The Art of Listening: Deepening Relationships with God

Devotional

Sermon Summary

Sermon Clips

"So we're talking again about listening to him, and there is an art to listening, and there are four key parts to the art of listening. If you want to be a better listener, I know I do. I work on it each and every day in each conversation that I have. But if you think about it, the first part is active listening. Harvard studies talk about this emotional attunement. You have to be in tune with those people that you are actually having a conversation with. You're paying attention. There's verbal and there's nonverbal responses that are going on. There's eye contact that needs to be made, body language you need to figure out, but there's clarifying questions. There's repeating back what you've heard, and you want that to be clarified." [00:40:57] (49 seconds)


"Effective listeners also interpret tone and your emotions that you are dealing with, but also you see in the person that you're talking with. Then the second thing is the role of silence. And we don't often think, well, silence, I mean, we're having a conversation with somebody, but it's listening. It's not just having a conversation. And research finds that leaders who actually practice intentional silence, that actually fosters trust and engagement and better decisions." [00:41:45] (38 seconds)

"Our brain plays a huge part in this listening. Neuroscientists suggest that people who are truly listening, something happens with our brain waves, with the person that we're listening to, and it almost synchronizes our brain waves. It's called neurocoupling. And it's not easy to do, of course, when you're in a conversation that has a lot of emotion or conflict with it, because those things seem to, emotions seem to take over. But it's essential to building harmony and unity when you have these conversations, the brain role." [00:42:38] (40 seconds)


"And when we actually connect with love and we listen with love, we are also doing the Christ-like thing. These are biblical principles that are playing out in our own life. So think about it. Are you a good listener? Are you a good listener? So holy and godly listening is not just with ears, it's with our hearts as well. Remember what it said in Luke 9 and the Mount of Transfiguration? God speaks and he doesn't speak much audibly, but he says, this is my son, my chosen one. Listen to him." [00:44:40] (45 seconds)


"Now listening is key to our relationships as we were talking about. If you're in a relationship, you should be able to ask for the things that you need, that you really, that kind of bring fullness to your life. Things that would deepen your relationship. Things that you need from another person. And that fosters love and intimacy in your life. And a relationship is about mutual access as well. There's this trust and reciprocation that happens in relationships. And if you value a person, a relationship, you will welcome the asking. You will welcome the questioning. You will welcome the seeking." [00:45:28] (46 seconds)


"Now, prayer is about a relationship with you and God. If you see it differently, I want to challenge us that Jesus is actually going to challenge and refocus us. And I want to refocus us a little this morning for that too. We're going to align ourselves with where Jesus is going. It's not a series of petitions, and we often think it's just a series of petitions. It's not using magical, ritualistic words. That's not what prayer is." [00:47:48] (29 seconds)


"And Jesus turns the focus of prayer, now hear me on this, from you listening to God listening. That's what he does. He's like, he just taught in verse one through four. You know, it's your, you know, God, your will be done. Tell me what your will is. You know, I need to live in your will. But then we move to the focus of God is listening. This is relational. Prayer is relational. It's just not, again, petitions or some sort of magical, ritualistic words." [00:48:23] (36 seconds)


"So here's Jesus gives threefold invitation, really simple steps to deepening our relationship with the heavenly father. We think, oh, it's just about prayer. It's about getting stuff. That's not it. It's about deepening our relationship. And so he says, ask, right? Then he says, seek. And then he says, knock. And each of these movements, I want you to think about ask, seek, and knock. Each of those progress in intensity. Each of them have this relational depth to them." [00:50:41] (37 seconds)


"In the culture of the ancient Middle East, not only are you worried about, like, doing your duty for hospitality, okay, but making a request in a shameless, persistent, audacious manner would be very socially inappropriate altogether. And Jesus says, be inappropriate. Jesus holds this thing that people would say is culturally inappropriate and socially inappropriate, and he holds it out as a model of prayer. Huh, that's pretty cool." [00:52:54] (39 seconds)


"Yet, you have humble confidence in this, in this appeal of authority, knowing that you're asking something of someone that has greater authority than you. It's like a child asking a father what they need. They need something, but they know that they're asking of their father, and their father has a particular authority over them. So, how does this tie into prayer? Well, prayer is not transactional, but relational. And prayer is relational. It's not transactional. I mean, God wants to converse with us. It's not empty rituals. It's not shouting into the darkness where our prayers return void." [00:53:46] (45 seconds)

"Seek means to search for, strive after crave. Actually, you can use crave in this moment. We're craving something. It's not just hope. I hope this, you know, I've asked, now give this to me. No, this is an active searching. This is an active seeking. It's not just seeking of an object or an answer either. It's actually seeking God himself. We sing about it. Kimberly sang about beautifully in our special today." [00:56:31] (32 seconds)


"God doesn't want to keep his children on the outside. I mean, why would he do that? He does it. God will open the door. He delights in opening the door. That's human sort of theology or picture of God where it's like, well, if you just do it, just do it right. If you just do it right, then I'm going to open the door. And those people don't do it right, so God doesn't want to open the door for them. I mean, that's not, Jesus is like, listen, I am the door. He says, I am the gate. And I'm going to grant full access to God." [01:02:43] (40 seconds)


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