Listen

INTRODUCTION:

LMNOP

Wheel Barrel

Busting Tables

SERIES RECAP:

Knowing the mission is one thing, living it out is another.

It is one thing to know the mission and another thing to do it.

Week One: We emphasized that we are blessed to be a blessing. [BLESS GRAPHIC] Sometimes we need get our eyes cleared to see. Too often we settle for being people who “hope” to see people clearly.

Week Two: We emphasized that a good first step to being a blessing is to begin with prayer. Pray for God to reveal the people and places He is calling us as individuals to bless. To often we settle for being people who “hope” to pray for the people and places. So we challenged ourselves to make a plan. “Corporately 21 days of prayer.”

You hear us say this all the time. It is our local church mission statement…”to know and love Jesus

Last week we challenged you to BEGIN WITH PRAYER and asked you to fill out the BLESS Card.

21 days of prayer. Prayer has always been important at SFCN, especially in the early days.  God has faithfully brought us to 75 years and he's not done with us yet! (September 28.)

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Humans are not good listeners.

We have been given the biology, tools, and brains to be able to listen, but we are not good at it.

There’s a famous saying that goes like this:

“The opposite of listening is not speaking,…(pause) it’s waiting to speak.” -Unknown

Isn’t that true? That even when we’re not talking, a lot of times we’re not actively listening to what the other person is saying, ‘we’re thinking about what we’re gonna say.’

I struggle with this at times.

But it really drives me crazy when that is what people are doing when I am speaking. They are just waiting for me to stop talking so they can speak next!

We have all been in a conversation where it felt like the other person was there but not really there? We have all been part of conversations where we are the other person saying, ‘uh-huh” but not really listening.

But if we want to stop “hoping” people take steps toward God, if we want to stop hoping to be a blessing, it we want to stop hoping to help others know and love Jesus, then we have to be willing to LISTEN!

NEWS! POLITICS! SPORTS! STARS! HOLLYWOOD!

I strive to be a good listener…not perfect, but strive. I strive to ask questions and listen to answer. Strangers think my face is the face of someone who will listens.

[STORIES]-Airplane, the person wants to talk. Mall, a person wants to talk. Sitting alone at restaurant, people want to talk.

No matter whether or not you are a good listener, if you follow Jesus, then you need to be like Jesus. And…Jesus listened to people.

JESUS Listened to People

We see Jesus time and time again show love in practical and simple ways…like Listening.

Example One

In Luke 18, Jesus hears the sounds of a blind beggar, doesn’t just continue on with his business like everyone else. [Turn to the pages in my bible.]

Luke 18:40–41 ESV

40 And Jesus stopped and commanded him to be brought to him. And when he came near, he asked him, 41 “What do you want me to do for you?” He said, “Lord, let me recover my sight.”

He stops, asks a question, and listens to the man. It’s not until after he listens to the man that he blesses the man by healing him. Jesus took the time to listen to the people that no one else seemed to care for, the ones everyone else overlooked.

Example Two [Turn to the pages in my bible]

Again in John 5, Jesus is walking by a small pool of water outside the city gate, surrounded by people everyday waiting, talking, hoping. Among them is a man lying near the edge of the water. And what does Jesus do?

John 5:6 ESV

6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?”

He stops, asks the man a question, Jesus listens to the man so he knows HOW to bless him.

Example Three [Turn to the pages in my bible]

In Mark 6, Jesus sends out the 12 disciples to continue his mission in surrounding towns. And they go out to BLESS hundreds of people and when they return, here’s what happened.

Mark 6:30 ESV

30 The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught.

Jesus listens to all they had done and taught.

When you flip through the pages of the Gospels, we are naturally drawn to the stories of Jesus doing the big things. Healing the sick! Feeding thousands of hungry people! Raising the dead! We tend to remember the exceptional and extraordinary moments!

But I am so much more interested in the seemingly normal, small things. Most of life is not on the mountain top. Most of life is not on the valley below. Most of life is in the in between. The normal dies. The daily grind.

This the biggest and most valuable practical reason why I am passionate about pastoring people. I get to remind people that THEIR everyday life has much more of an impact on the world when invested wisely than any entertainer or person on a stage. Think about this for a minute: “If all of us in our everyday lives pulled up a chair and genuinely listened to those we are called to listen to, the entire world would be heard.”

What if one of the tricks of the enemy is that he gets us chasing, waiting, and anticipating the BIG SPECTACULAR moments and we miss the regular everyday moments.

I would say we need to stop thinking the spectacular is the healings, big moments, crowds, and spotlights are the most significant and we need to start thinking differently and knowing that the big moments are really the small moments.

Moments where you listen!

The moment that beggar on the side of the road was yeah, he was healed. But it was also that someone stopped and LISTENED! The paralyzed man who was by the pool year after year. He didn’t want to get in the water or sit there anymore. He wanted to be healed. And JEsus listened. When the apostles returned from doing ministry, Jesus sat and listened to all that they did. As he mentored them.

YOU Listen to People.

