#Learning to Listen

Welcome. It's great to have you here

today. My name is Richard.

I'm the exec pastor here, and it is a privilege to be baptized in

people today. I cannot wait.

I promised Claire, who overseas the preaching and everything

here, that I will preach on topic today and then I will get

out the way and then we will baptize some people, which will

be incredible, right. First of all, you are joining us

in a midst of a press series which we have been doing for a

few weeks now. Claire started off a few weeks

ago talking about digging holes brought to spade and everything

else. Great imagery.

Then there was this incredible talk the following week.

It was amazing. It really spoke to me deeply.

I did write it, but it was really for me and I, I'm glad

you guys got to listen to that. And then just to bring things

down, Claire then followed with the topic of fasting, which

really kind of hit a bummer, but it's a great topic and it was a

great talk. And off at the back of that,

we've now been fasting. We've invited you, the church,

to fast every Wednesday morning, whatever that looks like for you

with a particular topic and focus every single week.

And so this week's focus is praying for our youth and our

children. So we lift them up.

We have some amazing, incredible young people in this building

and it is a privilege to to walk with God with them.

But why don't you lift them up and pray for them this week?

I'm going to wave. You are one and and it is an

absolute privilege. So pray with them, pray for them

and join us as the church and we pray on Wednesday morning for

God's blessing over them. And then we've had Jenna Pritt

did a great talk last week. All I remember is him talking

about brushing his teeth. But it's about that persistence

and obedience in following God on a regular basis.

And he used that example of brushing his teeth, landed him a

wife because I don't think she would have accepted him without

it. But also just the simplicity of

prayer, just doing that thing on a regular basis this week,

today, this morning, I'm going to talk about listening prayer.

Now, to get us started on this, I'm going to do a little bit of

a survey. I need your interaction on this,

right? Communication.

It's a conversation. OK, You have a phone in your

hand. We're not talking about family.

Oh, some of you do. You are really involved in this.

I need you up here. Like demonstrating this.

Anyway, you've got a phone in your hand.

You've got a friend you need to reach out to.

How do you reach out to them? Who were here in the room is

like, I'm going to text them. I'm going to send them on

WhatsApp. Just a text message, a few

words. That's all they need.

They don't need anything else. Put your hands up.

If that's you, that is me. Thank you.

Gen. XS and Millennials like don't

disturb me, I don't want to be disturbed with anything more

like you are my people. We can text each other.

I'll give you my number afterwards we can just message

and then about 3 days later I'll reply to you.

That is us now. OK, moving up now.

Who loves a good long drive? Because you know that when you

want to drive, you can hit that call button and have a good

hour, 2 hour conversation with someone who's a phone caller who

likes a phone call. Oh man, you, you guys sometimes

call me and I'm I'm busy basically I see, I see a phone

call. I'm like, just don't want to see

that. But some of you are wired that

way. You love a phone call that

tricks your box. OK, right.

I need AI, need I need to know who are the sickos in the room

who enjoys a video call. Be ashamed of yourselves.

Why? I have three daughters in the

house and inevitably at some point I'll walk past and find

that I am suddenly on a camera talking, looking.

I'm like, Bella, can you tidy up your room?

Oh, hi various friends that can see me.

This is wrong. Just no.

Meet up with a person. You don't need to see their face

all the time. You don't need to see where

they're at. You don't need to see what their

bathroom looks like. Come on.

It's just inappropriate. OK.

Right. We've moved past the sickos now.

Now it's confession time. OK?

I need to know. I need to know who in this room

And and we do prayer. My right, your left afterwards.

Who in this room does voice notes?

Oh come on, A surprising amount of you strange people.

Why? I'll tell you what happens with

a voice note is you. You hit that button, you've got

this vague idea of what you're trying to say, and then you

start by saying something along those lines.

You say hello, you, you kind of get to the point.

About 3 minutes later, you're on a completely different topic.

You're talking about something else.

I'm on the other end of that call listening to this at 1 1/2

speed because I haven't got a clue what you're talking about.

And then for some reason you expect a response like just

wrong. Anyway, thank you for that.

