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How We Hear God's Voice: Sermon · Beyond the Sermon

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You're listening to Beyond the Sermon, the podcast of First
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Methodist Church in Collingswood, NJ.
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On our podcast, the goal is not just to share the sermons we've.
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Preached. But to go beyond the sermon and
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talk about what we're learning and what God is doing in US and
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in our community. You can find more information
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about our church at fumccollingswood.org.
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Thanks for listening. Our Scripture reading this
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morning comes to us from the book of Exodus chapter 3,
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beginning in verse one. It's Exodus 3 beginning in verse
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one here, the Word of God this morning.
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Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law,
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the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the
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wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.
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Then the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of
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fire from within a Bush. Moses saw that though the Bush
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was on fire, it did not burn up. So Moses thought, I will go over
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and see this strange sight, why the Bush does not burn up.
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When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, Moses called
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to him from within the Bush. Moses, Moses and Moses said,
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Here I am, do not come any closer.
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God said, take off your sandals for the place where you are
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standing his holy ground. Then he said, I am the God of
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your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of
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Jacob. At this Moses hid his face
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because he was afraid to look at God.
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The Lord said, I have indeed seen the misery of my people in
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Egypt. I have heard them crying out
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because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their
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suffering. So I've come down to rescue them
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from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that
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land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk
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and honey, the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites,
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Amorites, parasites, Hivites and Jebusites.
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And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and
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I've seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them.
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So now go, I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the
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Israelites out of Egypt. But Moses said to God, Who am I
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that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of
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Egypt? And God said, I will be with
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you, and this will be the sign to you, that it is I who have
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sent you. When you have brought the people
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of Egypt, brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God
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on this mountain. Moses said to God, Suppose I go
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to the Israelites and say to them, the God of your Father's
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has sent me to you. And they asked me, what is his
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name? Then what shall I tell them?
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God said to Moses, I am who I am.
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This is what you were to say to the Israelites.
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I am has sent me to you. This is the word of God for the
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people of God. Thanks be to God.
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Good morning everyone. I am so excited to be in God's
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house this morning with you all. And this sermon might be a
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little unique in a couple aspects.
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I'm going to give you those warnings now.
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First off, I may pray more than shortly and the closing one, but
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I will let you know when the closing prayer is happening.
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And I also want the altar to be open to you at all times, even
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during the sermon. If God is speaking to you and
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meeting you in this time, that's far more important than
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listening to me. My wife is saying she doesn't
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want to hear me. So if you could turn that down a
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little bit more, we'd appreciate it.
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And so I just wanted that to be open and available to you.
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This morning I was given free rein, which is dangerous in this
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sermon theories as we're talking about hearing from the Lord.
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And I wanted to focus in today about how to hear God's voice.
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And so for those that are fans of my sermons, due to their
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brevity and being much shorter than Scots, I can sum up this
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whole sermon with one word, which is listen.
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And so that's what we're going to do in this time.
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Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Lord, we thank you so much for
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the opportunity to come before you in Your house, to be amongst
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your children, to hear your word that You have provided, Lord,
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that you would put me aside and that you would speak, that Your
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spirit would speak to your people.
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Lord, that we would listen the best that we know how.
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Lord, even in this time, Amen. And so we have quite the journey
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to go on. But before we can talk about how
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to hear God's voice, some people made me asking why would I
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listen for God's voice if I'm not sure that that's even
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possible nowadays? And so to that I would say, of
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course we can. Jesus said so.
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And if you don't believe me, during a back and forth with the
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Pharisees in John chapter 8 verse 47, Jesus says this.
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Whoever belongs to God hears what God says.
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The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.
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We want to belong to God, right? We do not want to associate with
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the Pharisees. I don't know of any stories in
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the Scriptures where we think, I wish I was more like the
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Pharisees, right? But you may be sitting there
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thinking, well, pastor, I know I belong to God, but I don't think
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I've ever heard his voice. My question to you lovingly and
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respectfully would be, do you want to hear God's voice?
