In his sermon 'Be Hearers of the Word', Justin Meier emphasizes the importance of being attentive listeners, particularly in the context of worship and receiving God's word. Drawing from James 1:16-21, he highlights the biblical directive to be 'swift to hear', 'slow to speak', and 'slow to wrath'. Meier uses the story of Eutychus from Acts 20 to illustrate the consequences of inattentiveness during spiritual teachings. He argues that effective listening is a gift from God and is crucial for personal and spiritual growth. The sermon provides practical advice for improving listening skills, such as making eye contact, reducing visual media exposure, and preparing for worship services. Meier encourages the congregation to engage more in meaningful conversations, both within families and the broader community, to enhance their listening abilities and better receive the teachings of the Word.

It is a joy to be able to be in the house of the Lord. We are exceedingly thankful to be back here at Sovereign Grace. I'm thankful for Brother Dave and his family. I'm also thankful for the church he left was named Sovereign grace Baptist and he came to us over grace Baptist so makes it easier for me appreciate that. Made it easy for me.

Yeah all right. And so. The paycheck is the same you know just all works out. Listen you're talking and taking away my time. Yikes!

All right so we are We are extremely thankful to be here. It is the last time we were here. Daniel and I were fresh off of moving them, helping them move down from Ohio. And so I think we looked pretty spunky on that Lord's Day after a long day of traveling and moving and things. And so it is a joy to be back.

Brother David let me know that you all were really looking forward to having us come. And then I switched jobs and I said I gotta run this by my new boss again. And so he said, well listen, it was pre-existing. I'm not even gonna worry about it. You know, Lord, take care of it.

You'll be able to come. And here we are. I did a little bit of traveling in Florida and working and things of that nature, but we are extremely thankful again to meet some of you for the first time, to see some of you again after it's been so long and we are grateful for that. Very thankful for Brother David, for his family, for our friendship, and for his kindness to me. We've had a, you know, I've been there a couple days.

My family's been there all week, but then last night's fellowship was good, and excuse me, to the church here for your kindness and your hospitality to us and we really do thank you for everything and the banana pudding. And so all of that encompassed in there. It's a great, great blessing. It is a great joy. It has been so good to be in the house of the Lord today and we are thankful that we'll be able to be back tomorrow as well.

We bring you greetings of course from the great state of Ohio OH. Daniel, you are, thank you. You're allowed to talk out loud in church, it's fine brother. And so that was for you brother Barry. That is, that is opposite of go cats or something like that.

Do we allow this? Yeah, but It is a joy to be here and we are grateful. So let's go ahead and get into the message. We'll ask as you're turning, turn over to James chapter one. We would like to ask that you stand as I read the word of God.

We are in James chapter one. I'll read just a few verses beginning in verse 16, excuse me, down through verse 21, James chapter 1 beginning in verse 16. Do not err, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of lives with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Wherefore, lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your souls." We'll stop there and we'll go to the Lord again in a word of prayer. Our most gracious Heavenly Father, we do thank you for your love to us, your mercy, your grace, and your watch care over us. We thank you, our Father, for this day that You have given for each and every one that is here and we ask that You would open up our hearts, ears, and minds.

That we be open and receptive to Thy Word. Heavenly Father, I ask that You be with me this afternoon as I serve and may You give me liberty and ability to present Thy Word in truth and in love. And if there any here today that know you not a Savior, we ask Lord that this would be the day of salvation that they would come to know you in the full pardon and forgiveness of sin. I ask Lord that you would lead us now and guide us. I continue to be with this church and her pastor and the family.

And we ask Father that you forgive us of our sins. And these things we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. So thank you, maybe seated. And so this afternoon, With the time remaining, and I appreciate it, I know it's been a long day, you've had lunch, but brother Larry, he kept your attention, he was down there, now I'll come out to the right and I'll come out to the left, but very rarely do I come down.

So if I come down, that's an anomaly, but he got your attention, he kept you going, and now I just gotta kinda get you there to get you a little bit past that three o'clock time And then that'll be about all so now as you're looking down at your watches you're like, okay That's that's our target though I can go a little bit past three and still be within time But nevertheless this afternoon I'd like to bring to you the subject of be hearers of the word. Be hearers of the word. It says in the beginning part of the text in verse 16 it says every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of lives with whom is no variableness neither shadow of turning. This afternoon really I'm gonna focus your attention on the gift of listening. That's a gift from God, the ability to listen, the ability to hear.

