Who Are You Listening To?
A sermon on Isaiah 30:21and Proverbs 16:29-30
As we begin each day of our lives, we all have decisions to make. Some are easy and some are difficult. And there are many voices competing for our attention and our loyalty.
As soon as I rise each morning, often before I make it to the coffee maker, I hear the pitter patter of two-year old feet, a rattling door knob, and “Hi Mom! Dance with me!”
“How ‘bout waffles?” I say, and set to making breakfast. She accepts the idea and I’ve won that one. Then I wonder if maybe I should have danced. Maybe after the coffee.
Then its time for the older child to get up. I flip on the light and say, “Waffles or Cheerios?” There’s no response. I have a limited time to put the breakfast together, so I go pour the Cheerios. 10 minutes later I hear, “Mom, I wanted waffles.” Guess I made the wrong decision – should have woke her up first.
This is the first twenty minutes of my day – and these are the easy decisions, and ones with little repercussion if I am wrong. But there’s a push and pull for my attention, my time, and my support nearly every hour between now and when I close my eyes at night.
Competing Voices
Some decisions are easy, no-contest sort of questions. Others are much bigger and take days, weeks, months, or even years of searching and questioning. Competing voices pull us in different directions. We want to do what’s right, but what’s right isn’t always so clear.
I better finish this project today and meet that deadline.
- Tomorrow will be good enough, I work too hard.
I really shouldn’t do this, it doesn’t seem ethical and honest.
- It’s just my integrity. Besides, no one will know.
Mom always said I shouldn’t do this.
- Maybe I hold my convictions too tightly. Go ahead, it feels right.
Who are you listening to? It was easy to see what I thought was right in those situations, but often life doesn’t paint it so black and white. And even after we make a decision, we sometimes continue to wonder if it was the right one, we have knots in our stomach, and we wonder if we’ve missed some piece of evidence.
How can we have peace in our decisions? It all boils down to Who we’re listening to. (And that Who has a capital W.) But knowing how to listen can sometimes be difficult.
Blueprint, Reason, or something else
Sometimes we think God has a perfect blueprint for our lives and we have to figure out what it is and then do it. We look at circumstances and follow the open doors. Sometimes I wish it was that easy, but I probably wouldn’t be really happy if it was. Taking our circumstance into consideration is important, but if that’s all we do, we leave out the voice of God.
The flip-side of this extreme is the idea that we can simply immerse ourselves in scripture and then we can use our powers of reasoning to apply this wisdom to our lives. God gave us our powers of reasoning, and we ought to use them, but again, if this is all we do, we leave out listening to God.
Either of these options will bring us to a decision, but if we don’t listen to God during times of decision, we won’t have His peace in the answer.
Identify False Voices
Now I will readily admit that hearing God’s voice isn’t always easy. It takes a lot of work.
In order to hear God’s voice, it might be helpful first to know how to recognize the false voices that speak to us.
In 1 John 4 we read:
Beloved, 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. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world. (1 John 4:1-3, NAU)
The false voices are in this world, and so we need to be careful who we listen to. They may masquerade as teachers, acquaintances, or friends. They seek to be the authority in our decisions, whether overtly or covertly. But these false teachers can lead us down the wrong path if we are not careful who we listen to.
Does the guidance we receive fall in line with scriptural teaching or not? Does the life of our guide show evidence of knowing Christ? Have we set our minds to knowing the difference? This is where our God-given powers of reasoning, mixed with prayer, can be very helpful.
Proverbs 16:29-30 reads:
A man of violence entices his neighbor And leads him in a way that is not good. He who winks his eyes does so to devise perverse things; He who compresses his lips brings evil to pass. (Proverbs 16:29-30, NAU)
The false voices in the world often are not reprehensible to us. They entice, they are attractive. The type of wickedness a Christian is likely to fall into isn’t the obvious wrong things – at least not right away. If someone asked you out-rightly to kill the person standing next to you or rob the corner store, your likely answer (I hope) would be no. But the wicked entice – they tempt, persuade, and charm. And when you feel like you’re in too deep, they ask more of you, and it is harder and harder to refuse. That is why we must test the spirits – for sometimes their origin is not immediately obvious.
