God Who Speaks

This is our last week in examining the ways that God is with us through being like us and for what he does for us. We have seen so far that we have a God of emotions and transitions who is worthy of our worship. You can catch up on all of these sermons on the church’s You Tube page.

This week we turn our focus to us having a God who speaks to us. Our scripture comes from 2 Samuel 7:1-14a.

7 After the king was settled in his palace and the Lordhad given him rest from all his enemies around him, 2 he said to Nathan the prophet, “Here I am, living in a house of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent.”

3 Nathan replied to the king, “Whatever you have in mind, go ahead and do it, for the Lord is with you.”

4 But that night the word of the Lordcame to Nathan, saying:

5 “Go and tell my servant David, ‘This is what the Lordsays: Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? 6 I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling. 7 Wherever I have moved with all the Israelites, did I ever say to any of their rulers whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?” ’

8 “Now then, tell my servant David, ‘This is what the LordAlmighty says: I took you from the pasture, from tending the flock, and appointed you ruler over my people Israel. 9 I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut off all your enemies from before you. Now I will make your name great, like the names of the greatest men on earth. 10 And I will provide a place for my people Israel and will plant them so that they can have a home of their own and no longer be disturbed. Wicked people will not oppress them anymore, as they did at the beginning 11 and have done ever since the time I appointed leaders h over my people Israel. I will also give you rest from all your enemies.

“ ‘The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you: 12 When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be his father, and he will be my son.

Please pray with me…

What should it mean for us to have a God that speaks to us? We first have to make sure that we believe that God does speak to us. There are many here today I would expect, both in person and through our You Tube worship experience may wonder if we do have a God who speaks.

Understandably so, I was one of those individuals for many years. You don’t believe that you have ever heard God speak. That is a misconception that I would like to try to remove from your thinking today.

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We have to view God speaking to us in a different way. We often believe someone who is speaking to us is through words expressed on paper, online, text or voice in some way. But if we just look at humankind, we know that there are many other ways that people speak to us.

In fact, many times it is when someone is no longer speaking to us that we receive the clearest message that we have angered them or disappointed them in some way. What do we call that? Getting the “silent treatment.” Or now a days we say they are “ghosting us.”

God is saying this to David in today’s text. He is telling David that I am speaking to you by not saying anything. David wants to build God a permanent place to stay. God asks David a question, ‘Have I asked for a permanent home?”

This is one of the ways we can misinterpret what God wants. We assume that we know without asking or discovering if our plans match God’s plan. David wants to do something for God that God doesn’t want done.

We will sometimes wonder where God is while we are doing this “wonderful thing” for him. That he didn’t ask us to do. We will attempt to understand why what we are doing is not successful. The problem is that we either didn’t ask God if this is what he wanted, or we are working ahead of God.

That seems to be the case for David. It is not that God doesn’t want to eventually have a permanent house. It is just not the right timing. He wants to get the people settled and that will be the job of David. It will be the next generation that will build the house for God.

This points out another frustration that we may have. God may have us do something but what he has us do is to prepare the way for the work of someone else. We start what God wants done, but we don’t end up getting the credit for finishing what God wants to see accomplished

This can become very frustrating to us. We as Americans if not as humans like to get credit for what we have accomplished. We believe that we should get to receive accolades for the work we have done. But that may not be what God has planned and we may have to listen to him and be ready to move on.

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We also know that we speak to each other through nonverbal communication. Some say that we say more through our facial expressions and gestures than we do through the words that come from our mouths.

We saw this during Covid when we wore masks and we had to discern through a person’s tone or through their eyes what they were saying. I don’t know about you but many times I found this difficult and often I received the wrong message.

God also speaks to us in a number of different ways besides words. He speaks to us through our thoughts. We may at times wonder why I believe I should do this or that. We may wonder why we feel the need to go here or there.

Many times, our thoughts come from God. God is letting us know what he desires from us. God will use them to set up what are sometimes called “god winks” or what I like to call God made coincidences in which we end up at the right place at the right time somehow.

If we believe we have the Holy Spirit living within us, it is not hard to believe that the Spirit can put thoughts or ideas into our heads that can help us serve God the way that God desires to be served.

The Holy Spirit can use our thoughts to help lead us in the right direction. He can allow for us to be led away from trouble or difficult situations. It is through trusting God that we can follow his leading by taking those thoughts he puts within us into action.

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God might also speak to us through the situations we end up in. This can be physical or emotional obstacles that we are facing. This could include removing something or someone from something that God is wanting to see accomplished

We can see from our first reading that this may be God creating a boundary and stopping us from moving in a direction that he does not want us to go. In that first reading Paul has a plan. His plan is to go into Asia and speak to those there about Jesus.

For some reason either due to it not being God’s timing or something that might happen to him we are told that the Holy Spirit prevented Paul from “preaching the word of God there.” The same thing ends up being true when he tries to enter Bithynia.

