Tuning into the Inner Voice of Love

Have you ever sensed a faint murmur in your heart, an inner nudge guiding you towards something greater? Our latest episode unveils the astonishing reality that this voice may very well be the divine reaching out to us. As my friend Stephen recounts his transformative encounter with Jesus, you'll be drawn into a story of a man who traded his wanderlust for a profound connection with the Creator. Listen in and discover how to engage in a heart-to-heart conversation with God, turning the subtle into the significant, and the whispers of the Holy Spirit into life-changing actions.

This conversation isn't just about the moments of quiet revelation—it's about recognizing the 'Vox interna,' the inner voice of love that Henry Nowan speaks of, in our everyday emotions and experiences. From the thoughts that randomly pop into our head about others to the deep emotions we feel, we navigate the channels through which God may be speaking to us. We'll even touch on the enigmatic realm of dreams and their spiritual significance. This episode promises to guide you through the gentle prompts and internal signals, helping you tune your heart to the divine frequency amid life's cacophony.

Embarking on this intimate journey, we'll share practices that help us listen and respond to those soft echoes of guidance. Picture an elephant on a unicycle—it sounds whimsical, but such is the power of imagination, a gift from God to visualize His whispers in our prayers. Through a guided meditative exercise and insights into how our desires can lead us to our destiny when they align with biblical truths, we invite you to cultivate a deeper relationship with Jesus. It's about more than just hearing; it's about understanding and stepping into the joy of a personal, conversational relationship with the source of love Himself. Join us as we commit to this profound exploration of divine dialogue. This sermon was recorded at a Sunday morning gathering at Church of the Lookout in Longmont, Colorado.

Speaker — Luke Humbrecht

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Lookout Weekly Podcast. Church of the Lookout is in Boulder, Colorado, and our vision is Jesus abiding in His presence, growing in His family and living on His mission to transform the world with awe-inspiring love. Visit us online at thelookoutchurch.

Speaker 2: 0:20

We're going to talk for a little bit here. We're going to open the scriptures. He's ready to open the scriptures today. It's going to be good.

Speaker 2: 0:26

We've been in a little bit of a series called really about hearing God's voice, and you've been with us the last couple weeks. It's one of those things that's so important to the life of following Jesus. We're not just following a dead God, we're not following somebody who just lived 2,000 years ago. How many of you guys know that Jesus is alive today and we're disciples of Him, which means we learn to follow His voice? And Jesus said it himself. He said I am the shepherd and my sheep know my voice. And who are His sheep? We are His sheep, and it's one of the most profound mysteries that God actually wants to talk to us. Can we just stop and just recognize how absurd that is, how wild it is that God actually wants to talk to us?

Speaker 2: 1:11

My friend Stephen I love his story because he's in North Carolina, but actually he was this hippie traveling across the US. He was actually in Boulder when he really had this encounter with Jesus and the way that he described it. He said I tried to talk to all the different gods, so to speak. I tried to talk to Buddha, I tried to talk to Vishnu, I tried to talk to Allah, but the only one that I could get to talk back to me was Jesus, and he said that was it was the most life-changing thing for him, because he realized that Jesus actually wanted to have a conversation with him and he encountered the love of Jesus and the desire for Jesus to actually have relationship with us, actual friendship. Jesus actually calls us disciples, friends, and we are friends in the same way, and it's just a wild thing to think about that Jesus' desire for us is not just to be worshiped but to be in communion with us, to be actually in union, heart-to-heart connection.

Speaker 2: 2:10

Any good relationship, any good relationship, requires communication and conversation, right, and so it's kind of the high watermark. It's the life of following Jesus. As followers of Jesus, the basis of everything we do is listening and responding. And because even Jesus said I only do what the Father's doing, I only say what he's saying, and so growing as disciples listen to me, growing as disciples of Jesus is actually becoming so fine-tuned that when he calls our name, we just know, we just know. It's kind of like this dog owner in Ireland. Can we take a look at? This video.

Speaker 2: 3:14

Oh my gosh, I have so many questions. I have so many questions. Number one how do you remember 15 different Labrador's names? All right, the difference between Fergus and Luna? All right, who knows? Second question how do I hire this guy to come to my house and teach my pets how to respond, and even my kids, for that matter, how to respond to their own voice?