Hearing and speaking are two senses that everyone in this assembly uses every day. Two senses that allow us to hear sounds and communicate with our words. Two senses that I know you would miss if you did not have them. I know you would miss being able to hear and I know you would miss being able to speak. And so as I begin this message I want to begin with a story.

It was an unusual service. It happened on a Sunday. Most of the congregation had worked all day. And after work, they gathered together for a meal. And after eating, a famous preacher, this story's not about me though.

Okay. But after eating, a famous preacher who was in attendance stood up to preach. He had a full belly and a full heart. And there was so much truth that he wanted to convey to the precious group of saints. The preacher began his sermon and he preached and he preached and he preached and he continued to preach until midnight.

No one complained. And the flow of truth coming from this preacher's heart and mind was fascinating and it was thrilling. And the reason he preached so long was because the preacher knew that when morning came he would leave this congregation behind and it's likely he would never see them again and so he preached. Around midnight a young man who was in attendance became weary. Maybe it was the lateness of the hour, maybe he was tired from a long day's work, maybe it was the heat that put him to sleep, but whatever happened, this young man fell asleep.

And since he was sitting in a third floor window, he began to lean out of the window. Now soon gravity took hold and he fell out of the window striking the pavement three stories below. And with a horrified gasp, the congregation poured out of the building to where the broken still form of the young man lies still on the ground. The young man was dead and the people began to weep. They were overwhelmed by the horror and the sadness of the scene before them.

The weeping didn't last long because the preacher soon appeared and like an Old Testament prophet, he stretched out the top of the dead man, and suddenly the man began to have breath. He was alive! Now, no one was sleeping. And with excitement, the congregation re-entered the building and the preacher went back to preaching, and he continued preaching until daylight. Man, what a service.

You might recognize this story. It's Acts chapter 20, isn't it? I'll not now recant it all, but it's Acts chapter 20 verses 7 through 12 and that that service took place in Toraz and the preacher was Paul and the young man who fell asleep and died and was brought back to life was named Eutychus. It's a Bible account. It's not just a story.

This really happened. And the reason you might know of it though, and certainly there was a great miracle involved with, you know, Eutychus falling out of the window and lying there and then coming back, you all are probably thinking, man, he's telling a pretty graphic story here. How horrible, young people falling out of a window and dying. But Eudicus has the infamous distinction of being the first person to fall asleep in church. It's kind of how he was remembered.

Eudicus was the first to fall asleep, but he hasn't been the last, has he? He hasn't been the last. And since the events of that night, I would say that thousands have drifted off into what some would call a holy slumber in the services during the preaching of the Word of God. Over the years I too have seen people drift off in the service. I mean I'm not well I'm preaching you know but I looked around and others have fallen asleep.

Now certainly I think I have a soothing calm voice as you can tell. And so I can understand why people would fall asleep during the services. All right, but they have fallen asleep. And over the years I've seen people do that. Now I'm not necessarily offended by the sleep because sometimes it happens.

Sometimes the business of the week or the busyness of the week just catches up to a person. But however I would say this, that there are certainly times that it's because you stayed up too late that you fell asleep in the services. That's not every time. I understand that. It's not every time, but I would say that sometimes.

We come ready to hear what God had for us today or on the Lord's Day or on Wednesday night or on Saturday. Sometimes even the best of saints fall asleep in church and I confess that I may myself have drifted off a time or two. I'm not bragging on that. That's to my own shame. That's to my own shame.

Because sometimes that flesh just takes over and I'm not making excuses. But I'll say this, sometimes preachers just need to show just a little bit of excitement I mean after all we've been called to preach God's Word we've got to we've got to Sometimes we've got to be stirred up a little bit. I've even heard Brother Dave say, if you can't get excited about how to pulpit, how am I going to get excited in the pew, right? And so I'm not saying that all of us have got to go and spend years studying how to be a public speaker, But if God is calling you to preach, then let me tell you something, you're going to be a public speaker! You're going to speak in public!

And so you've got to learn a little something about that. I recently joined a new company and I'm a training manager. Now, that means that I have to be able to orate. I have to be able to describe to people on how to do a function. In fact, I've enjoyed training a long time in my life.