This is one of those interesting texts because we don’t have all the answers. How was Paul prevented? Was he physically kept away? Did he receive a thought that told him that he was not to go there. No matter what happened we know that Paul somehow got the message from God and decided to change directions.

I wonder if he was like OK God where do you want me to go. I have tried to go my way twice. Are you going to tell me what you want me to do or where you want me to go? Eventually we have him being told in a vision that he was to go to Macedonia.

He listens and we know that during his visit there he has to leave town to find the Jewish worshipers on the Sabbath. This is where he meets who seems to be a prominent woman from the area named Lydia, she becomes a follower of Jesus and her and her household are baptized.

We also find out that listening to God does not mean that things are always going to be easy. Paul listens and he ends up being arrested, flogged, and thrown into prison. While in prison they were praying and singing hymns when an earthquake occurred, and the prison doors are opened.

This leads to an interaction with the jailer which led to the jailer and his household being baptized. We can sense God at work through the willingness of Paul to not go when the Spirit stopped him and to listen and follow the lead of God when he received a clear message.

We have to be careful that we are listening to God and not just doing what we want and going where we want to go. God may have another plan and if we are not paying attention to what God is trying to say to us, we may end up going in the wrong direction.

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There may be times when God speaks to us through other people. Someone will tell us something and through that message we know that we are doing something wrong or that we are to go and do something in a specific way.

These individuals might not even be Christians. All of us have been created by God therefore God can use his creation to lead and direct us. God has a plan, and he may use those around us to help him accomplish that plan.

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There may be times when God will speak directly to us. I am not saying it will be an audible voice, but we will hear what seems like a voice telling us what we are to do or to say in a specific situation.

This has only happened to me a couple times and both times it was when I said something or was doing something I shouldn’t have been doing. The best example was after a seminary class when we were talking about love.

I said at that time I love all people but I followed that up with except for those that stop people from going to church because of what they say. On my way home from that class I heard God’s voice say to me, “You do not love all people.”

I of course argued back and said “Yes I do.” I then heard the voice say to me “If you loved all people, you wouldn’t have said what you said about those that you believe keep people away from the church.

God reminded me at that moment that loving all does mean all. It includes those who are like me and not like me. It includes those I disagree with socially, and politically. All people deserve our love because each person that walks this earth was created and is loved by God.

We aren’t supposed to love only those we want to love. God allowed me through that conversation to be careful about the way that I talk to and about others even if I disagree with them.

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We have looked at the ways God speaks to us. It is now time for us to look at what can help us hear from God more clearly. We first need to be open to hearing from God. That is why I began by pointing out the ways we can hear from God.

If we believe God only speaks to us through an audible voice it makes sense, why we don’t believe we are hearing from him. It is through the realization that he speaks to us in many different ways can help us recognize God at work.

We find in Mark chapter 9 this interaction between Jesus and a father of a son who seems to be dealing with epilepsy. Jesus says to the father “Everything is possible for one who believes.” This leads the father to say, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

This should point out to us that it is possible to believe in God but still struggle with various aspects of our faith. You may be struggling finding God’s voice. Belief may lead you to hear God. If you are still unsure be willing to ask God to help you with your unbelief.

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Are we living a life worthy to hear from God? This can be a tough question for us to ask because we all fail God in some way. We are all sinners. This question states are you doing something so against God that he doesn’t trust you.

Scripture points out many times when the Jewish people were so far away from God that God didn’t speak to them. We had brought up earlier in this sermon series where Samuel tells Saul that God is no longer with him.

We are not going to live perfect lives. But it may be, that we need to live lives that show God we desire to hear from him and that we will be willing to respond to what he asks in such a way that would be pleasing to him.

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Are you creating time to allow for God to speak to you? It is true that God can find unique ways to communicate with us but the best way for us to be able to hear from God is to create space in our schedules to allow for us to hear from him.

God enjoys interacting with his creation. He wants us to make time for him to interact with each one of us. If we are willing to take the time God will use that time to change our lives and the lives of those around us.

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Are you willing to respond to what God says to you? It may be that you are hearing from God but consciously or subconsciously you are ignoring him because you don’t want to hear what he wants you to hear or do what he wants you to do.

This can many times be the difficult part of our interaction with God. We have to decide that we are not only going to listen to God and also do what God desires for us to do. Jonah offers us the best example of this.

It wasn’t that Jonah didn’t hear God he chose to go the opposite way that God wanted him to go because he didn’t like what God was trying to do. He didn’t want to have God not destroy the people God wanted him to help. He didn’t want to warn them. He wanted God to destroy them. We not only have to be willing to do what God wants us to do we have to be willing to do it even if we don’t want too.

We have a God who speaks to us. Are we willing to be open to the ways that he is communicating with us and most important are we willing to do what God has called for us to do.

Let us choose to trust the God who speaks to us and believe that he is asking for us to do what will be best for him, for us, and for those around us.

Let us pray…