God Still Speaks

We are going to continue our / / Connected series this week. Talking about being Connected to God.

What does that mean, what does that look like, and how do we do it?

Today we are going to look at the reality that / / God Still Speaks.

God Still Speaks, and he’s speaking to us, I believe, whether we are listening or not. I think God is always trying to get our attention. Now, we said last week that God does not force himself on us, right, that’s not love, is it? So we know that’ doesn’t happen. But I do believe that / / God stands in the peripherals of our lives waiting to be noticed.

And, to sort of build upon what we talked about last week, God making himself available, and if you remember, we talked through some warnings of how the enemy will try to get you to make yourself UNavailable. Well, this week we’re going to learn that / / The key to hearing the voice of God is to make ourselves AVAILABLE.

When we say, “God IS speaking.” We could easily ask the question, “Are WE listening?”

But instead of asking that, today I want to ask the following Questions:

/ / DOES God want speak to us?

/ / WHY should we want God to speak to us?

/ / HOW do we make ourselves available?

/ / WHAT does God speak through?

So, first question this morning:

/ / DOES God want to speak to us?

I believe so, and I believe it’s not as straight forward as we might think. We can’t limit God’s voice to what we might hear, but rather open our hearts to the possibility that God will speak to us in pretty much any way we are willing to make ourselves available.

When we read the Bible, there’s some pretty big stories of God speaking to people.

Take Abraham for instance: His story starts in Genesis 12:1 with, / / The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family...” and in vs 4 it says, / / So Abram departed as the Lord had instructed.

Seems pretty straight forward, right? God told him to go, he went.

What about Moses? Exodus 3:1-2. / / One day Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led the flock far into the wilderness and came to Sinai, the mountain of God. There, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the middle of a bush… (4) When the Lord saw Moses coming to take a closer look, God called to him from the middle of the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

Wow, I’ve not had any experiences like that. I’ll just let you know right now. If you have, please come talk to me after service, I want to hear all about it!

Alright, then we have something like, The baptism of Jesus. We’ve talked about that recently. Matthew 3:16-17 says, / / After his baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy.”

Now, these are really big stories in the bible and they have an incredible significance to us as Christians, but the question has been asked for a very long time, / / Does God still speak today?

Does God speak to us? And if he does, HOW does he speak to us. Because here I am, I just turned 39 years old on Friday and I can count on less than one hand how many times I’ve heard the voice of God audibly. Yes, that’s right, LESS than on one hand, meaning, I’ve never heard the audible voice of God.

BUT, that does NOT mean I haven’t heard the voice of God. It just means I had to be aware that he may speak to me in a different way.

In fact, the bible, in many of the moments that it says, And God said, or And God spoke to so-and-so, it doesn’t say, They heard an audible voice. It just says they heard him. Sometimes the way it reads you are more inclined to believe that it was audible, but not every time. Think about the verse I just read from Genesis about Abraham, it simply says, the Lord had said to Abram - no indication of HOW he heard God speak.

But, to me, reading the account of Moses and the burning bush AND the Baptism of Jesus read like there was an audible voice happening.

In the Bible we have people receiving visions, while awake, they see something either with their eyes, or in the eyes of their imagination - John says in the book of Revelation 1:10, 12 , I was worshiping in the Spirit. Suddenly, I heard a loud voice like a trumpet blast… When I turned to see who was speaking to me, I saw seven gold lampstands.

There weren’t 7 gold lampstands where he was on earth, so he was seeing a vision, either a picture God was showing him, or a vision of heaven itself.

God speaks through dreams, while people are asleep. We have many many stories in the Old Testament. And then of course Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus is not only encouraged through a dream that Mary is telling the truth, right, an angel shows up in his dream and says “she is a virgin and she is pregnant!”, but also later, a warning comes through a dream to leave and go to Egypt because Herod is looking to kill Jesus. All through dreams.

