We often think God is in the big and He certainly can be, but often it’s the small it’s the subtle. Because when the small, the subtle, the meek do mighty things in His name oh the sound that it makes. It moves mountains. It shakes the ground. It changes nations.
By a show of hands who here text??
Silly question right… I mean how can you survive in today’s day and age without it?
I have friends that if you try and call they hit ignore and say hey what’s up? Is my voice that annoying?
It has become a normal part of life… Brief, quick, and often to the points.
Or how about those 3 dots meaning they saw it and was going to type something or is typing something and then they disappear. You wait in suspense. What will they say? What happened. . . Where did they go…
This visual should set us up for today’s talk…. Imagine our conversations with God, if you viewed it like your text, how would it look?
Would it be one sided?
Would it be all requests, like He is a genie in a lamp granting wishes?
Would it be full of compliments and praises?
Would it be a conversation, like a relationship
I would say most of us, and I am just as guilty of this at times. It looks more like God is speaking to me and I am not listening but every now and then I throw in that ask into Him.
I want to challenge us today to think about what does that conversation look like for you and our Lord?
But make no mistake about it… God is speaking WE need to do a better job on listening.
God speaks through his word
God speaks with a small voice
God speaks by his people
God will speak to you in His word. So often when you are reading it’s like the words pop off the pages. Or you see something that speaks to you in that moment.
This is how He uses the word to speak to us. Each time we are here in Church and the Word is being spoken He is speaking and revealing things to us.
Are we listening, is the key? Are we in a guarded stance? We need to be ready to receive and open to hear His still small voice.
So lets jump into the scripture.
I don’t think there is any better scripture to paint of God speaking to us in the still small voice than this picture in 1 Kings 19: 11-13
Then He said, “Go out, and stand on the mountain before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but-the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire [a]a still small voice.So it was, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. Suddenly a voice came to him, and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
We often think God is in the big and He certainly can be, but often it’s the small it’s the subtle. Because when the small, the subtle, the meek do mighty things in His name oh the sound that it makes. It moves mountains. It shakes the ground. It changes nations.
Our nation doesn’t need any more loud politicians, or loud noise.
Our nation needs the people of God to listen and adhere to the still small voice.
To be intentional to His will and His ways…
We need to stop, slow down a bit,
tune it all out……
and listen…… and listen… and listen…..
It’s kind of like an old radio you know back in the day you had to turn the knob and get it just right for the music to be clear..
It took some time and there is some static, but being intentional, being patient, and keeping focus the right frequency is found and we get it loud and clear.
The more we do it the easier it gets and clearer He is to us.
A great place to practice this is at Prayer Service (usually the last Wednesday, however October, November & December it will be the second to last Wednesday). It’s your chance to stop and really just focus on tuning out the world and tuning into God.
Someone told me they love coming in on Prayer nights, because ashamedly they don’t do it at home.
No shame…. That’s from the enemy…. But start and what a better place to start than here.
A great man once told me “If you want to learn to pray get around praying people!”
This place right here is our training ground its our place to learn and grow closer to Him. So we can be His light to man when we leave here.
You don’t train for war in war time, you train for war in times of peace.
Learning to be in His presence and hearing the still small voice
Someone in my life said God is not up there jibber jabbing all day long.
At the time I was young and my relationship with God was not what it is today, so I believed it. So I never looked or listened to the still small voice except times of need or prayer and when I did, I did the talking and didn’t do any listening!
Today say I agree with that statement to a point… He is not jibber jabbering, but He certainly is guiding us, directing us, instructing us.
He is speaking to us often and always.
It goes back to what I said early are we listening and tuned in? Most of the time we are not!
But that changes today, right church?
Job 23:12 NLT “I have not departed from his commands, but have treasured his words more than daily food.”
He cares about us and sometimes we don’t understand the direction at the time, but in time we will.
Will we be obedient today and trust Him?
13After the wise men were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up! Flee to Egypt with the child and his mother,” the angel said. “Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”
19When Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt. 20“Get up!” the angel said. “Take the child and his mother back to the land of Israel, because those who were trying to kill the child are dead.”
21So Joseph got up and returned to the land of Israel with Jesus and his mother. 22But when he learned that the new ruler of Judea was Herod’s son Archelaus, he was afraid to go there. Then, after being warned in a dream, he left for the region of Galilee. 23So the family went and lived in a town called Nazareth. This fulfilled what the prophets had said: “He will be called a Nazarene.”