That was confession time. Anyway, going back to those

texters, if you want to, if you want to talk with me, that's

fine. Everyone else, you've got

Claire, you've got Yasmin. Talk to those guys.

Let's just just know. All right, next question and

taking it into our talk, how do you approach prayer?

How do you talk to God? How do you engage with him?

How do you move in that area? Because prayer is fundamentally

and simply a conversation with God.

And so how do you approach that is is a is a question is what

we're asking as we go through this.

I mean, anyone can do this. Anyone can talk to God.

And yet so many of us will turn around and say, yeah, I can

leave a voice note, a 5 minute voice, I can FaceTime, but I'm

not very good at prayer. And so many of us kind of hit

that challenge. And it's almost like we see it

as a completely different thing. And what we often mean is that

we don't know if we've said the right things, if we've

communicated it in the right way.

And the reason why we say that is simply that we don't always

hear a response. We don't always get something in

return. Often one of the reasons why we

pray and we don't feel like we hear anything in return.

Why it feels one way is simply because we approach it like a

voice note or voicemail prayer. You see, what do you do when you

leave a voicemail or leave a voice note?

You, you leave one. It's short, it's a, a little bit

of ram and it's a whole lot of awkward.

And when I became a Christian, that's pretty much how I

approached prayer. So I became a Christian in my

20s. I've never been taught how to

pray. I'd never really grown up with

it. It was a whole new concept to

me. And so when I prayed, I'd often

do this thing while driving around the city and I just had

it on. I kind of desire burning desire

to pray for the city 'cause this is where I live.

This is where I want to see God move in the same way they've

moved him life, my life. I wanted him to meet with

others. And so my prayer would be

something like this. God, hi, can you, can you just

listen to me for a second? I've, I've got a few things to

say now. I don't really know what to say.

I don't know how to say it, but I need help with this thing.

And if you're willing to help with this thing, God, I I

promise I'll be good. OK, I won't do that.

I promise. I'll try to be good.

And yeah, but ultimately, if you could just help with this thing,

that would be amazing. Thanks.

And then it'll be super awkward. A little bit more awkward

silence. I'll try praying in songs.

That was, that was fun. And then inevitably at some

point I'd hit the radio and just sing along the way the rest of

the way. You know, I didn't really know

how to pray. And I've got to be honest, that

was a really good effort for someone with no experience of

praying. And I give myself absolute

credit and points for that because that was the best I

could do and I was super proud of it.

But my hope, my way of praying, was the hope that God was

possibly going to respond to that message and he was going to

reply to that rather than the expectation that he was on the

other end of the phone. And I think this is how some of

us approach prayer is We're willing to leave a message,

we're willing to pray and hand it out there, but we're not

always expecting that response. You know, there are other people

that have prayed. And, you know, if you've grown

up around Christians, if you've been around church for a long

time, you know, you've probably got some awesome prayers in the

back pocket. You can just like start nice and

easy and you can talk about how good God is and how amazing.

And now halfway through your prayer, you're pretty much

shouting, screaming your, your Pentecostal style.

You're amazing at prayer and it sounds incredible and honestly,

it lifts the faith in the room and honestly, it's it's full of

truth and it's an amazing way of praying.

But at the end of it, you just hang up and you're finished,

you're done. And it can sound articulate, it

can sound powerful and it's all true, but you just hang up once

you've finished. Now some of us out of difference

will also tag on the little if it's in your will or God, would

you do this? And then we hang up again and

that's pretty much how many of us can approach prayer.

Basically we're saying, God, I've done my part, I've prayed,

I've left a message with you and my request, and now it's up to

you. And if something changes, if I

get that job, if that person's healed, if revival comes, then

praise and glory and honour be to God.

Most I. But if it's not, you know,

you're always mysterious. And, you know, I know you use

all things for the good of those who love you.

And this is hardly the way that we read in the Bible about the

disciples speaking to their Jesus and to their God.

And I think that there's a different way of doing it.

And, you know, there's some great verses.

I'm literally just gonna throw up some verses just to reorient

our our thinking. One of them is Isaiah 30.

