Do you trust what you hear? You hear something, your ears pick it up, but you don’t quite trust that you’ve heard it right? Sometimes that’s because there is a speaker making rash statements and offering foolish promises. You may have thought that about some preacher! Did he really say that? Did I hear that right?
Or maybe we heard it right, but we don’t know how to interpret what we heard. It’s all gobbledygook, and there is no frame of reference in which it makes sense. So we hear it, but we don’t hear it. And we do not trust what we have heard.
Imagine, for a moment, that you are in a new car salesroom. You’ve reluctantly concluded that your twenty-year-old clunker is not going to make it through another highway trip, and so you’ve gone shopping for a new set of wheels. As you stand in front of the 2007 Belchfire 290ZXQ, the salesman is extolling its virtues. He says, "Why, this car will out-perform absolutely anything on the road. This car, you see, is equipped with an electronically sanitized, inverse mounted, differentially adjusted, automatically supported gear ratio controller. And, in addition to that, you can get it with the structurally focused, indigenously distributed, ergonomically correct armature. Now can I sign you up for one?”
What did you just hear? What did you just hear? Words: but the gobbledygook makes you wonder if you can trust what you heard. Something fairly simple became very complicated: something straightforward was made distant and remote, because it was papered over with technical language. We stop trusting what we hear because we live in a complex world, made more complex by those we suspect are out to get us. We no longer trust what we are told; we no longer trust what we hear.
Worse yet, I submit, we no longer trust ourselves. We don’t know what to think, or what to feel; we no longer trust ourselves. More on that in a moment.
Now, a step further. If I were to ask you whether you trust what you hear from God, what would you say? No doubt you would want to talk about how you hear from God at all. Some of you would focus on the Bible, and you would say that, yes, you trust the Bible, you can hear God in the Bible. But then, if you have been in my Wednesday night class, you know that Bible scholars talk about hermeneutical principles and redaction criticism, pre- and-post-exilic contexts, and paradigm shifts. Too steady a diet of that, and before long before you are not sure you can trust what you are hearing in the Bible.
So again, if I were to ask you whether you trust what you hear from God, what else would you say? Some of you might focus on preaching, although I will be the first to admit that there is an awesome amount of noisy nonsense being pushed from some pulpits.
Still others might focus on prayer. If you’re not sure about how to read the Bible and if you are suspicious of prancing preachers and pious platitudes, then is prayer a way to hear the voice of God? Yes, it is; prayer is indispensable to hearing the voice of God. But here again, we can deceive ourselves. Prayer may not always get you a trustworthy answer. You know, don’t you, the old story of the pastor who got a call to a church that paid double his present salary? The pastor told the pulpit committee, because he knew they expected it, "I need to go into my study and pray about this." But his wife said, “While you’re downstairs praying, I’ll be upstairs packing." Even in prayer, our selfishness makes it difficult for us to trust what we hear.
So, again, I ask you one more time: how can you trust that you are hearing the voice of God? What can you trust as God’s authentic voice?
I have a strange answer. It is certainly an answer you can argue with. But over and over again I have found it true. If you ask how you can hear the voice of God, my answer is: listen to your own heart. Listen to yourself. Listen to yourself and there listen also to the voice of God. Trusting yourself is trusting God! Hear me out.
One fateful afternoon the young man Moses found himself listening to his own heart, and hearing the voice of God as well. Moses was tending sheep out in the barren wilderness of Horeb. He was living an unsettled, directionless, rather ordinary life, with only one or two distinguishing marks. He had been raised in the palaces of Egypt; and he had killed an Egyptian in anger, and had therefore become a fugitive. Other than that, Moses looked like a good many of us. He married a wife, got a job, raised a family, and went on, day after day, not dreaming about much of anything. But that was before this day, this experience. After this experience Moses was able to live life with confidence, he was clear about who he was, and clear about what he was to do with his life. He heard and trusted the voice of God. It happened because Moses listened. He listened to himself and so listened to God.
