Learning to Listen – 6/29/25

In December 1988, the ’80s band “Mike and the Mechanics” released a song that would become their only number one hit, which became a number one on March 25th, 1989. It was the last song that they ever released that even broke into the top 10. It was number one in the US, Australia, and Canada, number two in the UK.

If you’ve ever heard “Mike and the Mechanics” sing anything, you probably know this song. Can anybody else who knows ’80s music tell me what “Mike and the Mechanics’” most popular song is? Jim! Was that Jim? Jim, my boy. I thought you’d be a ’60s, ’70s guy. Okay, good job. “The Living Years” recounts a son’s regret over unresolved conflict with his now deceased dad. It expresses his sadness over their inability to listen to each other while his dad was still alive, and before it was too late.

The song was inspired primarily by two of the band’s members: Mike Rutherford and B.A. Robertson. When they were talking about their dads, they realized they had very similar experiences with their fathers, and they both shared the same regret after their fathers died. Then, when they were talking to Paul Carrack, the band’s lead singer, they realized that he had similar experiences, and he was young when his dad died. Rutherford said this.

“Being of similar age, we both came from an era where our parents had lived through two world wars, when young men wanted to be like their fathers— wear the same clothes, do the same things. But then there was a huge change and our generation wanted to be anything but their fathers. It wasn’t our parents’ fault, there was just a big social change. Pop music had come along, The Beatles, denim trousers… For the first time, teens had their own culture. That’s how our generation couldn’t really talk to our parents in the same way… So we had the idea of writing a song about how you never really talk to your father, and you miss out on these things.”

So this is Wisdomfest, and we can do things a little bit differently in Wisdomfest, so I’m going to play a little piece of the song, about two minutes. Here’s what I’m thinking here: I could read the poem, but you know how that is. It doesn’t really carry when it’s written for music. Then secondly, a couple of weeks ago, Steve Kaminski played a Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck clip, and I thought, this is nothing like that. This is not nearly that bad. Steve’s not even looking at me. I actually enjoyed that clip a lot. I just want to play two minutes of the song to give you a flavor of what it’s communicating and how we listen. So let’s take a listen now.

“Every generation
Blames the one before
And all of their frustrations
Come beating on your door

I know that I’m a prisoner to all my father held so dear
I know that I’m a hostage, to all his hopes and fears
I just wish I could have told him in the living years

Crumpled bits of paper
Filled with imperfect thought
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 loud)
Say it clear (say it clear)
You can listen as well as you hear
It’s too late (It’s too late)
When we die (oh, when we die)
To admit we don’t see eye to eye” (Mike + The Mechanics, “The Living Years”)

The song is actually a lament. He’s lamenting throughout the song what he missed out on while his dad was living, and regret. Lament and regret. In that process, it describes really well how we tend to talk past each other and not listen. This is not only true of dads and sons, it’s true of all of us. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could learn to listen to one another while we were still alive? Why do we have trouble listening? What keeps us from listening?

There are lots of things that keep us from listening. But certainly at the core, at the heart, it has to be related to our sin nature because that’s where things went bad. In fact, sin at its core is relationship-breaking. That’s what it does. Between us and God and between us and us, sin breaks relationships. In fact, at the very beginning, the first thing that sin did was shatter relationships. When Adam and Eve sinned, they hid from God. They were used to talking with him and walking with him, and now they hid from him, shattering the relationship.

Adam blamed his wife as soon as the sin happened. God said, “What happened?” Adam said, “She did it.” Just a few verses earlier, he was singing over her at her creation, and now he’s pointing his finger at her. It’s like going from the marriage altar where we’re professing vows and so enwrapped with one another, and you can see how years later you’re pointing fingers at one another. It happened to Adam and Eve so quickly because that’s what sin does. It shatters relationships. Part of this relationship-shattering sin pattern is it distorts our ability to listen.

