The Spirit of Our Times

Well, good afternoon, everyone. It's good to be here, good to see all of you here. It's refreshing to look at actual human faces when speaking rather than just at a computer screen, and good to see that everyone's healthy, and I think you're happy.

I can't really see through your masks, but I'll convince myself that you are. You know, sometimes in our modern world we use foreign words for things because we just take on some meaning, and we don't really have an English word to express exactly what it means.

I'd like to start today by talking about one of those words. Has anyone heard the word Zeitgeist? Or English speakers will often refer to it as Zeitgeist. It's spelled Z-E-I-T-G-E-I-S-T. It's a German word originally, and it comes from two words, Zeit and Geist. Zeit means time. Could mean the time on a clock. Could mean time like an era of history. And Geist literally means spirit. And if you look at the Google dictionary, it'll tell you that it refers to the mood, the attitude, or the spirit that defines a period of history, and it's reflected in the ideas and the beliefs of that time.

Now, whether you've heard the word before or not, you could probably identify with it if we use a few examples. So, if I talk, for example, about the Roaring Twenties, probably some images come to mind. The Roaring Twenties, time after World War I, incredible prosperity, a time before the Great Depression. Everyone was partying. You've probably seen pictures of flappers and seen them dancing in the crazy hats and the long dresses and things.

That was the spirit of the time. If we think about the World War II era, we've sort of dubbed that the time of the greatest generation. And I'm sure that just when I say World War II era, we all have images that come to mind. Whether that's Rosie the Riveter, whether it's people planting victory gardens in their backyards, whether it's young men going off to war, a time when the country came together going after a common goal fighting for freedom.

If I mention the Cold War, it's another time that we can all identify and think about. Much more in a lot of our memories, probably. And we can think about the real fear that there was, that there could be a nuclear war that would destroy the entire world.

And it colored the way that people thought. The things that they did, how they acted, the whole mood of that time. And probably many of us can remember, for example, Ronald Reagan standing up and giving a speech in front of the Berlin Wall, where he said, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall. And, you know, some of you maybe get chills up and down your spine when you think about that, and what that led to in terms of the events. Again, that zeitgeist, the spirit of the time. And you can just sort of feel that emotion of that time.

Now, zeitgeist impacts not only culture as a whole, but it also impacts attitudes towards God and religion. And I would say it also comes into the church, and the attitudes and the mindsets that we take. When we think again back to the Cold War time, communism was considered synonymous with godlessness. And definitely communism suppressed religion. In many countries, they very actively attempted to guide people away from God, because the state was what was essentially to be worshipped. And in many Christian circles, as a corollary, because capitalism was against communism, capitalism was considered to be godly, or at least very close to godliness.

In the Vietnam and Hippie era, an erosion in the belief in moral standards that are laid out in the Bible, an erosion in the belief in moral standards, led a lot of religious communities to question whether they should stick to all of the authority of the Bible. Just like human authority was being questioned, the authority of the Bible was being questioned, and some religious communities turned more to a view that love is really all that matters. And the things that are written in the Bible really should be interpreted through that lens, and love is more important than anything else, to the point where perhaps we can even disregard some of the things written in the Bible if we convince ourselves that we're being loving in the way that we're doing.

And certainly in the 1980s in the United States, another phenomenon happened, and that is that religion aligned itself with politics in a way that we hadn't seen before in American history. We can probably remember the moral majority, we can remember Jerry Falwell, names like that. And what happened after that point in time was this confluence that's really unique to American culture, and having lived overseas and dealt with people in other parts of the world, they still consider it strange. The way that stereotypical American religion aligns itself with a very single and particular political view. All of these things that go on in our culture can impact us.

So, I'll ask you today to reflect for a moment. What is today's zeitgeist? What is the spirit of our times today? And how does it impact us? How does it impact the way that we think? Let me lay out a few data points that I thought about as I was considering this topic. We have a constant stream of consciousness communication today. That's really the norm. We take it for granted that when we wake up in the morning, we could probably open up Twitter, and know what some of the top leaders in our country were thinking at four in the morning. Whether it's 24-hour news, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and the latest video that's out there, we've got constant stream of consciousness communication coming from every different place.

These modes of communication increasingly are used to put forward opposing views about pretty much anything you can think of. Whether it's COVID-19 crisis, whether it's politics, whether it's world events, whether it's race relations in our country, it's hard to hide from this torrent of different ideas that come to us. And as people coalesce around a particular view, those who hold different views are often marginalized or even ostracized.

And we've seen that happen over the past probably four or five months, especially since the time that the COVID crisis came, especially. And even honest discourse and debate are increasingly difficult because certain opinions or speech are automatically considered hateful and banned.

