The Chat That Changes You - Part 2

Music. Are you guys going to be talking

at the same? Time, do you need more than one

or? Good morning, Liberty Church.

How are you guys doing this morning?

Hi. We're so excited to be in Big

Kids church with you guys this morning.

It's so good to see all of your faces.

We just got a few announcements for you this morning.

First off, we have the Elevate change drive.

If you saw the change bucket there in the foyer, the Youth

Ministry is collecting change for upcoming missions trips, so

Jared and Beatrice would appreciate any change that you

can drop off. And oh, by the way, any changes

you give will help Jared become a changed man.

Oh, thanks for encouraging him. In our house we don't laugh, it

only encourages him over. There, OK.

Thank you. Sorry, we're not used to doing

this. We have to be in the light.

OK, fine. So the next thing we have in our

announcements is our Angel tree drop off.

If you could get those gifts in by December 17th, that would be

perfect. We can get those to the families

that are here locally. And then don't forget to get on

and the the child that you sponsored from Guatemala or

Albania that you make those payments to.

And Next up we have the Ladies Christmas Party today.

You're not a lady. You shouldn't be doing this.

Announcement the Ladies Christmas.

Party. Y'all aren't excited for that

are you? No, they're not.

They're not, they're not excited at all tonight from 5 to 8

ladies, come on out. It'll be a good time potluck

style. And don't forget to bring the

food that you're, you've signed up and we're, you're, we're

going to have a good time this tonight to just celebrate the

the season and celebrate Christmas and the reason for it.

And finally, we have the Havelock Christmas Parade coming

up this Saturday, December 13th at 10:00.

Yeah, you want to go ahead and come on out and see us and

support Jay and Trevor. Jay and Trevor, are you here

this morning? There they are.

Raise their hands. Jay and Trevor have taken on

this feat to do the Christmas parade float this year.

They are working hard. Do you need any more help?

We're they're doing great. So come on out and support them

at the Havelock Christmas Parade this coming Saturday.

We're going to pray for good weather for y'all that day.

We just, we're excited that you guys are taking on this

adventure for us and that is it. Before we get up and stand up

and do worship. We're going to or before we sit

down to hear Pastor Blake's sermon, we're going to worship.

But Pastor Blake's sermon is the chat that changed you.

And now we're excited to hear what he has to store for us

today with that. So go ahead, stand on up.

Are you sure you don't want me to sing?

Because I can. Sing.

For all to hear. Oh, you're all ready to worship

this morning. Are you all ready to worship

this morning? Got them on knees again, got

them begging please again I need you, Oh I need you.

Walking down the stairs and roads.

Water for my thirsty soul. I need you.

Oh, I need you. Your forgiveness is like sweet,

sweet honey on my lips, Like the sound of the Symphony of my

ears, like holy water on my skin.

Dead man walking slave to sin. I want to know about being born

again. I need you.

Oh God, I need you. Take me to the Riverside.

Take me on the bedside. I need you, Oh God, I need you.

Your beginners. It's like squeeze sweet honey on

my lips, like a sound of silly little my ears, like oil and

water on my skin. Holy water, I don't want to piss

your grace. God, I need it every day.

It's the only thing that ever really makes me want to change.

I don't want to abuse your grace, God, I need it every day.

It's the only thing that ever really makes me want to change.

And I don't want to abuse your grace, God, I need it every day.

It's the only thing that ever really makes me want to change.

I don't want to be with your grace.

God, I beat it every day. It's the only thing that ever

really makes me want to change. Your forgiveness.

It's like sweet, sweet honey on my lips.

Like sound of a Symphony of my ears.

It's like like holy water, your beginning.

It's like sweet, sweet honey on my lips, like a sound out of

Symphony of my ears. It's like holy water.

Give them a shot of phrase. Where creation suddenly

articulate with 1000 tongues to lift, want and cry.

Then from north to South, pennies to us, we hear Christ be

magnified word. Oh.

Earth. Echoing is evidence his name

would burst from sea and sky, from realist to the

mountaintops. We hear Christ be magnified.

Oh Christ be magnified. Let his praise your eyes.

Christ be magnified. In me oh Christ being magnified

the. Altar.

Of my life, Christ being. Magnified.

In. Me When every creature finds its

inmost melody, every human heart, it's native cry.

Men in war and in rap, should he look praise we sing.

Christ be magnified. Christ be magnified.

Let his raise your eyes. Christ being magnified in me.

Oh, Christ being magnified in the altar of my life.

Christ being magnified in me. I won't be for my feelings.

I hold fast to what is true. And if the cross brings

transformation then I'll be. Come on, just give them your

devotion because death is just a joy into resurrection life.

And if I join you in your suffering, then I'll join you in

your rise. And when you're.

Returning glory with God. All the angels and the Saints,

my heart will still be singing. My song will be the same.

Oh Christ be magnified. Let his praise your eyes.

