There are more than 6 billion people on this earth and I believe that God talks to each of us in a unique way. Some of those ways may seem strange, some ordinary, some direct and others very subtle. I don’t believe that God talks to any two of us in exactly the same way. Why? For the same reason that no two of us like exactly the same music or food, have exactly the same personality or life experiences, drive the same car or live in the same house, city or country. Because God in his ultimate wisdom knows how to reach us in personal ways that he knows, if we have our eyes, ears and hearts open to him, we will recognize and understand what he has to say. In fact, though I hope this morning’s message resonates with each of you, I fully expect some of you to get more out of it than others…that’s how God works.
So how does God talk to you? Communicate his will? Let you know what he wants? Give you direction? Affirm you or tell you how you should do things differently? Help you understand your calling or what you are supposed to OR meant to do or be?
Can you give an example of how God talks to you?
I personally think that it would be great if booming voice came from heaven and...and simply told me in English…I’d even be happy with Spanish…what to do in clear step-by-step instructions…shared with me what he wanted you to know to be a better Christian…wouldn’t it be great if he sent you messages or gave you instructions through…a visit to your home, a letter, an email, phone call, a text message or IM…for the younger ones here today…wouldn’t it be nice if God was on Facebook, MySpace or Twitter. Wouldn’t it would be great to get regular status updates from God...personalized for you….ooh and if they came with those same email updates you get when your friends update their status, write on your Wall or send you a message so you wouldn’t even have to log on to your home page to check to see what God is doing.
First, let me share a personal experience that reminded me that God often talks to me in ways that I don’t immediately recognize, God talks to me in the most unexpected times and God says things that are sometimes difficult to accept….and as Patricia will attest I’m sometimes not a very good listener. Just last week God talked to me…I’m sure it was something he was trying to do for a while now, but this is the moment in which I recognized it. I needed to open myself up to hear what God had to say.
Well, about two weeks ago I found out that my company would be laying off 10% of the workforce. However, it wasn’t until Wednesday afternoon that I learned that I would not likely be laid off…and Thursday afternoon at about 5:00pm when I received confirmation from my boss that I would still have job on Friday. At one point I commented to Patricia that I “hated not being in control of the situation” and I really felt that way…but as I thought about it more and more I remembered that we are really never in control and that this situation, even though it was extremely difficult and stressful, it was part of God’s plan…and something that I was supposed to learn from. I’m still processing the lesson God was trying to teach me but I fully understand that finding out about the lay-offs ahead of time…before I was supposed to know…and having 4 days to reflect, worry and lay awake at night thinking about whether I was going to be employed at the end of the week was part of God’s plan….but it wasn’t a clear message…it’s one I am still trying to interpret. At this point, this is what I think I learned.
I wasn’t truly putting everything in God’s hands and God knew that I needed a reminder…I thought I should be in control and able handle things on my own…I learned that I really need to let him drive…and not just let myself think that I am.
I also learned that I need to be a better steward of the materials possessions he has blessed my family with…so I am better prepared if I ever do lose my job.
Through previous conversations with God, I have come to understand that there is something that he wants me to do….a calling that is different from what I am currently doing. I’m still not entirely sure what that calling is but I do know that what happened last week has got me actively thinking about it…actively discerning again.
For me it would have been easier and more convenient if God would have spoken to me in a dream, sent me an email with 3 clear bullet points or sent someone that would have said “Hey Jason, there are three things God wants you do. First, you have forgotten that you need to put everything in his hands. Second, you are not using what God has given you as you should. Third, God has a plan for you. He wants you to do the following…..”
Like in the story I just shared. I find that he is often much more subtle and he doesn’t necessarily talk to me when I would want him to or when I expect it…he doesn’t always talk to me in ways that I immediately recognize and God sometimes tells us things we would rather not hear….however he talks to me in ways that he knows will work should I decide to open my eyes, ears and hearts.
When we think about God talking to his people, we generally think of stories from the Bible.
In Jonah 1:1, it says that “The Word of the Lord came to Jonah…” It’s not clear to me how God spoke to him the first time…maybe God was subtle…maybe he was more direct…maybe it was in a dream, a passing thought that entered Jonah’s mind or maybe a voice from heaven. What is clear that when God spoke to Jonah, Jonah heard God and chose to jump on a boat headed away from Nineveh. God was much clearer the second time. He sent a tremendous storm and as we all know a whale so Jonah would have three days and three nights to think and pray about what God had called him to do. God was persistent and varied his communications methods. He had to be very direct to get Jonah to listen to what Gad had to say. He didn’t heed what God had to say in the previous days and months so he “talked” to Jonas in way that he was unable to ignore. What I also take from this story is God takes his message to us wherever we may be and delivers it in a way that we understand and hopefully will ultimately choose not to ignore or disregard.