In his book, Learning to Listen, Joseph Hussung gives three ways in which sin distorts are ability to listen. He does it using Job. When Job’s suffering happened, his three friends came to him and they began to comfort him. The first one, Eliphaz, his first speech— Hussung takes that speech and tries to illustrate ways that sin distorts our ability to listen. He gives three.

1. It causes us to speak too soon.

Job’s friends came and sat with him for seven days without saying a word, in silence. Only when they started speaking did they get in trouble. They did great for a while. Number two, sin distorts our ability to listen, causing us to minimize suffering and give simplistic answers to complex questions. We just want to say something sometimes. Being silent seems empty, so we try to fill in the silence with something, and sometimes our answers are too simplistic. Then third, it causes us to be prideful. Sin causes us not to be clothed with humility but to pursue pride. But brothers and sisters, we serve a God who listens. We are purchased by a Savior who listens, and he intends to shape us into his image. One of those is listening.

Here, Psalm 34— this is one place. You can probably think of numerous places in the Bible where it says that God listens, he bends his ear, he hears their cry, and so on and so forth. Here’s Psalm 34.

“The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and his ears toward their cry. The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth. When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles” (Psalm 34:15-17).

Verse 15 is re-quoted in 1 Peter 3:12, in a New Testament context, and says the same thing.

God hears. God listens, and he desires that we follow his character, so how do we grow in listening? Our series in Wisdom Fest is an attempt to be super practical and super helpful. In this one, social skills— this is not theoretical, but is trying to help us grow as listeners. So, how did we grow?

I want to just do a couple of things: One, I want to talk about a prerequisite for listening. Second, I want to talk about one threat to listening. Then I’m going to invite a guest up here to have a discussion about listening. Then we’ll ask for God’s help. Okay, here we go.

A prerequisite for listening: humility.

Humility must be present if we are to listen. Here’s some wisdom from Proverbs:

“A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion” (Proverbs 18:2).

The word “fool” is the word “stupid” or “insolent.” Kids, your parents probably told you not to call anyone stupid, but Proverbs does. Obey your parents. The Bible also says that. But here, it says a stupid person is someone who delights only in revealing his inner self rather than seeking to understand someone else. So if we want to be wise people, part of that is seeking to understand others by opening our ears and listening and seeking to understand their perspective.

A non-listener seeks to make his point more than he does in valuing the other person, so listening presupposes humility. It presupposes that we believe that someone else has something to say and we desire to hear it. Here’s some more from Proverbs:

“If one gives an answer before he hears, it is folly and shame” (Proverbs 18:13).

“An intelligent heart acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge” (Proverbs 18:15).

Your ear is like a bloodhound seeking knowledge by talking, by listening. The prerequisite of listening is humility. The listening person believes, “I don’t know it all. I don’t have all the wisdom. I need to open my ears to receive wisdom.”

Barry Wingo, who’s one of our elders here— he and I were talking one time and I said something about humility, and he said, “That really is the secret sauce, isn’t it?” I love that expression. Humility is the secret sauce of listening, and we need to dump that sauce all over. Humility is the secret sauce of listening. If we want to be listening people, then we must pursue humility.

What humility does is it—one of the things it does, it does many things—but one of the things it does is it empowers patience in our listening. It allows us to be patient and to wait.

Humility empowers patience.

Again, Joseph Husung (in his book) defines patience this way (and I really like it applied in this way): he calls it

“determined withholding of action until it’s the right time to act.”

Patience is humility at work. Patience is not passivity. Patience is not just, “Okay, I’m going to wait ’till you’re done.” That’s not patience. Patience is working! Determined withholding of action until the time is right.

Have you ever been in a conversation with someone, and they’re talking, and something comes to mind that would be so good for you to add? Or you just say, “Oh, I did that too. I have that story too.” And you have to almost hold your lips together because you’re really trying to be a good listener and not say anything. Then, when they finish, you don’t want to jump right in, so you wait another beat or two just to make sure they’re not just breathing but they actually are done, and then you can. Sometimes that’s hard, right? It’s not passive, it’s work.

