Discerning His Voice By Knowing His Word

Good morning, church. Hello again.

Hey, I need somebody to cart this table out for me when I'm teaching. Can

I get any volunteer for that? Me.

There you go. Thank you. So service

opportunities. Okay. Anybody use our

children's ministry here? Don't they do an amazing job?

Listen, they need help, okay? I know my

kids, I send them down there, they have to go through it down there. So

if you have a heart to serve the children, we— they would love to have

you. Also, guys, we need like 8 people

to help us join our tech team and handle video

and livestream and stuff like that. If we get 8 people, you would only have

to serve one time per month in the second service. So if

that interests you, please come see me after service. And I do want to make

an announcement. Um, next Sunday is our baby dedication Sunday.

Uh, tomorrow is the last day to sign up for that. And on the

27th is our single service baptismal service.

And next week is the last time, or the end of this week is the

last time to sign up for that. So if any of those things

If that would pique your interest, please come up and see us or sign up

on the app. Let's pray.

Thank you for the key change, Michael. That was cool. God, I thank you

for your

word that you have spoken. Lord, your word is

beneficial to us for teaching and

reproving and correcting and training In righteousness.

It is here to complete us and equip us for good

works, Father, in our lives of faith and love

and righteousness and good works, God, are all to bring you glory,

Lord. So Holy Spirit, we just pray

that you would give us a love and a

trust for every word

That you have spoken. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

So when Pastor Barbie told the teaching team that we're going to be

going into a series called Discerning His Voice, one of the

teachers raised their hand and said, is there any particular topic or

nuance about his voice that you want each of us to cover? And she simply

said, I want you to discern his voice

when coming up with that. So it's like some real Mr. Miyagi

stuff she did there, you know. And as I prayed and considered what I

might teach regarding his voice, a memory came to me from over a

decade ago when I was serving as a youth leader here at

Springhouse. And we had a night where we asked all the youth to get up

and share one testimony, something that the Lord was doing in their lives, as

well as one prayer, something they were really believing in faith

for. And I remember several kids getting up one after another, and

all of them basically Many of them, not all of them, but many of them

basically had the same exact prayer to

audibly and clearly hear the voice of God.

One of them, this one broke my heart, was asking

why God wasn't speaking to them anymore.

These were not careless prayers. These were not throwaway prayers. They weren't prayers

meant to sound good. There was sincerity in them. There

was desperation in them. I knew these kids. I knew the challenges they

were facing at home, the challenges they were facing at school every

day. I knew that the, the thoughts and the feelings they were trying to

process through a kingdom worldview, the temptations that were coming

at them from the culture every day. And when they were asking God to

speak to them, I sensed that they were asking in a

way that their faith depended on it. They were saying,

God, if you would, if I could just hear your voice,

I would be, I would know, and I would be settled in my spirit in

this wilderness that I'm going through, that I can get through. And that

night I went home, I began to think, how could I, how in the

world could I help encourage and minister to these kids that were

so desperate to hear from God? And I remember at some

point this question came to me.

Not that question. Join us, question mark.

Do I have slides, Pastor Will? Thank you.

Is the problem that God is speaking to us less, or is the

problem that we are listening less to what God has already spoken

and therefore unable to distinguish between what is his voice and what is not?

There's this warning in Matthew 12:38. The Pharisees and

Matthew 12:38

scribes had Jesus standing right in front of them, and they

demanded a sign from him. They needed to feel

more and hear more and experience more to be sure

he was who he claimed he was. And because of chasing

that sensation, they actually missed the

gift of Jesus standing right in front of them.

And I sense that in our culture today, we are sometimes, guys,

tempted to overspiritualize and incorrectly

categorize and attribute his voice to all

kinds of thoughts and actions when it's actually

more our feelings that are leading us.

I was just talking to a friend of mine last week who told me a

story. Uh, one of his buddies got a call from a girl and this girl

said, the Holy Spirit is telling me I'm not supposed to date you.

The very next week, That guy got a call from that girl again and said,

the Holy Spirit is now telling me I'm supposed to date you.

