I have two observations to make about effective communication. The first observation is that it is always the other person who is not listening!  Two people are talking and a misunderstanding happens and it is a very rare day in heaven when one person says to another, “I am not listening to you.”  The phrase is always, “You are not listening to me.”  In the realm of our feelings, it is always the other person who is not listening.

I remember my small high school debate experience. We were given a topic for debate and told that we must prepare so that on the day of the debate we would be able to debate either side of the issue. I think that I or somebody else said, “But I do not believe both sides and I only want to debate the side that I believe.”  And the coach’s reply was something like this; “You earn the right to disagree when you can repeat the other side’s argument to his or her satisfaction.” When you have fully understood the other person’s point of view, then you have earned the right to disagree.

How hard, how hard, how hard it is to listen to someone with whom you disagree until you fully understand. How hard, how hard, how hard it is to listen to the other person, especially in times of disagreement.

I have a little joke about life in my house. The truth is that I have lost a little of my hearing over the years and I will sometimes miss what my wife is saying. So I will misunderstand and reply to what I thought that she was saying – perfect recipe for argument. The truth is that we sometimes fight about things that neither one of us has said.

The hard truth is that that happens among people whose physical hearing is perfect but whose emotional and spiritual capacity to listen is restricted, and that is most of us.  Genuine listening is really hard.

I remember a portion of a lecture in my first seminary preaching class. The professor was remembering a preacher of an earlier generation of whom it was said, “He knows exactly what is it like to be me.” I wish that I could remember the old preacher’s name but I have always remembered the compliment and it has served as one of my ideals for ministry; he knows what it is like to be me.

How did he know? He listened to the people around him. He took himself out of his own skin. He walked away from his own fears and ambitions. He put himself aside for a short time and he simply paid attention to the people in his midst.

To do that requires enormous faith and confidence. We are, almost always, afraid that if we set ourselves aside for a time that we will lose ourselves. We are afraid that we will be ignored or pushed aside or that our point of view will be forever lost so we want to go on the attack or assume a defensive posture. It takes faith and courage and a ton of love to set yourself, your fears and ambitions aside for a time and listen to another, but that is what that old preacher did. It is the only way that he could know what it is like to be another person.

However, Jesus did say that the second great commandment is that we love our neighbors as we love ourselves and the only way to love our neighbor is to pay attention, to listen, to forget ourselves for a time and enter into his or her life. That is what love is all about, is it not, paying attention, listening, entering into his or her life? 

I am coming to the Gospel. God is, in this very moment, paying attention to you. God is listening to your heart. God knows exactly what it is like to be you. That is what the Gospel of Jesus Christ is all about.

God became one of us. God, in Jesus, took the form of a human being and experienced everything that human beings experience. He experienced our physical needs and realities. He experienced every emotion known to humanity. He participated in our spirituality.

God knows what it is like to be human. God knows what it is like to be you. God is paying attention to you and listening to you even as we speak in this very place.

Now, the question is, are you paying attention to God?  In one way or another, this is the story of every believer who has discovered the grace of God in Jesus Christ. The details are as unique as every person but the outline is invariably the same. Let’s see if it fits you.

First, somebody told us that God loves us, that God is paying attention to us, that God wants nothing other than the salvation or the eternal well being of each of us. Somewhere, we heard that God loves us in the most unconditional way possible. God knows exactly what it is like to be me and God wants me to be spiritually whole, now and forever.

Somewhere, I came to realize that my problem was not that God is not paying attention to me but that I am not paying attention to God. The root sin of all other sins is ignoring God or placing something else in the place that God should occupy in my life. The theological word for that is idolatry. Something else or somebody else takes the place of God in my life and I simply ignore God.

For what it is worth, ignoring God, idolatry, is the cause of every other sin: dishonesty, hatred, greed, sexual immorality – every sinful behavior is rooted in the refusal to pay attention to God.

Because we have pushed God out of the place that belongs to God in our lives, life seemed to be “out of sync.” Things seemed to be a little wrong, or maybe a lot wrong. Like thirsty people without water or hungry people without food, we were a spiritual people without the Spirit of God and a basic wrongness in life began to impose itself on us.

Somebody introduced us to Jesus. When you follow Jesus you learn two things. First you learn how it is to live when you know that God is listening to you, when God loves you completely. Living with that assurance changes everything – everything.

Secondly, you want to listen to God, to pay attention to God, to love God and just as knowing that God loves you changes everything so too does loving God and listening to God and following the instruction of God. And the place that we learn that is at the feet of Jesus.

As we follow Jesus and learn his lessons, we will inevitably be led to consider the fact of his death. Why did this good man, this perfect man die?  Did he deserve it? Absolutely not. Why did Jesus die?

The bottom line answer is, “Sin.”  The cause on the day of his death had to do with the sins of the Romans and the temple leaders and the Jewish politicians and more. But if you will look carefully, you will soon see that their sins are our sins too and it was the very sins that we commit that ultimately nailed Jesus to the cross. We were not physically there but the truth is that the same sins that we commit as we ignore were the very sins that nailed Jesus to the cross.

We should be condemned by God for our sins. But from that cross, through the words of Holy Scripture, we hear Jesus say to each of us, “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.”  Just as the cross became the ultimate symbol for the destructive power of sin, so too it became the ultimate moment for the salvation of sinners when Jesus said, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” As Jesus suffered for your sin, he made it possible for you to be forgiven, to be saved.

So my story and the story of every Christian is that we are saved by the death of Christ on the cross. We are saved by his pardon. And because he suffered for our sin and prayed for our pardon, he knows exactly what it is like to be you and me.

And just as we are led to the cross, when we follow Jesus we are led to his resurrection and we know that, just as he has forgiven us our sin, he will take us to heaven in due time. When you follow Jesus, Jesus takes you to the heart of God, now and forever more. And that is the gospel!

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, sweetest name I know; Fills my every longing, keeps me singing as I go.

Today, I want to invite you to recommit yourself to the way of Jesus. I invite you to dedicate yourself again to him, to following him straight to the heart of God, now and forever.

Or maybe today, you find yourself feeling that the preacher just described me. I’m not so bad but I have ignored God and the place where God ought to be living in my heart is empty because I have not chosen to pay attention to God.  Today, you can begin to change all of that. I invite you to make a firm decision to follow Jesus. I invite you to ask him to be the lord and savior of your life.

Somebody else may be saying, “You don’t know how bad I am. I am surely a lost cause.”  Well, I know how bad those people were who nailed Jesus to the cross and I know his response to them, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”  If Jesus forgives them, Jesus forgives you! The question is not, what will Jesus do? The question is, will you accept it?

If you are willing to make that decision public, please join me here at the front as we sing this song.