Scripture: John 10:1-5; Genesis 12:1-9
Theme: Hearing God’s Voice
Title: Abraham – The Father of Hearing
INTRO:
Grace and peace from God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit!
Over the next few weeks I would like for us to go on a little adventure together. It is an adventure that focuses on being able to hear God’s voice clearer in our lives. It’s not an impossible adventure. In fact, it is an adventure that God is always inviting us to join.
We understand that by remembering what Jesus shares in John chapter 10 –
“The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them on.”
Jesus was highlighting the relationship that existed between a shepherd and his sheep. He was highlighting how the sheep intimately knew the voice of their shepherd. How the sheep could hear their shepherd’s voice over all other voices and noises that surrounded them.
Scholars tell us that ancient shepherds developed a deep caring and loving relationship with their flocks of sheep. Ancient shepherds depended on their sheep almost as much as the sheep depended on their shepherds. An ancient shepherd depended on his sheep’s ability to provide such things as wool, lanolin, cheese, meat and landscaping assistance. It was a long lasting relationship that normally spanned around 10-12 years or more.
Unlike today where modern commercial sheep folds can run into the hundreds and thousands in ancient times most shepherds had less than 100 sheep with the majority of rural flocks being less than 50. Because of that, sheep naturally became more than just their livestock, they became a part of their lives. Each day working with the same sheep, naming them and caring after them was far different than what we see on many commercial sheep ranches today where sheep are raised merely for food and where many are slaughtered before they are one year old.
So, what was Jesus trying to tell us?
I believe Jesus was telling us:
+As God’s sheep, we are to understand that the LORD loves us. In fact, He loves so much that He would die for us – and He did through His Son - God in Flesh – Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
+As God’s sheep the LORD wants to talk to us and wants us to talk back to Him. I think we are to understand that we are to be able to hear and understand God’s voice and in like manner He hears and understands our voices.
And perhaps that is the rub.
Many people believe that it is impossible to hear God’s voice. Others believe that it is possible but as yet they have not heard God’s voice. And still others enjoy communicating with the LORD on a regular basis.
Over the next few weeks I want us to look at several people in the Bible that God did speak to and see if they can help us understand how we can be better connected to God and hear Him a bit clearer in our lives. For I believe that many times God is speaking to us and we are listening, but we may not always be aware of His presence, His voice and His direction.
One of the people that enjoyed talking to the LORD and hearing God talk to him was a man named Abraham.
In fact, the Bible records at least 10 conversations that God had with Abraham.
It is easy to begin to read Abraham’s story and be overwhelmed at the thought of God talking.
+I mean what was so special about Abraham?
+Why did God talk so much to him?
+What caused Abraham and God to be so close?
Actually, there was nothing special about Abraham. And I believe over the next few weeks we will see that we may have enjoyed more conversations with God than those that we find surrounding Abraham.
Now, let’s take some time and look at some things about Abraham and God’s conversations.
I. First of all there is a background story – Abraham had help understanding the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY
Have you ever read a devotional book or a Bible study book that helped you better understand the Bible and the LORD in general?
+Perhaps it was one written by someone like Max Lucado, Rick Warren or Beth Moore.
+Perhaps it was one written by Henri Nouwen, Sarah Moore, Francine Rivers, or Richard Foster.
+Perhaps it was one written by one of the saints of old; like Martin Luther, John Calvin or John Wesley.
As you read their words while you did not put them on the same level as the Bible, things were revealed to you that helped you read the Bible, understand God better and be able to live a better life. Yes?
Well, the rabbis of old share with us some information about Abraham and his family that we don’t find in our Protestant Bible. It is not anything that disagrees with the Bible but this information was not added to our Bibles.
One of those things comes from a book called the Book of Jasher. The Book of Jasher is spoken about in our Bible several times (Joshua 10:13; 2 Samuel 1:18 and 2 Timothy 3:8). While it is not given the same authority as Scripture the book of Jasher does provide us with some additional information.
Some of that information includes the life of Abraham. According to the Book of Jasher and other rabbinical sources, Abraham was greatly influenced by the presence of both Noah and Shem in his life.
When Abraham was born, both Noah and Shem were still alive. Noah lived for another 58 years after Abraham was born and actually Shem was still alive after Abraham’s death. Shem outlived Abraham by 35 years.
