Latest / Beyond the Sermon / Why We Hear God's Voice: Sermon

Transcript

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

• 0:02
  You're listening to Beyond the Sermon, the podcast of First
• 0:05
  Methodist Church in Collingswood, NJ.
• 0:07
  On our podcast, the goal is not just to share the sermons we've
• 0:11
  preached, but to go beyond the sermon and talk about what we're
• 0:14
  learning and what God is doing in US and in our community.
• 0:17
  You can find more information about our church at
• 0:20
  fumccollingswood. Dot org.
• 0:22
  Thanks for listening. This morning scripture comes
• 0:28
  from the book of Acts Chapter 9 starting verse 10.
• 0:34
  In Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias.
• 0:38
  The Lord called to him in a vision.
• 0:40
  Ananias. Yes, Lord, he answered.
• 0:43
  The Lord told him, go to the House of Judas on Straight St.
• 0:48
  and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying in
• 0:55
  a vision. He has seen a man named Ananias
• 0:58
  come and place his hands on him to restore his sight.
• 1:03
  Lord Ananias answered, I have heard many reports about this
• 1:08
  man and all the harm he has done to your holy people in
• 1:11
  Jerusalem, and he has come here with authority from the chief
• 1:15
  priest to arrest all who call on your name.
• 1:19
  But the Lord said to Ananias, Go, This man is my chosen
• 1:24
  instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles and their kings,
• 1:29
  and to the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must
• 1:33
  suffer for my name. Then Ananias went to the house
• 1:38
  and entered it, placing his hands on Saul.
• 1:41
  He said, Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on
• 1:47
  the road as you were coming here, has sent me so that you
• 1:51
  may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.
• 1:55
  Immediately something like scales fell from Saul's eyes and
• 2:00
  he could see again. He got up and was baptized, and
• 2:04
  after taking some food he regained his strength.
• 2:08
  This is the word of God for the people of God.
• 2:11
  Thanks be to God. Well, I started this sermon
• 2:18
  theories on hearing the voice of God talking about how we're
• 2:24
  created to hear the voice of God, to walk with him in an
• 2:28
  intimate relationship where we converse with God and we truly
• 2:34
  can know him not just as an abstract force or power, but as
• 2:40
  a person or with a, with a personality and someone we can
• 2:45
  know. But since then, the last few
• 2:48
  weeks, we, we've been talking mostly about how God speaks to
• 2:53
  us and how we can recognize that it is God speaking to us.
• 2:59
  It's been a lot about how right I I don't know that I've done a
• 3:04
  good job so far explaining why God speaks to us aside from the
• 3:13
  fact that he wants us to know him.
• 3:15
  Like we talked about the first week.
• 3:17
  And that's true, but it's not, I think the only reason that God
• 3:23
  speaks to us. Again, I think it's a core
• 3:25
  reason, but I also think there's more.
• 3:29
  There's a reason why God wants us to even know him, right?
• 3:34
  That reason, I believe, is because God is looking for
• 3:38
  people, human beings like you and me, with whom He can partner
• 3:46
  to accomplish His will and His purposes in the world.
• 3:52
  I don't know about you, but that sounds crazy to me because I
• 3:57
  know a few human beings and they would not be my first choice if
• 4:02
  I were God. I would not be my first choice
• 4:05
  if I were God, but God's intention has always been to
• 4:11
  work in the world through human beings endowed with His power
• 4:18
  and His authority, people He can trust to steward and lead the
• 4:23
  creation that He has made. And so God speaks to people in
• 4:30
  order to share His desires, His purposes, His working, the
• 4:36
  things He wants to see and do in US in the church and in the
• 4:41
  world, and, and to invite us to join him in that work, to
• 4:46
  cooperate with God's grace in the world, to partner with him
• 4:52
  in what he's doing. And so the story that we read
• 4:54
  from Acts Chapter 9 today, it's it's a bit of a case study in
• 4:59
  the way that people hear God speak as an invitation into
• 5:05
  God's work in the world, right? In this story, a follower of
• 5:10
  Jesus named Ananias, he gets a call from God to do something he
• 5:15
  doesn't want to do, right? Something he doesn't think is
• 5:20
  wise to do. But God gives Ananias a vision
• 5:27
  with some very specific instructions, right?
• 5:31
  Ananias was supposed to go to a certain house belonging to a
• 5:35
  certain man on a certain St. in Damascus.
• 5:38
  Basically God gave him an address to go to, right?
• 5:44
  And at that house he was to ask for a man from the city of
• 5:47
  Tarsus, which was just another city in another part of the
• 5:51
  Roman Empire, what is today the the southern coast of Turkey.
• 5:56
  And that man from Tarsus, his name was Saul.
• 6:02
  No big deal, right? Well, not quite, because this
• 6:08
  episode where we find Ananias, it picks up in the middle of a
• 6:12
  story that's already been in progress.
• 6:15
  And to understand, we need to go back in chronology a little bit
• 6:20
  because you see this man Saul from Tarsus, he was a young
• 6:25
  Jewish man who was part of a group known as the Pharisees.