This one gets a bit crazy: In the book of Daniel chapter 3 there’s one point where a hand appears out of thin air and starts writing on a wall. Daniel 3:5, / / Suddenly, they saw the fingers of a human hand writing on the plaster wall of the king’s palace, near the lampstand. The king himself saw the hand as it wrote… so they end up calling Daniel to come and explain what this all means and in his explanation in vs 24 it says, / / “So God has sent this hand to write this message...” And he proceeds to tell the king what the message actually means.

In the book of Numbers, which we’ll be beginning to read in March in our Daily Bible Reading, there is a story in chapter 22 of a man named Balaam. The Lord sends an angel to stand in the path of Balaam as he is riding on his donkey. The donkey sees the angel, but Balaam doesn’t. The donkey stops, Balaam gets so upset that eventually he hits the animal. And Numbers 22:28-31 says, / / Then the Lord gave the donkey the ability to speak. “What have I done to you that deserves your beating me three times?” it asked Balaam.

“You have made me look like a fool!” Balaam shouted. “If I had a sword with me, I would kill you!”

“But I am the same donkey you have ridden all your life,” the donkey answered. “Have I ever done anything like this before?”

“No,” Balaam admitted.

Then the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the roadway with a drawn sword in his hand.

One more story I want you to hear this morning is from 1 Kings 19, the Prophet Elijah is seeking the Lord on Mount Sinai, and he is in a cave and in vs 11-13 God says to Elijah, / / “Go out and stand before me on the mountain,” the Lord told him. And as Elijah stood there, the Lord passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire .And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And a voice said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

I think most of us would think, “Wow, big windstorm, that’s gotta be God!” , or, “Definitely the earthquake.” or why not, “Whoa, where did that fire even come from? God MUST be here.” But it wasn’t any of those things… it was the gentle whisper.

Now, God could speak to you in any, and all of these ways, He is God, so I won’t put any limitations on his ability to speak to you. If God wants to tell you something through your dog, or cat, or if he starts writing on your walls, like I said earlier, you better let me know. I want to hear that story! However, for the 99.9% of other situations, what do we do?

When it comes to God speaking to us the bible doesn’t work like a school textbook on the topic of conversation with an invisible God. We don’t get the 4 perfectly packages steps to hearing God. It’s a little different than that. But there definitely is a lot of indication, and a lot of invitation that God WANTS to speak to us. Maybe just not like we expect.

Alright, next question.

/ / WHY should we want God to speak to us?

Could we live life without God speaking to us? Would we want to? And when it comes to believing what we hear, how does that work? I’ve struggled with this in my life. I’ve desired to hear the voice of God. I’ve wanted to hear him like the stories in the bible. I’ve asked for dreams as clear as Joseph’s. And when something like that happens, or something that I think MAY possibly be God wanting to say something to me, what happens? I doubt what I hear! I don’t know if you’ve had that experience, but I sure have.

I’ve been praying, “God, I really need direction here, what am I supposed to do.” And then I’ll have something happen. Maybe a person says something to me that would have no clue what I’ve been praying about. Or I am reading the bible and what I’m reading is about what I’ve been praying about. Or maybe I’m watching a movie and something happens on the movie that is about what I’ve been praying about. Honestly. I’ll share a story with you in a moment.

But when we hear, read, see, something that may be the answer to our prayer, sometimes we don’t believe it because…well, we’re human. Is the God of the universe actually talking to us? Sharing His insights into our lives?

The Bible says on multiple occasions that God WANTS to share things with us.

Daniel 2:28 says, / / But there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets...

Proverbs 25:2 says, / / It is God’s privilege to conceal things and the king’s privilege to discover them.

Meaning, seek the Lord, search his heart, find what He wants to say! If it’s ours to seek out, it’s his to reveal!

Daniel again in chapter 2 says of God, / / He reveals deep and mysterious things;

Amos 3:7, / / the Sovereign Lord never does anything until he reveals his plans to his servants the prophets.

Jeremiah 33:3, / / Ask me and I will tell you remarkable secrets you do not know about things to come.

Psalm 25:14 in the NIV says, / / The Lord confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them.

