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Grace Emmanuel
Church
Pastor Sam Chess
(Are you
hearing the voice of Jesus?)
Let me ask, each of you, a couple of probing questions…
During this last year, 2007, can you define (to yourself) how God,
clearly, spoke to you about the direction of your life? In what specific ways
did you make distinct mental course changes, during this last year, because
you knew that God, himself, had given you new instructions for your life or
the lives of those close to you??
Pastor, you're not going to close out the year by getting all weird on
us…are you? _____
No…. but I am going to open up God's truth on this subject; starting in
the book of Deuteronomy and ending with the book of Revelation. The idea that
God is regularly speaking to his children is a constant theme of the
entire Bible.
In fact, the Bible goes to great pains to compare God's speaking voice,
when he's talking to his children…. to things like, crashing waterfalls….or
massive peals of rolling thunder…
Elijah, when he was hiding from Jezebel, said God spoke to him in a gentle
whisper…but that was only after, first, getting his undivided attention with
a rock ripping tornado, an earth splitting earthquake, and a raging fire…and
then, oddly, Elijah was ready to hear whatever God had to say.
The problem, in Scripture, was not that God had a whimpy voice or an
uncertain message…. The problem was that so many people were not tuned to the
right frequency to hear His voice.
So I ask us each again… In what specific ways did you make distinct mental
course changes, during this last year, because you knew that God, himself,
had given you new instructions for your life?
As we look forward to the new year… In what ways are you positioning
yourself to hear clearly what God is saying, deep into your heart, about what
he wants to do in you, and through you, in 2008? Are you tuned to hear him?
The story is told of President Franklin Roosevelt, who hated the long
receiving lines at the White House. He complained that no one ever, really,
paid any attention to what he said. One day, during a reception, he decided
to try an experiment. To each person who passed down the line and shook their
hand and whispered, "I murdered my grandmother this morning." Each guest
responded with phrases like, " Keep up the good work. We are proud of you.
God bless you, sir." It was not until the end of the line, while greeting the
ambassador from Bolivia, that his words were actually heard. The ambassador
is said to have leaned over and whispered, "I’m sure she had it coming."
Makes you wonder how often God is speaking…shouting… in our direction with
clear instructions on how to live…which turn to take…which pitfalls to avoid…
and we are responding with " Way to go God"…" Keep up the good work"..
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Let me give you a sampling here of what I mean when I say God's voice is
not whimpy:
OT 1 Samuel 7:10 Just as Samuel was sacrificing the burnt offering,
the Philistines arrived to attack Israel. But the Lord spoke with a mighty
voice of thunder from heaven that day, and the Philistines were
thrown into such confusion that the Israelites defeated them. (NLT)
NT Revelation 1: 10 It was the Lord’s Day, and I was worshiping in the
Spirit. Suddenly, I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet blast… 12
When I turned to see who was speaking to me…13…standing in the middle of the
lamp-stands was someone like the Son of Man. 14 His head and his hair were
white like wool, as white as snow. And his eyes were like flames of fire. 15
His feet were like polished bronze refined in a furnace, and his voice
thundered like mighty ocean waves. 17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet
as if I were dead. But he laid his right hand on me and said, “Don’t be
afraid! I am the First and the Last. 18 I am the living one. I died, but
look—I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the grave.
(NLT)
You see what I'm talking about? When God opens his divine mouth and lets
loose with one sentence of what's in his mind and heart…it's enough to turn
the world on its ear!!
Remember… a half dozen "let there bes" from God's mouth and the entire
universe sprang into existence… If that same mouth has something to say to me
about the direction of my life.. it would be absurdly short-sighted for me
not to pay close attention.
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I want to try to paint a mental picture in your mind. Try to picture a GOD
who is created all that is and is bigger than this whole universe….. Out of
his divine lungs comes rumbling vast communications with his whole creation
from the center of our solar system to the farthest reaches of the universe.
On this Earth we are familiar with, imagine God communicating with his
creation, minute by minute… keeping the "laws of nature" all functioning
together in perfect harmony.
