Are You Listening: #1 And God Said

Are we listening to God? From the opening words of Genesis—“And God said”—we see that creation itself exists because God speaks. His Word is not only the first cause but the sustaining force of our lives. 

Transcript

Well, good morning. So you see on the front of your bulletin a question that says, are you listening? And I guess I'll include myself in that. And the question that we want to start this series out with is, are we listening to God? Are we listening to him? Well, of course, the first question that comes to mind when we think about that is, well, is God actually speaking to us? Is God speaking to us? Are we listening to him? How does God how did it how does God speak to us? How do we hear from him? How important is it for us to learn how to listen to God? Probably the best, gift I could ever give to anyone would be the ability to hear from God. It is so much more important that people hear the words of God than any other words. And when we think about the importance of words in our lives, we probably haven't meditated on that that much. But words are central to our well being and the word. There are no words that bring greater health and well-being than the Word of God. And the words of God. Think about this. Who do we. Who do we really like to listen to? Who do we like to listen to? And what do we want to hear? And is that the same thing as who we should be listening to? And what we need to hear? Are those both the same thing? How are our lives formed by what we choose to listen to and what we choose to ignore? What are we paying attention to? How important are the words? God is speaking into our lives. Into our lives. Not just into our ears, but into our soul. What difference does it make, for us to be a good listener? And what difference does that make in the quality of our lives? Well, let me ask you this question. Since you woke up this morning. Has God spoken to you? Have you heard God's voice between now and the time you woke up this morning? If your answer to that question is. I don't think so. No, I haven't heard God's voice this morning. I would like you to consider this possibility. The possibility, that he has been speaking to you and that either you didn't hear him or couldn't hear him, or you ignored him because God is speaking to you and has spoken to you even as you have woken up this morning. And so the question we'd like to ask ourselves this morning are, are we with are we listening? Are you listening? That's the title of our series that we're going to begin this morning. And we're going to see that one of the central characteristics about the nature of God is he likes to talk a lot. God is always communicating. He is a communicative God. And when you look at the various ideas about the nature of God throughout the world, many people believe God is a non-personal power or force that has no will or emotion, but it is only a force going out. Well, that's not true. God is a personal God, and he's been personal since the beginning. And he loves to talk, and he loves to speak into, reality. And he loves to to communicate to his people. And he wants to be heard. A central characteristic of God is the desire to communicate. Today, we're going to consider God's Word as a fundamental basis for everything in the universe. We're going to start our series out by seeing how everything that is exists as a consequence of God speaking. If God was silent, would we exist? If God had never spoken, would we be sitting here? If God's thoughts were never put into speech, into words, into his word, there would be nothing. There would be no light, and there would be no eyes to perceive the light. How does what God says, how does what God has said and how what how does what God is saying affect us? Are his words bringing light into our minds and into our souls, or are we living in the darkness, being deaf to his voice? Can we hear him? Is he speaking into our lives? Is he speaking into our lives? The way he spoke into the formless void and created order out of the chaos? Are we experiencing that kind of effect from the Word of God speaking into us? Is he ordering us by his truth? Are we hearing him today? Let's start our series at the very beginning of time. When he first spoke and when his voice was first heard, and look at the effects of, the Word of God in creation. This morning's message is entitled. And God said, and we're going to be looking at Genesis chapter one, verses one through three, and John one. Heavenly father, Lord, as we look at your word this morning, let us just consider the power of the immaterial force of your will being articulated. Help us appreciate the impact of the spoken word of God, and begin to desire and hunger after your word being spoken into our lives. We pray that you would bless the reading of your word this morning, that we would hear your words and they would make a difference in our lives. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Beginning of Genesis, chapter one, verses one through three very familiar verses to us here. It says, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty. Darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of the Lord was hovering over the waters. And the Lord said, and the Lord said, and the Lord said. And the Lord said, and God said. And the word said. Anyway, it was said, let there be light, and there was light. And let's take a look at, John chapter one, verses one through three. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made. Him being referring back to the word. Through him all things were made, and without him nothing was made. That has been made. So in the beginning was the word now before time began, before there was such a thing as time and space, before the material universe had formed, and before, the chronological time had begun. Look at this. Look at this right here. That little verb right there in the beginning was the word. We can't really translate that well in English because in Greek that's an ordered, if imperfect tense. And we don't have that tense in English. But what that what that what the significance of that is, is that what that verse is saying is in the beginning, the God the word already had been and always was in existence before the beginning, before the formation of the universe, before the formation of time and space. The word was and always had been. It has never not been. And, the word spoke it we saw in Genesis chapter one. And God said so the distinction between order and disorder. Is on the fulcrum of the moment and which God said. And he said the first thing he said was, let there be light. And then what was there after he said, let there be light. There was light. Light came into existence as the consequence of God proclaiming it and beginning to order the formless void. And the first thing that he ordered was, starting with light. That was the first thing he said. Let there be light. And so then there was light. So much could be said about the primacy of light. It's really not the purpose of this sermon to talk about light and all that's dependent upon it. But I can't help myself just say a few words about that. Let me just say that. You you could consider yourselves in a way, to be reconstituted light. You are light in a new form. And let me try to explain that to you. When you look at, the way God has set up photosynthesis, he has set up these machines in plants to turn light into food. He set up these machines in the leaves of green plants to take the light out of the sky from the sun and transform it into sugars and into starches and into food. Food that can either come to us ultimately through the food that the grain produces or the, tree that we're fruit produces or the corn produces, or even indirectly through the cattle who eat the the green grass that is produced, starches and sugars to, to give the cattle life what we are, in a sense, reconstituted light. We are in the chain of life that starts with life. Light is the forerunner of all life. And the cause of light was the spoken word of God. The first cause of all the subsequent causes was an A was a verbal expression from the mouth of God. The theme this morning in this morning's message is this. In the beginning was the word. Let's take a look at, John one one through three and verse 14 again, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God, and he was in the beginning. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made, and without him nothing was made that has been made. And then in verse 14 it says this. And the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. Who's that referring to? Jesus, of course. Jesus is the living Word of God. He is the verbal expression of God in and into the world. When we see and hear Christ, we're seeing and hearing the, the carrying forth of the thoughts of God into the form of the living Word. We live in a cause and effect world. Everything living and non-living has a material cause or almost everything. And living and non-living has a material cause. For example, the Grand Canyon. You know, you ask what form the Grand Canyon? Your mind. Automatically goes to the material. Cause if you're, if you if you're a geologist, if you think somehow it was carved through millions and billions of years through this one little river. If you're more of a biblical, geologist, you think there was once a big flood that came and carved it? Perhaps all at once. But however you think that it was caused you, you think that it was caused by other, forces, or when you think about, this this comparison between these two objects here. These are little tiny redwood seeds, and these little tiny redwood seeds can cause five of these huge trees. There's this causal reality between material things. That's the world we live in. But the first cause was not material. The first cause was not, a material thing. And that's where we get into this confusion. When people ask the, brain twisting question of what came first, the chicken or the egg? We're confused by that question because we think everything has its primary cause is has to be material in some sense. And when we believe that, we can't really answer the question, what came first, the chicken or the egg? It's a seemingly unsolvable question until we realize what it says in Genesis chapter one, verse one through three. When we realize everything of observable, which we see has a material cause and truth had a first cause that was immaterial. The truth is that neither the chicken or the egg came first. What came first was God saying, let there be a chicken and let there be an egg. That's what came first. God said, let there be a chicken. And let's see. We'll have an egg at the same time, and the chickens will come out of the eggs, and the eggs will come out of the chickens. The first cause was a word from the Lord. We live in a causal universe. 