ABIDE When He Seems Silent

Are you paying attention to the thread? Are you paying

attention to the thread? The Lord is doing things if we will pay attention and

wake up. And you know, here's the thing, it's not only don't give if you're

not supposed to give, or give when you do give, but here's the thing, I

love the ability to be able to give and do it not just

generously, but cheerfully. I get to do it cheerfully because guess what?

It's not coming from me and my provision. It's coming from His provision.

Provision, and I generously get to sow in when He says, "Do this," right? And

so we want to be obedient in that. Guys, are you good this morning?

Is God good in your life this morning? Yeah? Are you glad to be here

today? I'm glad that you're here. If you're joining us on livestream, thanks for being

here, and like Katie said, you can still come on up here. We have a

seat for you. Guys, you're in for a treat this morning. I am so

grateful for the lady who's about to come and present to you.

I know that she has been wrestling with this Word. I know that she's been

soaking in this Word, and I know that the Lord has has something for us.

So if we'll prepare our hearts that they'll be pliable and soft for it, welcome

my sister from another mister, Vonda Coble. Come on

up here. That was great.

I love you. Oh well,

my stuff is over there and I thought somebody was going to bring it out,

so I'm just going to

Do a little dance until that time comes. It's fine.

How's everybody doing today? Good? Doing good? It's Saturday.

The Lord has pushed the rain. You know, I work with somebody who

would just simply say, "It's not gonna rain. It's not gonna rain." Even though the

forecast says it's gonna rain, "It's not gonna rain," and it doesn't rain. It's like,

"Okay. All right, Jesus." Pastor, thank you so

much. See? Where you want it at? Where's the seat? Right here.

This is good. This is good. Is my little clicker here? It's in my

pocket. Yes, it is. I thought you might need help. Thank you.

Thank you, Pastor Wayne. That was definitely an honor.

I met Pastor Wayne in 2002. But anyway,

we're gonna go ahead and get started, if that's okay with you guys.

Abide when he seems silent.

That's what we're gonna talk about this morning. If you would please stand

as we read the Word together.

We're gonna read John 15:5-8.

John 15:5–8

All right, here we go. I am the vine,

you are the branches. If you remain in

me and I in you, you will bear much

fruit. Apart from me you can do nothing.

If you do not remain in me, You are like a

branch that is thrown away and withers.

Such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire,

and burned. If you remain in me and

my words remain in you, ask whatever

you wish, and it will be done for you.

This is to my Father's glory, that you bear

much fruit, showing yourselves "to be my

disciples." Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so very much

for your Word. Oh, for your Word has

power in it. Thank you so much for the Word that

was read this morning because there's power because it

came from you. God, I ask that you open up our

eyes to see what it is that you have for us today.

Open up our ears, dear Heavenly Father, so that we might be able

to hear what it is that you have to say. And

God, soften our our hearts so that we might be able

to surrender and move under your molded hand.

God, whatever is from Vonda Lynette Coble, let it slide

to the side so that your Holy Spirit can be heard

this morning. In Jesus' precious name,

amen. All right, let's have a seat. You guys are

going to have to forgive me, um, as Pastor Kevin said,

um, I have been in this word for a while,

and it's kind of overwhelming me. So if you would, please

forgive me. And then the worship this morning just kind of

totally overwhelmed me. So I'm gonna do my best. I

got my tissue here in my pocket. So if you'll just ride

with me, we'll ride together, okay? So this

word that we read this morning from John 15:5-8

John 15:5–8

is really about answered prayers. It's about

having our prayers answered. And I think it's interesting

because in the Word, in the New Testament,

you'll find about 10 places— I found 10, you

might find more— that it says, "Ask anything in my name,

and I'll give it to you. Ask anything in my name, and

I'll give it to you." And so, I thought it was interesting. I tried

to actually get away from that section, and the Lord said, "No."

That's where I want you to read. So, I said, "Okay, God." So,

as I'm reading, I want you to notice a couple things.

The word "if." The word "if." So, let me

do a little background information, and that is, I'm gonna pull

this up a little closer. So, forgive me, 'cause I'm not as strong

as I look.