Christ be magnified in me. Oh Christ be magnified the altar

of. My.

Life Christ be magnified. In me oh.

Christ be. Magnified there.

Is praise your eyes Christ be magnified in me?

Oh Christ, be magnified. The.

Altar of my life, Christ being magnified.

In me you unravel me with a melody, and you surround me with

a song of deliverance from my enemies, until all my fears are

gone, singing out, and I'm no longer slave Fear.

I am a child of God. I'm no longer slave to fear.

I am a child of God and my world is new.

You have chosen me. Your love has called my name,

and I've been born again into your family.

Your blood flow through my hands.

I'm no longer a slave to fear you.

I am a child of God. I'm no longer a slave to fear.

I am a child of God. Oh, I'm no longer a slave to

fear who I am. A child of God.

I no longer say I'm a child of God who I am.

I'm surrounded by the arms of my father.

I am surrounded with songs of deliver.

From our bondage with the sons and the daughters.

So missing our freedom. The sea so I could walk right

through it. Fears were drowned in burping

alone. You rescue me so I could say

this thing. I am a child of God.

You split the seas. Or I could walk right through

it. My fears were drowned in burping

alone. You rescue me so I could stand

and see. I am a child, a girl.

I am a child, a girl. Oh, I am a child, a girl.

Yes, I am. I'm no longer slave to fear.

What are you? I am a child of God.

I'm no longer a slave to fear. I am a child of God.

Want to make sure we maintain the atmosphere of worship?

This is the first Sunday of the month and here at Liberty,

that's when we take communion corporately.

What I mean by corporately is we take it all together.

And so if this is your first time, here's some instructions.

But if you're not a member of Liberty Church, that's fine.

This is for those that are children of God.

So if he's your father, if you're a believer, then

communion is for you. OK.

But what we do is we do this, we'll come forward.

There are four different stations up here with some fresh

made bread from a woman who loves the Lord.

We've got some juice for you and we'll ask you to take a piece of

the bread and to take a cup of the juice, bring it back to your

seat. Be very careful as you clap at

the end of the last song. We'll take communion together.

If you have some concerns or whatever.

We also have some prepackaged cups for you.

So there are options, but what I'll ask is if you'll come down,

maybe these two rows here is in the middle and then exit out to

the wings to your side. I feel like a flight attendant,

but we're going to take communion together.

It's a very, very special time to take communion this morning.

So if y'all would go ahead and lead the way, Liberty, we'll

take communion together after this song and let's just

continue this worship. Amen.

Can't go back to the beginning, Can't control what tomorrow will

bring. But I know here in the middle,

here's a place where you promise to be.

I'm not enough unless you come. Will you meet me here again?

Because all I want, it's all you are.

Will you meet me here again? As I walk now through the

valley, Let your love rise above every fear, Like the sun shaping

the shadow. In my weakness your glory

appears. I'm not even unless you come.

Will you mean me here again? That's all I want.

That's all you. Are.

Will you mean me here again? I'm not eater.

Oh. Unless you come.

Will you meet me here again? This all I want.

This all you are. Will you meet me here again?

Oh, meet me here. You never left.

You never left my side. You never left.

Not for a minute was I forsaken. The Lord is in this place.

The Lord is in this place. Come, Holy Spirit.

The Lord is in this place. The Lord is in this place.

Not for a minute was I forsaken. The Lord is in this place.

The Lord is in this place. For come Holy Spirit.

The Lord is in this place. The Lord is in this place.

I'm not eating unless you come. Will you meet me here again?

Because all is all you are. Will you meet me here again?

I'm not in enough unless you come.

Will you meet me here again? Your soul?

It's all you are. Will you meet me here again?

You just ask the Lord if he'd meet you here.

I believe he said yes. You know, today we're going to

talk a lot about prayer. We're talking about some of

these basics ways that we come home for the holidays to the

Lord. And prayer is so key.

I don't know if you've ever thought of the story of

communion as a story of prayer, but it is because prayer is just

a conversation. It's a conversation with the

Lord. Now there's ways to make sure we

prioritize them the right way. We'll go into it, but the story

of communion is the story of the God who speaks and our Savior

who listened. That's a conversation.

That's why in the Garden Jesus could say if there's any other

way, how honest of a prayer, but he also wrapped it up with what

not my will, your will be done. And so this is a story, too, of

prayer. Jesus had the authority to do

what he wanted to do on this earth.

How blessed are we that what he wanted to do was the will of His

Father? This beautiful, beautiful act

that we do, known as communion today, came out of a Passover

meal. It came from the Old Testament

where they were celebrating deliverance.

They understood that God had set them free.

They knew that they were his chosen people, and they knew

this even while they were being oppressed.

And it came during this time that they all sat together to

break bread and God himself in the flesh.

Jesus gave them additional meaning at what was His Last

Supper, but not ours. Paul recounts this.

He says, I pass on to you what I received from the Lord himself.