• 6:30
  If you remember from our gospel readings in the fall, the
• 6:33
  Pharisees got into quite a bit of conflict with Jesus during
• 6:38
  his ministry on earth right over over things that they saw as
• 6:44
  Jesus disregarding the Jewish laws that had been given through
• 6:48
  Moses, or at least the Pharisees interpretation of the Jewish
• 6:51
  laws that had been given through Moses.
• 6:54
  And so Saul, this young Pharisee, after Jesus death and
• 6:59
  resurrection, he became a prominent part of this group of
• 7:03
  Jewish people who were trying to erase this movement of Jesus
• 7:08
  followers, trying to wipe them out completely, particularly by
• 7:15
  putting those who followed the way of Jesus to death like we
• 7:21
  see happen with Stephen in Chapter 7 of Acts, which that
• 7:26
  story mentions that this young man named Saul was present for
• 7:31
  the stoning of Stephen. He he stood and held on to all
• 7:36
  the cloaks of the the men who gathered to stone Stephen and he
• 7:41
  approved of their stoning of Stephen.
• 7:45
  So in not much time, the persecution began to increase
• 7:50
  and those who believed in Jesus began to leave Jerusalem.
• 7:54
  They began to scatter out into the towns and cities in the
• 7:58
  surrounding areas, towns and cities like Damascus, they ended
• 8:04
  up there. Christians, they were, began to
• 8:06
  worship there. And so Saul, wanting to continue
• 8:10
  this work that he feels like is honoring to God, he goes to the
• 8:16
  chief priest. He asks for and receives a
• 8:18
  letter of authorization from that chief priest to pursue
• 8:23
  these Christians to Damascus so that he could arrest anyone who
• 8:28
  followed the way of Jesus. He could bring them back to
• 8:31
  Jerusalem. They could be tried and
• 8:34
  executed. All right, so Paul is going from
• 8:39
  Jerusalem, or Saul is going from Jerusalem to Damascus.
• 8:45
  And as he's on the way, on the road there, the risen Lord Jesus
• 8:50
  encounters Saul. And in that encounter, Saul's
• 8:56
  heart and his life are transformed in a moment.
• 9:01
  He he came to believe that Jesus was the Son of God, He was the
• 9:05
  Messiah. But in that encounter with
• 9:10
  Jesus, Saul was also blinded. He couldn't see anymore.
• 9:16
  So he's led to Damascus. He finds himself in this house,
• 9:21
  fasting and praying and waiting for God to speak to him again.
• 9:28
  Enter Ananias and his vision from God.
• 9:33
  Right? And so you can begin to see why
• 9:36
  Ananias pushed back so hard on God's invitation, why he doubted
• 9:42
  it and thought it to be unwise. God wasn't just sending Ananias
• 9:49
  to some guy from Tarsus. Ananias knew God was sending him
• 9:55
  to the very man who had dedicated himself to destroying
• 10:00
  Jesus's church. That's what Ananias knew.
• 10:08
  But God had bigger things in mind than just what Ananias
• 10:14
  knew. God wanted to use Ananias to
• 10:17
  help bring them about those things that God saw.
• 10:21
  And Ananias, if you've read through Acts before, his name
• 10:27
  for this Ananias doesn't occur before this point, and it
• 10:33
  actually doesn't appear again after this point.
• 10:38
  There there are other Ananias in Scripture, but not this one.
• 10:43
  See, Ananias was just a regular Jesus follower who recognized
• 10:50
  the voice of God and who God wanted to partner with to
• 10:56
  accomplish His purpose, His desires, His work, not just in
• 11:02
  Ananias, but also through him in the church and for the sake of
• 11:08
  the world. And so God started by peering or
• 11:14
  by speaking to Ananias. He he started by challenging
• 11:18
  what Ananias knew to be true and what he thought was possible.
• 11:24
  God was inviting Ananias into his work, but there was a work
• 11:29
  that God wanted to do in Ananias even before he could do what God
• 11:35
  had in mind for him to do. You see, God wanted to bring
• 11:40
  Ananias to this point of trusting Him, where Ananias
• 11:46
  could surrender His will and His desires and what Ananias thought
• 11:52
  he knew to be true. And in that invitation, Ananias
• 11:58
  had a choice to make, right, whether he was going to listen
• 12:03
  and follow Jesus or not. You see, God had plans for Saul,
• 12:13
  plans for him to become God's chosen instrument to proclaim
• 12:17
  his name to the Gentiles and to the kings and to the people of
• 12:21
  Israel. But God chose Ananias to be part
• 12:29
  of that plan, to be part of the process, right?
• 12:32
  This is the same God who had miraculously and supernaturally
• 12:37
  appeared to saw on the road to Damascus.
• 12:39
  They had a whole conversation together.
• 12:43
  Couldn't this God have healed Saul's blindness on his own?
• 12:49
  Absolutely. Of course he could have.
