Tune In - Week 1 - Damon Moore - January 25, 2026

If you're ready, say, let's go.

Let's go.

Awesome.

John Chapter 10.

John 10 · chapter mention

John Chapter 10.

John 10 · chapter mention

We've got a little mini series here where we're gonna be jumping into God's word.

And while you guys are looking for John Chapter 10, Jacob and Becca, who lead our generations in the house, they get a Sunday off.

John 10 · chapter mention

Yeah, they lead our students, lead our kids ministry.

Will you stand up Jacob Beck? So everybody can see you? Do the Vanna White Wave or the, or the Miss Orlando Soda Pageant.

No, keep standing.

I didn't.

So, hey, um, we've got some exciting news.

Can I share it? Yes.

No, actually y'all, I'm just, doesn't look like we playing this.

But actually for the last couple of years they've been praying and asking God to, to grow their family and they, uh, felt like the Lord spoke to them, that they were gonna grow their family through adoption and they've been praying, and those of you probably served in their served project that they had last summer, and they got news that they were chosen.

As adoptive parents.

And so at any point they could literally leave service, hop in your car and go meet your new edition.

And so here is I asked them to come in service because you and I, if you have little ones or you bring little ones with you, we get the benefit of their sacrifice.

There are others in this room that serve alongside them so that you could worship your kids.

We do not run a daycare.

Your kids are hearing the word of God being prayed for, worshiping all on their own, and so I want you to know that we get to celebrate them in this season and uplift their arms.

So we need you to do two things.

We need you to pray for them.

Then I'm gonna ask some of you to give at least one to two Sundays while they are away and beyond.

I paused 'cause I was waiting for a Woohoo, Woohoo.

After y'all heard they were adding to the family, it was like, yeah.

Woohoo.

But I, I, here, here, I, I, I would love for us to be the church of Jesus and come around them in this season.

Partner with them in your kids' spiritual growth.

And so they are upfront.

Look at 'em again.

Give 'em the cute way.

Pray about it during service.

Just quick, quick.

No, but, but one to two times over the course of the next few months and longer.

Let's see what God does.

Here's the thing that I told them, is anytime a leader has a season where they can be refreshed, the sign of health is that it will go beyond them while they are away.

That way it's never personality driven, and so will you pray about that as we uplift their arms? Will you do that? Yep.

Just say yes.

Yes.

Don't lie to the Lord.

Ha.

Gotcha.

No, I'm just playing.

Can we pray for them? Can we pray for them? Let's pray.

Father, in Jesus' name, as Jacob and Becca enter into this new phase of life, God, I pray that you would bless every aspect of them.

God, I know them enough that they will be thinking about the cares of the kids and the students, but God, I pray in this season you will surround additional leaders and volunteers to uplift their arms.

I know that they may be thinking about the resources of their own home and about the little one that will be added.

I pray for peace, strength, and provision.

And parental guidance and that fresh anointing for this season in their lives.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Come on, can you appreciate them One more time? And then, and then can you, can you appreciate all of the kids workers and, and student workers working right now? In fact, can you appreciate every person that volunteers at City Play Church? Come on, make some noise.

At the end of our service, if you are a part of a dream team and maybe you just graduated from next steps, we've got a party for you happening at the pavilion with food and all those sorts of things.

It's a one word party where we declare our one word and have a little bit of fun and tying our catch and vision for the year to you as well.

John chapter 10 says this in verse three, the gatekeeper opens the gate for him and the sheep listen to his voice.

John 10 · chapter mention

He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

When he's brought out all of his own, he goes ahead of them and his sheep follow him because they know his voice, but they will not follow a stranger.

In fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger's voice.

Can we pray? Father, have your away as we jump throughout your word.

God, we wanna be able to hear your voice so clear amongst the noise.

In the mighty name of Jesus we pray.

Amen.

The focus of today's message in this mini series is that we want to tune in.

We wanna tune in, we wanna be able to hear what the Lord has to say to us as we go throughout the year.

I don't know about you, but have, have you ever had a struggle being able to determine if what you heard was God, your flesh? Or maybe it was the pizza you had the night before? Anybody ever been there? You like, is that you God speaking, or is that me? Or was it the Chinese food? Like one of the things that's gonna be important to us as we continue to grow in our relationship with God is being able to hear God for ourself.

In fact, I would like to point out this, that it would be a great goal for you and I if we would focus and try to listen for God in everything that we do.

What if we set this target that in everything that we're going to do, we want to hear what God has to say.

