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Transcript

Becoming A Friend of God: Part 1 · The God Who Sees You Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: God does speak to us through our godly friendships and through people that know Him.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Hi, friend, and welcome to the podcast.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Today we are going through our series of friendship with God.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: And there are so many great truths today.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking about this time when I was on a cross-country team with my friend.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: We were in high school.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: We were up in the mountains at Mammoth and we were going on this trail that was really remote.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like there was nobody around.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: It was just us two.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: We were doing a long run.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: We were on mile like 12 or something, and we started to look around and we didn't see any teammates.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't see anyone.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: And we're like, are we lost?
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like we were starting to think, how are we going to survive out here?
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like, are we ever going to find the end of this run?
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and just kind of panicking a little bit.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, we start to hear our coach's voice behind us.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: He's yelling at us, girls, girls, turn left.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like he knew exactly where we were.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: And hearing his voice was such a balm right to our soul because we were like, oh my gosh, we are not lost.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: We are not gonna die out here.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: We have our coach who we can hear, and we can hear his voice.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to encourage you today that friendship with God means that we know the voice and we know the heart and we know the character of God.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's our big idea for today.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: We have a friend in God and we know his voice.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: It says in John 10, 27, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: So God knows us and we hear him, and his voice should be the loudest voice in our life, the voice that we pay the most attention to.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to talk about today how we actually hear God and how we hear his voice.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: So there's this quote that I love from John Piper.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: He says, God wrote a book.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: It really blows me away every time I stop to think about it.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Pages and pages of God, his thoughts, his words, his heart, right there, just a few inches away.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that really captures how we have God's word, right?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: We have this written love story to us and how we have access to that.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: So another one way that we hear God's voice is through the still small voice.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um we hear this in just in our daily life, and we have to be attuned to that still small voice.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think 1 Kings 19 is a great example of hearing that still small voice.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna take you there.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Elijah is fleeing from Jezebel at this point.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she's sending a death threat out.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I want to kill Elijah at all costs.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so he flees, he's fearing for his life.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: He flees and he goes and he sits down next to this tree, and he's really asking God to take him and to take his life because he's weary and he's at the end of his rope.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: But the Lord um refreshes him, the Lord sends an angel to uh give him food and water, not once, but twice, and to give him a nap too.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: I love that whole story.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but from there, God brings Elijah up to the mountaintop and he wants to speak with Elijah.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: And here's what happens in 1 Kings 19, 11 through 12.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Then a great and powerful wind tore through the mountains and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire came a gentle whisper.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: So God was in that gentle whisper.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I think for us today, this is different.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: We have different distractions than Elijah had.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: We have our phones, we have screens, we have everything, getting together with friends, like all things that are maybe good, but also we have a lot of distraction.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: We live in a time of distraction.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it's gonna take intentional getting away with the Lord to hear his still small voice and ask him, Are you speaking to me?
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Is there something you want to say?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: And in order to actually hear him, we have to get in those moments of silence.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Another way we hear God is through godly friendships, through words spoken by our godly friends.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I was reminded of that this week.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: I had to teach on a really hard passage in Exodus, and it was the time when there was a plague on the firstborns of Egypt.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember feeling just really um nervous about teaching on this because it was so big.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I texted my friend Emily, and she sent me this text back saying, like, Erica, you've got this.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like this shows the heart and the character of God, like this shows how much he loves people.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And sent me this long text, right?
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: And just so, so encouraging.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt like it was God speaking right to me.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I joked with her after she sent me that text, and I said, Emily, I think you should fly out here and teach it yourself because you know what to say here.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but she said, No, no, no, you're the one teaching.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just encouraging you.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: But I just want, I wanted to tell you that story because God does speak to us through our godly friendships and through people that know him because they know God's heart.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna communicate God's heart to you.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a gift, right?
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's a gift to have friends like that.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Lastly, um, this way that God speaks to us, I like to call it love notes from God.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, some people call it God winks or when God gives you a hug.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: And these are moments where eternity kind of bends down to earth and God lets you know, hey, I was thinking about you today.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: I remember this, um, I was taking the trash out on the side of my house, and I was just feeling like weary from doing all the chores and doing everything.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt like I am just doing this same thing day after day after day, and I'm so tired of it, right?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember at the time it was fall and I live in California, so there's not a lot of like colors that happen in fall because we have kind of temperate weather.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: But I remember thinking, oh, if I could just be on the East Coast and see all the beautiful fall colors, right?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm taking the trash out, I'm complaining, and I'm just over it, right?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I I'm walking along the side of my house and I look down and I see this bright red leaf, like just so bright red.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: It had fallen from one of our neighbor's trees that I didn't even see was there.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt like it was the Lord just showing me a moment of beauty and him saying, Hey, I see you, I see what you're doing, I see that you take out the trash a hundred times, I see that you care and serve your family.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so these are when I say love notes from God or God winks, these are moments where God says, Hey, I see you, I know what you're doing, and your life is valuable to me.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: So we need to notice these moments, right?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I think having a friendship with God, having knowing him as a friend is noticing when he's speaking and being ready to hear and listen and notice those moments and then turn around and praise him for it.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I can't wait to join you next week.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna continue talking about friendship with God.