Wanderlust: How to hear God

Good morning, Welcome to Venture, and if you're joining us online, welcome

to you as well. My name is Die and I'm part of our Central

Campus team here. It's my privilege to share with you in our series that

we're calling Wanderlust, which is all about how do we find direction? We

all have this itch inside of us. Sometimes it's stronger than others where we

just have this desire to go to adventure, to follow, to hear calling

or hear the voice of God. And that's really where we'll zone in today

is how do we hear the voice of God? How do we obey God.

I love the word adventure because I love what it's hands for, which

is actual adventure. And really Wanderlust is to me all about the adventure of

following God. So I thought i'd start off with a quick little adventure story.

If you don't know me, this summarizes me really well. A couple

of years ago, twenty nineteen, actually, Jen and I and another friend

decided that we were going to do this epic trip of hiking in the Grand

Canyon, and we planned and you have to apply if you want to stay

at this little ranch at the bottom, you have to apply, like over

a year in advance so that you can win a lottery so you can stay

down there. And we won the lottery, so we got to stay down

there and all this accumulating equipment. We researched, we read blogs, etc.

And we were finally ready to go. So we planned, we planned

our flights, and we flew in and in it on a chilly March morning,

we set out to hike down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

I don't know if you know this, but I did not know this,

and I had been to the Grand Canyon before. You think you're going to

drive up to the parking lot and like walk to the edge of the Grand

Canyon. There's actually like a full city at the top of the Grand Canyon,

more like a village. But anyway, there's like hotels and restaurants in

the whole deal. So we show up this early morning in March. We

get out of the car and you have to take a shuttle to the trailhead.

So I have a picture of the trailhead and so you know, you

get out of your car and you walk to a shuttle stop right. Well,

we stood at this shuttle stop for probably twenty minutes, eating our breakfast

and chatting away before it even occurred to us, are we at the right

shuttle stop? Actually we were not at the right shuttle stop, and that

actually started a joke that we kept up for the entire trip, which was

something like, somewhere in the world, our husbands are shaking their heads.

They don't know why, but they are shaking their heads at us. Unfortunately

they should have heard a few times on that trip. But anyway, we

finally got to the right shuttle stop, made it to the trailhead. We

spent about six hours hiking down to the bottom of Grand Canyon. It's epically

beautiful. We get to the bottom, we show up at Phantom Ranch,

where we had won the lottery. It's the cutest little place. We had

a good dinner, we spent the night, and we were planning to spend

two nights there and then so on our day the next day that we just

had the whole day, we're like, well, let's do a day hike,

because that's what people do at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. They

decided to go hike sixteen miles, which is what we did. And so

we had heard about this waterfall called Ribbon Falls and if you're from Washington,

which most of you are, it's not a waterfall. It's like a fawcet

dripping down the side of a rock. I mean, it is actually a

ribbon, and so I don't recommend it. But we didn't know that,

and so we leave our cabin, cute little cabin. We get up,

We turn left out of our cabin, and we hike for I don't know

a mile a mile and a half before we think to ask, are we

going in the right direction? We were not, And once again our as

husbands were shaking their heads and they didn't know why. We passed someone who

said, no, you're actually going in the wrong direction. And so our

little sixteen mile hike turned into more like eighteen miles because we had a backtrack,

and on our way back we passed all the signs that we had walked

right past. They were pointing in the direction that we were supposed to go.

I don't know about you, but maybe you've been at some point in

your life where you have wished that there is just some really clear signs of

which direction you should go. In fact, if you follow the Lord in

any way in your life, you probably just wish that God would just show

up and audibly tell you where you should go in your life. You and

I face decisions every single day. Should I push this news button or get

out of bed? I always push this news button? What should I eat

for breakfast? What should I wear? Or should I go to the gym?

You know, what do we How are we gonna spend our time?

How we're gonna spend our money? And then the decisions never in. But

also we face difficult decisions every day too, or almost every day. And

maybe you're here or watching online and you're facing a really big decision. Maybe

it's like who should I marry or should I get married? Maybe it's we

got married, but how many kids should we have or should we have kids?