Or have you ever not kept a lid on it? Just blurted it out? I have. And the person says, “Actually, I was just taking a breath. I’m sorry for breathing.” And you’re like, “I wasn’t listening well.” Or have you ever been the person who was trying to share with somebody, and they jumped in? You have that feeling, too. Patience driven by humility takes work. Humility must empower patience.

Here’s some social wisdom from Scripture:

“Whoever keeps his mouth and his tongue keeps himself out of trouble” (Proverbs 21:23). (Eliphaz)

“Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent” (Proverbs 17:28).

This should be my life verse.

“Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger” (James 1:19).

I love those speed markers. We are so fast to listen and so slow to speak. It’s usually the opposite, isn’t it? If we’re not careful, we’re so fast to say something and so low to speak or so slow to listen.

The road to humility is a must for those who desire to become like him. We have to start with our hearts, friends. We must start with what’s in here. Jesus said from the heart the mouth proceeds. So when something comes out of our mouth, it’s not because of the other person. We have to start here, in our hearts. Are we humble? Are we seeking to be like Christ, to have his mind (like Philippians 2 says)? So that’s one prerequisite, now let’s talk about one threat. If we presuppose that a person is seeking humility, what will threaten his ability to listen? One of those is defensiveness.

Defensiveness threatens listening.

In the song I played earlier,

“We all talk a different language
Talking in defense.”

That’s true. When we feel defensive and they feel defensive, it’s like we’re talking different languages. There’s no way we can be on the same page because we’re both defending ourselves. This is perhaps one of the greatest obstacles, and I think it’s because of the ever-capable defense attorney that lives in our hearts, who just can’t wait to defend us, who just cannot wait to rise up and exonerate us when the other person is sharing something. We want to be OK.

It’s kind of like this: when I’m in my room (or in a room) and I call one of my kids (let’s just say my daughter Molly). I say, “Hey, Molly, will you come into my room? I want to talk to you.” And she walks in and she asks what question? “Am I in trouble?” And I try to say something like, “It depends. Why don’t you go ahead and tell me what you did? It’ll be much better for you if you tell me, because I already know.” No, usually she says, “Would you stop asking that question?” Because that never works, if I try to get her to tell me what she did.

Or how about this: your boss says to you, “Hey, would you come in about 15 minutes early in the morning? I want to chat with you about something. Have a nice evening.” And you go home, and you’re like, “Okay, what could this be about? If it’s this, okay, here’s what I’ll say. Got this answer. If it’s this, it could be this, it’s because of here. And if it’s this, I got this. Okay, I’m good.” You know what that is? That’s our defense attorney who’s going, “I’ve got you. I got you. Whatever it is, we’ve got all the possibilities, and at the end of the day, you’re gonna be exonerated. That’s what I know.” And then you go in the next morning, and he’s like, “I just want to tell you, you’re doing a great job. Here’s a gift card to Chili’s.” And you’re like, “I could have slept last night.” But that’s what that is. That’s our desire to defend ourselves. It’s so difficult to listen without defense.

“Whoever heeds instruction is on the path of life, but he who rejects reproof leads others astray” (Proverbs 10:17).

“The ear that listens to life-giving reproof will dwell among the wise. Whoever ignores instruction despises himself, but he who listens to reproof gains intelligence” (Proverbs 15:31-32).

“Listen to advice and accept instruction that you may gain wisdom in the future” (Proverbs 19:20).

“Like a gold ring or an ornament of gold is a wise reprover to a listening ear” (Proverbs 25:12). It’s a good image, listening without defense.

How do we listen without defense? First, start with last week’s sermon on trusting God rather than men. If we trust men rather than God, you must defend yourself because what matters most is that people think well of you. I have to have my case laid out. I have to make sure they think well of me. I have to justify myself because that’s what matters. But if I’m not living in anxiety by the fear of men and what people think about me (their approval), but I’m able to trust God, then I can leave it in the hands of God. Even if they misunderstand me, even if they misjudge me and get it wrong, and I can state my case and it’s rejected— it’s in God’s hands. Somebody can think poorly of me and disapprove of me, and I don’t like it, but ultimately, it’s in God’s hands. I trust God. So we have to start from last week. That anxiety killing, trusting God is so important if we’re going to be able to listen without defense.

