morning; and the outcome of that boring sermon is nothing short of remarkable. “[The associate pastor] preached, not very profitably. Before the service was over…I was struck by an idea for a book which I think might be both useful and entertaining. It would be called As One Devil to Another and would consist of letters from an elderly retired devil to a young devil who has just started work on his first ‘patient.’”

The young pastor who preached the sermon, I would assume, did not aspire to preach unprofitably. History remembers him for this boring sermon too. However, that boring sermon gave Christians the gift of Lewis’s idea that formed The Screwtape Letters. Lewis wrote the book in the year that followed, and it remains popular with readers to this day. That boring sermon brought about something significant, so there is comfort for the pastor who has a boring Sunday morning.

Pastors know the looming deadline that Sunday is coming. Pastors want to make much of Jesus, help people understand the Bible, and encourage them to live out the good commands of God. No one would condemn those aspirations or motivations. And yet, every pastor occasionally misses the mark. I have preached many average sermons and a few boring ones too. It appears that Lewis’s pastor did the same thing, but his left a lasting impact.

Preachers should take comfort knowing that God works through boring and average sermons. You only need to look at Jonah’s sermon from Jonah 3 to see how many people the Lord can redeem through an unremarkable sermon. I remember a sermon I preached about 8 years ago. As I stood and preached, I felt bored. After the sermon, I sat during the song and thought about the numerous things I could have fixed. Only a few minutes later, after the service, a kind older lady in the church came up and told me how much the sermon meant to her. Rest in the knowledge and comfort that the Holy Spirit will work through your sermons. Don’t strive to be boring. Instead, be confident that the God who called you will work through you, even if it is not in the way you expect.