And here's a freebie for the youth group kids. If anyone

ever says that to you, all you have to say is,

the Holy Spirit didn't tell me that. Okay?

This kind of thing happens all over the church today, and I just

want to be careful that we are not chasing a sensation

or an experience or an audible voice to the point where we forget

Altogether, that we have the gift of his

word right at our fingertips. We

have the gift of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, who

according to John 14:26 teaches us all

John 14:26

things, brings to our remembrance all that Jesus has

said, or God has said. And I want to be clear about this up

front. I don't want it to get twisted. This teaching is not a

commentary on whether or not God still audibly speaks.

Okay, it's not a commentary on that. I'm 0%

interested putting him in a box like that. He can do as he

pleases. But I think of that youth that

was crying out, God, why aren't you speaking to me anymore? And I

want to encourage, like, any heart that may be here today asking

that same question, there are hundreds of

thousands of words of scripture

breathed out by God, accessible to each one of us.

2 Timothy 3:16. These are not dead words.

2 Timothy 3:16

The effectiveness of these words are not confined to a culture and

time. They are alive and active and sharper than any two-edged

sword, according to Hebrews 4:12. So I believe

Hebrews 4:12

our best hope for discerning his voice starts

with knowing and loving and trusting what

God has already spoken and having affection

for him who spoke them as well. Today,

if I encountered someone who was struggling in that way to hear his voice, I'd

probably ask them what their prayer life is like. I'd say, are you making—

like, when you— are you just giving up prayers, sending up prayers, and then going

about your day? What is your Bible reading like? Are you going through the Bible

and then just giving time for him to speak to

you through his word? These are all things, guys, that

we really have to fight for. I know I

do. My attention is always being pulled in all kinds of different

directions, especially father of 2 young

kids. Uh, my favorite time to get alone with the Lord and read his

word is very early in the morning before my family wakes up. So

I get up, make breakfast, get my coffee, get the word open, and

right about that time I sit down, these 2 happy little

5-year-olds, a 5-year-old and a 7-year-old, the most extroverted 7-year-old you'll

ever meet, come bebopping down the stairs and they're ready to go,

right? So then I make their breakfast, get them situated, go back to the word,

and now I'm trying to read Isaiah or something with cartoons and

wrestling and yelling in the background.

And I don't remember what comedian it was that said this, but he was

referencing the advice they give parents of a newborn baby.

And they say, just sleep when the baby sleeps. And anybody who has

a baby knows that that's impossible cuz you have so many other things that you

have to do. And his follow-up was like, yeah, and I'll do the taxes when

the baby does the taxes. And I'll fold the

laundry when the baby folds the laundry. In this sense, it's, I'll read Isaiah

when the baby reads Isaiah, you know, but

making and guarding that time for prayer in his word.

is so important. It shows what we value. It's important because it

allows us to better tune our ears to him.

His word is clear, guys, to tell us his

voice is not the only one that we will encounter in our

lives. And I'd probably argue that the

voices that aren't his are much easier to hear on a daily basis.

We experience news and information more than any other

generation before. endless social media feeds, these

voices constantly promoting unthinkable,

unspeakable evil, promoting, aiming, and tempting us.

Voices that even claim to be in Christ but share

a gospel that is not in alignment with his word.

His word tells us that we are to test these voices.

His word tells us that we are to test the words of prophets. His word

tells us that our own hearts and thoughts deceive us. So this

is what I'm getting at. In a world full of

noises and voices and feelings and

influencers and influence and devices and vices

and uncertainty, the infallible and final

authority of God's word is absolutely certain.

It's a sure thing. Knowing his word,

loving his word, Trusting his word. It's critical

for every believer because every single voice that

we encounter has the potential

to echo that first voice in the garden

that planted doubt in the heart of man and woman

with one simple question: did God

really say? Did God really say?