And he says this. How gracious he will be when you

cry for help. As soon as he hears, he will

answer you, whether you turn to the right or to the left, your

ears will hear a voice behind you saying this is the way.

Walk in it. Or Isaiah 50.

He wakens me morning by morning and wakens my ear to listen like

one being instructed in Jeremiah 33.

Three call to me and I will answer you and I tell you great

and unsearchable things that you do not know.

You know, God always has something to say.

And if we're willing, more so if we're willing to respond, we

will start to hear those things. I was talking to my kids as I

often do. And, and so hey, we've got some

friends coming around. We need to do some things.

We need to wash up. We need to tidy up.

Could you do that? Silence.

Hey guys, I literally just asked you if you could just tidy the

house a little bit. Could you just help me do that?

Silence. OK, guys, can you turn off the

TV? Can you even hear me?

And one of them responded, Yeah, Dad, we can hear you.

We're just not listening. Some of your parents have just

hit the rage point of view. The truth is, we can all hear.

We just don't all listen. Listening is different because

it requires a response. And see, that's the difference

between a voicemail prayer and listening prayer.

See, a voicemail prayer is, hey God, here's my request in the

best way I can articulate, and now it's over to you.

Whereas listening prayer is God, here's my request.

Now tell me, what do you want to do about this request?

And more importantly, how can I respond?

How can I join in? And what I'm going to do for the

rest of my time talking is I'm going to give you 10 ways that

you can hear from God. And each and every one of you

can do this and respond to this. And you can turn these ten ways

of hearing from God into listening to God and responding.

OK, sound good? All right, First way is

invitation, right? Who we are in the room.

Confession time again is a swifty.

Come on you. It's it's no, it's not a place

of shame. She's a talented woman.

OK, Now if you went to the Eras concert or whatever concert, if

you just got into her presence, does anyone in this room think

that you could make such a great impression if you got some face

to FaceTime with her? So much so that she would be

like, Oh my gosh, you're literally the most amazing

person I've ever met. Can I give you my number?

Can I take yours? Can we like start a friendship?

Can I, you know, 2 weeks later, I'm really sorry Beyoncé, I

can't meet with you because I've just met this amazing person and

I'm going to spend time with them and Oh my gosh, me and

Travis are expected and you're the first person I want to call.

I know way too much about Taylor Swift, but for the point of

this, this is really exciting. Who here really thinks they can

make that kind of impression on someone and get that kind of

response, that kind of invitation?

And yet somehow we come before God as if it's absolutely

nothing. And yet the God of the universe,

the God who created heaven and earth has invited us, has

basically said here's my number, call me.

Here's my invitation to reach out and speak to me.

Jeremiah 33. If you call me, I will answer.

I'm better than Richard who I knew my replies to text.

I will speak to you. I will listen.

You know, the absolute first way that we hear from God is this

invitation. Now, I would say that every

single person in this room has had some kind of invitation,

whether it's AI wonder if there's something to this God

thing or hey, I feel like going to church today or I want to

have a chat with my Christian friend because there's something

different about them. Basically what you're saying is

there's some part of your heart, some part of your being that's

gone. I feel like I want to go in that

direction. I want to move over there.

You've been invited by the living God to come and spend

time with him. The first way we respond, the

first way we hear from God is by being invited.

You know, it's at this point we respond to it and we decide how

to RSVP to that. And today we are going to

baptise 6 people in this service, eight people in the

next service who have not just responded to that initial call,

but they've said yes. This is the response that I want

to make for the rest of my life. This is how I'm going to respond

to this invitation that God has shared with me.

It is an incredible, incredible invitation that God speaks and

it's one of the first ways that He speaks to every single one of

us. Secondly, through others, you

can hear from God through reading a book, you can go to a

verse of group, you can even hear from God watching TV.

I've seen some crazy programmes and God has spoken so directly

to me and He's spoken through my kids.

Not in the last example I gave, but other times if we're willing

to listen. You know, each and every single

Sunday you come and hear a talk and I'm not asking that you

remember every single part of this talk.

I'm asking as you sit there to go, God, here I am.