Has anyone heard the term cancel culture? Some of us probably have. According to the Pop Culture Dictionary, cancel culture refers to the popular practice of withdrawing support for or canceling public figures and companies after they've done or said something considered objectionable or offensive.

Cancel culture is generally discussed as being performed on social media in the form of group shaming. And we've probably all experienced this in some way or another when somebody says something that's either taken out of context or reflects an idea that is against the norm that's been set and everyone just pounces on them, to the extent that they either slink away in shame or they offer five or six apologies and hope that perhaps it can be forgotten. So in times like these more than any other, we have to be on watch that we're conforming to the image of the one who called us and the spirit that he gave us and not conforming to the zeitgeist or the spirit of our times.

So for those of you who like titles, I've titled today's sermon Spirit of God versus Spirit of the Times. And as a text or summary for today's sermon, I'd like to focus on a single passage of the book of James. And if you'll turn with me, please, we'll read James 1, verses 18 through 20. James 1, verses 18 and 20. Here James starts out laying out in verse 18 the calling that we have by God and what that calling means.

He says of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth that we might be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. So making it clear as he's moving into his topic that we are called out and we are God's children. So then, in verse 19, as a result of that, because of our calling that we have from God, My beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath. For the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. So here we see attributes laid out that are attributes of God's Spirit that are supposed to transcend any spirit of any time that we're living in. Being swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath. So we heard last week in a great sermon about wisdom and the fact that wisdom comes from God. It doesn't come from science. It doesn't come from mountains of data that we interpret. It comes ultimately from God. And what I'd like to do today, then, is drill down a little more into the practicalities of that through these three lenses that James lays out. Being swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath.

So let's consider the first part of that, swift to hear. As a theme, scripture for this passage or this section of the message, let's turn to Proverbs 18. For those of us who have read the Proverbs, we can probably remember that there's a lot to be said in the Proverbs, not only about wisdom, but about the specifics of listening and speaking.

Proverbs 18 verse 13 tells us that, "...he who answers a matter before he hears it, it is folly and shame to him." He who answers a matter before he hears it, it's folly and shame. Now, how many of us can remember a conversation that we've been in? If I'm honest, it's come from me, as many times as it's come from others, where an opinion is rendered before all the facts are there. I can absolutely remember doing that many, many different times. It comes as a parent. You see your child doing something. You immediately make all these assumptions about what's happening, and you say, Why did you? How come? And they say, Mom, Dad, I was only... And they give the explanation, and sometimes it's not excuses. It's actually true. You judge based on something you saw or hearing one side of things, or if you have two children or you have siblings. And of course, there's an argument. The first argument that comes sounds extremely compelling, doesn't it?

And then comes the second argument that comes along. And it sounds kind of compelling, too. And oddly enough, it points out a few facts you didn't get in the first argument, doesn't it?

And so, he who answers a matter before he hears it is a folly and a shame to him. So the concept of hearing in James 1.19, being quick to hear, it comes from a Greek word which is akuo. And the meanings of this Greek word include not only physically hearing, not only the sound waves coming in your ear and being turned into something in your brain, but what's happening inside of your brain. It includes the idea of learning, of comprehending, and of understanding. So it says...when it says that we're to be quick to hear, it means that we're supposed to be very apt and quick to try to understand, to comprehend, and to learn what it is that's going on. Not just hear input, but to really understand what that input is. Now, this is where we have to compare it to what's going on in our world today and what our world today drives us to. Now, like probably all of you, I tend to watch a fair amount of cable news just because it's there and we sort of just get into this mode of having it on, which is not necessarily particularly healthy all the time. And on cable news, what is it that we see modeled?

Quick to hear is probably not the first thing that comes to mind, because it doesn't make good television to be quick to hear, does it? Imagine if you're watching a talk show and somebody is speaking and they're forcefully giving their opinion, and then the moderator turns to the other person and says, well, what do you think? And they say, you know, I'd like to hear a little more about what they have to say, because I'm trying to really understand what the argument is.