Maybe it's should I take that job promotion or a job transfer. Maybe

it's should we move or should we stay? Maybe it's should I stay married,

which is a big one. Maybe it's what do I do with these

creatures called children? That God answered my prayer and gave me that. I

don't know what to do it on a daily basis. How do we follow

God? How do you and I? And maybe that's the biggest question for

us, How do we follow God? How do we hear his voice?

And again, usually we just wish he would audibly show up and speak to

us, because that would just make it all simpler. Do you agree?

Yes? But in fact that is not usually how God operates in our lives.

And every person here and online is probably facing some decision right now that

makes this topic and this question really relevant to you. We're going to tackle

the million dollar question this morning, or attempt to how do I hear God?

Now? Disclaimer, there are approximately one hundred books that you could read

that are going to do a better job at this than me and go more

in depth. There's probably dozens of podcasts you can listen to, and messages

delivered by other speakers who are even more dynamic and say lots of great one

liners that you want to jump out of your seat and name in. But

I'm just going to do my best to just present us with some basic navigation

for how do we here? God? Would you join me? Though?

As we open in prayer, God, we thank you that you do speak

to us, and that if we have ears to hear, we can hear

your voice speaking to us. And we're going to unpack that in a moment.

But I'm just asking on behalf of those that are here today that you

would just make our ears sensitive to your voice. In fact, would you

make our hearts sensitive to your voice. Some here today are desperate for you

to speak to them, and so I'm asking that you show up in their

lives in a tangible way. We're doing this all for you, so for

your glory in your name, amen. Uh okay, raise your hand.

This is interactive Sunday. Raise your hand. If you are either a parent,

or a teacher, or a grandparent, or you work with kids in

some way, shape or yes, okay. Children provide incredible stories that are

funnier the farther away you get from them usually, but they are incredible for

lesson learning and examples. And so I'm going to use my children today to

Rachel's delight, as an example. Let me start with I have twin boys.

They are twenty two, and we are still alive. Should yeah,

And they have an older sister and we are all still alive. But Rachel

is my firstborn, and as a parent of you know, my first child,

of course, I wanted her to excel at all things. So I

wanted her to learn how to walk really early. And talk and all these

things. So she's like eight nine months old and I'm putting her on her

feet trying to teach her how to walk. She walked at ten months,

which you know, of course reflects my parenting as incredible. But you know,

she's a prodigy. But then I had twin boys, and I pray

to prayer something like this, Dear Lord, please allow these children to never

walk. Not really, more like, please let them be too when they

walk. Because I was smart enough to know as soon as those two kids

get on their feet, I'm they're going in different directions, which is one

true their entire lives, they always have gone in different directions, and so

I knew I was going to be outnumbered. God was merciful to me.

They did not start walking until they were fourteen months old, and then my

whole life was over right then. And so when they were young, we

lived in Modesto at the time, and I didn't go out much because two

kids that could run in different directions meant I mean like I could go out

for a walk because we're moving, But as soon as we stopped, two

babies are screaming to get out of a stroller and Rachel's the center of attention,

so she's singing for a crowd somewhere and the two boys are going in

different directions. So I just didn't go out much. And at one point,

you know, they were they were a couple of years older. This

family came to town to visit us, and so it was a mom and

her adult otters and they were like, hey, we want to take you

out to lunch. Be so fun. We'll take you and the kids.

And I said nope, and they're like what why, And I'm like,

I don't go out and they're like, well, why because I'm outnumbered.

Well, but no, you're not, because we're with you and we'll help

you. And so I'm dumb and fell for this line that they would help

me with my children. And so we decided to go out to lunch,

and it's just it's it's a tragedy from the start. Before we even order,

we put the two boys in their high chairs, which the rule of

thumb is they cannot get out of the high chairs because if they do,

the world is over. So we put them in their high chairs. They're

screaming immediately, and Rachel's on her knees on a chair singing for the restaurant.