Secondly, I’m going to give you a tool that might help you listen. I don’t think I’ve shared this publicly. I’ve shared it with some of you privately. But this tool seeks to help us in the way that we listen. I want to show you this tool. I call it the “five levels of relational intimacy.” I don’t know if that’s what it’s actually called. I think I stole it from Pastor Bryan Loritts. But let’s take a look at this and read those five words:

Cliche, facts, opinions, feelings, and transparency. What the upside-down triangle is supposed to represent is, with each word, as you move from cliche to facts, you’re moving into a deeper relationship that you share with fewer people, the deeper it goes.

For example, “cliche” you share with almost everybody, right? A coworker meets you in the break room and starts talking about how crazy their weekend was, and their boys were all over the place, and you say, “Well, boys will be boys.” Which is true, boys will be boys. There’s nothing untrue about that. It’s fine, but it’s cliche. “Boys will be boys.” “It just is what it is,” also a cliche. Raise your hand if you’re tired of hearing, “It is what it is.” We share that with the widest audience, and it’s very shallow. Fine, but shallow.

Then the next one’s facts. We’re stating, “This is what is true.” The next one is opinions. This is what I think about facts. You see how now we’re getting to me. Now we’re starting to get personal. The next level is feelings, which is a little more personal yet (i.e. how I feel). Now we are getting into my heart. It’s not just what I think, it’s what I feel. Then the deepest is transparency, which you probably only share with two or three people. This is how this might sound:

My wife, Katie, approaches me and says, “Hey, I feel like we’re not spending enough time together lately.” Level four, intimacy, “I feel like…”

I respond, “Well, the fact is, honey, we spent time together as a family on Monday night. We had dinner together. Then Tuesday morning, we got up and had coffee together. Then Wednesday night, you and I watched TV together. Then Friday night, we had date night.” She gave me level four, I responded with level two. Is there really anything else to be said after that? Like, basically, you’re wrong. The data doesn’t lie.

What have I done? I’ve done at least three things. One, I kicked the intimacy up two levels. I went shallower when she came at me with deeper. Two, I shut down the conversation. Three, I still have no idea why she feels that way. I have no idea. What is she going to say? “You’re right, I’m wrong.” I want intimacy with my wife. I want transparency with my wife. This is not just true of married people. It’s true of every relationship, when somebody tries to go deep and the person, for whatever reason—

Here’s why I might feel defensive: I have worked so hard to make sure that I have made time a priority with my family and my wife. So I’ve had a week where I have spent time intentionally with each of them, and then on Saturday, my wife says to me, “I feel like we haven’t had any time together.” And I’m like, “Is it ever enough? I’m never enough. I can’t do it.” Do you hear the defensiveness? Because it’s about me, I don’t ask a question, I just feel defensive because I just can’t do enough. Surely, you can relate.

But what if I asked a “what” question instead? “Why” questions are okay, “what” is better. “How” is good too. What if I said, “What makes you feel that way?” What if I said that, instead of giving her the facts? What if I just said, “What makes you feel that way?”

And she said, “I know we spent a lot of time this week, you’re awesome, but the quality of time. I don’t want more quantity, I want quality. Like, what if next week we didn’t do all those things, we just did one, but it was better quality?” How life-giving would that be? A couple of things happen then:

Number one, I know what was really going on, why she felt that way. Number two, she just freed me not to work so hard. She actually told me how she feels, and maybe I can go, “Oh.” I could be defensive, shut it down, and nothing grows. We haven’t gained transparency with each other. In fact, we just keep going back and forth from facts to feelings, and we never actually move towards transparency, which is what we want. If I ask a why question, maybe I find out that the facts— Facts are important, first of all, right? We are truth people, aren’t we? We are facts people.