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And that may seem far fetched, that may seem ridiculous.
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And I'm sure everyone would say, yes, that would be great to hear
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God's voice. Why would I not want to hear
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God's voice? And yet sometimes it's more of a
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God knows where to find me. If he wants to tell me
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something, he'll crack the sky open.
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A deep voice will come in and tell me exactly what I need to
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hear, right? And then I will listen to
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whatever he has to say. And it can be more of a passive
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way that we would like to hear from God.
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But are we actively seeking to listen for God's voice?
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And you may be thinking, well, I don't have time to just sit
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around in the quiet and listen for God.
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I have things to do, and since I don't think I've heard from God
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before, why would I waste my time listening for something I
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haven't experienced before? We talked a lot this morning and
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Sunday school in the discussion group about experiencing God and
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experiencing communication with Him through prayer.
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And if that is the case, may I argue that your individual
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experience up to this moment is not above Scripture, nor the
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experience of Christians over the past 2000 years?
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And that's why, before we even talk about how to hear God's
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voice, we need to wrestle with the question of can we hear
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God's voice? And do we even want to hear
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God's voice? A great quote that our college
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kids heard at the Passion Conference in Dallas just a
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couple weeks ago originally came from Louis Giglio and then was
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quoted once again by John Tyson. Was this.
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The value of an object is measured by the intensity of the
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pursuit to obtain it. I'll repeat that the value of an
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object is measured by the intensity of the pursuit to
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obtain it. And when reflecting on intense
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pursuits of God, I was brought back to Solomon, who, when
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offered anything he wanted from God, asked for wisdom, and in
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addition to that, God provided him wealth and honor.
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But after a while, Solomon was more focused on the blessings
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than the God that had blessed him, and I think that can be the
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case for all of us at times. Focus more on the things we can
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buy with the money God has provided us.
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Focused on the blessing that is our girlfriend, boyfriend,
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spouse, children, grandchildren. Our focus can shift far past
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being good stewards of what God has provided us and making those
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blessings idols in our lives. I hope that instead we would
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have an intense pursuit after the presence of God, just like
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David in Psalm 27 four, which reads, one thing I asked from
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the Lord, this only do I seek that I may dwell in the House of
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the Lord all the days of my life to gaze on the beauty of the
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Lord and to seek Him in his temple.
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It's hard to listen to someone without being in their presence.
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How am I supposed to listen to my hippie cousin that is in the
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mountains of California if I am not with him face to face
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talking with him? And you may be thinking to
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yourself that, well, there's something called cell phones,
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right? There's a way to communicate
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with someone even if you're not with them face to face, right?
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Or if you're a little more old fashioned, you can write letters
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and see what they have written for you.
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Now, sadly, my cousin being the mountain man that he is, even if
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I text or call him, I may not hear from him for multiple weeks
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or multiple months at a time. But just because I do not hear
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from my cousin doesn't mean that I believe that he's stopped
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speaking or stop being capable of speaking with me.
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And so at this moment, I want us to come together again in a word
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of prayer as we check our hearts on the intensity of our pursuit
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to hear God's voice. Would you join me?
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Lord, we rejoice in who you are and the blessings you provided.
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Again, we've rejoice the blessings that we could do a
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testimony service for weeks of all the things You have provided
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each and everyone of us. Lord, would you make clear to us
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if we have put anything that you have provided above you?
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Would your spirit make a fresh the heart knowledge that you are
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the provider of all good gifts and all good gifts come from
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you? Would we share the heart of
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David in that Psalm that the only thing we seek is to be in
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your presence all the days of our lives in Jesus name, Amen.
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Once we believe we can hear God's word, God's voice, and we
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desire it, how do we do it? What is the secret formula to
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make that happen? Well, if we try to copy the
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circumstances in scripture, then it would make sense to find a
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Bush. Oh, I forgot a lighter.