But I am a schoolteacher, pretty much, is what I've been

for 18 years. I taught in the classroom. So, you're gonna

see a lot of things. I dumb things down.

You could say that, but I also try to make it as simple as possible,

because an educator, we have a difficult task, and

that is to teach something, and

people learn so many different ways. So you have to teach something, and then

you have to assess to see if what was learned was learned. And then if

you realize it wasn't learned, then you have to go back and reteach, or you

have to enhance. So I'm a teacher at heart. So everything that

I do is kind of simple as much as possible for

my level. Level anyway, because I'm trying to teach.

So if you look at the passage there, it has a word that keeps

popping out, and that's the word "if." If.

If. And "if" is a conjunction. Okay?

So a conjunction is a joining word. So that simply

means stuff has got to connect. Okay? So I

looked up the word "if," and it says, "If."

Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. I went to— I went— yeah,

there it is. I'm so sorry. It's two things here. Forgive me. If.

And it is a conjunction. In the event that.

Allowing that. On the assumption that. On

the condition that. Right?

So, we have if. If you remain in me. If you

do not remain in me. If you remain in me. So, we've

got all of these conjunctions here, okay? And so, the

next thing is, if you remain "Remain in me, Jesus,

and my words remain in

you." So, we have something here where there's a

little connection that has to happen. So, my next question

is, "What is remain?" Remain

is exactly what it is. It's a verb. It's something we must do. And it

says, "To stay in the same place or with

the same person or group." So,

"If, if you remain in me and my words

remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will

be done for you." So then the question is,

does God speak to us?

Does God speak to us? Well, for

us, and I say us as believers, it's very

simple. The answer is in the Word. It's right

there. What I love about the

Lord is that any question that you

actually have, there's an answer to it. There truly is.

And for believers, for us, we can find it in the Word. So

I'm going to read to you. I'm gonna be doing a lot of reading, if

that's okay with you. I'm gonna read from Genesis 3:1-6.

Genesis 3:1–6

So if you have your Bibles, you can turn there too. Genesis

Genesis 3:1–6

3:1-6. 6.

Actually, it's not Genesis 3. I'm so sorry, that's another spot.

I need you to go to Genesis 1. That's it. Let me go back a

little further. Genesis 1, and we're gonna read 26 through

29. There we are. There we are.

It says, then God said, does

any "Or let us—" Push pause. So, sorry.

Let me rewind a little bit. I'm reading from the Amplified,

so it's going to be a little different, okay? So, please forgive

me. It's gonna be a little different. Unpause.

1:26, "Then God said, 'Let us,'" Father,

Son, Holy Spirit, "'make man in our own image, according

to our likeness.'" Not physical, but a spiritual

personality and moral likeness. And let them

have complete authority over the fish

of the sea, the birds of the air, the

cattle, and over the entire earth, and

over everything that creeps and crawls on

the earth. So God created man in his own

image. In the image and likeness of God he

created him, male and female. He

created them. And God blessed them,

granting them certain authority, and said to them, "Be

fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth,

and subjugate it, putting it under your

power. And rule over," dominate, "the

fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and every

living thing that moves upon the earth." And

I looked up the word that I kind of messed up, and that's subject—

subjugate, and it means to control, to be under.

Okay. So interesting enough, right there we

see God is already speaking. How many times did we hear,

"And God said..." Talk to me, people. How

many times did we hear it? A lot. I know at

least 2. Okay. Also, just in case, you know, I also expect you to talk

to me like if we were in a classroom. And when you see me do

this, that means talk to me. Okay. So just so you know. So this is

what I want to know. What is God's image? What is God the

Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit? What's the image?

What is that image? Talk to me. Love.

Holiness. Pure.

Righteousness. Kindness.

Who? Peace.

Sovereign. Nice. Sacrifice,

relationship. Okay. All right. If I had to, if

I had to, if I had to take all of those things you all

just said, would the word good work?

Okay. So we were created in the likeness

of good, right? Purity,

righteousness, holiness, peacefulness, pure

love, right? That was the image. It was not this. This

wonderful thing that's going to dirt. It's not

this. It was the image, right? The likeness of

what we were created in, right? So when

he created us, he created

us to hear

him. Would you agree?