Speaker 2: 3:40

And so it's just amazing to imagine a life that, when God says our name, we're ready to go, we're ready to respond, and that we know the name of our shepherd. We know. When he says my name, I'm tuned in and I know exactly. That's how we're designed to live. That's how we're created to live To know the voice of our Master, of our Creator, right, and so it's a lifelong journey and it's something that we have to grow in. And, as we discussed last week, it's really easy to actually miss how Jesus is speaking to us, because sometimes we're looking for Him in different ways. We're not always trained to recognize His voice. We're looking out there when he's speaking in here, and this is exactly what the men and women in the Scriptures had to learn as well.

Speaker 2: 4:24

So I want to turn to 1 Kings, chapter 19. If you have your Bibles, you can open up to 1 Kings, chapter 19. It's in the Old Testament. If you don't have your Bibles, we'll have it on the screen, totally cool. But if you have your notebooks, be ready to take notes. If you have your Bibles, open them up.

Speaker 2: 4:41

And we're gonna look at the prophet Elijah here and we're gonna start 1 Kings, chapter 19, verse 9. It says there he came to a cave and lodged in it and behold, the word of the Lord came to him and he said to him what are you doing here, elijah? He said I have been very jealous, for the Lord, the God of hosts, or the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left and they seek my life to take it away. And he said go out and stand before the Lord. And behold, the Lord passed by in a great and strong wind, tore the mountains and broken pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And the wind and the Lord is in the squeal of a baby's voice, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind and earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake and after the earthquake of fire, but the Lord was not in the fire and after the fire, the sound of a low whisper. Everybody say low whisper.

Speaker 2: 6:01

So it's this really fascinating picture here. If you know anything about the prophet Elijah, in this particular scene he was on the run, he just had a showdown with the prophets of Baal and if you remember the scene, there's hundreds of these prophets that were trying to conjure up, trying to stride they're like slashing themselves and whipping themselves and trying to conjure up the gods. And Elijah was there and he had just called that. He created an altar and had it doused in water and he said I will show you who's the one and true God, the one, true God. And he called on fire from heaven and the fire of God actually came in and consumed this altar. It was this massive spectacle, right, it was the power of God on display and it also made him a fugitive because he made a lot of enemies and just one demonstration of the power of God.

Speaker 2: 6:50

And so, after this scene, queen Jezebel, she was after his life and so he was on the run. In this particular passage she was hiding in a cave and you could say he was a little bit distraught, as you would be right, as I would be. He was hiding in a cave, he was on the run, everything was a little bit chaotic, people were after his life. And so God asks Elijah, he calls him out of the cave and asks him to go stand on the edge of this mountain. And God says to him and then God lets several things happen right before Elijah's eyes. A wind comes, a torrent of wind comes, but the Scripture says that God was not in the wind. And then an earthquake comes. That's not the place I'd want to be on the edge of a cliff during an earthquake. Right, an earthquake comes, but it says God was not in the earthquake. And then a fire comes, whatever that means, a cloud of fire, an explosion of fire, and God was not in the fire.

Speaker 2: 7:50

And then it ends with this phrase but then Elijah heard a low whisper. Some translations say it's still small voice, and other translations, even the interpreters' translations of the Bible, they even interpret this as the sound of sheer silence. They didn't know how to. Some of the scholars say they didn't know how to interpret the smallness of volume in this. And so some just say whisper, others say silence, but the point here being that all of these things happen right before Elijah's eyes.

Speaker 2: 8:26

But then God speaks, not in any of those things, but in the sound of a low whisper, and we don't entirely know why all the sequence of events happened, why all of it had to happen the way it did. But I think it comes back to this idea that God doesn't always come as we expect, but he comes as we need. All right, it's likely that God was testing and training Elijah to not look for him in the spectacular. Elijah was very well familiar with the spectacular. All right, he just saw what most of us would hope to see in our life fire actually coming down from heaven. But in this scene it wasn't in any of those things. It was almost the opposite it was the sound of a small whisper. And it's true.

Speaker 2: 9:12

One thing is true that God often does come to us from the outside in. In fact, next week Jeanette is going to be talking a little bit about that when God comes to us from the outside in and sometimes God comes to us the outside in through conversations with people or prophecy, or even just looking out in creation or music or artwork or any of those kinds of things. Sometimes he speaks to us from the outside in, but oftentimes God speaks to us from the inside out, and it's not often. The voice of God is not often loud and boisterous. He's not always coming and just saying do this, don't do that, do this, don't do that, all right, sometimes we wish he would just do that. Right, just tell me what to do. But the only times in scriptures that really happen is when God really needs to course correct somebody's life super dramatically and set them up for what God was doing. But most of the time, walking with Jesus is actually about recognizing the way he's getting our attention from the inside out, within the confines of our own soul. You guys with me, you guys with me. And so, lastly, we talked a little bit about kind of historic church words for hearing God's voice.