Probably right about that time, you'd reach for your remote and you'd turn it to another channel, because it's just not exciting to watch somebody listen and understand what's going on in another person's mind. What's exciting is watching them go back and forth and argue, well, you said this, but I meant this, and you people all do that, and you people all think this, and that's a lot more exciting, right? It gets us going and it engages us. But being quick to hear isn't that exciting, and we're not really driven towards it in the examples that we see out there. In fact, if one person asks another person for clarification, what's more likely happening is they're setting a trap where they want them to say something so they can pounce and give the counter-argument, right? And that's not listening. That's not seeking understanding. That's trying to draw people in in order to attack them and catch them in what you think is a moment of weakness in a verbal argument. Now, in social media, we get short tweets, we get Facebook posts, and then they quickly move down to everybody stating their views. The camps form, they usually coalesce around a couple of views with maybe one person in the middle saying, can't we all get along in some way or form? And everyone just says what they're thinking. And it doesn't lend itself to thinking for very long either, does it? Because what do we do with a Facebook post if it goes silent for two hours? People move on. It's not on your feet anymore. Something else has come up to the top. It doesn't encourage us to sit there to think, to consider different opinions, to learn and to understand. And so we have to think about—and I'm not saying this just to knock social media. There are plenty of good things about it. It drives connectedness, especially among Christians, in a way that we've not been able to have in the past.

But these things can tend to drive us to think, to act, and to react in certain ways if we're not careful about it and thinking about what's going on.

I'd like to turn to an example in the Bible that probably none of us have ever associated with this topic. But let's turn to 1 Kings 19, and we'll read verses 1 through 9. 1 Kings 19, 1 through 9.

Now, we're probably familiar with the story of King Ahab and about Elijah, a prophet of God. And of course, Ahab had a wife Jezebel, who came from an idolatrous background, drew Ahab into that, and that northern kingdom of Israel was practicing all kinds of wickedness.

And of course, Elijah, who's still known among the Jews as one of the greatest of the prophets, came and performed an incredible miracle after this drought, calling down fire from heaven on the altar, and after that rain came, after a long famine and drought. And after all of these things happened, Elijah came and he faced Jezebel. And this was after Elijah had killed all of these prophets of Baal, the false god, and God had given incredible victory.

And Ahab, in 1 Kings 19, verse 9, told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had executed all the prophets with a sword. And then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, So let the gods do to me and more also if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time. So translation, Elijah, you're a dead man. After all of that that happened. And when he saw that, Elijah rose and he ran for his life, and he went to Beersheva, which belongs to Judah, and he left his servant there.

And in verse 4, he himself went to day's journey into the wilderness. And he came and he sat down under a broom tree, and he prayed that he might die and said, It's enough. Lord, take my life, for I am no better than my father's. So we're not going to delve into all the reasons why Elijah might have felt this way after the incredible battle that he had, but certainly he would have been surprised, I think, that Jezebel was not overthrown along with all the prophets.

And just like God deals with us sometimes, he gives a different type of victory than what we think he's going to provide. And in reaction, if you're like me, you go and you mope about it. Because God should have known what it is that I wanted, and he didn't do it. Of course, that's not the way it works. But what I want to focus on is how did God react? How would we react in this situation? We gave this incredible miracle, if we were God, slew all these prophets, and now Elijah is being clueless about the whole thing, and he's moping.

But what does God do? Verse 5, Elijah, as he lay and slept under a broom tree, suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, Arise and eat. And he looked, and thereby his head was a cake baked on coals and a jar of water. So he ate and drank, and he lay down again. And the angel of the Lord came back the second time and touched him and said, Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for you. So he arose, and he ate and drank, and then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights as far as Horeb, the mountain of God.

And then, in verse 9, he went into a cave, and he spent the night in that place, and behold, the word of the Lord came to him and said to him, What are you doing here, Elijah? So what I want us to focus on here is how did God react? What kind of way of being, actions, did God model for us to follow in this situation?

You know, stereotypically, we always think of the bolt of lightning and something coming out of the blue and just zotting us. But God waited over forty days before he said anything to Elijah. And I would guess that one time that Elijah was moping and saying, What in the world just happened, was not the single time that happened over the course of those forty days. And during that time period, the first thing that God did was look to Elijah's immediate needs. He gave him physical comfort, a place that he could sleep. He gave him physical food and drink. And he let him sort of get it out of his system.

He didn't speak, but he listened. So God was listening to him for that time and not speaking. And I think this is instructive to us as we think about how it is that we're supposed to model God living within us as we're dealing with other people.

And we understand the fact that we're supposed to be quick to hear and slow to speak. I had an interesting session that I was able to listen in on through work probably a month, six weeks ago, because we did it over typical video conferencing. But it was with a guy named Chris Voss. Chris Voss was one of the top hostage negotiators for the FBI. I think he spent five to seven years doing that. And he was the point person in dealing with international hostage negotiations. So when a terrorist group or some other group in some faraway country would take an American hostage, Chris Voss would go with his team, and they would negotiate the release of that person.

