"WHAT SHOULD I EXPECT FROM A SERMON?"

When you listen to a preacher deliver a message from God's Word, what do you do during the message? Do you follow along in the scriptures as the pastor reads the text? Do you take notes or highlight certain phrases in your Bible? 

How can you make the most of the preaching you hear each week? These four answers come from 9Marks...
1. Throughout the week, meditate on the passage that will be preached on Sunday. Pray for your pastor as he prepares his sermon. Take notes on the text. Ask questions of the text. Pray through the text.

2. Prepare for Sunday morning. On Saturday night or Sunday morning, pray for your upcoming opportunity to hear God’s Word preached. Pray that your heart would be soft and humble before it.

3. Talk and pray about the sermon with friends after church. Start conversations at lunch by asking, “How did the Scripture challenge or speak to you today?” Encourage others by sharing what you learned about God and his Word during the sermon. Talk to others about how you can specifically apply what you learned in the week ahead.

4. Meditate and act on the sermon you heard throughout the week. Don’t let the Sunday sermon become a one-time event that fades from memory as soon as it is over (James 1:22-25). Review your sermon notes with friends or family. Choose one or two applications from the Scripture and prayerfully put them into practice over the coming week.

Or how about this from Phil Ryken?
So what is the right way to listen to a sermon?  With a soul that is prepared, a mind that is alert, a Bible that is open, a heart that is receptive, and a life that is ready to spring into action. The first thing is for the soul to be prepared.  Most churchgoers assume that the sermon starts when the pastor opens his mouth on Sunday.  However, listening to a sermon actually starts the week before.  It starts when we pray for the minister, asking God to bless the time he spends studying the Bible as he prepares to preach.  In addition to helping the preacher, our prayers help create in us a sense of expectancy for the ministry of God's Word.

And also from John Piper's Desiring God website...

It is very easy to slip into what Scripture calls “dullness of hearing,” to hear the weekly sermons without faith, and to see little or no moral fruit in our lives as a result... “So take heed how you hear! Hear with spiritual ears, not just the ears on your head. And hear with an honest and good heart, not a deceptive and evil heart”.