You know, it's just cute for about thirty seconds, and then the

people at the tables around are like, can you control those children? And

the truth is no, I cannot. So the boys are screaming, they

want out of their chairs, you know whatever, And so we're dumb,

all all of us adults are dumb. We're like, well, between us,

we can handle two boys, right, so let's take them out of

the chair, and we'll let them, you know, sit on her laps

and if they get really screaming, we'll let them play under the table.

And so that happened within seconds. So now we've ordered, and we're trapped

at the restaurant. Don't you put in the order you're stuck there, which

is I'm sweating bullets and you know the two places you sweat as a parent,

Well, it's anywhere in public, but especially like they're in a restaurant

and on a plane, because you know, your children are not cute to

anyone else around you spoiler, but they're under the table. They're screaming.

Rachel has now just to make the story better, let's just say she's moved

to her feet. Not really, she just stayed on her knees and saying

the whole time. But let's just say she's standing in the middle of the

table singing for the restaurant because it sounds better. But this part's true.

The boys escaped from underneath the table, of course, because our legs are

not wide enough to keep those two boys in and they take off running in

opposite directions, and they are maniacally laughing as I'm yelling after them in my

best mom voice. Mom's out there, you know the mom. Boys.

It's the clenched tea. You're laughing because this is you. So I do

the good and everyone's staring and I will need leave this child nameless. But

one of my two precious boys, as he's maniacally laughing, says this phrase,

Mommy, I hear you, but I'm not listening. True story.

Can I Can I just say that line again though, and just put it

in the context of this message, I hear you, but I'm not listening,

because truly there is there is some truth to that sentence right there.

I hear you, but I am not listening. To set the foundation for

the fact, let's just build on that. We won't hear from God if

we aren't listening. You want to hear from God, you want God to

speak to you, you gotta listen. If you have your Bible, turn

to first Samuel, chapter three. If you don't have Bible, the words

will be I mean, just a few words will be on the screen behind

me, because really I'm just going to kind of summarize this story for us

and just hit a couple of verses. So for Samuel chapter three. If

you've been in church, maybe this is a familiar story to you, but

just so we're all on the same page, I will summarize. It's a

story about a little boy at this point, Samuel, who grows into a

man named Samuel. I don't know why that was funny to be, but

it starts off with a woman who is unable to conceive a child, and

so this woman goes to the Lord. She begs and pleads with God to

give her a child. And she does, in fact conceive a child,

and she has this little boy, and she names him Samuel. In her

pleading with God, she made a promise to God, if you will give

me a child, I will give him back to you to serve you for

his whole life. So after Samuel was born, and then she weaned him.

She followed through on her promise, and she took Samuel to the temple

and she and the child's father drop Samuel off with the priest whose name was

Eli, to serve the Lord for his whole life in the temple. I

mean, let's not breathe past. How hard that would be? Okay,

Well, so she drops off the child. The child's job is now to

serve Eli. Eli's job is to serve the Lord, and Samuel's job is

to assist Eli in serving the Lord. And so scripture tells us for Samuel.

Verse three or chapter three, Verse one tells us that at this time,

messages from the Lord were very rare. So there's just this kind of

context. And one night, Samuel's laying in bed. He hears a voice

calling Samuel, and so he gets up and runs to Eli. Eli says,

I didn't call you. Go back to bed. It happens again,

and this time Eli catches on like maybe the Lord is calling to this child.

So he says, Samuel, go back to bed. And if you

hear this voice again calling your name, say speak Lord, for your servant

is listening. Verse seven gives us a little more context here where it says

Samuel did not yet know the Lord because he had never had a message from

the Lord before. Okay, so the voice of the Lord is rare.

Samuel didn't know the voice of the Lord. He didn't recognize this voice,

and yet he's willing. So he goes back to bed for the third time.