So let's look at— because he's the one who created us,

let's look at Genesis

Genesis 2:8–9

2:8-9, for just a second.

Genesis 2:8-9, "And the Lord God

Genesis 2:8–9

planted a garden, an oasis in the east, in Eden,

delight, land of happiness. And he put the man

whom he had formed, created, there. And in the garden,

the Lord God caused to grow from the ground every tree

that is desirable and pleasing to the sight and good for food." and

good, suitable, pleasant for food. The tree of life

was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of

knowledge, recognition of the difference between

good and evil. Then I want us

to go to 2:16, 2:16 and 17,

okay? And the Lord commanded— there he is speaking again—

the man, saying, 'You may freely,

unconditionally eat the fruit from every tree of the garden,

but only from the tree of knowledge, recognition of

good and evil, you shall not eat. Otherwise, on

that day you eat from it, you shall

most certainly die because

of your disobedience,' is what the Amplified says. Interesting.

So, Does God speak?

Yes! If we don't do anything

else this morning, can we please clarify

that? Does God speak?

I'd love to say all the time.

He definitely speaks. So, I'm gonna do a little

bit of history, if that's okay with you. From Genesis to

Malachi, there are 20— 39 books in the Old Testament,

right? And I have another Bible

that was my very, very first study Bible that I got years ago,

and it's falling apart, and so I'm a little embarrassed,

so I don't bring it in public. So I got this new Bible,

this Amplified Bible, so you all see that. But my first

study Bible, I I read, because

from Malachi to Matthew, it gives a little bit

of the history of just life in general, what

was happening with the Israelites. And I read something that I wanna

share with you that I thought was so interesting. It said this:

For more than 400 years, the heavens

seemed to close to the nation of Israel. They

heard nothing from God.

Now we know, we started from the beginning, we know that God speaks. We

know that. We've already clarified that. He speaks. So

the question is, what's happening?

Is it the speaking, or is it maybe

something else, right? Seems. The

word seems. That it means— it's

a verb— the impression of being.

Can we agree that that simply means it's not

necessarily true? There's an impression

of it, right? So it's not necessarily true.

Why does God seem silent?

Well, we already clarified

that he speaks. Yes, do we agree? He speaks.

So why does he seem silent? Well,

we also recognize with the word "seem" that is

not necessarily true.

So, I believe the Holy Spirit has helped me with 3 things,

3 points of why does God seem

silent, because it's not him. Who is it,

y'all?

As they used to say in the good old days, "Womp, there it is."

The problem is us. And so, I

titled this "Spiritual Static."

Spiritual static. We have

spiritual static in our life.

And with this spiritual static, I've broke it down, like I said, into

3 places that I believe that we struggle with.

And the first is we are deceived.

Can you say deceived? Deceived is to

cause to accept as true or valid

what is false or invalid.

So In Genesis 3:1-6,

Genesis 3:1–6

here we go. Now, here's Genesis 3:1-6. I knew I had it.

Genesis 3:1–6

Here it is. Genesis 3:1-6. I'm gonna read

Genesis 3:1–6

this. Now, the serpent was more crafty,

skilled in deceit, than any

living creature of the field which the Lord God

had made. And the serpent, Satan, said to the woman,

can it really be that God 'God has said you

shall not eat from any tree of the garden.' And the

woman said to the serpent, 'We may eat

fruit from the trees of the garden, except the fruit from the tree which

is in the middle of the garden. God said

you shall not eat from it nor touch it, otherwise

you will die.' But the serpent said to the woman,

'You certainly will not die.' Now,

in my book, there's an exclamation mark. So I'mma do that

again. "But the serpent said to the woman, 'You certainly

will not die! For God knows that on

that day you—' or, 'On the day you eat from it,

your eyes will be opened.'" That is, you will

have greater awareness. Hmm. "And you will

be like God, knowing the difference between good

and evil." And when the woman saw that the

tree was good for food, and it was

delightful to look at, and the tree to be

desired in order to make one wise and

insightful, she took some of its fruit

and ate it. And she also gave some to her

husband with her, and he ate it. Now,

y'all, That was a lot. That was a lot

right there. And so I'm not even gonna try to unpack it all, okay? But

I'm gonna tell you a couple of things. When I was reading

this, the Lord reminded me

at the beginning, what was the first thing that God said after he

made them in the image? Does anybody remember what he said?