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I don't see Tina and we go, we have a a plethora of bushes out
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front and if we get a burning Bush we should then hear from
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God, right? Do we have any trustees against
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this plan going once going Ken is against it.
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OK, well now I have to pivot. OK, so that is not the case.
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We may be chuckling at even just the idea of setting a Bush on
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fire outside of the church. Don't worry, the can is empty.
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I checked. And yet there can be a deep
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desire for it to be that simple or that easy.
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If I fold my hands the right way or say the right words in the
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perfect sentence or paragraph, I'm guaranteed to hear from God.
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But if we look back at the Old Testament, God speaks in a
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variety of ways. He speaks through angels,
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visions, dreams, just in Genesis alone.
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He speaks through a gentle whisper, miraculous signs,
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through the prophets, through symbolic actions.
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What's important is not the specific way that God speaks.
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It's more important that God speaks the creator of the
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universe speaks to his people and you may be thinking well
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that's Old Testament. We're Christians so we need to
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focus on the New Testament or may think some of those that are
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well read that maybe I would be staying away from Hebrews
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chapter 1 because some people that argue that we can no longer
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hear from God today would point us to Hebrews chapter 1 which
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connects the Old and New Testament and how God speaks.
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It says in the past God spoke to our ancestors through the
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prophets at many times and in various ways.
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But in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He
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appointed heir of all things, and through whom also He made
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the universe. In the last days God spoke to us
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by His Son. So does that mean that the red
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letters are the last time that God spoke to His people?
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No, and if you don't believe me, let's go back to Jesus.
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He knows better than me. And that is how God spoke to His
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people according to Hebrews 2. So if we jump to John chapter
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16, starting in verse 12, this is what Jesus says.
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I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear.
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But when He, the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into
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all the truth. He will not speak on His own.
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He will speak only what He hears and what He will tell you.
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What is yet to come. He will glorify me because it is
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from Me that you will receive what He will make known to you.
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All that belongs to the Father is mine.
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That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what He
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will make known to you. What belongs to the Father is
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mine, and the Spirit receives from me what He will make known
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to you. The entire Trinity is involved
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here when it comes to God communicating to us.
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So we should be reassured that God does speak to his people in
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the Old Testament, the New Testament, and today.
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We know that there is no direct formula to force God to tell us
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something. And you were supposed to tell us
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how to hear God's voice. Jeremy, I know, I know.
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What I'd like us to look at are maybe some common themes about
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when God speaks in Scripture. Number one is they usually knew
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that it was God speaking and what he was saying.
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I wrestled with this point in reflecting on my own personal
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experiences. When I have heard from God, I
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kept thinking, yeah, I've questioned if it's God or my own
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thoughts and going back and forth.
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But depending on the situation, I have found that there are two
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things that I I was actually wrestling with within myself.
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That wasn't the question of is it God speaking or my own
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thoughts. One of the first things I
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normally would question is am I worthy or capable of doing what
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God has called me to do? And that's something that we see
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Moses also wrestling with in chapter 4 in the same
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conversation he's having with God where he says, pardon your
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servant, Lord, I have never been eloquent neither in the past nor
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since You have spoken to your servant.
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I am slow of speech and tongue. The Lord said to him who gave
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human beings their mouths. We get so self-conscious we
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forget who God is and what He's capable of.
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And the other times when I feel like I hear God calling me to
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say or do something, I want Him to show me what fruit will come
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from it so that I can balance in my mind if it is worth the
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hardships or potential embarrassment that would affect
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me. In regards to the fruit that
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will come from being faithful to what He has called me to say or
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do #1 if you remember, they usually knew that it was God
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speaking and what He was saying #2 God spoke uniquely to the
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individual, right? We have fires, we have donkeys,
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we have plethora of avenues. For me, I find that God needs to
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pester me in the best way possible.