The situation Moses found himself in was a bit different.
It was about 1450 B.C. when God started speaking to Moses. BTW, how would you react if a flaming bush starting talking to you? God later spoke to Moses with the parting of the Red Sea, fire and smoke, voices from heaven, tablets…even the water, manna and quail…each encouraging him to go on. Throughout the journey, God found ways to “talk” to Moses in ways that kept him going. Some of the messages were direct, others required quite a bit of interpretation.
Throughout the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, God spoke to a wide variety of people in the form of miracles….healing (many times), parables, multiplying loaves and fishes, changing water to wine, walking on water and conversations, often with those he wasn’t supposed be talking with. We could do a sermon on each story about Jesus, but what I’d like you to think about is…how many different ways God shared his message through Jesus. There was a messages in Jesus healing the leper…in Jesus feeding the multitudes with loaves and fishes…in Jesus talking with the Pharisees…overturning the money changers tables in the temple. Sometimes we have to think a bit to really understand what God is trying to say. Why did you get that job or lose that job? Why did you or didn’t you get into the college of your choice? Why could you or couldn’t you scrape together the money you need to college or pay the bills? Why can’t you seem to find the time or money to go on vacation? There’s a message or lesson from God in everything we see, do and experience.
Like in the Bible God speaks to us in countless and often unexpected ways. God talks to us in dreams, day dreams, passing thoughts while we drive, the plants and animals we see when we go for an evening walk or run, the smiles on faces we pass on the street, The Bible, the time we spend with family and friends and a million different ways…God speaks to each of us differently…in ways that he knows we understand…it’s up to us as to whether or not we listen and respond the way he has to say.
It’s important that we pay attention because we never know when God will have something really big to tell us. This was case with the early Anabaptists….there was no flaming bush….flood…visit from an angel….booming voice from heaven…at least according to the histories that have been written about that time.
On January 21, 1525, three days after the government of Zurich, Switzerland decided to expel anyone that did not adhere to infant baptism would be expelled, George Blaurock (called that because he wore a blue coat) asked Conrad Grebel to baptize him. Others followed. The action that night was described as spontaneous under the deeply felt pressure of the presence of the Holy Spirit. There had been no advance calculation that ‘the way to make the break would be to baptize adults,’ and no strategic weighing of whether this was the right time to make the break. The significance of this act lay not so much in the proper practice of baptism itself, as in the creation of a new, visible church body distinct from the established church controlled by the state, as was true of the all-inclusive establishment of medieval Catholicism. Thus the prayer meeting and events of January 21 came to be the formal beginning of Anabaptism as a visible believers’ church. That meeting took place under the treat of persecution but instead of trying to resist the decree, the Anabaptists made plans to share their newfound convictions with others. The first church meeting was a missionary meeting. Each of these people had to leave the city of Zurich and returned to some place where they were known and could expect people to listen to them. Much like the disciples they spread out in all directions…there goal was to share their faith with others. (An Introduction to Mennonite History pp. 46-50)
Do you think they complained that God wasn’t clear enough…after all there was no voice from heaven, angel present, flaming bush, or miracle like those found in the Bible. God spoke to these individuals through the Holy Spirit. He knew how to speak to them and when was the best moment for the message to be received. For me this story, says that we always have to keep our hearts and minds open to God...and trust that God knows what he’s doing. We never know how or when God will speak to us. Whether something as big as founding a new church movement or something as small as saying hi to someone that needs a little love…volunteering at the homeless shelter, treating a stranger with dignity, helping your child or someone else’s with their homework or simply being the best Christian you can be…they are equally important. However, we may not always recognize the message…listen closely…keep your eyes and ears open to what God is saying to you.
I would like to close this morning by challenging each and every one of you to think seriously about how God talks to you. He is sometimes direct…but usually subtle. He sometimes talks you in ways that seems pretty normal but at times he talks to in ways that can make you think or say “are you kidding”. Well, God’s pretty serious and has a personal message for you…and I can assure you that what he has to say is important. So, keep your eyes, ears, heart, mind and soul open to God. Though you may not realize it he is always talking to you...you need to listen.
So how does God talk to you? Communicate his will? Let you know what he wants? Give you direction? Affirm you or tell you how you should do things differently? Help you understand your calling or what you are supposed to OR meant to do or be?
