Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] And thank you to all of you. It is a delight. It's an honor to be here.
[00:00:12] When Denise and I returned home, Denise told me not once, but I'll bet she told me five times. She said, harry, that is the warmest, friendliest church. She said, I think I've been in in a long period of time. So God bless you for being so friendly, being so warm, so welcoming. And it's just a real honor to be here and worship with you and share in God's word together. I'm going to ask you to take your copy of the Scriptures, find your way to First Samuel, chapter three. First Samuel, chapter three. You'll also see the words of the Scripture behind me. First Samuel, chapter three.
[00:00:56] And we read.
[00:00:58] Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord in the presence of Eli.
[00:01:04] And the word of the Lord was rare in those days. There was no frequent vision at the time. Eli, whose eyes had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his own place.
[00:01:21] The lamp of God had not yet gone out. And Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was.
[00:01:31] Then the Lord called Samuel. And he said, here I am.
[00:01:36] And ran to Eli and said, here I am, for you called me.
[00:01:41] But he said, I did not call lie down again.
[00:01:45] So he went and lay down.
[00:01:47] And the Lord called again Samuel. And Samuel rose and went to Eli and said, here I am, for you called me. But he said, I did not call my son lie down again.
[00:01:59] Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.
[00:02:08] And the Lord called Samuel again, the third time. And he arose and went to Eli and said, here I am, for you called me. And then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy.
[00:02:21] Therefore Eli said to Samuel, go, lie down. And if he calls you, you shall say, speak, Lord, for your servant hears. So Samuel went and lay down in his place.
[00:02:36] And the Lord came and stood calling at other times. Samuel, Samuel. And Samuel said, speak for your servant hears.
[00:02:49] Then the Lord said to Samuel, behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel at which the two ears of everyone who hears will tingle on that day.
[00:03:05] I will fulfill again against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house from beginning to end.
[00:03:15] And I declare to him that I am about to punish his house forever for the iniquity that he knew. Because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them.
[00:03:29] Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever.
[00:03:40] Samuel lay until morning.
[00:03:43] Then he opened the doors of the house of the Lord. And Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. But Eli called Samuel and said, samuel, my son. And he said, here I am. And Eli said, what was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me.
[00:04:05] May God do so to you. And more also if you hide anything from me of all that he told you.
[00:04:15] So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. And he said, it is the Lord, let him do what seems good to him.
[00:04:27] And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him, and let none of his words fall to the ground. And. And all Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, knew that Samuel was established as a prophet of the Lord.
[00:04:43] And the Lord appeared again at Shiloh. For the Lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord.
[00:04:53] And verse one of chapter four says, and the word of Samuel came to all Israel.
[00:05:02] This is the word of the Lord.
[00:05:04] So hear it, receive it, and obey it for as long as he gives you life.
[00:05:12] So we started this series last Sunday, and we've titled it what if God Is Really Real?
[00:05:21] Let's add another question to that, very similar to the first. And the other question would be, what if God really communicates to people?
[00:05:32] Now, that's an important question, because there are some people in our world today that simply do not believe that God communicates.
[00:05:39] For example, some of our founding fathers were deists. Deism was a philosophy, a philosophy of religion that said, okay, granted, God created everything, but then God has gone to some other end of the universe, and he's kind of allowed humanity and everything that's happening in the world to be cared for by human beings. The idea is that God really isn't around. God isn't communicating to us.
[00:06:07] There are some people that would also say, I don't believe in God because he doesn't speak.
[00:06:12] If God wants me to do something, then he ought to speak to me that audibly. I can hear what he's saying.
[00:06:20] If you're saying that kind of thing, could I just caution you? I'll remind you of an account in the Old Testament, in the Book of Exodus, Israel was delivered from Egypt, and they came to a place that we identify as Mount Sinai.
[00:06:36] God spoke through Moses and he said, prepare the people, consecrate them so that the next day, because I'm going to come down from the mountain and I will speak to them.
[00:06:45] And sure enough, the next day there were Billows of smoke. All around the mountain. There was fire.
[00:06:51] And God spoke. And the people were so frightened, they cowered in the presence of God's voice. And they said to Moses, you go. You go and talk to God and tell us what he says. But we're too frightened to hear from Him.
