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We rob ourselves and diminish the other person with whom we’re conversing if we aren’t fully listening. Listen, listen, and (really!) listen some more before you share your opinion.
Solomon said, “He who states his case first seems right, until his rival comes and cross-examines him” (Proverbs 18:17 AMPC).
And I like this thought from John Maxwell:
“The best way to understand people is to listen. The best way to learn from others is to listen. The best way to receive people’s best contribution is to listen. The best way to learn what others need from you is to listen. The best way to gain people’s buy-in is to listen.” —from John Maxwell’s book High Road Leadership
P.S. After posting this, I came across an article on the Desiring God website called Listen Well to Love Well. She wrote, “Listening is hard work. While our ears automatically welcome sound waves and ship them to our brains, it doesn’t mean we always hear other people. We might even wonder if listening well is worth the effort. … We have a long history with listening that makes it essential to who we are yet difficult to get right. Sarah Clarkson writes, ‘We are by nature a listening people. If we were spoken into being by the Word of God, then at our core we are to be listeners, and to attend to the word that spoke us into life.’”
(1) God allows the humble to know Him more intimately. For though the Lord is high, yet has He respect to the lowly—bringing them into fellowship with Him—but the proud and haughty He knows and recognizes only at a distance (Psalm 138:6).
(2) God gives the humble help to overcome evil. But He gives us more and more grace—power of the Holy Spirit, to meet this evil tendency and all others fully. That is why He says, “God sets Himself against the proud and haughty, but gives grace continually to the lowly (those who are humble enough to receive it)” (James 4:6).
(3) God gives His favor to the humble. …Clothe (apron) yourselves, all of you, with humility—as the garb of a servant, so that its covering cannot possibly be stripped from you…. For God sets Himself against the proud—the insolent, the overbearing, the disdainful, the presumptuous, the boastful—and He opposes, frustrates, and defeats them, but gives grace (favor, blessing) to the humble (1 Peter 5:5).
The bottom line—God mocks proud mockers but shows favor to the humble and oppressed (Proverbs 3:34).
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When I say a rebuke can be loving, let me start off with this reminder: People need to know you truly love them before they will pay attention to a rebuke. If they don’t know you love them and want the best for them, your rebuke will simply make them angry and may create an uncrossable chasm between you.
Nathan was the prophet who confronted David with his sin, saying, “You are the man!” (2 Samuel 12:1-7). Nathan not only took his life into his hands by speaking so boldly against King David, but he risked the lives of his family as well.
Thankfully, David acknowledged his sin, repented, and asked forgiveness (2 Samuel 12:13; Psalm 51:3-12). Instead of being banished, Nathan was honored. In fact, we see Nathan faithfully serving in King David’s inner circle even after the king is dead and King Solomon ascends to the throne.
And then during the reign of King Solomon, two of Nathan’s sons are honored with prestigious positions in Solomon’s court. “Azariah son of Nathan was over the officers; Zabud son of Nathan was priest and the king’s friend and private advisor” (1 Kings 4:5).
Solomon wrote, “He who rebukes a man shall afterward find more favor than he who flatters with the tongue” (Proverbs 28:23).
We must speak the truth in love. Not so that we are rewarded here (because that may or may not happen), but because God has called us to this. And He keeps perfect records so that we will be rewarded in Heaven.
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Even with the Voice of the Holy Spirit in our ear and the Mind of God giving us insight, we still “miss it” sometimes. Maybe it’s fear or impatience or immaturity, but we try something on our own and the results are painful.
I like the maxim, “Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn.” It’s true, but in order to learn I need a proper lens or a wise tutor to help discover those lessons from my experiences. This is what the Holy Spirit does for us: He helps us make senses of our “misses.” Otherwise, if I don’t learn from these painful experiences I will become either arrogant and God opposes this kind of pride (Proverbs 14:7; James 4:6a), or I remain ignorant (Proverbs 15:32; James 4:6b).
Peter heard from Jesus that the baptism of the Holy Spirit was intended to empower the Christians to take the Good News of Jesus to all people—including Gentiles. Peter struggled with this part, as would all good Jews. In their minds, Gentiles weren’t eligible for the blessings of God, especially not the gift of eternal life which would allow them to be in God’s presence forever!
Before we look at Peter, we need to remember what was happening with Saul/Paul at the same time. Saul met Jesus (Acts 9:3-15), and he then went to Jerusalem (vv. 26-28; Galatians 1:13-19).
