How to Be a Good Listener

Hey, how are y'all doing? I'm excited to be here with you this evening. I love being at The Porch. One of the reasons is the most enjoyable place for somebody to be when they're preaching God's Word is amongst people who want to hear God's Word. If you came here tonight and God's Word is not what you want to hear, I am sorry to tell you that is what we're about to do. We're about to be in God's Word.

Here's the amazing thing about God's Word. Here's what I love about it: it's really good. My job when I open God's Word is not to be like, "Oh, let me take this boring thing that's not that helpful, that doesn't really speak to our lives, and make it seem like it really connects." These are the words of a God who knows everything. These are the words of a God who knows you, who made you, who knows how everything is supposed to work. So, it is my privilege to open up this Bible and talk about what the God of the universe has already said.

I am expectant that the Lord has something to say to you, specifically. I'm just a random dude who maybe you've never heard before. Maybe you'll never think about me again. But the God whose Word I have to speak from knows everything about you. He knows where you are, and he knows what you need to hear. So, I'm going to go to that God to ask that he'll speak to us. Let's pray.

Father, we come before you again in the name of your Son Jesus. Lord, we are so grateful that you hear what we have to say to you, and we're so grateful that you speak to us so we can hear what you have to say. Father, there are so many people in this room in different places in their lives. There are so many people watching who are in different places in their lives. God, there are distractions in their minds. There are things they've been wrestling with, things that have them excited, and things that have them discouraged. Father, we pray you would help them to focus in on what you have to say. We pray you would speak to us, God. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.

Somebody reminded me a moment ago that the last time I was here, as I was introduced, he said, "Trip preaches like Jesus." I thought, "I know he thought he was doing me a favor, but why would you set the bar that high? That's crazy." So I just requested, "Please, set the bar lower." Open your Bibles with me to James, chapter 1.

If you've never read the book of James, I suggest that you do. It's really short. You can read it very quickly. James is the little brother of Jesus. James is a super-practical book. There's a lot about what faith looks like in action. In James 1:19-25, I think the Lord has a word for us tonight. This is James, chapter 1, starting in verse 19. This is what God's Word says.

"My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. 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.

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do."

I want to talk to you this evening about being a good listener. I'll start by saying this. Sometimes, when we do things, we give ourselves credit too early. We give ourselves too much credit way too early. One example is a year or two ago, I went to a middle school basketball game. In this middle school basketball game, there was a kid who didn't play the whole game. He was sitting on the end of the bench looking sad. His teammates were playing, and they were about to win. Then, in the fourth quarter, he finally got to go in the game.

So, he goes in the game. He misses a bunch of shots and turns the ball over a bunch of times. I'm like, "That's why he wasn't in." Then he gets fouled. So, he goes to the free-throw line. He air balls the first one. Now, at this point… I don't know this child, but I'm praying, "Lord, let it go in. I don't know if he can take this heartbreak."

He makes the second free throw. Here's what he does. He looks, points into the stands, and runs back. I'm like, "Bro, I know you're not out here pointing into the stands off your one point." I think he gave himself a little bit too much credit too early. I'm like, "I'm glad you made that, but you're not good at basketball yet."

Or have you ever seen videos…? People will post their highlights hooping, and they'll do all this dribbling, like, 'tween, 'tween, in-and-out, spin, and miss a layup. I'm like, "Bro, you were excited for nothing." Sometimes we give ourselves too much credit too early. It's like you missed the whole point of the thing you were doing.

I'll give one more example from my personal life. I am married. I have an amazing wife. We have a great marriage. Hold on before you cheer. One of the things my wife and I will get into sometimes is that she never remembers her passwords to anything, ever. You may say, "Trip, stay out of her business." No, no. It's my business, too, because no matter what it is…the bank, Netflix, Hulu…she never remembers. Then what'll happen is she has to change the passwords, and we share these.

