We Know His Voice

Introduction- Vietnam Hearing Loss

When I was in seminary, we took a trip to Vietnam to witness to a particular people group who were struggling to get their church off the ground in the face of heavy persecution.

When we got there, we were at a hotel with a pool, and so I went swimming.

There’s a funny story to all of this that I will share with you if you come to the Q and A after the service, but…

After we went swimming, I lost my hearing in my left ear.

So imagine the following:

You’re in a strange country far from home.

You’re among a people group that don’t speak English, and so you’re relying on translators.

And you’re in the middle of a densely populated urban center with motor bikes and cars and trucks blaring outside the window.

Everything I did that week was an attempt to listen through all the distractions, and try to hear what was going on.

That’s not an easy task, is it?

In fact, that’s what Jesus is calling us to in our text today.

Comfort?

Tell us plainly!

This is kind of funny in John’s Gospel.

John has some of the most poetic language and metaphorical teaching from Jesus, and it sounds like the crowds are just fed up with it at this point.

TELL US WHO YOU ARE!

Jesus gives an answer, that I hope brings us some comfort.

My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.

Those of us who claim to be his disciples, we know his voice.

In the cacophony of our lives, in spite of all the distractions and motor bikes, we know Jesus’s voice?

We know that voice above the voices of imposters?

We know that voice above the voices of our culture?

We know that voice above the voices of our politicians?

We know that voice as distinctly different from the voices of our own heart?

Really?

Forgive me, my skepticism comes from personal experience!

If we all know and follow that voice, how is it there are Christians in prison?

If we all know and follow that voice, how is it that the Church has been rocked by so much scandal in our history?

If we all know and follow that voice, how is it that there is still so much suffering in the world?

Why do we have such a hard time listening?

Signal Versus Noise

Children in the room, I’m going to show you an ancient artifact.

Radio

Actually someone was just telling me this week that a radio came in real handy last week when the power went out!

I’ve always thought that the concept of a radio was interesting!

All around us, in this room right now, all the channels on the radio are present at the same time.

Not only that, but right here attached to my belt is a radio.

It hears the sound of my voice, transmits it over all of you, back to where Jeremy is at the sound booth, and to a receiver.

That then gets pushed out through our amplifiers and to our speakers, and viola! You hear my voice.

Signal is what you want.

In this case, my voice is the signal.

Or it could be 105.9 the X when you want to hear the Penguins.

Or 102.5 when you want to hear the Steelers.

Or 93.7 if you want to listen to the Pirates.

So you dial up the signal you’re looking for.

But what’s all that that’s in-between the stations?

Noise is everything that gets in the way.

It’s static, it’s obnoxious, it’s in the way.

And like the signal, it too is ever present.

There’s always noise all around us.

And so what a radio does is fine tune itself, to try to separate the signal from the noise.

It turns out, that’s what we’re doing in this life of faith.

It’s what Peter does in Acts.

Peter

He’s about to do something hard!

He’s seen Jesus do it…but I bet that it’s hard the first time you try to raise someone from the dead!

I’m also reasonably sure that this isn’t something that came with an instruction booklet.

Peter is doing what disciples do:

He has watched his Rabbi do this.

So the next logical step is that he’s going to try to do it himself.

So he’s got a step one:

After he gets up, he goes to where Dorcas is, and everyone that knew her well is showing off what she’s done.

Tunics, clothing, tapestries.

Put everyone out of the room.

There was some debate about whether Peter puts the “stuff” out of the room, the tunics and clothing etc, or the people.

I say both!

Like a lot of folks, I was kind of tuned in to the conclave this week.

As the cardinals gathered in the Sistine Chapel, the proceedings began with this phrase in Latin:

“Extra Omnes”

Everybody out!

We’ve got work to do!

Peter didn’t speak Latin, but I bet he used a similar phrase!

Extra Omnes!

Everyone get out!

I’ve got work to do!

Get rid of the noise.

So that he can focus on the signal he’s heard.

When you’ve got to get to a place of deep concentration, you don’t want anyone else around you.

This is why, with apologies to my friends on the staff, I write sermons at Starbucks!

Get the distractions out.

Focus on the signal.

Focus on the words of Jesus.

Focus on what you’ve seen Jesus do.

Focus on the resurrected Jesus himself.

And so that he can speak it.

Using words similar to what Jesus used in other resurrection stories:

Tabitha, get up!

Talitha cum (Little girl, get up!)

Lazarus, come out!

Peter repeats what he’s heard Jesus say before.

Not only does this particular sheep know the shepherd’s voice.

He knows how to repeat it.

He knows how to speak it.

He knows how to amplify it.

With all of that in mind, I think what we discover is that for us as apprentices to Jesus, we have a three step move to hear and follow the shepherd’s voice.

Our Three Step Move:

1) Get rid of the noise.

I have a hard time with the announcements every Sunday.

I feel like I’m advertising to you all!

And I’m not the best sales person.

I try to limit the number of announcements we have in a given week, because if it becomes too many, folks have a tendancy to tune it out.

With that information in mind, right now to yourself, think of a number and give it a guess:

How many advertisements do you see a day?

4,000-10,000 a day!

I think you all tune me out after like 5.

You see 4-10 thousand a day!

Another example of this:

My friend and I were at a hockey game at PPG paints, and he said: how many advertisements do you think your eye can see right now?

We gave up when we lost count for the third or fourth time.

When you’re trying to focus on the signal of the shepherd’s voice, that’s a lot of noise to contend with.

So how do we limit the noise?

How do we put everyone out? Extra Omnes?

We make room for a few things in our lives.

