YOUTH SUNDAY : HEARING GOD

 Hearing God

Created uniquely as human beings, we are crafted to hear the heart of God and the voice of God differently than the people around us. There are similarities and overarching principles to guide us in knowing how to hear God, but there are also unique ways God chooses to speak to us.

Heartwork. I like to think of creator God as an artist. He introduces himself in scripture as the creator of all things around us and he has crafted the world to run with amazing laws and rules and principles. He is an artist and the world around us is art work. The beauty of the sky, the intricacies of the human existence, the intangible qualities of love and hope and peace are all credited to God himself. 

As an artist he has crafted unique ways to speak to his children. First off he wrote the Bible for us to get a word from Him. He also created His Son Jesus so that we could learn about Jesus and see the qualities and character traits of Jesus so that we could see God's qualities and character traits in human form. God also created other people to help us hear God's voice. Literally there are endless ways that God can and does speak to us right now. He is in another dimension fully, but he chooses to pass into our earthly dimension because of his love and intention for us as his children.

1. Who does God speak to? 

Anyone who wants to listen. Anyone who can read the Bible. God doesn't just speak to church members, or church staff, or one certain denomination, or one certain race, or one certain country, or one certain political party, or one certain gender, or one certain age. He also doesn't just speak to Christians. God spoke to Saul when he was murdering Christians as a life mission. God can speak to anyone that has ears to hear. He speaks to people that are running away from their faith and running away from their calling; Moses comes to mind. God spoke to Moses when Moses was running away to the desert, and away from the call on his life. God spoke to Moses who didn't want anything to do with God. God spoke to Jonah, who then ran away. God kept speaking to Jonah until Jonah decided to listen. God speaks to anyone and everyone. You are qualified to hear God, most likely you are ruling yourself out from hearing him, not the other way around.

2. Why does God speak to us? 

God is a complete being. He is whole unto himself. He is absolutely perfect and whole with out us. He does not need us. So the reason he wants to speak to us boils down to love. God is motivated and operates in perfect love. He loved the world that He gave His only son. It says in Scripture that Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost. God speaks to us because he wants to be closer to us. He also wants to speak to us because He knows that we will be better off for it. Any time spent with God always will work out in your benefit. He cannot affect you negatively. He is perfect love and His presence will always mold you and make you more like Him. He speaks to us for our benefit out of a heart of love and affection. 

3. Why do we need him to speak to us? John 15:5-9, Matthew 4:4

John 15 is the chapter in the Bible about the vine. It says that God is the vine and we are the branches. A part from the vine we can do nothing. It also says in scripture that man cannot live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. This verse speaks to the different layers of the human being. We are not just a physical body, but we are also a spirit. So that verse says that we cannot just take care of our physical body, we cannot live by bread alone. We must live off of every word that comes from the mouth of God, which is referring to our spirit. We were literally created to need God and to hear His voice speaking to us. Without hearing Him, and without being connected to him, we are nothing. It is not a convenient add in to your life it is an absolute necessity  

4. When can he speak to us?

God can speak to us at any time. He is not a God to be silent, unless silence is the answer we need. He is not a God that only speaks to us at a certain time or on a certain day or on a certain holiday. He also doesn't require some ritual or procedure in order to hear him.

5. Where does he speak to us?

God can speak to us anywhere. It doesn't need to be in a church building, it doesn't need to be when you are alone with worship music playing. If you are willing to listen, he will speak to you anywhere. My closest times of hearing and listening to God's voice in my life have not been in a church building. Woodmans: shopping with Jesus.

6. How does God speak to us?

Firstly God speaks to us in his Word. The Bible is called the Word of God for a very obvious reason, because it is God's word to us. 

Secondly He speaks through the Holy Spirit. Some of the direct ways to hear a word through the Holy Spirit are through the gifts of the spirit which include: tongues & interpretation, a word of knowledge, a word of wisdom, prophecy, dreams and visions. 

Thirdly God likes to speak to us through other people. I believe God sometimes remains silent to our personal questions, so that we actually reach out to other people to get help in hearing God. I think if we could hear God clearly on our own with every question we ever faced or with every hard decision we ever had to decide, I think we could have the tendency to think that we don't need people. If it feels like God isn't answering your questions directly to you, reach out to other people you trust and ask them to ask God for you and with you. I think this creates such a healthy dependency on other people so that we don't become rogue Christians that think we hear God perfectly and need no one around us. That is a scary place to find yourself, and can leave you defenseless and even weary to think you have to hear God alone and never need anyone else. Yikes. 

