Guys, can I tell you something? When you came up
here and you stood in the altars a little bit ago, that
wasn't just you standing in the altars a little bit ago.
It was a new beginning. It was a beginning where the Holy
Spirit was released to move in your life and work in these areas
that you brought to Him. Don't you leave here thinking, well, "Wow, we just
stood in the altar." No, you leave here going, "We just declared the name of
Jesus over this whole situation, and now it's His.
Now it's His." In case you are wondering
where your actual pastor is this morning, he is
ministering at another church this morning, speaking at a conference.
And so Father, we ask that You bless him, that You use him mightily, Father
God. We pray, Father God, that the Holy Spirit go before him,
Lord. A wonder in that
house. Release Your Word in that house, Father, we ask.
And bring our pastor home safe to us in Jesus' name.
Okay guys, if any of you signed up for Open Tables today, I just want
to let you know that it's not happening.
You are welcome to eat, however, that we're not banning
that. But we are switching our Open Tables schedule to
quarterly, and the first one that's coming up will be with our
conference that is going to be at the beginning of March. And guys,
you guys do not want to miss the Abide Conference.
The Lord has been ordering the steps in this, and you're going to have 8
different opportunities over that weekend to see
what the Lord has for you, see what He has in your life. So you're
going to want to be a part of that. And the ending of that conference
will be, you know, First Gathering, Second Gathering that Sunday, and then
we're going to ask everybody that can to sign up for Open
Tables, because we want you to go talk to somebody about what
God has done during your conference time together. Amen? So these
are the dates. March 8th, take your camera, take a picture.
During the conference, we'll have a table set up where you can sign up just
to meet people, just to talk about what the Lord is doing. So this is
going to be changing, and we hope that you'll be a part of that.
We would love to have you. Now, speaking of loving
to have someone in your presence, we—
though Pastor Kevin is not here, we have the blessing of
Joshua MacLeod bringing the Word. And can I tell you, he's he's gonna mess you
up this morning with the word that the Holy Spirit has given you.
So reach your hand toward him. Father God, we thank you for Joshua. We
thank you, Lord, that he is getting ready to walk around those walls one more
time, Father God. And so, Father, we ask that you cover him, surround him,
speak through him, Father. We're listening. In Jesus' name,
amen. Amen. Amen. Is this thing on?
Praise the Lord. Um, what's— it's
pretty awesome to come and speak at a church where the revival
already broke out in the worship service, so you don't have to do much.
I mean, right? I know I was over here in a circle
praying with my family, and it was just like, oh God, you
came to just meet with us and talk to us. So it's a
crazy cool gift. Well, today I'm going to talk about two things. I'm going to
talk about identity. I'm going to talk about Hearing from the Voice of God.
But first, I wanna ask a question. Uh, did God ever ask
you to do something really uncomfortable?
I see those hands. I see those hands. Uh, when, when Sarah and
I were first married, we were at this little church in Franklin called, uh, Faith
Community Church, and it was just a beautiful little fellowship. I
mean, it was like 120 people. I knew everybody, they knew me. And so at
a little church, when a visitor comes in, it's like a big deal. You're like,
whoa, hey, did you There's a new person that came in here. And
so this lady comes in and she had a couple of grown
kids, adults with her, and they came in and they sat right
behind Sarah and I. And so everything was great, and I'm
worshiping and just praising God and things, and then the Holy Spirit says,
"Hey, Josh, I want you to turn around and ask that lady
where her husband is."
And I'm like, Nope, nope, nope. That was very nice
of you. I mean, I don't know, I must have eaten something weird for breakfast.
That is, that's not the kind of thing, like Pastor Jonathan talks about, like his
awkward, like meeting people moments, like that would be a very awkward meeting.
So I'm like, okay, that was just crazy. And then next worship song, hey
Josh, I want you to turn around and ask that lady
where her husband is. And so I
was like, well, there's plenty of crazy people in the world, and if this
isn't God, then it's just like, you know, this lady will just be like, there's
another crazy one, and so that's fine. So I turned
around and I'm like, ma'am, I— this is
really weird, but I feel like God wants me to ask you
where your husband is. And that lady looked at
me, and she started tearing up, and then she broke down
crying, and she said, I just separated with my
husband, and I'm here at this church because I'm asking God what I
should do. So Sarah and I were like,
well, you can come over for lunch. And so we brought him over for lunch,
and then they joined our Thursday night Bible study thing, and then she reconciled
with her husband. And that was 20 years ago.