[00:07:06] My point is this. If you think that God should show up and talk to you directly, you're asking him to come. And you and I could not, could not. We could not stand in his presence. His glory and his majesty would blow us away.
[00:07:21] So you see, God, in His grace and mercy, communicates to us, but he communicates to us in other ways. Our God is a communicating God.
[00:07:30] Let me put it this way.
[00:07:33] There is a local pharmacy where I get all of my prescriptions.
[00:07:37] The local Walgreen pharmacy, about a mile and a half from where we live.
[00:07:42] In February of this year, I got a notice from Walgreens, my local pharmacy, and they said, you have a prescription, but we still have to have it approved by the insurance company.
[00:07:53] Well, I didn't think much of it. I knew that I was going to have surgery in about three or four weeks and didn't really pay much attention. That afternoon, I got a text message from Walgreens that, your prescription is ready. You can come and pick it up.
[00:08:08] It was a busy day, had a lot of things to do, and I didn't go. Would you believe it? The next morning, my local Walgreens pharmacy contacted me and said, you, prescription is ready.
[00:08:20] That afternoon, I got another text message from my local Walgreens pharmacy, and they said to me, your prescription is ready.
[00:08:29] Now, I don't know what you think of a pharmacy like that. You could say they're local, they're close by.
[00:08:36] They care about you. Yeah, they care about me. They're concerned about your health. I believe that.
[00:08:41] But I want to tell you this morning that they are a communicating pharmacy.
[00:08:47] Corporations are communicating corporations, and they try to get messages out to all of their customers.
[00:08:55] It's good business practice.
[00:08:57] And I'm going to suggest to you this morning that God in an even greater way, is a communicating God.
[00:09:04] In fact, this text is telling us about that. But the next question, right in the heels of that first question, is, if God is communicating God, how should we respond?
[00:09:15] What should we do with respect to the things that he communicates to us?
[00:09:20] We're going to find an answer to that. We're going to look at this passage after looking at the passage to see what the writer is doing.
[00:09:26] We're going to discover a principle that's what's really important to me. I hope it's important to you, because I want you to take that principle with you into the rest of your life.
[00:09:35] Then, on the other side of the principle, I want us to ask ourselves, how can we practice this principle?
[00:09:42] So looking at the passage, what the writer's doing, what's the principle? And then how do we practice it?
[00:09:47] As we look at this passage, there are so many things that we could see. But I want you to see some things that I've highlighted. I want you to notice that this passage is talking about a condition, a spiritual condition, a moral condition in the nation of Israel. We see it in verses one through three.
[00:10:08] Now, here's what's happening in this condition.
[00:10:10] The author makes a statement, and then he follows that statement up with some literal pictures. Let me show it to you. You'll notice in verse one. Again, it says, now, the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord in the presence of Eli and the word of the Lord. Notice the next couple of words was rare in those days. There was no frequent vision.
[00:10:36] I want you to notice the word rare and the word no frequent vision, no vision. The word rare simply means it was rare. It means the word of God, the proclaimed word, didn't necessarily come along. People didn't hear it very often.
[00:10:52] That means that even Eli the priest wasn't preaching the word of God, wasn't telling the people that much about how they ought to live. And that was creating a real problem in the nation of Israel. So the word of God was rare. People didn't hear it very often.
[00:11:07] The other thing that I want you to notice is that he talks about there was no frequent vision.
[00:11:14] There is a passage in Proverbs 29:18, and here's what it says.
[00:11:22] When there is no vision, the people perish.
[00:11:28] Christian organizations, churches sometimes, especially when they're having building programs, they'll make these charts. The charts will have thermometers on them, and it'll show every week, well, we've raised this much money, and the next week, a little bit more money. A little bit more money. And there'll usually be a Bible verse. The Bible verse on that chart will say something like this.
[00:11:47] Where there is no vision, the people perish. The idea is people need to have a vision so that we can complete this building program.
[00:11:55] Can I say something very graciously to you? That verse has nothing to do with building programs. Nothing.
[00:12:04] Here's what it means.
[00:12:06] It would probably be better translated. Where there is no prophetic revelation, the people will perish. So if the people of God do not hear God speaking, they do not hear God's word on a regular basis. With the passing of time, they will perish, and many of them will perish without God.