Fourthly God speaks to our thoughts. This one is hard to explain perfectly, but the best was to describe this is when I feel God prompting me to do something and I just feel it in my gut. For me, I feel this burning fire on my neck, and this passion rise up in my stomach and I have this feeling in my heart and mind that if I don't do what I feel God is calling me to do in that moment, I will feel such regret and sadness that His will wasn't done through me. So in this instance, God isn't necessarily speaking to me through words, or in plain English, but He is placing this passion and motivation inside of me that I know it is Him leading and directing me to act. When you feel the compulsion to pray for someone, or to buy someone a meal, or to reach out to that random person that you just thought of, or you see a gift in the store and it reminds you of someone, these are all ways that God can speak to you.

Fifth way that God speaks to us is through confirmation. I believe firmly that any prophetic word or word of knowledge or wisdom that you are seeking from other people should be on par with something that you are already hearing from God. I think that the dialogue that you have with the Father should also be echoed by someone else speaking a word to you. When Matt and I pray about the new year for our family and for our goals and finances, we take an agreed amount of time a part to spend time with God and seek out His purposes for us in the coming year. What lights me up is when Matt and I share the things the Lord spoke to us individually, and the words match and line up and confirm with what we each heard separately. 

Along the same lines of confirmation, Wednesday nights we occasionally do this thing called "Hot Seat." We pick one student to sit in the hot seat, and then everyone not seated is praying and asking God for a vision, or a word or a Bible verse or something encouraging to share about the person in the "Hot Seat." There was 1 Wednesday night where 2 students showed up, Joshua and Jaelynn. I thought it would be a create learning time to do Hot Seat that night with only 2 students. Each person took a turn being the person in the hot seat, and I think I forced the students to share what they were thinking or feeling first, because what kind youth pastor wouldn't force their students to do uncomfortable things? I remember listening to Joshua and Jaelynn share the words, visions, and pictures that they were seeing, and every time at least one of us (Matt, Joe, Shelby, or me) would get the exact same picture or vision or word and it was SUCH a faith builder because it was showing us that we all can tap in to the same Spirit and that the Spirit can and DOES speak to us.  

There are so many other ways God speaks to us: nature, movies, music, drawing, etc.

7. How do we know it's God speaking to us?

This question is challenging to answer, and honestly this question bothers me and offends me, because it's not cut and dry. To me, to know that it is God speaking to us, we need to look at the fruit of what has been spoken. In Matthew 7 Jesus is talking to his disciples about True and False Prophets, and informing his disciples about how to know if what they are saying is from the Lord. Let's read Matthew 7:15-20 and see how Jesus is guiding His disciples to know if something spoken is from God or not.

Jesus gets very literal in this passage and discusses the analogy of fruit trees, and I sense that if we are hearing God speak to us we will see the fruit of God's spirit: love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness and self control. 

If what we feel God speaking to us produces bad fruit, it most likely is not from Him. For example, if you hear a voice in your head and it is making you feel anxiety, fear, shame, condemnation, terror, or doom, then most likely that isn't God speaking to you. It says in Scripture there is no more condemnation if you are in Christ. 

Now sometimes when we are being lead by God and He is asking us to do something, we might feel nervous, we might feel unsure, we might feel conviction, and those are all OK to feel. In fact sometimes when I am leading worship, which I have been doing since 8th grade, I still feel nerves inside of me right before singing or right before a prophetic word is going to be released. But at the same time of those nerves, I also feel God's peace and this urgency to do what He is prompting me to do. 

8. What do we do if we can't hear God speaking to us?

This is such a common question I get from youth and I'm sure adults feel this at times, I know I do. What do we do if we can't hear God speaking to us? What do we do when we don't feel Him speaking? The best answer I have for this is not super encouraging. When I don't hear God speaking, I keep asking. I don't just ask Him one time and then if I don't hear him answer give up. I remember asking God for something for over 10 years and then he finally answered me. It isn't our job to make God speak to us, but it is our job to keep asking Him to speak to us. We cannot control when he speaks or how he speaks. But we can control how much we ask and how often we seek it out. If you can't hear God speaking to you, keep putting good things into your heart and Spirit. If you have over filled your heart and your mind and your time with things that are not centered around God, or you haven't brought God into every area of your day to day, it will be harder to hear Him speak. 