Yeah. So, and, and, and God is— God, God
is amazing. The reason why I want to tell that story is I wanna just
start off today by saying God still speaks. We don't
serve a God who is silent. We serve a
God who speaks. A God who doesn't
speak is called an idol, and a lot of
people maybe are worshiping a God, but they don't hear from that
God. But there's a chance there you might be worshiping an idol and
not know even it.
And the reason why I wanna talk about God speaking is because I
think it's important that every one of us understands our identity,
right? Like, not just who do I wanna be, but
who did God design me to be? It blows— it still blows
my mind that everybody has a different fingerprint. Like, nobody in this
room has the same fingerprint as anybody else in this room.
And then multiply that times 8 billion people,
and everyone has a different fingerprint. We are all unique.
We are, and we're not we're not just, just, like, had. We're made.
We are created in the image of God. We are
handcrafted. So we have an identity, but
I can't tell you what your identity is, and there's not a speaker on this
stage that can tell you what your identity is, and the news can't tell you
what your identity is, and your friends can't tell you what your identity is. For
you to understand your identity, why did God put you on this planet,
you have to hear that from God. And so hearing from God is one of
the most important things that any of us can ever have in our lives.
Can you hear the voice of God?
C.S. Lewis, in the book "Mere Christianity," talks
about this idea of identity. And he said, "God did not
create us to remain as we are." or to become what we
imagine, but to become the kind of people that he
intended when he made us, which is far more than we
would ever plan for ourselves. God intends us to make us—
God intends to make us saints, not merely nice or
improved versions of our current selves. There's
there's a, kind of a movement out now, and everybody talks about, well, I want
to be the best version of myself. The problem with that is
The best version of yourself might be limited by your own brain.
And if we're trying to be the best version of ourselves and we're not asking
God, like, what is ourselves even supposed to be, then we are— we
might be just totally best version of, like, the worst
version. You and I
are designed to rule and reign with Christ.
That's bonkers, right? It's in the Word. We're priests and
kings and champions and all of these things, but
do we think about that? Do we know that? Do we realize that? What's your
identity? The passage today is
from John 10, verses 14 through 17.
So if you can stand, if you're able, uh, we're going to read John
10:14-17. And look, you know, Kevin always
says something, but I would say let's read like Jesus is listening.
And, and guess what? So
I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and
my own know me, just as the Father
knows me and I know the Father. And I
lay down my life for the sheep. And I have
other sheep that are not of this fold. I
must bring them also, and they will listen to my
voice. So there will be one flock, one
shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me,
because I lay down my life that I may take it
up again.' This is the Word of the Lord. You may be
seated. There's no Anglicans here today. Nobody said, 'Thanks be to God.'
Did somebody say it? Okay, thank you.
Um, so one thing you'll, you'll, you know about God if you read the Bible,
you're gonna hear a lot about shepherds. All right, like when, when
Jesus was announced, he was announced to
shepherds. Excuse me, I need my little water. I
didn't want to bring that up there. That's over there. Somebody sees that little water
and wants to bring it, I would appreciate it. So, um, God
announced Jesus's birth to shepherds.
Thank you, my brother. Um, Moses was
A shepherd. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, they were all shepherds.
David was the shepherd who became the king.
Shepherds are a big deal to God. So when Jesus is talking
about us, he's like, "I am
the good shepherd, and my sheep hear my
voice." I was listening to a guy talking about shepherds
and sheep, and so he went, and he was in the Middle East, and he
saw this big flock of sheep, and he was like, "Wow." That flock of
sheep is just, that's a big flock of sheep. Like, that's
a very busy shepherd. But then one guy that was standing over here
whistled, and a trickle of all of those sheep that were in this
big flock, they came right out, and they started following this guy because they
knew his voice. And so, you know, we might be out at
work, we might be out in the marketplace, we might be at the family dinner
table, and the shepherd speaks, and we hear his voice.