And so I begin to learn how to speak. Now, I'm not saying that I'm a great speaker so please do not misunderstand me. I have a lot to learn about speaking. And I would definitely say that those that have an accent just have an advantage. What do you think they are?

I mean, well, honestly, he has a little bit of that Tennessee draw, and it just draws you in. People like Alistair Begg or Ken Ham, I mean, they're at an edge. And then you just start listening, because you're like, well, that's such a cool accent. I don't got nothing. I don't have no accent at all.

So I got to learn. I got to raise my voice sometimes. I got to lower my voice sometimes. And as hard as it is, believe it or not, sometimes I listen to myself preach because I gotta hear what you guys are hearing to make sure that I'm doing alright. And you say you put too much thought into it.

No, God called me to preach his word, and as a preacher of God's word, I have to make sure that you understand what is being taught So there is an element that when God calls a man to preach pretty Get it out there So Again, I'm not excusing any type of sleeping, but I know that it happens sometimes. For me now, if I can see that the speaker is genuine when he's saying and all of that, that makes a difference. But sleep can happen for both good and bad reasons. But what concerns me more than all of the fun that I've been having is this. Now watch this.

What concerns me more about the holy slumber that I talked about or even drifting off into sleep is people coming to church with their eyes open but sleeping in their minds. And you and I both know that that happens. James was writing to, you know, James is one of the early books of the New Testament. All you people were in the Old Testament and I was like, man, I have the Old Testament messages, But the Lord gave me this message so I had to preach the New Testament. So maybe tomorrow I'll preach on the Old Testament.

I don't know yet. This is the message that I knew the Lord had me preach today. So James, one of the earliest writers of the New Testament, writing to the twelve saints scattered abroad, they were having some issues. That's what they were doing. They were all doing.

So James was having to teach them here, of course under the inspiration of God. And one of the first things, not the very first thing, there was a lot of lessons actually leading up to these lessons about these gifts that comes from above. But notice what he says. He says again here in verse 19, word for my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear. That means we've got to first open up our ears, we've got to listen.

And so when we come to the house of the Lord, no matter what day it is, we have got to be ready to listen to what the minister has to say from the word of God. But our listening does not stop from the minister. We have got to learn to have conversations again. And by God's grace, we're going to get into that a little bit in this message. We're not good listeners anymore and I'm going to explain that in just a few moments.

So I only have two parts this afternoon. The first part is how we are challenged, which I just kind of gave you that, which will be the swifty here. So number one will be how we're challenged. And then number two is how we are changed, because I like to give you some practical teachings from the Word of God. We need the theology, we need the doctrine, But we need to know what we got to do in order to get better to be better servants of Almighty God So those are the two parts.

I wish to give you this afternoon by God's grace. So how we are challenged All right So this verse issues three specific challenges to God's children related it and to how we should respond to the Word of God. We will only cover the one this afternoon but it covers three. It talks about three. It says that we are to be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.

Live your life that way. You need to listen first and then you still need to be slow when you talk and you need to be super slow to wrath. You know, real slow to that. Let's swift to hear. That's what we're going to deal with.

The phrase swift to hear means to be quick to give attention to someone in order to listen to what they say. I know, it's a confusing definition. Be quick to give attention to someone in order to listen to what they say. The challenge is here for us to be careful listeners and to pay attention to what we hear. You see if we want to increase our knowledge in any area we will only do so when we first learn to listen to those who know more about the subject than we do.

But that takes some pride. We have to get rid of some pride. In order to listen to somebody, you have to pay attention to what they're saying, which means you need to get rid of your preconceived idea of what it is that you're trying to learn in order to learn that new skill. Learn how to make soap. I know how to make soap.

I'm a soap maker, okay? Make fun of me, laugh at me, it's fine. But y'all will use it. So, come out. And now I know how to make it.

But I didn't know anything about making soap. I didn't know how to make soap. So when I went down to Dallas, I had to listen to the one that was training me. You know, I can go in there, I'm the training major, I'm gonna be training major for 30 stores, I don't need to listen to you. I had to listen.

Of course I had to listen. And so no matter what stage of life you are in as a child of God, when you come to the house of the Lord, you need to listen. You need to listen. You need to be swift to hear. As I get a little bit older, I learn to appreciate, and I mean this genuinely, I learn to appreciate those that are older than me in the faith.