I know that at times there are certain things that just by default we do, but what if we just included God in those choices in that daily routine just to see if that normal schedule that we have, God wants to tweak it a little bit because he sees something for us that day that we don't see.

What if we looked for and tried to listen for God in everything that we do? Proverbs chapter three, verse six says this In the Message Bible, it says, listen, for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go, he's the one who will keep you on track.

Listen for him in everything you do.

Everywhere you go.

Have you ever felt, felt like you, you heard a check when you were going to X place and you felt like, don't go there? Or am I alone? Like sometimes we give the credence only to ourselves.

Like, nah, man, I don't know why I said that to myself, right? Could it be that God's just like, Hey, don't, don't take that route.

Don't go there now.

Stay away from that friend group.

Don't make that decision right now.

Like if we make it a point of our life to listen to God in everything that we do and everywhere that we go, guess what? He will keep us on track.

There's a story in Luke chapter eight, verse four.

Jesus is giving a parable and he's talking about a shepherd, and uh, he's talking about, actually, he's talking about a farmer who throws seeds.

He starts breaking down how when the, the farmer is throwing the seed, how it lands in certain places and how the seed should be valued, but the cares of life and the things that we pursue and the enemy himself and the distractions will pull away from us being able to actually hear what God says.

This is what it says.

It says, one day Jesus told a story in the form of a parable to a large crowd that had gathered from many towns to hear.

And he says, A farmer went out to plant his seed, and as he scattered it across his field, some seed fell on the footpath where it was stepped on and the birds ate it.

Other seed fell amongst the rocks and it began to grow.

But the plant soon wilted and died for lack of moisture.

Other seed fell among the thorns that grew up with it and choked it with tender plants.

Still other seed fell on fertile soil.

This grew.

Produce a crop that was a hundred times as much as had been planted.

And when he said this, he called and said this, anyone that has ears should listen and understand.

If you go a little bit further in verse 11, Jesus actually makes it clear.

He says, the seed that's being sowed is the word of God.

The seed that is being sowed is the word of God.

Whenever God is speaking to you and I, it is a value to him and it should be a value to us.

God will never waste his conversation with you, nor will God waste the living word that resides in his scriptures.

You and I hold so much power.

That Bible app on our phone, it is the living word of God.

But as Jesus was saying, if it's thrown in the right place, it'll produce something.

But if it's thrown in the wrong setting, it won't produce a thing.

So the seed, if you're taking notes, write this down because last week people were boycotting because I missed one blank.

And I leaned over to Josiah and I said, Josiah, I actually said that.

I said, I said this, Josiah.

And I looked at Josiah and I felt the spirit of Jesus on me.

I looked at Josiah and I said, Josiah, how long shall I be with thee? I'm just kidding.

I said, son, how long shall I be with thee to where thou will need us? Every blanket, filleth must thou not catches thy blankets, will not sayeth it.

I know, right? I gotta grow.

I, I gotta grow.

My mom used to ask me this when I would, when I would get in trouble in class, she would say, what, what, what, what? You some sort of comedian, what? I tell her now, I couldn't tell her.

Then now I'm like, yes.

Back then if I would've said that, I see you.

You know what I'm saying? I would've ended up in the ICU.

Just, just what? That's what would've happened.

Luke chapter eight, though Jesus is clear.

He's like, Hey, the seed that's being, sow is the word of God, and it has to be valued as such.

When God is speaking to us, it has value.

Think about this for a moment.

God does not have a speaking problem.

I said this last week.

We have a hearing problem.

We have a hearing problem.

We get so busy, we get so in our own routine.

Or maybe you're like me at times when I've tried to ex script what God should say to me.

And if he doesn't say it, uh, I, I just am not hearing it.

Or maybe I've positioned myself that this will be my response and God's trying to encourage me, charge me, change me, uh, push me, and I just won't have it because I've settled in on what I've already decided to do.

Like.

Sometimes in our life, we've got to shift our posture to go, God, I know you're speaking, but I have to pause long enough to hear what you're saying.

In order to hear God's voice, you and I are gonna have to turn down the world's volume, and I'm not just talking about the secular environment that we live in.

I'm talking about the things that we pursue and chase to get ours.

I'm talking about the things that we grind for.

I'm talking about the verbiage that we say about ourselves.

I'm gonna live in my truth.

I'm gonna say my truth.

Listen, all you're making right now might be noise.

Like sometimes we talk, my mom say this too, Damon, you talk too much.

