[Adapted from the free sermons by Rich Warren]
We started the series on "Conversing with God" last week, on ‘How to hear God speaks”.
• We talked about the importance of our attitudes, because whether we get the message or not depend very much on our attitude.
• Jesus illustrated it with the parable of the sower, telling us these 4 differing attitudes toward God’s Word.
1. One is the closed mind, on the path. We want to cultivate an open mind.
2. Two, the shallow ground, no root. We need to allocate time to listen.
3. Three, among the thorns or weeds. Too preoccupied, so we need to eliminate the distractions. Weeds grow out of neglect.
4. Finally, we want to cooperate with what God says. It is only when we really listen and obey, that our life can be changed and become fruitful.
Today, we're going to look specifically at how God talks to you.
• When we talk about people listening to God and God talking to people, usually people sees this as something very mystical, something unusual or only for a selected few.
• But the fact is God does that all the time, to anyone He cares about. The Christian God is a speaking God.
The Time magazine once published an issue with the headline that said, "God is dead".
• The next day reporters gathered at Billy Graham's home and said, "Is God dead, Dr Graham?"
• He said "Are you kidding? I just talked to Him."
• Any of us can talk to God and God wants to talk to you. The Bible says that God made us that way, with the ability to tune into Him, to hear Him. It's nothing unusual. All of us can do it.
God wants to talk with you because you can't have a relationship without communication.
So HOW DOES GOD TALK TO US?
• God is not limited to any single way. The Bible shows some really spectacular ways.
• God spoke once through a burning bush. God spoke through a cloud (on Mt Sinai). He often spoke through angels. He even spoke to Balaam through a donkey. He spoke through dreams.
We're going to identify the FOUR most common ways that God speaks to us.
1. GOD SPEAKS THROUGH THE BIBLE. This is the number one way God speaks.
2 Tim 3:16-17
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Today, God has given us the clearest form of revelation - His written Word.
• God inspired His people to pen down all that He wants us to know.
• The Bible is not just a good collection of wonderful thoughts and ideas, but the very words of God, in Greek, "God breathed."
That means that the Bible is absolutely reliable. It can be counted on.
• It does not just ‘contain’ the Word of God but they are the very Words of God itself.
• We need to get into it because that’s the fundamental way God speaks to you.
• If you are not hearing Him, one clear reason would be because you are not reading it.
If God designed the Bible to be the message that ‘teach, warn, correct and train’ us in life, then we need to get into it.
• This is why it's so important to have a daily quiet time where you set down for 5, 10, 15 minutes - it doesn't matter the amount of time - and you let God talk to you through His Word.
• If you're not doing that on a daily basis, you're missing the number one way God wants to talk to you. The Bible is the manufacturer’s manual for life.
2. GOD SPEAKS TO US THROUGH TEACHERS (Mentors, Counsellors, Pastors…)
More than half of the Bible is written by prophets and teachers. Almost half of NT is the teachings of Paul.
• God uses people – people who are acquainted with His Word, who have encountered God and experienced Him.
• We see God using people to pen down His Word, and people to speak His Word.
Eph 4:11-13 11It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Paul says in 1 Cor 2:4-5 “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.”
God uses people to proclaim and teach His Word. We consult them to seek clarity.
• The more teachings you hear, the more you can be enlightened.
• The more teachings you listen to, the more chance God has to speak to you.
• That’s why once a week is not enough. You need regular input – you need quiet times, bible study, teaching seminars, reading of Christian books, or listening to sermons or CDs.
• You are giving yourself more opportunity to encounter God and hear what He has to say.
Be thirsty for the Word and be teachable, and you’ll see yourself growing strong.
3. GOD SPEAKS THROUGH IMPRESSIONS (directly to you through the Holy Spirit)
God puts ideas in our minds. When He does that, we call it an impression, or you can also call it inspiration or a burden for something.
• Many churches or ministries were started because Christians were called (inspired by a thought from the Lord).
• Where do you think that creative idea came from? It came from the Creator!
• When the devil puts an idea in your mind we call that a temptation (because he is trying to deceives you), but when God does that, He is calling you.
Jesus says, “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” (John 14:26)
• The Holy Spirit reminds us of what we have heard and learnt.
• So some of our most brilliant ideas may not be ours. They are God's. God gave them to us.
Sometimes God plants thoughts into our mind in more unique ways, like dreams and visions.
• Job 33:13-18 Why do you complain to him that he answers none of man's words? For God does speak - now one way, now another - though man may not perceive it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men as they slumber in their beds, 16he may speak in their ears and terrify them with warnings, 17to turn man from wrongdoing and keep him from pride, to preserve his soul from the pit, his life from perishing by the sword.
• We see that in the Christmas stories – how God sent angels to speak to Mary, Joseph, the shepherds out in the fields.
• This is probably more of the exceptions rather than the norm, now that God has already revealed His full revelations through the written Word.
Can impressions be mistaken? Of course, but some things are just so clear. God won’t ask us to lie, to cheat, or to do evil; most things are clearly stated in the Scriptures.
• So next week we are going to talk about how to understand and test these thoughts we have, how to evaluate them to figure out whether they're really from God or not.