Another proverb says,
For the lips of an adulteress drip honey And smoother than oil is her speech; (Proverbs 5:3, NAU)
What is wrong is generally made out to sound very good by the wicked. What trips the Christian up is bad company that slowly confuses our thinking.
The last part of that proverb up there says, He who compresses his lips brings evil to pass. Ever have someone tell you, “Just don’t say anything about it.” Whatever ‘it’ is, compressing your lips and remaining quiet is usually easier and less painful or embarrassing than discussing and trying to correct something that is wrong. You pray it would all just blow over, even though you know it wouldn’t be right if it did.
If you are seeking God and trying to walk with Him, but you are not experiencing His peace, you might be listening to the wrong voice.
Senator Foley
Florida’s former senator, Mark Foley, has been in the news a lot lately regarding his inappropriate emails to teenage pages. There is some question as to the extent of which other congressional leaders were aware of the messages. A popular saying is, “Loose lips sink ships,” but even more true is the proverb: “compressed lips bring evil to pass.”
Those who were aware of the emails had a moral duty to intervene. Both Mr. Foley and those who said nothing listened to the false voices: “It’s an election year, you can reprimand him later. Why rock the boat? No one will know.”
By keeping quiet, they allowed evil to continue. After the fact it seems so obvious what the right thing to do was. But I’m guessing that even for the person who leaked it to the media, it wasn’t an easy decision – but I’m glad they did. And while Senator Foley’s ship may have sunk, he is at least reported to finally be seeking treatment for alcoholism and behavioral problems. As difficult at this may be, it is far better than continuing on the wrong road.
So beware of the easy road, the enticing path. The easy way isn’t always wrong, but watch out for it and don’t take it too readily.
Even if we are godly people, wicked friends can lead us astray. And wicked friends can allow us to continue in ungodly ways, even if they don’t take the path themselves. They speak in smooth and flattering speech, and it is easy to be tricked into following them if we are not busy seeking the voice of God.
Seek Communication, Not Directives
That said, we need to listen to the right Voice. Sometimes when we do try to hear God, we are seeking specific answers, directives, instructions. Should we move our church? Should I apply for this job? Should I buy a new car? Should I go off my diet? We look for the blueprint. But I’d like to suggest today that first and foremost we should really be seeking communication and relationship.
When the prophet Jeremiah mourns for his people, for in their treacheries they have turned from the Lord, the Lord says,
"They bend their tongue like their bow; Lies and not truth prevail in the land; For they proceed from evil to evil, And they do not know Me," declares the LORD... Through deceit they refuse to know Me," (Jeremiah 9:3, 6b, NAU)
When we fall prey to the false teachers, the false voices, we proceed from evil to evil and the condemnation against us is that we do not know the Lord. It isn’t simply condemnation of the specific evil act, but that our whole base is wrong. We don’t seek a relationship with Him and listen to His voice.
Even when we’ve walked with Jesus, we can reject that relationship. Peter was a man of faith, he vowed to fight next to Jesus all the way to the end, but he couldn’t keep his vow. In a single day Peter denied three times that he knew his Lord (Luke 22:34). He rejected a relationship with God and listened to the voices that told him it wasn’t worth it.
But God does not want us to remain that way, not knowing Him. A relationship with us is what He longs for. Speaking of the captives of Judah, God says,
’I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the LORD; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart. (Jeremiah 24:7, NAU)
The Lord wants that relationship, and so He restored the people of Judah, He restored Peter, and He will restore us if we but come with a willing heart. And we ought to come not just wanting a way out of our latest mess, but wanting also a life-long relationship.
When we seek directives, we have the mindset that God only has work for us to do. Where should I go next, Lord? How should I respond? What’s the next task? When we only go to Him for answers and instructions, we expect more work and more responsibility. We then miss the fact that He also calls us friend, that He gives us a heart to know Him.