Jesus even says in John 10 through verses 1-17 multiple times, speaking of himself as the Good Shepherd, and us as the sheep who follow him. He says we will be able to follow him because we KNOW HIS VOICE.

God is definitely speaking.

Now, to answer why we would want God to talk to us, I want to give you what I believe are 3 foundational reasons to desire to hear the voice of God. And remember, when I say, “Voice of God”, what I mean is God revealing something to us by any means. Hear, see, understand etc...

/ / Personal Encouragement

This is knowing His heart for us.

I think the primary and most foundational reason we should desire to hear God is to hear him say how he feels about us. That He loves us. That he cares for us. That he believes in us. Thinks of us. Watches over us.

/ / To know that we are loved by God is the greatest thing we could ever receive from God.

When we truly know that we are precious to him, that he cares for us, that he loves us, that we are His. That becomes what we live out of. Think about it. When Jesus was baptized, what did the Father say? "You are my dearly loved Son, and you bring me great joy.” We’ve talked about the fact that this is so fundamental to understand, the Father says this before Jesus does any ministry. You are loved regardless of what you do or don’t do. His love is unconditional!

A man named Ed Piorek wrote a book called, The Central Event, and the entire premise is that the baptism of Jesus is this central event in the life of Jesus Christ that shows the true heart of our Father God. That before we do anything, we are loved. Before we prove ourselves, we are loved. Before we do anything, God is proud of us, pleased in us, and takes pleasure in us.

THAT is what sets us up for success in what we are called to do. THEN we can do whatever it is we are meant to do in our lives without the fear of failure, without the pressure of having to measure up, and without thinking we have to get it right for him to love us. How many times do we watch a movie, or a tv show where someone does something, fails, and there’s this moment with their father or mother or mentor, “I just didn’t want to let you down...” And they are afraid because they think that love is connected to performance.

Now, it’s good to want to do well, it’s good to strive for excellence, but it should be done from a place of knowing that whether we succeed or fail, we are loved. What we accomplish or do not accomplish does not determine His love for us. We accomplish more when we realize we are loved because that sets us up to feel successful, it sets us up to feel encouraged, to feel built up.

Think of what Daily Encouragement from the God who created you, could do for your life?

/ / Personal Direction

This is knowing God’s Will for our lives. receiving Direction and Purpose… God wants to give us insight into what we should do. Now, I said earlier that we can sometimes question what we hear because well, we’re human. So I don’t usually pray questions with a yes or no answer… that can be too confusing. A 50/50 chance isn’t the best odds if I’m not confident in what I hear.

But, we can help ourselves by following some good scriptural guidelines to build our confidence.

/ / Acknowledge Him In Your Circumstances

Proverbs 3:6 says, In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your path straight.

That’s the purpose of God, that’ direction for your life. So, in prayer, are we acknowledging him and part of his speaking to us is to lead us on a straight path.

/ / Have the Right Priorities

Jesus prayed, Not my will but yours be done. When you are asking God for direction for your life, humble yourself and ask for His will, and lay down yours.

/ / Allow HIM to Transform Your Life

Romans 12:2 says, Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

The word “will” there is really what God desires for your life. And we’ll be looking next week at ways to really develop that.

I don’t want you to confuse this with the idea that God has this ONE thing for you that if you don’t hear him, you miss it. I’m talking about a daily leading of God’s Spirit, a daily leading of Jesus’ voice as the Good Shepherd in our lives, to lead us to life.

/ / Encouraging Others

This is both knowing his heart for others, and being able to give that direction and purpose to them.

I think this is where things get so wonderful in the Christian life, when our walk with God, our understanding of who He is and what He has shared with us, becomes an overflow from our life into other people’s lives. When we can share with someone else the heart of God, especially when they don’t know his heart, and they hear, maybe for the first time, “God really loves you.” or “Do you know you are loved?” And you can share with them His heart. Transformation happens!

Our lives, our words, our hands become an extension of the heart of God for people.

When you can share the right scripture at the right time with someone, it can change their entire day.