And it was literally a life-or-death situation. For those who are interested—I haven't read the book yet, it's on my list—but he wrote a book. It's called, I believe, Negotiate Like Your Life Depends on It. And he relays a lot of the stories of the things that he did. And there were a couple really interesting things that he brought out in the session that we had with him. The first one he talked about was empathy and the need to develop empathy when you're talking with anybody else, especially if you're negotiating and you're in a difficult position with him.

And he spent a lot of time talking about what's the difference between empathy and sympathy. What is the difference between empathy and sympathy?

Empathy does not mean that you have to pity somebody. It doesn't mean that you feel sorry for them, like you do if you have sympathy. You feel really bad for their situation. But what empathy means is you put yourself into their shoes. You try to put yourself into the other person's mind to understand what is it that this person is thinking, what is it this person is feeling, and what are the motivations that are behind that. And he's really trying to understand, very clearly understand, what it is that's going on within that other person. And he talks in his speech that he gives about the difference between your right, hearing somebody else say the words, you're right, and having them say the words, that's right.

And it sounds like a small difference, but as he points out, so many people will tell you, you're right with one single motivation to end the conversation and get away and get you to stop talking. Now, if we think about our close friends, spouses, family members, fact is we've probably used that very ploy, haven't we? We keep going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and what do we say at the end of that? You know what? You're right. And then we walk away. Nobody's mind has changed, but he says what you need to get to is this idea of that's right. Now, what causes somebody to say that's right? What causes that is when they hear you say and repeat and bring out words and sentiments that match what's going on in their minds, because what it does, they're hearing you say the things that they've been expressing. And what they understand is that you get it. You've listened, you've figured out what it is that they're talking about, and you're able to repeat it back. And he uses that as a technique of negotiating, and he even relayed a situation, I think it was in the Philippines, where he was negotiating with a pretty well-known leader of a terrorist cell.

And this person had given the authorities trouble over the years. And he talked about this negotiation that he had with him, and the person even knew a lot of the negotiation tactics that a lot of hostage negotiators use. But he finally got this guy to talk about his grievances. And he said at the end of the time that he talked with this terrorist leader about his grievances, and he repeated back and talked about and was able to demonstrate that he really understood it. The guy said, that's right. He cut his demand for the amount of money he wanted by a huge amount as a result of it, because what he really wanted at the end of the day was to be heard. He wanted to be understood. He wanted people to know what he and his people had grievances about. And in fact, this guy, Chris Voss, said later on he actually even called the authorities and pointed out what a great job this guy had done as a hostage negotiator. How often do you get a five-star from a terrorist for the things you've done? Now, this is very similar as well to marital counseling. Some of you might know within the church we use a framework called Prepare and Rich for marriage counseling. And I don't know if many of you have seen that or been through it, but there's an exercise that's done early on in the Prepare and Rich framework, and it's called the Wish List Exercise. And what you do in the Wish List Exercise, which seems really bizarre in a way, is you have the couple sit down together, and one of them expresses something that they wish. And if that wish came true, how it would make them feel. And you might get all kinds of things, you know. I wish that you wouldn't go out with your friends every night of the week because it leaves me home all alone.

And if that wish came true, I'd feel a lot more cared for because you were there paying attention to me after dinner. Something like that. Now, the key to the Wish List Exercise is the person that's hearing is supposed to do one single thing after the wish is expressed. They're supposed to repeat back what they heard. They're supposed to say, what I heard you saying is you wish these things would happen, and if those things would happen, this is how you feel. Now, it's an incredibly awkward exercise, and part of the reason for that is we're not used to acting that way. Because usually when somebody is talking, we're formulating the next thing that we're going to come back with. We're not focused on understanding what is it that they're trying to express, and how is their mind, their demeanor, their life going to change, if that's understood and fulfilled. And the whole point of that exercise is to help, in this case, couples who are getting ready to get married, to understand the fact that we don't naturally listen to the needs and desires of the other person the way that we need to. And something to bring into the relationship is that ability to listen, to understand, to repeat things back to make sure to reassure the other person that you do understand before you start moving to that natural point of trying to solve the problem. And of course, as men, what do we do? We typically hear something, we say, oh, I know how to solve that. Let's do this, this, this, and this. And the other person hasn't been heard yet. They're not even convinced at that point that you understand what's going on in their minds. Listening, being quick to hear. Let's turn back to Proverbs 18 again. We also have to have a desire to hear multiple sides of an issue. You know, we talked earlier about the idea of kids bickering and squabbling, and there's a proverb for that, just like there is for a whole lot of other things. Proverbs 18 and verse 17. Proverbs 18, 17 says, the first one to plead his cause seems right until his neighbor comes and examines him. That's why in court we have this thing called cross-examination, right? We don't just have a prosecution, we have a defense. Our legal system recognizes the fact, and that goes back years, right? Our legal system goes back into what, British common law, all the way back probably to Greek and Roman systems probably, I would think, Jim, in terms of how some of these things work. And the idea that we have to have two witnesses to bear something out, and we also allow opposing viewpoints to come before a judge, so that all the different sides of a story can be heard before a judgment is made. And just like we read earlier in verse 13, answering a matter before you hear it is like folly and shame. And that's because of what we read in verse 17. There are multiple sides to a story. A picture has to be fully fleshed out before we can make an intelligent judgment about it.

