Hearing God's Voice - The Kind of People Who Hear God - Message 3
INTRODUCTION:
• There is no higher priority in life than the pursuit of God.
• God Himself designed us to have relationship with Him – which explains why every culture and every people group on the planet seeks to experience God.
• But, just as every road doesn’t to your destination, every road does not lead to God.
• The lesser being – man – cannot tell the greater being – God – how He is to be found.
• God determines the way.
Jesus said in John 14:6…
"I am the way, and the truth, and the life. The only way to the Father is through me.” John 14:6 New Century Version
As we seek to pursue God – we desire to hear His voice. Oh, the sweetness of the voice of the Lord. His voice is always beneficial to the hearer. He may correct you, He may discipline you, He may even warn you – but His voice and His message is always for your benefit.
We’ve discovered in scripture that only certain kind of people hear the voice of God:
• The AVAILABLE – those who are interested and desirous of hearing His voice
• The WILLING – those who, when spoken to, will do what He tells them to do
And today, we are going to focus on the third characteristic of the kind of people who hear the voice of God…
• The HUMBLE – those who see Him for Who He really is and see themselves for who they really are.
WHAT IS HUMILITY?
The Prophet Samuel describes King Saul as being… “small in your own eyes…” (1 Samuel 15:17)
To be humble – to put on humility is to…
• Distrust your own personal abilities or goodness, but to…
• Be extremely confident in the ability and goodness of God
Humility is about having accurate vision – of yourself and of God.
When you think about various people in the Bible who heard the voice of God, clearly Moses stands out as one of the top three or four.
Moses…
• Went up against the greatest world power of his time
• Lead 2 million Jews out of slavery and into freedom
• Wrote the “Law” – the first five books of the Old Testament – Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus and Deuteronomy!
• He met God face to face in the burning bush, on the mountain top and in the Tabernacle
In Numbers 12 we read of what happened to Moses’ sister Miriam went she thought she was simply dealing with her ‘brother’ ---
“(God) said, “Listen to my words: “When a prophet of the LORD is among you, I reveal myself to him in visions, I speak to him in dreams. But this is not true of my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house. With him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles; he sees the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?”” Numbers 12:6-8, NIV.
And in this same chapter where God tells Miriam that Moses is the greatest of all men, He also says of Moses…
“(Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.)” Numbers 12:3, NIV.
Humility and hearing the voice of God go hand-in-hand.
Daniel was another man who heard the voice of God as he walked in humility. Daniel 10:12 says…
“Then he continued, “Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them.” Daniel 10:12, NIV.
Humility opens the channels of our ears to hear the voice of God.
I’m going to share one of the most frightening scriptures in the all the Bible with you. It is in Psalms 138:6. Look it up.
“Though the LORD is on high, he looks upon the lowly, but the proud he knows from afar.” Psalms 138:6, NIV.
The God’s Word Translation puts that verse this way:
“Even though the LORD is high above, he sees humble people [close up], and he recognizes arrogant people from a distance.” Psalms 138:6 GWT
God is intimate with the humble, distant from the arrogant.
Of all the sins that are the most ‘acceptable’ in the church today, religious pride tops the list. We value worldly success over humble faithfulness.
Prideful people, self-sufficient and soulish can’t hear the Lord. In fact, they cannot hear from God because somewhere deep inside they really don’t think that they need to hear from Him. They’ve got life figured out. They don’t need revelation – they have reason. Is it any wonder that there is so little revelation in the American church today? Somehow we’ve come to believe that we do not need to hear God’s voice in revelation, we’ve have things worked out. We have principles. We have a plan. We have a steps …
I started thinking about all the books that talk about ‘steps to’ this or that and I did an Amazon search for all the books with the word ‘steps’ in the title. Are you ready for this: 25,411 book titles! And then I did another search on a Christian book site – here are some sample titles….
One Step to be Closer to Jesus
Three Steps Forward, Two Steps Backward
Four Steps to Evangelism
Five Steps to Complete Salvation
Six Steps to Spiritual Revival
Seven Steps to Receive the Holy Spirit
Eight Steps to Intimacy with God
Nine Steps to Deliverance
And the number game goes all the way up to…
Fifty-two Steps to Success From the Bible
My favorite book title was: “The Eleven Steps to Take in Case of Nuclear Holocaust”
Did you know that there are ‘step’ books about success that number from one all the way to 25!