Now let’s go back to Peter. He had just seen a vision from God and heard the Voice of the Spirit (Acts 10:9-16, 19-20). In obedience to this Voice, he went to Cornelius’ house and was given the Mind of God to preach to them. These Gentiles not only accepted Jesus as their Savior but were baptized in the Holy Spirit (vv. 44-48).
Now let’s switch back to Paul for a moment. Antioch became the home base for Paul and Barnabas (where the believers were first called Christians), and apparently there was a large Gentile population there. At one point, Peter came to visit and struggled with whether or not the Gentile Christians must then convert to Judaism. Peter was struggling with obedience to the vision that God had shown him, his disobedience was beginning to affect others (including Barnabas), and Paul called Peter out on this (Galatians 2:1, 7-14).
Back in Jerusalem, the Jewish Christians were insisting that the Gentile Christians become Jews. It was this controversy that prompted the Jerusalem Council. At this Council, Peter responded like one who had throughly learned a lesson from his previous “miss” (Acts 15:5-11).
I like this verse in the Amplified Bible, particularly one phrase: I will praise and give thanks to You with uprightness of heart when I learn by sanctified experiences Your righteous judgments (Psalm 119:7 AMPC).
Sanctified experiences. A “miss” that the Holy Spirit uses to teach us. The “miss” has been sanctified to become a learning experience. This is what Jesus said the Spirit of Truth would do for us (John 16:13).
There are things we simply experience, and then there are “sanctified experiences” where the Holy Spirit teaches us an invaluable lesson. These sanctified experiences are what the Holy Spirit uses to bring our thought and conduct into alignment with the perfect standard of God’s Word.
The Holy Spirit never condemns us for our missteps (Romans 8:1), but uses them for God’s glory (v. 28).
Just as Paul had to help Peter learn to pay attention to the Voice of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit wants to make us learner-teachers as well. In Psalm 119:7 the Hebrew word for “learn” is lamad which is also the word for “teach.” In other words, I’ve learned it well enough to teach it to another person. Even David with his sinful behavior—a really big “miss”—learned from the lesson from the Spirit of God so well that he could teach others (Psalm 51:10-13).
Spirit-baptized Christians can lean into the Spirit of Truth to help them learn sanctified experiences from even the difficult things that have happened to them.
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After God created Adam, He said, “It’s not good for you to be alone.” That’s just as true today: God didn’t intend for us to journey on our own, but He gives us companions along the way.
Last week we saw that God has to sometimes cause us grief to get our attention when we are straying from His path. He sometimes puts people in our lives to do the same thing.
There’s a reason God puts the people in our lives that He does. We are called to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). But that sometimes means people will get upset with us (Galatians 4:16). “Real friends hurt each other. … Truth is the primary way faithful friends should wound each other—it is the help that hurts.” —Dick Brogden
The Corinthians thought they were super-spiritual, but Paul had to call them out on their foolishness (1 Corinthians 3:3; 5:1-2). Before Pauls’ letter, the Corinthians seemed happy. His letter caused them grief, but it was good grief that led to repentance and true joy (2 Corinthians 7:8-10).
To keep silent when a brother or sister is straying is not God-honoring. We are not to be the sin police, but we are to address sinful issues (James 5:19-20).
As King David flirted with the idea of how he could get something that he thought would make him happy, an anonymous attendant tried to get his attention. David ignored this and then tried to sweep it under the rug. In fact, he thought he got away with his sin (2 Samuel 11:1–12:7).
But God sent Nathan to speak a hard word to David. We don’t know when Psalm 141 was written, but we know that David did write it. Perhaps it was penned at the time of Nathan’s loving confrontation. He said, “Let a righteous man strike me—that is a kindness; let him rebuke me—that is oil on my head” (Psalm 141:5).
We do know that David wrote Psalm 51 after Nathan’s loving hard word, and in this prayer we see David’s confession, repentance, and a request for God’s joy to replace David’s grief.
So how do New Testament-era Christians use good grief to help fellow saints?
Examine yourself first (Matthew 7:1-5). Make sure you aren’t plagued by the same sin you have noticed in a brother or sister.
Cry before you confront, just as the prophet Samuel did before he had to deliver a hard word to King Saul (1 Samuel 15:10-11).
Confront in love with the goal of restoration, but make sure you are confronting someone who know you love them and who will receive your loving word(Proverbs 27:5; 9:8).
Pray that their grief will be turned to joy (Luke 22:31-32; Galatians 6:1; Psalm 51:12).
Friendships with fellow saints are precious and they are vital. We need iron to sharpen iron (Proverbs 27:17) so that we will all stand before the throne together for eternity.