Say it again. Well, he did say that. He said that a little later. It

was something that I was reading, actually, this morning. He said, "To be

fruitful and multiply." He actually said that second. Good job. You're with

me. He said he

was going to give them authority over

what? All the things.

Even the things that were crawling, that were creepy, right?

The fish. You all, Eve had

authority over

the serpent. Things that make you go, "Hmm."

Now, listen, I'm a teacher. I totally understand authority.

I teach people this high. I teach people this high.

Now, when I teach people this high, I don't have a problem with saying, "Sit

down." Just like that.

Now, when I teach people this high, I don't say it like that. I

say, "You know what? I think it would be wise for you, at this

moment, to have a seat." There's a difference.

Okay? Now, both ways I told them what to do.

But there's a difference. This serpent comes, all she had to say was,

"Pfft. Nope. Sit down.

Uh-uh." So, I said, "Lord, well—" That was the

first time I actually paid attention to that. She had

authority over.

So Satan tempted her

by getting her to doubt goodness. Now, looky

here. Now, let's go back. Let's go back. What are all the things that God

said could happen? You got authority. All of this stuff, you got authority over.

See that stuff up there? Authority. Stuff right there? Authority. Then

he said, be fruitful. Now, all the youth are gone, so I think I'm

good. Okay, we all know what be fruitful means.

Okay, that was fun. Not only are you

authority, authority, authority, go have some fun. He

blessed them. The Word says he blessed them. He gave

them everything. All of this is yours, right there,

yours, right there, that's yours, right in the back, yep,

yours. But listen, this thing right

here This— do not eat from

this, because on this day you will know something that

you haven't known. Now here's the key.

Evil— because remember we said the image was good. Evil was

already creeping around. Evil was

already there. The problem was they had never been

disobedient. We heard about

disobedience this morning already. The evil was

there, right? But they were all good, and they had

authority, and they had everything. Don't be

disobedient. But the enemy was able

to deceive. One of our

spiritual statics is we get

deceived. Okay, there was a time

in my life— I'm gonna tell you the last time I did a cartwheel. The

last time I did a cartwheel. I was at a party, okay? I was at

a kid party. I was dressed up as Barbie and feeling good, okay? It

was a costume party, and I was like, "Yeah, I'm doing this." And they were

like, "Do a cartwheel." "Sure!" Did a cartwheel. And then I— "Sure!"

Did a cartwheel. And my girlfriend— thank you,

Jesus— she said, "Vonda, do you think you're doing a cartwheel?" I

said, "Girl, yeah, I'm doing a cartwheel." And let me tell you why I thought

I was doing a cartwheel. I stood.

I went, both of my hands touched the ground. My

head felt that I was upside down.

And I landed. Isn't that a cartwheel? Well,

what she did was she videoed me.

I was very appreciative to the video. I saw the video, and

I saw that I was deceived.

That was not a cartwheel. That was the last time I did

a cartwheel. But it

felt like it was a cartwheel. It felt like it to

my body, my physical flesh. It felt like it to my

brain. I was upside down.

And my feet were off the ground.

But I was deceived.

We are deceived often.

And we do not even recognize that we're

deceived because the enemy has a way

to present it. You all, we are human beings.

The enemy deceived one-third of

angels. Angelic! I still— it still

blows my mind. What did he say to them?

Because it's not like he was trying to give them any power, because he was

trying to take it all for himself. He deceived them.

Who am I, a human being without

the Holy Spirit?

He's already told us I can do nothing without him.

We are also in places

of lack of surrenderance due to our desire

to be independent.

Eve was deceived because she had a

desire, because the enemy said,

"You'll be like God." Here's the thing, we

are created in his image, so we all want

to be 'Like the image, but we

are not God.' But he

deceived her, and she thought,

'I—' You know what? 'Yes, I

can be like God.' And

that is because the exact same thing

that was in the enemy, he deceives us

with, and that's called Independent,

every woman. You know, sorry, sorry, that's a song. I just

thought about it, you know. Independency. There was a

song that Whitney, and I am a Whitney fan, I will tell you.