One step to success
Two steps to success
Three Steps to success and on and on and on
So – I’m announcing the title to my new book: “The One Step to Success Book That Explains Why all the other steps to success books don’t work and what you can do about it”
Here’s the point: While some of these books might have spiritual value, you simply cannot develop a personal intimate love relationship that results in hearing the voice of the Lord based upon following a man-made set of steps!
God didn’t create you to be a machine. He made you a person. And He calls you to humble yourself before Him and to be available to Him and willing to do what he says! Relationship!
So long as we cling to our reasoning and our skill sets – standing arrogantly in the face of God and saying “No, thanks” to relationship – we will never hear the voice of the Lord!
• Humility doesn’t deny your worth, your abilities or your strengths. God has given each of us amazing gifts that are to be used for His glory! But humility freely recognizes the infinite superiority of the character of God.
• Humble people do not rely on their best efforts, they give their best effort as an offering to the Lord, utterly dependant upon Him to determine the outcome!
• Humble people recognize that everything of value comes from their relationship with Christ.
“If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5, NIV.
• Humble people are confident people. But their confidence is placed properly. Humble people are confident in the mercy of God rather than in the intentions and efforts of man.
“It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.” Romans 9:16, NIV.
• Do you trust God to work things out in your best interests?
• Is He on your side?
• Are His plans for your life superior to your plans for your life?
He is a God of mercy. Be confident in His mercy, not your abilities!
• Humble people put their confidence in the ability of the Holy Spirit to speak, not in their ability to hear.
Jesus said: “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.” John 16:13
• Humble people put their confidence in the ability of Christ to lead, not in their ability to follow.
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” John 10:11
The Bible tells us that your best efforts are like filthy rags. When it comes to self-sufficiency and soulish perfection, we really are dressed in the Emperor’s New Clothes! We are naked.
But the good news is that Christ’s best will clothe you in glory and beauty! Trust Him to lead.
• Humble people are willing to associate with people of lower position.
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.” Philippians 2:3
“But I don’t want to hang out with people like that! I want to be with people like me…” – Listen to me: Do you want to become like Christ? Because if you do, hear what God said in Isaiah 57…
“For this is what the high and lofty One says--he who lives for ever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.” Isaiah 57:15
Not only does God hang out with the humble – but He finds the humble to be His favorites…
“This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.” Isaiah 66:2
Do you desire to hear the voice of God? GET LOW TO THE GROUND AND LISTEN!
So – where do we begin?
Matthew 23:12 gives us a starting point and hope:
“For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” Matthew 23:12
Humble yourself and God will exalt you!
The word “exalts” refers in part to the idea of welcome and invitation. Humble yourself and you’ll be invited in to the Presence of God! You are welcome in His presence! You are invited in! You are just the kind of guest He wants in His house.
How can I overcome the pride and arrogance that I’ve built my life upon?
You cannot. But God will if you’ll let Him.
“Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” James 4:5-10
God put His spirit within you, and that Spirit will not be satisfied with prideful, self-sufficiency. The Spirit ‘envies intensely’ that you would be in fellowship with your Father in Heaven! And so, God pours out His grace!
His Grace enables you to overcome self-sufficient, soulish, autonomous arrogant living and to become humble before the Lord!
You desire to be humble?
You desire to hear the voice of God?
Then don’t depend upon yourself to become this – depend upon God’s grace to empower you!
CONCLUSION:
Are you hungry for the presence of the Lord to become REAL in your life?
Do you desire to hear the sweet, sweet voice of the Lord!?
Make yourself – by God’s grace – fully available to Him: “I am yours Lord – 24/7 – I will seek You with all that is within me!”
Be willing – by God’s grace – to do whatever He asks of You. Stop questioning and start obeying. Have you done the last thing God asked you to do? As a very beginning point: Does 10% of your paycheck get tithed back to the Lord? Until you settle that basic issue – your hearing will be blocked.
Three Reasons Why Tithing is a Vital Part of Our Christian Development:
1. Tithing causes you to trust God in a very practical way.
2. Tithing causes you to restructure your priorities into Kingdom Priorities.
3. Tithing demonstrates God’s care for you.
Do you live in humility before Your God and man? Ask for His grace to empower you to be humble like Jesus!
What kind of person does God speak to?
We know now don’t we.
Last question: What kind of person do you desire to be?
And as we move towards this – take heart:
“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” Revelation 3:20, NIV.