Now, why do the sheep follow the shepherd?
He's going to take care of them. The sheep follow the shepherd because the
shepherd, like, gets the ticks off you. The shepherd, like, brushes your
wool out. The shepherd gives you food. You know, David said,
uh, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me
to lie down in green pastures. We have a
provider who takes care of us. So the
sheep follow the shepherd because that's where they, they, they
understand the delight of their caretaker.
Um, do you understand that God delights in you?
When God speaks, do you run to him?
See, if, if we don't know that God
delights in us, we might be a little slow
to running after God. I was listening to
a radio program, and there was a grandfather
and a father. And the radio
announcer was saying, "What do you wish that you knew when
you were a father that you know now as a
grandfather?" And the grandfather, "There's a single lesson that's the
most important lesson for raising kids. The most important lesson for raising
kids is to let those children understand that they are
delighted in." And you notice this, like, with
grandfather— grandparents, right? Grandparents are really good at
delighting in their grandchildren. Parents are more, like, good at
yelling at the kids, you know, "Hey, put this here."
But think about it, when that child understands that they are
delighted in, there is nothing that that child
won't do. They don't have a ceiling.
Oftentimes, the ceiling of our Our ceiling is
dependent on how much we realize or not that we're
delighted in. People who aren't delighted in don't take
risks. People who aren't delighted in don't develop
relationships. So if we don't understand
that God delights in us, then we have
a major problem with hearing his voice. Like, one of the
primary keys of understanding and listening to God's voice is
understanding he delights in you. Well, God can't delight in me.
I'm a knucklehead. Have
you read the Bible?
Like, I read the Old Testament, and like, you could summarize all of the
children of Israel in one word, two words, like one
hyphenated word: knucklehead.
What did the children of Israel do? Hey, I made you. Great.
I'm gonna go worship Baal. I rescued you from
slavery. Hmm, yeah, that's pretty good, but let's make a
golden calf and worship that. That'll be better. I'm gonna set you
up as the premier nation on earth
with power and authority and beauty. King Solomon.
Right, right. uh, Let's, let's go chase after gods.
So the children of Israel have this cycle of rejecting
the delight of God to chase something else,
and they get carried off to Babylon. And
this this is, is amazing. This is Isaiah 62,
and God says to Isaiah to tell his children
Israel, who have rebelled so bad that they've got carried off into
slavery, you shall be— Isaiah 62:3-5—
you shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord.
And a royal diadem in the hand of your God.
You shall no longer be termed forsaken, and your land
shall no more be termed desolate, but you shall be called,
"My delight is in her," and your land, "married."
For the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married.
For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your sons marry you.
And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God
rejoice over you. I am
nothing like God. I can't delight in rebellion,
but God— not—
do you know the gospel? So God
took the punishment of rebellion on
himself and hung on a cross
so that he could delight in you. And you
could receive his delight. That's the
kind of God that we serve, right? That's the gospel.
Um, when you understand that God delights in you, you start
returning the favor. Romans 12—
I, I've read Romans 12 about being spiritual and
overcoming sin and uh, like, not, not Romans 12, Romans 8. Romans 8
is like, hey, You've gotta have the Spirit of God. You gotta be led by
the Spirit of God. And if you are led by the Spirit of God, then
you're gonna be able to overcome sin. What I missed
is like verse 15. So I'm gonna read this passage. This is
Romans 8:12-17. So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to
the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the
flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds
of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of
God are sons of God. 'For you did not receive the spirit of
slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of
adoption as sons, by whom we cry,
"Abba, Father!" The Spirit bears
witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.'
So Paul's talking about fighting sin, and then he's like, what's the
key here? Understanding that God delights in you and delighting in God.
There's a little mini sermon. Um, when you sin,
it's not the devil made me do it. It's that I love the sin
more than I love God. How do
I know? Because I know. When
I had bondage in my teenage years and I was trapped by sin, I
sought everything. God, I'll fast, I'll pray, deliver me,
deliver me, deliver me. One day Jesus said to me, Josh, you know why you
sin? said, He "You love that sin more than you love me."