Sad story, but beautiful voice. That whole song,

I'm every woman, it's

all in me. Lies! It

is not! I wasn't created to be

all in me. I know that is not

true. And so many times we take small little

things, we take them for truth, and then we start walking in them.

No, I was created

to be dependent.

Created to be dependent. I'm not

independent. In Matthew 16:24, I'm gonna read

Matthew 16:24

this for you. It says, then Jesus said to

his disciples, if anyone wishes to follow me as

my disciples, he must deny himself,

set aside selfish interests, and take up

his cross, experiencing the willingness

to endure whatever may come and

follow me, believing in me,

conforming to my— conforming, excuse me, to my

example and living and if need be,

suffering or perhaps dying because

of faith in

me. The reason why

Jesus said this to the disciples is because the cross

actually meant something in the Roman time.

What the cross actually meant in Roman time was

Death. When you saw someone

carrying their cross, they were going

to die. Period.

It was a commitment.

We think carrying our cross is, "I got to carry the

burden." Now, that

can't be true because in a different place, It actually says

I'm not supposed to carry the burden. He actually says he'll carry the

burden. So there's confusion. That's why it's very

important to find out and read, my brothers and

sisters, because this is a

committed death.

If you're gonna follow Jesus, you are

committed to dying. What,

Vonda? What are we gonna die to?

Don't get me started. I gotta die to

my feelings. I gotta die to my flesh.

I gotta die to my opinion, even in

America. I gotta die to my pride. I gotta

die to my fear. I gotta die to my unforgiveness.

I gotta die to my— I gotta die to my

I got that to my— I got that to my— right, dot, dot,

dot. That means there's more to follow.

Me, it's a committed death,

but we have static because we don't

surrender, because we want to be

dependent. Now listen, I'm very big on—

I am a very black and white person. The Lord helps me with the gray.

I'm very black and white. And so to me, if I don't know how something

works, I need to go to its original purpose.

Because if you do not know the original purpose of something, you will

abuse it or it will abuse you inevitably.

So I was originally created

to be dependent. So every

time I try to be independent, I

will either abuse myself or someone else.

We already clarified that God

speaks. Yes? Yes. Let's

clarify. Let's today— let's today

let it be known and hold on to it.

God, help us. Help us today to

start with the reality The truth that we

were created to depend on you.

Help us, God, to get that settled in our spirit,

settled in our mind, settled on our

lips. In Jesus' name, amen.

We were created to depend

on God.

We have static because of

a lack of maturity in and with faith.

Now I gotta go here. We don't always like to go here, but I'm

going. James 1.

Oh, it's like I can't get away from it.

James 1:2-8.

James 1:2–8

Consider it nothing but joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you

fall into various trials. Be assured that the testing of

your faith through experience produces endurance,

leading to spiritual maturity and inner peace.

And let endurance have its perfect result and

do a thorough work so that you may be

perfect and completely developed in your faith,

lacking in nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom

to guide him through a decision or

circumstance, he or she is to ask

of the beloved God, who gives to

everyone generously and without rebuke or blame, and

it will be given to you. But he must ask

for wisdom in faith without doubting.

Huh. Or the one who doubts

is like a sea that is blown

about and tossed by the wind. For such a person

ought not think or expect that he will receive

anything from the Lord, being a double-minded

man, unstable and restless in all

his ways. Everything he thinks, feels, and

decides Let's break

that down. Consider.

Consider does not mean it has to be. It means think.

Think about it as pure

joy. When you are faced with many trials,

with various trials—

thank you, Lord, you didn't tell us to do it. You told us to think

about it. Just think of it as joy. Why, you ask?

Because there's a process that's happening. And the process

is that you are being tested. Your

faith is being tested. Push pause. I just wanna

fix something really quickly. The world has been saying that God

is like a teacher when he gives you a test, and he's silent.

That's not true. I've

heard pastors say that, and I'm a teacher. Now, Some

teachers do that. Some teachers are very quiet during a test.

But in my opinion, which I can give an opinion because I've been in education

for about over 2 decades, the best

teacher is the one that when a child has a question,

she asks or he asks another question to cause them to think.

