July 11, 2010
Morning Worship
Text: Proverbs 3:5-6
Subject: Hearing God’s Voice
Title: The Keys to Knowing That You Can Hear From God
I want to talk to you today about a topic that we often hear about but, I think, not many really participate in. That topic is hearing from God. I would guess that everyone here today believes that a person can hear from God. The Bible is full of people who heard from God in one-way or another. Some had visions, others a visitation from an angel. Still others spoke with God himself. For believers today it is through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit that we are able to hear the voice of God and know His will for our lives. And yet this is where the problem lies. Too many Christians are unsure if it is God’s voice they are hearing or their own thoughts. They become like the man who fell over the edge of a cliff. On his way down he was able to grab on to a small bush growing out of the side of the cliff and hang on.
"Is anyone up there?"
"I am here. I am the Lord. Do you believe me?"
"Yes, Lord, I believe. I really believe, but I can’t hang on much longer."
"That’s all right, if you really believe you have nothing to worry about. I will save you. Just let go of the branch."
A moment of pause, then: "Is anyone else up there?"
You see we want to hear from God, but we just aren’t too sure that it’s God we hearing.
What if I told you today that you could hear from God?
What if you knew for sure that it was God you were hearing and not your own thoughts or the voice of the enemy speaking?
As we go through our passage today and expound upon it I want you to walk away from this place knowing that God is still speaking to His church today. You can hear from God.
5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight (He will direct your paths).
Lord, open my eyes to see and my ears to hear what Spirit is saying to the church!
I. KEY # 1 - TRUST. In the NIV the word “trust” is used 87 times. In our passage today it is the Hebrew word batach and it is a reference to a place of refuge – a place where you can go to be confident, sure and carefree. Isn’t that what a refuge is? Webster’s dictionary says that a refuge is, a shelter or protection from danger, distress or difficulty, or a place offering this; a person, thing or course of action offering protection…Now, many people, especially those in the world, but not only those in the world, try to seek refuge through the things of the world. They look for a safe place or a place of comfort in drugs or alcohol or relationships with other people. They are looking for something good, but they will never find it because they are looking in the wrong place. The next few words of Proverbs 5 tells us the only place that we can ever find that kind of refuge or protection. Trust (take refuge, be confident in, be sure of) in the LORD… The very first step that you must take in being able to hear from God is to trust in Him. If you are experiencing anything in your life and you are thinking, ”I really need to hear from God…” and then you run off and ask advice from a friend, or go to someone who has a prophetic ministry and expect them to tell you what God is saying or you grab the daily paper to read your horoscope, who are you really trusting in? If you want to hear from God you have to trust two things; 1) You must trust that there is a God… Hebrews 11:6, 6And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. The word translated “faith” is the same word translated “trust” elsewhere in the NT and it means, to be fully persuaded… A man who lived on Long Island saved his money to purchase a high priced barometer for his home. When he received it he opened the package and saw that the needle was pointing to “hurricane”. Angrily he shook the instrument and set it aside and wrote a letter to the manufacturer complaining about the defect. On his way to work in New York City the next day he mailed the letter and returned home that evening to find the barometer missing… along with his house. The instrument had been correct but he failed to trust it because it didn’t seem right. 2) You must trust that He is willing to respond to you in regard to your situation. Jeremiah 33:3, ‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’ OK, so whom do you trust? The LORD! And what do you trust about Him? That He is willing to speak to you! Now to complete this first Key to hearing from God, we have to complete the rest of the first part of verse 5. Trust in the LORD with all your heart… The heart refers to the innermost part of a man – not just the heart muscle the supplies life to the whole body – but the spirit of a man that is connected to and made alive by God’s Spirit in all believers. If you want to hear from God you will trust Him and then listen for His voice. Romans 10:9-10, 9That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. OK, now we are getting to the good stuff… if you trust God, and trust and believe in your heart that he will hear and answer you, you need to confess that with your mouth. Everybody say, “I know God hears me… and I believe in my heart that He will speak to me…” We need to say that out loud because faith comes by hearing… OK, we believe that, but that doesn’t explain how we know it’s God. Turn over to John 10. Verse 4, When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. Verse 14, “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me… Verse 16, I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice… Verses 26-27, 26but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. 27My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. You see, the more you hear the Lord’s voice speaking to you and you respond to it the more adept you become at recognizing that it was Him speaking. It is the same voice that moved you to the altar to be saved. He’s the same God who has spoken to you about sin in your life. He is the same Lord who quickens the Word inside of you when you read and tells you it’s true. But you must trust in Him with all your heart.