And I'm like, "No, I— no, I— no, no."
Do I? Yes. God,
you died for me on a cross and I love sin more than you?
Sin is an affection issue.
Jesus said, "If you love me, you keep my commandments."
And I always, like, looked at that as, like, I gotta keep commandments so that
I can prove I love God. But it says, "If you love me,
if you love me, you keep my commandments." So if we
have a delight in God not issue— here. Okay, let me back up. If
we can't hear from the voice of God, then we're gonna have
a delight in God issue. We're not gonna understand
the God of the Bible. Who loved us enough to die
for us on a cross. The whole
point is love, right? So if we
have a sin issue, we have an affection issue. And if
we have an affection issue, we need to learn to hear the voice of God
so that we can develop intimacy and acceptance and
grace and blessing from God. So here's
the question for this morning: Do you believe that God
delights in you? And do
you delight in God?
David figured this out. The— in Psalm 16, it says, "In your
presence is the fullness of joy." You
can't get fullness, like, in multiple different places. There's only one place
that can actually fill you up, and it's the presence of
God. I can't tell you what your identity
is, but I do know that when God tells you what your identity is, is
the it truth. Is, it will sound like, I delight in you because you're mine
and I made you. Um, I was
having a conversation with God about preparing this sermon, and I was like, okay, I
got assigned to talk about identity, like, in the context of
abiding. And so I was like, why, why did I get assigned to this? Like,
what do you want me to do? And the Holy Spirit said to me,
I, I want you to talk because my people have forgotten how to listen to
my voice. And I
was like, "Well, okay, God, I'm in that club," right?
"Don't I have a hard time listening to your voice?" And God said, "No, you
don't have a hard time listening to my voice. You have a hard time slowing
down." So
if you're like me and you know how to hear the voice of God, but
you're not slowing down enough to hear the whisper of God,
or if you're like, "I've never heard the voice of God, and I don't know
what you're talking about," Or if I haven't heard the voice of God in a
long time, I'm gonna share today 3 important
keys, steps, things about hearing the voice of
God. So this is now officially a 3-point sermon. Um,
Jesus said, "My sheep hear my voice."
If you aren't actively hearing the voice of God,
that's a problem. And it's not a problem to ignore.
It's a problem to be like, "What's up here?
You paid the price for me to connect with you. What do I
need?" God wants to speak to you,
and it's not bad to have to learn how to hear God's voice,
okay? If you're like, "I don't hear God's voice," that's fine.
Don't beat yourself up. The prophet Samuel, Samuel,
who was like pretty big deal in the Old Testament. You know, anointed Saul and
he anointed David. Um, when he was young,
God started talking to him, Samuel. And he was like, hmm,
must be Eli. So he's running over like, hey Eli, I'm here. Eli's
like, shut up, go to bed. So he goes back and he's like, Samuel.
And the prophet Samuel didn't know how to hear God's voice.
This is like the big deal in Israel and he didn't know how to hear
God's voice. So we need to learn how to hear God's voice.
And, but, you know, if you've read the, the New
Testament where the big deal of
Jesus not only died and rose again, but then he
sent the Spirit to live inside of every one of his sheep.
Like, it's not the Old Testament where if you want to hear from God, you
have to go to the prophet and they'll tell you what God said. We
don't have to go anywhere. The Spirit put up residence in us.
So if I want to hear from God, I don't have to go to an
external source. Uh, I was talking to a friend of mine talking about how he
heard the audible voice of God. I'm like, that's no big deal.
It's like, who cares? God's in you.
It might have been like, hey, I've been trying to talk in you all day
and you didn't listen, so I had to come outside and talk to you.
Listen. Just— this is important, right? There's
no special people that I can hear from God and these special people
can't hear from God. Everybody who's a sheep knows
his voice. You, you don't need to run to the prophet. You don't have
to hear— you might have an amazingly mind-blowing experience.
I have. They're awesome. But you don't need to be special
to hear from God. You just need to listen.
So God is in you, and he wants to speak to you.
Okay, so here's the hearing from God training.
First point: we don't hear from God
if we treat him casually.