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He won't let something escape my mind.
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He'll bring it back to my memory, which is very hard to do
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with my memory. And it's especially hard if it's
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something I don't desire myself. If it's not something I'm
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seeking after, it's not usually running through my mind with all
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of the things that I'm juggling and #3 hearing God's voice is
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the experience. Sometimes we may seek to
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experience God at work and see Him do something great.
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And think that, well, if we heard from God, then we do the
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thing and then we get to see God at work.
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But it would be really odd for Moses to leave that time with
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the burning Bush and be like, well, now that that Bush is
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done, let's see what God's going to do, right?
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Having God speak to us here and now is God at work.
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It should be sufficient in itself.
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It should spur on faith, hope, and a deeper loving relationship
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with Him. And so by what means do people
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typically hear God's voice? I believe I have four of the
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main ones. Excuse me #1 is Scripture.
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I want to quote some of our our best theologians of the day
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since God always gets to quote people.
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Bethany Alexander is one of our youth and during a small group
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discussion when we were talking about reading God's Word and how
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he speaks to us depending on the situation that we are in, the
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way she described is like as she's reading Scripture, that
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God through the Holy Spirit would highlight a phrase for her
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and it would be more profound and sinking and stand out to her
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even if she was familiar with the Scripture.
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And for me, that just clicked with my experience that I've had
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where even if it's familiar and you're going it over the same
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time that it just feels like in your mind, it's just being
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highlighted and popping off of the pages.
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But sometimes the, the, the Scripture doesn't speak to
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everyone at the same time in the same way, right?
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It's the living Word, and at different times it speaks to
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different people. And so if you remember, I don't
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know how many months back last year, I preached A sermon
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revolving around Romans, chapters 6-7 and eight.
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And just a month or so ago, Lillian Schwim came up to me and
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said, hey, Jeremy Wise, favorite teacher, favorite Jeremy,
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something along those lines. She said, next time you preach,
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can you preach on Romans chapter 6-7 and eight?
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And at first I thought she was kidding.
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And I was like, you know, that was like only two sermons ago.
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I preached on that. And we ended up looking up the
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YouTube video, and she's on the thumbnail for the video that she
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was playing in the band that day.
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And yet as she's in the Word, God is speaking to her through
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that and what leading her to dive deeper into it.
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And so how God is able to reveal himself and speak through His
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word at different times to different people, I think that
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is what we should seek in His word instead of nitpicking
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scriptures that we want to fit into our specific circumstance
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or situation. So first is scripture.
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Secondly, prayer. Not that God would adjust to our
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desires, but it would be a time for us to adjust to his desires
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for us and the world around us. And listening should be a key
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part of that time together with the Lord.
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Thirdly, through circumstances and this one, I'm just going to
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throw up some red flags as we try to navigate these waters
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together because I believe circumstances is one that a lot
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of people like because they always have circumstances
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happening to them, whether they're in the word, whether
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they're praying regularly, circumstances are happening
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around them and they don't feel like they have to be intentional
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about it. They just have to figure out if
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it's of God and and what it could possibly mean.
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They have to translate the circumstances around them.
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But one of the things I want to make clear is that just because
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something feels good doesn't mean that it's necessarily
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always from God. And if something feels bad, it's
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not always of the devil. I think we can associate those
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things separately. And I'll, I'll, I'll give
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examples because the devil can make you feel good.
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If you won the recent Powerball for like $1.4 billion, you're
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not going to be sad and mope around after reading those
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numbers like, oh, I want to move a billion dollars, right?
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That's not going to be the reaction.
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But the life you live afterwards could be much more focused on
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the distraction of what that wealth can provide you in this
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lifetime, rather than point you into deeper relationship with
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God. And to the contrary, when
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something doesn't feel great in the moment, it doesn't mean that
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God can't be pruning those that are fruitful servants, that He
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couldn't be disciplining his children that He loves so
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dearly. And so do not translate what
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happens to you without God and that conversation.