The strategy of the enemy has been clear since the beginning:

plant doubt that God has spoken, distort our understanding of

what God has spoken, and by all costs cause us to lose

trust that what God has spoken is

absolutely best for us. So all of these realities

are visible in our text today. Uh, we're gonna be looking at Matthew

4. So if you brought your Bibles, please turn there with us. Jesus

practically teaches us some really important ways to discern what is and isn't God's voice.

through the use of his word. And also Jesus himself

identifies himself as the living word, and he's made the way for us to

turn our ears toward God once again. So this is Matthew 4.

Do I got it? There we go. Then Jesus was

led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

And after fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry. And the

tempter came and said to him, If you are the Son of God, command

these stones to become loaves of bread. But he answered, it is

written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that

comes from the mouth of God. Then the

devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the

temple and said to him, if you are the Son of God,

then throw yourself down, for it is written, he will

command his angels concerning you, and on their hands they

will bear you up lest you strike your foot against the stone. Jesus

said to him, again, it is written, you shall not put the Lord

your God to the test. Again,

the devil took him to a very high mountain, showed him all the

kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, all

of these I will give to you if you will fall down and worship me.

Then Jesus said to him, be gone, Satan! For it is

written, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you

serve. Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and

were ministering to him. And Luke 4 has a parallel telling of

this story that ends with verse 13 and says this: When

the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him

until an opportune time. So we see from these scriptures,

there is a crystal clear picture of the

supernatural reality of spiritual warfare that is in

motion around us at all times.

Supernatural reality of spiritual warfare right now in this very

moment, tempting to distract us away from worship,

distract us away from what the Lord has to say.

We see that our enemy looks for these opportune times to tempt. He does

it here when Jesus is weak, when Jesus is hungry and

suffering through the wilderness. We should have no doubt that he would

look for those moments in our lives as well. And this is what the Apostle

Peter reminds us: be sober-minded, be

watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a

roaring lion seeking someone to devour. So we rejoice in

a few things. The enemy is not

all-powerful. Okay, we rejoice in that. The

enemy is not omnipresent like God. Okay,

he can do nothing outside of God's sovereign

will and permission according to scripture. But

Peter here is reminding us we should be mindful of his

existence. We should be watchful of his

tactics and his methods and his goals as they are revealed to

us through scripture. And he's using the same method here on

Jesus in the wilderness that he did in the garden all those years

ago. And he still uses on us today. If you are the

Son of God, like God says you are. So this

moment is following the baptism of Jesus, where God says, this is my

Son. So the devil is immediately saying,

did God really say? Again, casting doubt on what

God has already and really said. We notice here,

Jesus' response to Satan with every

temptation is the word of God. What God

has already spoken. Okay. The first temptation to turn

stones into bread is an appeal to

Jesus's God-given desire to eat. This is something

we all have. So the enemy likes to try to invert

and pervert desires that God himself has put in us,

put in each one of us. God has given us the good desire

to delight in food and drink, The enemy tempts us to

overconsumption. God has created us to be

worshipers. The enemy tempts us to bring worship

upon ourselves. God has given us the good desire for

physical intimacy within the covenant of

marriage. The enemy tempts us to pursue pleasures

of that gift outside the boundaries of what God has

designed it for. And that list just goes on and on and

on. And on, on. This is what I noticed about

Jesus. He does not go to God and

ask God to make exceptions for his or to his

word. He trusts that God's word speaks what is best.

We are not called to bring the word of God into submission to our

desires. We are called to submit our desires to the

word of God. We are not called to bring the word

of God into submission to our desires. We're called to submit

our desires to the word of God. I once heard this story,

it's actually last week, uh, of a pastor that was interviewing for a

staff position at a church. And he got all the way through the interviewing process

and he got that last interview with the senior pastor. And the senior

pastor was asking him about his home life, like it was about his wife. And

the guy said, Well, me and my partner, we're not married because we don't believe

in marriage in the traditional sense, but we're committed to each other. We

love each other. We're going to live with each other forever. We already live with

each other. And you know what? We prayed about it and

we feel peace. And the lead pastor, no joke,

had to look him in the eye and said, I don't know what voice

gave you that peace, but it certainly wasn't God's. Okay.