[00:12:25] So that's what the writer is saying. He's talking about a condition, a spiritual condition in which the people were declining. Very true of the time period of the Judges, which these first few chapters of Samuel are still taking place during the time of the Judges.
[00:12:41] Now I also want you to notice with that condition, it follows up with what is sometimes referred to as a double entendre, if you've ever heard that expression. Sometimes we talk about double entendre as though it's an off color joke.
[00:12:57] That's not what it means.
[00:12:59] It's a literary device that means that there is a statement that is made. Then the statement is followed by some examples or pictures to emphasize what is really being stated so that people will come away and say, wow, this is really serious.
[00:13:14] Here's the wow, here's the double entendre. It starts in verse two.
[00:13:19] At that time, Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his own place.
[00:13:29] So do you see what's happening to Eli?
[00:13:32] His eyes are growing dim. Common condition with a lot of people. And so the older he gets, the less eyesight that he has.
[00:13:39] But it also emphasized this picture that people were not hearing from God. And that word. There were no frequent visions.
[00:13:49] It seems to be characterized by the fact that Eli himself didn't have very many visions, literally and spiritually speaking.
[00:13:57] I want you to notice something else. Notice in verse three, it says, the lamp of God had not yet gone out.
[00:14:06] If you were to go back to Exodus 27:21, you would hear a description of the lamp of God. There were certain items, certain pieces of furniture that God said must be placed in my temple. In my tabernacle.
[00:14:24] One of those pieces of furniture was the lamp of God.
[00:14:28] Now here's the thing about the lamp of God.
[00:14:31] The lamp of God was a structure, not sure how high it was. And so every evening while the sun was setting, a priest would come in, probably a different priest every day. And the priest would walk in and he would take some oil and he would put some oil into the lamp.
[00:14:46] Then before he left, he would light the lamp. And so the lamp would begin to have this flame on top of it.
[00:14:53] The job of the priest was to go in throughout the evening to make sure the oil isn't gonna be burned up. It's still dark outside. We wanna pour some oil so that the light is still shining. Now, why was that important?
[00:15:05] During the wilderness wanderings of Israel, you may remember that the tabernacle would be located the place where they were gonna stay that night. And then on, all of the tribes of Israel were kind of encircling the tabernacle. So imagine that you're in one of those tribes, and you're in one of your tents, and you get up in the middle of the night and you walk out and you can't sleep. So you rub your eyes just a little bit. Then you kind of look around to see what's going on.
[00:15:34] You notice the tabernacle over there, and there's a light. You can see the light. Darkness all around you, but you can see that light.
[00:15:43] And light was there to remind you that God was always present with his people and he could see everything.
[00:15:54] Everything.
[00:15:56] So even though the nation is declining spiritually, God still has a light.
[00:16:03] God's still shining. That I want you to see something else as part of this double entendre to amplify the condition. You'll see it in verse three, near the end. So Samuel was lying down in the temple, and then it says, he was in the temple of the Lord, where the Ark of God was.
[00:16:22] Now, the reason why that was significant is the ark of God was this beautiful box laid with gold. Inside that box were the two tablets that Moses had brought down from the mountain. And on the tablet were the ten Commandments, as if God was saying, I want you to keep this closely with you all the days of your existence as a nation, because this symbolizes the fact that I am a God who communicates with his people. I'll tell you who I am, and I will tell you how you are supposed to live.
[00:16:55] But the condition was that not many people were hearing.
[00:16:59] And as a result of that, there was a spiritual decline on the part of the people. That was the condition.
[00:17:06] Now, in light of this condition, I also want you to notice that there is something else that's going on. There are contrasting characters. And I could say so much about this, but just want to give a few highlights here and there. Contrasting characters.
[00:17:20] One of the characters was this man, Eli.
[00:17:23] And the text says that their visions were rare. The word of God wasn't spoken. But if you were to go over to chapter two and you would look specifically at verse 29, you will discover that a prophet came to Eli. One of the young men pointed out to me at the end of the first service that this Prophet is never named.
[00:17:46] So even though the word of God was rare, there was at least a little bit of the word of God. And this prophet comes and he speaks to Eli. Notice in chapter two, verse 29 says, why then, do you, Eli, scorn my sacrifices and my offerings that I commanded for my dwelling and honored your sons above, above me by fattening yourselves on the choicest parts of every offering of my people Israel?