Now, that’s a lot to take in. Noah is still alive and his son Shem outlives Abraham.
Ancient rabbis and scholars tell us that Abraham as a young man spent some quality time with both Noah and Shem.
Now, take that in for just a moment. Abraham was able to sit down and talk to and learn from both Noah and Shem. These were two godly men who lived before the Flood. And in the case of Noah, this was a man who also knew the likes of Enoch and Methuselah. It all gets to be quite mind boggling when you begin to look at it in detail. Most of the time, we tend to skip over the genealogies that we find in the book of Genesis.
So, here is Abraham as a young man being able to receive instruction, guidance and insight from two men who lived before the Flood and in the case of Noah who knew both Enoch the man who walked with God and was taken to heaven and Methuselah the man who lived the longest life recorded in the Bible – 969 years.
To get some kind of idea what that would be like for you and me today – this would be like us being able to spend some time with the likes of Martin Luther, John Calvin, both John and Charles Wesley, Charles Spurgeon, John Bunyan, John Newton, William Booth, George Fox and Isaac Watts.
Can you imagine being able to sit down and learn from both John Wesley and Martin Luther?
Can you imagine what you could learn from Isaac Watts and John Calvin?
So, when we look at Abraham we need to understand that when God spoke to Abraham at the age of 75 it was surely not the first time. I can’t imagine that sitting around people like Noah and Shem and them having knowledge of a pre-flood world along with knowing people like Enoch and Methuselah that they didn’t share how they both listened and talked to God. I can’t imagine that they didn’t help Abraham know God better and understand God deeper.
So, what does this have to tell us?
It tells us that it is vital for us to share our faith stories with our children and grand-children. It also tells us that we need to be connected with those who have gone before us – either personally or reading about their life stories. We need to be immersed in books that have been written by the likes of John Wesley and others that have enjoyed a special relationship with God. We need to immerse ourselves in the writings and the words of those today that we believe know God at a deep level.
II. Abraham was fully open to receive the LORD.
Abraham was open to anyway God wanted to talk to him
When we look at all the ways that Abraham heard from the LORD we get quite an interesting collection:
+God impresses upon Abraham to move by speaking to him directly
+God spoke to Abraham while he was sleeping – in a dream/vision
+God reveals His will for Abraham through different angels
+God reveals His will by using people like Pharaoh, Melchizedek, Hagar and Abimelech to give Abraham blessings, messages and even corrections
+God reveals His will through famines/hard times along with periods of victory and celebration
+God reveals His will to Abraham as he sacrifices to the LORD and builds altars at places like Shechem, Bethel, and Hebron
+God spoke to Abraham through the ram caught in the bush as God provided a substitute offering for Isaac.
Now, those are just a few of the different ways that God spoke to Abraham. So, again what does that mean for us today?
It means that we must be open to hear God in all kinds of ways – dreams, visions, angels, circumstances, through other people and of course through His Word.
In Acts 2:17-21 we read these words:
17 “‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams;
18 even on my male servants and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.
19 And I will show wonders in the heavens above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke;
20 the sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.
21 And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
You know those verses remind us of something important: Abraham did not have a copy of the Old Testament or a copy of the New Testament. He did not have the advantages that we have today. But He did have an open heart and mind to hear from God.
Today, we have much more than Abraham possessed. We not only have our Bibles but we have the inner presence of God’s Holy Spirit who promises us that He will guide us and direct our ways.
“All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness (right living), that the person of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.” – 2 Timothy 3:16-17
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” – John 16:13-14
This morning, how open are we to hearing from God?
Will we let His Word speak to us? Will we allow Him to speak to us when we pray? Are we open to hearing from God through a dream or a vision? Would we welcome an angel? Are we willing to allow God to speak to us through another person? Are we open to allowing God to use the circumstances that we are going through to be a message from God?
I believe this morning that God wants to and is speaking to us through a variety of means and methods. I believe that we can even open up more avenues to hear God’s voice and direction if that is what we truly desire.
III. Finally, Abraham was careful to get rid of distractions that would prevent him from hearing God
There is so much more we can learn from Abraham but this morning, but let’s just look at one more thing – one of the ways that Abraham helped himself hear from the LORD was that he was careful to get rid of any distractions.
We see that in his initial call that is recorded in Genesis 12.
Joshua 24:2 tells us that Abraham’s family was known to serve other gods.