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Ask for clarity. Seek clarity for the situations
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around you from God. And sometimes the what happens
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around us is the consequences of our sins or others.
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And through it all, God is able to do good out of it all.
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But the roots of it we can't assume unless he makes it clear
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to us. And lastly #4 I believe the
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church, when we were at Passion Conference, we got back from one
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of the sessions and we have little family meetings in the
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Airbnb with all of our college students.
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And Rebecca went on this long rant, as you all know she does,
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And she went on this rant about how the last speaker was not her
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favorite. She understood where he was
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going. She liked the scripture that he
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was using, but just didn't really connect with it at all.
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And shortly thereafter, four of our college students said that
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was the best one we've had so far.
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God spoke in so many ways to me and I was taking notes left and
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right. And so God is able to speak
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through His church when we gather as His body.
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But again, we shouldn't get hung up on those on the stage, right?
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We can feel so connected when Pastor Scott is preaching in Oh
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man, I always hear God speak through Pastor Scott or I look
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forward to this conference every year because God always speaks,
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but we shouldn't get locked in on how God does it, but that God
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is speaking. That can't be the only Ave. in
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which he is seeking to speak to you.
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God also speaks through other people filled with the Holy
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Spirit. That means those in the pews as
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well. And this also takes discernment.
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I think people and churches can get a little tricky and using
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the language that I've heard from God and they can use that
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to their own advantage. One that is mocked very often,
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especially in younger circles is God told me you're going to be
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my wife and if he hasn't told you yet, you should go and pray.
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I find that the sincerest ones usually don't personally benefit
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from the message they share from the Lord, and discerning this
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should always be done in contrast to scripture and time
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of prayer. I believe all of the things God
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wants to say to us within these four can be discovered if we
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share the desire of David's heart in Psalm 27 for yeah, I'll
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take this with me, Tim, you can pop up the the Scripture.
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I don't want to get too close to that right when we're reading
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this scripture, One thing I asked from the Lord this only do
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I seek that I may dwell in the House of the Lord all the days
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of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek
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him in his temple, right? We're talking about the old
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temple where everything is a no longer available to us, but we
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are now the temple for the Spirit to reside in US.
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And if you think of the old temple, it was designed by God
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to every single piece of it, everything inside the
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dimensions, everything designed by God to point people towards
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him and for him, for his glory. And I think that's also pertains
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to us as the temples of the Holy Spirit and yes, Aaron's going to
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start playing. So you know we're getting close
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to the end. You're welcome.
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And and as we sit in the Lord's house this morning, I'm at going
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to ask you to actually participate.
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I want you to point to something in this room that's purpose is
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to draw your attention to God. What is something I I get a
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unique view. I see the giant crosses stained
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glass in the back. We have cross, we have the
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stories throughout scripture and the gospels on the stained
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glasses around us, all the beautiful designs that have much
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more significance than maybe any of us in this room know a lot of
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history. We have plaques throughout
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reminding us of the Saints that have gone before us and how
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their lives glorified God. And we can't be in church all
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the time, right? We can't just set up shop and
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live here all the time and have this space to point us to God,
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and we can't be in the old temple.
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And so how do we intentionally seek to be in the Lord's
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presence? One way I find is in nature, in
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the way that God we know reveals himself to us through nature.
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I think of the Grand Canyon, one of my favorite spots.
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Not the first time I went. The first time I went, I
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complained the entire 3 hour drive from Phoenix saying, mom,
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it's just a big hole in the ground.
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Why are we going to go see a big hole in the ground?
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And then we got there. I look over the edge.
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I was right, it's a big hole in the ground.
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Can we go now? That was my first experience.
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And then later I had the honor to a hike in the Grand Canyon
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with a said hippie cousin that now lives in California.
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And getting to walk through the layers and see the grandness and
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think of how big our God is if this comprehensively large thing
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is so small in comparison to creation.