[00:18:12] That had to be cutting for Eli.
[00:18:14] And so basically, we see that Eli is a man on the decline.
[00:18:19] He failed spiritually, failed as a father.
[00:18:23] There's something else about him. He doesn't seem to have much spiritual perception. How do we know that? You remember from reading the text, beginning somewhere around about verse four, that one of the things that takes place is that God begins to speak.
[00:18:38] And Samuel hears this. And he goes to Eli said, you called me. No, I didn't call you. Go back, lay down.
[00:18:46] Happens three times.
[00:18:48] Finally, on the third time, Eli says to Samuel, cause he doesn't have much spiritual discernment up to that point. He said, listen, I think maybe the Lord's talking to you when he speaks to you. Here's what you need to say. And he told Samuel specifically what he was supposed to say.
[00:19:04] Samuel is a man who has failed as a father. He has failed as a priest. I want you to notice that there is an indictment that is given to him in verse 18.
[00:19:15] Samuel delivers the indictment, and Eli hears this. And notice what he says. So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. That is Eli. And he said, eli said, it is the Lord. Let him do what seems good to him.
[00:19:34] If I would have had an indictment from the Lord given to me, I would have thought I would get down on my hands and knees. I would plead with God, oh, please don't do this. Take your judgment away from me.
[00:19:49] And Eli says, it's the Lord.
[00:19:52] Let him do what he chooses to do.
[00:19:57] So we have contrasting characters that starts with Eli. And the other person I want you to see, you've already seen him, is Samuel.
[00:20:05] And I want you to notice where we find Samuel. Initially, at the end of verse three, we are told that he was in the temple or in the tabernacle of the Lord, where the ark of God was.
[00:20:17] And it wasn't just one time. Apparently Samuel is there all the time near the Ark of God, where God is going to speak, where God's word is housed. And so Samuel is positioned in this place where he can hear from God.
[00:20:35] Notice something else about him, how Samuel sees himself. So God Begins to speak. He thinks it's Eli initially. And finally Eli says, no, you need to understand. It's probably the Lord. So you listen. I want you to notice that what Samuel says to him. Verse 10.
[00:20:52] The Lord came and stood calling, as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. And Samuel said, speak for your servant hears.
[00:21:03] You see how Samuel's beginning to see himself. He sees himself as the servant of the Lord.
[00:21:09] So a couple of times in this chapter, he says, okay, I'm your servant. Tell me what it is you want me to know and I will do it for you.
[00:21:18] There's a phrase near the end of this chapter, and we see it in verse 19. And Samuel grew and the Lord was with him.
[00:21:27] I like this phrase. And he let none of the words fall to the ground. None of Samuel's words fall to the ground.
[00:21:34] What that means is, is that when Samuel spoke, his words weren't wasted. People listened to what he was saying. They took in what he was saying. So there's no frivolous word, no wasted word on the part of Samuel.
[00:21:47] God is speaking through him. So that's Samuel. And we're told that the word of God goes forth through Samuel to all the people of Israel. There's Eli, there's Samuel. And Samuel's beginning to hear the Lord and beginning to be used by the Lord. There's one other character. We must not overlook this character. And did I tell you, when I use the term character, I'm not implying that this story is fictitious. It's made up.
[00:22:12] We talk about characters in the context of a narrative. This is a narrative.
[00:22:17] If you watch the evening news tonight, a news anchor might begin to talk about some event that took place. And he'll name different individuals who are part of that. They are the characters of that historical narrative. The same thing is true here. We have characters. Will. We have Eli. We have Samuel. The other character in this passage is the Lord. I want you to notice where he shows up.
[00:22:44] Would you notice? Verse 4.
[00:22:47] Then the Lord calls Samuel.
[00:22:51] In fact, the verbal expression has. The idea is that the Lord was continually calling Samuel. The Lord was continually speaking. We see it again in verse 10. And the Lord came and stood calling, as at other times, to Samuel.
[00:23:07] So the Lord is speaking and he's doing it on a regular basis. Or you might want to go over to verse 11. Near the end of verse 11, God says, I'm going to do something. Listen to this phrase. He said, I'm going to say something and do something so that the two ears of everyone who hears it will Tingle. It will tingle their ears.