So as we move off of this topic of being quick to hear, I'd like to just talk about a few practical applications as we think about the spirit of God versus the spirit of our times.

The first one is simply realization. Being empathetic is a Christian trait, and it's against what most of us do, or are drawn to do, in our modern society.

Against the tools that we use every day, against the way our lives get lived. And so we have to recognize that. We have to think about how is it that we need to act with God's spirit and with Jesus Christ living within us.

And how does that impact the way that we listen to other people and seek to understand what's going on in their minds?

Whether we agree with someone's viewpoint can come second. Listening and understanding what it is that they're expressing is an important first step.

Another thing I'd like to point out is the idea of seeking the other side of the story.

I think we can all probably somewhat embarrassingly mention situations where we've judged a situation based on what one person said, because it just seems so compelling and clear-cut.

Until that second person comes along, tells us facts, viewpoints, that also exist to completely change how we think about it.

We need to think about that not only when we're dealing with individuals, of course, but even when we interact on social media.

Nowadays, so many posts fly around expressing these different points of view, sometimes with an article.

And I know how I tend to be. I'll read the headline on an article. I don't have five seconds to click into that article and start reading it.

I say that facetiously. It's the way we're programmed to think, right? We're blasting through this stuff.

We're not going to read a three-page article. So we look at the headline, and if you're like me, you build an impression based on that headline, which might or might not have anything to do even with the data that's actually in the article.

So we have to make sure when we're interacting on social media that we're acting based on knowledge, that we're taking time to understand, and not just having a gut reaction to what it is that we see out there.

We certainly have to think about it when evaluating the social and political issues of our time.

I'm not going to name all the issues going on right now. We all know them, and they all bring plenty of baggage with them, and for plenty of good reasons as well. But we need to search out multiple points of view.

We need to seek to understand before we go out and just start making judgments on things.

Something else that actually relates to this, too, is in terms of formal news and information, seek multiple sources.

Now, I mentioned before how in the 1980s we got this cultural alignment in the United States between religion and conservative American politics, and it also carries its way into the media. And I would say that if you went around, you polled professing Christians, you're going to predominantly see one or two news outlets that professing Christians are going to turn to for their news. My suggestion to everyone is do not do that. Do not go to one source for all of your news to try to build your view of what's going on in the world.

Go to multiple sources. In fact, go deliberately to sources that you disagree with in order to understand another viewpoint of what it is that's happening in the world.

We do that when we talk to people. We get the opposing viewpoints in order to understand what's happening. Why would we not do it to understand other major issues going on in our world today?

It will help us to, if nothing else, better understand the viewpoints of what's happening with people who have a different opinion than we do.

The last point I'll mention on this is avoid ultra-crepiderianism.

Ultra-crepiderianism. I first heard that word a few weeks ago. It's defined as the habit of giving opinions and advice on matters outside of one's knowledge.

Ultra-crepiderianism. Certainly part of our zeitgeist, right?

We're all more than happy to render opinions and even advice on matters that are far beyond what we're qualified or educated to do.

I'm not even talking about formal education. I'm just talking about, you know, we tend, and I fall in this camp myself, to offer opinions and even advice based on headlines and slogans and quick bits of information that have been fed to me.

And we have to avoid that and be careful that we don't fall into that trap.

Let's move on to the second point.

We talk about following the Spirit of God rather than the Spirit of our times, and that is being slow to speak. Being slow to speak.

Now, in the Bible, a multitude of words is often associated with sin.

I don't know if we think about that all the time, but it is.

Our zeitgeist, the Spirit of our time, values expression, and if we're honest about it, it cares less often about the contents of that expression.

People will often these days believe or even gloss over clear lies because they believe in the overall philosophy that's behind the person or the group that spouts those lies.

And I think we can all find situations like that on every possible side of the social and political spectrum, where people say, Well, yeah, you know, that's not really true, but...

And after that but comes all the reasons why we will choose to excuse that plain misstatement because of everything else that stands behind it, or what that person or what that group stands for or spouses.