I'm like, "All right. Set a new password." I'm like, "Okay. If you set a new password, but you don't write it down, did you really set a new password or did you just lock us both out? You might as well have put 'La-di-da-di-da.' Now we both are locked out forever. You need to write it down." We'll talk to a counselor about it. But I'm saying this. The entire purpose of a password is so you have access to it and nobody else does.

Sometimes we give ourselves too much credit too early. We don't just do it with stuff like that; we also do it with things that matter. Sometimes we do that with hearing God's Word. We will show up on a Sunday morning or to a young adult gathering like this, and we will be excited. We will hear God's Word and enjoy it. We leave, we feel great, and absolutely nothing changes.

Or maybe you read the Bible at home regularly. You get up in the morning. You have a nice little quiet time with your coffee and your highlighters. You didn't highlight anything, but they don't know. You take a pic, put it on your story, get up feeling good, and absolutely nothing changes. My question to you is…Why are we going to God's Word if nothing changes when we walk away from God's Word?

How come we're never concerned by that? Wouldn't you be concerned if your doctor prescribed you a medication and told you, "You have to take this every single day," and yet it did absolutely nothing? Wouldn't there be follow-up questions you had? Sometimes we feel like, "Oh, I don't really feel like I'm hearing from God." Maybe we're not listening to God correctly.

Here's why this matters. If we're saying we think this God is the Creator of everything, and he really does know things, and he's speaking to us, we want to make sure we're listening to him properly. If Jesus is the Jesus we were just singing about who's seated on the throne, who wears the crown, who is the only one worthy to open those seals, the only one worthy to pay for sins, the only one worthy to be Lord of Lords and King of Kings…

If that God has said (put your name in the blank), "Hey, [you], I'm going to speak to you," don't you think we should think through how to listen to him properly? That's why I want us to talk about what it means to be a good listener, because maybe we think we're doing something hearing God's Word, but we're actually not. There is a right and wrong way to listen to God.

The main thing I want you to take away from this text is if you don't do it, you didn't really hear it. At least, not in the way God intends. So, I want to talk about three ways we can make sure we're being good listeners when we interact with God's Word. He's going to tell us a little bit about listening to each other too. I would tell you the three points now, but I don't want to ruin the suspense, so we'll just start with the first one.

1. Receive. The first thing we want to do if we want to be a good listener is to receive. If we're going to have a posture of listening to God, if we're going to hear God, we have to be in this posture of receiving. Here's one of the problems. We do kind of live in an age of constant speaking. We are always texting. We are always posting. We are always sharing.

I've gotten to the point where sometimes my wife laughs at me. I can't see anything interesting on the Internet without hitting "save." I have a little folder in my TikTok that's just for stuff I'm going to show my wife later. While it sounds cute right now, what it means is in the evening she's like, "Please leave me alone. Why are you showing me this? It's not even funny to me." I made her sound mean. She's wonderful. She pretends they're funny.

We're constantly posting. We're constantly sharing. We're constantly talking. We're constantly speaking, whether or not we have anything good to say. Some of us put way more value on talking than listening. Sometimes our mindset seems to be, "Every thought I have needs to be heard." But James says in verse 19, "My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry…"

To be quick to listen means listening should be our primary posture. Our reflex should be listening. The same way, when you hear your phone vibrate, you pick it up and look to see what someone has to say… That should be the way we interact with the world around us, not just running our mouths. James is going to talk about hearing from God, and he's also thinking about the way we listen to one another. Being quick to listen.

Then he says we should be slow to speak. That means speaking comes second. We should count the cost before we say things. We don't have to have the first and final say. Proverbs 17 says, "The one who has knowledge uses words with restraint, and whoever has understanding is even-tempered. Even fools are thought wise if they keep silent, and discerning if they hold their tongues." We should be slow to speak, but it's hard sometimes.