I want to point you this morning to the little phrase, “I am." I am. Very clear, very simple, very pointed. Four times in this Scripture you will hear the phrase “I am." Two times Moses speaks it. Two times God speaks it. Listen to the “I am” phrase and discover how as we listen to our own hearts, we gain clarity about the voice of God.
I
The first “I am”: Out in the desert, alone beneath the burning sun, with only his sheep and the memories of his past to keep him company, Moses saw a bush burning in flames, but not burned up. Fire, but not a fire that consumed. Read it however you will, come up with whatever explanation you choose – and there are a variety of them – take away this much: in that burning bush Moses saw the signature of God Himself.
The language is instructive. It says that Moses, listening to his own heart, said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight ...” And then Moses said to his God, “Here I am” "Here I am." Here I am, Lord, I’m available. Here I am, receptive. Here I am, open to you. Here I am, vulnerable. Here I am, ready to see whatever there is to see, ready to feel whatever there is to feel, ready to be whatever you want me to be. The first great “I am" is availability. Availability.
The trouble with us is that we have limited our availability to God. We hedge on this thing of God’s voice, and we say, "Now Lord, you do recognize that I have certain responsibilities. I have a mortgage, I have a professional standing to keep up, I have a reputation in this community, I have, I have, I have.” We do not hear the call of God because we are not honest with our own hearts; and we are not honest with our own hearts because we are listening to the computers in our heads that tell us to be careful, and to the buzz out there in the world that says, “Don’t try anything new.” We’ve got to have every question answered, every “i” dotted and every “t” crossed. We don’t hear God, I am saying, because we have closed down our availability. We are not prepared to stand and say with Moses, "I must turn aside ..Here I am."
You will recall that once Jesus spoke about how if one knows where the pearl of great price is, he will spend all he has to obtain it. But we are far too careful for that. We want our God to be comfortable and to fit in with the way of life we have already carved out. And so we close our ears to a God who comes as an unexplainable burning fire deep within the soul. We won’t listen to a God who disrupts our ordinariness! Jesus pointed to the Pharisee who prayed, “Lord, I thank thee that I am not as others”. But ours is an opposite but equally dangerous prayer, “Lord, I thank thee that I am just like everybody else!” We have shut down our availability to God’s burning purposes.
I tell you, the first requirement if you will hear God’s voice and hear it as authentic is simply to be available. To be open. To be ready for whatever God might share. The saddest folks I know are the ones who never even entertain the thought of changing. And the happiest people I know are those who are willing to listen to something new. "I must turn aside ...Here I am." If you would live large, know yourself and be available.
II
Now watch how God responds to Moses with His own "I am." The second “I am” comes back to Moses from God. Once Moses has declared his own availability, his willingness to hear God’s call, then God speaks to Moses His own “I am":
"I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Moses, I am not just a figment of your imagination, I am not just a fly-by-night feeling. Moses, I have a grand plan. And you have a place in it. I have a plan for creating a people for myself; that plan I worked out in Abraham, in Isaac, in Jacob, in all the fathers and mothers of Israel. I’ve been at this thing for a while, Moses, and I do know what I am doing. Moses, I am. I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. I am rooted in eternity and revealed in history. I am the God of those who have gone before you, and it is no accident that you are here in this time and place. I have brought you here.
Part of our problem in listening to ourselves is that we get the idea that nobody else has ever before felt what we’ve felt. We get mired in a pity party: “Oh, nobody understands me, nobody else has ever felt what I feel, no one else has ever seen what I see. Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen.” We act as though we were just specks of dust, blown here and there, meaning nothing.
But God says to Moses, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob ..." “Moses, I’ve been down this road before. I know all about you. But if you will listen to history, if you will hear your people’s story, you will also be listening to yourself. If you will see what I have done with others who have gone before you, you will see what I can do in you. I am the God of your fathers.”
Is it possible that our spiritual dilemmas today grow out of rootlessness? Is it possible that one of the reasons we neither hear our own hearts nor understand God’s claim is that we have cut ourselves off from our history?