Yes, God may give us work and responsibility. But He does it in the context of friendship and spiritual growth. The work He gives us draws us and others closer to Him.
Skating
If you’ve ever watched couples ice skating, you know that one is the leader in the dance. But the other partner is not just a follower. That second skater responds to the lead partner, but she is fully engaged. The lead skater doesn’t just drag his partner around the ice – unless they have some terrible mishap. That second skater is fully part of the dance. She brings her own artistic ability to it in the way she follows.
That is kind of like our relationship with God. The important part of our relationship is the communication – that’s what makes it a dance of friendship. While He is leading us to a certain place, he wants us to come fully engaged.
To reach the end of the dance, we have to have communication. Relationship must come before accomplishment. And if we have that relationship, God will lead us down the right path, and we will follow, fully engaged.
That doesn’t mean we will never try to dance a solo or choose another partner, but when we do it will be as the Lord said through the prophet Isaiah: Whether we turn to the right or to the left, our ears will hear a voice behind us, saying, "This is the way; walk in it." (Isaiah 30:21)
When we have constant communication with God, finding His peace during our times of decision is easier. And we can have confidence that even if we misstep, we can still hear His voice calling us back to the path He is leading us down.
Not Just in Times of Decision
And this means that we must seek God not just in times of decision. Like ice skaters, we must continually be practicing our dance. Then on the night of the performance, when the decision must be made, we will be able to follow God’s lead, and know His peace.
Maybe your habit has been to go to God only when you’re in trouble. He will still hear your cry – but it will be harder for you to hear and listen to His voice. But when we continually seek relationship with the Lord, His voice in times of decision will be clearer – not to mention, our willingness to follow will be more sure.
In that relationship we must seek to know and submit to the will of the Lord. The psalmist writes:
If I regard wickedness in my heart, The Lord will not hear; (Psalm 66:18, NAU)
But if we honestly seek Him, wanting a right relationship, asking honest questions, God will hear. Our friendship with God arises out of prayer and honest searching. A friendship is sustained when we talk and interact – and that’s what prayer is. If we have a friend, and we never talk to them, that friendship isn’t very deep. God wants that depth of relationship with us, so He can give us not just answers, but friendship, a strong faith, and peace with our decisions.
Accept your Circumstances
As we listen to God, we must realize that most of the questions we have and decisions we make arise out of the context of life. We struggle because of what is going on in our lives. We don’t know how to understand and react to other people. We only have so much money to go around. We have limited time available – there’s only 24 hours in a day. As a good friend once told me, “You can do anything in life – you just can’t do it all at the same time.”
When we look at the decisions we need to make, we have to answer them not according to what we wish our life was, but what it really is. If our time, our money, our patience, or what-have-you is limited, we can’t act like it’s not. We have to accept our circumstances, our limitations and the opportunities that are available to us.
If we have signed a contract that can’t be broken, then we need to find our solutions within the contract, or accept consequences for breaking it. And we can’t assume that we will fix our financial problems when we win the lottery, though that would be awfully nice. We have to accept our past mistakes, confess our wrong, and begin where we are today to make decisions that are best for the future. And as we do, we can move forward in God’s grace and peace.
Zaccheus
We read about Zaccheus in the gospel of Luke (chapter 19). He was the chief tax collector. He was hated by the people because, well, “honest tax-collector” was an oxymoron. Zaccheus spent his early life building up a fortune through cheating and bribery. He sat at the gates of Jericho bleeding people dry as he collected the Roman tax and his own well-padded additional cut. He listened to voices that told him he could make a quick buck, and even if people knew they’d been cheated, they could do little about it.
And then one day Jesus came to Jericho. He saw Zaccheus and said, “I’m coming to your house Zach.” And suddenly Zaccheus heard a new voice above the din. He knew about salvation and what was right and what was wrong – and he could no longer do what was wrong. There was a voice behind him saying, “This is the way, walk in it.” And he couldn’t ignore it.