Are we judging righteous judgment when we do that?

Are we getting used to the idea that the factual content, the truth of the words that we speak, is not really that important as long as the feelings are right?

I don't think we can prove that to be a biblical approach.

Proverbs, and I can't believe this. I deleted that chapter and verse from this passage, but I'll read it anyways, and we can find it later.

In the multitude of words, sin is not lacking. In the multitude of words, sin is not lacking. But he who restrains his lips is wise.

The tongue of the righteous is choice silver. The heart of the wicked is worth little. The lips of the righteous feed many, but fools die for lack of wisdom.

It talks about the importance of the content of our words. There are, of course, so many other places we can go in the Bible for this as well.

It ties restraint of what we say, thoughtfulness of what we say, and choice silver.

When we think carefully about what we say and we speak righteous words, they're very precious.

They're even more precious today in the multitude of words that are out there that don't include that.

The heart of the wicked is worth little. It's contrasting that view. It's interesting. It talks about the words, the tongue of the righteous versus the heart of the wicked.

It's an interesting contrast as well because what it's tying together is what's in the heart and what comes out of the mouth.

We're not going to say, well, the righteous person is all in his tongue. It's talking about what's deep in our minds and in our hearts that comes out in the things that we speak.

And if we're righteous and we're speaking good and right things, those things are incredibly precious, not worthless like the things that come out of the heart of a wicked person.

Turn with me, if you will, to Ephesians 4 as well. Ephesians 4, verse 29.

Paul writing to the Ephesians talks to them about how they should be conducting themselves in righteousness. Using the New American Standard Bible, Ephesians 4, 29 says, It's a very important thought strung together there. Only words that are good for edification according to the needs of the moment. Now, that takes thought to understand what are the words that would edify in this particular situation that I'm in and that are going to impart grace to the people who hear.

Not flame them. Not say, you know what, he was right, and everyone can look at that person and say, boy, that person knows everything and they're great. Imparting grace is as the motivation.

Let's consider the other element of this in terms of being slow to speak, and that's just the element of speed that's mentioned. Haste versus slowness. Turn with me to Proverbs 19.

Not only is volume of words associated with sometimes unrighteousness, but also haste is associated with unrighteousness.

Proverbs 19, verses 1 and 2.

Proverbs 19, verses 1 and 2.

Better is the poor who walks in his integrity than one who is perverse in his lips and is a fool.

It's not good for a soul to be without knowledge, and he sins who hastens with his feet.

Hastiness associated with sin. Galatians 5, 17, if we connect it to this, Paul writes in Galatians 5, 17 about the war that's inside of us. And he writes there that the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary to one another so that you do not do the things that you wish. And so as this conflict within us that we all feel, as God's spirit is pulling us in one direction and inspiring us to move in that direction, and as our carnality, our human nature is fighting against it, haste is usually our enemy, isn't it?

Because if we take time, if we consider what the will of God is, if we ask him to reveal through his spirit what the things are that we should do, that takes time. It takes consideration. It doesn't take haste. And usually the thing that we're going to do, just if we're acting out of our emotion or how we feel at that one point in time and act hastily, we come back and we realize that we actually should have thought about it a little more. Maybe we weren't following God's lead within our lives, but rather our physical impulses and the first things that came to our mind.

So this combination of content and speed in our communication comes home in another proverb. Let's read Proverbs 26.

We'll read verses 4 and 5. Proverbs 26 verses 4 and 5.

Now, people who say that the Bible is a lot of nonsense will tend to point to this scripture because it sounds contradictory at first when we read it.

Proverbs 26 verses 4 and 5.

Do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you also be like him.

And in verse 5, answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.

As we probably heard explained in the past, this is talking about two separate situations, and it's a situation that takes consideration, not haste, to figure out.

When I'm confronted with a situation, and we'll just use the word fool because that's what's in the scripture and something is spouted at me, I have a decision to make.

Does that person who's speaking fit in the category of verse 4, someone who should not be answered according to his folly, because you're just going to end up sounding like him?

Or does that person fit in the category of verse 5, who should be answered, lest they go on and be wise in their own eyes?

So we have to consider, we have to have wisdom, we have to understand, as we're in dialogue with people, as they're putting forth sometimes bizarre and crazy arguments, is this a discussion we should just walk away from because there's nothing to be gained in having this conversation further?

Or is this a situation that might be the fact that there are other people around who might be led astray by the things that this person is saying, might be other contexts of the situation, isn't one where we should say, wait a second, we need to talk about this and go on and answer that situation. But again, we're talking about being slow to speak. These are the things that have to be going on in our heads as we discern, as through God's Spirit we let that Spirit lead us and understand what it is that we're supposed to do.