God says, “Take off your shoes, Moses; the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Do you stand on any holy ground? A number of years ago Margaret and I went on a tour of England, and one of our first stops was Winchester Cathedral. All around us were ancient stones, venerable stained glass, the tombs of kings and saints. The tour guide stepped forward and greeted us, “Ladies and gentlemen, the worship of God has occupied this space every day for one thousand years.” Wow! Now I know we cannot duplicate that, but what a sense of place, what a sense of history, what a sense of who you are to stand on holy and historic ground!
But I do not need to be in a thousand-year-old church building to remember what God has done. For I can remember a room where I learned Bible verses in Sunday School. I can recall a baptistery that received me into its waters sixty years ago. I can remember parents whose habit it was to pray before each meal and whose practice it was to kneel with me at my bed each night. I can think of pastors who prepared diligently and proclaimed passionately the Word of God. I can resonate with musicians whose artistry stirred my soul and drew me toward the Lord. My history, God’s history, God at work, holy ground! Have we forgotten? Have we become rootless, somehow imagining that no one else was here before us, no one who feels what we feel, no one who thinks what we think?
Some years back I took a course in family systems. The instructor told us that healthy families tell stories that identify who they are, stories that give flavor to that family. He spoke particularly of survivor stories – how families tell stories that prove to themselves and to others that they survived hard times. Suddenly, as he spoke, I remembered! I remembered how in my family the story was told, over and over, about my grandmother, born very prematurely at home out in Breckinridge County, Kentucky. They told about her weighing only a pound and a half. They told about how my great-grandfather took off his Masonic ring and put it on her tiny arm, so small were her hands. They told about how my great-grandmother wrapped her in a cloth, put her in a basket, and left her on the hearth to die. But obviously, if Mary Burr Moorman eventually became my grandmother, she did not die as a premature infant. In fact, she lived for 75 years. It’s a story we told in the family – and which I have told my children and will no doubt tell my grandchildren. It means, “Don’t count us out. We survive. We will live.”
Ah, you see, we have lost our memories. We have cancelled out all that the Lord did in those who came before us – in our mothers and fathers, in our pastors and teachers, in friends who brought insight and in enemies who brought challenge. We have not seen the great “I am” at work in the experiences of others. But He is at work. He has been at work. He has given you a worthy legacy if only you will see it. Listen again to “I am.” “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob." Listen to the stories; then listen to yourself, and live large. God has been at work in you.
III
Now we are ready for the third "I am". We are ready for Moses to hear, really hear, his own heart; we are about to encounter Moses genuinely listening to the call of God in the very depth of his soul.
This time it’s not exactly an "I am" that Moses speaks. Instead it’s a "Who am I?" But that’s important too! Moses said to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" "Who am I?"
Real listening always involves accepting responsibility. At some point in the business of listening to ourselves and exploring who we are, we ask, "Who am I and what do I do with that?" Accepting responsibility.
I am saying this because there is an awesome amount of navel-gazing going on. We spend a lot of time looking at ourselves and talking our psyches apart. We’re so busy playing "poor me" that we hear nothing else. If you’re in counseling or in therapy, I’m certainly not putting that down. But at some point each of us needs to put aside all the negatives, forget about all the deficiencies, and listen to the heart tell us what we can do. We may wallow in our woundedness; but our God will call us to rise above that and to be responsible. If we listen to our own hearts, and we are honest, we are going to hear some kind of call to make a difference. We are going to hear a call to live larger than we have lived.
Moses heard God’s call to go down to Egypt and bring out the people. Of course he wondered if he was equal to the task; of course he was uncertain. Who wouldn’t be? "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” You want me, Lord? How did I get chosen for that? Couldn’t I be just a little less chosen? But he did ask about responsibility. He did hear God’s summons to responsible living.
