"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

Transcription

1 Open series - as we look in different areas of our lives that need to be open to God, and open to our neighbours. We are trying to understand how to approach our faith with an open stance. Because if we approach faith with a very closed stance, we won t be able to grow and learn and progress into the people that God is calling us to be. Our faith is a journey - and our destination is Jesus. We are effectively walking towards Jesus, becoming closer to him, becoming more like him, becoming his disciples, becoming the people he is calling us to be. And the only way to take steps on that journey is if we are open to the journey, open to Jesus as our destination, and open to the things he will have us encounter along the way. So in our first week we talked about having open hearts - that God loves us with a heart that is wide open for us, and that encourages us to have wide open hearts for God and for other people. Because loving other people is one of the best ways to show our love for God. We talked about having open doors - opening the doors of our lives so that Jesus can enter, and also asking God to open doors for us to serve. As such, we continue to open the doors of our cupboards over the next several weeks as we gather tuna, chick peas and black beans for the St. James Food Basket. We talked about having open minds, that what we think about each day has an effect on how we live, and that if we want to be free from anxiety, we need to pray about everything, and to focus our thoughts on what is good, pure, lovely, excellent, admirable and all those other wonderful adjectives in Philippians 4:6-8. This week we are going to talk about having open ears. And to do that, we are taking a look at this wonderful parable that Jesus told. 24 "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came 1

2 down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. The thing about listening, is that it is a skill. And like any skill, it takes practice. Especially in a world like ours where there is so much information coming at us, all the time. I live alone - well, almost alone, Koski is with me most of the time. But she s pretty silent. If you ve dropped by the church in the middle of the week while she is here with me, you might think she s pretty loud. Because she does have a good bark on her when she chooses to use it. But most of the time, she content curling up in her bed and lazing the day away with me nearby. Most of the time she doesn t make a lot of noise. And so our home is a very quiet one, much of the time. Unless I m watching Netflix or speaking to my Mom on the phone, our place is pretty quiet. And that is on purpose. The world can be a pretty noisy place, especially in a city like ours, especially in a time like ours, and sitting in silence is actually very refreshing to me. That s one of the ways you know I m an introvert. Because I can sit in silence for hours, and feel refreshed by it. Silence isn t the norm in our world, and I think that has made us worse at listening. Because to listen well you need to not have any distractions, you need to be able to focus on the thing you are listening to, you need to not be thinking about what you are going to say in response. 2

3 (FIRST SLIDE) You ve probably heard the saying that most people do not listen with the intent to understand, they listen with the intent to reply. Which is to say that most people aren t really listening - they re just being quiet until it s their turn to talk. Which is not the kind of listening that Jesus is speaking about. Listening is hard, and it s not a skill we spend a lot of time developing in our world. We are good at hearing - we hear all the time. We hear so much that our brains edit what we are hearing. I live right near the airport, there are planes taking off and coming in for a landing, all the time outside my place. (SECOND SLIDE) It s actually one of the things my folks and I enjoy doing when they are visiting - we go and sit on my balcony and watch the planes coming and going, and have a chat. 3

4 When friends come to visit for the first time they ask me if the noise of the planes bother me. And the answer is no - not at all. Because it is so much a regular part of my day at this point, that my brain edits out that sound. I hear it. But I don t often LISTEN to it. Jesus says that if you listen - not just hear, but LISTEN - and put into practice the words he is speaking, it is like laying a good foundation for a house. The whole rest of the structure will be upheld because of the strong foundation. The storms may come, the winds may howl, the rains may beat against it, but the structure will remain strong because it has a good foundation. But just hearing isn t good enough. Jesus says - listen and put into practice. It s a two step process. First listen - that is take in the information, with the intent of understanding it. Then take what you have understood and put it into practice. DO something with it. Take an action, or quit an action, as the case may be. Jesus says, 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash." See - Jesus makes a distinction between listening and hearing. You can hear all sorts of things without actually listening to them. If you just hear - it s like a bad foundation for a house. When the storms come against that structure, it will fall with a great crash. Hearing isn t enough - listening and putting it into practice is where it s at. 4

5 Now, here s the thing - God doesn t just speak through the written word. I want to be careful here, because I don t for a second want you to think that I m saying that the scriptures aren t important. Of course they are - they are SO important. God is revealed in the Bible. Jesus life is recorded in the Bible. The Holy Spirit is active in the words of the Bible. God definitely speaks through Scripture. But God also speaks in many other ways. God speaks through people, through the world around us, through the music we listen to, through a still small voice that whispers in your soul. For many years, God was calling me to the ministry and I was like the hear no evil monkey emoji. (THIRD SLIDE) I was essentially sticking my fingers in my ear and saying La la la, I can t hear you because God was using the words of ordinary people around to call me. I was a lay preacher. I covered the occasional Sunday at Amberlea Presbyterian, once or twice a year, when my Dad who was their minister, was out of town. Every time I preached, someone - often different someones but there were a few usual suspects who would say it to me repeatedly - would come up to me after service and ask, So when are you going to go into the ministry? 5

6 Never let it be said that I m not stubborn. I am as stubborn as the day is long. Because I just kept saying to these people - for 5 years straight I want you to understand the depth and the breadth of my stubbornness - God hasn t called me yet. Imagine my shock and surprise when I suddenly understood that every time that happened, THAT WAS GOD CALLING ME INTO THE MINISTRY!!! And I was just putting my hands over my ears. I was hearing, but I wasn t listening and I definitely wasn t putting into practice. Because I had a very narrow view of how God spoke. And because I hadn t had a bolt-from-the-blue-heard-the-thundering-voice-of-god experience, I thought God wasn t calling me. Now, I believe that with God nothing is wasted - so those 5 years were necessary to get me to the place where I was finally able to hear God s call. I believe that. But I have to tell you that for a good while after I d accepted God s call, I carried guilt about those 5 years. I felt guilty for not recognizing God s voice in the ordinary people who asked me if I was going to the ministry. I ve let that go now - I chalk it up to youth and inexperience, and simply the needs of my individual soul at the time. But it serves as a reminder to me to NOT be the hear no evil monkey emoji. It serves as a reminder that I ve had times in my life when my ears were not open to listening to God. And that there was no small amount of angst and confusion and difficulty that entered my life because of that. God speaks in many ways and I pray that your ears (and my ears) will be open to all he has to say, and all the ways he has to say it. In our second lesson today, James writes this: 6

7 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. I preached my way through the book of James early in my ministry. And these verses - this advice, specifically the quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry part - has stuck with me ever since. It is a great bit of advice for any minister - because sometimes we are in meetings where it would be easy to be quick to speak and quick to become angry. But as James says, that doesn t bring about the righteous life God desires. It s good advice for anyone. Our ears need to be open to each other. Listening well to each other is one of the ways we give to each other, one of the ways we build trust and community, one of the ways we bless each other. It is a huge blessing to have someone who will just listen when you need to vent. (FOURTH SLIDE) As I was preparing this sermon, I came across this image - and I think these words are a great place to end. Speak in such a way that others love to listen to you. Listen in such a way that others love to speak to you. That s who Jesus was - people love to hear him speak, 7

8 they gathered on the hillsides to listen to him, they followed him around to hear what he would say next. People also loved to speak to him - he listened beautifully. Friends, let s open our ears. And become more like Jesus. Let us pray. 8