I don't know if you've ever known anybody who, when they come amongst, it's like they suck all the energy out of the room, because they always have something better to say. I remember I had a friend who, no matter what you said, tried to one-up you. It was like, "Man, I got in a car accident." He was like, "I totaled my car." Like, "All right." Like, "Man, I love that song." "I wrote that song." "No, you didn't."

Some people always have to have something to say, and usually, people don't like to be around those people, because what it feels like is a complete lack of regard for considering or caring about what other people have to say. If you think about this, we're usually quickest to the things we value most. So, if we're quick to speaking, it means the thing we value the most is expressing whatever is in our minds. We're slow to the things we value the least.

When, with other people, we are very slow to listen and quick to speak, we're communicating, "I don't value what you have to say; I value me speaking." Being quiet requires humility. That means acknowledging that people have interesting or helpful things to say, that there are helpful things to say that don't have to come from you or that you expressing yourself is not the most important thing all the time.

Some of us can think of so many times when we said something, and as soon as we said it, we were like, "I wish I could have that back." He said we should be quick to listen and slow to speak. That should be our general posture. We wouldn't need to listen to anybody if we had all of the answers, but we should understand that we don't. There is somebody in the universe who knows all things and has never been wrong, but it's not you and it's not me.

If we know God, we should be those who are quick to listen and slow to speak. This is sometimes why people don't like to be around believers who think they know everything. We're not the one who knows everything. Now, you may say, "But, Trip, you don't know me. I actually am kind of quiet. I don't talk that much. Does that mean I am quick to listen?" I want to say you can be a quiet person and still not be quick to listen.

One of the ways we do that… We don't realize it is hard to listen if you don't turn other noise down. Some of us have a hard time listening to other people or God because we have given ourselves a constant barrage of random voices and input at all times of every day. It's hard for us to even find space to listen to God or other people because our brains have never had a break.

Or sometimes we hear something someone else says, and we're so quickly going to other voices, some of us. It's so hard not to kind of reflexively pick this up and hear more things coming at us. Some of what it means to be quick to listen is being selective with what we're listening to. You cannot take seriously the voices of 400 people all at the same time, all day, every day.

Brothers and sisters, part of what it's going to mean for you to be quick to listen is to stop listening to some voices so you can be present to listen to the ones that matter. Sometimes that's hard to do, but it is good for our souls. Sometimes we've heard something, but we don't even have time to process it because we throw other voices in so quickly.

I will say this. One of the best things about listening to other people is that's often the way God helps us to listen to him. Some of the most important moments in my life of hearing from God have come through me listening to other people…people who've discipled me, leaders of mine, and friends of mine. We want to be quick to listen.

He also says in verse 19, "…and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires." He says we should be slow to anger. If our culture is anything in 2026, it is quick to anger. We love being angry. Right? Thirty people get canceled a day, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for something random. It's like, "Why would he buy those?" We like anger.

There's something about anger that kind of feels good. There's a thing that makes you feel righteous. It's more fun to be angry together with other people than gracious with other people. He's saying it's easy to be quick to anger if you're slow to listen. It is harder to be quick to anger all the time if you are listening intently, because here's what anger does.

Now, I'll say this. All anger isn't bad. We know that from the Bible. There is righteous anger. One of the ways we know anger isn't always bad is because we see in the Bible that God gets angry. We see Jesus get angry. There is such thing as righteous anger. But he's not talking about righteous anger.

What anger does is it shuts us off. We get mad, like, "No, I don't want to hear from you." What being quick to listen does is it makes us lean forward with a pen and paper, asking questions. So much of the conflict we have with other people is we're easily offended and quick to anger. He says we should be slow to anger.

This is not just with listening to people, of course. Mainly, we want to think about what it means to listen to God. We want to be quick to listen to God. The same thing applies. We want to do what we can to make sure we're listening to him well. One of the things I've noticed is we listen differently depending on who's speaking. If this God we've been singing about is the one who's speaking to us, this should change how we hear it, even when it's things that are hard to hear. I'll give you an example.

