“19 My dear brothers, take note of this: everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. 21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.”
“You can listen as well as you hear.” That’s a lyric is from the 1988 hit The Living Yearsby Mike and the Mechanics. It is a song about a young man grieving for his father who just passed away. This young man never saw eye to eye with his dad. If you’ve ever had trouble seeing eye to eye with someone, then you can resonate with the lyrics, “Crumpled bits of paper, filled with imperfect thoughts, stilted conversations, I’m afraid that’s all we’ve got, you say you just don’t see it, he says it’s perfect sense, you just can’t get agreement, in this present tense, we all talk a different language, talking in defense. Say it loud, say it clear, you can listen as well as you hear.”
“You can listen as well as you hear.” That line is about the difference between hearing and listening. Some people hear, their ears function, but they never seem to listen. Maybe you can think of a relationship that you’ve strained by hearing without listening. That song was written because there is a lot of pain when people hear without listening.
You might be causing that pain. You might hear without listening. You might have capable ear drums and still rarely listen to what your wife has to say. You might be hearing these words right now without listening.
You might not know how to listen. Many people don’t. There might be someone right now thinking about you wondering, ‘why can’t you listen as well as you hear?’ If that is you, you are on very dangerous ground. I’m not just talking about with people. I’m talking about with God. God’s people are listening people. As Psalm 40 puts it, God, “sacrifice and offering You did not desire— but my ears you have opened.” God wants open ears. That is the claim of this sermon: God wants open ears.
First: how to listen. Second: how to accept the word you hear. We will see how to listen in verses 19-20. We will see how to accept the word we hear in verse 21.
First: how to listen. Truly listening to what someone has to say is an act of humility. To listen you must be willing to listen. You must be quick to listen as James puts it. To listen you must also be slow to speak as James puts it. If you are busy talking, you aren’t listening. To listen you must be slow to anger as James puts it. Angry people are not listening people.
People who don’t listen, who are quick to speak, and who are quick to anger have this in common: they are proud people. We don’t live in age that is known for being quick to listen. We don’t live in an age in which people are slow to speak. We certainly don’t live in an age in which people are slow to anger. We live in a proud age. The book of James is humility for a proud age.
Proud people are slow to listen. “I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters,” said a recent world leader, “I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m going to think I’m a better political director than my political director.” That man sounds slow to listen. If he’s slow to listen to human wisdom, he will be slow to listen to God’s wisdom.
It takes humility to listen. It takes humility to listen to what others have to say. It takes humility to assume that others might know better than you and therefore what they have to say might be more important than you think. If no one can tell you anything, you are acting like what the book of Proverbs calls a fool. “The way of a fool seems right to him, but the wise listen to advice.”
Proud people don’t listen because they are busy thinking about themselves. They need to think less often about themselves. They need to think more often about others. They need to be quicker to listen.
Listening is rarer than you might think. There is a reason that marriage counselors focus so much on communication. “Stilted conversations, I’m afraid that's all we’ve got, you say you just don’t see it, he says it’s perfect sense, you just can’t get agreement, in this present tense, we all talk a different language, talking in defense. Say it loud, say it clear, you can listen as well as you hear.”
We humans are, by nature, slow to listen. If you are a Christian, verse 19 is the only piece of evidence that you need that we are slow to listen. If listening were as natural as breathing, James wouldn’t have needed to write, “everyone should be quick to listen.” You’ve got your ears open all the time, that doesn’t mean you are listening. You have, at times, been too proud to listen to others.
You have, at times, been too proud to listen to God. We all have. Ironically, the man who listens best to God is the man who admits that he is slow to listen. The woman who listens best to God know how poorly she listens and how often she has heard but not paid attention. She recognizes that she has heard the same passage for years without listening to it. She recognizes that she has heard commands for years without it ever dawning on her that this command is for her to obey. She recognizes that she has heard but not listened. The woman who thinks she hears everything God wants her to hear doesn’t yet realize how poorly she hears.
Humble people are quick to listen. They are also slow to speak. Verse 19, “My dear brothers, take note of this: everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak…”
If you fail to listen, you will, by definition, speak too quickly. You will speak without understanding. If your desire is really to understand what the other person is saying, you won’t speak too quickly. In fact, most of your speaking will be in the form of questions. Humble people ask questions.
Let’s see this in action. The following conversation comes from a book on having hard conversations. It is the story of a concerned father and his teenage daughter. The daughter is heading out the door on a date with a young man who is nothing but trouble; she is wearing inappropriate clothing. The father tells her that she isn’t going out dressed like that. They get into an argument. He tells her that she is rebellious and that she doesn’t respect his authority. The boy takes off and the daughter runs up to her room and slams the door.