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And seeing the moonlight hit the water and the river, this
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rainbow circle around the sun, which I had to goop later to
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make sure I wasn't hallucinating.
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It's a real thing and all of this, which I think can even
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reflect our time in Scripture. Something so deep and profound
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that at times we may not appreciate what it is, but then
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God makes us aware of it at a later time.
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And I know that we can't just move our entire congregation to
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Arizona to be at the Grand Canyon all of the time, though
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I'm open to us looking into that.
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Anyone else? Anyone else?
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We got it. We can't leave Ben out there all
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alone as he prepares for college.
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And so we also can't just sit in nature all day every day, right?
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Most of us have to work. We need money, we need food on
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the tables, roofs over our heads.
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And I've been thinking a lot about as we enter the and Sunday
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school into a series called Pray Like Monks Live Like Fools.
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That monks, you would think that they just pray constantly and
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sit in quiet rooms or on mountaintops and pray.
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But they, a lot of them and many of the monastic orders had to
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create things and build things to sell in the marketplaces to
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afford their lifestyle. But during that time, as they
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were working with their hands, they were singing God's praises,
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they were quoting Scripture, they were praying.
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And I had the incredible opportunity thanks to Dick
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Escher. Where is he at?
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I can't think. There he is.
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Blessed me with the opportunity. For those that don't know, he's
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worked with stained glass before and he has a little workshop in
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his basement and I have some pieces of stained glass that are
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dear to my heart from my home church, Pitman UMC, that burned
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down when I was 7 years old. And we have pieces of the
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original stained glass and he's going to help me try and create
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something out of it. And the first step is cleaning
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the stained glass. And so I'm there in his basement
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and I'm, I'm literally cleaning the soot of the fire off of the
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stained glass of my home church. And I felt selfish in that
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moment. I was like, I could be home with
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my family. I could be prepping for the
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sermon that I'm giving right now.
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But here I am doing a little private project for myself.
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How could I turn this into time with God and being in His
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presence? And so I put on some worship
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music on my cell phone and just got in this rhythm of singing
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his praises and praying and talking to Him and asking him
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what he wanted to share this morning as I'm scrubbing off the
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SUT of a building that was designed to point people towards
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him and bring people closer to him.
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And yet he's still able to use that same stained glass to draw
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me closer to him and bring me into his presence.
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And so I, I would implore that any intentional time you, you
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focus your attention towards him can be a time in his presence.
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And lastly, if you feel like there's no space in the world
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that you can concentrate, noise cancelling headphones are really
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cheap nowadays and you know how to close your eyes.
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And so I would advise that anywhere, at any place, you can
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draw your full attention to the Lord.
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And I would just hope that our desire to be with Him would be
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above our desire for anything else that this world has to
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offer, even if the things we desire came from Him, that the
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blessings wouldn't take over our priorities and our desires to be
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with the one that blessed us. And so with that, I want us to
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all draw into his presence in a time of prayer.
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You're welcome to the altar. You're welcome to be stay in
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your seats and then we'll continue to dwell on him with a
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with a slight, slight song change.
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Remember, the bulletin is a suggestion, but I believe that
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the Lord is speaking and leading even in those changes.
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And so would you join me in a time in the presence of our
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Lord? Oh God, we thank you so much for
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this opportunity to be in your presence, the opportunity to sit
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and listen for whatever you want to say to your children.
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Would you speak now as we humbly come before your throne of
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grace? Would we create time and space
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that focuses our eyes on you amongst the chaos of life and
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things that we feel must get done and some must get done?
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Would we seek to walk with you all the days of our lives, to be
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in your presence, to listen for your voice, to align our desires
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with yours, whether it be in the gentle whisper, through a
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brother or sister in Christ or a burning Bush if you like?
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Would we always be open and seeking what you want to say to
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us in Jesus name, Amen.