The truth matters, correct? Let’s try that again. We are true people, yes? God’s word is truth. We are truth people. So truth matters, facts matter. But in that illustration I just gave, when she answers the “what,” I might go, “Oh.” The facts that I thought were so important to say, maybe are not that important actually, because I just learned her actual heart, and now we can go there. It doesn’t mean the facts don’t matter. Sometimes you hear it and go, “Oh, here’s how I see it…” “Oh,” and we move towards greater transparency. That’s awesome. That’s great.

This is not just a female thing, by the way. Men do it too. We say, “This is how I feel…” “I feel like we’re not having enough sexual intimacy.” She’s going, “What do you mean? Are you crazy?” That’s one answer, or you could go, “Why do you feel that way?” Just an example. We must get the facts.

Bryan Loritts says this,

“Facts are a first and last resort in a court of law, but when it comes to human relationships, let us first stop and feel before we go to facts.”

Countering with facts is a defensive strategy. It can be, and it can feel dismissive and defeating to the person who presented the way they feel. But if we listen, if we open our ears, if we pray for humility, if we sense the attorney who’s seeking to defend, who’s doing his job, and we say, “Let’s take you off retainer for just a second. Let me ask a question of the person who is talking to me.” Then I have the chance to listen, to actually listen, and move towards transparency. We have to address the insecurity and defensiveness in our own hearts first, and that’s much easier to talk about than to do. It’s much easier to talk about.

So this is Wisdomfest. We can do things differently. I know I keep saying that. But I just wanted to ask my wife Katie to come up here with me. We’re just going to chat for a little bit about these things. I’ve monologued and droned on for a while. Maybe if we just sit and discuss for a while, there might be a nugget or two to help us.

This is Katie. Isn’t she beautiful? Hey, baby.

Hey, baby.

So we were talking about defensiveness when it comes to communication and listening to one another and seeking not to be defensive. So I want to ask you how you fight defensiveness.

I think the first step is just recognizing that it’s happening. I got to attend a leadership class a few years ago, and one of the first things they taught us, when you are listening, is if you’re having a conversation with someone and something starts to feel kind of bad, and you start to feel kind of stressed out or anxious, to just stop for a second and be self-aware and realize that it’s happening before you let it get even bigger.

What does that feel like? How do you sense what’s going on in your heart?

Well, I don’t know, I mean, like, angsty. And I’m not really sure why it’s angsty, but I just know that I don’t like where this is going.

Tension, yeah. What are some other pitfalls when it comes to listening? We talked about defensiveness. What are some pitfalls that come to mind? I’ve only mentioned one, but you could think of others. What are some other pitfalls when it comes to listening that are hard?

Yeah, I think that what Nathan said at the beginning of the service was really important about our insecurities. Insecurities can look lots of different ways. For me, it might be what I’m afraid of or where I have baggage. Sometimes what happens to me is I’m not listening to what you’re actually saying, but I’m hearing what I am afraid you’re saying. Then I get stuck in thinking about, “Oh no, he’s going to say this.” Or, “I don’t like this.” That’s what I’m receiving. That’s really not what you’re saying.

Yeah, like “he’s disappointed in me,” when that might not be it.

Right.

Yeah, and so then what’s going on in your heart if you’re wrestling with that insecurity?

Well, that’s when I have to think about with whom I’m speaking. Am I speaking with somebody who is my friend? Am I talking with someone who’s my spouse? Am I speaking with someone is my parent or my kid? And is this someone who is fundamentally for me? Is this person out to get me, or is this someone who is out for my good? And so sometimes it helps me think, “Okay, this is not about your mess. This is about someone who actually loves you and is trying to communicate an idea to you.” Leaning into the safety of that other person can sometimes be helpful.

It’s really so hard to listen through insecurity. It really is. Can you think of an example of how that might happen?

I thought I just did.

Hmm.