99.9% of the causes we observe, are like falling dominoes. One domino hitting another domino. But the first cause is different from all the other causes. The first cause is a non-material cause. The first cause is God speaking his mind into existence. This is such an important lesson. This is such a vital lesson for God to get us to understand that he spent 40 years trying to teach the Jews this lesson. He spent 40 years trying to teach his people this one truth. And, then he recorded it for us to try to learn as well. Look at Deuteronomy chapter eight, verses one through four. Deuteronomy chapter eight, verses one through four says this. Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase, and may enter and possess the land that the Lord promised on oath to your forefathers. So he's making this relationship between living a good life and hearing what he has to say and following what he has to say. And then it goes on to say this. Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these 40 years, he to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. And now check this out. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known to teach you, to teach you, to teach you, to teach you. That man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. That's what he wanted to teach them. That's the purpose of that 40 years in the desert. That's a long, long internship. 40 years to learn. One lesson. The lesson that you don't live by causal, forces alone. You don't live by nutrition alone. You don't live by bread alone, but you live and your clothes didn't wear out and you were fed, and the water came out of the rock. Not because of causal conditions, but because of my word. He taught them what? That they don't live by bread alone, but by every word that comes out of his mouth that they don't live by just natural causes. So what does that mean, exactly? That means our existence. Our life is dependent both on natural causes, bread and supernatural causes. The Word of God. We are sustained by two things, and primarily we're sustained by one thing. The bread comes by the Word of God. And even though we're sustained by the bread, it has its origins in the Word of God. So really, we are in existence because God has spoke us into existence, and we remain in existence because he keeps telling us where we were alive. He keeps we are sustained by his will and his word. Yeah. Well, thank you, Norman. You know, maybe you could teach us to be more responsive. Yeah. You know, when when we say I need. Think about that. What was the last time you said I need. I need what I need x, y, and z. I need this or I need that when we say the words I need, how often do we say the words? I need a word from the Lord or I need God to speak into my life, or I need to understand God's Word. We usually use that phrase I need in reference to a material cause I need. I'm hungry. I need to eat. I need some money. I need to fill my car with gas. We usually use those words not in terms of our primary needs, but our secondary needs. You know, we need to listen to what God is speaking into our lives. We really need that. I need to hear what God has to say to me. I need to hear the words. Let there be light in my heart. I need to know that God wants to purify me from the innermost places, and that His Word can do it. And he speaks light into my life, into my heart, into my will, and into my soul. Just as our physical lives started with God speaking light out of the darkness, our eternal lives, our spiritual lives begin with God speaking light, speaking truth into our souls. And the question is, are we listening? Are we listening? Are we hearing the continual speaking of God's Word into our lives? Are we listening? One of the most important subjects that we have to consider in our lives is, have we learn to hear the Word of God? Have we learned to listen to his voice? And you may say to me, Pastor, I can't hear God. I haven't heard God for a long time. He may be speaking to you, but he hasn't been speaking to me. You can talk a lot about God, but as far as I'm concerned, God is silent. Is God silent? Or do we need to listen to hear him? How do we hear his voice? Well, again, the theme this morning is this in the beginning was the word. And point number one is this, God is never silent. God is never silent. Let's take a look at Psalms chapter 19, verses one through four. It says, the heavens declare the glory of God. This the guys proclaim the works of his hand. Day after day they pour forth speech. Night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the end of the world. Only, only. This is only talking about one of the ways that God speaks. We see the same thing taught in Romans, where it talks about, you know, all men are without excuse because his creation is poured forth the testimony of his glory and goodness. We see here in Psalms that what God has created is the voice of God speaking in many, all languages, all at the same time, continuously. His creation, what he has made, what the works of his hand speak of his glory all of the time. They never he never shuts up. Every time you look up to the sky, he's talking everything in his creation. If you look at your fingernails. God's speaking. How did that happen? How those come. There's a lot of order there. Everything we look at, we see the voice of God saying, I have majestically made things an an incredible way. He never stops talking. If we're listening, we can hear him. God is never silent, but I think you can say this for yourself. I certainly can say this for myself. He's often ignored. He is continuously speaking through his creation. He is also continuously speaking through his written word. He speaks to us through circumstances. He speaks to us through other people. He speaks to