GOD CONNECTIONS
“Voice Lessons”
John 10:1-14; 27
Last week on Wednesday evening we had just gotten home from Bible study. I was getting out of my truck when I noticed a dog standing at the edge of our yard. She looked a bit scared—we called for her to come to us—but it took at least 20 minutes before the dog realized we weren’t going to hurt her.
We walked through the neighborhood for a while trying to find out who the owners might be; but to no avail. So we brought her in for the night. My wife who is basically the dog whisperer decided to name the dog Gracie. She said if it wasn’t for God’s grace this dog could get hurt. Gracie became very friendly and we had both decided that maybe God was sending us a dog to take care of.
The next morning as soon as animal control offices were open I called and gave them the tag number. They identified the dog and gave us her address and her name which was Betty Lou. I know. Who in the world names a dog Betty Lou? We continued to call her Gracie that morning but then I used her actual name and the moment I called her Betty Lou—her little ears stood straight up. Then I would say Gracie. Nothing. Betty Lou. Ears up. Gracie. Ears down.
It is a remarkable fact that certain animals recognize their name and also recognize the voice of their owner/master.
There was a television show about a man named Charlie Frank. Charlie Frank raised an elephant from birth and trained her as a circus performer. When he retired he gave the elephant to the San Diego zoo. He went for the next 15 years without seeing her a single time. They had not seen each other for 15 years when they filmed this reunion. Frank called to Neeta across a distance of about 300 feet. Immediately the animal came to him. After 15 years. And she immediately performed the tricks she had performed years earlier. How does that happen? It’s simple. She recognized her master’s voice. She recognized her name.
In the gospel of john the Bible says the shepherd of the sheep ….calls his own sheep by name and leads them out….He goes ahead of them and the sheep follow him because they know his name. I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own and my own know me….my sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me.
1. We share many things in common with sheep. Look at the nature of sheep. In one of Max Lucado’s books he asks a very interesting question. He says “couldn’t God have thought of something better to compare us to instead of sheep? Of all God’s animals the sheep is probably the least able to take care of himself. They are kind of helpless. If you go to the circus you may see an elephant trainer, a lion trainer, even a monkey trainer but never a sheep trainer. They’re just not as smart. Let’s face it. Sheep don’t do tricks.
Sheep are not particularly bright animals. It’s not that they occasionally wander off---wandering off is a way of life for them. They love to eat and they will keep their head down for hours eating until they find themselves lost in another pasture. But wandering off is what we expect from sheep.
A story ran in the Washington Post about shepherds in the country of Turkey who watched in shock as hundreds of their sheep followed each other over a cliff. First one sheep wandered away and fell to his death. Eventually the entire flock followed that one. In the end more than 400 sheep were dead. 3000 years ago the prophet Isaiah wrote these words, we all like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way. We have followed the crowd instead of the shepherd.
Now that brings me to the 2nd truth I want to share with you. As sheep we desperately need protection. We need a gate. Look at verse 7. You can see in this picture the shepherd standing at the gate. He is there to protect the flock. In the OT it was very common for the shepherd to sleep at the entrance where the gate was located. Much of the time there was no gate. The shepherd actually became the gate. He would lie across the entrance to the sheep pen. In that way no one could come in and steal the sheep and the sheep could not come out unless they went through the shepherd.
This passage is being spoken by Jesus to a group of Jewish leaders who like us could not seem to grasp what he was teaching. It’s full of symbolism; it has a deeper meaning than what appears on the surface. Look at v. 6. Jesus used this figure of speech but they did not understand what He was telling them. This is not the first time God as had to repeat Himself. Not the first time He has had to say something a second time. In the OT God instructed Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach but instead he ran away and went in the opposite direction. In the book of Jonah chapter 3 it says “that the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time.”
In the NT we see Jesus say things twice for emphasis. He spoke to Peter using his name twice; when Martha needed correction, he would say Martha, Martha. When God spoke to Samuel, he wasn’t sure who it was calling his name out. God spoke again. Samuel! Then God said it twice, Samuel, Samuel. Samuel then said, speak Lord I am listening. Now here’s the point. If God says something once, it is important. And it should be enough. But if he repeats himself …... if he says it twice, we definitely better listen because he is trying to get our attention.
There are several things that can block us from hearing what God has say to us. So Jesus has given the information to them once and now v. 7 says so Jesus said this again. Let’s look at what some of these things are that seem to block out God’s voice.