When I was, like, 18 years old, I went on this, like, summer missions trip
to a Jewish kibbutz in Minnesota. Some people
go to Honduras. I went to a Jewish kibbutz
in Minnesota, and there was like this guy there
whose name was Art Katz, and he was a very stern man.
I mean, there's some people that just you hang around them and it's like, wow,
Sirius has entered the room. And so I
was like, okay. So I was praying with Art Katz and
these two other young guys, and they were pouring out their hearts to God, and
I was like there, and I was like, yeah, I should do that too. So
I just tagged on my little prayer of like, "Yeah, God, I want all this
stuff that you're talking about." And then our cat goes,
"Lord, I pray that you'd hear the prayers of these two men and
also forgive this kid who's just speaking to the air."
You can't say that in church.
I— What? You
can't. You can't offend me like that. There's other people here.
So here's something I've learned about God's
voice. You know, God has spoken to people through a donkey.
We're so worried about, well, if you don't say it perfectly, then I
don't have to listen to you.
Some of the— not some of the— the most important things
that I've learned and heard from God in my life. This one was one of
the first. You're not actually praying to God, you're just throwing
words in the air, and you need to be very serious when you talk with
God because he created you and he created the universe.
Another time God God told— told me through a donkey— I mean, not a
donkey, but another harsh-speaking person. He
said, you don't listen to anybody.
Like, literally, I'm talking to this cocky guy, and
he says to me, Josh, you know what your problem is? You don't listen to
anybody. All you want to do is just share your opinion. You're so smart, blah,
blah, blah, blah. You don't listen. I was like, shut up.
And God was like, he's right.
Our flesh is always going to be offended by the truth that we need to
hear.
I was offended, and then I wrestled with God, and I learned his voice.
Uh, David says that those who fear God hear
God. In Psalms 25:11-14,
it says, for your name's sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great.
Who is the man who fears the Lord? Him he will instruct
in the way that he should choose.
If you fear God, he speaks to you and instructs you
what his way is. If you treat God casually,
"Oh God, please give me direction," is different than,
"God, you make oceans and stars, and you died for me
on the cross, and you taught us to pray,
'Our Father which art in heaven, holy is your name.'"
That word holy means different. Like
when Isaiah says, "Holy, holy,
holy is the Lord," he's like saying,
"You're different." And not just you're different,
but you're different, you are different, you are different.
Like, have you read Revelation?
We, we, we're so casual with God. He is so
merciful with us. Like, you know,
if a 2-year-old comes and they talk to, like, a 5-star general,
they don't even know anything. They're just like, "Hey, hotshot, what's this?"
But when we're old enough to know better, we must not
treat God casually. He's a weapon. I mean,
he's— it's kind of like, you know, there are these planes
that have bombs on them., right? You're like flying around
with a nuclear bomb on your plane. You don't just
treat that casually like it's no big deal. God is a
nuclear bomb. We need to respect him.
Um, when I
started full-time ministry, I I was, was was a, I a
fastaholic. I would, every Tuesday I would fast and pray because I was
like, I have to do this or God won't listen to me. Um.
But I had, I had, uh, I did, I met with
God. I met with God and I would go on this prayer walk
around my apartment complex. And so one time
I was like, God, I want you to like come and stand near
me like Moses, like Moses came and stood
near you. You stood near him and you showed his presence. And God
is like, you, you really want that? And I'm like, yeah, wouldn't that be
great? So I'm walking and
suddenly the air started getting thick
and the Holy Spirit started to pour the veil
up from earth and heaven. And guess
what? It was not fun at all.
The holiness and the presence of God I
started to sense and I was scared
to death. And I said, "God, stop. No, I don't know what I was saying."
We have no idea
the power and the majesty and
the weight of glory in God.
"Oh God, bless King— bless Susie and help my friend and I really
want a new car and blah, blah, blah, blah."
God isn't speaking because you're not even talking to God.
We've gotta recognize who God is if we wanna hear his voice.
Jeremiah said that, "Those who seek
me with all their heart will find me." Jeremiah
29:13, "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all of
your heart." I
like in C.S. Lewis, like, Jesus is, is treated like a
lion. Is he safe? No, but he's
good. And that power of God
only amplifies the intimacy of God.