[LISTEN GRAPHIC]

In the 90s there was a nurse working in a NEONATAL INTENSIVE CARE UNIT. A nurse had been watching a newborn for several hours. Suddenly, the baby turns blue. The medical team calls for a doctor and a radiologist and prepares to intervene, immediately assuming the baby’s lungs have collapsed.

But the nurse is convinced that it is a heart problem. As soon as she saw the baby’s color, she suspected there was an air pocket around the baby’s heart that was stopping it from beating. She screamed at her colleagues, “It’s the heart!”

But they pointed to the heart monitor that showed the baby’s heart was beating normally.

She insists, pushes their hands away and orders them to be quiet as she places a stethoscope on the child’s chest. She stops the swirl of activity and actually listens to the heart of this child.

Not a sound. The heart is not beating.

A neonatal surgeon enters the room The radiologist, who has just received the test results, confirms the nurse’s diagnostic. The surgeon performs a procedure that slowly releases the air pocket. The baby is safe.

Later, the team understood why the monitor had misled them; it was measuring electrical activity commanding the heartbeats, and this had not stopped; the heart was simply unable to respond to ti because the air pocket pressure.

Serious story to illustrate how important for us to actually LISTEN. And LISTEN TO THE HEART!

Sometimes the only way to know how to BLESS the people around us is if we, like Jesus and the nurse, slow down, quiet all the activity and noise, get close, and truly LISTEN! Here are ways to LISTEN to hear the heart…

Listen to words…

When was the last time I asked the single mom who lives next to me how she’s doing?

When was the last time I stopped what I was doing to give my undivided attention to the person in the cubicle next to me?

Mom, Dad, Grandparent-When was the last time you stopped what you were doing and listened to your son or daughter tell you about their day?

When was the last time you slowed down enough to listen to the cashier who casually mentioned that life is out of control?

Listen to actions…

Where do they go, what do they do, where do they spend their time, what do they spend their time doing. This is how you find out what someone values. If someone is always supporting family and friends, then they value family and friends. If a person always does things that are about themselves, they value you themselves. Most people are somewhere in the middle. But when you are listening like Jesus, you might look at someone’s actions and ask are there any things that you are currently doing in life that you wish you would change?

Listen to eyes…

Shakespeare said, “the eyes are the window to the soul.” Jesus says “the eyes are the lamp of the body.” When you look at someone’s eyes, not their eye brows, their eyes, you can learn a lot about what is going on in them.

Listen to places…

Michael Frost Story: Frost is an author and church leader who has spent much of his career helping people discover how to live out the Jesus mission.

He tells a story about this missionary group who went to India to serve the poor in a remote village in India. The group showed up with all sorts of supplies and programs. The group came prepared to build a medical clinic and help to take care of the hurting and the sick. Or they could build s school and provide education to help the next generation get out of poverty. We could build a church so you gatherh on the weekends and learn about God.

So what do you want us to do? Sounds a little like Jesus doesn’t it.

The people of the village said, “We need a mailbox.”

The missionaries were like we could build health clinnic, school, church, and all you want is a mailbox!?!?

“Yes, we really need a mailbox,” they said.

In India, if you live in a slum, you do not have a mailbox, which means you have no zipcode, which means you don’t exist on a map. No mater the size of your community, the slums don’t get a zipcode, so you your not recognized by any of the social services from the government. The people didnot want a schoo, medical clinic, or chuch frist. They wanted to be put on a map. They wanted an identity. They wanted to be recognized.

The missionaries would not have know this unless they asked the question and listened. The missionaries did it and it was no small task. It took them 2 years to work throuh the legal bureaucracy to ge the village registered with a zipecode and a mailbox, but once they did the village began to be changed.

[PAUSE}

Are we giving attention to the places God has placed us? Are we listening? The Apostle Paul knew how to listen to places as well. Listen to what we see in Act 17.

Acts 17:22–23 ESV

22 So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.

Before Paul proclaims, he observes. He “walked and looked carefully” at the culture he was going to address. He listens to the people and the place they are in.

Acts 17:24–25 ESV

24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.

He paid attention to the place he was in; and God had already been working in the people there. They had recognized God, but didn’t know who HE WAS. So Paul after learning, listening, and observing is like, lets start there! This unknown God you already recognize, he is the God who made the world ane everything in it.

CONCLUSION:

To Be a BLESSING and to know and love Jesus and help others do the same. We need to go beyond hoping we be a blessing. We need to take steps toward God in this…

BEGIN WITH PRAYER.

LISTEN. Think about the people and places you wrote down on this card…the people and place you have been called to BLESS.

What if we paused right now and prayed…Jesus, help me to listen today.”

And then we LISTEN, and continue praying.

Maybe we will hear of a practical need.

Maybe we will hear of an emotional need.

Maybe we will hear of a spiritual need.

The more we pray and the more we listen, the more we will be a blessing to the community around us, but we’ll be transformed ourselves. Our eyes will see better the people and places. Our hearts will sense better the people and places. We wil lhear more clearly. We will grow in compassion and empathy for others.

Response Time: Maybe God is calling you to a specific place or person to listen. Maybe you ought to begin by praying now, as we sing this song for God to give you the ability to listen. And listen well.