(1) Unbelief. The writer of Hebrews says, “see to it brothers that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.” He was speaking to those who had gotten started in the Christian life but were in danger of falling away. It can happen to anyone. And once you get to a point where you are out of touch with the Father, you will be out of touch with his voice. This is all about our personal relationship.
(2) Neglect. Neglect of your personal relationship with the Father. We need to understand that the level at which we will hear and understand God’s voice is based on the level of our personal relationship with Him. In any relationship if we stop talking to the other person, if we stop focusing our time on that person, we will lose our relationship. We will no longer be able to communicate. This is all about priorities. Paying attention to the things that matter.
(3) Anger, bitterness, resentment…any negative emotion that dominates your life and occupies your thoughts will prevent you from hearing God’s word. You see when we are angry or bitter we are unable to think about anything else. This is all about focus.
(4) False disciples who try to deceive us. Look at verse 8. He says, all who ever came before me were thieves and robbers. V. 10 tell us that the thief came only to steal and kill and destroy. Jesus came that we might have life. Satan came to try and take it away. He is a thief. In the past 3 months my mother experienced a break in at her house…they robed appliances and other items and Denise’s brother lost all of his sound recording equipment and his appliances as well. They both live in the same town and robberies are becoming commonplace there. Every day occurrences. And when this is happening it is hard to focus on anything else. That is exactly what Satan wants us to do. This is all about deception. And it will block us from hearing God’s voice.
We need protection from all of these things and that is why we need a gate. A gate keeps us safe. It can keep thieves from entering, a gate can keep all kinds of things out that can harm us. Jesus is the gate.
That brings me to the 3rd major truth I want to share with you. As sheep we must learn how to listen to the shepherd. We are going to talk about this for several weeks but I want to give you a few principles for you to think about. And then next week we will really expand on this.
1. True followers/sheep will only follow their master’s voice. I am told that if you were to gather several different flocks of sheep and place them all together that if they belonged to 3 different owners, as each one calls them out they will respond.
2. You should expect to hear God’s voice. It is a part of your personal relationship with the Father. Last week I told you that more than anything, prayer is a conversation between you and God. And you know when you have a conversation it should not be one sided. Have you ever had a conversation with someone when they did all the talking? That is what our prayer life (for most of us) has become. But that is not what it is intended to be.
3. You must learn to recognize the Father’s voice. It is different from all the others. This is what I believe. Many people in life will shout to get your attention. They figure if they speak loud enough you will respond. But some of those people are actually hard to listen to. And they can be extremely hard to respond to. Listening involves much more than just hearing someone.
In the first message in this series we looked at the story of Elijah where God told him to go and stand on the mountain because the Lord was passing by. Immediately a strong wind came and tore the mountains down, rocks were falling but he noticed as loud as it was that God was not in the wind. Then after the wind there was an earthquake and even though the ground shook violently he notices that God was not in the earthquake. Next after the earthquake was a fire and as hot as it was God was not in it. Then a gentle breeze began to blow and when Elijah heard it he went and her stood in the entrance of the cave and God spoke. He was not in the powerful winds, not in the earthquake or the fire. The Bible says he spoke in a gentle whisper.
People may shout at us, Satan may scream at us and the world may cry loudly to get our attention….billboards, text messages, phone calls, email but for the most part, God just whispers. He says, “Be still and know that I am God.” That’s the first key to get still.
One book; it is actually a workbook that I would highly recommend to everyone is titled Experiencing God. The author, Dr. Henry Blackaby is one of the most godly men I have ever met. He is from Canada and in his book he tells the story of how the Canadian Mounties were trained to recognize counterfeit money. Now if I were conducting the training I would try to gather several counterfeit bills and have them study every inch of that dollar bill so that they could learn to recognize one. But the Mounties did it a different way. In fact they were not allowed to even look at a counterfeit bill. Instead they could only look at the real thing. They studied a real dollar bill very carefully until they knew everything about it. In that way when a counterfeit bill came their way they would recognize it as being different…. immediately.
How can we know God’s voice? How can we know it is not the voice of the enemy? We have to learn to listen to the real thing. Study His word. Pray. Get still and listen. God does not want to hide himself from us. He does not want to hide his will from us or make it difficult for us to understand. Read this book. And you will get to know God and God will begin to speak to you.