I learn to listen. Make eye contact. And genuinely listen. Be swift to hear beloved. So again this is not, I gave a soap application but this is not only true to the word of God but in all areas of life we need to learn to listen to the SMEs which is the subject matter experts.

But most of the time we don't because we think we already know what they're going to say, therefore we don't really listen because we've already formed our own idea and opinion to how the situation will go and how to complete the project. Come on, spouses. How many times have you should have been listening but you were just waiting for your spouse to get finished with what they're saying because you are even what they were gonna say so you really stop listening come on you've done it I've done it we've all done it we're like just get to your point! But listen you're laughing because you're there, you've been there, so you're not being very swift to listen because you already know what the spouse is going to say on either end. You already know what they're going to say.

You already know if they're going to be grumpy. You already know if they're going to be joyful. You already know if they're going to try to bring you out of it. You already know all of those things. And because in your mind you already know all those things, you stop listening.

You stop. You've already formatted your opinion. And you're like, if they would just start talking, I could tell them how to fix it. And so, we're not being very swift to hear. Now, it can happen sometimes, even in the house of the Lord.

Ah, We're opening up to Psalm 23 again. I don't need to listen to this. I heard Psalm 23 for my whole life. Aw man, he's opened up to James. Come on, James.

We've been listening to James ever since Hallelu-Lah. And so we know where they're gonna go, and so we're not very swift to hear. Now don't think you're the only group that ever had a problem with this. James is one of the early New Testament writers. He tells people he's with to hear.

Okay? So you know, and again, I try to help, you know, resonate into our lives so you can, you know, be tangibly, you're like, haha, yeah, boy, well, I'm not his one. No, I try. I mean, I say these things because, again, I want to be a better listener, I want to be a better speaker, I want to be a better communicator. But more than that, I want to be a better child of God, a better husband, and a better father.

That's what I want. God's Word teaches me how to do those things. I gotta listen. Okay? Alright.

So, let me give you another great life lesson here. I thought you would want one. Learning comes by listening. You came all the way to Georgia. Some of you up.

Some of you get in. Am I the only one that's still south? Maybe or north? Lift. Sure.

Don't want to lift. Focus. 19 minutes left. Learning comes by listening. You've heard it.

You've heard it all day. This is especially true when it comes to the Word of God. 2 Timothy 2, 15. I'll just turn over there very quickly. Ooh, as I get closer I get louder.

I didn't realize that till just now. That's kind of cool. Alright. Second Timothy, I'm just trying to keep you listening because I know it's hard. I know.

After lunch. Here we go. Second Timothy chapter 2 and verse 15. It says, study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed rightly dividing the word of truth. We've got to study, you see.

Study, listen, as you read God's word. As I've already mentioned, most people are bad listeners. Just bad listeners. Because we would rather other people listen to what we have to say than for us to have to listen to them. It's just our nature.

We're just, you know, sometimes we're younger and we're like, yeah, we don't want to listen and sometimes we're older like yeah I've already been through that or whatever it may be. Yeah I know more about this subject than you do so you know we just we're bad listeners. We think our experiences are more important, our knowledge is deeper, our wisdom exceeds theirs, and as soon as someone begins to talk about us or what they know, our minds immediately turn to what we know and you know what I'm about to say, if you've been listening, that means we're not listening. We've stopped listening. And while we're, and I've said this, while they were speaking we're thinking about what they're gonna say next and before long we stopped listening and we started lecturing and you're like well that's what you're doing you're preaching to us I know but you knew I would be for 40 minutes So there you go.

But we would much rather talk than listen and we'd rather teach than be taught. And how then did we become such terrible listeners? I mean what happened, right? I would say a large part of the blame lies with the media, right? Movies, television, computer screens, all pump a relentless stream of images into our brains and so we are accustomed to witnessing a constantly changing parade of visual images.

And those images entertain us and we've come to depend upon them to what? Prevent boredom. It's what we've done. I'm not saying that I have. I'll tell you the Meyer household in the wintertime and sometimes we enjoy a movie and things of that nature.