If I were sitting in church and it was time for offering, and my wife leaned over to me and said, "Hey, babe, can you give me the keys? I want to get some money out of your glove compartment," I would hand them to her. If a stranger walked up to me at the same time and was like, "Hey, babe, can you give me the keys? I want to get some money out of your glove compartment," I'm calling the police.

You may say, "Oh, but Trip, they're the same exact words." Obviously, it's from a different person. There's different context. When we go to the Bible, these are not the words of a random person. What the Bible is really clear about is though God used human beings to write it down, these words are breathed out by God; that men were carried along by the Holy Spirit; that these are the words of God breathed out of his mouth. That should impact the way we interact with them.

Here's one of the hard things about listening to God's Word. I hope people have been honest about this before. If not, I want this to be the great moment where you can be inside a church talking about how good God is while also acknowledging sometimes it's hard to read God's Word. Sometimes we read stuff in God's Word that we don't like. Sometimes there's stuff that feels like, "I don't know. That doesn't make sense to me." Sometimes what that can do is we're like, "I don't know that I want to listen to this, because I don't really know what to make of it."

When something is hard in the Scripture, when there's something you doubt, when there's something that doesn't make sense to you, when there's something that seems contradictory, I want to encourage you not to withdraw and get away from it; I want to encourage you to lean in and ask questions. Here's one of the reasons. If we go to this Bible expecting to meet a God who is bigger than us and wiser than us and holier than us, why do we get mad when we realize it's not us we find there?

Don't you think if there's a God who knows everything, and we don't know everything, he might have some different positions on things than you? Don't you think there may be some things he understands that you have not yet understood? What I want to encourage you to is not to be caught off guard if there's something you don't understand. I want you to lean in.

So, if I see something, and I'm like, "But, God, I don't understand how this makes sense with the other thing you said," instead of saying, "Well, it must not make sense," I want to say, "God, I want to receive from you. Help me understand how this connects with this. Who's wiser than me and knows more than me? Let me ask them to help me think through how this connects with this."

Part of being quick to listen to God's Word is taking into account what it means that you're listening to God's Word. Anytime we learn anything, there are things we're learning that are just new information, but also there are things that correct other parts of who we are, things we haven't understood. I want to encourage you. Part of being quick to listen is wrestling with stuff that doesn't make immediate sense to us. We want to receive. Are y'all still with me? If you don't do it, you didn't really hear it. We're talking about being good listeners.

2. Remove. You like how they're both Rs, don't you? Will the third point be an R? Stay tuned. All right, remove. Sometimes we try to do something. You know, we have some goal. We have something we're trying to get to, but we don't realize that there's something else standing in the way of that.

I had some friends who were trying to do renovation in their house. They wanted to renovate their kitchen. The contractor came in, and he was like, "Your floors are leaning." They were like, "All right. We can fix the floor. Right?" So he pulls the floor up. Then he's like, "Actually, this subfloor is in horrific shape." "You already ripped the floor up. Okay." Subfloor gone.

He's like, "Actually, it's still bad under there." And it keeps happening until they basically have to rebuild that side of the house. So, this is a lesson. Never watch HGTV, because you might have to rebuild your house. But the reason he had to do that was he was like, "I'm not going to put pretty things on top of stuff that is rotting and is not going to hold up, because those things will eventually be in the exact same bad shape."

Here's what we need to think about with God's Word. We want to receive God's Word, but what James is going to help us understand is there are some things we need to remove in order to hear from this God who loves us very much and has kind, gracious things to say to us. Listen to verse 21. He says, "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."

So, one of the things we need to do to listen well is to remove some stuff. That phrase basically means to take some things off, like clothing. Scripture talks about how we need to take off old ways and put on new ways, things that get in the way of us hearing God's Word. He says, "Moral filth." That's strong language, because we don't always think of sin as disgusting as that.