Another one? Ha ha ha ha! Part of it is also knowing your character. For example, you were talking a few minutes ago about the whole “enough” thing. I am a people pleaser. I’m someone who wants someone to be happy. It just happened, I think last night, where I’d been working really hard on a project all day long. You’d been working on your own project all day long. Then, when you came to help me with the tail end of my project, you had all kinds of ways we could do it better. And I kind of got a little angsty. I kind of started feeling a little bit defensive. Then I had to stop and say, “You know what?”

I said, by the way, that even a fool when he is silent is considered wise. That’s one of those times I should have been silent.

But actually, because we’re both growing in this whole listening thing, you actually said last night, “You’ve done a fantastic job. You have done all of the hard work. I’m happy to just come in here and try to help you fix it up and finish this well.” And I had to remember, because I was feeling a little defensive, that your heart is not to be critical. Your heart was to help me. And so part of that was knowing, is this person someone who is for me, or is this a person who’s telling me I didn’t do a good job? And part of it is my own choice about how I’m going to think about that.

Yeah, some of that for me too is if you’ve had a hard day and you come home and it’s time to listen right away, sometimes it’s hard to shed the other things that have been dominating your thinking, and then to listen. I know that I’ve had that. She’ll say something to me, and she can tell the look in my eyes is off somewhere else. I might look at her and say, “Hey, could you say that again? Because I was not listening at all.” Or she will see it and say, “Did you hear that?” And I can say, “No, I did not because I was still listening to the rest of my day.” And that’s hard. But to recognize that in each other— And this is not just a spouse thing. It’s any human relationship. You can sometimes see, if we’re watching the other people, you can see it in their body language or their eyeballs, and it’s okay, because we are trying to move into a deeper relationship. It’s good and valuable to just ask a question about whether or not we’re communicating well. Another one to check and see if you’re communicating is paraphrasing. You wanna talk about that?

Right, so we’ve all heard the strategies about when you have to take turns talking, you pass the pen back and forth. Or the other active listening strategy of listening to a person and then saying, “This is what I think you’re saying.” These are not new ideas, but they can still be very helpful. One of the things when it comes to defensiveness and insecurity is, when I can feel myself starting to spool up, I’ll repeat back to him what I think he’s saying. Sometimes he’ll say, “Oh no, that’s not at all what I’m trying to say. I am so sorry if that’s what I am communicating to you.” And then he’ll say, “Now let me try to communicate it to you a different way so you can receive it.” So sometimes it’s really helpful to also give the other person a heads up and say, “I’m starting to get stressed out. Can we dial this back somehow and make sure that we’re communicating on the same team?”

Yeah, the paraphrase thing, I think it was Ryan Ferguson who started to do it in meetings where you have four or five people in the room and everybody’s sharing ideas, and at some point you can get lost. Like, “Where are we going with this?” I think it was Ryan that would, at the end of a meeting, go, “Okay, I think this is what we said.” Then he would summarize it in three or four sentences. Then we could go, “Yeah, that was it.” Or somebody could go, “Wait, wait, actually that misses a point.” But you can take that idea and do it one-on-one where you say, “I think this is what you’re saying.” And the person can go, “You got it.” Or “No, you missed it completely.” Which is helpful to know, right? Whether or not you got it, or whether or not you missed it. It does take some humility to be able to go, “Okay, I did miss it.” It could have been my bad communication or your bad listening, but either way, we’re thinking the best of each other and trying to grow.

Right, I think that’s one of the most important things is wanting to move forward in unity, even if it’s difficult for the moment.

How do we avoid these things? How do we avoid some of these pitfalls?

I don’t think you can completely avoid them because we’re sinful, broken people. But I do think that some of these things, they are spiritual exercises, and they’re also life skills. You learn what your proclivities are. Sometimes I’m a jumper-inner. Like last night, you were trying to share something with me, and I jumped in and you said, “That was a comma, not a period.” And I was like, “Oh.” So I know that that’s my propensity, so it’s really good for me to feel like, “Okay, don’t do that.” Or to know that this is an area where I feel extra sensitive and make sure that I articulate that. I think that that’s not one of those things that you just say, check mark, it’s done, but it’s something that you have to practice and rehearse through faith every day.