The fact that this powerful being, of
which I give fundamental reverence, wants me to
curl up in his lap and say, "You are my
beloved child." We can't have intimacy with
God that we treat as like a cheap, like, genie that works for us.
But when we recognize God who he is, and then he invites us into
deep and meaningful and beautiful relationship with him. Okay,
that's point one. That's the point where Kevin's like, aren't you glad you came to
church today? And I'm thumping you, you know. Um,
I got two more thumpers, but they're good.
Are they safe? No. Are they good?
Yes. The second
way that we hear from God is when we obey what he tells us to
do. Now, if you didn't
know already, every Christian has a job description.
You, you have it. It's it's written, written down.
Matthew 28:19-20, Jesus said to the Dies on the cross,
raises from the grave, sends the Holy Spirit into everybody, and then he
says, "All authority in heaven and earth is given to
me," meaning, "Remember that I'm the boss of everything.
Here's your job. Go therefore, make disciples."
I think a lot of us are, like, over here hanging
curtains, planning, you know, stuff for our own little
kingdom. It's, you know, "My will be done, my kingdom
come, on earth as it is in heaven." And God
is over here, here's a broken soul that needs love.
Here's, here's the child that needs to be educated. Here's
the poor and the suffering. And God, I really could use
a Tesla 'cause they've got this new engine with like all of
this stuff.
Widows, orphans, voiceless, hungry,
naked, thirsty, stranger, prisoner,
sick. God, I'm so busy.
Listen, you don't hear the voice of God if you're not
turned to God.
Your job is to make disciples. If you want to
hear from God, turn to God.
There's nothing better in life than hearing the voice of God.
I've figured out some things, and these statements are very simple statements, but
they're just very true. And these just are meaningful to
me. They might be meaningful to you. The first statement is, "The point of money
is to show God's love." The
greatest commandment is, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
Nope, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and
strength. You shall love your neighbor as yourself." There's two different statements. Great Commandments, all
the commandments come into that. The point
is always love. The point of money is to love.
It's not security. It's not, you know,
whatever, expansion. God gives you money to love.
Don't work for money, work for love.
The second thing is the point of work is discipleship.
There is no sacred and secular work. If you are in full-time
ministry, your job is make disciples. If you are in full-time business,
your job is make disciples.
There's no— what, like, I don't— all these ministry people get a
gold star or something? That's crazy, right? That's crazy. We're all called to
that, all of us. The third thing is the point of time. The point of
time is serving. You want to be
joyful? Use your time to serve. You wanna be
miserable? Don't.
So where do we start? If I'm gonna make
disciples, if I'm gonna love, if I'm gonna do this thing, how do I start?
Answer: Listen to God and do what he says.
So when Sarah and I were younger married,
I felt like God told me that he wanted me to go and, um,
give $200 to the poor. So I
just had an impression, God wants you to go take $200 and
give to the poor. So I was like, okay, I went and I got 10
$20 bills and I was like, I'm gonna go downtown, I'm gonna find some
homeless people and I'm gonna give them $20 and I'm gonna tell them that Jesus
loves them. So I was like 27 years old and I didn't know that there's
a lot better ways to fight poverty. So I go
downtown and I got $20 bills and I'm like, hey, Jesus loves you. Hey, Jesus
loves you. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. And then
the 10th $20 bill, I give it to this guy and I'm like, hey,
here's— this is $20. Go buy a meal or something.
God loves you. And this guy took the $20, said, I'm really appreciated.
I appreciate this $20, but what I really want is a place to stay.