Zaccheus couldn’t deny what his life really was. He couldn’t redo history. He couldn’t go forward simply wishing he’d never cheated people. The truth was, he had cheated people out of a lot of money. Now that he knew Jesus, now that he had a new relationship, he had a decision to make. And frankly it was a tough one, because he had to choose between the good and the best.
Good vs. Best
He could have said, “I’ll go forward from here. I’ll give some money to the temple and try to live modestly. I’ll stop cheating people from this point forward.”
That would have been a good thing to do. But that suggestion was the voice of compromise. Standing next to Jesus, Zaccheus could hear clearly above the din. He knew there was a better choice yet, and Zaccheus chose to give half of his possessions to the poor and pay back four times as much to anyone he’d defrauded (Luke 19:8).
There is a Portugese proverb that says, “God writes straight with crooked lines.” If he can write straight with a man like Zaccheus, He can do it with me – and He can do it with you.
We too have to decide between the good and the best, and in God’s grace we can. In much of life, there is a struggle between the good and the best.
"I heard you were thinking about the debate team this year, but we really need you on the basketball team. I know the practices overlap, so please come back."
"We’d like you to serve on the school board. You’ve got the background and experience we need. I know it’s a big commitment, but you’re perfect for the job."
"You’ve been such a good Sunday School teacher – can you take just one more year? I know you’ve been considering serving on the school board. How about just one more quarter?"
"We need you to serve as a deacon, trustee, and head usher this year. You think you could serve as librarian and auditor too? What do you say, Jack?"
Life tries to pull us in many directions – many good directions. And it takes serious prayer to discern which is the best.
Returning Stolen Goods
I had a friend in college who had stolen small, rather expensive, electronic device from a sound studio where he used to work. When he became a Christian, he knew he couldn’t keep it. He could have chosen to toss it out, or give it to the Good Will. But instead, he took it back to the studio where he had worked several years before and used the opportunity to tell them about the difference Jesus had made in his life.
Choice takes Prayer
Choosing the best isn’t always an easy decision. It takes prayer; it takes courage; it takes faith. We need to be in constant communication with God so that we can recognize the false voices, and know how to choose the best given the circumstances we find ourselves in.
Even Jesus had difficult decisions to make. When He heard that His cousin, John the Baptist, had been killed, he wanted to get away for a while to be with His Father. But the crowds came after Him. He could have chosen to send them away at that point, but despite His own grief, he had compassion on the crowds and healed the sick and fed them. For that moment, that was the best. At that point, he chose the crowds – but He didn’t choose them forever. Seeing the miracles, they might have made Him king if He’d hung around. Power, prestige, fame: it was all there. But once He was done, He knew it was time to move on.
His disciples were probably grieving over John’s death too, but as much as He may have longed to comfort them, He really needed to get alone to pray. So He sent the disciples off in a boat and sent the crowds away. It would have been good to continue to minister to them, but He said no to the continued demands from the crowds so He could prioritize prayer. The crowds and their needs were important, but He said no to the important and yes to the essential.
We too need to take time to shut out the voices of the world and take time to pray. It is then and only then, that we can discern the essential and know God’s peace in our time of decision.
Ultimately, we may not have infallible, irrefutable answers, but we can have an assurance that we are living and acting in response to God, fully engaged, and resting in His peace.
© Susan Blader, 10/8/06, from the Sermon Series, ‘Finding Peace in a Chaotic World’
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Sources:
1) Bible Works 5, Revision 2, (Bigfork, Montana: Hermeneutika Computer Bible Research Software, 2001).
2) Max Lucado, Experiencing the Heart of Jesus: Knowing His Heart, Feeling His Love, (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers), 2003.
3) Gordon T. Smith, Listening to God in Times of Choice: The Art of Discerning God’s Will, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press), 1997
4) Rev. Dr. Malcolm White, “God Calling! Are You Listening?” Feb 19, 2006, http://www.methodist-central-hall.org.uk/sermons/MalcolmWhiteSermons/GodCalling.pdf#search=%22peace%20sermon%20who%20are%20you%20listening%20to%22 (accessed 9-28-06)
