Sermon Central
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Change Your Life Through One Simple Skill
Contributed by Ralph Andrus on Oct 16, 2005 (message contributor)
Summary: Just by listening we can change our lives forever
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Change Your Life Through One Simple Skill
+ Change
- We need to understand that our world is a fast changing world.
- Change is not necessary bad - if fact change is normal
- Change is really a sign of life.
> The medical definition of death is a body that does not change...
>
+ We Change
> During my sermon your body is going to change - about ½ million cells in your body are going to die and be replaced with a half a million new cells during my message.
X
> Our skin replaces itself every month... X
- 70-80% of the dust in your house is dead skin that has flaked off.
>Your stomach lining has a complete change every 5 days X
> Your liver changes every 6 weeks; X
> Your skeleton every 3 months.... X
> Your whole body every 5 years for men & 7 for women X
- Change is natural
- To not change is to die....
+ Our World Has Changed
> The digital watch you have on your wrist contains more computing power than existed in the entire world in 1961.
+
>Your late model car has more computation power to get down the street
> Than all the computers combined in the Apollo 11 space craft that carried Neal Armstrong to the moon.
+ It has been estimated that more information has been generated in the last 30 years than in the previous 5,000 years.
+ Change Your Life Through One Simple Skill
> The most basic of all human needs are food clothing and shelter
> The next most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood.
> The best way to understand is to listen
> If we listen we will change our lives
+ How Is It Simple
> Writing takes 12 years to learn Used 9%
> Reading takes 6-8 yr. To learn Used 16%
> Speaking takes 1-2 years to learn Used 30%
> Listening takes 0-few Hr. To learn Used 45%
>
+ Research On Listening
> We spend about 40% of our waking hours
listening, yet most of the time we’re only listening at 25% efficiency, and that creates many of our problems.
> James 1:19, NIV - "My dear brothers, take
note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry …."
+ Examples of Poor Listening
> Noah - preached 120 years - only 8 saved
> Lot - Cities of Sodom & Gomorrah 4 saved
> Pharaoh - 10 plages - He lost his son
> Have you listened to Christ call?
> Christ is coming again as a thief
> 2 Pet. 3:10 KJV But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up
> Video (Thief in the night)
+ Why Poor Listening Skills?
Four things that will hinder my hearing:
> 1. Ignorance
> I Don’t Know
- Jailer heard Paul & Silas
Acts 16:30–32 ..... Sirs, what must I do to be saved?31 And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.32 And they spake unto him the word of the Lord......
> 2. Disobedience -
> I Don’t Care
- Heard and somewhat religious but never responded to Christ
- John the Baptist Mt. 3:7
Matthew 3:7-8 (KJV) 7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance:
> 3. Unbelief
> I Don’t Believe
- I am good enough OK
- I am not so bad of a sinner
Rom 3:23 KJV For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
John 5:24 KJV "He who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life."
> 4. Procrastination
> I Don’t Have Time
> I Don’t Have Time -------- Sammy’s Big Catch - Sammy was a young boy who lived in the Deep South. His summer days were filled when times of walking through the woods, playing with friends, and fishing in the pond down the road. Fishing was by far his favorite thing to do. Just about every day during his summer vacation, he would dig up some worms and head off, pole in hand, for a day of fishing.