Speaker 2: 10:24

A couple phrases to remember Vox interna is the inner voice of Vox externa, which we'll be talking about next week. It's kind of the outside voice. God's speaking from the outside in. But Vox interna is what we're talking about today, the inner voice, what Henry Nowan calls the inner voice of love. It's the voice of love that comes as we're filled with the Holy Spirit. When you come into Christ and you're filled with the Spirit, you become the temple of God. God actually takes up his residence inside you. He's not just speaking to you from way out there, he's coming from the inside out and it's the voice of love. And when we become acquainted with the voice of Jesus it becomes easier to recognize. But there's kind of several things that we can look at, but this inner voice of love, these whispers of God. I'll just walk through some of these. I could spend an entire sermon on every single one of these. We're not going to do that. But I just want to kind of paint a picture. I want to give you a little can with some broad brush strokes, so one of the ways we could talk about promptings, promptings or just kind of little drawings or invitations.

Speaker 2: 11:32

Basically, when you're going through the course of your day and a thought occurs to you that maybe there's no reason a thought, that thought had to occur to you, this kind of happens. This happens to me a lot when I'm driving and I'll start thinking about somebody that wasn't on my mind. There's no reason for me to be thinking about them, but their face comes to mind, their name comes to mind. I've learned to trust. At this point, when I start thinking about somebody in the course of my day randomly, it's because I need to pray for them or I need to reach out. So I've kind of make it a habit that when I start thinking about somebody randomly throughout the day, I'm trusting that. Hey, what if this is the voice of God and he's prompting me to actually move in their direction? And so I'll either text them, I'll call them, I'll pray for them. Has that happened to anybody? You just have a random thought in the middle of the day. Sometimes we just write that off as spontaneity. Oh, that was weird.

Speaker 2: 12:22

But as we're learning to walk with God, we start paying attention to these little nudging, these promptings of we can call them holy knowings, right of things that occur to us that maybe just didn't, that wasn't not, it wasn't in our natural flow of thought. We can talk about our conscience. All right, our conscience, as we know, is kind of this inner moral compass. It's this God-given moral compass. It's a sense of right and wrong. It's when you get into a situation and you just know what the right decision is or the wrong decision. Now the conscience can be seared, the conscience can be affected negatively, and so sometimes we can have an unclear conscience or an unclean conscience. But oftentimes our conscience, when it's pure before God, it allows us to kind of be in a situation and know the difference between right and wrong. It's part of what God gives, he implants inside of us to make decisions.

Speaker 2: 13:16

So promptings, conscience, even our emotions and our feelings, as fleeting as they are sometimes, you can walk into the room. You can walk into a room and pick up right away what the collective mood of is in the room. Has anybody ever felt that you walk in a room and you can feel like, maybe, discouragement or despair? Has anybody ever felt that? Are you walking in the room and maybe you feel hope or something completely different? But you can walk into somebody's house and you can feel almost emotionally what the attitude or the mood is of the house. That's part of how God speaks to us through our emotions and our feelings. That often even comes personally. Sometimes.

Speaker 2: 14:00

What happens when we feel things? We think that they're distractions, but sometimes when you feel something, even in your own self, even in your own being, maybe it's a sense of joy, maybe it's a sense of frustration or anger. It's not a random thing. Oftentimes it's a trigger point for God, getting your attention, to start a conversation with you about something he's doing in your heart and in your life. Pain and grief are in the same thing. I mean that could almost be lumped with emotions and feelings.

Speaker 2: 14:36

But this is so important because so many of us see pain and loss, grief and loss in our life as something peripheral to the course that we had planned, something peripheral to what God is doing in our life. We see often those pain and sadness as a distraction, like I gotta get over this so I can get back to what God is trying to speak to me over here. Anybody ever try to do that, and oftentimes that's what we do. We don't consider it as a language of God because it feels like it's off course. But oftentimes what God is doing he's actually wants to train us, to be able to take even the sense of loss or grief that we go through in our life, and he wants to take us not away from it but into it so that he may heal us.

Speaker 2: 15:23

God is a healer. He's not an avoider, he's a healer. So he's actually not afraid of pain and loss because he knows what to do with it and his name, his presence is the only one. He's the only one that can take us into it and take us out the other side Stronger, larger, bigger, with the capacity to see him, to know him. So if you're walking through pain and loss and you think it's like you're trying to just get over it, I'm just saying maybe there's a conversation God is wanting to have with you because he wants to bring a sense of wholeness and life and freedom to your very soul. So God speaks to us through pain and grief.