Now watch what happens when the father is quick to listen and slow to speak. He calms himself and goes up to her room. He asks her what she likes about that boy and actually wants to hear what she will say. He asks her why she wants to wear those clothes and actually wants to hear what she has to say. After a while, she says that she feels ugly and she gets attention when she wears these clothes. In fact, this boy is the first one who has ever asked her out on a date. Being slow to listen and quick to speak leads to slamming doors. Being quick to listen and slow to speak leads to peace.
Being slow to speak doesn’t mean that you don’t speak. It means that you speak after you’ve listened. It means that you speak after you’ve asked questions. It means that you have the humility to acknowledge at the outset that you might not know what is really going on; it means that you have the humility to know that you won’t have anything meaningful to say until you know what is going on.
Why do you say anything? That’s an important question to ask yourself. If your goal in speaking is to win the argument, then listening won’t be very important to you. If your goal is speaking is to get something off your chest, then listening won’t be very important to you. If your goal in speaking is to understand, then listening will be important to you. If your goal in speaking is to help the other person, then listening will be important to you. We often give advice without listening. We often give criticism without listening. Not surprisingly no one finds such advice or criticism useful.
Being quick to speak will keep you from hearing what others have to say. Being quick to listen will also keep you from hearing what God has to say. If you are quick to speak, you don’t really think that you need to hear from God. You think you’ve got the answers already. Calvin is right, “There is no worse screen to block out the Spirit than confidence in [your] own intelligence.”
Here’s one way to determine whether you are too quick to speak: do you find God’s word to be insightful or dull? Hebrews tells us that the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword and that it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. If you find the word of God dead and dull, consider that it might be because you are far more interested in what you have to say than what God has to say. Consider that you might be too quick to express what you think and too slow to hear what God says.
Humble people are also slow to anger. They can listen because they are slow to anger. “My dear brothers, take note of this: everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.”
You are slowest to listen and quickest to speak when you are angry. How many words that you’ve spoken do you wish you could take back? How many of your words to your children, to your parents, and to your friends still disturb you? How many of these words were spoken in anger? I would dare say that your answer, like mine, is that the majority of them were spoken in anger. How many of those words spoken in anger were spoken because you were slow to listen? I dare say the vast majority. If you are angry, you will not listen.
There is, of course, such a thing as righteous anger, but righteous anger is quick to listen and slow to speak.
Angry people are often afraid to listen. They think that listening will make them a doormat. Listening doesn’t make you a doormat. Asking questions doesn’t make you a doormat. It gives you the data you need to make a considered decision and considered decisions are rarely destructive decisions. Decisions made in anger, words spoken in anger, are destructive.
All words have power. That’s a cliché but, like most clichés, it’s true. Your words have power because you are made in the image of a God who speaks, and His words have power. “Let there be light,” and there was light. God’s words have the power to create and so do your words.
Your words don’t create light, but they do create realities. Drop the word ‘divorce’ in anger in the middle of a fight with your spouse and you’ll see the power your words have to create realities; you’ve now got one floating around in your head and in your spouse’s head. Drop that word in front of your children in a fight and you’ve created something in their minds that you can’t wish away. Your words create realities. Don’t speak in anger. You will regret what your words introduce. Be slow to anger.
Anger keeps you from hearing what others have to say. When you are angry, you comprehend far less of what others have to say than when you are calm. The same is true with God’s word.
The man who is angered by what God says cannot hear God. The man who is angered by Jesus’ command to pray, “forgive us our debts as we have forgiven or debtors,” can’t hear why he should forgive his debtors. The woman who is angered by Proverbs 31 is no longer listening to Proverbs 31.
Be honest. There are particular passages of Scripture than you find unpleasant. I know that you find parts of Scripture unpleasant because you aren’t perfect. There are commands that you aren’t keeping. There are sins with which you have made peace. There are assumptions that you cherish which Scripture doesn’t share. God’s word is living and active. It steps on your toes and you don’t always like that.
When your toes are stepped on ask yourself, ‘why am I angry with what God says?’ Anytime you run into something in Scripture that bothers you, you must ask yourself what needs to change in you so that you can accept and cherish this word. Your anger, “does not bring about the righteous life that God desires,” says James.
The righteous life that God desires is a life of listening. The life of Jesus is a life of listening. It’s not coincidental that when Jesus was lost in Jerusalem, his parents found him listening to God. “After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.” Quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry – that’s Jesus. Jesus listened to his Father. Jesus accepted what he heard.
You need to accept the word of God. That’s our second point. Being slow to listen, quick to speak, and slow to anger might be common. It is also filth. Verse 21, “Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent.”