Here's what God's voice sounds like regarding this. 1 Corinthians 7:9,

1 Corinthians 7:9

if they cannot exercise self-control, then they should marry, for

it is better to marry than to burn with passion. So this is

a good takeaway. The Holy Spirit will not lead

us in opposition to the words that God himself has breathed

out for us. The Holy Spirit will not lead us in

opposition to the words that God has breathed out for us.

And one of the interesting things

through this, and we don't— I don't have time to make all the connections, but

Jesus is replying using Deuteronomy 6 and

8, which is where we find Israel struggling through the wilderness as

well. So we have all these amazing parallels of the garden and

Israel struggling through the wilderness, and now Jesus in the wilderness.

And this is the arc of the Redemptive story.

It's showing us, guys, that Jesus will stand

faithfully where Adam failed. Jesus will

stand faithfully where Israel failed.

Jesus will stand faithfully where we all

fail as well. Jesus's second temptation,

something that I see really affecting and

challenging the church and lives of

believers today, and that is scripture that

is misquoted, misapplied and used out of

context. Matthew 4:6, Satan says— he shifts

Matthew 4:6

now— it is written, and begins quoting Psalm

Psalms 91:11

91:11. That should floor us. That should

bring us pause.

Satan knows scripture well enough to quote it

and use it against us deceptively.

So it isn't always just like the obvious lies that we need to test

against the word. Many times it's subtle omissions,

distortions of truth that we need to be testing

against God's word. When we pull up Psalm 91:11, and I'm going to

Psalms 91:11

add verse 12 to it, 'cause I think it's pretty interesting. This is what I

see. For he will command his angels concerning you to

guard you in all your ways. They will lift you up in their hands.

So that you will not strike your foot against the stone. You will tread on

the lion and the cobra. You will trample the great

lion and the serpent. First of all, super

convenient that Satan did not go to verse 12 in this.

Super convenient. Secondly, within the

verse that he quoted, he skipped guard you in all your ways.

And that word, uh, word ways there is the Hebrew word Derek. It's not

connected to the name that we know Derek, but figuratively it, it

reflects Uh, it, um, connects to God's divine path

for us, his ordered steps for us. So Psalm

91 is not telling us to go and throw ourselves

in front of lions and serpents in order to force God's hand

of protection and provision so then we can learn to trust him.

Okay. It's a promise

that we can trust God to provide provision and

protection In his wisdom as he orders our

steps and in his timing and not ours.

And what I love about this is at the end of Matthew 4, the

angels do in fact come and minister to Jesus

in God's timing. So

simply hearing someone quote scripture is not enough

to know that what they are saying is from God. The question

is not only is this in the Bible, the question is, is that what the

Bible means when that is said?

And that this, guys, is like one of the reasons you often hear us up

here say, Lord, will it— will you let anything that is of me fall

away? We are fallible. Okay.

But we also say, test every word that we say.

Okay. You should be doing that. We all wanna be students of the word.

And we have to contend with this kind of thing a lot in today's culture

because we live in what I like to call catchphrase Christianity

culture. This is the

condensing or watering down of biblical truth

into these small, palatable,

marketable, easy-to-retain catchphrases

that, in my opinion, are just unable to properly communicate the

scope of the truth in scripture. So how many of

us have heard this phrase, God will not give you more than you can handle?

See, here's the deal. Everybody laughs at that, but nobody raises their hand.

In first service, like, no one raised their hand, and I thought I was crazy

and I was gonna have to take it off. But then when I asked it

again, like, 20 people raised their hands. So let me ask again, how

many of us have heard the phrase, God will not give you more than you

can handle? Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord. I thought I was

crazy. We'll go to point 3. No. So this is what cracks

me up. Taking that in concept, somebody goes up to

Job, right? Says, brother Job,

you're going through it, man. Like, I know what happened to your

animals, stolen, killed. I know what happened to your

servants, your family taken out in the most horrible way.