So I'm like looking at Sarah and she's looking at me and I'm like, And
we're like, "All right, come on, get in the car, let's go." So we
took this guy to our house. And so I'm
driving along with this homeless guy, and he said
his name was Benjamin Franklin. I don't think his real
name was Benjamin Franklin. Like, he didn't look anything like Benjamin Franklin. He was like
an African American guy. So, you know, we're dr— I mean,
Benjamin Franklin's like this bald white guy that, you know, so
we take Benjamin Franklin to my house, and I'm like, "We're gonna give him a
place to stay." So I'm like giving him clothes. I'm like, "Here, man, we're the
same size. Here's some clothes." And Benjamin Franklin is getting a shower in
my shower, and I realize there is a homeless
guy in my house, and I've got 2 little kids, and I don't even know
what the heck I am doing. So I was
like, "Sarah, I think maybe we should, like, give this guy a motel." Sarah's like,
"I think that's probably a good one. That's probably a good idea." So
I'm like, "Let's take this guy and let's put him up at a hotel." And
so I start driving into Nashville, and I decide that I'm gonna put him up
at the Motel 6 because I was driving into VCE every day,
so I knew where the Motel 6 was. And I was like, this is close
to town. And while we're driving, Benjamin Franklin is like,
listen, I need to get into the city. If I'm not in the city, I
don't have all my support stuff. Like, I need to get in the city, so
you gotta make sure that I get into the city. And I'm like, I have
seen the hotels in the city and I know what they cost, and I cannot
afford that, but I can afford the Motel 6. So we pull into the Motel
6, and in the 6, Motel Motel 6, there is this little
chapel with a neon sign, like a neon gold cross
on the door. And I'm like, I'm gonna check at the chapel and see if
there's anybody at the chapel that can give Benjamin Franklin a ride from the Motel
6 into the city. So I go and I knock on
the door, and I kid you not, Mr. T
enters— answers the door. If you don't know who
Mr. T is, he was like the old-time wrestler He's like
bigger than me, like height-wise, and he's like thicker than
me, like times 5. And he's got all the gold chains, like gold
chains from like here to here. Like his chains cost like, must have weighed 40
pounds. He's got all the gold teeth. And I answer the door and I'm like,
well, didn't expect that, but this is cool.
So I'm like, hey, I've got this guy in my car. He says his
name is Benjamin Franklin and he needs a ride into the city in the morning.
Would you be willing to just give him a ride? I saw the cross on
the door. And so Mr. T looks at me and he's like,
you want what? And I was like, well,
I explained the situation. He says, so let me get this straight. So you a
white dude and you got this black dude out in your car and
you want me to give this dude a ride into the city in the morning?
I'm like, yeah, yep, that's it. And he
says, "Praise God." And I was like, "Oh good,
this is gonna work out well." So he's like,
"Praise God." He's like, "Let me at this guy." And I'm like, "Let you at
this guy?" So he goes over to the car and he opens the door.
And I mean, look, Benjamin Franklin's not getting out the door
before Mr. T is giving him what for in 7 different ways.
"What the heck are you doing taking this white dude's money? You're an able-bodied
man. Look at you. Oh, I see you're homeless. Guess who was else homeless?"
I was homeless. Not only was I homeless, I killed a man.
Which point I'm like, okay, this this is, is a little, you know, this is,
you know, this is interesting. And then he's like,
but I met God in the prison and I
learned my identity. And now I own the second largest cleaning company
in Nashville. And I won't only give you a ride into the city, I'll give
you a job. If you want to have your life transformed, there's this dude Jesus
that can do that for you. And at this moment, I realized a
whole lot of things. I realized that I was not the best guy to
disciple Benjamin Franklin.
I also realized I didn't have any business doing much of what I was doing
that day. But I— but
how did I learn that lesson? See, I learned that lesson by
simply obeying the voice of the Holy Spirit.
God has assignments to you. I've— listen, in the
last like 20-some years, I've been in 30 different countries on
like 70 different trips. I have had more adventures
than I even dreamed were possible. If your
life is boring, start obeying.
I'm serious. Just listen to God and do what he
says.
All right, that's point 2.
Point 3 is this:
we hear the voice of God when we stop listening to everything
else. Now, this point
is perhaps the most important of all the points that I've shared today,
and it's probably the most challenging.
But— and this is not gonna make me popular, but I'm gonna say it anyway.
First of all, if you're depending on
me to hear from God, that's a problem.
There is no speaker or teacher. Our
job is not to play God for you or hear to God you— from
for you and say all this stuff. Our job, if we stand on this
stage, is to teach you how to hear the voice of God,
to teach you how to run to God.
God gave us his word. He gave us
an easy button. You want to hear from God? Break open the
book. Like, it's like, hmm, how could I make—
these are sheep. Okay, they're sheep. It can't be
too hard. I'll put it all in a book.