Those that know me know that I have a few favorites, but I'm not saying because the Meyerhausen enjoys a movie that is right. I'm just saying that our brains have become accustomed to not listening because we are so focused on visually stimulating ourselves that we don't know how to have a real conversation. Or we're losing the ability to have a real conversation. I want to say it's totally gone. But it's quickly going away and certainly the listening aspect of it is.

So The result of all of that screen time is, is that we have lost, again, that art of listening. We don't have the ability to concentrate on words alone. We need stimulation. We need something else. We need a screen behind me.

Where's my PowerPoint presentation, right? Where's my little laser pointer? I do like training with a laser pointer. It's fun. But, you know, people come to expect that stimulation, they need the next biggest thing, the next wildest thing.

Again, I'm not excusing not learning how to be a good orator. I'm not excusing not learning how to be a good speaker. I think that God's men ought to be good speakers for sure. But I'm just saying that we cannot rest on the fact whether a man is a good speaker or not to our ability to listen. Because our responsibility is to be swift to hear.

That's what God's word says. Our responsibility is to be swift to hear. That's what God's word says. Our responsibility is to be swift to hear. We must listen.

And so, I am guilty as charged, as I said. We have begun losing the art of having a real conversation. We'd rather text than pick up a phone and make a call. Guilty is charged. But we need to learn to incorporate more fellowship into our lives.

Sister Michelle, Brother Caleb, they drove over four hours this morning to come here. Didn't know they were coming until today. These are some of our dear members, used to be members up there in Ohio and they came this morning. Praise God. That's awesome because they still got you know the four hour trek home.

That's if they don't go to the beach even, you know, which may still happen. Because they're close to general. Okay, David's thinking, I didn't know that was going. Got 14 minutes and I got a whole practical application I need to get out to you. So we've got to learn to incorporate more fellowship into our lives.

We need to learn to do this in our own families first. In families first and then beyond. Put down the screens, turn off the TV and computers and start talking to each other. My family and I, we go into a van quite frequently. We do long trips.

We get to talk. We're just there together, right? We get to talk. It's good. Because you see Satan and our government do not want us talking to one another.

They certainly don't want us listening to each other. They want to feed us with all the information. And our government certainly does not want us thinking for ourselves. Media outlets feed you with the same story so they do their thinking for you. So I want to encourage each of you to limit that, and Brother Lafferty already said that, limit some of that screen time and get in some good quality conversation time and be swift to hear.

Be swift to hear. Teach our young people how to have adult conversations because guess what? They're gonna have to deal with adults and they're gonna have to look them in the eyes. They're going to have to interview with them one day. And we're going to teach them how to have conversations.

Oh, there I go again. That's so cool. I can actually talk quieter. But I won't. All right.

It's important for us to listen to God's word. It's important for us to be in the house of the Lord. Hebrews 10 25, you know that. If nothing else, for three hours on the Lord's day, we're to be off of the screen and we're to be listening if your heart is in the right place. Hebrews 13, 7, and 17.

Let me just read these quickly and then I'll get to that second part of the message. Hebrews chapter 13 verse 7 and 17. It says, remember them which have the rule over you who have spoken unto you the word of God whose faith follow considering the end of their conversation. Verse 17 says obey them that have the rule over you and submit yourselves for they watch for your souls as they must give account that they may do it with joy and not with grief for that is unprofitable for you. Obey them that have the rule over you.

Remember them. Listen. We come to listen and to learn from the man of God. And I know that listening is a dying art. But I know it's important.

In ancient times, people depended on oral communication to teach them what they needed to know. Scripture was taught orally. Family history was taught orally. Human history was taught orally. Educators were obtained through oral communication.

The person who listened is the person who learned. So then secondly, how are we changed? Okay, so that's the challenge. Well there's a three-part challenge, we're only getting to one of them, that is being swift to hear. So number two, how are we changed?

You see again, in our day, listening has become a lost art. We speak billions of words, all right? But most of those words fall on ears who have no capacity to listen. I told you my bigger concern isn't necessarily the person that falls totally asleep at church. My bigger concern is the people that have their eyes awake, but their hearts are closed and their ears are closed and they're not really listening to the word that is being spoken.

Those are the folks, right? Wake up and listen to what God has to say. Listen to what God has to say. Because we speak all of these words and empty eyes and distracted body language, right, that eternal dialogue and their concentration is not on the preacher but again just on what's going on in their own mind prevents them from hearing, prevents them from listening to what others have to say. And because one place this inability is to listen to become, you know, it's a huge problem in the worship services.