Speaker 2: 16:02

He also speaks to us through dreams, and some of you guys know we love even in this church we take that very seriously like dreams in the night. We do classes and stuff where we learn to interpret dreams. It's all through the Bible, by the way. Dreams are all over the scriptures. It's all over People having dreams in the night. I have dreams in the night. My wife has dreams in the night. We don't always know what to do with them, but often, as we're gonna write them down and we take them prayerfully before God, we're finding out that he's actually speaking to us in the night.

Speaker 2: 16:31

This church, the history of this church, much of it was founded on dreams that happened in the night that men and women took seriously and actually took to God in prayer, and it directed it course corrected this church and my prayer is that that continues to happen. I pray that all of you are having dreams. I pray that all of you are having visions and that together we can bring them before God and say God, what are you saying to us so we can become, we can go where you're going and become the people you're calling us to become. That's really good, luke, thanks, that's so good.

Speaker 2: 17:07

And visions, so dreams are in the night, but visions and imagination during the day. It's part of childlike faith is the fact that God has given us an image center. We have the ability to imagine, which is wild. So if I told you, do not think about an elephant right now, an elephant balancing on a tiny unicycle, you're imagining that right now. Wherever you have that, imagined, this picture, that's your image center. It's actually a God given capacity. It's the capacity to imagine things. So you can be sitting in a church service Now you remember nothing else. You're gonna walk away remembering an elephant riding on top of a unicycle, right, and that's how powerful the image center is, the imagination God oftentimes speaks to us through pictures. So sometimes we're in prayer and you'll notice that as we're praying some people will be like I just have a picture of this or that or the sense of this or that. That's because God is giving us pictures. He wants to speak to us through our imagination. It's not a distraction, it's actually part of his language with us.

Speaker 2: 18:12

And then, last one here Desires and passions. Desires and passions. This is so important to know. Some of you guys have desires. You don't know what to do with them. You don't even know if they're spiritual desires or not. Maybe it's the desire to go back to school, maybe it's the desire to join a mission strip next year or go to Africa or something like that. But there's desires that you have that you have to pay attention to, because God loves to work within our passions. That probably the best example of this was, if you guys remember the movie Cherry at a Fire and the runner, eric Little, and when he was describing his relationship with running, he said when I run, I feel the pleasure of God. I feel the pleasure of God.

Speaker 2: 18:57

Now a lot of church circles like no, you've gotta no, you've gotta be serving God to feel the pleasure of God. It's like no, that's not how he made us. There's certain things he's given you to do where he allows you to feel pleasure. That's a good thing. Some of you love feeling pleasure while you're doing administrative work, crunching numbers. That is your sweet spot. That is your lane right. Some of you love balancing a budget. That is your lane. Some of you like certain things. That is your lane, and that's a good thing.

Speaker 2: 19:23

Pay attention to the passions and desires. Nobody can give them from the outside in. They come from the inside out. These are whispers of God. Now, when we say whispers and hearing God's voice, sometimes we think about like an audible voice. I don't know how many of us in the room have heard an audible voice. I've never heard actually an audible voice myself. But again, these whispers, just imagine these tiny nudges, invitations, knowings, awarenesses that we're learning to pay attention to. Now that list of what I just walked through.

Speaker 2: 19:56

Not everything in and of themselves are trustworthy. Just because you have a desire, just because you feel something, just because you're aware of something, does not necessarily make it. Oh, god has spoken to me once and for all. This is it. But what they are? Imagine them like dashboards on the light, or lights on the dashboard of your car. They're all indications of something, of a language that is happening in your soul that you're now, you're invited to bring to God in prayer, to say God, what is it that you're saying, what is it you're doing? And when God speaks to us I'll say this just to be crystal clear here when God speaks, it's never going to contradict the principles of the scriptures.

Speaker 2: 20:36

We stand on the scriptures, all right, and so we base our life from the scriptures. But the scriptures, as you know, don't answer every one of life's questions. Do you guys know that? So, god, who should I marry? Right, you're looking through your Bible. Who should I marry? The scriptures aren't going to tell you who you should marry. It's not going to tell you what job you should take next. It's not going to tell you that's an ongoing relationship with God.