We can swing to two extremes – one is to deny that God ever speaks to us through the mind.
• So all the thoughts I have are mine and nothing to do with God. He never gives us any impressions, only the Bible.
• The other extreme is to think that every other thoughts and impressions I have must be from God. That's presumption and wrong too.
• 1 Thess 5:19-22 Do not put out the Spirit's fire; 20 do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.
Both extremes are wrong. The first one misses out on God’s timely counsel or guidance.
• God may have given you a burden or gifts for a particular kind of ministry, but you’ve already decided - “The Bible didn’t say anything about setting up an orphanage or the drug addicts. I will only do what the Bible says.”
The second extreme tends to jump to the conclusion too quickly and read every possible impression as from God.
• People make many foolish mistakes and embarrass themselves because of this. They say, "God told me to do this," and then end up going bankrupt.
• You see, the motivation can come from God, but it can also come from your own desire, or Satan’s deception.
What we need is the wisdom to understand where that impression comes from.
• Heb 5 distinguishes the Christians who drink milk and the ones who eat solid food. “But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” (Heb 12:14)
• Therefore, always test an impression. Never make a decision on impulse.
• Paul says in 1 Thess 5 (earlier verses) to “test everything”. John says in 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.”
We will touch on this more in the next sermon on 14 March: “How to recognise God’s voice.”
• We will look at the various ways to test an impression.
• One basic guideline is this: It always has to match what the Bible says.
• If you ever get an impression that is opposite to what God said in the Bible, I guarantee that it's not from God. God never contradicts what He has already said.
4. GOD SPEAKS THROUGH PAIN
C. S. Lewis says, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
• This is the loudest. Sometimes God has to resort to this to get our attention.
• Trial and suffering has a way of really getting to us and make us aware of our need.
• It’s like a parent raising his voice when the child persisted in his own way.
• Someone says, “We don't change when we see the light. We change when we feel the heat.”
Solomon says in Prov 20:30, “Blows and wounds cleanse away evil, and beatings purge the inmost being.”
• Caning has a way of doing what no good talking can do. We know this by experience.
• Ps 119:67-68, 71 - Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word. You are good, and what you do is good; teach me your decrees…. It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.
Of course, not all pain means God speaking to you. But God does allow hardship to wake us up and get our attention.
A basketball player had a back trouble and was hospitalised. His pastor came to visit him and asked, "Why do you think this happened?" He said, "God had to lay me flat on my back to get me to look up to Him."
Rick Warren’s testimony:
At the end of 1980, the first year of this church, I emotionally and physically burned out. I was a confirmed workaholic. I worked about 18 hours a day starting this church. I loved every minute of it. The church office was in my home and I'd get up early, sometimes 4 in the morning, and start working and I'd work till about midnight, sleep for about four hours and get up the next day and do it again. I wasn't taking any time off or any time for myself, very little time for my family. At the end of that year, I burned out.
It took me about a year to recover from that. It was the most painful time in my life. But it was during that painful season of my life I learned the lessons that prepared me to handle the stress of a church that runs 12,000. I would have been out of here a long time ago if God hadn't taken me through that valley of pain in those early days.
They taught me some lessons that became skills and habits for my life and ministry. A few years ago I won the award for the least stressed executive in Orange County!
Why the painful experience? There are some lessons we only learn through pain.
So, why is it important to really hear God speak? Two reasons:
1. It is the foundation to a good RELATIONSHIP
One of the wonderful experience you have as a Christian is that God talks to you on a regular basis.
• All of us is capable of hearing His voice, because Jesus says, “My sheep listen to My voice; I now them, and they follow Me.” (John 10:27)
• Let’s take a glance of John 10 in closing. Jesus talks about our relationship with Him. He is the Shepherd, we are His sheep. See 10:2-3, 4b, 16, 27.
Some people think God only speaks to super-saints. That’s not true.
• Jesus speaks to all His sheep. He calls his own sheep by name (John 10:3b) - individually.
• Do parents talk only to their smartest kid, or the most obedient one? No. God talks to all His children.
If you know only about God and not know Him, what you have is a religion, not a relationship.
• The joy of the Christian life comes from this relationship.
• The more I depend on God's guidance, the more successful I am.
2. It PROTECTS me from mistakes
Job says, “16 He may speak in their ears and terrify them with warnings, 17 to turn man from wrongdoing and keep him from pride, 18 to preserve his soul from the pit, his life from perishing by the sword.” (Job 33:16-18)
• God speaks to protect you. He warns you in advance so you can avoid making many mistakes in life.
• Some are paying the price for the mistakes they made. This is unnecessary, if they had the chance to hear what God says.
So God speaks to you through the Bible (that’s the number ONE way), through teachers (people who knows Him and His Word), through impressions and thoughts He puts in our mind, and lastly through painful life experiences.
We’ve covered four most common ways, but God uses other ways too.
• Why God takes the trouble to talk to us? Because He loves you. You matter to Him.
• He did not create you just to take up space on this earth. You were made to have a relationship with God, and if you do not know that, you will die missing your very purpose for living. You will miss the very reason you were created.