When you can share the right words, the right thought, and give someone a moment of hearing God’s heart for them. It can absolutely change their lives.

Three reasons we would WANT to hear God. / / Personal Encouragement // Personal Direction // Encouraging Others are three primary reasons we should WANT to hear God.

Next Question

/ / HOW do we make ourselves available?

Alright, last week we talked about God making HIMSELF available to us. Well, This week, in looking at God talking to us, we need to make OURSELVES available. Like I said, I believe God is talking to us pretty consistently, but to hear him we must be listening.

We have a part to play here.

/ / Believe

Hebrews 11:6 says, / / And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.

Faith, to believe. You have to believe.

So, what if you don’t? Or what if you have a hard time.

One of my favorite stories in the bible is the man who comes to Jesus and says, Please heal my son, if you can. Jesus responds, “If I can, anything is possible for him who believes”, and the man says, “I do believe, but help my unbelief.”

So, if you struggle with believing, ask Him to help you believe. And begin to confess that you believe. God, with your help, I choose to believe you WANT to speak to me. God with your help I choose to believe you want to share your heart with me.

/ / Ask

Same verse Hebrews 11:6, / / …that he rewards those WHO SINCERELY SEEK HIM.

Are we asking God, seeking him, spending time asking. Philippians 4:6, / / don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need...

Matthew 7:7, Jesus said, / / Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

Pretty straight forward, isn’t it? Do you believe it. That you can seek and find, ask and receive, knock and see doors open? Yes, good, keep doing it. No? OK - God, with your help I choose to believe your word, when I seek, I will find, when I ask i will receive, When I knock the door will be opened. Help me to believe. Transform my mind.

/ / Wait

Be patient. I loved one of the verses we read yesterday in our Daily Bible Reading from Luke 8:15, Jesus is telling this parable about seed and how it will grow depending on where it lands. And he says, / / The seeds that fell on good soil represent honest, good-hearted people who hear God’s word, cling to it, and patiently produce a huge harvest.

Cling to the word of God, the truth, and patiently produce…that almost sounds like an oxymoron doesn’t it? Patiently Produce…am I being patient or am I producing? Well, sometimes patience is the best thing we can do to produce. To believe and wait on God.

To me this looks like taking an attitude of, “God may just speak to me at any moment… so, I’m ready for it.”

Like a police officer developing the ability to no matter what they are doing, they are aware of what’s going on around them. Develop that ability. No matter what you’re doing, you’re always waiting on the Lord. You’re always available to receive. It’s the times that we’re not available, not waiting, not wanting, that things pass us by. I’ve mentioned this before, but those silly videos where they tell you to focus on the dancer on the screen, and this ridiculous blue elephant comes in across the screen but you never saw it. You were too focused on something else.

/ / Develop the ability to be available to God at all times, and that’s by asking, by praying, and by believing,

Next week we’re going to talk about developing and training our ability to hear God’s voice. But for this week we’re going to wrap up by asking our last question and simply invite God into this space of our lives. Maybe some of you haven’t ever “heard the voice of God”, or some maybe don’t know that you have, but you have. Some maybe do, but it’s not a constant availability. Our lives change when we invite God to speak to us often.

So, our last question for this morning:

/ / WHAT does God speak through?

And again, I’m not going to limit God to these few things, but we need to have a starting point to be able to make ourselves available.

/ / Audible voice

Don’t discount it, it could happen.

/ / Inner voice

probably the most common way people hear God. It’s just a knowing, an internal voice. That quiet whisper that Elijah heard. It sounds like your thoughts, but you know you didn’t think it.

/ / Scripture

Listen, I put a high value and emphasis on the bible for multiple reasons. First, the Bible is GOOD for you. Second, The bible is the word of God, and when you are in trouble, and you know the word of God, it can come back to memory. In fact, the bible itself actually says in John 14:26, / / The Holy Spirit will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you.

/ / Dreams & Visions

I’m lumping these two together because often times the bible does. So that makes sense, but they are really two different things.