He desires to speak to you, usually we are the ones far away not Him. The more good you put in, the more good you will get out. It is a direct proportion. The more time you spend with Him, the more familiar you will be with how He speaks. 

9. What do we do if He speaks to us and we don't like what he has to say?

This is where the rubber meets the road. This honestly is where our faith gets real. This is where we get to mature and put our feelings aside. This is where we get to actively put our faith and our trust in God above our own feelings. This is the gritty part of Christianity. When we sign up to live for Jesus, he is now the boss. He is the most perfect, loving, self-less, caring boss we could ever walk with in this life, but He gets the last word. I deplore this. I loathe this part of God. It offends my heart and my mind and my will when He answers me "incorrectly."

Don't cloak your pain or disappointment.

Most of the time when He speaks to us and we don't like what He has to say, it is usually a time that is revealing more about us and our heart and our mind than it is revealing things about God. Usually the way we react to God speaking to us show us some areas that are yet to be refined into the image of Christ. 

When you hear God speak to you and you don't like it, it is ok to say you don't like what He said. It is ok to feel the bad feelings of sadness or pain or even the feeling of being upset or angry at God. He is a tough God and doesn't mind you expressing your feelings to Him. Where we as Christians can get in trouble is when we decide to LIVE in these desolate feelings. When we decide to let our feelings taint the true qualities of God and smear the reality of who He is, that's where we have a problem. I don't want to be a room full of fake, non-emotive Christians who never feel anything bad...that is insanity. But I also don't want us to be only feeling the negative things at the expense of gripping onto God's qualities. It says in Psalm 23 that we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, it doesn't say we pitch a tent and make it our home. But it also doesn't say that we will never walk through the valley of the shadow of death. We need to be honest with ourselves about what we are feeling about what God spoke, and then ask Him to lead you through your disappointment.

10. How can we be used by God to speak to others?

First answer is to act how Jesus acted when he was walking the earth. He walked with anyone around him, he sat with sinners, he pursued the lost and broken, he cared for his family and friends. He pursued God above all else. Once those things are set in place, it's up to you to see how God wants to use you to speak to other people. Usually, the way that God is going to use you to speak to others, is going to be found in the way that you were created. A phrase Jesus keeps speaking to me these about this topic is "it is going to be easier than you think."

When I taught math at Oneida High school, I had a lot of anxiety. It was a new job, a new school I had never been too, a new phase of life. I prayed each morning on my way to school to have God use me in anyway that he wanted. I usually spent my 15 minute drive praying "against" something. I was praying against rebellion, against disobedient behaviors, against fights, against drama, against disrespect, against gossip, against anger, against any bad thing I could think of that I might face that day. There is nothing inherently wrong with praying that way, but 3 years in to teaching there, God shifted my prayers from praying against things to praying for a release of things. So instead of me trying to name every bad thing that I could possibly be facing that day, I started praying that God would release his Love, I started praying that God would release His Spirit, I started praying that God would release His Blood. Those prayers were way more impactful and way more affective and less stressful on my end. You know what happened to me after I started praying those types of prayers? I became God's love to the students and staff I came in contact with. I know that I have been created to love people! I know that I have been created to smile at people and make them feel welcome. I know I have been created to help people feel seen and heard. I just started being myself at this school, and that's how God was able to make a bigger impact in the hallways of that school. It was when I decided to simply be myself and to lean into the gifts that God placed into me. 

How can God use you to speak to others? I would answer that question and say God will use you in the areas that he has specifically made great in you. The areas that make you light up, the passion buttons in your heart and mind, those are the areas that you are going to be used to speak to others. 

Small Group Questions:

1. When was a time you know you heard God speak to you, and what happened after you knew?

2. How & when do you feel most connected to God?

3. How have you handled hearing bad news from God?

Bible Verses

John 10:27 My sheep hear my voice and follow me.

Romans 1:20 general revelation

Matthew 7:15-20 tree and fruit

Luke 18:1-7 relentless widow and the judge

Luke 11:9 Ask, seek, knock.