Can you give an example of how God talks to you?
I personally think that it would be great if booming voice came from heaven and...and simply told me in English…I’d even be happy with Spanish…what to do in clear step-by-step instructions…shared with me what he wanted you to know to be a better Christian…wouldn’t it be great if he sent you messages or gave you instructions through…a visit to your home, a letter, an email, phone call, a text message or IM…for the younger ones here today…wouldn’t it be nice if God was on Facebook, MySpace or Twitter. Wouldn’t it would be great to get regular status updates from God...personalized for you….ooh and if they came with those same email updates you get when your friends update their status, write on your Wall or send you a message so you wouldn’t even have to log on to your home page to check to see what God is doing.
- God wants you to be happy today.
- God loves you.
- God knows you are having a bad day but don’t worry you’ll learn a valuable lesson from this that will help make you a better Christian.
- God knows things are tough for you tight now because you lost your job but wants you to know that it’s all part of his master plan.
- God knows that you would like a better job and more money but would like to remind you to keep your focus on him.
- God wants you to know that you will be a teacher when you grow up. So, be sure to study.
- God would like you read the Bible more often.
- God knows you did something yesterday that you know you shouldn’t have but wants to know that you are forgiven.
- God put that smiling person you saw today at the bus stop in your path because he knew you needed a little boost.
- God would like to affirm that you are a good parent OR God would like to affirm that you are a good kid.
- God would like you to listen more carefully for what he has to say.
Well…we all know it doesn’t work quite that way…God is generally much more subtle in the way he communicates with us…and the ways in which God communicates with each us varies widely…but as I mentioned before he does speak to us in ways that he knows we understand…and he is continually talking to us.
First, let me share a personal experience that reminded me that God often talks to me in ways that I don’t immediately recognize, God talks to me in the most unexpected times and God says things that are sometimes difficult to accept….and as Patricia will attest I’m sometimes not a very good listener. Just last week God talked to me…I’m sure it was something he was trying to do for a while now, but this is the moment in which I recognized it. I needed to open myself up to hear what God had to say.
Well, about two weeks ago I found out that my company would be laying off 10% of the workforce. However, it wasn’t until Wednesday afternoon that I learned that I would not likely be laid off…and Thursday afternoon at about 5:00pm when I received confirmation from my boss that I would still have job on Friday. At one point I commented to Patricia that I “hated not being in control of the situation” and I really felt that way…but as I thought about it more and more I remembered that we are really never in control and that this situation, even though it was extremely difficult and stressful, it was part of God’s plan…and something that I was supposed to learn from. I’m still processing the lesson God was trying to teach me but I fully understand that finding out about the lay-offs ahead of time…before I was supposed to know…and having 4 days to reflect, worry and lay awake at night thinking about whether I was going to be employed at the end of the week was part of God’s plan….but it wasn’t a clear message…it’s one I am still trying to interpret. At this point, this is what I think I learned.
I wasn’t truly putting everything in God’s hands and God knew that I needed a reminder…I thought I should be in control and able handle things on my own…I learned that I really need to let him drive…and not just let myself think that I am.
I also learned that I need to be a better steward of the materials possessions he has blessed my family with…so I am better prepared if I ever do lose my job.
Through previous conversations with God, I have come to understand that there is something that he wants me to do….a calling that is different from what I am currently doing. I’m still not entirely sure what that calling is but I do know that what happened last week has got me actively thinking about it…actively discerning again.
For me it would have been easier and more convenient if God would have spoken to me in a dream, sent me an email with 3 clear bullet points or sent someone that would have said “Hey Jason, there are three things God wants you do. First, you have forgotten that you need to put everything in his hands. Second, you are not using what God has given you as you should. Third, God has a plan for you. He wants you to do the following…..”
Like in the story I just shared. I find that he is often much more subtle and he doesn’t necessarily talk to me when I would want him to or when I expect it…he doesn’t always talk to me in ways that I immediately recognize and God sometimes tells us things we would rather not hear….however he talks to me in ways that he knows will work should I decide to open my eyes, ears and hearts.
When we think about God talking to his people, we generally think of stories from the Bible.