• 12:52
  But God chose to work through Ananias, a member of the family
• 12:58
  of God, a part of the body of Christ, someone an awful lot
• 13:05
  like you and me. So Ananias chooses to listen and
• 13:11
  follow Jesus, and he went to the house at the address that God
• 13:16
  had given him. And Ananias finds this man named
• 13:19
  Saul, and he lays his hands on him.
• 13:23
  And he says, Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you
• 13:28
  on the road as you were coming here, he has sent me so that you
• 13:32
  may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.
• 13:37
  See. Ananias recognized that vision
• 13:41
  he had. It was the voice of God.
• 13:43
  And Ananias trusted God's word to him, that God was doing
• 13:48
  something bigger than what Ananias could see from his own
• 13:52
  limited perspective. And because Ananias said yes,
• 13:58
  Saul's blindness was healed. Saul received the Holy Spirit,
• 14:06
  he's baptized into the church, and the world was never the same
• 14:11
  again. I don't think that's an
• 14:14
  exaggeration. The world was never the same,
• 14:21
  not just because of Paul or Saul, but because Ananias said
• 14:28
  yes. Now, I firmly believe that had
• 14:33
  Ananias said no to God, that God would have spoken to another
• 14:40
  believer in Damascus. But Ananias would have missed
• 14:46
  out on the opportunity to work with God.
• 14:49
  He would have missed out on his opportunity to be part of what
• 14:52
  God was doing not just in Damascus, but across the whole
• 14:57
  world. Can you imagine being Ananias if
• 15:01
  he had said no? Hearing the story of Saul, of
• 15:04
  Tarsus becoming a follower of Jesus, The stories that would
• 15:08
  come years later of of all that God was doing through him.
• 15:13
  The places he had gone, the the, the cities that now had
• 15:16
  churches, brothers and sisters in Christ because of what God
• 15:19
  was doing in Saul. Can you imagine knowing as
• 15:24
  Ananias that you said no? See, God had desires and
• 15:33
  purposes and works in his heart that went beyond just Ananias
• 15:39
  and even beyond Saul purposes for his church and for the world
• 15:45
  that he wanted to accomplish. But he wanted to do it through
• 15:49
  people, through human beings like you and me and friends.
• 15:54
  I believe that what was true for Ananias is true for us as well,
• 16:00
  that God speaks to us because he has desires and purposes and
• 16:05
  work that He wants to accomplish in us, but also through us for
• 16:12
  the sake of the church and the whole world.
• 16:17
  The reality is, we don't always know in advance how God is going
• 16:23
  to use us to bring about His will.
• 16:26
  We don't know where one little yes is going to lead or the
• 16:32
  ripples that will be set in motion because we chose to
• 16:36
  listen and follow Jesus even in something that seems small to
• 16:40
  us. But that doesn't change the fact
• 16:44
  that God wants to work in you, to form you into the kind of
• 16:51
  person that he can trust to say yes when he asks.
• 16:56
  To shape you into a person who can carry the presence of His
• 17:00
  Spirit to other people. To forge you into someone who
• 17:06
  can be used as the conduit for God's power to flow into the
• 17:11
  world and into people's lives. Because God has purposes and
• 17:17
  desires and works that He wants to accomplish within His church,
• 17:24
  and for the sake of a world that doesn't even know that it's
• 17:28
  longing for God. God's will for the church in the
• 17:34
  world may be bigger than you or me or the person sitting next to
• 17:41
  you, but he's chosen to work in the world through people like
• 17:48
  Ananias, through people like you and me.
• 17:53
  And every little yes you say to God, important qualifier there,
• 17:59
  right? Every little yes, you say to God
• 18:02
  is an opportunity to join God in the work that he's doing,
• 18:07
  trusting that the one who asks is the one who sees the bigger
• 18:14
  picture than we could ever see from where we're sitting in our
• 18:18
  Pew in the midst of Collingswood.
• 18:23
  But he wants to use you. He wants to shape you into the
• 18:29
  kind of person who can partner with Him to accomplish His work
• 18:36
  in the world and in the church. For the sake of the world,
• 18:44
  you've got to make a choice. Will you say yes, even in the
• 18:53
  small things? Because Jesus said those who are
• 18:57
  faithful with little will be entrusted with much.
• 19:04
  And we don't say yes in the midst of the little things.
• 19:07
  So we can get to the bigger things that God wants us to do,
• 19:12
  but we'll never get to the bigger things God wants us to do
• 19:14
  if we won't say yes in the small things.
• 19:18
  Day by day, the invitations He offers us to join Him in the
• 19:23
  work He's doing. Will you be a person who says
• 19:30
  yes? Would you pray with me this
• 19:35
  morning? God, we are grateful that you
• 19:42
  are a God who not only came to us but continues to come to us,
• 19:48
  who continues to speak to us and call us and empower us to join
• 19:55
  you in the work that you're doing in the world.
• 20:00
  So would you help us? Would you form us into people
• 20:02
  who say yes, shape us into people that you can entrust with
• 20:07
  your presence, and empower us to be the people through whom your
• 20:13
  power flows into the world and into the lives of those around
• 20:17
  us? We give you ourselves.
• 20:21
  Today we say yes. Jesus, what's your question?