• There is no higher priority in life than the pursuit of God.
• God Himself designed us to have relationship with Him – which explains why every culture and every people group on the planet seeks to experience God.
• But, just as every road doesn’t to your destination, every road does not lead to God.
• The lesser being – man – cannot tell the greater being – God – how He is to be found.
• God determines the way.
Jesus said in John 14:6…
"I am the way, and the truth, and the life. The only way to the Father is through me.” John 14:6 New Century Version
As we seek to pursue God – we desire to hear His voice. Oh, the sweetness of the voice of the Lord. His voice is always beneficial to the hearer. He may correct you, He may discipline you, He may even warn you – but His voice and His message is always for your benefit.
We’ve discovered in scripture that only certain kind of people hear the voice of God:
• The AVAILABLE – those who are interested and desirous of hearing His voice
• The WILLING – those who, when spoken to, will do what He tells them to do
And today, we are going to focus on the third characteristic of the kind of people who hear the voice of God…
• The HUMBLE – those who see Him for Who He really is and see themselves for who they really are.
WHAT IS HUMILITY?
The Prophet Samuel describes King Saul as being… “small in your own eyes…” (1 Samuel 15:17)
To be humble – to put on humility is to…
• Distrust your own personal abilities or goodness, but to…
• Be extremely confident in the ability and goodness of God
Humility is about having accurate vision – of yourself and of God.
When you think about various people in the Bible who heard the voice of God, clearly Moses stands out as one of the top three or four.
Moses…
• Went up against the greatest world power of his time
• Lead 2 million Jews out of slavery and into freedom
• Wrote the “Law” – the first five books of the Old Testament – Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus and Deuteronomy!
• He met God face to face in the burning bush, on the mountain top and in the Tabernacle
In Numbers 12 we read of what happened to Moses’ sister Miriam went she thought she was simply dealing with her ‘brother’ ---
“(God) said, “Listen to my words: “When a prophet of the LORD is among you, I reveal myself to him in visions, I speak to him in dreams. But this is not true of my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house. With him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles; he sees the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?”” Numbers 12:6-8, NIV.
And in this same chapter where God tells Miriam that Moses is the greatest of all men, He also says of Moses…
“(Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.)” Numbers 12:3, NIV.
Humility and hearing the voice of God go hand-in-hand.
Daniel was another man who heard the voice of God as he walked in humility. Daniel 10:12 says…
“Then he continued, “Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them.” Daniel 10:12, NIV.
Humility opens the channels of our ears to hear the voice of God.
I’m going to share one of the most frightening scriptures in the all the Bible with you. It is in Psalms 138:6. Look it up.
“Though the LORD is on high, he looks upon the lowly, but the proud he knows from afar.” Psalms 138:6, NIV.
The God’s Word Translation puts that verse this way:
“Even though the LORD is high above, he sees humble people [close up], and he recognizes arrogant people from a distance.” Psalms 138:6 GWT
God is intimate with the humble, distant from the arrogant.
Of all the sins that are the most ‘acceptable’ in the church today, religious pride tops the list. We value worldly success over humble faithfulness.
Prideful people, self-sufficient and soulish can’t hear the Lord. In fact, they cannot hear from God because somewhere deep inside they really don’t think that they need to hear from Him. They’ve got life figured out. They don’t need revelation – they have reason. Is it any wonder that there is so little revelation in the American church today? Somehow we’ve come to believe that we do not need to hear God’s voice in revelation, we’ve have things worked out. We have principles. We have a plan. We have a steps …
I started thinking about all the books that talk about ‘steps to’ this or that and I did an Amazon search for all the books with the word ‘steps’ in the title. Are you ready for this: 25,411 book titles! And then I did another search on a Christian book site – here are some sample titles….
One Step to be Closer to Jesus
Three Steps Forward, Two Steps Backward
Four Steps to Evangelism
Five Steps to Complete Salvation
Six Steps to Spiritual Revival
Seven Steps to Receive the Holy Spirit
Eight Steps to Intimacy with God
Nine Steps to Deliverance
And the number game goes all the way up to…
Fifty-two Steps to Success From the Bible
My favorite book title was: “The Eleven Steps to Take in Case of Nuclear Holocaust”
Did you know that there are ‘step’ books about success that number from one all the way to 25!
