Does God speak to people today? Indeed God does speak to us. Perhaps speak isn’t the term we should use, perhaps communicate is a better one. God communicates to us because God wants us to know him better, he wants us to follow him where he leads so he can bless us and we can experience him working in our lives. If we aren’t hearing from God, then how will we know God personally, have a personal relationship with him? And how will we do what God wants us to do? God has a plan and we are a part of his plan. There are ways he wants us to be his hands and feet in our family, our community, our world. If we aren’t doing what God wants us to do, how will we experience the power of God working through our life? Hearing from God is vitally important to our Christian walk.
Joke: A woman decided she wanted to try ice fishing. So she went out and cut a hole in the ice. Just then she heard a loud voice say, “there are no fish under the ice.” Amazed at hearing a voice speaking to her she wondered if it was God. She finally convinced herself she probably imagined hearing the voice so she tried drilling a hole in anther spot. Again she heard the voice, “there are no fish under the ice.” “Is that you God?” She responded. To which she heard the reply, “no this is the ice rink manager.”
Last week we began looking at how God speaks to us. We first discovered that the truth about God and his ways must be revealed to us by God. We cannot discover these truths on our own. If and when we become aware of the truth about God and his ways and what he wants us to do, God has spoken to us. You have heard from God. The most common ways God speaks to us today are through the Bible and prayer. As we read the Bible God reveals truth about himself and his ways that are specific to us, not just to people 2,000 year ago. Through a specific verse, or phrase, or even a word in the Bible, if we are attentive, we can sense God speaking to our heart. God also communicates to us in prayer, when we quiet ourselves and our minds before God sometimes we sense the nudges of God’s Spirit guiding us in particular directions. Perhaps he brings a person to our mind to pray for or visit, or perhaps he nudges us to do something and that feeling won’t go away. At our Bible study this week we talked about how we can know if it is God nudging us or if it is our own feeling. Here’s one rule of thumb we discovered, if you don’t necessarily want to do it, but you know you should, it is probably God speaking to your heart.
Today we are looking at two other common ways God “speaks” to us and confirms his plans: through circumstances and the church (or other Christian believers). Let me read for you a portion of Scripture, I want you to pay particular attention to where God uses circumstances and the church to speak to people. We are going to read from Acts 11:1-18. This is the Apostle Peter’s recap of the experience he had with God which led him to proclaim the Good News of Jesus to Gentiles (non-Jews) for the first time ever. Before this event all Christians were Jews.
[Read Acts 11:1-18]
Notice how God chose to reveal his plan that all people, including Gentiles, could become God’s children. While Peter was praying he saw a vision of a blanket being lowered with animals of all kinds and he heard God saying to him ‘get up, Peter. Kill and eat.’ This was a horrifying vision to Peter because God’s word told him he could only eat specific animals which were considered “clean.” Those that chew the cud, and have a split hoof (i.e. sheep, cow, goat), along with fish, and certain birds. Of course Peter refused, as any good Jew would. But God responded, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.” The vision happened three times. The first way God spoke to Peter was during his prayer time through a vision. But if this were the end of the story Peter wouldn’t know what to make of it, God had to “speak” to him again.
Before Peter could even figure out what was going on there was a knock at the door, and there were three men who had travelled about 40 miles from Caesarea to Joppa at the order of a God-fearing Roman centurion named Cornelius. Cornelius himself had an angel appear to him and tell him to send for a man named Peter in Joppa at the very house which they were now knocking. This is strange indeed, God speaking through visions and angels, but what did it all mean, what was God saying?
The incredible timing of their arrival just as Peter saw the vision was not a coincidence, it was a Godincidence. God was using this unusual timing to communicate to Peter and confirm and clarify his message. If this happened to us how many of us would have connected the dots between the vision and the knock on the door. We would probably have written this off as a mere coincidence. The timing of the visit was a sign to confirm God’s work. God could have revealed everything to Peter in the vision but instead he chose to give Peter only a small part of the picture probably to test his faith, to see if he was willing to adjust to God’s plan. What would Peter do? Would he see God’s hand in this? Further complicating the matter was that these three men were Gentiles, inviting Peter, a Jew, to the home of another Gentile, something forbidden by Jewish law. They couldn’t hang out with “impure” people, just like they couldn’t eat “impure” food. Would Peter get over his prejudice against Gentiles and go with them to Cornelius’ house?
God Speaks to us through Circumstances
God will use circumstances in our life either to communicate or clarify his truth to us or more commonly, to confirm something we have sensed God saying to us. These could be unusual circumstances, or God-incidences, as I like to call them, like Peter experienced where the timing was just too coincidental to be an accident. God was confirming Peter’s vision and flushing it out. If you have a coincidence occur in your life, rather than writing it off, perhaps you should ask God if he is trying to communicate something to you. Perhaps he is trying to confirm a direction he is leading you in.
I remember two summers ago I felt God sharing a burden with me for myself and our church to connect with the youth in our community, to share Christ with them. That same weekend I was feeling this strong sense, Leroy Sutfin called me on the phone asking me if I had ever heard about the Seven Project, a group which came into the schools to help share Christ with kids. This was God both confirming the sense I was feeling and communicating his plan for how we would accomplish it. When we finally brought the Seven Project in last year we had about 120 kids in Pellston come forward to commit or recommit their lives to Christ. It unified the churches, and reached the kids.
