Do You Read Me? ... Over

James 1:19-1:19

April 17, 2005

Sermon

INTRODUCTION

This is the second message in the series entitled, “Family: An Endangered Species?” Last week I shared six common characteristics strong families share.

Dr. Nick Stinnett,

The family members:

(1) Are committed to the family;

(2) Spend time together;

(3) Have good family communication;

(4) Express appreciation to each other;

(5) Have a spiritual commitment; and

(6) Are able to solve problems in a crisis.

(Nick Stinnett, Family Building: Six Qualities of a Strong Family, p. 38)

One of them was the ability to communicate well as a family. Whether you are a single parent, a retired couple, or a blended family with a household of kids, you do communicate with some family members. The question I want you ask is: How well does my family communicate with each other?

And as part of today’s message I want to give a testimony of myself.

You see as I study and read in preparing for my messages I find myself struggling with God about the truths which He reveals to me as I read His word.

This week it was a little more of a struggle than I could remember.

You see my whole desire in life is to please God to do His will. And at this point in my life He God has directed me to communicate His word to others. I mean this is my job but more than that it is my passion.

I can’t think of anything else I would want to do at this point in my life.

But a great part of communicating God’s word to others is my living and modeling God’s word in my life. And I work hard at living the life I believe God wants all to live.

The life which I try to communicate to you each week as I see it in the word of God.

But you see God wants us to live a Godly life not only in public, but with our families and when we are alone.

It has been said that the true character of a man is seen when he is alone and no one is watching and he knows no one is watching.

Just this week alone it seemed that God orchestrated a series of events that put my communication skills to the test. Having breakfast with Sandra I’m standing by the kitchen sink thinking of all the things I had to do for the week.

I am standing there with all the thoughts going through my mind. The mornings are one of the few times we have together once our week gets going it takes an effort to slow down and catch up with each other.

And this week in particular I was going was going to be a though week I was attending a conference the last two days of the week. Sandra was talking to me about something but I was to concerned with what I was thinking abut I was starting my week right now I was already working. I could not tell you what she said.

Then later that week a close friend called early one morning. They had had a rough morning with their spouse. And they just wanted to let off some steam before they got into work. They wanted to be a Pastor to them imagine that listen hear them out maybe pray for them.

Oh I was going to be a pastor alright --- I didn’t even wait for them to finish before I had the answers all their problems.

After those incidents I sat down and began my work writing my sermon for this coming Sunday. So I take out my bible and I turn to James 1:19 Turn there with me now or read along in you handout.

James 1:19 (New International Version)

19My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry,

19Mis queridos hermanos, tengan presente esto: Todos deben estar listos para escuchar, y ser lentos para hablar y para enojarse;

The book of James has some great wisdom to improve your family communication.

There are three laws of personal communication in this verse.

These three rules of personal communication apply to communication between husbands and wives and between parents and children.

If you don’t qualify in those categories, pay attention, because these laws rule at work as well as in your friendships. These three laws of personal communication are extremely important. If you violate these three rules, you will suffer in many ways. But if you follow these three simple rules, you will be effective in communicating to your family members or to your co-workers. The first one is:

I. I. LISTEN INTENTLY ESCUCHA ATENTAMENTE

1. When the Bible says, “quick to listen” it means you must pay close attention when someone is speaking to you. Just because you are listening to words doesn’t mean you really hear what is being said.

2. Think how many times you have sat watching T.V. and you a member of your family can have a lot to say but didn’t hear a word of what they said.

3. The sound waves of the words are reaching your ears, but you aren’t paying attention. You aren’t really hearing or understanding what is being said. We can see the same thing in family communication.

4. In the bible very often we hear Jesus many times use the term

Mark 4:23

“If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.”

Marcos 4:23

23El que tenga oídos para oír, que oiga.

5. The Message paraphrases it: “Are you listening to this? REALLY listening?” The reason Jesus said that was because He knew not only do we have the ability to tune someone out; we have a tendency to do it.

Good listening is basically a matter of concentration. The more important you consider the message, the more you will concentrate on it.

I’ve been with families when a surgeon entered the waiting room after surgery. Family members are listening fast–they are concentrating on what the doctor has to say.

Conversely, we tend to be lazy listeners when we consider a message to be unimportant.

The title of this message is “Do you read me? ... over” It comes from what I have read and seen about communication between Airplane Pilots and control towers.

10. Good radio communication is an absolute necessity. In fact, it’s the law. Even if you talk on a CB or other two-way radio, sometimes you have to say, “Do you read me? ... over” and you wait for a response.

I believe we need to apply that principle to family communication as well. I think husbands and wives need to stop sometimes in the middle of a conversation and say, “Do you read me? ... over” Parents and kids ought to stop sometime and say, “Do you read me? ... over.”

There are six specific steps that occur in a communication loop. In every good experience where two people are communicating, these six things happen almost instantaneously. If the loop is broken or incomplete at any step, communication breaks down:

(1) Speak

(1) Habla

(1) Speak. A person says something to someone else.

(2) Listen

(2) Escucha

(2) Listen. The one to whom the speaker projects the message has those auditory waves enter his ears. But that doesn’t mean they’ve gotten the message, they may be ignoring the speaker, or tuned in to something else.