One step to success
Two steps to success
Three Steps to success and on and on and on
So – I’m announcing the title to my new book: “The One Step to Success Book That Explains Why all the other steps to success books don’t work and what you can do about it”
Here’s the point: While some of these books might have spiritual value, you simply cannot develop a personal intimate love relationship that results in hearing the voice of the Lord based upon following a man-made set of steps!
God didn’t create you to be a machine. He made you a person. And He calls you to humble yourself before Him and to be available to Him and willing to do what he says! Relationship!
So long as we cling to our reasoning and our skill sets – standing arrogantly in the face of God and saying “No, thanks” to relationship – we will never hear the voice of the Lord!
• Humility doesn’t deny your worth, your abilities or your strengths. God has given each of us amazing gifts that are to be used for His glory! But humility freely recognizes the infinite superiority of the character of God.
• Humble people do not rely on their best efforts, they give their best effort as an offering to the Lord, utterly dependant upon Him to determine the outcome!
• Humble people recognize that everything of value comes from their relationship with Christ.
“If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5, NIV.
• Humble people are confident people. But their confidence is placed properly. Humble people are confident in the mercy of God rather than in the intentions and efforts of man.
“It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.” Romans 9:16, NIV.
• Do you trust God to work things out in your best interests?
• Is He on your side?
• Are His plans for your life superior to your plans for your life?
He is a God of mercy. Be confident in His mercy, not your abilities!
• Humble people put their confidence in the ability of the Holy Spirit to speak, not in their ability to hear.
Jesus said: “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.” John 16:13
• Humble people put their confidence in the ability of Christ to lead, not in their ability to follow.
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” John 10:11
The Bible tells us that your best efforts are like filthy rags. When it comes to self-sufficiency and soulish perfection, we really are dressed in the Emperor’s New Clothes! We are naked.
But the good news is that Christ’s best will clothe you in glory and beauty! Trust Him to lead.
• Humble people are willing to associate with people of lower position.
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.” Philippians 2:3
“But I don’t want to hang out with people like that! I want to be with people like me…” – Listen to me: Do you want to become like Christ? Because if you do, hear what God said in Isaiah 57…
“For this is what the high and lofty One says--he who lives for ever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.” Isaiah 57:15
Not only does God hang out with the humble – but He finds the humble to be His favorites…
“This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.” Isaiah 66:2
Do you desire to hear the voice of God? GET LOW TO THE GROUND AND LISTEN!
So – where do we begin?
Matthew 23:12 gives us a starting point and hope:
“For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” Matthew 23:12
Humble yourself and God will exalt you!
The word “exalts” refers in part to the idea of welcome and invitation. Humble yourself and you’ll be invited in to the Presence of God! You are welcome in His presence! You are invited in! You are just the kind of guest He wants in His house.
How can I overcome the pride and arrogance that I’ve built my life upon?
You cannot. But God will if you’ll let Him.
“Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” James 4:5-10
God put His spirit within you, and that Spirit will not be satisfied with prideful, self-sufficiency. The Spirit ‘envies intensely’ that you would be in fellowship with your Father in Heaven! And so, God pours out His grace!
His Grace enables you to overcome self-sufficient, soulish, autonomous arrogant living and to become humble before the Lord!
You desire to be humble?
You desire to hear the voice of God?
Then don’t depend upon yourself to become this – depend upon God’s grace to empower you!
CONCLUSION:
Are you hungry for the presence of the Lord to become REAL in your life?
Do you desire to hear the sweet, sweet voice of the Lord!?
Make yourself – by God’s grace – fully available to Him: “I am yours Lord – 24/7 – I will seek You with all that is within me!”
Be willing – by God’s grace – to do whatever He asks of You. Stop questioning and start obeying. Have you done the last thing God asked you to do? As a very beginning point: Does 10% of your paycheck get tithed back to the Lord? Until you settle that basic issue – your hearing will be blocked.
Three Reasons Why Tithing is a Vital Part of Our Christian Development:
1. Tithing causes you to trust God in a very practical way.
2. Tithing causes you to restructure your priorities into Kingdom Priorities.
3. Tithing demonstrates God’s care for you.
Do you live in humility before Your God and man? Ask for His grace to empower you to be humble like Jesus!
What kind of person does God speak to?
We know now don’t we.
Last question: What kind of person do you desire to be?
And as we move towards this – take heart:
“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” Revelation 3:20, NIV.
posted by Doug Love at 4:50 PM
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