Speak to me. What do you want to say to me

today? I'm going to discount 95% of

what Richard says, but what is that one thing that you want to

say that I can go away and think about because God is speaking to

you every single time you say here I am, I'm listening.

You know, we had the Alpha Holy Spirit day yesterday and it was

tremendous. We've only heard stories.

I haven't spoken to Andrew and Joanne, whoever they are,

wherever they are. Sorry, I know who they are and,

and got the direct feedback. But I remember running these

Alpha courses and we had, we had this one session where someone

was doing a talk and then someone on the course came up to

the speaker afterwards and says, I'm so angry with you.

I'm so angry with my friend. How dare, how dare my friend

tell you everything that's going on in my life right now, all the

things I'm struggling with. How dare my friend be so like

carefree and share all of this stuff.

And the speaker politely listened and said, I'm really

sorry. I've no idea who you are and I

have no idea who your friend is. This is just a talk that I

prepared is sometimes we come into the situation, we come into

a talk. Maybe you were here last week

listening to Prince talk, and you were like, oh, my gosh, that

man is speaking directly to me. And what I'm saying to you is,

yes, prepared a good talk. But God was the one that was

speaking to you. And you were hearing what he was

saying and deciding whether you wanted to respond to that or not

#3 worship. Yeah.

Fair, fair, fair. Worship is an incredible way.

I mean, I've encountered people that have come out of worship

and they've just been bawling their eyes out and crying.

And I remember approaching someone after the service once

and going up to them and saying, Hey, just tell me what's going

on. Like, you know, why are you

crying? Are are you OK?

And they're like, I have no idea.

All I know is I was in that space of worship and I just felt

like I, I was being like hit with wave after wave of love.

And it was in that space, through that aspects of worship

that God was speaking to them. God was talking to them.

God was moving in them, not through audible words, but

through this incredible sense of his presence, reminding them

that they're never alone. They absolutely loves them, that

he's absolutely for them, that he's absolutely never going to

give up on them. And in that space just spoke to

them over and over again. And they can put it into words,

but they felt what God was saying.

They heard what God was saying. Number four impressions.

OK, bring it down a little bit. My that horrible time of COVID

and there was a lot going on. And I was remember, I remember

the story the other day when we were doing introductions, but my

friend, his, his brother was hit with COVID pretty hard and was

in a coma, had been in a coma for about a month by this point.

And I, I said to my friend, like who's a atheist, he has no

interest in God. Like he loves having

conversations. It's not antagonistic, but just

that doesn't fit in his worldview.

And I remember praying with him, talking with him, just trying to

offer words of comfort. And I remember one day when I

was praying for him, I just felt like God said he's going to be

OK. And I was like, that's like, I

want to tell my friend this. And I'm honestly like a little

bit scared because I don't want to mess my friend around.

And I just, I just, and I remember God saying to me, look,

I'm saying this, I know you don't feel like this, but I'm

saying it. Why don't you tell him that I'm

saying it. His problem can be with me, not

with you. I said, OK, fine.

And I spoke to my friend and I said, look, I know this sounds

really hard and it's hard to hear, but I really, as I was

praying, I just got the sense that your brother's going to be

OK now. You know, I, I really want him

to be OK. I think that's part of my hope.

But I really felt like God was saying that he's going to be OK.

And I remember my friend just going, OK, thanks. 73 days.

His brother was in a coma 73 days like, and that was an

emotional journey for him. Every single moment of that.

No idea whether his only brother was going to live.

But when he came back to life, I mean, it was still a

tremendously long recovery and he's back to relatively normal

now. But I remember speaking to my

friend afterwards and, you know, crying with him, being really

happy with him. And he said, you know what?

I, I remember that time when you told me that God said he's going

to be OK. And if I'm honest, I, I, I

didn't want to believe it, but I, there gave me something to

hold onto. I just want to say thank you for

praying and thank you for giving me the encouragement.

That was bold. But God spoke and the difference

was I didn't just pray my prayer and leave it.

I was ready to respond and share boldly that moment.

And what wonderful way of turning it out.