You talk so much, you can't hear what I'm trying to tell you.

Like sometimes.

The busyness of our life speaks more louder than our ability to hear what God's trying to say to us.

We need to make room to be able to hear him speak at times.

Tisha gets on me because I don't rest very well when I say I'm going to.

You can, maybe you can relate to this.

When I try to rest, my brain just goes and goes, and goes, and goes and goes, and then this is what I do.

Instead of giving God space to speak to me in rest, while my brain is still going, do you know what I do? I go, you know what I'm thinking about it.

I'm gonna do it anyway.

So I feel the space that I set aside for space to hear God speak and refresh me because my mind's going and instead of letting him do what he said he would do, peace I give unto these, I go, no, let me finish it because I can handle it.

Like we have to turn down the world's volume.

So let's talk this morning about the why, the how, and the what God speaks.

I could sense this as we were heading out of 21 days of prayer and heading into this new season.

I wanted to make sure that as a pastor I didn't do, uh, an assumption.

I don't wanna assume that everyone in this room that we all know how to hear God speak because we will get 52 messages from this platform in one given year.

But how many of them will we apply? How many of them will sound good on Sunday, but we will forget by Sunday afternoon.

How often will we be in here on Sunday? And Damon will be communicating, but we might miss the other things that the Holy Spirit says even while we're reading the scriptures.

God convicted Damon, we want to have, this is the Lord speaking to me.

I want to have a people who are biblically literate and can hear my voice without you speaking.

Yep.

Good.

Y'all good with that? I'm just telling you how God talks to me.

Damon, don't you talk too much.

I want them to tune in.

So let's talk about the why, the how, and the what God speaks.

So write this down on your message notes.

For those of you who might miss the blanks, as I speak on your notes, there's a section that says the why right below.

I wrote it clear.

Write this down, write this down.

Here.

Here.

Here's the why.

God will speak to you and I, God will speak to I, you and I because he wants to be close in a close relationship with you.

He wants to be in a close relationship with you.

He knows you, but he wants us to know him as well.

Knowing of him, billions and billions know of him, but knowing him is gonna require us leaning into a relationship with him.

So he's gonna speak to us because he wants you and I to have a close relationship with him.

The second thing that he will do, he's gonna speak to you and I, because he wants to grow you and I, and he wants to lead us.

Remember, during our prayer time we talked about him, him wanting to transform us and to grow us from where we are to what he sees and how he has designed.

All of us in this room, you and I are a work in progress and we all look good this morning.

We look dressed to the T, but we're all in process.

Isn't that good to know that you are in a room of imperfect people? Because one of the myths about church is that I don't go to church because there's a lot of hypocrites.

Everybody in there think they perfect.

Guess what? This is not a perfect church.

Welcome home.

There you go.

So we're all a work in progress and if, if God is speaking to us, God is gonna speak to us because he wants close relationship, but he's gonna grow us.

And guess what He's gonna lead us to that a shepherd will speak.

They will know his name, they will come to him.

He will go in front of them, open up the door and say, this is the way to go.

We wanna listen for him in everything that we do, because if he does it, he will guide that aspect of leading us.

The third thing that he will do, he's gonna speak to us because he's gonna change our view.

He's gonna speak to us because he is going to change our.

We can have a worldview or we can have a view from his lens.

When we get the view from his lens, then we literally begin to walk a line to the thing that he sees for you and I for the thing that he sees, for the impact that you will make for you and for your family, for the place where you work, the place that you reside.

And so the why God speaks to be in close relationship with us.

To grow you and I, to lead us and to change our view in First Samuel chapter three.

First Samuel, chapter three, first Samuel, chapter three.

There's a young boy by the name of Samuel, and Samuel is a son of a woman by the name of Hannah who believed God for a child, and she said, God, if you give me a son, I will present him back to you for service all the days of his life.

So she births a baby with her husband and a, the Bible says, after he is weaned, she presents him to God's house and he begins serving in God's house.

And in First Samuel chapter three, we find that Samuel is laying in the presence of God, where the Ark of God resided, which carried the presence of God in biblical day.

It says that he is, he is there in God's presence, but he hasn't yet heard God speak to him.

He hadn't really discovered and known God's voice for himself.

And so he's sitting near God's presence and he goes to lay down, and as he is laying down, he hears this.

Samuel.

Samuel, Samuel laying down, wakes up.

Runs to Eli, who was the priest at the time, and he says, did you call me sir? I'm coming.