“And Joshua said to all the people: Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘Long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates. Terah, the father of Abraham and of Nahor, and they served other gods.”
When God called Abraham to leave a family and a land that did not serve God, Abraham simply left. He would rather follow God anywhere than stay where false gods and goddesses was worshipped or followed.
Hebrews 11:8
“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.”
All of his life Abraham over and over again got rid of anything that would that had the potential to come between him and God. Abraham didn’t allow land or riches to get between him and God. He didn’t allow even his failures or his successes to get between him and God.
Now, if you have read or studied Abraham’s life in detail then you know that he did not always do everything right. Abraham’s life was full of all kinds of twists and turns. There were times that Abraham failed to do walk in God’s footsteps.
But in those times the LORD did not remove Himself, but continued to walk with Abraham, wait on Abraham and do everything He could to bring Abraham back to the path of righteousness.
When Abraham is called the Father of the Faithful it is not because He did everything right, but because when you look over all his life it was a life that had as its central goal a dogged determination to follow the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY. Above everything else Abraham was determined to let God be #1 in his life.
Recently, the life of Mother Teresa has been called into question because of a diary she wrote. In her writings, she confessed to the many times that she dealt with doubt, with confusion and even with anger. She confessed that her walk with God was not always smooth and there were many times that the only thing she could do was to just hang on to her faith in God trusting God even when it seemed like He was silent and far away.
People have this strange notion that when you follow God that suddenly everything goes right and that there are no ups and downs. Those people need to go back to reading the Bible.
All of the people of the Bible are just like us. They all were human. They all walked with God but at times they took side trips, they fell down into spiritual pits and they found themselves over and over again having to be rescued and redeemed. But in the end they never lost sight of God and they never gave up.
Some struggled with addictions. Some struggled with anger. Some struggled with long periods of depression and despair. Some struggled with immorality. Some struggled with sickness and disease. Some struggled with doubt.
But all of them knew that the God who saved them would walk with them. They knew that the best thing that they could do was to continue to talk to God, to do their best to hear from God and do what they could to live a life worthy of God. They stayed in His Word and they stayed open to the Holy Spirit.
They made sure that anything that would distract them would be put to the side.
Like the good soil in the Parable of the Soils, they did not allow the weeds of their spiritual gardens to be taken over.
Like Mary, the sister of Martha they did not allow anything to keep them from the feet of Jesus.
Like blind Bartimaeus they did not allow other voices to keep them from being able to get to Jesus and receive not only a physical healing but a spiritual healing as well.
Today, can we hear from God?
God says we can – God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit say that we can.
The Bible says over and over we can.
People throughout History says that we can.
What can we learn from Abraham this morning about being able to hear God?
+Reach out and listen, read and hear from those who have gone before us. Get into the Word. Read some of the life stories of those who walked with God – Martin Luther, John Wesley, Billy Graham and others.
+Open your eyes, your heart, your mind and your whole being to be open to receive a word from the LORD – prayer, Bible reading/studying, contemplation, silence, dreams, visions, heavenly visits, the words of others and life in general. God is not silent and we need to realize that.
+Cut out the world’s noise – get rid of distractions – sit quietly in God’s presence – tune out the noise of the world and tune into God’s voice.
I will leave you this morning with this one more thought:
This one comes from the life of Susanna Wesley – John and Charles Wesley’s mom.
When Susanna was raising her 10 children (she had 19 but 9 died as infants) she committed herself to spending some quality time with the LORD. This was not an easy task with all those children running around. If having that many children was not enough work in itself, Susanna had to also take care of the home, work the gardens, milk the cow and school the children.
Naturally, she struggled to find the time and the place to have some quiet time with the LORD. That doesn’t surprise us does it?
Praying about it, she decided on a rather unique solution. She told her children that when they saw her with her apron over her head sitting in her chair it meant that she was in prayer and could not be disturbed. Now, that might seem a little strange to us this morning, but it enabled Susanna time to be with God and to receive the strength, insight and wisdom she needed to be a great mom and a woman of faith.
This morning, let’s do all we can to be like the sheep in Jesus’ parable. Let us be so close to the LORD that we can hear His voice above all others. And then let us do our best to not only hear His voice but to obey His voice.
I believe this is both our desire and I believe that this is what in the coming days and weeks we will do. Amen and Amen!
Closing Song/Prayer/Blessing
