God’s Master Volume Control Slider
PPT 1 Series Theme verse
Galatians 4:19 My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you
Intro: Did you know that there is a master volume control that affects how much and how clearly God speaks to us, and moves on our behalf? Stay tuned that is what we are going to be speaking about today.
We have been in a series on Following the Master, and Galatians 4;19 has been our overall theme verse. By way of reminder, I repeat what we have said from the beginning, there is a vast difference between Christ being in you, and Christ being formed in you. One represents salvation, and the other that you are becoming like Jesus.
Years ago, we used to sing a chorus, which went like this:
Oh, I love you in the love of the Lord,
Oh, I love you in the love of the Lord
I can see in you the glory of my king,
And I love you in the love of the Lord.
This series has been about challenging us that others can see the glory of the Lord expressed through our lives. His personality, His traits, His nature. In short people seeing Jesus in us. That is exactly what Paul is praying for in Galatians 4:19
If we are going to have Christ formed in us we are going to have to model Him. Today I want to key in on following Him as a listener. Here is an insight of how Jesus was a good listener in the OT, here it is in 2 different translations:
PPT 2 text
Isaiah 50:4 The Lord GOD has given Me the tongue of disciples, That I may know how to sustain the weary one with a word. He awakens Me morning by morning, He awakens My ear to listen as a disciple (NAS)
Isaiah 50:4 The Master, GOD, has given me a well-taught tongue, So I know how to encourage tired people. He wakes me up in the morning, Wakes me up, opens my ears to listen as one ready to take orders. (MSG)
Jesus had a well taught tongue. It was taught to encourage others, not to rip them. He also had well trained ears.
He listened as a disciple. What does that mean?
You need to understand the relationship between teachers and students in biblical times. They listened eagerly, with the greatest respect. Not every teacher took everyone who wanted to be his student. When a student connected with a teacher, he did so, with a sense of honor and respect, he would take the teachers words as very reliable, better than his own thoughts.
There is a humble submission that is required of those who follow Jesus. It is more than that, there is a trusting hearing that is required of disciples. Jesus would say we need to become as little children. Little Children believe everything their parents tell them, that is how we should be with the Lord and the bible.
Protestant reformation brought a lot of good things, we are all ministers, we don't need a priest to interpret the word for us.
But it also degraded the office of spiritual leaders that they don't have the respect they should have.
I almost died spiritually in Bible college because I was taught to critique everything and everyone.
Critics never get spiritually fed except that they feed their critical spirit. That is a recipe for ruin. You cannot be fed spiritually if all you are doing is looking for what is wrong.
I stopped listening as an eager and trusting disciple, and became a critic, and I was miserable.
I lost the joy; critics are not very happy people.
I can easily illustrate what I am talking about, do you judge the bible or does the bible judge you? One attitude is that of a critic the other is that of a disciple.
Here is what Jesus said about being a listener:
PPT 4 text
Luke 8:18 Therefore consider carefully how you listen. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has will be taken from him."
Consider carefully how you listen! What does that mean? In part it means you have a tender heart before the Lord.
PT 5 today's secondary message title
A True Follower has a tender heart before the Lord
I want to talk briefly about what that means today. Basically, it means, hearing in a way that affects your heart and causes you to respond quickly to what the Lord is saying.
PPT 6 tender heart verse
2 Kings 22:19 “Because your heart was tender, and you humbled yourself before the LORD when you heard what I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants, that they would become a desolation and a curse, and you tore your clothes and wept before Me, I also have heard you, ”says the LORD.
(Explain the background to this passage, and how Josiah responded when he was convicted by the word of God.)
A tender heart is sensitive to what God says and can be sliced open by it. Best example I have ever seen in my life, besides this scripture is the reaction of my own son when confronted about something.
I caught him doing something he shouldn’t have been doing, and I simply looked at him and said his name, disappointment registering in both my voice, and my face. My son wept when he saw the disappointment in my face. Oh, that we were that tender hearted to the voice of the Lord!
The opposite of a tender heart is hardened heart. Let me illustrate that from scripture
PPT 7 text
Zechariah 7:11 "But they refused to pay attention, and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears from hearing.
Zechariah 7:12 "And they made their hearts like flint so that they could not hear the law and the words which the LORD of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets; therefore great wrath came from the LORD of hosts.
So, which do you have? A tender heart or have you been hardening your heart against conviction?
Here is a statement for us to ponder on.
PPT 8
The tenderness of your heart will determine the volume of God's speech.
The less you listen, the lower the volume of God's speech will appear to be. Not only that, the less you listen the less He will respond when you speak. The tenderness of your heart is the master control volume that affects how much and how clearly God speaks to us, and moves on our behalf. Let me illustrate what I mean.
PPT 9 Digital sound board with Master volume control highlighted
We control all sound here at the church through a sound board, every instrument and every microphone have an individual sound control slider. Push it up and that instrument or microphone is louder, slide it down and it is lower, you get the idea. But in addition to that we have a master volume control, and it overrides all other settings. It enables us to raise all devices at once, or lower all devices at once. If it is turned all the way down, then no matter how much you turn up an individual slider it will make no difference, the master volume control prevents sound from getting out.
You have the same thing on your computer. If you have a windows computer, you have a master volume control in the bottom right of your taskbar. It controls the sound for all programs. If for example it is muted, and you go to YouTube and try to watch a video, no matter how much you turn up the volume in the YouTube app, you will hear nothing if the master control volume is muted.
Now for the spiritual lesson. The way we respond to the conviction of the Holy Spirit is our master control volume with God. If we harden our heart, it will cause the master control volume with Him to go way down. Let me show you that in scripture:
PPT 9 text
Zechariah 7:13 "And it came about that just as He called and they would not listen, so they called and I would not listen," says the LORD of hosts;
Proverbs 1:24 Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded;
Proverbs 1:28 Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me:
Zechariah 7:13 says if we don’t listen to Him, He won’t listen to us. If we don’t listen to God when He speaks, it turns the master volume down so that He won’t hear us. Failure to listen equals failure to be heard. That ought to put the fear of God in us!
If you are not listening then no matter how much you turn up the volume on your prayers for God to hear you, it won’t work, that is what God says, not me.
Let's not end today on a negative but let me challenge you with a few probing questions.
How good of a listener are you? According to Luke 8:18 we should strive to be professional listeners.
Have you ever considered carefully how you listen?
How tenderhearted before the Lord are you? How many times does He have to repeat Himself?
Let me challenge you again with the best definition of obedience I have ever heard:
Obedience is immediate compliance with the first prompting of the Holy Spirit.
How many times does God have to repeat Himself before you respond? Tenderhearted people respond immediately.
As a follower do you want to have better listening skills and a more tender heart? Let us repent where we have not responded immediately and let’s pledge ourselves to be better listeners of God, and then He will be a better listener of us.
Close:
*Note to leaders, powerpoint available on request