The primary means of delivering God's truth is with words. I mean, that's what I'm doing. That's my primary means this afternoon, is I'm delivering to you the word of God with words. Okay? All right, and so I'm delivering it with words, and we're talking about written word and spoken word.

But words have become so tame in our culture to hold our attention. We need to change that tide. God's word needs to and ought to excite us. We ought to be excited about the Word of God. We don't need Pentecostals to be excited.

Baptists get excited about God's Word. Get excited about being in the house of the Lord. Brother Lafferty said, encourage the young people that are dressing right and doing right and being in the house of the Lord. Praise God and get excited and be joyful as he's already talking about. We have the victory.

All right. But you know, again, just mere words. They've lost their luster. And again, unless you have that cool accent, then people just keep listening. But God's word needs to and ought to excite us.

Now because they don't, and that's the reality, because God's word doesn't, as a result, personal devotions suffer. Worship time suffers. Because what we then tend to do is we try to hurry through our Bible reading and we pray our short prayers. And then preaching suffers because people's minds are everywhere but on the Word of God. It's been happening for years.

Beloved, You know what I'm going to say. If we are to grow in the Lord, we must become better listeners. We've got to become better listeners. So, how can this change? How can we do this?

How can we learn to pay more attention to the Word of God when visual images aren't exploding before our eyes. Okay? Here's what you can do. It's a lesson. I'm teaching.

This is what we do as ministers. We teach you the word of God, but if you are interested on me becoming a better listener and hear the word of God, I'm going to give you some practical ways in which to do it. Now what you do is that I can't control. I can't control hiding in my own house, right? I really enjoyed what brother Tate said, you know, while you're in my house you're gonna live to my standards unless your standards are higher than mine.

Then you can live by the... Real close to that. Real close. That was really good. That was it.

That was it, yeah. So, you're gonna have higher standards than mine, but you're gonna at least live to my standards. So I can do that, but I'm gonna give you some techniques, I'm gonna give you some things that you can do, tried and true, not just because Justin wants to hear himself talking, but I'm gonna give you some real practical ways that you can become better listeners. What you do with it is on you. Just like it's on me as I've studied it and preached it and applied to my own life.

Because though I'm preaching them to you, doesn't mean that I have reached perfection on any of them. Now I need you to understand that. It doesn't mean I'm perfect, Adam, but it means I'm going to give you some things that you can do today to help you become a better listener. Because we can learn to pay attention even when cars aren't erupting in flames. We can learn to pay attention even when dramatic music isn't going or swelling eye-popping visuals aren't changing every few seconds.

We can learn to focus our minds on the simple reading and preaching of the word of God. Now a lot of mainstream churches have gone to all of that stuff but by God's grace we have it at Grace Baptist Church in Mount Vernon Ohio and I also have a Grace Missionary Baptist Church here in Port Hed Georgia hasn't And I heard brother Tate say they haven't. So, I know there's a lot of churches that have it. Okay? Alright.

What are we going to do? Here it is. I got 4 tips. 4 things you can do. And yes, we're...

I got 6 minutes to do it. Alright? So, how do we become better listeners? Number one, you must truly work at listening to others. I know, sounds simple, but listening requires an intense interest in the person that is talking.

It requires eye contact and sensitivity to others gestures, moods, and gestures. That means, listen, if you're talking to an adult and you've broken that conversation and a little one comes up to you, but you are more interested because you want to talk to the adult and you ignore that little child shaving you, focus and teach that child, now again if the child's talking about you interrupting you, that's a whole other lesson. You focus and you talk to that child, you teach them that they have your attention. Okay? You teach them that and then you continue to do that throughout your life.

You look somebody in the eye, and you show them that you're listening. Don't zone out, right? Stay focused. This is important, because this is what helps us to be swift to hear as we get into the house of the Lord, as we listen to the ministers, as you do your own personal private devotions because you know that as you're reading God's word, Satan's saying, listen, you get to go fishing, you get to go out to the golf course, you get to go shopping, you get to go here, you get to go there, and all of a sudden you're not even being swift to hear what God is saying in his written words. So you've got to learn to make eye contact.