Speaker 2: 21:00

What the scriptures do is they train you to know what the voice of God sounds like. When you're familiar with the stories of Jesus, you can almost picture him, you can hear his voice, you can tune into the compassion to, the kindness, sometimes the stern words that he has. But you can, you begin to get familiar. This is the voice of God, and so that's why we have to be immersed, we have to be steeped in the scriptures, because we don't want to miss when God is speaking. Now, it's easy to do, though. If it's true that oftentimes God speaks from the inside out, and often he comes with a whisper versus a loud shout, that means it's easy to miss, right? All right.

Speaker 2: 21:51

So there's this brilliant theologian at a boulder who has a quote that goes like this we have that, here we go. Do you hear that whisper in your ear or is there too much noise in your life? God don't yell, he whispers. Please turn the noise off in your life, or try to turn it down a bit so you can hear God. Think about that. Hashtag, coach Prime. So I think he points out a really critical thing. If it's true that God speaks in whispers, then that means the greatest enemy to hearing the whispers of God is the noise of our lives, not just the outer noise, but the inner noise.

Speaker 2: 22:41

Now that's why we have to talk about the Tomadas effect. So Dr Alfred Tomadas is a French otolaryngologist. He was a French otolaryngologist who is an ear, nose and throat doctor. In the World War II era, he was working with a renowned opera singer who had lost his ability to hurt certain notes that were well within his vocal range, and it was kind of a mystery to everybody why is this opera singer all of a sudden losing an ability to hit pitch?

Speaker 2: 23:14

Now, as we discussed a little bit last week, sounds are interesting when it comes to decibels, that kind of thing. So sounds over 120 decibels of any kind can lead to immediate hearing loss. So over 120 decibels you expose to that, it can damage your hearing permanently. Now an average opera singer can easily hit about 140 decibels at a meter's distance. So it's louder than a military jet taking off from an aircraft carrier. It's louder. It's even louder in your own school. Okay, if you're an opera singer.

Speaker 2: 23:46

Now Dr Tomadas discovered this opera singer wasn't hitting the notes because over time he was actually deafened by his own voice. You think about this. He was actually deafened by the. His voice was so loud that it actually led to his own hearing loss. And so what's true is that the voice can only reproduce what we can hear by the ear. And so the thing with singing is you can't hit a pitch if you can't hear the pitch right. You have to have a source from which you're matching. So he couldn't match to his own pitch because he couldn't hear the source of his own singing. You guys tracking with me.

Speaker 2: 24:28

So all of that to say I think it's a really apt illustration and metaphor for us that a lot of us suffer from a spiritual Tomadas effect. The sheer volume of our lives has become deafening. The chatter, the opinion, the news, the entertainment, the things that we let in to our souls. Sometimes even the sound of our own voice has deafened us to the still small voice of God, the voice that brings life and truth and power and refreshment and love, the one voice that we were made to hear. Because that's the thing is, when we can no longer hear the voice of our God, it isn't interesting how quickly our lives become off tune, because we were actually made to be able to hear the voice of God and then be able to respond to it, to be able to be tuned up to the sound of heaven. We were able to pay attention to the life of God and be able to kind of enter into the life of God. We're no longer connected to a source. Than things get wobbly in our lives, doesn't it? We don't know who to listen to and the number of voices and opinions and family members and Instagram feeds and these channels start to have access to us. It can cause this inner noise that actually deafens us to the voice of God and it deadens our senses to what God is trying to say and trying to do in our life. And so the truth is this we are the work of following Jesus is learning how to tune into His voice and listen.

Speaker 2: 26:17

The still small voice is not on the outside, it's on the inside. It actually can be loud all around you, it just can't be loud inside of you. Do you remember Jesus when he was on the sea and a storm came and he was in the boat? And he was sleeping on the boat during a storm and the disciples woke him up and said why are you sleeping? And he rebuked him for the lack of faith. And he just said to the storm peace be still. Because he had the ability to be in a storm without the storm being inside of him. The same is true for us, though part of our discipleship to Jesus this is massive in the day that we live in is paying attention to what we've allowed inside.

Speaker 2: 27:00

It is possible to be in a crowd of people. It's possible to be in Times Square, downtown, new York City and still hear the still small voice inside of us. You can be surrounded by lights and noise and crowds on every side, but when you pay attention to what is inside of you, you can actually tune in to the voice of God. Do you guys know what I'm saying? It's an amazing thing. We're actually our ears. Our actual physical ears have the ability to hear two things at once. We have an outer ear and we have an inner ear. It's one of the mysteries of the ear. It's a miracle that all of us are actually hearing and understanding.