Hey, leaders, let me ask you a simple question: Is your workplace a safe place for people to make mistakes? It should be or else we will be limiting the potential of both our teammates and our whole organization. Greg and I unpack this in greater detail in this episode.
“You yearn for a simplified lifestyle, so that your communication with Me can be uninterrupted. But I challenge you to relinquish the fantasy of an uncluttered world. Accept each day just as it comes, and find Me in the midst of it all. … Remember that your ultimate goal is not to control or fix everything around you; it is to keep communing with Me. A successful day is one in which you have stayed in touch with Me, even if many things remain undone at the end of the day. Do not let your to-do list (written or mental) become an idol directing your life. Instead, ask My Spirit to guide you moment by moment.” —Sarah Young, Jesus Calling [1 Thessalonians 5:17; Proverbs 3:6]
“God is God, and since He is God, He is worthy of my worship and my service. I will find rest nowhere else but in His will, and that will is necessarily infinitely, immeasurably, unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what He is up to.” —Elizabeth Elliot
“If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.” —Booker T. Washington
Pornography adversely effects the viewer’s brain, leading to a growing list of physical and emotional problems. Check out this post from Fight The New Drug, in which they report, “No matter what you believe about porn, ‘what is undeniable is that we’re consuming far more of it than at any point in human history, and the effects of this are yet to fully register.’”
I have always loved the fact of God’s laughter—the perfect joy He has must be expressed in perfect laughter! David Mathis writes about the encouragement in God’s laugh: “One way to enjoy the smile of our fiercely happy Father is to tune your ears to the wonders of His laughter.”
Scientists took a cubic millimeter of a mouse’s brain and mapped out the neurons and connections. The result is astounding! In Nature, they wrote, “A cubic millimetre might not sound like much—roughly the size of a grain of sand—but to neuroscientists, it is enormous. One cubic millimetre of a mammalian brain contains tens of thousands of neurons with hundreds of millions of connections, or synapses, between them.” Can you imagine what the human brain is like?! How amazing is our Creator!
“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.” —G.K. Chesterton
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You may have noticed that the intensity of the pain of these sheep bites has been escalating—from flattery, to criticism, to gossip. Now we come to probably the most painful of bites: slander. This is the bite that will have the strongest pull toward the natural response, which will require our greatest reliance on the Holy Spirit to respond supernaturally.
Remember that gossip has a veneer of truth on it; slander has no truth at all. They are outright lies. They are flimsy lies. They are malicious lies. One of the Hebrew words translated slander means scandal-monger: someone who trades in lies (Jeremiah 6:28 NLT; Leviticus 19:16).
The natural response to slander is, “I have to respond to them!” The supernatural response to slander is, “I have to yield to God!”
The natural response, however, is fueled by my wounded pride. On the other hand, the supernatural response is fueled by humility toward God.
Slanderers are arrogant people too (remember Jeremiah said “they are as hard as bronze and iron” [Jeremiah 6:28]). God’s people are learning to humble themselves to wait for God (Psalm 38:12-15). These humble people are the ones who get God’s help, and not His laughter (James 4:6; Proverbs 3:34 NLT).
Look at how Jesus dealt with the very natural urge to respond to those who slandered Him. After Jesus was arrested by the temple guards, He was hauled before one group after another and each time the slanderous lies were spitefully spit at Him. In front of the Sanhedrin, before Roman governor Pontius Pilate, and in the throne room of King Herod Antipas, angry men unleashed their venomous claims—none of which were true.
There are two common themes we can notice in all of these settings.
The lies were seen for what they were: complete fabrications without any truth behind them—Mark 14:55. Governor Pilate said “I find no basis for a charge against Him” (Luke 23:4), and he added, “Herod came to the same conclusion and sent Him back to us” (v. 15).
The silence of Jesus: “Jesus remained silent and gave no answer” (Matthew 27:13-14; Mark 14:61, 15:5). The only red letters in this interaction with both the Sanhedrin and Pilate are when Jesus is asked a direct question. Jesus quickly answers the questions, “Are You the Messiah,” “Are You a King,” and “Don’t You know the power I have?” (Mark 14:61, 15:2; John 19:10), but He never responds to the slander.
Let me repeat: Our supernatural response can only come from yielding to the Holy Spirit’s influence.
We cannot treat slanderers as anything less than people created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27; Psalm 15:1, 3).
We must take our pain into God’s presence. This is what Jesus did (1 Peter 2:21-23). We can help ourselves by praying imprecatory prayers. These are words for God’s ears only (Jude 1:9; Psalm 58:6-8).