He hears this voice and he says, speak, your servant is listening,

and at that point God gives him a message that he is going to

have to deliver to Eli and eventually to the nation of Israel. The point

being, Samuel heard his voice three times, he heard this voice calling his

name, but he didn't actually listen until the third time, and when he

listened is when he heard the message. Okay, so there's just that difference

there. So I went to the Google and I googled, and you can

do this too, the difference between hearing and listening, And psychologists have all

kinds of things to say about it. You can do some research on your

own. For our purposes here today, it's quite simply this. The difference

between hearing and listening is hearing is basically just one of the five senses,

and listening is a choice, it carries intent, it's on purpose. Even

as a young boy, Samuel had to learn to listen to the voice of

God, and when he did, he heard messages from God. He went

on to become a prophet from the nation of Israel, where he would hear

messages from God listening and deliver them to God's people. You can thank me

for this later, but I'm going to breeze over the whole rest of the

Bible and skip to almost the end, because otherwise we'd be here for many

hours. But the book of Hebrews gives us a little more insight into than

the end of the story. Hebrews one verse two says, long ago God

spoke many times and in many ways to our ancestors through the prophets. So

here the writer of Hebrews is saying what we just covered. Back then,

God spoke to us through a person who was listening to him, and that

person would deliver a message from God to the people. Okay, So that

was that's what Samuel did. But the writer of Hebrews goes on to say,

and now in these final days, he has spoken to us through his

son, through Jesus. Okay, So before Jesus became God in the flesh

here on the earth. God spoke through the prophets. Okay, so these

prophets relayed messages from God. They relayed messages of hope, correction, They

delivered the law, they delivered the promise of reconciliation, and often those things

were written down as a record for those to come to be able to read.

God spoke directly to names you may know, like Abraham, or to

Joshua, or in this case, to Samuel. He gave dreams to people

like Jacob, and he gave visions, crazy visions to people like Ezekiel.

But in most cases, the vast majority of people did not hear audibly from

the Lord. They didn't even see crazy visions or dream crazy dreams. They

were responsible to read what had been written down that God had said. They

had a responsibility to read for themselves God's written word, which was a message

often delivered to someone who was listening and written down as a record for everyone

else. In some cases they could go to a prophet and a person could

ask, hey, can you seek the Lord from me on this? Or

you know, is there something that I can learn from the Lord on this?

But mostly the responsibility was to read this written word. When Jesus came,

things changed. Through Jesus's mini ministry, God spoke directly to his people

directly. Jesus's teachings are God's direct revelation to his people and then by proxy

onto us. So the writer of Hebrews used this little phrase. In these

final days, God has spoken to us through his son. You and I

are living in these final days. They're the days between when Jesus came and

when he will come again. We all are parked right here in the middle,

and we depend on Jesus's revelation of God to us. Now. Fortunately,

Jesus had many friends and followers and eyewitnesses who also recorded the things that

he taught. And guess what they're all in here. Okay, this is

a Bible, a Bible preach that come on a Bible. It can be

a frustrating. Your relationship with this might be frustrating, It might feel daunting

it. Maybe you felt like I don't even know where to start. We're

actually gonna launch a class in October, a three week class on how do

I read this thing and understand it? It has long lists of things like

genealogies and like allotments of land that you might not care much about. It

has names that are hard to pronounce, and it's not mostly in chronological order,

which just can make it difficult to understand. But it includes everything we

need to know from the mouth of God to you and I. It's in

here, which makes it very important, very important. God's word contains everything

we need to hear from God. It's all the words that God gave to

the prophets, and then all of the teachings Jesus game it gave, and

instructions that He gave that are recorded by the eyewitnesses in those times with the

help of the Holy Spirit. Are you with me? Okay, okay,

good job. This means the primary way we hear from God is what Okay.

Maybe you're sitting there and you're like die. You started off saying that

you're going to help us hear God's voice, and now I hear you saying

read your Bible. That's not what I had in mind. And you would

not be alone in feeling frustrated maybe by that statement. And yet it's still

true. Now God does still speak audibly, and I'll give one example in

a minute, but there are many examples of how God still speaks audibly,

It's not the primary way that he speaks. He primarily speaks through what He

has already said. And if he does speak to you audibly, will unpack

that in a second. What he says to you audibly will always, one

of the time, without fail, line up with his word, which means

you and I have to read this and know what it says in order to

know if what He's saying lines up with this book? Are you with me?