Speaker 2: 27:36

You're perceiving, based on what I'm saying right now, that we can tune into some sounds and not others, and it's learning really to listen to two things at once. It's why you can play sports as a child, you can be on the basketball court and you can hear out of everything happening. You can still hear the voice of your father cheering for you from the stands, yeah, yeah, it's why when you're at your kid's choir concert and there's this whole sea of kids, all their voices kind of sound the same, but I swear you can hear your kid. You're looking at them, you can hear them. They sound louder because we have this unbelievable ability to pinpoint, out of all the sounds, the one sound that matters. We do that with our physical ears, we do that with our spiritual ears. We are made to tune in to the voice of God. And this is part of my story.

Speaker 2: 28:32

When I first, kind of I grew up in the church and so I didn't have this, like you know, this wild, dramatic thing happen to me. It was just my parents raised me to know God and I just knew the scriptures and it was in environments that was natural, the sheer God's voice. So. But I first responded to God when I was 13. I didn't really know what was happening. I was at youth group and the youth pastor at the end of this message, he was talking to a group of a few hundred junior, high, high school students and he said listen, some of you kids, you call yourself a Christian, but you know you're not living her Jesus. You know that you're not, it's not real to you and you need to get your life right with God today. And he just had this invitation. He said come up front if you want. And I don't even really know what happened. It wasn't this beat me over the bat? You know, beat me over the head with the bat kind of moment.

Speaker 2: 29:17

There was something from the inside out, there's a drawing out. I just knew in that moment like I have to stand up right now, like I have to go up, something is happening so I have to respond. I just knew it. There was a yes inside of me that just had to respond. And that feeling you know, if you were looking from the outside in it probably wouldn't have looked dramatic, but it did feel that way from, you know, within my own chest there was like a burning. Inside of my heart, there was a knowing and I knew I had to say yes. And that feeling that I had in that moment it set this index for my life, Because after that moment I knew that any time I felt that same thing, it was God calling my name and drawing me back to something he wanted me to do, and it was just this moment of being tuned into. Oh, this is what the presence of God feels like, this is what the voice of God sounds like, and I just marked that in my own soul. It was like seared in my own soul to pay attention, and whenever I'd feel that again and that kind of burning of the heart, I knew that God was trying to get my attention.

Speaker 2: 30:21

So, truth be told, I never planned on becoming a pastor. Okay, this wasn't part of a 10-year thing. Somebody asked me like so when did you, you know, first decide you wanted to become a pastor? I'm like, I never decided I want to become a pastor. Sorry to let you down, it was never a conscious decision. I had Some people talk about these huge dramatic experiences where they're called by God and this like super low voice.

Speaker 2: 30:44

I was called by God, it was called. It was called into the pastor, it was called into the mission field. I celebrate that, by the way, I'm not making fun of that. If that's your story, if you feel like there is this moment where God marked you and called you, I love that and I celebrate that with you. I just have to confess to you I never, I never got one big call. What I got was 10,000 tiny whispers. I got 10,000. I got a lifetime of tiny whispers. I got a lifetime of God.

Speaker 2: 31:12

So, hey, come over here. Hey, luke, come here. What about this over here? Who called that person? What do you think about Colorado. What do you think about this ministry school in Colorado? Have you ever thought about writing a song? You know these desires started to spring up to teach and to lead and to, you know, eventually meet my wife and to relocate. And you know, continued opportunities over my life to training and learning and mentorship.

Speaker 2: 31:44

Is this you Lord? Is this not you Lord, in this voice, that just every day, do this, don't do that. Stay here, shut your mouth, forgive them, humble yourself, apologize, don't be an ass. Right, he does say stuff like that from time to time. Cancel that meeting. Send a text to your friend who called John. Right now, right, turn left at the end of the street. Order the single cheeseburger, not the double cheeseburger. You don't need that. This person needs prayer. Go, take that risk. You can do this. Be bold, don't shut your mouth.

Speaker 2: 32:27

A lot of these whispers you can't point to and say. You know that was the thing. But over the course of your life, when you live your life adjusting your life to the whispers of God, you can't quite point to any one thing. It's just your life is completely transformed over time. I'm still on the journey. I'm not saying that I've arrived anywhere, but the life of listening and tuning into the whispers of God is what Paul calls walking in the spirit. This is the life of walking in the spirit.

Speaker 2: 32:58

Now, there's one thing I know about being married, it's. If there's one thing I know about being married, it's this. In every marriage there's a fast walker and there's a slow walker. So in my marriage you might have guessed I'm the slow walker. So when we're at our best, we're both making loving, sacrificial adjustments to the speed of our stride. So when we're walking through an airport, this is very pronounced alright. And so, out of my love for my wife, sure, honey, I'm happy to do a light jog with you through the airport, and, like Manor, my wife is willing to die a thousand deaths by slowing down to a turtle pace, right To not maximize every possible second, be it in the car or on the road. Fast walkers and slow walkers.