Your wife is all crazy and, and mad at you and all this

stuff. And also all these sores and these boils, but I've got some good news.

Good news, man. Be encouraged.

The Lord would not give you more than you can handle. That's

crazy. Don't say that.

That's crazy.

Sometimes it's just best to be quiet and hurt with people.

Compassion. Now that phrase is really well-intentioned.

It's not like the same heart that Satan is using. But we

have to be very careful because depending on how, when, and when

we use that phrase and what we mean under the surface, that may not be

truly consistent with God's voice in scripture. Here's why I say that.

This is 2 Corinthians 1:8-9.

2 Corinthians 1:8–9

For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction

we experienced in Asia. For we were so

utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of

life itself. So this thing that's happening to us,

so beyond our strength, we wanted to die. That

sounds like beyond what they can handle. Indeed, we felt

we had received the sentence of death. This feels like a death sentence,

but this happened that we might not rely on ourselves, but on

God who raises the dead. So

with that, it feels like Paul is saying, you know what, he does allow

more than we can handle. And when he does it, he is allowing it with

a divine purpose in mind that we might not rely on

our own ability to overcome or handle

anything, but we might rely on his presence to sustain

us. Using scripture catchphrases about

scripture out of context may give us a sense of temporary

encouragement, but it cannot give us long-term sustenance

that comes from the truth of the word of God.

And that appears to be consistent with what the enemy is

going after here. Every chance he gets, he wants to

misdirect and take our attention away from God who can sustain

us and turn our attention towards temporary,

momentary satisfaction. So about 13 or

14 years ago, I was newly saved

and I was just going through the most incredibly difficult,

spiritually challenging season of suffering.

And I was suffering through things that certainly felt like more than I could handle.

And because I was so new to the Lord and new to his word, I

really didn't know anything about what the word said regarding my

suffering or how to process it. And someone came along and shared

this verse with me. This is James 1:2-4.

James 1:2–4

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various

kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.

And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete,

lacking in nothing. And when I heard that, it pierced my

heart. I knew this is an important verse— verses. I need to

hold on to this. But honestly, I was in such a fog

of what I was going through. I really didn't know what to do with that

to help me through. Okay. So I remember going to Pastor Wayne.

Everybody needs a Pastor Wayne in their life. Okay. And

asking him about it and him just patiently walking me through those

verses. It kind of felt like, uh, in Acts there's an Ethiopian

man who's trying to read the book of Isaiah and Philip hears this and runs

over to him and says, do you understand what you're reading? And he goes, how

can I understand it if nobody guides me through this? Like, we need

people to guide us through these things, being led

by the Holy Spirit, of course. And Pastor Wayne was doing that. He was showing

me the scripture is clear to say here, there

are joys and there are trials. God

intends for these trials to produce a fruit in you that you might not

otherwise get if you weren't going through this.

And he gave special attention to the count it all joy thing, and he gave

me some real practical application here. He said, get a

pen and paper, write down joy at the top of one

column and trials at the top of one column. Write down all your joys

and then all of your trials, and then take all your trials and

literally move them over to the joy column.

Count it all up. Count it all joy. And give thanks to

God because the struggles and the suffering

that you're going through is not meaningless.

And that was so meaningful for me because

he wasn't diminishing or discounting my trials down

to something that I could just get over myself with enough

willpower. He was simply pointing me to the word.

The word shows that my suffering has purpose, that God is not

distant from it, and that he is walking with

me through it. This is evident in Matthew 4, because we remember the

Holy Spirit led Jesus into this wilderness. I have

no doubt that the Holy Spirit was with him this whole time.

God's word studied and shared and taught and

understood in proper context is

sustenance.

Life-sustaining. Those— that truth, those truths that Pastor Wayne helped me in have

served me through multiple times rough

patches and suffering that I've gone through in my life. Man shall not live on

bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.

So when I looked up that phrase, God won't give you more than you can

handle, try to figure out where that comes from, my searches

suggested it was most likely some amalgamation of

1 Corinthians 10:12-14, which says this.

1 Corinthians 10:12–14

Maybe. There we go. Therefore, let anyone who

thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.