II. KEY # 2 – LOSE YOURSELF … and lean not on your own understanding… Do you remember the TV commercials from 70’s and 80’s from the United Negro College Fund that said, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste…”? It’s true. The word of God never says that we are not supposed to try to understand the things of God. As a matter of fact it would appear to do just the opposite. Listen to what Jesus Himself said in Mark 12:28-30, 28One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” 29“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ In your relationship with Him, God obviously wants your spirit man to be involved (with all your heart) but He also wants your natural man (all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength). The word never says that we are not intended to understand what God is speaking to us. He just doesn’t want us to lean on our own understanding. When God speaks to our hearts to0 often we tend to give the natural man way more credit than we deserve. I’m not sure if it was God or me… Maybe part of that is the fact that because we are a Pentecostal church we have all seen or heard people who are constantly saying, “Well, God told me…” By a show of hands how many of you would say that bothers you? Who would say that they are bothered by someone who is constantly “hearing” from God? Do you know what bothers me more than that? When I hear people say they never hear from God! You see, when our own understanding (our mind) gets in the way we immediately begin to think, “I don’t want to get in the flesh, so I’m going to make sure it was God”. So if you are seeking God’s face for something in your life, if you are waiting for His voice and His direction, waiting in His presence and a still small voice speaks to your inner man is it from God or is it from you? I believe that the way you will answer that comes from whether you get the answer you thought you were going to get or the answer moves you out of your comfort zone. If it isn’t what you expected your initial response will probably be, “that’s just me” when in fact it was probably God. God is trying to take you beyond your own understanding, beyond your own thinking, beyond your own mind… Romans 8:14, …because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God… If you have been a Christian for any length of time you have made mistakes when it comes to hearing the Lord. Not necessarily that you don’t hear Him, but that when He does speak you may think that He means one thing when HE means something totally different. But this scripture says that if we are sons of God (the word translated sons refers to those who are maturing and not infants) that we should be led by the Spirit of God. How does that happen? Because the Spirit of God speaks to our hearts. There will be times when you are seeking God for an answer to something and it just seems that you are not getting any answer. You fast, you pray, you fast more and you pray more, but nothing… What is going on? It is probably that you are afraid that you are going to make a wrong decision. I want to make sure that I’m doing the right thing. It is at that point that you need to begin confessing what the word says, “I’m His sheep and I know His voice… I am a son or daughter of God and I am being led by God… I’m not going to lean on my own understanding.” When you begin to confess out of your spirit man what the word of God says, the natural man has to step back and submit and the devil who is constantly at work trying to inject a voice into your thoughts has to flee from you. When you confess the word, you are resisting the devil. Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;
III. KEY # 3 – ACKNOWLEDGE GOD 6 in all your ways acknowledge him… Turn over to 2 Corinthians 13:14. God wants you to know that you can hear His voice. 14May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. There are three things that are continually expected to happen in the life of a believer. 1) You’ll experience grace… 2) you’ll know the love of God… 3) you will have fellowship or communion with the Holy Spirit. That is what we need to focus on in hearing from God – He intends to have fellowship with you through the Holy Spirit. What does that mean? The Greek word for “fellowship” is koinonia. It literally means more than just fellowship or communion. It refers to a partnership. In this case it is a partnership by which the Living God can communicate His will for the lives of His people. We need to acknowledge that God desires to be in partnership with me. Everybody say, “God wants me to partner with Him.” Now, turn over to 2 Peter 1. The most basic way to hear from God comes from this passage. 16We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” 18We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain. You remember the story of the transfiguration. Jesus took Peter, James and John up on the mountain with Him and Moses and Elijah appeared to them, a cloud overwhelmed them and God spoke – What a wonderful experience. But now look at what Peter says. 19And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, We have the word of the prophets made more certain… Now wait a minute. Peter was on the mountain with the others two disciples and they were seeing something that nobody else had ever seen. They heard the very voice of God speak from the cloud. They saw Jesus shining with the glory of God, and now Peter says there is something that is more certain than what they had experienced? 