I'm not being a weirdo, mystic here…this is how the Bible paints what is
going on just outside our fallen human earshot…
Psalm 29: 2 Honor the Lord for the glory of his name. Worship the Lord in
the splendor of his holiness. 3 The voice of the Lord echoes above the sea.
The God of glory thunders. The Lord thunders over the mighty sea.
4 The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is
majestic. 5 The voice of the Lord splits the mighty cedars;
the Lord shatters the cedars of Lebanon. 6 He makes Lebanon’s mountains skip
like a calf; he makes Mount Hermon leap like a young wild ox. 7 The voice
of the Lord strikes with bolts of lightning. 8 The voice of the
Lord makes the barren wilderness quake; the Lord shakes the wilderness of
Kadesh. 9 The voice of the Lord twists mighty oaks and
strips the forests bare. In his Temple everyone shouts, “Glory!” 10 The
Lord rules over the floodwaters. The Lord reigns as king forever. (NLT)
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Thunder is a byproduct of lightning which is a river of electricity
moving at 100,000 miles per second, down a twisting canyon of air.
Without lightning, (and thunder) life as we know it could not exist.
Air molecules are heated to about the temperature of the Sun’s surface
by that electricity. They are white hot at 30,000 degrees Celsius when
the bolt of lightning passes through them. Around the planet 100 times
each second, lightning strikes the earth with its intense, hot strokes.
In a very real sense, it is feeding the plants as the nitrous oxide
distills in the rains and goes to the roots of plants. Almost all plants
need nitrogen as their basic food. Although 22 million tons of nitrogen
hangs in the air over every square mile of the planet, it is unusable
without the effects of lightning.
Lightning that we see is actually traveling upward. It is the meeting
of a “leader” coming down from the negatively charged base of a
thundercloud, meeting a “streamer” coming up from the positively charged
earth beneath that cloud. In the one second long duration of the
lightning, as many as 40 pulses of energy have occurred. Heat rising so
rapidly out of this super hot path breaks the sound barrier and “thunder”
is produced.1 Each stroke contains hundreds of thousands of
amps, and hundreds of millions of volts. All told a single storm produces
more electricity than all of America’s generators combined.2 A
single stroke lasting one second could power a city.3 And with
over 600 storms at any given moment on the earth, God’s power dwarfs all
of man’s efforts!
3 The voice of the Lord echoes above the sea. The God of glory thunders.
The Lord thunders over the mighty sea. 4 The voice of the Lord is
powerful; the voice of the Lord is majestic…
Watch this in verse 9:
9 The voice of the Lord twists mighty oaks and strips the
forests bare. In his Temple everyone shouts, “Glory!”
Do you see that?... Where is His temple?... the earth itself!
Who is it, that is in God's temple (the earth) shouting "Glory" back to
God in heaven?..... Us?... unfortunately not so much!!
It's all the rest of creation, outside of fallen man's earshot, carrying
on this synchronized worship to the Creator…the Creator is speaking back
loudly, and often, to his creation… (imagine!)
Psalm 145:10-13 Creation and creatures applaud you, God; your holy
people bless you. They talk about the glories of your rule, they exclaim over
your splendor, 12 Letting the world know of your power for good, the lavish
splendor of your kingdom. (MSG)
All of Creation seems to get it!!... except for some of the Creatures that
God made directly in his image… The one's most likely to miss communicating
with the Creator are the very ones God made, originally, to have perfect
communion with him
>>>An amazing thing is…….. that when God created mankind and put them in
the garden…all of the things God could have shared with us about that awesome
experience of Adam and Eve…he doesn't. He doesn't describe the beauty of
pre-fallen flowers or how amazingly juicy and plenteous fruit was before sin
tainted it… The colors, the fragrances, the lack of predators and
scavengers….
Which one positive thing about Adam and Eve's paradise experience does God
make sure we're told about? ________________________________________
Adam and Eve got to experience the sweet communion of their Savior's
voice, every evening at suppertime! Every other benefit of living in the
garden paled beside that!
When the evil one tried (successfully) to make Adam and Eve rebel against
God…what centerpiece of God's relationship with them did he attack?
Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the
field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God
indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”….. 8
And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of
the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD
God among the trees of the garden. 9 Then the LORD God called to Adam
and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 So he said, “I heard Your
voice in the garden, and I was afraid…”
What just happened there?
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With this massive cosmic communication going on between Creator God and
every plant and animal, every star and planet, every rock and every drop of
water.. The one centerpiece of God's creation that he most wants to commune
with… rejects him…. and The Voice that once attracted them like a magnet now
repels them.
Watch how this plays out in history:
God is trying to re-insert Himself into the Children of Israel at Mt.
Sinai. He gives them the Ten Commandments and exuberantly communicates with
them like he does all the rest of creation
God's voice so upsets his chosen people that Moses is left to do damage
control…
Deuteronomy 5: 17 “You must not murder. 18 “You must not commit adultery.
19 “You must not steal…..22 “The Lord spoke these words to all of you
assembled there at the foot of the mountain. He spoke with a loud voice from
the heart of the fire, surrounded by clouds and deep darkness.
Remember…these people had never, directly, heard God speak.. and Exodus
records that they were scared out of their gourds…. They believed that before
God finished his monologue
Moses: V:23 “But when you heard the voice from the heart of the darkness,
while the mountain was blazing with fire, all your tribal leaders and elders
came to me. 24 They said, ‘Look, the Lord our God has shown us his glory and
greatness, and we have heard his voice from the heart of the fire. Today we
have seen that God can speak to us humans, and yet we live!
Well…well…happy days are here again! Perhaps God can re-establish the
communion he once had with Adam and Eve…
V:25 But now, why should we risk death again? If the Lord our God speaks
to us again, we will certainly die and be consumed by this awesome fire. 26
Can any living thing hear the voice of the living God from the heart of the
fire as we did and yet survive? (Uhh… yeah… you just did!) 27 Go your-self
and listen to what the Lord our God says. Then come and tell us everything he
tells you, and we will listen and obey.’
This really is strange logic…but so consistent with how fallen man-kinds
mind works. After 3500 years of silence God starts to speak with mankind
again…and their logic is… We just made it through a visit from the Almighty
but it took years off our lives and we don't want to chance that again.
Tell God we don't want to hear his voice anymore! He scares us!
…On top of all that we are all still living with a fair amount of sin…what
with all the idols we have, secretly, stashed under our tents. If God gets
this close to us he might expose us for what we really are… and we can't have
that…can we?
Moses, we want a softer, gentler Savior… You go listen to our scary
God…then take what he says, blend it down into a holy milkshake, and feed it
to us through a bendee straw…
I've had several of you say to me this year… including some of you in
Christmas cards. Pastor, we thank you for telling us exactly what the Word of
God says…. I'm actually a little taken aback…. I don't know any other way…
It would be eternal foolishness for me to just offer you "three steps to
being a better person in 2008".
God doesn't want you to be a better person…He wants to radically transform
you into a righteous burning blaze that becomes a God-ward influence in the
lives of everyone around you!
I can tell you exactly how to make that happen in 2008. If you follow the
advice I am going to give you… 2008 can become the most memorable year in
your life.
1) You must do whatever it takes to turn the dial until you fine-tune in
the thundering voice of Almighty God.
2) So many of the activities we all live with every day deaden our
receptors until God can be thundering and we are oblivious to his voice.
3) The evil one is just as interested, today, in robbing you of the
benefits of communion with God as he was Adam and Eve, in the garden.
4) We must be pre-emptive in opening the channels for God's voice to
thunder through!
How???
1) Read God's Eternal Written Word - God has already spoken to all of us,
collectively, everything you and I need to grow to sainthood… but there is
only one way to get it in your head and heart. It is imperative that you have
a daily time with God's Word every day in the coming year.. Will you commit
today???
2) Get quiet before God and just listen- I beg you to get a pen and a
blank spiral bound book, shut out the noise, and listen for the voice of
God…write down everything God tells you… You will be amazed… at how much God
will communicate in 12 months to someone who is tuned and listening! Will you
make a commitment today?
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