See, I'm not trying to give the kid the answer,

but I want them to think. So for me to just

say, don't ask me nothing, be quiet, we're taking a test,

versus I can't give you an answer, baby doll, but I can tell

you this, or I can ask you this. Because sometimes the Lord will

ask you questions for you to think.

If you look in the New Testament, you will

see all kinds of question marks in red.

Jesus is wanting us to think. Think.

Unpause. So,

the testing of your faith happens for you to produce

endurance, patience. And then

endurance must finish its complete work

so that you can be mature.

Because it messes up our hearing.

So we know, does God speak?

Who has the problem? Okay, and

we have 3 that are just standing out here. We are deceived,

we won't surrender, and we're not

mature. Now I told you a while ago I'm a first grade

teacher, so I've got I got something to share.

And that is— oh, thank you, Lord— his Word.

It says, "I am the vine. You are the branches. If you

remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit.

Apart from me you can do—" Say it, people. "Nothing." Say it

again. "Nothing." "If you do not remain in me, you

are like a branch that is blown away and withered.

Such branches are picked up thrown into the fire and burned.

In other words, they're not about nothing. If you

remain in me and my words remain in you,

ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.

This is to my Father's glory, that

you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be

disciples.

Active listening. When I was in first grade, I

taught this every year. Active listening. What does it mean

to active listening? Because remember, it's not that the Lord

doesn't speak. It's us. It's because we are not

listening. So what is active listening? What does active listening look like, sound

like, and feel like? I'm an educator, so I try to break everything down.

So here are a couple of things that I'd like to share with you. Active

listening looks like So

take all hearing out. What does it look

like? Reading the Holy Bible.

It's what it looks like. A person reading

if they want to. Active listening. Fellowship with

other Christ followers. It's what it looks like.

It looks like what's happening right now, us getting together.

It looks like avoiding places that do not honor the

Holy Spirit. I was talking to somebody. And

I was talking— we were talking about a show, and they said, "I can watch

that show. I didn't let the Holy Spirit see that."

I was like, "Okay, come on." There are places that you don't need to take

the Holy Spirit. Okay, I'm just saying.

I'm just saying. Can you go? Yes. My brother this morning

said, "There's a lot that I can do, but should I?"

There are places that you should not take the Holy Spirit.

Being silent, being still, thinking.

That's what it looks like. It looks like when

we're actively listening to God, that we're really slowing down in

life and we're taking time to listen.

It looks like tears, frustration,

joy. Praise, expression.

When you're listening to God, I just want you to know you're not gonna hear

everything you want to hear.

So it may look like, oh, oh God,

did you not hear what he said to me?

Did you not hear? And so my face is distraught,

because that's what it looks like sometimes when you're listening to the

Lord. Sometimes it looks like this

because you're overwhelmed. That's what it looks like

when you're listening to the Lord. It looks

expressive. It

looks like Fruit of the

Spirit. You can see kindness. You

can see patience. You can see

goodness. That's what it looks like. Active listening, what does it

sound like? So this is, you don't see anything. What do

you hear? What does active listening sound like when

you're listening to the Lord? Speaking God's word,

quoting his word out loud. I told

Jonathan this morning, "Jonathan, I enjoyed

reading all that last night." He said, "Yeah, I thought there would be a

couple." I said, "Do you know why?" Sorry, this is where I get

emotional. There is power,

real power in the

Word. Every time you

speak speak it, power comes into

the atmosphere. And so this is why people like

us, we need to stay away from sayings, you know,

"It's all good." No, it's not all good. But all things

do work together for the good of those who love the Lord and are called

according to his purpose. Called according to his purpose, Vonda, check. Love the

Lord, check. It will work out for my good, but this whole "it's all

good," no, it ain't. Have y'all not seen the world?

It's not all good.

But there is power when I say, "All things

work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to

his purpose." There is power in here.

So, when things happen in your life, speak the

Word. If you haven't memorized it, get it and

say it out loud. Watch the atmosphere that you're

in change because there's power.

It should sound like you're speaking it. I'm sorry,

I told you I'm already overwhelmed for the things that the Lord

is saying to me, but there is power and I

have authority. I have power because

of who lives in me, so I can say greater is

he that lives in me than he that is of the world,

because there is power in

this, and I got it.

