Oakbrook Evangelical Free Church

Introduction - The importance of listening

1.  Listening may be the difference between life and death

Robert Kupferschmid was an 81-year old with no flying experience. However, due to a tragic emergency, he was forced to fly an airplane. On June 17, 1998, he and his 52-year-old pilot friend, Wesley Sickle, were flying from Indianapolis to Muncie, Indiana. During the flight, the pilot slumped over and died at the controls. The Cessna 172 single-engine plane began to nose-dive and Kupferschmid grabbed the controls. He got on the radio and pleaded for help.

Nearby were two pilots who heard the call. Mount Comfort was the closest airport, and the two pilots gave Kupferschmid a steady stream of instructions of climbing, steering—and the scariest part—landing. The two experienced pilots circled the runway three times before this somewhat frantic and totally inexperienced pilot was ready to attempt the landing.

Emergency vehicles were called out and ready for what seemed like an approaching disaster. Witnesses said the plane’s nose nudged the center line and bounced a few times before the tail hit the ground. The Cessna ended up in a patch of soggy grass next to the runway. Amazingly, Kupferschmid was not injured.

This pilot listened and followed those instructions as if his life depended on it—and it did. Imagine what would take place in the lives of believers if we listened to and obeyed the Word of God with the same earnestness.

2.  The Importance of Listening to Each Other = // listening to God

“He who can no longer listen to his brother will soon no longer be listening to God, either.”   Citation: Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Leadership, Vol. 16, no. 4.

 

1:19-21  “My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.  Therefore, putting aside all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent, humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.

“

 

The difficulty is not in grasping the meaning of these truths.

The difficulty is in applying them.  If it were that simply we’d all do it.

All of us wants to be a good listener

            few of us want to put our foot in our mouths or to fly off the handle.

It’s in the doing or in the failing to do…when we mess up that we

            hurt someone’s feelings and damage precious relationships even separating us

from someone for years.

 

 

I.  Quick to Hear - Develop Better Listening Skills

Must break the “zone of silence”

May 18, 1980 is one of those dates on which many of us can remember where we were and what we were doing. That was the day Mount St. Helens erupted. I had just started my first year at Western Washington University and recall standing outside the Performing Arts Center looking south toward the eerie and colorful red skies, emblazoned by the sun’s reflection upon tons of airborne volcanic ash. Many students heard the morning explosion some 200 miles away.

My wife heard the blast standing outside her Poulsbo home and thought something large had fallen and crashed inside the house. The explosion, like a nuclear bomb, was heard as far away as 600 miles. It killed 57 people.

Can you imagine being right next to it? Standing near, as many did, at the head waters of the Toutle and Cowlitz Rivers which in short order flooded with debris from the mountain’s blast?

A number of men and women were rescued within a few miles of the mountain, and they testified to the most amazing thing. They did not hear the explosion! Some, a mile or two away, thought that the darkened sky from the immediate blast was cloud cover and rain. How could that be?

They were in a “zone of silence.” Scientists explain that the incredible upward thrust of the exploding mountain also sent the sound of the event upward into the atmosphere where it bounced back to earth (several times), but in intervals outward and away from ground zero.

So although people like old Harry Truman were right next to the disaster (on Spirit Lake’s shores in the volcano’s shadow), they wouldn’t know of the eruption unless they were looking at the mountain at that moment.

This reminds me of when Jesus quoted the prophet Isaiah: “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand”  (Matthew 13:13). It was possible to stand right in front of Jesus and His Word and yet not hear his words.

 

Hearing Blocks in the Zone of Silence to be removed

1.  Presumption…work at not making presumptions

Proverbs  18:13  He who answers before listening– that is his folly and his shame.

Living Bible “It is stupid to decide before knowing the facts.”

 

5 Assumptions that are always wrong:

a.  That there is only one way to see things.  There are many ways to see things.

b.  That everybody thinks like I do.  They don’t.

c.  That people never change.  They do and we need to give them the right to change and our encouragement to change.

d.  That you know someone’s motives.  You can’t.  We don’t even know our own motives sometimes.

e.  That you see the truth clearly and someone else does not. 

“Probably all memories of both painful and pleasurable events are distorted….quote p.18

 

2.  IMPATIENCE blocks hearing.

Proverbs 13:3  He who guards his lips guards his life, but he who speaks rashly will come to ruin.

Proverbs 29:20  Do you see a man who speaks in haste? There is more hope for a fool than for him.

 

Watchman Nee  “Nee: “Anyone who wishes to serve the Lord must acquire the habit of listening to what people say, and not just listening in a perfunctory manner, but listening attentively with the object of hearing and understanding what is said.” NCW 42

 

How do you know when you are being impatient?

~ You interrupt.

~ You jump to conclusions.

~ You react instead of act.

Story:  “A man whose car had stalled because of a dead battery on an expressway managed to hail a passing motorist who agreed to help him.  ‘Since my car has an automatic transmission,’ he explained, ‘you will have to get up to 30-35 miles an hour to get me started.’  The motorist nodded in agreement, smiled and walked back to her car.  After a few minutes of waiting for her to line up her car behind him, the man began to wonder where she had gone.  Suddenly he spotted her in his rear view mirror bearing down on him at 30-35 miles a hour.