I want you to imagine that you are just walking around dirty, never showering. You haven't showered for two weeks, three weeks, six months. Then you're like, "Oh, I've got somewhere to go. I'm going to The Porch. I'm going to just spray a little cologne on, a little perfume." This is what every dude I knew in high school did. It was Axe body spray, which smelled bad already, so it was just a bad combination. Of course, we would say, "Well, no, you can't do that. You can't just cover up weeks of stank just by putting some cologne on. Of course, you've got to remove the stank, and then… You've got to clean."

What James is saying is you cannot just try to slap God's Word on without trying to take off the things… Here's how our sin can block us from hearing from God. When we give in to sin, it pulls us away from God. When we love what God hates, it's harder to hear him. When God says lust is bad, and we've been drowning in that all week, it is hard to hear God clearly. When we have been building habits for years that have taught us the exact opposite… When we're training ourselves to see lust as good and something that brings something good to us, it is hard to hear from God when he speaks to us in that.

Sin is like a fog on our windows that keeps us from seeing God clearly, that blocks our path as we try to go. So, one of my questions for you is…Is there any sin, any moral filth in your life that keeps you from hearing from God? My goal as I ask you that question is not so you can feel shameful or guilty. It's to say God loves us so much that he's saying, "I have incredible things I want to say to you, but you have some earplugs in your ears that are keeping you from hearing them clearly."

What in your heart may be keeping you from God? It may be an addiction. It may be a sinful relationship. It may be the way you idolize your work. It may be prejudice toward your neighbors who you're supposed to love. It may be bitterness toward other people who have hurt you. God is saying to remove it. It is hard to obey new commands when you cannot even hear them clearly.

He says this moral filth is prevalent. He means our sins are abundant. One commentator said, "As soon as we knock one down, another one takes its place." If our sins are abundant, if there are a lot of them, that means our repentance needs to be abundant. One of the things about following Jesus is it's not a one-time repentance. Because we have a lot of sins, there needs to be a lot of repenting, a constant Jesus very graciously redirecting us toward him.

One of the things that has been very helpful for me and that God tells us to do in his Word… We should not be trying to hear God's Word or remove moral filth solo. Following Jesus is not something you do all alone. Following Jesus is a team sport. We need friends to help us. We need friends who are almost like noise-canceling headphones that are blocking out the things that keep us from hearing from God. Have friends who hold you accountable who can walk with you as you do this.

He said we should remove that moral filth and humbly accept the Word planted in us. What does it mean to humbly accept his Word? It means every time we hear God's Word, we should be ready to throw everything away from him and do what he says. I remember when I was a kid, like, when I was in high school or middle school, no matter what I was doing… It didn't matter if I was playing Madden or playing basketball or talking to my girlfriend on the phone…whatever it was.

When my mom got home with groceries, the expectation was by the time that garage door even hit the full top, I'd better already be in the garage getting those groceries out. It was understood. "No matter what it is you're doing, no matter how important that seems to you, when it's time to get groceries, you drop everything and do this."

When we listen to God's Word, we need to come before him openhanded with the expectation "God might want to knock some stuff out of my hands." But if God is trying to knock some stuff out of my hands, it's because in his grace, he has something better to put there. God is not going to knock treasure out of your hand and put trash in its place. Anytime God wants to knock something out of your hand, it's because he has something much greater to put there.

So, he says we should humbly receive God's Word with open hands, which can be very hard to do. Sometimes we treat God like he's a random person trying to convince us of something. We shouldn't be asking God, "Hey, convince me"; we should come to God with a posture of "Yes." Like, "Yes, if you are the King; yes, if you are Lord; yes, if you are as gracious as you say you are, I receive humbly." He said the Word that was planted in us, this seed that God is using to grow us. I want to receive it humbly.