I visited a young family in the church I served as pastor. They had had what I guess you would call a checkered past. A failed previous marriage for her, and he was about ten years younger than she. There were some questions about whether the marriage would last. There were some concerns about whether either of them was mature enough for a serious commitment. But they had managed to work it out for a year or two, and now there was a new baby. As I listened, this very young father said that after that baby was born he realized that he no longer wanted to do just whatever he felt like doing at the moment. He said that hanging out with the guys on the street corner no longer attracted him. And then his wife chimed in to say that her favorite pastime, “Shop ‘til you drop”, was no longer of any interest to her. This couple had learned that being adults meant that they looked over their shoulder, saw the next generation coming, and they accepted their responsibility.
Who am I now and what is my responsibility’? Who have I become, and how can I use my life for someone else? Who am I becoming and how will I sharpen my skills so that I can meet the challenge that God is placing on my heart? Who am I?
Are you at a juncture when the "Who am I?” question needs to be asked? Is there something you know you must do, something of God-sized proportions? Is there something that must be done, and, like it or not, it’s yours to do? No one else can do what God is calling you to do. But if you ask the “Who am I” question deeply enough, you will hear God’s call to a place of responsibility. You will hear God’s call to live large and make a difference.
IV
And when all is said and done, and your friends ask you where all this confidence came from; when your neighbors wonder how you got to be so sure and your family cannot figure out why you are so certain ... then will come the fourth and last “I am”. Then will be the “I am” of tremendous, powerful affirmation. It will be the “I am” of the God whose presence you will feel every step of the way.
For Moses said, “If I come to the Israelites . . . and they ask me, ’What is his name [who sent me?]’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses; “I will be with you. EhYeh aSher ehYeh. I am who I am.” Tell them “I am has sent you”.
Oh, if I could get you into the majesty of the Hebrew text! “I am who I am.” Better yet, “I am He who causes to be”. I am, Moses. I am. I am with you. I am for you. I am beside you, I am before you, I am above you, I am beneath you. I am.
I submit to you that nothing is as empowering as the very presence of God. Nothing is as bold and vibrant as feeling deep down in your soul His living Spirit. "Tell them ‘I am’ has sent you.” Knowing that you are in the Presence gives you the power to do more, to be more, than you could ever imagine. Feeling down in your soul, as you listen to your own heart, the assurance of the great I AM, a great and loving God – that is what makes you live large.
That is what keeps teachers teaching unruly students. That is what sends missionaries to unwelcoming nations. That is what supports soldiers doing their duty in dangerous lands. That is what fires the imagination of artists and musicians. That is what drives the researcher in the medical laboratory. That is what pushes the statesman to fight the political battles. I am has sent you. I am what I am, I make happen what I will” The Presence!
Oh have you heard today the voice of Him whose voice is like the sound of many waters, whose clarion call is like the trumpet piercing the silence? Have you heard the call of the great I AM? Do you know who He is and have you said Yes to Him? There is a burning bush within your spirit. You know your name was on it, it was for you, but maybe you have tried not to listen. But today, if you will hear His voice, listen to your heart. Attend to your own soul.
Know who you are. You are a child of Him who assures you, “I am”. Are you unclear? He says to you, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Are you lonely? You are embraced by Him who pitches His tent among us, “I am the word made flesh, full of grace and truth.”
Do you feel ignorant? He says, “I am the light of the world.” Do you feel depleted? He says, “I am the living water which if anyone drinks he will never thirst again.” Do you feel inadequate? He says, “I am the living bread come down from heaven.”
Do you feel weary, and worn, and just out of time, out of energy, out of everything? He says, “I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the ending.” “I am He who was dead and is alive forevermore.”
Listen ... listen ... I must turn aside. Here I am. Available.
Listen ... oh, listen ... I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I speak through the lives of those who have gone before.
Listening ... listening ... to the heartbeat of the world. To the needs all around me. Who am I? Who am I that I should go and make a difference? I am a child of I AM.
Listen, oh listen. I am who I am. I am with you. Be confident. Be sure, very sure, listen to your authentic self, for you are listening to God and to His truth, whose name is Christ Jesus. “To God and to the Lamb I will sing, I will sing, to God and to the Lamb, who is the great I am.”