We have to learn to pray for our slanderers. We have to mature from praying against them to praying for them. Look at how Jesus interceded for His slanderers (Luke 23:34), which He calls us to as well (Luke 6:28).
We have to live as overcomers. We overcome by NOT responding to slander in the natural way (Romans 12:21). But we allow our supernatural response to be used as a powerful testimony (2 Corinthians 6:3-10; Colossians 3:1-2, 8, 12-14).
We can do this—the Holy Spirit is empowering us to do this. Let’s not get down in the mud with those who slander us, but let’s yield to God and allow Him to handle this painful situation far better than we ever could.
If you’ve missed any of the messages in this series, you can find them all here. And if you are a pastor, please check out my book When Sheep Bite, which will help you both respond to sheep bites and teach others how to respond as well.
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A bite we have all experienced is gossip. We called flattery the sneaky bite, but I think gossips believe they are actually being sneaky—that somehow they are getting away with their gossip.I think gossip is also sneaky because we can be pulled into a gossipy conversation almost without realizing what is happening.
That’s because gossip usually has a veneer of truth on it. That thin coating of truth may be sugary sweet, but the words hide a bitter poison that is intended to undermine the one that is being talked about. Twice Solomon says, “The words of a gossip are like choice morsels” (Proverbs 18:8, 26:22). The Contemporary English Version translates this verse even more graphically: “There’s nothing so delicious as the taste of gossip! It melts in your mouth.” But Solomon also warns, “A perverse person stirs up conflict, and a gossip separates close friends” (Proverbs 16:28).
Moses had married a Cushite woman, a marriage that was neither morally nor legally wrong. If someone simply said, “Moses married a woman from Cush” they would have been speaking the truth. The gossips (Miriam and Aaron) want to use a truthful statement for the purpose of making a case to prove their point. These siblings crossed the line when they stopped talking about the idea and start talking about Moses. This is especially true when their conversation about Moses was to make him look inferior or to make themselves look superior.
I think a label that is very apropos for this is “character assassination.” An assassin gets close enough to strike, but also has an alibi to cover themselves. So, too, the gossip can inject their poison to denigrate someone’s character, but then use the alibi of saying, “What? Did I say something untruthful?”
There is truth in their questions that God has used all three of them to delver messages and to sing worship songs, but in light of their statement in verse 1 they are clearly asking these questions with poisonous intent. You can especially spot gossip by this characteristic sign: They talk about a person, but they won’t talk to that person. We are not told to whom Miriam and Aaron may have been speaking to in verse 2, but it certainly wasn’t Moses. That means they were trying to get other people to rally to their side.
When we have been the target of a gossip’s words, we should follow the example that Moses gave us.
Remember that God has heard the gossip (Numbers 12:2b, 4-8).
Check your pride (v. 3). If you feel you must address the gossip, you must address the topic without attacking the gossiper (see Romans 12:17-18).
Be careful of who you are correcting. It’s best to let God do the correcting (Numbers 12:8-9), but if do need to speak to the person, be cautious of adding fuel to the fire (Proverbs 9:7-9).
Desire restoration. Moses interceded for Miriam’s healing (Numbers 12:13), and Jesus has the idea of restoration and unity in the Church in mind in Matthew 18:15-16.
Stay away from the unrepentant gossiper. If the gossiper doesn’t acknowledge their sin, we have to limit our interaction with that sheep (Matthew 18:17) . After Miriam was healed of her leprosy, there is no other mention of her until she died which is probably an indication that Moses didn’t have any additional conversations with her. Paul gave Timothy similar counsel about Alexander (1 Timothy 1:19-20; 2 Timothy 4:14-15).
The natural response to gossip spoken about you is fight or flight. The supernatural response is faithfulness to the Bible’s counsel about a gossiper.
And one final word to all of us: Don’t become a gossip yourself!
Just as God hears those gossiping about you, He hears you gossiping about others!
Don’t…
…talk about people who aren’t in the room. Remember the Golden Rule of treating others the way you want to be treated (Luke 6:31).
…share information that isn’t yours to share (Proverbs 25:9).
…listen to a gossip. If they gossip to you about others, they will gossip about you to others!
Gossip, as Solomon warned us, separates even the closest of friends. We must identify it and deal with both the gossip and the gossiper in a God-honoring, biblically-sound way. And we must avoid becoming a gossip ourselves.
If you’ve missed any of the other sheep bites we’ve talked about in this series, you can find them all by clicking here. And if you are a pastor, check out my book When Sheep Bite, where I address the bites of sheep from a leadership paradigm.