God is faithful, and he will not let you be

tempted beyond your ability. But with the

temptation, he will also provide the way of escape,

that you may be able to endure it. And therefore, my beloved,

flee from idolatry. So we

can see where that idea of that phrase comes from. We read those

verses, we see it's more about our temptation than it is our suffering,

which brings us back to Matthew 4. And

we notice here that in God's faithfulness,

he has changed our ability in some way to be able

to choose God and flee from idols that we didn't have

before the cross. And his faithfulness

provided the way of escape. And I want to point out that that is singular

and not plural. The way of escape.

So not overcoming temptation in my own

strength, of course, but through Christ in me.

In the final temptation of Jesus in Matthew 4,

Satan takes Jesus to a very high mountain, shows him the

kingdoms of the world and their glory, and says this: All these I

will give to you if you will fall down and worship me.

This is what we need to understand. Jesus,

prophesied Messiah, King of Kings, Lord of Lords,

these kingdoms and this glory have all been appointed and promised

to Him by His Father. But Satan is

tempting Jesus in a very subtle

and sinister way.

Satan is suggesting that there is a way To have all the

kingdoms and all of the glory without any sacrifice.

A crown without a cross, glory

without suffering, kingdom without obedience.

And this is the voice, the lie of the enemy that the people of God

have bought into far too often.

To have the benefits of Christ without embracing the call

to sacrifice and joyful obedience in him,

as Pastor Wayne led us last week, chasing the living

water but forsaking the fountain.

Jesus's response to this lie: Begone, Satan!

For it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only

shall you serve. Now Jesus here is quoting Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy 6:13

6:13, and that verse falls in the middle of an address

to God's people Israel, where it actually starts in verse 4. And this

is what it says: Hear,

O Israel! Hear, O Israel! The Lord our

God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your

God with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with

all of your might. So the first directive given in this

address to those who are being called to hear the voice of their Father

And respond to his voice is to turn our hearts and our

thoughts and our affections to him and worship.

So Jesus this whole time has not

been showing us how to overcome sin by

Bible memory verses. Okay? It's much

deeper than that. This was not a supernatural

JBQ competition.

Jesus's words, God's words flowing through Jesus,

were flowing from a heart that not only knew and

trusted the words of his Father, but he also found

supreme satisfaction in the Father

himself. John Piper says this: sin is

what we do when our hearts are not satisfied in God.

No one sins out of duty or obligation.

None of us wake up and go, I need to sin today. Let me get

that off my checklist. We sin because it feels good

and it holds some promise of happiness. John

Piper continues, I know of no other way to triumph over

sin long-term than to gain a distaste for it because of a

superior satisfaction in God.

That's what I want. That's what I

want for all of us— superior

satisfaction in God.

The temptations that Christ faced in Matthew

4 was not the end of the

temptations that he would face. That voice

that left and was waiting for that opportune time

comes back again at the cross

with that same lie again. Matthew

Matthew 27:40

27:40. If you are the Son of God,

come down from that cross, throw yourself

down. Guys, I'm

so glad Jesus did not listen to that

voice. That was

not the voice of the Father.

Through his perfect sacrifice and obedience to God,

Jesus has reconciled what sin had separated. He

himself became the way for those that put their faith and trust in

him. Making a way for us to hear and

know and love and delight in the voice of our

Father again. Could I

have a few people to pray? And if you would

stand with me this morning.

If you find yourself struggling this morning to hear

God's voice, If you're struggling through the wilderness,

struggling with your love for his word, struggling

to overcome the same old temptations, the same old lies,

struggling to see the joy of the cross that was once

so clear to you, I want

to end with the voice of your Father in heaven

from Revelation 22:17. Come.

Revelation 22:17

Let the one who is thirsty come.

Let the one who wishes to take the free gift of the water

of life come. So this morning, if that's you,

please come. Let us encourage you and pray for you

that you would see the goodness of God and

put— and have joy and satisfaction in him and his word.

Let's sing.