It sounds like discussing words

for a better understanding.

And I said discussing for a better understanding because

I'm not gonna argue about what God said.

I ain't got to argue with nobody about what the Lord said. I ain't got

time for that. I think it's interesting how people think you got time. Listen, I'm

a principal at a school, and I have to talk about people's dress

attire, right? And they'll say, "Well, Miss Copeland, she always gets on me." And I

think to myself, do you really think I get up in the morning and say,

"Ooh, I'm going to work today, and I'mma find 3 people out of dress

code"? Is that really what you think I

do? I want you to logically think of

that. I ain't got time for that. I got a lot of stuff I have

to do. I don't have time to explain and

argue what somebody else said.

But we can discuss it and unpack it. That's what we're doing right

now, y'all. That's all we're doing. That's what it should sound

like. Got time to be arguing with somebody about the Bible.

It sounds like silence.

People get very uncomfortable with silence,

but if you plan on listening to the Lord, you better shut your mouth.

Period. It sounds

like the fruit of the Spirit. We have

an interesting saying: "Is my name

safe in your mouth?"

It sounds like

the fruit of the Spirit. Not just what we see, but

now I should hear someone say, Oh, well,

that doesn't sound like Pastor Barbie to me. I've never known her to

slap somebody in the face. But that's what you say happened? Oh,

well, I've never known her to slap anybody.

Not— I'm sorry, what? She slapped who? Girl!

Sorry.

Sorry, I apologize. It

sounds like the fruit of the Spirit. Active

listening feels like— now before I show you any of these,

I'm using the word feel. I want you to pay attention

to what active listening feels like.

It feels purposeful.

It feels like I was created to

depend on this God-breathing

stars being,

and I'm not here for nothing,

that I'm on earth with a purpose,

and I don't have to do it by myself.

Because I wasn't created to do it by myself,

but I can do all things through Christ who strengthens

me. It feels

purposeful. It

feels important

that it's not about me.

But it's about Him and the glory that He

gets. And He gave me an

opportunity to say

yes and to be used

in any way He chooses, because

He created me. I didn't create

Wanda. He did.

So it feels important.

It feels like I'm heard.

My brother said on his way home,

he said, I want you to get him a suit because

they need to know that I hear them.

God hears you.

He created you. He

hears you.

But what a glorious feeling to know that

God heard my cry,

that he hears me when I Call him,

that he sees me.

And even though I say, Lord, that hurt, that hurt,

he said that and that hurt.

And if I'm listening, I can hear him say,

Wanda, give me your heart, for I'm the

healer of the brokenhearted. Heart. For

I'm close to you, Wanda, because I'm close

to the brokenhearted. So

it feels like

I'm seen.

It feels like I'm loved.

It feels like I'm loved.

That I'm cared for.

Guys, God speaks all the time.

Where is our hearing?

Please understand, I'm not saying

that life is the way I think it should be, and that's probably part

of the problem.

Because he has a purpose.

I get to choose to be obedient,

and there is satisfaction and pleasure

in obedience. Stand to

your feet.

When we abide in him, when we remain in him,

we can ask anything

that aligns with his will,

and he'll give it. He's not quiet.

Open up our ears, Lord. I know we're about to have worship

and we're gonna close in prayer, but I personally

repeat the prayer from the beginning. Open up our

eyes to see you. Open up our

ears to hear you. And

God, soften this desired

heart to be independent to be dependent, to settle

with the fact that you created us to be dependent upon

you. In Jesus' name.

So in response to that word, if you will just gather together

with 2 or 3 around you, uh, right now, go and find 2 or

3 around you. Move. That's a moving word.

2 or 3 around you and lock hands with them. And

this is what we're going to do. We're just going to take a few moments

here with the Holy Spirit,

and we're just going to ask the Lord to help us to surrender

our will to his and that he would give us

ears to hear when he is speaking to

us, that our voice would become quiet and his would become

much louder. So let's just take a few moments and pray.

Lord, we surrender our will to you.

Our voice, we surrender it. We silence ourselves and we ask,

Lord, that your voice would be louder than

all other voices and we would listen.