Speaker 2: 33:56

So, Paul, when he's talking, he's writing to the Galatians, in Galatians 5.25, he says if we live and step by the spirit, let us also keep and step with the spirit. If we live by the spirit, let us also keep and step with the spirit. So, every day, life with God is as we take each step, we're adjusting our pace to the pace of God in our life. Sometimes we're speeding up, sometimes we're slowing down. It's just finding out. It's we're living our life in step with the spirit of God, paying attention to God. Where are you going right now? What pace are you going? How can we do this together? Because the reality is, you might not remember every step that got you into the seat that you're sitting in right now. It may have not been a conscious decision. You're like how did I even end up here? But you're here and when we live our lives, tuned into the whispers of God, staying in step with the spirit. We can't always pick out the moments in every step. You don't remember every step you took since you left your house this morning, but you're still here and you're living your life in the flow of His love. And that's really what this is all about Living your life in the current, in the flow of the love of God surrendered to His voice. And this is where life is lives, this is where freedom is Staying in step with the spirit of God. Okay, we're going to do an exercise together. We're going to actually practice this. So if you've never heard the whispers of God, you're about to.

Speaker 2: 35:32

So, when we're talking about listening to the voice of God, there's a few things I want to point out. First of all, it's not rocket science. Okay. One of the things that we can rejoice in is even Jesus said he entrusts his kingdom to children. It's childlike heart he's moved to. So he doesn't speak to people who have it all figured out. Okay, you can listen to the message last week. He doesn't speak to people who are experts. He speaks to anybody who's willing and hungry to listen. Okay, so that's good news for me. All right, it's really good news. If you don't have it figured out, I'm gonna be the first to raise my hand. We're just learning.

Speaker 2: 36:12

And so, number one, we need to invite God to speak. Okay, so, as we're learning to listen to God, we invite God to speak. There's another passage in scripture that talks about the prophet Samuel, and he thinks he's hearing from God, and Eli, his mentor, tells him to go back to bed and just say speak, lord, your servant is listening, and I think that's a really good prayer for us. Today. I just say God speak, I'm listening. So we invite him to speak.

Speaker 2: 36:41

Number two, though we wanna prepare to hear whatever God wants to say. He doesn't always say what you want him to say. Okay, this is actually really important because some of the times we miss God because we have it predetermined what he should be saying to us and talking to us about. We want him to talk to us about our finances or a bank account. He wants to talk to us about our relationships over here, something like that. So prepare to hear, just be open to anything he wants to say to you.

Speaker 2: 37:13

We often come with biases and agendas, and this is when I'm just kinda lay those down and say, god, I don't know what you wanna say to me, but I just wanna be prepared. Say whatever you wanna say. I'm surrendered before you. But number three trust that you can hear his voice. Trust that you can actually hear his voice.

Speaker 2: 37:31

So oftentimes, when we're listening to God's voice, what happens is something comes to mind, and then the first question we ask is is that just me or my imagination? Am I just making this up? How do I know this? Is God right? And immediately we start analyzing ourselves and we put ourselves under the microscope to figure out what's actually going on. Listen, author Brad Jurczak in his book can you hear me? He points out that it's probably not the most helpful question to say it's just me or my imagination. Of course it's your imagination, it's what God's given to you but to trust that you're filled with the Spirit. So instead of asking, is that just me? Ask is what I am hearing true, god? Is what I am hearing true of what you're trying to say to me? Okay, because sometimes God speaks and it sounds a lot like your own voice. It just sounds like you thinking three things.

Speaker 2: 38:28

But part of what we have to do is trust that, if it's true that we are filled with the Spirit of God, god is common sight of us. He's taken up residence, he's taken up his home inside of us as we're following him. That means that we can actually trust that he wants to speak to us. So, rather than airing on the side of that's just me, what if we aired on the side of? God actually delights in speaking to me and I can trust that he actually wants to reveal some things from his heart. He's actually excited about it. Jesus says it's the Father's good pleasure to give to you the kingdom of God. It's the trust thing that he's actually speaking.

Speaker 2: 39:01

Now a few other things here. Quick ABC test. All right, this is from author Pete Gregg. This is just a helpful reminder.