3. Respond. Look at those Rs. That's hilarious. What if I did that just so I could get a "Woo" for my Rs? Respond. This responding is getting to the heart of what we're saying is the main point. If you don't do it, you didn't really hear it. Have you ever heard of speed-reading? I used to hear about speed-reading all the time. I would hear that you can read a ton of books in a way shorter time. I never tried that hard, but one time I tried to do it, and I was like, "All I'm doing is moving my finger across the page. I'm not doing anything."

I had this friend who told me, "Yeah, I had a friend who used to read about 10 books a week." I was like, "Man, that's impressive." He was like, "And then when I would ask him, like, 'Oh, tell me about that one,' he was like, 'Oh, I don't remember.'" I'm like, "So, when you say 'read,' what exactly do you mean by that?" If you just want to make sure you look at a minimum amount of random letters on a page per week, then go for it. But if you don't actually take in anything you read, then what is the point of the reading?

In a similar way, James is helping us see, "Hey, what's the point of hearing God's Word if you don't respond to it at all, if you don't actually take it in?" The mark of whether you really read a book is if it stuck. The mark of if you've really heard from God is if you respond. Listen to verse 22, the longest part of the text.

"Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do."

He says, "Don't just listen to the Word and not do it and deceive yourselves." He's saying, "Don't lie to yourself." You know, lying is a terrible thing to do. It's bad to lie to people, because people make decisions based on what they think the truth is. I remember several months ago, there was some TikTok prophet who was telling people the world was about to end. He said, "Hey, I heard the world is going to end, bro. You heard it here from me on TikTok."

People were believing him. Like, "Man, he heard from God. The world is going to end." Some lady sold her car. First of all, I'm like, "Why are you selling your car? What are you going to do with that money when you're gone?" I don't know. A lot of decisions weren't good. People were throwing their lives out off of the word of someone who was lying. How tragic that is, because they were making big life decisions that are going to be hard to go back on based on those lies. It is really bad to lie to somebody because it changes the path of their life.

What's even more sad than lying to other people, though, is lying to yourself. James is saying listening to God's Word and not doing it is a kind of self-deception where you've convinced yourself you've done what God has asked of you when, really, you've only taken the very first step. This is not James trying to make us feel bad; this is James trying to make sure we're not deceiving ourselves.

He's saying there is blessing from God, but the blessing is in the responding. Listening is a first step, not a last one. He's saying being bothered or convicted is not enough. It's a good step. Outrage alone is not enough. It's a good step, but we want to hear from God. He's saying if the Word of God we hear is not applied, we're deceiving ourselves. I'll give you an example.

When I was in my early 20s, I was going on tour a lot, and I was not doing a good job taking care of my money. What would happen was I'd be on the road, and I would have a bunch of money in my savings or my checking, and I wouldn't pay attention, so I would get killed by overdraft fees. I wouldn't pay attention. So, every time I bought something…\$35. There was zero in my checking account, but there was money in my savings.

I'm on the road. I'm just buying stuff. I'm like, "I need a bottle of water." Ninety-nine cents. Nope. That water was \$35.99. I'm buying stuff for other people. I'm like, "Hey, bro. You want some Lemonheads? I got you, fam." Fifty cents. Nope, \$35.50. It was over and over and over again. So, I get back from the road, and I'm like… I'm not even going to tell you how much. It was a lot.

So, I'm calling the bank. I'm like, "Bank of America…" Yeah, I put you on blast, Bank of America. I'm like, "Bank of America, why are you doing that? You see that I have money, though. Can you just be nice?" They're like, "It doesn't matter that you have money. It wasn't applied to the account. It's nice that you have it, but that money does nothing if it's in a completely separate account."

It is nice that you hear from God's Word. It's nice that you understand what God is calling you to. It's nice that you look at God's Word and listen, but until it's actually applied to the situations God has given it to you for, only part of the equation has begun to happen. We don't want to store up knowledge about the Word, wisdom about the Word, and not listen.

Listen to what he says in verse 23. I love this illustration. "Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like." He's saying it's like… You know, I was in the back. They had some food. It was like some chicken and some salad.