Absolutely thank God for that. Impressions #5 a burden for

others, keeping it again, a little bit more real.

I remember one of my friends, he, he, he was just at home, he

was off work for a little bit and he reached out to a friend.

He just said, hey, this is really strange, but like, you've

literally just come to mind. I just thought I'd reach out,

see what you're doing. And his friend was like, hey,

I've got nothing on. I, I can always, you know, we

can hang out. So he came over and hang out

with his friend for a few days. They play music together, they

watch loads of movies together. They went walks, absolutely

nothing special. And his and my friend was just

going, I don't understand. But hey, yeah, it's nice to

connect with a friend. Anyway, the time together

finished and and he and his friend left and he went into the

room to tidy up. And he saw this little note on

the bed. And on the bed he looked at it

and it said, hey, I just want to say thank you for inviting me

round on that day you called me. I was pretty much set to to hurt

myself but you called me literally right at the right

time and gave me an alternative. And I just want to say thank

you. I really think you've made a

difference in my life. And all that happened was my

friend got a random thought, a prompting and responded to him.

A burden for others. And he reached out.

Maybe you have a burden for others today.

Maybe someone comes to your mind and you just need to FaceTime

them or something. Send him a voice note.

Please don't do whatever you need to do, but maybe you just

need to reach out promptings. A very quick story.

We used to do Christmas Day here, a meal here and, and

someone came up to my wife and she said this lady said, Hey,

this is really random, but God has just said the word ovens.

Like how random is that? And, and my wife was like,

that's really crazy because we've just put a list together

of things that we need for Christmas Day.

And one of them is like ovens. And so my friend was like, what

do you need? Show me the list.

And so two days later, 1500 lbs later, they got everything they

needed to provide for Christmas Day.

Real simple response, response and, and prompting.

And sometimes we listen to those prompts and go, no, I don't want

to part with my money. I don't want to part with my

time. But do you know what?

That can genuinely amazingly change someone's life.

OK, before I carry on, quick pause, quick interlude.

How do we know if this is God speaking or how do we know if

this is just our mind? You don't Simply put, I, I went

to Chicago once and we were walking around.

I sorry, I was walking around. I got off the train and I

literally just walked around the city as I got off the train.

Like I was feeling challenged at the time to, to be gracious, to

be kind, to be practical. And so I stepped out and there's

this homeless girl on the street, a veteran.

And I walked up to him. I said, hey, you know, just

talking to him. Is there anything I can get you?

And he goes, well, I'm really hungry at the moment.

If I can have some money. I was like, I'm not giving you

money, but I can go and pay for you and get some food.

It was like, yeah, that's fine. So we wanted to the station and

he went to this chicken place, $30.00 worth of chicken.

Later he walked out very happy. I was very bitter.

I was like, God, surely this wasn't you.

No man needs $30.00 worth of chicken.

Doesn't count. Don't matter how hungry you are.

That's ridiculous. And, and I bless him, I walked

off. I was so frustrated, like, God,

that clearly wasn't you. I'm never going to listen to

this again unless I'm 100% sure. And like Karen, I'm walking down

the road kicking the floor and everything else.

And then I came across another guy who was homeless.

Hey, can I, can you help me? And I said, well, what's wrong?

He goes, I'm really hungry. I was like, hold on a second,

come with me. And so I walked him back to the

first guy and I was like, this guy has $30.00 worth of chicken.

Have a party, enjoy yourselves. And I walked off.

Now I don't know if God was in that or not, but it's either

going to be God or it's going to be a great story.

All I'm encouraging you is just to respond and see what happens,

OK? It's not a faith building

message, is it? But it's, it's reality #7

conviction of right and wrong, genuine conviction of sin, comes

with a message of encouragement. You see, when God comes into

your life, and when I first encounter God when I was 20

something, it wasn't, hey, you're messed up, you're screwed

up, you've got no chance, you need my forgiveness, otherwise

you're dead. It was, I can see that you're

making so many mistakes, but if you're willing, I'm willing to

help you said God. That's what I was reading

through this. That's what I felt God was

saying. You see that?

It's so easy to hear the first part.