us through his Spirit in us. He speaks to us through dreams and visions. He speaks to us even very rarely. But on occasion throughout history, he spoke. He speaks to man audibly. He speaks in a multitude of different ways. But the one thing we can say is he's never silent. He is never silent. To say he is silent is to be like a person who has, satellite television and, with the satellite television, they have hundreds of channels and a person with satellite television that turns to their, partner or turns to somebody in their family and says there's nothing on TV. Well, but what they mean by that is there's nothing I want to watch on TV when you have a selection of hundreds of channels and you say nothing's on TV, it means you don't want to. There's nothing you want to watch. In the same way, if we say that God is silent, what we're really saying, and all the multitudes of the ways that he speaks to us, there's nothing we really want to hear. We don't really want to hear what he has to say. When people think God is not speaking to their life into their lives, perhaps the reality is that there's nothing that he's saying that they're really interested in hearing. So do we really want to hear the voice of God? For many people, the answer is no. I think the biggest reason is that if we acknowledge God's voice, we have no veto power over that. Yeah. See, like, Norm, if you tell me something I can say. Well, consider that if God says something to me, I can't say, well, I'll get back to you on that. When God speaks, it's an overwhelming authority. It's like the people in Exodus chapter 20, the Hebrews, they said to Moses, we'd be glad to listen to you, but we're afraid to listen to God. You see, if they listen to Moses, and which they did plenty of times, they can say, well, we can accept or reject what you have to say, but, when God speaks to us, it kind of puts us in a box. We have to we have to say, yes. Don't we? If we hear the voice of God, how can we say, no, Lord, you're wrong or I don't accept your perspective or you don't know what you're talking about. It's like a kid saying when a child says you're not my mother. What they're saying is, whatever you're saying doesn't have authority over me. When their mother speaks. On the other hand, if they're a good kid, they have to listen to that. When? When we say to one another, you're not my God, we could be saying the same thing. Whatever you say. I have the right to accept or reject. But when it's God speaking, that's a whole different story. What's at stake for us in terms of listening to God's voice? Why does it matter whether we're willing to listen to him or we ignore him? Again, the theme this morning is in the beginning was the word, and point number one is God is never silent. God is never silent. Well, let's just think for a second what would happen if God was silent? What would happen if he never did speak? There would be nothing but silence. If God didn't speak, there would be nothing at all. All of our life is a result of God communicating and ordering and creating reality out of chaos. God spoke and we exist. But the spoken word has another side to it too. Not only can the tongue bring life as it does when God speaks, there is power in speech, in what we listen to. Also to bring death. Point number two is this the tongue has the power of life and death. That's what it says in Proverbs 1821 which reads this this way the tongue has the power of life and death, and it creative how I got that point all by myself. The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit. Whatever voice we love, whether it's a voice that brings life or a voice that brings death, we will eat it. It will come into us and we will experience it's fruit. Whether life or death. Now we have seen that life itself sprang out of the tongue of God. And when we repeat God's message of the gospel, we also are speaking words of life and to other people. When I say the words Jesus Christ is the Son of God is the living Word of God. And Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us, and Jesus paid the penalty of our sins on the cross, that we might not have to pay them ourselves in eternal damnation. And Jesus, rose again from the dead. The grave is empty, and the living Lord has sent his spirit to live in us and to guide us and to lead us into change us and to transform us, to prepare us for eternity. And even now, Jesus is seated at the right hand of father. He is the King of kings and Lord of lords, and he will be there until every one of his enemies become a footstool to him. And, and he will superintend over the glory of his kingdom forever. If you hear those words. Those are words that breathed life into the darkness of men's souls. On the other hand, the tongue has the power of death. And we we saw the power of death in the Bible from the very beginning. And the very beginning of Genesis, we see the power of death. When when the deceiver says to Eve, he says these words. God didn't really say that, did he? He didn't really tell you. If you eat of the knowledge of the tree of good and evil, you will surely die. God didn't say that. That's not true. And we saw in the listening to and the acting on deception, death came into the world. Just as words of life breathed life, the deceivers words to Eve, lying about what God did say and twisting everything brought death from the beginning. The result of listening to and acting on deception was death. Today, there are many voices of death out there. The voice that says God did not create the world. The voice