 

Give others your focused attention!

 

3.  PRIDE blocks hearing because it makes us defensive and unteachable.

Proverbs 12:15  “The way of a fool seems right, but a wise man listens to advice.”

You can learn from anyone if you are willing to listen.

Proverbs 15:31  “If you pay attention when you are corrected, you are wise!”

Proverbs 1:5  “1:5 Let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance–

 

Watchman Nee said that one of the main barriers to listening is that we are too full of ourselves to listen. You are so set on your notions that other people’s opinions cannot penetrate into your mind.

 

In Business @ the Speed of Thought, Bill Gates, former CEO of Microsoft, writes:

A good e-mail system ensures that bad news can travel fast, but your people have to be willing to send you the news.  You have to be constantly receptive to bad news, and then you have to act on it. Sometimes I think my most important job as CEO is to listen for bad news. If you don’t act on it, your people will eventually stop bringing bad news to your attention. And that’s the beginning of the end.

The willingness to hear hard truth is vital not only for heads of big corporations but also for anyone who loves the truth. Sometimes the truth sounds like bad news, but it is just what we need.

 

4.  WE DON’T CARE ENOUGH

Watchman Nee also said that another reason we don’t listen well is that we don’t really care about others.  “We must learn to enter into the feelings of others…you will be unable to understand his need unless you can enter sympathetically into his circumstances…consequently, when they talk you will be able to hear the words they utter, but you will not be able to interpret their import aright. NCW 48,9

 

Nee went on to say,  “There is no cheap and easy way for anyone to be of use to God and to his fellow-men…to become good listeners the cross will need to operate deeply in our lives to deliver us from the self-absorption that makes us deaf to the concerns of others.  A deep work of the cross in our lives will produce an inner quiet that will make us patient listeners.  You must make a point of listening…which means that you will need to be quietly before God so that your mind is clear and your spirit calm…we shall have to take ourselves rigorously in hand if we are to acquire hearing ears.” NCW 43

 

Take Time to Care

I don’t want to be a self-absorbed person, but truthfully sometimes I get busy and forget God for a time. That’s when God reminds me to slow down and refocus. Recently, I was half-walking, half-running from my office to the church’s farthest seminar room to meet with some leaders. I had my schedule all planned out, including how long it was going to take me to walk, and how fast I was going to have to walk to make it on time.

When I got partway there, I saw someone from our building services staff washing a window with the enthusiasm of a man who’s just been given a life sentence. I remember thinking, If this is a contest between the rag and the window, the window is winning. I was planning to walk right by, but I could sense God squeezing my hand and whispering,

Stop. Just ask him how he’s doing. It looks like he’s hurting.

So I stopped and I said, “Are you okay?” He looked at me and his eyes said, “I’m not, but I know you’re always busy. And if I start telling you what’s breaking my heart and you say, ‘Gotta go, bye’—it’s going to be too hurtful for me.”

God squeezed my hand—a little harder this time—and said, “Let the other meeting wait,” so I spoke to the man once again and added, “I’m not in a hurry. What’s up?” And what came out was a kind of hurt that only a couple of us on staff could identify with. So I spent the next twenty minutes encouraging him and praying for him.

Later on, as I reflected on that moment with God and that man by the window, I realized that particular staff member has probably heard hundreds of my sermons. Yet years later, when he looks back and reflects on the impact that my life had on his, he probably won’t

remember many of them. But he will probably remember the day I stopped to talk when the window was winning.  Bill Hybels, The God You’re Looking For

 

 

 

 

II.  Slow To Speak

Proverbs16:27  A scoundrel plots evil, and his speech is like a scorching fire.

Proverbs 15:1  A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

Proverbs 15:28  The heart of the righteous weighs its answers, but the mouth of the wicked gushes evil.

Proverbs 17:27-28  “A man of knowledge uses words with restraint, and a man of understanding is even-tempered.  Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent…”

Proverbs 18:21  “The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.”

 

Words. Destructive Power of Critical Words

In the award-winning film The Joy Luck Club, one little girl has the capacity, in her own words, “to see the secrets of a chessboard.” This special gift enables her to become a national chess champion by age eight.

Her only liability is a driven parent, who is both envious of her daughter’s gifts and selfishly using her to fulfill her own ambition for wealth and power. At one point, the little girl dares to speak back to her mother. The woman responds first by giving an icy silent treatment, and then by saying to her daughter, “You are nothing. You are nothing at all.”

This is how the little girl describes what happened next.

What she said to me was like a curse. This power I had, this belief in what I’d been given, I could actually feel it draining away. I could feel myself becoming so ordinary. And all the secrets that I once saw I couldn’t see any more. All I could see were my mistakes and my weaknesses, and the best part of me disappeared.

Solution:

Measure your words:  are they true?   are they necessary?   Is it kind?

Ephesians 4:29  “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”

 

 

 

III.  Slow To Anger = Restrain Your Emotions

29:11  A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control.

 

8  Mockers stir up a city, but wise men turn away anger.

22  An angry man stirs up dissension, and a hot-tempered one commits many sins.

 

 

 

 

Practical action, like shutting our mouths and opening our ears are not deeply inward, but can affect inward problems by opening the door to God

 

James 1:21 = Not expecting perfection but a basic change of heart.

Humble = needful