You're messed up, you're wrong, you've done wrong, you're

guilty, you feel you. That's condemnation.

That's not what God is about. God says you're struggling, let

me help you. And that's the invitation that

he's saying. And that's a conviction of right

and wrong. And that's how we hear from God,

by knowing that there's something that we're not quite

right in or with and we need to help.

Dreams is number 8. Some of you guys have had the

most tremendous God dreams and your whole life is written on.

When you wake up in the morning and you have the seven hour

stories to share with your partner, Please wait for them to

have coffee first. I don't have these dreams but I

did lose my glasses for five days once and I looked

everywhere and then I had a dream that they were in my car

under the seat and I went to my car and they were under the

seat. I am literally a prophet.

Like come five days, a lot of prayer and some dream, a lot of

sleep. I will give you the answer you

need. Or you can do it #8 #9 visions.

You just go through the Bibles, especially the book of Acts,

Saul, Cornelius, Peter, and Anias amazing visions of God.

And sometimes God speaks in those ways.

Just be ready. That's one of the ways and #10

audible voice speak Lord for your servant listening is one of

the most amazing quotes. We often pray and sometimes he

speaks audibly just as a show of hands.

Has anyone in this room heard the audible voice of God?

I expect way. I expect five hands.

There's at least 1012. Not everyone has this

experience. What a privilege it is.

Ask those guys if you shorthand and there's one huge one that

doesn't deserve to sit in a list, but it's really important.

Does anyone know what it is? Of course you all said the Bible

and scripture like God speaks so practically and tangibly through

scripture all of the time. This is AI haven't got Bible

with me. This is a powerhouse.

Imagine me holding up. This is a powerhouse of wisdom,

guidance, instruction. No, I've missed the point.

Now it is absolutely worth listening to.

I tell you. What I do on a daily basis is I

open up the Bible wherever I have a bookmark in the Old

Testament, New Testament, and then the Psalms, Proverbs area,

and I literally just pick one of them.

I read a chapter and I write down whatever stands out and it

could be utterly random, and then I spend time just thinking

about those. Sometimes it's just interesting.

Often God speaks to me through the day and I end up using that

quote either for myself or someone else.

God speaks so powerfully through scripture.

We have 6 people in the room this morning who have read the

scripture and responding to the scripture be baptised.

You see, what they've done is they've made a decision for, to

follow God and they've come to church and they've lived and

walked with Jesus and they, they have this response to say, now

I'm ready to respond and be baptised.

And it says in Romans 6, skipping all of my talk at this

point, sorry. Now actually let me say this,

what they're making, they're making this absolute, incredible

decision to make Jesus their Lord.

I, they're saying, you're in charge.

I trust you. I want what you want from me.

Cos I know it's way better than I could ever have imagined or

dreamed for myself. And I know because you are Lord

God that you can get me there and I can trust you every step

of the way. Secondly, they're they're making

this decision. Say I want him to be my saviour.

I am gonna mess up. I am gonna make mistakes.

I don't want to, but it happens. Life is challenging, but I know

and thank God that He's gonna save me, that He has saved me

through sin on the cross and He has made a way for me even to

have access to God, that He is saving me.

He's transforming me from the inside out.

He is rewriting my narrative. He is rewriting my life.

He is changing the way I see things, think about things,

approach things, act in certain situations.

And one day He will utterly save me.

He will do away with this heaven enough that is broken, that is

selfish, that is unrighteous, and He will take me into His

presence, into a place of heaven where absolutely he rules.

There's no healing, sorry, no healing.

There's no tears, there's no suffering, there's no pain and

there is absolute redemption. And that is the promise.

There's six people this morning are buying into when they say

yes, I am ready to respond to what God has done.

I am ready to be baptized and say my life belongs to God and

in front of my church friends, in front of my family, in front

of everyone that I could possibly invite.

And they responded and came here this morning or you just came to

the service. I am saying before you that this

is my God and I'm choosing Him forever more.

And today we are going to celebrate with these six people

and we're going to give them a huge round of applause and we

are going to stop listening to me and we're going to move down

there and we're going to baptize them.

Does that sound good?