My beloved brothers, understand this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger,So, then, my beloved brothers, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger;Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:Ye know this, my beloved brethren. But let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:
7 sermons cite this verse
… is the next verse. James chapter 1 verse 19. It's up here on the screen. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. If every married couple followed that verse, 95% of all the arguments wouldn't happen. Usually we're quick to speak and we're slow to listen and then we're fast to anger. Now if you do the first two, the third is automatic. If you are quick to listen and if you are slow to speak, you will be slow to get angry. That's a choice. It's not an easy choice. It's not a convenient choice. But that's a loving choice. It's an unselfish choice. And if you want to have a love that lasts forever, you've got to learn how to be quick to listen and slow to speak instead of anger. Now, if you want a love that lasts, you can't hold on to those angers. You can't hold on to your hurts. A lot of people, when they get hurt in a relationship, they stockpile them for ammunition. …
… so we're not even listening to what the other person says. So God gives us an antidote, James 1.19. Notice it says, well, let's read it aloud. Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. Now, if you do the first two parts of that sentence, the third one's automatic. If you are quick to listen, and if you are slow to speak, you will be automatically slow to get angry, and it will keep your marriage going and growing. You must keep on paying attention. Tom's going to talk about the next one. There's a second thing that you can do to keep your marriage growing and that is keep on making adjustments. Keep on making adjustments because over the years you're going to face lots of opportunities to make adjustments. Things are going to change. Your kids are going to grow up if you have kids. You're going to find yourself moving from time to time. Job changes, even illnesses, force us to make adjustments. …
… And the other is from James 119, and I'd love for us to say it together. Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to grow angry. Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to grow angry. I remind you that God gave you two ears and one mouth in direct proportion to how much God wants you to use those instruments. And an amazing thing happens when we stop and we listen to people, and we don't try to formulate our argument against what they have to say before we respond, and we respond half as much as we listen, and we're careful not to get angry, as we find that people come together, as opposed to building walls, we build bridges. And that's my hope and prayer for us as a congregation. John Wesley said this. just before his, well, at a period of time where there was great conflict in England, he says, though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike. May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion, without all doubt we may. I think we have a couple of choices. …
… us really specific insight as to how we work through conflict. James tells us this. He tells us in James 1.19. He says, everyone should be quick to listen and slow to speak. It's funny how we're actually often the opposite, right? We're slow to listen and quick to speak. No, the Bible says we should be quick to listen and slow to speak and slow to become angry. Quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. Quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry because human anger doesn't produce the righteousness that God desires. If you find yourself tempted to be critical, you're criticizing your spouse. If you're criticizing your roommate, your friends all the time, We tend to often criticize when we have a weak self-esteem. Be careful for that. If you find yourself critical and you're about to say something that you know could be hurtful, ask yourself two questions. And I do this a lot now. …
… And listening is far too difficult. James 1.19 is for us too. not just our people. let everyone, every pastor, be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. So who do the pastors need to hear? Well, obviously, we need to hear from God. We talked about that. We focused on that. We hear from him in his word. We want to be sensitive to his prompting by his indwelling Holy Spirit. That's word plus spirit. We need to hear each other as fellow pastors until we have some kind of overwhelming sense to the contrary. Consider that our brother in good standing has something worth saying when he speaks. This is especially important for us pastors. It cuts both ways in this room, I'm sure. I'm sure there's some guys here who have a difficult time listening in elder meetings. And there's other guys in the room who have a difficult time speaking up in elder meetings. For those most inclined to talk. do you ever have any moments in a pastor's meeting where you have something to say, but you enjoy listening to the other guys say it? …
… it says this so then my beloved brethren let every man be swift to hear slow to speak slow to wrath for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Ooh, that's such a powerful verse right there. Let every man be swift to hear quick to listen quick to be all ears quick to receive and understand make an effort to understand swift to hear slow to speak slow to wrath because the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. You're fussing, you're arguing, you're preaching, you're responding, your mouth doesn't make a person do right. Amen. Amen. Amen. My challenge today is to challenge you to listen to the person's problems or challenges. Listen. You don't have to give them an answer. See, the church people, they want to give answers. We want to tell people what to do. Your marriage ain't working here. You done been through three marriages, and you're trying to tell somebody else how to fix their one marriage. …
… what a Christian does is they don't post anything. They don't respond. Silence is sometimes the best thing that we can do. Or we remember the words of James, be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger. Okay, listen, we're in a toxic culture right now. You know how cultures change? They change through people who intentionally decide to change the culture by the way they live, the way they talk, by their values. And John has the key for us in changing the culture. So I want us to say together once more these words. Would you say them out loud with me? Dear friends, let's love each other because love is from God and everyone who loves is born from God and knows God. The person who doesn't love does not know God because God is love. Let's pray. Lord, help us to live these words. Help us to love one another, knowing that love is from you. Help us to remember that you are love and that we can't possibly say that we love you if we don't love our neighbors. Help us in our social media, in our conversations, in the way that we live, to love people who see things differently than we do, to be able to disagree agreeably. …