19And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. 20Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. 21For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. The words of the Bible are the words of the prophets given by the Holy Spirit and recorded under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The bible says that we do not have every record of everything that Jesus said and did, but this word of God that we do have is the most sure way of hearing from God that there is. Most people would agree with that. But why is it that many people side step that truth when they get a word from God or a vision or a heavenly visitation from an angel? OH God told me this… And then they never check their experience to see if it lines up with the word of God. Now I’m not saying those things don’t happen. People do have visions, they do see angels, God does speak to them, but if their experience does not align with the word, or if the message from the experience is not biblical then it is not from God. …we have the word of the prophets made more certain… The key to acknowledging God is to acknowledge His word. You may not ever have a vision, or see an angel or hear the audible voice of God, but what God does intend for you to have is the leading of the Holy Spirit by having fellowship with the Holy Spirit. And above all the word of God revealed through the written word by the Holy Spirit. There is nothing wrong with experience. I believe that God intends for us to experience Him in our emotions, our physical bodies and through manifestations through the spirit man. But the less you know about this book the more likely you are to be deceived. Not every spiritual experience is from God and you can tell if it is or isn’t by looking at your experience against the written word. Not that everything from God is recorded but every spiritual principle is, so when we fall under the power of the Holy Spirit in a prayer line, though it may not be mentioned specifically in the bible the spiritual principle is there. In the presence of God people fell down – they couldn’t stand. If we acknowledge God then we acknowledge the things that are from God… and he will make your paths straight…How are your paths made straight? By the Word of God… Psalm 119:105, Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path. The more of the word of God you pour into your life the more God will speak to you. Psalm 119:11, I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight (He will direct your paths).
In February of 1988 Charlotte and I were miraculously saved by God’s grace and in an instant a change began to take place from the inside out. At the end of the retreat that we were on everyone who had attended was given a Good News Bible. It’s a paraphrase bible, but a bible nonetheless. When we got home I began to read it. I had never read much of the bible before – just bits and pieces – whatever the readings were for any given Sunday in our church. But I began to develop a hunger for the world of God and as I began to feed that hunger the word began to be revealed to me. I began to develop a foundation of personal beliefs and many of those beliefs were not what our church believed. God was speaking to me through …the word of the prophets made more certain…
From 1988 – 1995 I listened to preaching on the Christian radio station every time I got the chance. I was beginning to be able to sort out what I considered to be scriptural and unscriptural teachings. I held on to what was good and threw away what was questionable. A friend who came from the same church background that we had come from attended a large church in St. Peter’s MO. His son was the media director there and he would get me every tape from every sermon that pastor had ever preached. That pastor was David Blount who had formerly been an Assemblies of God pastor before starting his church there. Those tapes confirmed and enhanced what the word of God had been speaking into my life.
As we were seeking the deep things of God I noticed that from time to time that there would be an inclination in my heart about something from the word. I wasn’t sure what it was at first but came to understand that it was God speaking to me. It was the voice of God that moved me to repentance and salvation according to the word of the prophets made more certain. It was the very voice of God that built a foundation in my life. It was the word of God made more certain that opened my eyes to the full gospel message.
The very first Sunday that we were in an A/G church there was a message in tongues with an interpretation. It was then that the voice of God rose up in me and said, “He’s real. The Holy Ghost is real”.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart…
Lose yourself…
Acknowledge God… And begin to hear the voice of God speaking life into your spirit.
You have the keys to the most basic and most important way to hear God’s voice.
Unlock the door and listen…