Okay? All right, stay with me. If you are convinced that

God is telling you something, if you are using the phrase God said to

me or spoke to me, and following that are things that are contrary to

or don't line up with his word, he is not speaking to you.

We enter really dangerous territory, and by it may not be you, but

maybe you know somebody, or it could be you. Entering into dangerous territory

when we think that God is giving us some fresh new word or fresh new

revelation or fresh new anything, and it doesn't line up with this. God

is not a god who will contradict himself. That is not in his nature.

So you and I must know this in order to know if what we

feel like He is speaking to us lines up with this. So the primary

way we hear from God is through his word. Number two, from God

through teachers whose message also aligns with his word. Let's just unpack that.

A teacher in your life that's maybe a generic term. Could be a pastor,

could be a small group leader. It could be a friend, or

a counselor, could be a parent, parents, It could be a child,

it could be a mentor. Anyone who is in this book can be

used by God to share with you a truth that you are then able to

say God spoke to me because He did it through someone else, but only

if their message aligns with his word. So we got to go back to

the first thing. It must always lie, which means the people you listen

to better also be inside of this so that they are saying things that line

up with what God says here. Now, I have lots of personal opinions.

Then I will try to I'll try to not say right now, but

I will carefully say this one, and that is I truly believe as a

pastor, I truly believe that if you and I want to follow God and

hear from him, He's not going to make it impossible to hear him.

I just truly believe that He is not going up you, my precious child,

you want to follow me, I'm gonna make that super difficult for you

to figure out. I think we can trust God to communicate with us if

He wants to communicate with us. However, the majority of what we need

to know is already communicated to us. Our job is to spend time learning

that. I'm gonna leave that there. I'm gonna just leave him that there.

Be careful. It doesn't mean that the way that God directs you isn't

It might be hard. He might be directing you to something difficult, and

it may take time for that direction. But I don't think he makes it

impossible for us to follow him. I think he wants us to follow him,

and he's going to help us know the way. Okay, So primarily

we learn what God wants to say to us through his word. Secondary would

be teachers, and I'm just going to cover three. So the third one

I'm going to say is we hear from God through the Holy Spirit. When

Jesus's ministry on earth was complete and he ascended into Heaven, he told his

disciples and his followers to wait for the gift of the Holy Spirit, and

among the many workings of the Spirit, Jesus tells us in John fourteen twenty

six that when the Father sends the Spirit, he will teach you everything and

remind you of everything I have told you. So for you and I one

of the most important things about reading this is then the Holy Spirit helps bring

these things to mind. He's going to remind us of things. But if

you've never cracked it open, it's gonna be hard for him to remind you

of something that's brand new to you. Let me take a moment here and

just talk about the the audible voice of God, which for most people is

a sentence that starts with God told me. Have you ever heard someone say

God told me. It's not a negative thing. Maybe you've said it,

I've said it. There is an God does still speak. Okay, we

are first of all, we are not going to put God in a box

and say, yeah, he doesn't he doesn't speak audibly. He does speak

audibly, it's just not the primary way he's going to speak to you.

But usually when someone says God told me, it's more it's less audible voice

that you hear here and more of a of a knowing inside of you.

You you just know? Have you ever had that where you just like I

just knew. I don't know how I knew. I just knew. That's

the work of the spirit inside you and you and I in order to help

us follow the Lord. Well, the Bible tells us that the Spirit gives

gifts to the believers, and with those gifts we are supposed to edify,

help and serve each other. So what's the point of knowing or the God

spoke to in the purpose of the body of Christ, a body of believers.

It's in order to lift each other up and make each other better.

It's in order to serve each other. Okay, So that's often if someone

comes to you and says, God spoke this to me for you, it's

supposed to be to serve, to help or to build you up with me.

Often we are hoping God will audibly speak to us, and it's not

wrong to hope that. But maybe what we need more than that is wisdom.