Dreams. God uses dreams. He did all throughout the bible. If we put as much stock in dreams as they did in the bible, we might realize God is speaking to us much more than we thought.

Cool little story. More than a year ago, Christina, comes to me one day and says, “I had a dream last night that we were in the school building and it was a school for special needs and developmentally challenged kids. Kids on the autism spectrum etc...”

I thought, wow, that’s amazing. but, that’s not gonna happen any time soon, but wouldn’t it be cool. Keep in mind, this is months and months ago while we have a tenant on the property that had 6 years left on their lease and does nothing of the sort.

Well, we go through this legal struggle over a year and a half, and the opportunity arises for a new tenant to come in. And even in them coming in, things shift from day one, and just a week ago or so I’m talking to the owner of the new school that’s just getting started and ask him what the focus of the school will be. And I kid you not, he says, “We want to be the premier absolute best school in all of Miami for children with developmental disabilities and children on the autism spectrum etc...”

You can’t make that up!

/ / Angels

God speaks through his angels. There is a lot of biblical foundation for that. I don’t doubt it. I can’t say I’ve experienced it, but I know people who have.

/ / Signs & Coincidences.

The bible talks a lot about signs and wonders, about miracles. God does things in our lives beyond our ability to show us that He’s there, to show us that he’s speaking to us.

Albert Einstein said that / / Coincidence is Gods way of staying anonymous.

2 weeks ago Laura comes in with this pin for Kelley, it’s a shiny, sparkly cupcake. Kelley says, “oh, I must’ve told you that I love cupcakes.” I mean, if you know Kelley, you know her love for cupcakes. Laura says, “oh, no, I just saw it and thought of you.

OK, this is two for the price of one. First Laura sees this pin and thinks of Kelley. I say that’s God highlighting something to Laura.

Second, knowing Laura has no clue about her love for cupcakes, this becomes a sign and more than just a coincidence that this is some random gift. It’s not some random gift. It’s God speaking to Kelley’s heart, I see you, I care for you, I love you.

Kelley, years ago noticed she always saw the clock at 5:21, didn’t understand it. It’s her birth date, May 21st, but why would she always look at the clock right at that time. She was praying one day and felt like God said to her, “when you see 5:21, it’s my way of saying, ‘I’m thinking of you.’” Just God’s way of making sure she knows she’s loved. So, now, every time Kelley sees 5:21 she has that feeling in her heart, “God loves me. He’s watching over me. He’s here with me.” And it’s a reminder of that truth.

/ / Media (Movies / TV / Books / Literature)

This might seem a little strange, but I’ve had some of the best insights from something that would seem absolutely in no way spiritual at all.

About 3 years ago I had a situation with our previous tenant in our school building. We were transitioning from being St Timothy Lutheran Church to officially becoming Cutler Bay Worship Center, and so with the ownership change of the property I thought there had to be a brand new lease. We were going back and forth on it, and things weren’t lining up. I wasn’t sure what was going on. And I was really praying, “God, give me wisdom here.”

I’m sitting in our living room one day, not watching tv, but Kelley had a tv show on and in this show is the exact scenario I was in with this school, but played out between a tenant and landlord on the show. They give the exact answer I needed to hear. Now, TV shows aren’t always the most accurate, but it gave me the research beginning I needed. And sure enough, it was right. And instantly removed all of the tension and pressure we were feeling, because I had a wrong understanding of what needed to happen. Once I knew what needed to happen, backed up by confirmation from research that this TV show had led me to, I was able to move forward and get things done.

It was a huge answer to prayer.

These are just some of the ways God speaks to us. Reveals his heart for us. Reveals his direction and leading of our lives. But we have to be available to it. Hebrews 11:6 has become such a powerful verse for me over the last year, Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.

He rewards us when we seek him. And what’s the reward for seeking? FINDING!

As I said, next week we’re going to dig into this topic of the voice of God even further, developing the habit and the ability to be confident in hearing His voice. You are CONNECTED. And God’s desire is to be MORE connected to you every day!