Number two. Number two. We must limit our exposure to visual media. We've got to learn to limit our exposure to visual media. Not just the news media, but visual stimulation.

Because if we do not control our time with visual simulation, the media and that stimulation will. Okay? Now I'm smart enough to know, right? I'm still kind of cool. That I know that I cannot tell a congregation of any age that you gotta smash your phone.

It's not realistic. But I can tell you, because again, all we're doing when we're looking for that visual simulation is what's next? What's next? What's next? What's next?

What's next? What's next? What's next? Ha ha! Ha ha!

Ha ha! Ha ha! That didn't make me laugh. That did. That did it.

That didn't. That didn't. That didn't. That didn't. I got to keep watching until I laugh again.

That didn't make me laugh. That didn't make me laugh. That didn't make me laugh. Ha ha! I laughed.

Okay. That one was good. I got to watch again. Watch again. Watch again.

I didn't laugh. I didn't laugh. Okay. Right? You're looking.

You're looking. You're looking. Somebody's talking to you. You're like, no, I'm just looking for the laugh. Okay.

You got to learn to limit that visual stimulation if you want to be changed to be swift to hear. That was number two. Number three, you ready? Really, really earth-shattering stuff coming here this afternoon. You ready?

Here it comes. You must read God's Word. That's it! Okay? If you want to learn to be a better listener, you've got to get in the Word.

You've got to get in the Word. That involves more than just advancing the bookmark. Our Bibles come with these really cool bookmarks, right? This little thing here. You got to do more than just advance it.

You know, you've got to read it. You need to understand. You need to do that. You must read God's Word. It means you must listen as you read.

Slow down. Take time. Listen to what God is saying to you. Much more. I mean there's so much more to listening and reading God's word than just the vocal hearing.

But listen, if that helps, but listen. Ha! No pun intended there. If it helps you to read God's word out loud, read it out loud, right? Whatever it takes to stay focused.

But you need to read, that's number three. Number four, to be a better and swifter listener, you've got to prepare for the worship service and the hearing of God's Word. You've got to, excuse me, you've got to prepare for it. So I gave you two tactical ones that work for outside, you know, what works for listening to the Word of God, but also in our professional lives and our career lives and things of that nature right that you know the one about you know cutting out visual media or limiting it excuse me and making eye contact and really showing people that you're listening and that you're talking people can see when you're genuine people can see when you're not they can okay then I'm giving you these tangible ones for getting more swift to hear about the things of the Lord because that's what we really truly need folks we need the things of the Lord so you've got to read God's Word and then you've got to prepare for worship for hearing God's Word now that that needs having before Sunday morning because let me tell you something I know a little bit about Sunday mornings.

Sunday mornings are some of the most stressful times in a person's house. So as much as you can do Saturday night before Sunday morning, get it done until that Sunday morning is all calmer. So that when you come into the house of the Lord, you're not coming out of the bed in an argument and coming to the house of the Lord Sunday morning? You know it, I know it, we know it. Get done as much as you can.

Keep Sunday morning as stress free as possible. I promise you that'll make a difference. Because as I just made a little bit of a joke, but I suspect there are more fights in a Christian household on a sunny morning than any other day Of the week So we must prepare that that doesn't happen Get plenty of rest Get up get ready Start praying. All right, so those are my tips In my last seconds James says that we must be swift to hear. It's a continuous command.

It's not a one-time thing. It's a present tense, active voice, imperative mood, which means we are commanded to keep at all times listening is the first duty of those who would profit by the word of God. I thank you for your attention to the word of God. May God bless his word. Thank you, Brother David.

Yeah, I was under his. Thank you, Brother Justin. Thank you, Brother Justin. And, you know, he's talking about visual media. You can see a lot sitting back here.

You can see everybody up there and you can see the preacher's notes. Brother Justin preaches from notes that are about the size three font. I don't know how you...I looked up at that But anyway, he don't use visual media. He uses size 3 phones. But it's good.

We need to listen. We need to listen to the Word of God. We need to listen to each other. We need to hear what the word of God says for us. And we've certainly heard the word of God preached this day.

So we thank the preachers. We thank Those who have come from near and far, certainly thank the church here for the work that went into this meeting. And so why don't we dismiss with a hymn. Brother Mary, Leah, you come. We'll close out with a hymn.