Make room for solitude.

This week, my patience for people kind of wore on me a little bit.

Not you, or any one I work with, or my family. I like all of you!

But everyone else…on my last nerve.

Seriously, I ask you…how long does one need to spend reading the label on a gallon of milk?!?

Have they changed the ingredients?

The truth is, if you like Peter want to focus on the task at hand, if you want to limit the noise around you, you might have to make room for some solitude.

How much time do you have completely by yourself in any given day?

How often are you left to focus on Jesus?

This is something you have to make room for.

People, at least in my experience, will find their way to you if you try to do this by happenstance.

As apprentices to Jesus, we need to intentionally make room for solitude.

Make room for silence.

I struggle with this one!

In a few weeks I’ll be traveling to Scotland to start my Doctor of Ministry

And one of my chief concerns has been how I’m going to be able to listen to music to fall asleep.

Because silence…well silence can be deafening!

But…silence allows us to listen through the noise and try to grab on to the signal.

Silence allows us to hear the Spirit speaking to us.

Silence allows us to try to settle the noise in our own minds.

Silence, however uncomfortable at first, allows us to focus on the Shepherd’s love for us.

And while we’re making room for solitude and silence anyway…

Make room for sabbath.

This lately seems to be a largely forgotten practice of the modern church.

We’ve been so busy being human doings that we forgot how to be human beings.

When was the last time you had a full day that was without work?

When was the last time you had a day completely dedicated to restoration?

When was the last time you had a day?

Listen, I get it, I’m a slave to the calendar too.

Like the first two, the reason we have to make room here is that it will never happen by accident.

I promise, in the year 2025, you will never, ever, accidentally have a sabbath.

It’s something you have to choose.

But when practiced well, these practices of solitude, silence, and sabbath can be the clarion call to the noise around us.

Extra Omnes!

Everybody out!

2) Focus on the signal.

A live coal and a dead one.

Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus wrote this in Discourses:

It is inevitable if you enter into relations with people on a regular basis…that you will grow to be like them…Place an extinguished piece of coal next to a live one, and either it will cause the other one to die out, or the live one will make the other reignite…

Epictetus is right…what we surround ourselves with matters.

And so it’s not enough to clear out the noise.

We have to surround ourselves with the signal.

Surround yourself with scripture.

A weird thing that happens every now and again is if I’m around Drew and their southern accent too long, I’ll go right on ahead and pick it up myself…

Coming back from Scotland ought to be a real treat!

So when you surround yourself with the right voice, maybe it’ll even get in to your blood stream a bit.

When you surround yourself with scripture, it has this incredible habit of making you sound a little bit more like Jesus.

In particular, I’m a strong advocate for being what the late Tony Campollo coined a “red-letter Christian.”

Someone who focuses on the red letters in the bible, the words of Jesus.

I try my level best to make sure every day that I’m surrounding myself with the words of Christ.

Blessed are the merciful…not the vengeful.

You are the salt of the world…so stay salty.

Those who live by the sword are going to die by the sword.

The greatest of the commandments is to love.

I want to make sure that I’m tuned in to that signal every day.

I want to tune my heart to that frequency.

Surround yourself with prayer.

You know, before Peter said anything to Tabitha, he knelt down and prayed.

And when I first read that, as I imagined this disciple trying to raise someone from the dead, I thought to myself “I’ll bet he did!”

Not all prayer is created equal though.

Of course, it’s great to pray for what we need from God.

Pray for healing.

Pray for resources.

Pray for our loved ones.

But I also think it’s a good idea from time to time to have a different kind of prayer.

One that Eli taught Samuel to pray: “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.”

Or maybe you want to say it a different way:

I want to hear the voice of the shepherd.

I want to hear the voice of the shepherd.

I want to hear the voice of the shepherd.

When you combine a prayer like that with the practices of solitude, silence, and sabbath, I’m willing to bet that shepherd is going to make sure you hear his voice.

Surround yourself with (the right) people.

Like those coals, the people we surround ourselves with have a tendency to help us lock on to the signal.

This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t spend time with folks who don’t believe like we do.

More on that in a minute.

But when you need to hear the shepherd’s voice, who is it in your life that helps you connect to that voice?

Who is it that tunes you to that frequency?

Who is it that brings out the best in you?

Who is it that points you in the direction of Jesus?

Who is it that prays for you?

If you haven’t seen that person in a little while, maybe this is the invitation to text them and ask for a cup of coffee or lunch or something.

When you’ve cut out the noise, and then tuned in to the signal, then we have one more step to take:

3) Amplify.

Wifi Extender

The way our house was built and wired, the only place the wifi installers could put our router was in my garage.

Which…was great for everyone.

So in my house, we have a series of wifi extenders.

They take the signal from the garage in the basement, and amplify it up to the living room.

From the living room, they take the signal and amplify it to the hallway.

From the hallway, they take the signal and amplify it to the bedrooms.

And just like that…we have strong wifi signal everywhere in the house.

That’s a lot of what we do for the world when we’re tuned to the voice of the shepherd.

We amplify the call that we’ve heard him give before: hey those of you who have fallen down? It’s time to get up.

We amplify what he imagined the world could be like: one full of forgiveness and mercy and grace.

We amplify what this world needs so much on this fourth week of Easter: why do you look for the living among the dead? We look for resurrection!

We amplify what Jesus taught us right from the start: the kingdom of Heaven is near!

So…enough with the noise.

Extra Omnes! Get it out!

Let’s focus on the signal of the shepherd, because it’s true. We know his voice.

And then let’s amplify it for all the world to hear!