Now, wisdom is also a spiritual gift. It gets less press than

this whole flashy and it's more dramatic and more fun to say God spoke to

me audibly, and he can certainly, But this knowing, this work of

the spirit is really in tandem with wisdom. And I'm going to cut this

to the chase. I spent more time on this in the first service,

but I'm going to cut this to the chase and say, I think sometimes

what we need more than a specific word from God that we hear, we

just need the wisdom of God. I mean the whole Like should I move

to Nashville like everyone else I know in the last two years, or should

I stay here? Like maybe less what we need is this audible voice and

more what we need is just wisdom, Like is this good for my family?

Is this good for my marriage? If I'm married? Is this gonna

benefit me in my walk with God? Is this gonna benefit the Kingdom of

God? And how I operate in and through it? Maybe what we need

more than anything is wisdom. And as Brandon and I always say, and

I think he just said it last week. If you're in a season right

now where you're waiting for God to give you direction and you don't feel like

he's speaking, maybe he feels silent to you. You're not sure go back

to the last thing that He told you and hang on there. But there

are times that God has a directive for us, and I'm going to call

this marching orders. Like sometimes he does want you to pick up a move.

Sometimes he may call you to do something crazy that feels crazy. It

requires a lot of trust. Again, I don't think he makes that impossible

for you and I to figure out. But in order to hear God,

we have to listen. We have to listen. So if you're sitting in

a season right now and you're like, I just really need God to speak

to me, my question to follow that, based on what we're talking about

today is are you listening? Are you taking time to listen? Jesus said

in John ten twenty seven my sheep, that's you and I. His followers

listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me. And just

like in any relationship, the more that you and I listen, the better

we get it recognizing a voice. And once we recognize the voice, then

we have a responsibility to follow the instructions that voice is giving us. There

are more than three ways to hear from God. I I just hit three.

I mean, God can speak to you through difficulty through suffering and trial.

I'm in most of us aren't signing up for that, but He can

speak to us through those times. He can speak to you in loneliness.

He can speak to you in silence, and some of you that's the best

way you hear from God is silence. And I'll just propose having your phone

in your hand is maybe not the best way to hear from God because it's

the most distracting thing, probably besides children in your life. Some of us,

I'll include myself in this. I feel like I hear from God when

I'm out in nature, like when I see the work of His hands around

me, and I don't and I'm usually out of cell service. I just

I feel like I can hear from God. Then, I mean God can

speak how he wants for Pete's sake. The Bible is a story about him

speaking through a donkey, so he can speak to you and I however he

pleases. It's just this is the primary way that he speaks. And I

will propose to you, if I go back to how I started this message,

I hear you, but I'm not listening. I will propose to you

that I think our issue is less about our ability to hear, and more

about not wanting to hear, because if we truly hear what God has to

say to us, it will require that we respond to it, and most

of us don't love having to respond. That my kid running away from me,

he didn't want to come back. So his excuse was I didn't hear

you. I mean, I heard you, but I didn't really hear you.

I wasn't listening. And we can treat God that way too, Like

I know, I mean, I know probably in there tells me how to

live my life, or I'm aware that there are some guidelines for how I

conduct myself as a follower of Jesus, but I would rather pretend like I

don't know or have forgotten them, because we don't want to have to act.

And I don't want this to be condemning. I want it to just

be honest, because if we're honest about it, we can make a choice

to not live our life that way. We can make a choice to put

ourselves in a posture where we are listening, a posture of no distraction,

and a posture where we say God, even if it's something hard for me

to hear, I want to hear it. I'm going to conclude with a

quote, and a couple weeks ago, Sean Pastor Sean shared a message about

drifting in your relationship with God, and his whole thing was we don't naturally

get closer to God, we naturally drift away from Him. And this quote,

I think sums that up and really encapsulates even this idea of us not

wanting to hear what God has to say. Sometimes. This is about Da

Carson, amongst other things. He's the president of the Evangelical Theological Society.