When swelling and pride come, then emptiness and shame come also, but with the humble (those who are lowly, who have been pruned or chiseled by trial, and renounce self) are skillful and godly Wisdom and soundness. (Proverbs 11:2 AMPC)
The pruning, trials, and discipline the Lord allows us to experience are for an important purpose: To allow ourselves to be emptied of ourselves. This humility that empties us of ourselves makes room for us to be full of the presence of God.
On the other hand, remaining full of yourself—also called “pride”—will also bring an emptiness. But this emptiness comes with shame and is absent of God’s fulfilling presence.
You and I must choose one or the other: humility before God or pride in ourselves.
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Do you know this pair of cantankerous men from the Muppets? Statler and Waldorf sit in the balcony of the theatre and criticize everything that is happening on the stage. I mean everything! They have a good laugh at their barbs, but no one on the stage seems to find it humorous.
Have you ever met people like this? How do you typically respond to their criticism?
Unfortunately, those who are trying to do the right thing are often the targets of almost constant criticism. Abraham Lincoln said, “If I were to attempt to answer all the criticisms and complaints I receive, I would have no time for any other business.”
President Lincoln was a great leader but he wasn’t without fault, so to certain extent we could expect a little bit of criticism from people who didn’t like his policies. But what about Jesus? It was prophesied about Him that He would be the target of criticism (Isaiah 53:3).
Those out to get Jesus even criticized those who attended to Him. In Mark 14:1-5, they are criticizing a woman who poured perfume on Jesus out of her sincere desire to honor Him. Yet they spoke about her and her actions “indignantly” (v. 4), and they rebuked and criticized her (v. 5). The Greek word in this verse literally means he snorting of horses!
Jesus stepped in to protect this God-fearing woman, “Why are you bothering her? Why are you criticizing this beautiful thing she had done for Me?”
Notice that Jesus responded to the critics, but the woman did not respond. Does that mean that we never answer critics? Are we supposed to ignore them?
First, let’s go back in time to the origin of the words critic and criticism. These words originally meant someone capable of giving a meaningful—perhaps even constructive or helpful—judgment. Think of a trained and skilled chef critiquing your recipe, as opposed to someone who cannot tell the difference between nutmeg and ginger.
The natural response is to ignore all criticism. The supernatural response is prayerfully evaluate criticism. Solomon says there is such a thing as valid criticism (Proverbs 25:12).
So who is a valid critic?
(1) Someone who loves me (Proverbs 27:17; Ephesians 4:15). Paul loved Peter and respected his leadership role in the church, but he still criticized Peter when he messed up (Galatians 2:9, 11).
(2) Someone who has experience or godly wisdom that we don’t yet have (Ecclesiastes 7:5). Micaiah had a word from God, even though King Ahab thought Micaiah simply didn’t like him (1 Kings 22:1-18).
(3) Someone who wants to hurt me. Really!? Dick Brogden wrote, “The Lord uses critics to show us our own hearts, even if what they say is not fully true, informed, or even fair. There is almost always a germ of truth in what our critics (in their own pain and disappointment) shout at us. The wise [person] will humble himself and look for the truth embedded in every oppositional interaction.” As we saw previously from Psalm 26:2, when we hear words of criticism, we need to make it a matter of prayer.
Jesus told the woman’s critics to “leave her alone” but He never defended Himself against the childish barbs (Isaiah 53:7; Matthew 27:13-14). I think we would do well to follow His example. So when criticized, take a deep breath, smile, hear them out, ask clarifying questions, and then say, “Thank you for sharing that with me. I’ll make this a matter of prayer.”
They might accuse you, but you should turn it over to God (Psalm 109:4).
The natural response is to respond all critics. The supernatural response is to respond like Jesus (see 1 Peter 2:21-23).
Remember that quote from Abraham Lincoln we saw earlier? Here’s the rest of his quote—
“From day to day I do the best I can and will continue to do so till the end. If in the end I come out all right, then the complaints and criticisms and what is said against me will make no difference. But, if the end brings me out wrong, then ten angels coming down from heaven to swear I was right would still make no difference.”
Ultimately, we are longing to hear Jesus say, “Well done.” If He cannot say that to us, does it really matter if everyone else praised us? But if Jesus says, “Well cone,” does it really matter the criticism others said about us?
Let’s ask the Holy Spirit to help us respond supernaturally to our critics—listen prayerfully to ever critic, but only respond to them as Jesus did.
If you have missed any of the other messages in this series When Sheep Bite Sheep, you can find them all here. And if you’re a pastor, be sure to check out my book When Sheep Bite.
Craig T. Owens 