STORY: I had this nudge to travel a different way home. I even had an argument in my head, no that way is 2 minutes longer. 2 minutes, well as I came up to the intersection I ended up behind an accident clean up for 30 minutes. At that time I realized the Lord loves us and every detail. He was by His still small voice trying to warn me, but I argued with it in my head and brushed it off.
On the flip side I would of never gotten that lesson if I would of gone the alternate route right. Think about it. I would of went and it was uneventful and would have just moved on. Passing thought, it must have been. We often don’t see what He has just protected us from.
Isaiah
STORY: Friend of mine felt this nudge to go to this restaurant. So in his mind he worked up that the Lord was going to do something huge… Someone there needed to be witnessed to and the Gospel was going to be shared.
How often do we do this, right? We expand on what God has shared with us.
So my friend does what he heard, but nothing happened. He ate his biscuit and left.
In those times we question, did God really say? Then we second guess did I really hear correct? This goes back to what I said before, sometimes we don’t see what is being done, but we are to be obedient and follow those directions?
Sound familiar? Look at Genesis 3:1
The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the LORD God had made. One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?”
This was the first thing ever spoken by the enemy. It wasn’t a command or direction, but it was doubt. This is his tactics this is his way. Deception and lying. Often he will cause us to second guess God and plant doubt.
So when we do have something uneventful happen or it didn’t happen the way we built it in our minds, we have that in there…. Did God really say??
If left unchecked and we do not recenter ourselves we can quickly drift into not listening to the still small voice. Because the doubt over takes us…. We start to believe did God really say?
Our enemy has no power except the power we give him from the lies he tells us. When we stop believing his lies, he loses all the power he thinks he has over us.
When you hear that in the back of your mind “Did God really say”, answer back.
Heck yes He did really say. My God also said you are a liar, a cheater, and He has already defeated you. So get beneath me to where you belong!
Going back to Joseph, if he would of ignored God, he and his family would have been killed. On the other hand he listened and traveled to Egypt. Avoiding harm, avoiding the plot to murder Jesus.
Joseph probably thought it was uneventful at the time when he left.
I don’t know about you, but I choose the uneventful over death each and every time….
Do not discredit what we see as uneventful, rejoice in it! Thank God for the uneventful!
God speaks to me through revelation when reading His word and through the knowing he puts in my heart. It’s not an audible voice for me, but it’s like He speaks directly in my mind.
This is why cultivating the relationship and knowing is important I have to cut my thoughts from His voice. But through the years of development it gets so much easier.
This is not a one size fits all! We all hear and process differently. God will speak with and reach you how He sees fit.
But the most important piece of today and if you take anything away today is get into the Word. This is God living word. God is always speaking to us, but for me I seem to hear Him the best when this is in my hand. It’s not because He only speaks when this is open, but I am engaged and listening in the moment.
I am being intentional and go into listen mode!
What you will find is the more time you spend with Him in the word and when we are mentally ready we get used to hearing His voice and we will pick up on it more in our everyday actions.
For example the next sermon I have already started writing. God gave it to me while I was driving and the whole family was in the car. I have 3 teenage boys they are not what you call quiet!
It’s important to cultivate the relationship in the quiet times, so we can hear Him through the noise of everyday life.
Parents will be able to relate to this. As a parent you learn your child’s voice, their cry, their scream. I know there would be times that I heard a kid crying in a group of 30 and know that it was one of my boys.
We know it so intimately, we grow so use to hearing it, that in a crowded and noisy place we know who is crying out. What do we do as parents we jump into action.
God wants us to know His voice and communication like this. The more time we spend with Him, the more intimately we know His voice. The more we grow in our hearing of His voice.
It will cut through the noise of the day to day and that still small voice will come through crystal clear.
He does not need to speak louder, He does not need to speak clearer. We need to listen better and be more attentive.
As we wrap up today Church, know he is speaking, He is guiding, He wants to build a relationship with us.
He is ready and waiting so let’s meet Him. Turn off the TV, put the phone down and get you a paper Bible to remove distractions and read it to hear from Him.
Come to Him with an expectation to hear the still small voice.
Think how your life, our communities, heck our nation will be when we listen, hear, and follow His still small voice.