Just this past week Jill Cadwell shared with me how the planning for the community youth group was going. A group which several people sensed God leading them and others leading them to do. One of the core group was in conversation with folks from St. Clements and discovered that the youth pastor at Harbor Light had contacted St. Clements Catholic church for the possibility of meeting in their Quonset because God had placed the youth of Pellston on his heart and he felt the need to do something about it. He didn’t know what God was already doing. God is confirming through these so-called “coincidental” run-ins that he has a plan for the youth of our community, to draw them to himself. When we listen to God and sense where he is leading us, and we pay attention for his confirmation, we see God’s unfolding plan and how we become a part of it. God’s plan is bigger than our plan, it is bigger than any one church, it is God sized. God is pulling people together to work to build his kingdom in our community.
A circumstance may be a Godincidence, God placing a person or causing a situation to happen in our life at just the right time. It could also be an open or closed door like a new job opportunity, promotion, losing a job, car accident, a surprise phone call or visit, an illness, a miraculous recovery, a letter of encouragement, a failure, or success. The circumstance could be a positive experience or it could be a negative experience. The circumstance doesn’t necessarily tell us God’s plan, but it should bring us back to God in prayer to confirm what his plan is. For example, some people mistakenly think that just because a door opens, like a job advancement, that God intends for them to walk through it, or if a door closes it means God is telling us, “no.” This is not necessarily true, it means God may be getting your attention, but God wants you to come to him in prayer for clarification. God could be opening a door just to test you to see if you will come to him, spend time with him for confirmation. Remember God is interested in our relationship with him first and foremost. A circumstance may point you to the truth but don’t allow it to bypass your relationship with God.
Fortunately, Peter sensed God’s work, thanks to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. He went to Cornelius’ house, even though he was a Gentile and he began proclaiming the good news about Jesus Christ to them. Peter recognized that the vision he had wasn’t about eating animals per se, it was about Gentiles. They were the “unclean” whom God considered clean. He was now giving them the opportunity to receive Christ and be in God’s kingdom.
God Speaks through Other Christians
There is another subtle way God spoke in this passage. God spoke to the Gentiles through Peter. God could have revealed everything about Jesus to them through the angel, but God chose to speak through Peter. It was through Peter’s preaching the Good News about Jesus that the Holy Spirit came upon them just like at Pentecost. When Peter returned to Jerusalem to give an account of his visit with the Gentiles, once again God spoke through Peter. Notice how all their objections melt away after Peter’s testimony. After he was done with his talk it says, “when they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying ‘So then, God has granted even the Gentiles repentance unto life.” They went from criticizing Peter for hanging out with uncircumcised Gentiles to celebrating that Gentiles could be saved too. It wasn’t just because Peter had a better argument, it was because God spoke to their hearts and revealed the truth to them.
God speaks to us through the church or other Christians. In the OT, God frequently spoke through the prophets. They would hear from God and communicate his words to others. In the NT we learn that God gives the gift of the Holy Spirit to every believer so they can hear directly from God. God can speak directly to us, but it also means God can use any Christian believer to speak to us, it doesn’t have to be a prophet, an apostle, a preacher, a teacher, an evangelist, or missionary. God can use any Christian to communicate his truth. Many times God will use the testimony of a believer to cut to our heart, to reveal our sin, to show us God’s grace and his power in our weakness, or how God directed them.
John and Charles Wesley, were both Anglican priests, but before they began the Methodist movement they still didn’t know what it meant to have a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. They thought that if they just lived a good life, doing all the right things they were saved. The problem was they were very empty, hollow in their soul. During a time of questioning they entered into conversation with a Moravian Christian named William Holland, a layman, who taught them that they could have an assurance of their salvation by faith in Jesus. Using the writings of Martin Luther and his commentary on the book of Galatians, William read to Charles, and the words of Gal. 2:20 seemed to sink into his heart, “the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” On May 21, 1738 Charles gave his life to Christ. Three days later on May 24, 1738, that same man, William Holland, was reading Luther’s preface to the book of Romans at a mission church meeting at Aldersgate, and Charles brother John was there. While William read John was touched by God. John wrote of that life changing day, he said, “I felt my heart was strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given to me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.” God used a layperson, and the writings of a clergyman, Martin Luther, and the Holy Bible to speak to Charles and John Wesley.
God can speak to us through whomever God chooses clergy or lay. I figure if God can speak through a donkey, I suppose he can use any one of us, including me. God may use you to speak to someone else, or use someone else to speak to you. God could also use the writings of another Christian to speak to our hearts.
We must be careful when other Christians speak a word from God to us however. We need to ask, was this spoken in love? Does it bring unity? Is it consistent with God’s word? Is it consistent with what God is speaking to our heart? Even in the Bible, believers who claimed to speak for God didn’t always speak the truth, which is why John writes NIV 1 John 4:1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
Why would God use other Christians when he could just speak to us directly? God has created the church to work together as a unit, or as a body by the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul tells us in 1 Cor. 12 that each of us has a part to play in the body, yet we function together as one. God wants to foster interdependence. God wants us to rely on him and each other. We are not meant to be Lone Ranger Christians. If we try to go it alone, we will only get a small part of the picture of what God is doing, and what he is communicating to us. Pride in the American independent spirit, hurts our relationship with God, and our ability to hear his voice. We don’t see God work powerfully because he works through the church, through Christian community. This is one of the reasons we encourage people to be in Sunday school classes, Bible studies, or small group because we need to hear what God is revealing to each other. When we share what God is revealing to us, and what we see him doing around us, it builds others up and it leads them to join God in that work.
In our Bible study this past fall, Evelyn Weiss shared how God was impressing on her heart that she should be praying for those husbands who are not in church. And in hearing her share, we too were convicted to pray, and I believe God spoke through her.
Conclusion:
Are you paying attention to what God is communicating to you? Whether through the Bible, or prayer, or paying attention to God’s work around you and the circumstances he brings, or being intentional in spending time with other Christians? If you’re not I can guess you probably aren’t hearing from God. And you might not be on track with where the Good Shepherd is leading you.