What do you need? And Eli says, son, I didn't call you.

I didn't call you.

He says, go back to bed.

Samuel goes, lays down.

You can leave that scripture up.

He goes and lays down and he hears it again.

Samuel.

Samuel.

He wakes up, runs.

Eli, you called me again, sir.

Eli says, son, I tell you I did not call you.

Go back and lay down.

Goes, lays down again.

Samuel Samuel.

Samuel wakes up.

Sir, you keep calling my name.

I don't mind coming, but I'd really like to get some sleep now.

He didn't say that.

He goes a third time and it dawns on Eli.

Eli.

If I'm not calling you, God must be.

He says, okay, so I'm actually gonna show you how to respond when God speaks to you.

He says, go back and lay down where you were, but this time when you hear your name called don't come to whose voice you've been hearing.

And it may sound familiar, this is a game change.

Actually respond this way.

To the God that you've never met in a new way.

Say, speak Lord.

Your servant is listening.

When he goes to lay down, he hears it again.

Samuel.

Samuel.

And instead of him running to a familiar voice that was a human voice, he actually goes, speak Lord.

You're servant is listening.

When you continue to read that chapter, God doesn't delay.

In completing the conversation, he starts speaking to Samuel in a way that Samuel had never heard before.

He starts telling Samuel things to come.

He start instructing Samuel of what would happen.

He starts leading and guiding, having his personal one-on-one with Samuel.

When you and I begin to position our heart, God begins to speak to us because he wants a close relationship.

He begins to lead us and guide us and grow us.

But then you and I begin to position ourselves so that God can change our view.

Samuel had only known God just in serving in God's house, but God was literally speaking to him that now I'm changing your view because Eli used to speak on my behalf, but now son, you're going to, when you and I begin to position our hearts to be able to hear what God says.

God begins to quiet the natural voices and we begin to tune in to his voice over the next few days, and I won't be able to finish.

Let me give you one of the, what's that He will do? The why is he's gonna grow us closer to him, but here's one of the whats, and then we're gonna pray out.

What will he do when God speaks to you? He will confirm to you and he will encourage you.

He will confirm and he will encourage you, confirm and encourage you.

In Exodus chapter 33, Moses had been working for God.

Exodus 33 · chapter mention

Have you ever heard of Moses? Let my people go.

10 commandments comes on every holiday.

It takes up three, four hours of our TV time.

Come on.

Y'all know what I'm talking about, right? So he's speaking, having a conversation with Moses.

And Moses is really, really bold because Moses had known God.

He had seen amazing miracles.

But what Moses had seen in one season, Moses wanted to see God and hear God in a totally different way in a new season.

And he has this big, bold prayer.

He's like Moses.

He's like, God, listen.

If you don't go with us, I don't want to go anywhere.

Let me know that you're gonna go with us, and God's like Moses, I'm gonna go with you.

My presence will go with you.

My peace will go with you.

Thanks God.

Then Moses goes, God, if you don't go, and if we don't have favor, God, we don't wanna go Moses.

I just want you to know you have favor and my presence is gonna go.

And then Moses, when you get in 33, he gets really bold.

He goes, now, God, I want to see your glory.

I want to see you in ways I've never seen before.

I want to hear you speak in ways you've never spoken before.

And do you know what God says, Moses? Let's have a one-on-one.

Moses, let's have a conversation and I'm gonna show you pieces of me and speak in ways that you've never heard before.

Listen, God will encourage you and God will confirm in you some of the heartfelt desires for you and I to be close to him over this week.

I want to challenge us.

I want to challenge you.

To allow the Lord to speak to you in ways that may, you may have never heard him speak to you before.

And then next week we will finish.

I promise we will finish.

Well actually, let me not promise I'll do my best lest I fall.

But next week we're gonna talk a little bit more about what does God say when he's speaking.

And then what should our response be as we prepare to hear from him? Is it okay if we take one more week? Can I challenge us to jump into God's word this week? I wanna challenge you to jump into the scriptures and read for yourself.

Don't just take me at my word.

No go, no g, go.

God, speak to me so that I can be close to you.

You can grow me, lead me, and change my view.

Can I pray? Father, in Jesus' name, I thank you that you're tuning our ears to be able to hear your voice so clear.

Father, we want to hear your voice in ways we've never seen.

We thank you that you've given us a good shepherd that calls us his own, who calls us by name, who leads us, goes before us, and I declare that every person in here.

She will know when your spirit is talking.

In Jesus' name,