[00:23:27] I'm not sure why we translate that word tingle. Because it sounds like there's a little bell maybe next to his ears that's being jingled. And that's not the idea to tingle. This word that is translated as tingle has the idea of something that is screeching and getting our attention.
[00:23:46] I hope this doesn't happen. I've been in a surgery before this took place, where the fire alarm begins to go off. I hope it doesn't happen. But if it goes off, here's what some of us will do.
[00:23:55] Some of us up here will say, okay, everybody out to the parking lot. But while that fire alarm is going on, some people will be holding their ears like this and they'll be trying to get out as fast as they can.
[00:24:07] Their ears can't handle what's being said.
[00:24:10] This is what's taking place here. The Lord is going to speak in such a powerful way that people are going to say, oh, my goodness, something is happening. There's some big change that's taking place.
[00:24:23] This passage is about Eli, it's about Samuel, and it's about the Lord.
[00:24:27] So we talk about a condition. We talk about contrasting characters. One other thing I want you to notice in the passage, I want you to notice that there is a key word, and that key word is word.
[00:24:44] Notice. We find it in verse one. And the word, the Word of the Lord was rare in those days. And then you'll want to notice later on that we are told that the Word. We see this in verse 7. Now, Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.
[00:25:08] Now, that sounds as though Samuel is being ignorant when it comes to spiritual things, but that's not quite the place. It means that this is a starting point for him.
[00:25:18] It's interesting to me that that word that's translated as know in verse seven is the very same word that is used of Elkanah and Hannah back in chapter one. You may remember, after Hannah receives this prophecy, one of the things that takes place is that she and her husband go back home. And in the process, it says that Elkanah knew his wife Hannah. It means that they had intimacy, sexual intimacy.
[00:25:47] Now, it's the very same word here.
[00:25:50] Why would they use that same word?
[00:25:52] Because it means at this point that Samuel was not as intimate with God as he was going to be. But it was starting at this point. And everything changes from verse seven onward.
[00:26:05] And so this phrase, the word of the Lord appears, I think it's about eight or nine times in this chapter, the word of the Lord.
[00:26:12] Now, what are we to make of all of this that leads to this principle that I told you about that I want to take with you?
[00:26:19] Because what we see in the passage is that God is not only present and that God is really real, but God is speaking.
[00:26:28] So here's what you want to remember, here's what you want to know, here's what you will want to act upon.
[00:26:34] Listen up. Write it down if necessary.
[00:26:37] If God communicates to people, give attention to what he's saying.
[00:26:45] That's so important I need to repeat it. If God communicates with people, give attention to what he's saying, we can't simply ignore him. If God speaks in a variety of different ways, we need to be in tune. God, what is it you're saying and what is it you're saying to me? Because God is a communicating God.
[00:27:09] Now let's go to that third thing we wanted to do today. And how do we put this into practice?
[00:27:15] I need to ask some questions. And one of the questions I need to ask is, to whom does this principle apply? To whom does it apply? We can say, well, maybe it applies to everyone. Well, let's be careful.
[00:27:28] What I want you to hear is that this principle applies to anyone who is seeking after God. We know that because Eli, he wasn't perceptive of the things that God was saying. He had to have another prophet come and speak to him, so he wasn't hearing these things.
[00:27:45] So to whom in this chapter was the word of the Lord directed?
[00:27:50] Samuel.
[00:27:51] And it came to Samuel because Samuel was seeking to know God. And from verse seven onward, he is hungry to know God. He is hungry to do whatever God wants him to do. So if we say that God is a communicating God and we need to give attention to him, who wants to do that? Anybody who wants to know God?
[00:28:10] Anybody who wants to hear from him. Anybody wants to know as to whether or not God is real or not? This principle then is for you. It's for us.
[00:28:20] Second question that I think we need to ask is why should we believe that this principle is true? I asked a similar question last week, and the answer to that is, because of the preponderance of evidence, sometime in the near future, you may be asked to serve on a jury.
[00:28:39] And if you are seated on the jury, one of the things that may happen at the end, you'll have to give a verdict. And it may be difficult to do it unless. Unless there is a preponderance of evidence.