(3) Hear and respond

(3) Oye y responde

(3) Hear and respond. The listener translates the speaker’s words into thoughts and feeds it to their brain. They have ears to hear and they are hearing, as they hear, they prepare to respond. When this response is directed back to the speaker it’s called

(4) Feedback

(4) Reacción

(4) Feedback. The feedback may be non-verbal. It could be a look of understanding, or a nod of the head, or it could be a verbal response. Feedback lets the speaker know the message has been received. It’s like saying, “roger” and repeating the statement in aviation. As the feedback reaches the eyes or ears of the speaker, the next step is to

(5) Process the feedback

(5) Procesa la reacción

(5) Process the feedback. At this point the speaker determines if the listener has understood the message. At this point, the communication can go in two directions:

(6) Correct or continue

(6) Corrige o continúa

(6) Correct or continue. If the feedback tells the speaker the listener has gotten the message, the speaker will continue to communicate. If the feedback shows the speaker the message hasn’t been received, the speaker must correct the feedback and start the loop over again.

Now, let’s apply these six steps to an imaginary conversation between a husband and a wife: (1) She says, “I’m really concerned about our finances.” (2) He listens. The sound waves reach his ears. (3) In this case, he is not “quick to listen.” So this is what he hears, “She thinks we’re broke.” He feels intimidated by that, so he is going to respond in that way. (4) His feedback is, “So you don’t think I make enough money?” (5) If the wife understands the communication loop she will simply think, “He didn’t understand me.” If she doesn’t understand the loop, she may launch into an angry response and the race is on! (6) If she understands the cycle, she can simply correct his feedback by saying, “That’s not what I said.” And she can start over. If you can recognize and follow this loop, it can keep your communication on track, without letting emotional statements disrupt the cycle.

Let’s follow the loop again to see how it works. (1) The wife says: “I’m really worried about our finances.” (2) The sound waves reach the ear of the husband as he listens. (3) This time he is quick to listen, he is concentrating, he has ears to hear and he processes her message correctly. He thinks, “She is concerned about our finances” so he gives a different response. (4) His feedback is: “What is it you’re concerned about, dear?” (5) She processes his feedback and determines he has correctly understood her message so she (6) continues by saying, “I’m afraid because we aren’t following a budget.” And the loop begins again.

If husbands and wives and parents and children started “listening hard” and concentrating on what their family members say, communication would improve dramatically. But anytime this loop is broken, or violated, there will be communication problems.

When you really love someone, you listen hard to what they say, even if they aren’t talking to you, and you’re willing to move heaven and earth to do what you can to make them happy. That’s being quick to listen. The next law of personal communication is:

II. II. SPEAK CAREFULLY BUT HONESTLY HABLE CON CUIDADO PERO HONESTAMENTE

We should be quick to listen, but we should be very slow when speaking.

God gave you two ears and one mouth for a purpose: you should listen more than you talk.

One reason you should be slow to speak is that once you have spoken words, you can never “unspeak” them.

Oh, you can say you’re sorry and that you didn’t mean it, but those words are already released into the heart and mind of your family member.

The Bible is full of warnings about how your mouth can get you into trouble.

Proverbs 13:3

3 He who guards his lips guards his life,

but he who speaks rashly will come to ruin.

Proverbios 13:3 NVI

3 El que refrena su lengua protege su vida,

pero el ligero de labios provoca su ruina.

In Ephesians 4:15, the Bible says we should “speak the truth in love.”

Every word in that phrase is important. We must speak to one another and we must speak the truth. Some people use truth as a club to beat on others.

Their favorite phrase is, “The truth hurts, huh?” When someone says that, what they are really saying is, “I’m trying my best to hurt you with truth.” But we must speak the truth in LOVE. It must be done in a loving way. But love is not some sniveling sentimentality that refuses to confront the truth. Some people think love requires them to keep the peace at all costs, even if it means sacrificing the truth. Go ahead. Be honest with your family members.

Use your words carefully but honestly. The third law of personal communication is:

III. III. AVOID ANGRY WORDS EVITE PALABRAS ENOJADAS

Proverbs 16:32 NIV

32 Better a patient man than a warrior,

a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city.

Proverbios 16:32 NVI

32 Más vale ser paciente que valiente;

más vale dominarse a sí mismo que conquistar ciudades.

The Bible says we must be “slow to anger.” Anger and rage have destroyed more homes than tornados and termites combined.

Some people have a hair-trigger temper and can fire off at the least provocation.

A kid was studying history one night and asked his dad how World War II began. His dad said, “Well, the Japanese attacked us at Pearl Harbor.” His wife jumped in and said, “No, that’s not right. It was when Hitler started invading Europe.” The husband scowled at the wife and said, “He didn’t ask you, he asked me, would you just butt out?” The wife stormed out of the room and just before she slammed the door she said, “Well, if you are going to teach him, you’d better know the facts yourself!” The father turned back to his son to continue the conversation, but the boy said, “That’s okay, dad, now I know how wars get started.”

A person who explodes with anger thinks they are doing themselves a favor by “letting off steam.”

But, like any explosion, they wound people. A person who constantly loses their temper reminds me on some of those suicide bombers in Israel. They explode and kill themselves in the process.

CONCLUSION

When Dwight Eisenhower was a child, he had a terrible temper. He wrote about a life-changing experience when he was a boy. Once when his father told him he couldn’t go with his older brothers to do something, he flew into a rage and ran out into the yard. He began to pound his fists into a tree until his hands bled. He was literally blinded by anger, and was almost unconscious until his father grabbed him and took him inside and spanked him. Later, as he was crying in his room, his godly mother came into his room to clean his wounds. She quoted Proverbs 16:32, “Better a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city.” From that point on, Dwight Eisenhower began to ask God to control his temper. He later wrote if he had not learned to surrender his anger, and control his temper, he would never have been the supreme commander and led our forces in World War II, and he would never have become President. Be careful to avoid angry words in your conversations.

Communication in your family is not a luxury it is a necessity. Try these three simple laws to improve it: listen intently; speak carefully but honestly and avoid angry words.