In Jonah 1:1, it says that “The Word of the Lord came to Jonah…” It’s not clear to me how God spoke to him the first time…maybe God was subtle…maybe he was more direct…maybe it was in a dream, a passing thought that entered Jonah’s mind or maybe a voice from heaven. What is clear that when God spoke to Jonah, Jonah heard God and chose to jump on a boat headed away from Nineveh. God was much clearer the second time. He sent a tremendous storm and as we all know a whale so Jonah would have three days and three nights to think and pray about what God had called him to do. God was persistent and varied his communications methods. He had to be very direct to get Jonah to listen to what Gad had to say. He didn’t heed what God had to say in the previous days and months so he “talked” to Jonas in way that he was unable to ignore. What I also take from this story is God takes his message to us wherever we may be and delivers it in a way that we understand and hopefully will ultimately choose not to ignore or disregard.
The situation Moses found himself in was a bit different.
It was about 1450 B.C. when God started speaking to Moses. BTW, how would you react if a flaming bush starting talking to you? God later spoke to Moses with the parting of the Red Sea, fire and smoke, voices from heaven, tablets…even the water, manna and quail…each encouraging him to go on. Throughout the journey, God found ways to “talk” to Moses in ways that kept him going. Some of the messages were direct, others required quite a bit of interpretation.
Throughout the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, God spoke to a wide variety of people in the form of miracles….healing (many times), parables, multiplying loaves and fishes, changing water to wine, walking on water and conversations, often with those he wasn’t supposed be talking with. We could do a sermon on each story about Jesus, but what I’d like you to think about is…how many different ways God shared his message through Jesus. There was a messages in Jesus healing the leper…in Jesus feeding the multitudes with loaves and fishes…in Jesus talking with the Pharisees…overturning the money changers tables in the temple. Sometimes we have to think a bit to really understand what God is trying to say. Why did you get that job or lose that job? Why did you or didn’t you get into the college of your choice? Why could you or couldn’t you scrape together the money you need to college or pay the bills? Why can’t you seem to find the time or money to go on vacation? There’s a message or lesson from God in everything we see, do and experience.
Like in the Bible God speaks to us in countless and often unexpected ways. God talks to us in dreams, day dreams, passing thoughts while we drive, the plants and animals we see when we go for an evening walk or run, the smiles on faces we pass on the street, The Bible, the time we spend with family and friends and a million different ways…God speaks to each of us differently…in ways that he knows we understand…it’s up to us as to whether or not we listen and respond the way he has to say.
It’s important that we pay attention because we never know when God will have something really big to tell us. This was case with the early Anabaptists….there was no flaming bush….flood…visit from an angel….booming voice from heaven…at least according to the histories that have been written about that time.
On January 21, 1525, three days after the government of Zurich, Switzerland decided to expel anyone that did not adhere to infant baptism would be expelled, George Blaurock (called that because he wore a blue coat) asked Conrad Grebel to baptize him. Others followed. The action that night was described as spontaneous under the deeply felt pressure of the presence of the Holy Spirit. There had been no advance calculation that ‘the way to make the break would be to baptize adults,’ and no strategic weighing of whether this was the right time to make the break. The significance of this act lay not so much in the proper practice of baptism itself, as in the creation of a new, visible church body distinct from the established church controlled by the state, as was true of the all-inclusive establishment of medieval Catholicism. Thus the prayer meeting and events of January 21 came to be the formal beginning of Anabaptism as a visible believers’ church. That meeting took place under the treat of persecution but instead of trying to resist the decree, the Anabaptists made plans to share their newfound convictions with others. The first church meeting was a missionary meeting. Each of these people had to leave the city of Zurich and returned to some place where they were known and could expect people to listen to them. Much like the disciples they spread out in all directions…there goal was to share their faith with others. (An Introduction to Mennonite History pp. 46-50)
Do you think they complained that God wasn’t clear enough…after all there was no voice from heaven, angel present, flaming bush, or miracle like those found in the Bible. God spoke to these individuals through the Holy Spirit. He knew how to speak to them and when was the best moment for the message to be received. For me this story, says that we always have to keep our hearts and minds open to God...and trust that God knows what he’s doing. We never know how or when God will speak to us. Whether something as big as founding a new church movement or something as small as saying hi to someone that needs a little love…volunteering at the homeless shelter, treating a stranger with dignity, helping your child or someone else’s with their homework or simply being the best Christian you can be…they are equally important. However, we may not always recognize the message…listen closely…keep your eyes and ears open to what God is saying to you.
I would like to close this morning by challenging each and every one of you to think seriously about how God talks to you. He is sometimes direct…but usually subtle. He sometimes talks you in ways that seems pretty normal but at times he talks to in ways that can make you think or say “are you kidding”. Well, God’s pretty serious and has a personal message for you…and I can assure you that what he has to say is important. So, keep your eyes, ears, heart, mind and soul open to God. Though you may not realize it he is always talking to you...you need to listen.
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