[00:28:51] And you say the evidence is so overwhelming, we have to render a verdict of guilty. All the evidence is there. We say when we talk about whether or not God speaks and God is a speaking God, the evidence is overwhelming. We see it again and again. In First Samuel, chapter three, I told you about eight or nine times this phrase, the word of the Lord. The Word of the Lord. The Word of the Lord comes to Samuel and comes to the people.
[00:29:17] The other thing I would point out is that God has pointed out to us that evidence of his existence and his communication comes from a variety of different places. Consider Psalm 19.
[00:29:28] Some of you have probably memorized Psalm 19. Listen to how it begins.
[00:29:33] It says, the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
[00:29:41] You could go on and read the rest of it. But what it's basically saying, when you look at creation, one of the things you would discover is that it's saying God exists. God is real.
[00:29:53] The text goes on to say that not only does creation reveal certain things, but picking up in verse seven of Psalm 19, we read this. The law of the Lord is perfect. He's talking about the written word. What God had revealed first through Moses, then was given to the people. And it says, the law of the Lord is perfect.
[00:30:09] Reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.
[00:30:16] Are you hearing what God is saying? If you listen to my word, I'll make you wise.
[00:30:22] I will encourage you. I will give you life as you've never known it before.
[00:30:27] Preponderance of evidence is that God is a communicating God. We see it in His Word in Matthew chapter four, right after the baptism of Jesus.
[00:30:37] We are told that after the Spirit came upon him, Jesus goes out and he starts to preach.
[00:30:43] And here's what he preached.
[00:30:45] Repent, he said, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
[00:30:51] Let me express that another way. Repent, because the Word of God is in your presence.
[00:31:00] Everywhere God went, he went as the Word of God. He went as the spokesman for God. He went as the Savior of God. For us, God is a communicating God. We see this in the apostles and the ministries of the apostles. We see it in church history. You talk about the great evangelists of history, the Whitfields, the Wesleys, the Grahams, a whole host of different people.
[00:31:24] Anywhere there is a revival. And these men who were instrumental in bringing revival, anywhere there is a revival, there is always the communicating of the Word of God. Because God is a communicating God. He wants us to hear from Him If God communicates with people, you have attention to what he says.
[00:31:47] Why should we believe it? Preponderance of evidence.
[00:31:51] The other question that I want us to try to answer this morning is, okay, how then do we respond?
[00:31:57] If we're going to give attention to this God who communicates, how are we going to respond to Him?
[00:32:03] I have a friend, his name is Rick, and he's in a Bible study with me. I've been in this Bible study with Rick for several years now. And one morning we were talking, and how do men get talking about these things? But we're talking about all of us around that table. We have some problems hearing.
[00:32:20] And one of the things that Rick said, he said, you know, my hearing got so bad, he said I had to do something about, he said, because Kay was getting frustrated with me. Kay's his wife. And he said one of the things that happened was that he said she would say something to me in the kitchen or another part of the house, and I'd say, what?
[00:32:39] And she would repeat it again. What did you say?
[00:32:42] We went back and forth, and he said, I was getting irritated. She was getting irritated with me. And he said, then I learned my lesson.
[00:32:49] So here's what I do. He said, when K calls out my name, he said, I go to where she is, I stand in front of her and say, honey, what is it that you'd like me to do? And he said, I do it. I position myself right in front of her. Hey, now, this is free this morning.
[00:33:05] Men. That's a great principle.
[00:33:08] Great principle. If you want to enrich your marriage, as soon as your wife's, you go right in front of her and you say, honey, what is it that you want me to do?
[00:33:18] And the same thing is true with God. We want to position ourselves so that we are giving attention to what God is saying.
[00:33:26] What are we going to give attention to?
[00:33:28] We need to position ourselves so that we are listening to God, because God is speaking in a variety of different contexts.
[00:33:37] Thank you for being here this morning. Not because I'm here, but because when you come, you're honoring God, not the preacher. You're honoring God because you're listening to his Word and you take that with you, like food, as nourishment to your soul.
[00:33:54] Listen to what the preachers in this place are saying.
[00:33:58] Or maybe you're going to get up tomorrow morning and you're driving to work, and one of the things that you'll do, you turn on the radio, and obviously you're listening to Moody Radio. And so in the process, you'll hear something. You'll hear a speaker say something, or you'll hear scripture read, and that will begin to speak to you, because God is talking. Or maybe you get up in the morning and you'll open a devotional booklet and you begin to read through it. And somehow God will speak through that devotional and begin to minister to you. Or you'll come to a Bible study at this church or in someone's home, and you'll be listening to testimonies of other people, and you will be hearing from God. Position yourself to listen.