Say I had some salad and there was lettuce in my teeth. I went and looked in the mirror. I'm like, "I'm about to go out there. Oh, shoot. I've got some lettuce in my teeth." Then I just walked away and came out here with a big piece of lettuce in my teeth. That would be crazy. It's like, "Why are you looking in the mirror if you're not doing anything about it?"

He's saying this is what we're doing. We're looking in the mirror. This mirror of God's Word shows us what we're like. It shows us where our flaws are. It shows us how we have to grow. It shows us the incredible things God has for us. He's saying when we look and see ourselves, and we see what God is calling us to, we want to respond by actually doing it.

Then he makes the contrast. He says, "But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do." He says, "Looks intently." That's to bend down and look in it. He's saying those people will be blessed in what they do.

I want to encourage you. This is something I'm always thinking about. It is very easy to literally forget all of the things we hear from God's Word, but the posture I want us to take is… I don't know. Let's say Michael Jordan sent me a text message. He didn't. He's welcome to, MJ, if you're watching. Let's say he sent me a text message. Do you know what I would do? I would screenshot it. I would take pictures of it.

I would find a way to make sure I always had that message from Michael Jordan, because no matter what horrible season I was in, I'd be like, "At least MJ likes me." Because it's from a very important person. The God of the universe is speaking to us so clearly. So, what we want to do is say, "How can I make sure I take this seriously? What does it look like for me to respond to what he has to say?"

Sometimes there will be something where we're like, "Okay. I know he's calling me to this, but I don't really know what it looks like." I want to encourage you, when you don't really know what response looks like, not to let it stop there. The same way when we want to understand other things… What do we do? We ask additional questions. We talk to friends about it. I want you to think, "What would it take for me to hear God's Word and respond to it?"

I want to encourage you to journal, to write things down, to meditate on things a long time. Sometimes there's a text you hear in a sermon like this. I want to encourage you. Hey, read it again. Share it with some friends. Figure out what it's going to take for you to continue to reflect on it. Again, what I was saying about letting so much noise in… I want to encourage y'all. We have to find a way to have a healthy balance of silence in our minds that's enough for us to actually meditate on truth we've heard.

I want some of y'all to go to TikTok, go to your little settings, go to activity center, get your little watch activity, and think about, "All this little random stuff I looked at… Is it more important for me to hear all of these random little voices, these little bad recipes, these little bad dances, bad covers of people's songs, funny video, not funny video, clips of the Olympics…" Them dudes on the moguls. I don't know how their knees survive it.

But is it worth me watching all of these if what it means is I don't leave enough space in my mind to actually respond when the God of the universe is speaking to me? Some of y'all went to Super Bowl parties the other Sunday. Why is that? Because this is a fun thing for us to do together. If the God of the universe is speaking to us, are there any times where we say, "You know, what would help us to listen to him more is if we sat together and listened to him, if we talked to each other about it, if we talked to leaders about it"?

I want you to think about what lengths you can go to to make sure you can hear and respond to the God of the universe. He loves you. He's speaking to you. One of the things he says is… He calls the Bible the perfect law of freedom. One of the reasons we don't like to remember it is because we sometimes feel bad. It is a mirror. It shows us ways that we need to grow. But this is not a law of bondage.

When God calls us to obedience, he's not calling us into chains and bondage; he's calling us away from chains and bondage to freedom. God's commands are not a burden; God's commands are taking your burdens off. God's commands are not handcuffs; God's commands are taking the handcuffs off. What a blessing from God. This is a good reason for us to help each other to obey God's Word. If you see your friend in bondage, help them get out of bondage. Not from a self-righteous place but from a loving place. Let's walk in freedom together.

I'll give you an example. I'm really bad at directions, navigating. I'm very bad. I remember one time I was driving with my wife. We were going the wrong way. I pulled into a parking lot, turned around, and kept going that same way. I'm bad with directions. That means when she's in the car with me, she never assumes… We could be going home from the grocery store. She's like, "Take a right here."