So a couple practical applications. Spirit of God versus the Spirit of our times and being slow to speak.

And I'll go back for a minute to Chris Voss, this former hostage negotiator.

Another thing that he pointed out when he talks about negotiations is the importance psychologically to people of being right.

And he talked about how what he would often do is when he was negotiating with a person, he would say a few things that he knew not to be true.

Drawing that other person to jump in and correct him, because when you jump in and you correct somebody else and tell him you're wrong, it's actually like this?

You get this physical rush, this mental rush, because he was wrong, I got to point it out to him.

And he said in a negotiating situation, what ends up happening is that physical rush of being able to say, no, that's not right, immediately leads the person to start saying, it's actually like this.

And start to explain a whole lot of things and let down their guard and give out information that they typically would not give out.

Maybe even that they shouldn't give out. And he said you'd be surprised how many times he's used this technique and people will just talk for a long period of time and essentially give away all of these things that they're not supposed to even talk about in a negotiating situation, about what their motivations and their needs are, that you would never have been able to drag out of that person.

By just giving them an opportunity to be right and then talk, they completely let loose and give away all their secrets. That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but give away a lot of things that they wouldn't give away if they were really thinking about it.

So we need to think about that within our own selves. How strong is our own desire to be right? To what ends are we willing to go in order to prove to people that we are right?

For those of us who are on social media, I'm sure we can think of situations right now that we've seen on social media where this happens. And people just keep going back and back and back. Or think about when you make a post and you go back to that post 10 minutes later and 10 people have liked it, given it the big blue thumbs up, how does that feel? I have to admit myself, it feels great. If I post something and I get a bunch of thumbs up and people respond saying, yeah, you know, that was really insightful, I am feeling really good about myself. And I have to be honest about the fact that laying that stuff out there and getting that immediate feedback of saying, yeah, he's right, that was really smart. That really feeds the ego. It feeds you humanly on a certain level. And we have to realize that that motivation is within us. As we strive, we slow to speak. It also encourages us to think about the modes of communication in our modern world. They're built for quick response. They're not built for contemplation like we talked about before. And so what we have to do is we have to avoid that sort of trigger-happy, immediately responding to everything that we see out there. Because as we've read, haste associated with sin and speaking something before we fully understand everything that's behind it can get us in a lot of trouble. And the last thing I'll lay out in terms of practical application to this is what we read about in Proverbs 26. Speaking to a fool or answering a fool according to his folly or not answering a fool according to his folly. The other challenge in these modern communication methods is they're one-to-many. So if I'm sitting down, I'm speaking in conversation with one or two people here in the room, we can understand what's happening within the two or three people who are in a conversation. Whether it's drawing them out through discussion, whether it's understanding them historically and having had long-standing relationships and friendships. Social media is not that way. When you post something on Facebook, there are hundreds of people likely reading that, that you have no idea who they are, you have no idea what their experience is, you have no idea how they're going to process a written message that's probably written in short form and not explained in great detail. And the ability to fully get a point across or fully understand a point that you're responding to is very limited. I think we have to understand that if we're wise in the way that we communicate on that media. Last point, being slow to wrath. This one, I think, is relatively obvious to most of us. But let's go to 2 Timothy. I can't believe I did this again. I, again, erased the chapter and verse in 2 Timothy.

Paul advises Timothy, who was a young pastor at that time, to avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they generate strife. And he writes further, Avoiding foolish and ignorant disputes. And the context that Paul was writing in here was the fact that you don't want to get in a fight with somebody to the point where they're not going to listen anymore. Because the goal is what's talked about later. And that is if God will grant them repentance so they might know the truth. And often if we act out of anger, we act out of wrath, and we start just saying these things that we might regret later. What we can often do as well, if we're doing it in a situation that has to do with faith in God and with belief, the last thing we ever want to do is put a person in a position where that would be a stumbling block to them repenting to God. And it's unfortunate, but Christians, as a broadly stated group, have a mixed reputation these days in the world. You ask a lot of people, what is a Christian? And they'll say, Christians are these nasty, picky, nitpicky, judgmental people who think nobody's as good as they are. And we know that's not true. We know that's not true. We know it's not true looking around this room. We know that's not true looking at ourselves. We know it's not true looking at others that we know.

We also, if we're honest about it, know why that stereotype exists. Because there are people, sometimes some of us, who attach the name Christian to themselves, who are that way, who believe that it's their mission in the world to explain to everybody why they're not good enough, why the things that they've done are wrong. And again, we have to think about, how does that work its way out in the light that we shine in this world?