You can open the book and hear the voice of God.
These people can't travel all over to destinations and climb mountains
and talk to the guru and all this stuff. I'll just put my Spirit right
inside of them. You can simply say, "God,
Holy Spirit, speak," and he will speak to you.
God God made— gave us the easy button to hear from him, to have
our lives changed, to radically change our
communities, to radically change our families, to
radically impact the world. And so obviously,
all of us just continually run to God to listen to his voice,
right? I mean, that's what we do. That's not what we do? Wait,
what do we continually run to? Oh, that's right, we
continually run to social media. We continually
run to television. We continually run to that
little voice in the back of our head that says, "God doesn't really like you."
If we wanna hear the voice of God, we have to tune out all of
the other stuff.
Social media is primarily a self-worship machine.
I scroll through what I worship and post about it so people will worship me.
I love seeing on social media when somebody has a sporting event or there's a
new baby or something like that, but social media is
killing all of us. It's evil.
We're doom-scrolling instead of life-finding.
We're all going to give account of our
time, and it's just
not worth the amount of time we give it.
Television is primarily a lust factory.
Lust of what? Lust of the eyes, lust of the
pride of life. Jesus said, all that is in the world— lust of the eyes,
lust of flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life— are not from
the Father. They're not from the
Father. They're not life-bringing.
But whoever does the will of God abides forever.
So we haven't slowed down to listen to God, but we're running to
all these things. The news, the news
is a grumble factory.
They don't just tell you the news, they tell you the best way to vent
about the negative things happening in our world and why everything is going
wrong. You know who was a grumble factory in the Old
Testament? The children of Israel. And
do you know what the cost of the grumble factory was? 40
years in the desert walking in a circle.
Do I really want to train myself to walk for 40 years
in a circle of grumbling and complaining, or do I want
to hit the button off?
The little voice in the back of your head that says God doesn't really care
about you, he doesn't want to talk to you— that
voice has two names: fear and shame.
And both of them come from Satan and not Jesus.
Listen, cutting, cutting down our social media,
turning off our television,
telling that negative voice talk to stop in Jesus'
name— these are a lot easier than we think. Jesus said
if something causes you to sin, like your right arm causes you to
sin, cut it off. Throwing away a television is a lot easier than
cutting off your arm.
Jesus wants you to understand your identity.
And if we're going to understand our identity, we need to hear the voice of
God. And if we're going to hear the voice of God,
number one, don't treat God casually.
He's not a plaything. He's not a genie in the sky. He's not
cheap or trite. He made the ocean.
Talk to God. Don't talk to the air.
Number 2, obey what Jesus tells you to
do. What was the last thing
God told you to do? Did you do it?
He might be on pause because he's just waiting.
Maybe just ask him, what do you want me to do? And he'll tell you.
We've got to unplug our ears if we want to listen to God.
We need to cut down on social media and, and dive
into the Word of God.
I, I was praying earlier and I said to
God, God, I really, I really want people to
have chains of addiction broken
and replaced with cords of affection.
And I'm like, can you please just like let every person that
hears this word just have their chains of addiction
broken and just have cords of affection? Can you just
do that for every person? And God and the Holy Spirit said, no, I
can't. But I can do it for
anybody who really wants that.
I can't make you hear from God. If I could make you hear from God,
you'd all hear from God.
The parable of the soil says it's all about your heart. What do you
really want? Jesus said, my sheep hear my
voice. Uh, we're gonna have the prayer
people come down.
If you hear from the voice of God, I want you to come down and
pray for somebody who doesn't. If you don't hear from
the voice of God, I want you to come down and pray that God
unstops your ears. If you need to repent and confess
that you have delighted more in the world than the Maker,
repent and confess, not just at church but at home in your
life.
Listen, God delights in you.
You are delightful. You are special.
You are beautiful. You are designed. You are handcrafted.
You are a treasure. You have a calling. You have a
role. You can make disciples. You can heal the
sick.
Ask for it. Seek it. Find
him. His sheep hear his voice.
Don't leave out of here not hearing the voice of God.
He's ready to come meet with you. Amen.