Sometimes I'm like, "I just want to do me. I don't need somebody sitting over my shoulder telling me when to turn left." But the truth is we would never make it anywhere. It could feel like bondage, like, "Why are you telling me what to do?" but if I keep going the wrong way… Do you know what's worse than someone telling you, "No, actually this way," or saying, "Actually, you need to turn around…" That's extra. It's hard to turn around and reroute. Do you know what's worse? Going to the completely wrong place.

God gives us his Word. This is not bondage. Sometimes it's harder to turn around. Sometimes it's harder to take stuff off. But God, in his wisdom, is guiding us in the right direction, and that is not bondage; that is freedom. Part of what it looks like to listen to God's Word well is to respond and to do what it says. There is freedom there. He says, "They will be blessed in what they do." There is blessing in the doing. God is trying to bless you through his Word, and that's good news.

The last thing I'll say is this. I mean it when I say the goal of the Bible showing us ourselves is not for us to be overcome with guilt and shame. If we're guilty, it's okay to acknowledge that. It's a good thing. But one of the things we see so clearly in Scripture is that Jesus is the only one who has ever kept the law perfectly. Do you know what's incredible about Jesus? Jesus doesn't say, "Oh, usually, I do the will of the Father. Usually, I do the right thing." Jesus says, "I always do the will of the Father."

The incredible thing about the gospel of Jesus is that God has said, "I know y'all have not kept the law perfectly." If you're here today and you say, "Well, look. If what it takes for me to follow Jesus is I have to keep the law; I have to keep it perfectly…" Actually, what the Bible says is you haven't kept the law perfectly, so Jesus came and did it for you. The mistake we make is we think, "I have to do all of the good things. I have to obey so I can make it into God's love, so that God will love me, so that I can belong."

This is what happens in every single area of our lives. This is what happens with college. This is what happens with work. This is what happens with friend groups. This is what happens with clubs we want to be in. Everybody is like, "Well, just show me you're worthy. Show me your résumé. Show me what you like. Show me what you've done. Impress me." We spend so much of our lives trying to impress, and we think, "Now I have to come to God, and I have to do all the right stuff so that God will love me."

The Bible says God already loves you. The Bible says actually, Jesus already said you can't do it perfectly, so he did it for you. This is the difference between my son wanting to obey me, and if he was like, "Dad, I want to do what you said because I know if I don't, you're going to kick me out of the house." No, no. My son understands that when I ask him to do something, the only thing it would cause in our relationship is for me to call him to something better. He's not getting kicked out of the house.

Jesus is saying, "I'm not telling you to obey to earn your way into the house. I've already done that for you. Come into the house. Then, once you get in here, let me show you a better way." Jesus in his Word has shown us a better way. If you're here today, and you don't know Jesus, I want you to know Jesus is not trying to put burdens on you; he's trying to take burdens off. Jesus is not trying to put handcuffs on you; he's trying to take handcuffs off, and he loves us so much that he gave his life to do it. What great love.

It's he who welcomes us in by faith. Putting our faith in Jesus is how we get into the family. He says, "Let me guide you in the right direction." My prayer is that you would hear God's Word, you would receive it, you would remove the things that block it, and that by God's grace we would respond. Let's pray.

Father, we come before you in Jesus' name. Lord, we thank you for your Word. We thank you for speaking to us, God, and we thank you for speaking to us tonight. God, we pray that even now, you would keep us from anything that would distract us from remembering what you've had to say. God, I pray the conversations we have after this will be conversations that will help us to remember, Lord, and help us to serve and love one another in that.

I pray for my brothers and sisters in the room who maybe feel guilt about not obeying you perfectly, that they would remember that the same place they ran to to connect with you the first time, to have relationship with you, the cross of Jesus, is the same place you call them to now. You call us to freedom. God, we pray that you'd help us to walk in it. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.