Yeah, and I don’t know that it ever—as you have friends, hopefully married people are friends, but it could be marriage or other friends—it changes over the years, right? We’re coming up on 25 years. I’m looking at people like the Phillips that are 50-something, 52-ish years. And over the course of those years, it changes. The person you’re married to is not the same person you married. Of course not, neither are you. And so we change the way we communicate. The way we listen changes. And so we always have to be growing and adapting to those things too. It’s always, always a challenge to pursue humility and to love the other person well. Should we open it up for questions, just to the audience?

No, I think they’re hungry.

Yeah, I don’t think so. I don’t think so either. Thank you, baby. Appreciate it.

I’m just going to wrap up and then we’re going to pray. In 1996, famed lyricist and composer Burt Bacharach said that “The Living Years,” the song we started with, was one of the finest lyrics written in a 10-year period. Now if you’re not a fan of songs from that period, you might think, “Well, there were no other good songs in that period,” but Burt Bacharach has the bona fides to back that up. That may be why the song has held on to its influence for 37 years. Somebody came to me after first service and said to me that that song tears them up every time. Just Father’s Day, which was just a couple of weeks ago, Rutherford posted on social media that he still has people coming to him and talking about how they’re impacted by that thing.

If you watch the original music video on YouTube, which you should because you can hear the rest of the song, and you’ll see some great ’80s hairstyles and clothes, and some good synthesizer work. But also, they shot it in a church. It’s really interesting because there’s a boy choir and the congregation is singing along. It’s this really interesting choice. They were trying to almost find redemption. But then, if you scroll down and read some of the comments— Now usually when you go on YouTube and you read the comments, you feel dirty afterwards because it’s disgusting. But actually you read some heart-wrenching and warming stories. Let me give you two quick ones.

“My dad was taken from me 10 years ago this year. I never could see eye to eye with him then, but now that I have a son, I have so much more compassion for my dad looking back, and could not be more grateful for how hard he worked to take care of me the best he could, and to help me grow up to be a good man.”

“My dad passed two years ago today, and I wasn’t there, just like the narrator in the song. But I DID get to tell him how much I loved him, and how much he taught me, because I said it while he was alive. I catch his spirit all the time— in jokes I tell, in the compassion in my heart, in the twinkle in my eye. I am my father’s son, and I am proud to be so.”

How much more is our motivation than those who listen to an ’80s rock song? How much is our more motivation? We, brothers and sisters, are followers of the triune God, and we are called to live in a way that reflects him, in a way where we say, “I am my father’s son.” He is our God, and he calls us to image him to the world around us. He is a listening God, and He calls us the listen. Even with our brokenness and weakness and failure, do we seek to grow as listeners empowered by His grace?

This Wisdomfest, we’re seeking to be super practical. Last week, at the end of the sermon, Peter gave us a “this week do this.” This week, we were supposed to face and replace safety strategies. This week, church, I’m asking you to assess and expand listening strategies. Would you consider assessing and expanding listening strategies? I’m going to give you two ways. Here they are:

One, ask God to reveal to you what you may be missing. Let’s start by asking God. And two, would you ask someone close to you to tell you some way that they believe you need to grow as a listener? It’s risky, but would you go to someone who knows you and say, “How can I grow?” If they’re in this room, then you can expect that they will look at you and ask the same question, right? And by the way, they probably already know how you need to grow in your listening. So those are the two things: ask God and ask someone close.

Right now, we’re going to start with the first one by asking God. Would you, with me, ask God, “God, show us, speak, reveal to me what I can’t see, soften my heart to hear from my friend.” So if you will, we’re going to have a little bit of soft music playing, and we’re going to take maybe three or so minutes just for you to bow your heads and close your eyes and ask God. Seek his face to reveal ways that you are not listening. Then when he does, will you surrender it to him? Will you open your hand and give to him whatever he shows you?

When we sing in a little bit, there will be people in the front if you need somebody to pray with. Come on up front, I’ll be glad to pray with you. But let’s look to God and surrender to him.