Speaker 2: 39:08

If you're ever just wondering, like I don't know, if that was God, okay, here's a quick ABC test. Number one A is what you heard affirming. Meaning is what you heard strengthening, encouraging, comforting or edifying or up building right. So the voice of God is not about tearing you down. Sometimes there's things he rearranges, but it's like there's a voice. The voice of God is loving, god is love, so the voice of what you're shearing.

Speaker 2: 39:41

The first test really is like is this affirming, do I feel affirmed through this? Number two biblical. Is what I'm hearing consistent with broader teachings of scripture? If you know the witness of scripture, if he tells me to go, you know. If I hear a voice that says like how awful you are, or you know that kind of thing, or go, do something you shouldn't do, it's not, it wouldn't be biblical, right?

Speaker 2: 40:09

So, affirming biblical and Christ-like is it consistent with the character, mission and message of Jesus? So that's the ABC. Is what you're hearing affirming biblical and Christ-like? Now there's a lot of other nuances to it. That's a really good starting point, though if you've never actually practiced this before ABC affirming biblical, christ-like Okay, are you guys ready to practice?

Speaker 2: 40:29

Okay, one other thing too when we pray, when we listen, when we're hearing God, you know we wanna invite him to clean, to actually purify our imaginations. There's so many things that we let in. It is possible to have, like our image center, where, you know, just our hearts affected by the things that we speak or watch or listen to. Fortunately, hebrews 10, 22 says this. It says let us draw near with the true heart and full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies wash with pure water. So the good news here today is that because of Jesus, because of his sacrifice, we can come to him, we can draw near with pure hearts and I just we'll just pray here in a second God, purify our hearts, sanctify our imaginations so we can actually hear you together. So here's what we're gonna do everybody, close your eyes, close your eyes, and we're just gonna invite God, just say Jesus, speak, I'm listening. In your own words, say God, would you speak? I'm listening, and God for us as we hold this space together, we do. Thank you, you are a good shepherd. We thank you for the voice of love, the voice that purifies us, the voice that makes us whole and leads to freedom and truth. So we say come, holy spirit, show us what's on your heart. Now I'm gonna give you a question. As you're just sitting with the Lord right now, and it'll seem like a silly question, I want you to go with it. So we're gonna ask this question together.

Speaker 2: 42:26

God, right now, if you could pick any game to play with me, what would you play? And I just want you to hold that question for a moment. Say God, if you could pick any game, what would you play? For a moment, say God, if you could pick any game that you wanted to play with me board game, video game, whatever game what would that be? Now? Imagine yourself playing that game. Just listen, just wait for that picture impression. You might like think this is dumb, but just hold that non-judgment. And, if you have a game in mind, ask him Jesus, why did you pick this game out of all games? And just using your imagination with God, watch yourself playing this game with God. Jesus, what do you want to teach me through this game? What is it you're trying to show me? About you or about me? Why do you wanna play this game today? Why do I need to know this today Just hold that before the Lord, whatever that is, and there's no pressure to have some awesome response or anything.

Speaker 2: 43:48

And if you didn't hear anything pressure's off, that doesn't mean you screwed up, it doesn't mean you're bad. Okay, because we're just practicing. But I'm just curious if you did, if a game came to mind, if you asked God that question, a game came to mind and you felt like God brought to mind a game that he was playing with you. Just put your hand up just a little bit across the room, okay, so again about half the room. Did you feel like God spoke to you through that question? Just nod your hand? Okay, a few people, all right, it's one of those questions that it feels like what was that? Why that question?

Speaker 2: 44:35

But when we bring questions before Jesus like that, it's amazing how he leads us on an inner journey to show us what he feels towards us, to show us what he's like, to even show us his playful side, and there's a lot of other ways to come before God.

Speaker 2: 44:51

But just, I just want you to take note that wasn't from the outside in, that's from the inside out, that there was a way of you were able to see something, to feel something, to tune into something that God was saying.

Speaker 2: 45:04

That didn't require anybody else to do anything, but it required you just stealing yourself before him and posing to him a question, and it's the type of thing you could do every day. You can ask God what is on your heart, what is on your mind today, and develop this friendship, this relational conversation with God, because it's actually fun listening to the voice of God yeah, it's a fun thing and listen my prayer as we leave this place today, as we move forward. The reason this is so important because I just believe this year, I believe in the season to come the importance of all of us knowing the difference between the still small voice of God and the noise of our world is gonna really set us apart that to be people that know how to actually walk in wisdom and walk in life, walk in truth, walk in liberty, that we can be agents of love and healing everywhere we go because we are tuned into the source of love himself, amen, amen.