He says this, People do not drift toward holiness. People do not gravitate

toward God or prayer, or obedience to scripture, or faith or delight in

the Lord. We drift toward compromise and we call it tolerance. We drift

toward disobedience and we call it freedom. We cherish the discipline of lost self

control and we call it relaxation. We slouch toward prayerlessness, and we delude

ourselves into thinking we've escaped legalism. We slide toward godlessness, and we convince

ourselves that we've been liberated again. It's not meant for condemnation. It's meant

for honest introspection, self evaluation. So i'mon ask you to buy your heads

and close your eyes, not because that's magical or some special formula, but

because it's how we are able to look inside. Don't miss this moment,

because if you're here, in this room or online and you're saying I really

need God to speak to me, he wants to speak to you. He

has spoken to you through his word, but maybe you need confirmation in fact

with your eyes closed. Let me just tell you quickly. There was a

time I served on a prayer team for a ministry and I was with another

girl. We were partnered up together, and you know, we're just laying

a hands on people, praying for them, encouraging them. We came across

this girl and God put in my heart a very specific name of a village

in Africa. It turns out I'd never heard of it before, and I

I just had this knowing, this God speaking to me inside. Tell her

I want her to go to this village. And so that's a risk,

you on it, And so I just whispered in her ear. God says,

yes, year to go, and I set the village and she collapsed

on her knees and she's sobbing. Clearly it meant something to her. Eventually

I knelt down next to her and I said, that meant something to you.

She said, I have never told a single living soul. No one

on this earth knows that. I feel like God called me to that village.

But I was standing here at this altar praying God, if you want

me to go, send someone to confirm it. Maybe you need confirmation in

your life. Maybe you need Got to speak to you, or maybe someone

has spoken over you and need the confirmation that that is the Lord speaking to

you. If that is you, I'm gonna ask you to be so bold

is to stand to your feet. If you need God to speak to you,

you need direction. You're facing a big decision, you need you need

him to confirm something. You need to know that you know that you know,

and I know there is more of you than just a handful of brave

souls. So if that is you, I'm gonna ask you to stand your

feet, be bold. If you're bold enough to say, God speak to

me, you better be bold enough to stand up and say here I am

Lord. I'm putting myself in a position all over this room. And online.

If if you need God's direction in your life, I'm gonna ask you

just agree as I pray, and as I'm praying, and ask our prayer

team and some of our staff to come forward to the front. I want

to make these people available to pray with you. The team is just going

to us saying, after I pray, just to give us a moment,

just a couple of moments, to just put ourselves in a posture. So

physically, if you could put yourself in a posture to hear from God.

Maybe that's your hands are over your heart, maybe your hands are out or

outstretched. Maybe you want to kneel, maybe you want to come to the

front right now. I'm going to call you here in just a second.

Anyway, I'm just gonna ask you to put yourself in a posture for God

to speak to you. Even if you're not at a crossroads of a big

decision, if you need God, you're willing for God to speak to you,

would you agree with me? God right now across this room and those

watching online and those who will listen in the weeks to come, we understand

that you primarily speak through your word. And so, first of all,

God we make a commitment. I'm just going to speak this over us.

We make a commitment to make this a priority, to be in your word,

to know you, to seek you, and to be willing to hear

where you have to say through your word. And in addition, God,

there are right now in this space that are desperate for direction from you.

They need to hear your voice. They need to hear that inner knowing.

They need to be led guided. They have a big decision on the horizon,

they're facing something that they cannot solve on their own, and they need

you to speak into the circumstances to speak to their heart. God. And

some aren't facing a big decision, They just say speak, that's me,

Speak, Lord, speak to me. I'm listening. So God, we

put ourselves in a posture right now. And it's not just for the next

couple of minutes. It's even later today and tomorrow. We put we put

ourselves. We're gonna put ourselves in a posture to hear your voice, to

be open, to be receptive, to be listening. God, then give

us the boldness, the courage to step forth in what You've called us to

do. We thank you for that in your name Amen. Would you all

stand to your feet