Not listening, speaking too quickly, being easily angered, that filth keeps you from hearing God and that filth is prevalent James says. It is so common that it is hard to realize how filthy it is.
How can something as widespread and prevailing as communication problems, as we like to call them, be filthy? If it is that normal, how can it be that bad? Well, that’s the horror of sin.
You need to see that what the world calls normal and perhaps what you call normal might in fact, be filthy. You might not see it that way because you have become so accustomed to it.
Between my junior and senior year of college, I worked as a camp counselor on the shores of Lake Michigan. I watched no TV for that summer, saw no movies, and had no access to the internet for three months. The week after camp ended, I visited a friend and we watched a movie. I was shocked at the sexual innuendo, rampant violence, and crass humor and this wasn’t that bad of a movie. Three months of fasting from all this filth re-sensitized me to how filthy it was. The same goes for the filth that James is talking about.
Do you hear your wife without listening? That’s common. It’s also filthy. Do you speak to your daughter without listening? Others might do so too. It might be common. It’s also filthy. Have you adapted to our culture of outrage? Do you no longer see it as wicked because it is so common online, on talk radio, and on the news? James wants you to see that just because something is pervasive doesn’t mean it isn’t profoundly wrong. “Get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent.”
Do you hear God’s word without listening? That’s common. It’s also filthy. Do you prefer what you think to what God says on particular topics? That’s common. It’s also filthy. Do avoid the parts of God’s word that step on your toes? That’s common. It’s also a sign that you aren’t hearing from God. “Get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.”
Hearing involves accepting. You accept God’s word by accepting what it says about you. God tells you that you regularly fool yourself. “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” says Jeremiah. Do you accept that? Do you accept that the culture is wrong to tell you to listen to your heart when you don’t know what to do? If you don’t know what to do, you need to listen to God. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.” Does that anger you or can you hear that?
Accepting God’s word means that you accept what it says about God. “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows,” says James. Do you accept that? Do you recognize that disagreement with that word shows that you misunderstand God? Are you humbly accepting the word or are you slow to listen to it?
Accept God’s word means that you accept what it says about life. The culture will tell you that there is no meaningful difference between men and women, and that if you draw any consequential lines between men and women, then you are a sexist. God’s word says that both men and women are made in God’s image and yet we are very different. God tells you that chaos ensues if you ignore these differences. The culture will also tell you that sex is certainly enjoyable but not binding. God’s word tells you that sex joins you together in profound ways. Do you accept that or are you quick to speak your own views?
Part of hearing from God is accepting what God has to say. That’s one reason why hearing from God will change you. That’s one reason why you need to be willing to be changed to hear from God. Hearing from God isn’t primarily about information. It is primarily about transformation. The man who hears God’s word humbly accepts it. The man who accepts God’s word is the only one who has heard it.
James told these first century Christians that this word is planted in us; “humbly accept the word planted in you.” God’s word comes from the outside. It is a seed that is not native to the soul of your heart.
There is much that is native in the human being. Take language development for example. I’ve been amazed at how quickly my children grasp the rules of grammar. ‘I lost my baby doll. Where is her?’ quickly becomes, ‘I lost my baby doll. Where is she?’ This capacity for language is a natural, organic development.
There is no similar development when it comes to godliness. No one has ever developed salvation. No one has ever grown their way to holiness. This must be planted in us from the outside. It is planted to us in the form of the word. It is planted in you as you listen.
The primary task of this church, of any church, is to listen. The primary task of any church is to, “humbly accept the word planted in you.” That is our distinctive. That’s what makes us a church. If we aren’t doing that, the rest is a waste and a sham and a shared act of self-deception. If we aren’t doing that, we certainly won’t be doing what the word says and then what is the point of any of this?
Accepting this word is so necessary because God uses this word to save. “Get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.”
All this business about being quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry might be uncomfortable for you. You might want to dismiss it as touchy-feely. You can use whatever language you want to dismiss it.
The fact remains that if you are unwilling to hear, you will not be saved. If you are unwilling to hear from God, you will not, “humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.” If you are unwilling to hear people whom you can see, you aren’t willing to hear God whom you can’t see. That’s just paraphrasing John; “whoever does not love their brother, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.”
Listening might be uncomfortable for you, but perhaps it is just uncomfortable because Satan doesn’t want you to listen. Satan would rather you be angry and offended than listen to God. Satan would rather have you articulating your own views than listening to God.
Your life depends on listening. Jesus knows that. What did he say after teachings that were offensive to the crowds? What did he say after teachings that made them want to talk back? What does he say after teachings in the gospels that might make you angry? Jesus said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
You either have ears to hear this evening or you don’t. If you don’t, we will pray that you will. There is an eternal difference between the man who hears and the man who doesn’t. Which one are you? Amen.