[00:34:38] The other thing that you and I need to do in response is we need to obey.
[00:34:43] Whenever God talks, we need to obey because God wants us to hear from him. It isn't always about us. It's always about what God is doing and what God is saying about.
[00:34:58] Two years ago, Denise and I went to a conference, a convention. It was really one for Denise in Charlotte, North Carolina. And while we were there, she would go to different seminars during the day. And this is a large convention center. And I remember I went to my favorite library while I was there at the convention center. It's called Starbucks.
[00:35:20] And while I was there, I'd get some coffee, and after a while, people would filter off to these different seminar places. It would get quiet and could drink my coffee. I could read.
[00:35:30] I happened to notice that at one end of the convention center, the doors opened slowly, and this little boy came through. And he came in and kind of planted himself and looked back.
[00:35:41] And then right after that, here was a stroller that was being pushed in.
[00:35:46] And there was a mother.
[00:35:48] I mean, she had packages around her shoulder and packages in the stroller. Another little child there in the stroller. And as soon as she got inside, that little boy was in the front.
[00:35:57] He started to dart down that hallway, and he was running as fast as his little legs would carry him. And I could hear this mother. I don't know the boy's name, but I'll just call him Johnny. And I could hear the mother saying, johnny, Johnny, Johnny. And he was. And all of a sudden, she must have raised her voice to the right level. She said, johnny.
[00:36:15] And he stopped, and he turned around and he looked at her. And then she said some other things. And all of a sudden, he started walking back to where she was.
[00:36:25] He was obeying her, obeying her.
[00:36:29] There are times when you're going to hear the word of God proclaimed. You're going to read the word of God and you're going to say, I Can't do that, Harry. You don't know what kind of a situation I'm in right now at work. You don't know what kind of a situation I'm in in my home. I can't do that.
[00:36:44] And yet God, who communicates with us, is saying, listen and obey. Obey.
[00:36:53] Third thing that you and I will want to do, we want to position ourselves so that we can tell others.
[00:37:00] One of my favorite passages of scripture is First Peter, chapter 2, verses 9 and 10.
[00:37:05] Takes a concept from the Old Testament. And the apostle Peter says, and you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, so that. Listen to this. So that you might proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. For once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you did not receive mercy, but now you have received mercy.
[00:37:36] And what it's saying is that we are placed here not just to be blessed every day, although God does bless us every day. We are here every day so that we might proclaim the excellencies of the God who called us out of darkness.
[00:37:54] And you have an opportunity when you go to work, you have an opportunity in your neighborhood. You have an opportunity in fellowship that you have with a variety of different people to proclaim how great God has been to you so others can hear as well.
[00:38:11] Communicating companies are very important for their profitability.
[00:38:16] And for Christians, it's to our benefit that we have a God who is a communicating God.
[00:38:23] Listen.
[00:38:25] Obey.
[00:38:27] Tell what this communicating God has done. Give attention to his word.
[00:38:33] You will be blessed and God will be glorified.
[00:38:38] There's one thing that God might be saying this morning.
[00:38:41] He said to people in Matthew's gospel, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
[00:38:53] He's talking about people who are weighed down with the burden and the guilt of sin.
[00:38:59] And Jesus is saying, I'm the only one. I'm the only one who can take this burden off of you. I can give you the rest that you long for. Come to me. Come to me. If you've never done that, if you've never put your faith and trust in Jesus, would you do it right now?
[00:39:17] Privacy of your own mind, right where you are.
[00:39:21] And then you can join the rest of us in worshiping this great God who communicates to us all the time.
[00:39:28] Let's pray. Father, thank you for your goodness and your mercy and your kindness to us. Thank you for speaking to us. Thank you for never letting us alone.
[00:39:38] And we would ask today, Father, you would take this word, apply it to our hearts, so that we would be a people who would please you. And if there's anyone, Father, anyone here who does not yet know Jesus, we would ask that you would bring them to faith by the Spirit's power. Then of Jesus and him alone, it's in his name that we pray. Amen.