that says, you are not a sinner and you don't need salvation. The voice that says, Jesus is not the Son of God. The voice that says, you can decide right and wrong for yourself. You're your own moral determine, or you don't have to listen to what God has said, etc., etc., etc. there's endless voices of death out there and these voices have no power over us unless we listen to them. No power. A lie has no power over you unless you listen to it, believe it, and act on it. We don't have to be, subject to the deadly voices of deception. We don't have to be subject to them. We can be subject to the voices of life and suffering and and and what? How do I make something out of that distraction? We can be. We can listen to the voices that have the power of life that breathed life in us. The the tongue has both the power of life and death, depending on what we listen to. Now, let's apply that. We know that, God is speaking to us. The voice that he's speaking in, we can hear. But if we listen to what we want to hear rather than what we need to hear, we can be led astray. Now, all of you know this story in the news or most everybody, certainly all smart sports fans recognize this face. This is a this is a nice young man who wanted to believe something that wasn't true. He had another fella, another fellow Samoan who who was, who perpetrated a hoax on him. And the hoax was this other Samoan pretended to be a beautiful woman in love with him. And he developed this ongoing online relationship with this, football player, Manti Te'o. And the whole problem related to this man believing what he wanted to hear rather than what he needed to hear. The more we familiarize ourselves with the voice of truth, the less subject we are. To the voice of deception. The more accustomed we become to the way the truth sounds. Manti, I saw this picture and thought he was speaking to this woman. And then a young man could kind of realize why he wanted to. He wanted it to be true. He wanted the lie to be true. And the lie brought him nothing but shame. And, and sorrow. There is always the question that we are faced with. Are we going to listen to what we want to hear? Are we going to listen to what we need to hear? Certainly. This young football player needed to hear this lady is a fraud, or whoever's, telling you he's, this lady is hoax ING you. He didn't want to hear that, but he needed to hear that. He needed to hear the truth, to be relieved from the power of the lie. I'm sure he wasn't happy to hear those words. He wasn't happy to hear the words that he needed to hear. But if he kept listening to the words he wanted to hear, he would have stayed in his delusion. There is always the question, are we listening to what we need to hear, what we want to hear? It is a matter of life and death. If we're listening to the truth. It isn't always what we want to hear, but it is always what we need to hear. Again this morning our theme is in the beginning was the word, and point number one is God is never silent, and point number two is the tongue has the power of life and death. I'd like to conclude this morning from John chapter ten, verses 22 through 23. Then came the Feast of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter and Jesus was in the temple area, walking in Solomon's Colonnade, the Jews gathered around him saying, how long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly. And Jesus answered, I did tell you, but you do not believe the miracles I do in my father's name speak of me. The miracles spoke the word of God. But you do not believe, because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can snatch them out of my hand. My father has given them to me, that my father who has given them to me is greater than all. No one can snatch them out of my father's hands. And here are some provocative words. I and the father are what? One eye and the father, or one that's a life giving truth. But here's the reaction again. The Jews picked up stones to stone him. But Jesus said to them, I have shown you many great miracles from the father. For which of these do you stone me? We are not stoning you for any of these, replied the Jews, but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God. The word became flesh and dwelt among us. In the next several weeks we're going to seek to become better listeners to the word that became flesh and dwelt among us, to the voice of God. To know the voice and to trust His Word is life eternal. Heavenly father, Lord, we just come before you, and we thank you that we have your word. We thank you that we have your creation. We thank you that you speak to us through circumstances and through other people. We thank you that your spirit lives in us and speaks to our hearts and to our minds, Lord, and we even are open to you speaking to us through dreams and visions, and perhaps even through an audible voice. But however you speak, Lord, we know that life and death is at stake on who we listen to. And we pray, father, that we will just totally familiarize ourselves with your voice and it will be able to test everything according to your word. Lord, if some secular idea sounds good before we embrace it, Lord, that we would know your word well enough to compare it to knowing whether we're listening to what we need to hear or what we want to hear. We just pray, father, that you would give us that kind of discerning heart where it would really be said of us and would be totally true of us, that my sheep know my voice. In the name of Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.