I'll give one more example from a story in the Old Testament, if you'll turn with me to 2 Samuel 16. This is a story of David, again, probably not one that we necessarily associate with this topic. But 2 Samuel 16, we'll read verses 5 through 8. And this is an account that happened. We might remember that David's son Absalom overthrew him. There was a coup.

He overthrew his father, the king, and Absalom became king, and actually drove David out of Jerusalem and had him on the run. He was going to take over the whole country and take the kingdom for himself. And so David's on the run with a small band of his loyal followers. And in 2 Samuel 16, verse 5, it tells us that when David came to Bahuram, there was a man from the family of the house of Saul, whose name was Shimei, the son of Gerah, coming from there. And he came out cursing continuously as he came. He threw stones at David and at all the servants of King David. And all the people and all the mighty men were on his right hand and on his left. So imagine this scene. And imagine how on edge these guys must have been at this point, driven out of their homes at a sword's edge, probably were fighting their way out. And now you've got this guy that's cursing at you and throwing stones at you. What's the first reaction? It's of course the reaction that the guys carrying the swords around David had, which is, let's go slice his head off and be done with this. It's one person, we're armed, we're bad guys, and we can get him. And Shimei in verse 7 said thus when he cursed, Come out, come out, you bloodthirsty man, you rogue. The Lord has brought upon you all the blood of the house of Saul in whose place you've reigned, and the Lord has delivered the kingdom into the hand of Absalom your son. So now you're caught in your own evil because you're a bloodthirsty man. Wow! And you know what? It was true. And David realized it. And David, what did he tell his men? He said, don't strike him down, just let him talk. So David had that spirit of God within him. He was self-aware enough, he was converted enough, to know that this horrible feedback that he was getting from somebody, and this terrible treatment, had a ring of truth to it. In fact, in this case, more than a ring of truth, it was dead on true. And David, like we in our own lives, was reaping things that came because of decisions that he'd made over the course of his life that weren't wise. And so he told his men, leave this guy alone. He didn't give in to wrath, he didn't let them give in to wrath, and strike this guy down. He was humble, he said, let him be. He was quick to hear, and even though the communication came in a terrible way, he was willing to take it on board and to think about it and reflect on it. Let's turn to Colossians 3, which gives us a New Testament corollary to this view. Colossians 3, and we'll read verses 12 and 13. Colossians 3, verses 12 and 13, talking to us as Christians. Colossians 3, 12, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekless, long-suffering, bearing with one another, and forgiving one another. If anyone has a complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.

As Paul is writing here to the Colossians, he's laying out this very same attribute of God's Spirit. We know long-suffering is a fruit of God's Spirit. He's saying, let's lay aside wrath, be slow to wrath when something happens, suffer through it, find a way to reconcile with your brother, bear with each other, and forgive one another. Realize that that person that you're having difficulty with is a fallible human being just like you are, and find a way to reconcile. That's what God's Spirit wants you to do. As it says in James 1, verse 20, the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. It's the Holy Spirit. It's humility, it's forgiveness, it's grace that produces the righteousness of God. So we think in practical application in this last section, Spirit of God versus the Spirit of the times, we need to recognize our inherent need to be right and our willingness to fight for that. I know it's something I have to realize very much in myself. There's nothing I hate more than to be contradicted by someone, or worse yet, have someone say, he doesn't know what in the world he's talking about. You know, that cuts to an emotional place, and it brings about a quick reaction if I don't control that. And probably many of us are like that. So we have to recognize that within ourselves and make sure that we're holding back, we're taking our time. Pray for God's Spirit of peace. Being level-headed and being measured in our response to things is not part of our zeitgeist today. Being outraged and lashing out unfortunately is, and it's leading us to a society that unfortunately is becoming much, much more argumentative and just plain violent. It's not something that we want to have a part of. And as in the previous point, haste is not our friend. When it comes to the idea of wrath, haste is not our friend, is it? Because that emotion jumps way ahead of our mind and our thinking. And what we've got to do is be able to rule over that. We recognize that impulse. We realize why that impulse came. Because we were hurt by something. And then in realizing that, we draw back, and we think, and we measure out the right response rather than simply acting out in wrath. So in conclusion, zeitgeist, it's the spirit of the times, and it impacts us as well as it impacts the world around us. The spirit of our times is increasingly one of divisiveness and anger, too often devolving into hatred and violence. The spirit of God, on the other hand, leads us to be swift to hear, to be slow to speak, and slow to wrath. So as we go through our daily walk as disciples of Jesus Christ, let's make sure that spirit is guiding us, and not the spirit of the times.