On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took

some bread and he gave thanks to God for it and he broke it in

pieces. And he said, this is my body

which is given for you. Do this to Remember Me.

So remember him as you take the bread this morning.

Thank you. You know, in the Passover meal,

the bread was always unleavened, had no yeast in it to rise, and

it was to help them remember that they had to leave so

quickly that they didn't have time to bake it and let it rise.

What seems sometimes like an emergency act on our part is

never an emergency act on his part.

Scripture says that Jesus, the bread of life, came at just the

right time in history. Remember Him in this way when

you take the bread and in the same way he took the cup of wine

after supper, saying this cup. This cup is the new covenant

between God and his people. It's an agreement confirmed with

my blood. Do this to Remember Me as often

as you drink it. Remember him as you drink it

this morning. Thank you.

Verse 26 says for every time you eat this bread and drink this

cup, you're announcing the Lord's death until he comes

again. Why do you announce his death

until he comes again? The answer is because he's

coming again. If you announce his death, you

announce his resurrection. There can be no resurrection

unless there is a death. And so we announce His death

until he comes again because we believe that He's coming in

because we know that He's coming again, even if not everybody

knows it yet. So we believe in the

resurrection, not just of him, but for all that would come in

to know the relationship with the Lord because of Him, and

that includes us. So we announce His resurrection

when we take communion. Could anything be more beautiful

than to know how we'll rejoice when He does come again?

So this morning, before we do cheer for Him and we will want

you to think about the things that He saved you from, I just

want you to think for a minute your individual things that he

saved you from, He is still continually saving you.

We spoke about this just before Thanksgiving.

We need to get into a practice of thanking him for the the

deliverance that has not yet arrived.

We need to start thanking him for the difficult things and the

difficult seasons, because we know his character well enough

to know that on the other side of this comes something

beautiful and magnificent. But when we thank him in the

middle of it, before we have the resolution, we show and

demonstrate trust and love to him.

Think about what he saved you from, because the punishment we

deserved happened on the cross. That's what the bread

represents, that his body was broken so that yours could be

made whole. His blood was shed so that his

pure and sinless, spotless blood could cover your life.

And when God himself looks at you, he doesn't just look at you

as a forgive person or somebody who got off the hook.

He looks at you as if you were Jesus himself, because now he

doesn't have one perfect son. Our older brother, so to speak,

theologically, broke down a wall so that the family of God could

be multiplied. And he made a way when we had no

way. Now is that not worth a praise

offering this morning? Give him, give him the glory.

Well, y'all can be seated, I mean, or stand up during the

service. I don't know.

I'm not going to tell you what to do.

People behind you might. But As for the carotene to come

forward, it's everybody's favorite time of the service

where we take up money. Yeah, that's what I'm talking

about. Come on.

Here's the reality. I say that kind of

sarcastically, but like a lot of things in the Christian life,

when you grab a hold of the, the meaning of giving and

generosity, it changes, changes, you know?

And I cannot tell you that every time that I make an online

donation or that I pay a bill or that I give or whatever that I,

that I feel that excitement within me.

But I also still praise God for what I know he's accomplishing

through that. So every time that I give, every

time that I serve, I make sure that I thank the Lord for it

because it doesn't come naturally when I'm called in

last second to work with kids, which has happened on occasion

when I am giving of my tithe and offering and there's something

that I'd really like and Christmas is coming.

Or when I look at somebody and I know they need to have a

conversation and I'd rather go on my way.

And the Lord says, why don't you do AU turn?

I wish I could tell you that every time I have that, I'm

like, yes, God, another opportunity.

And I know those people are out there.

But for me, I have to constantly remind myself, this is what I

was made for. And it's not because I'm a

pastor, it's because I'm his son.

And so God, we do thank you for the opportunities.

We thank you for the ones that come easily.

We thank you for the ones that are difficult.

And we just pray that you continue to walk through all of

it with us. We don't just want you to walk

through the valleys with us. We want you on the mountaintops

of life. We wouldn't have them without

you. So we give everything that we

have. We give right back to the One

who is the source of all of it anyway.

May you be glorified and may you receive the honour in the name

of Jesus, Amen. We can turn to Matthew 6.

We'll be reading a pretty, pretty well known story that a

lot of people have gone to church for a while would would

recognize. And while we're doing this, I

just want you to know that you might get offended today.

But if you do, I hope that it's in a good way.

If you hear the gospel and it never offends you and it never

causes you to change, and it never makes you stop in your

tracks to think about something, well, we'll talk about a seared

conscience later on in the sermon.

But let me just start with this. God.

We call the fire of your Spirit down upon this congregation.

We rebuke any of the enemy around us, and we invite Your

Spirit to inhabit your praises in the name of Jesus.

Amen. Did that sound awesome?

I memorized it. I didn't mean it.

Here's what I mean by that. I do want those things, but I

memorized it so that I could say it without messing it up.

But I wasn't thinking about actually asking for His spirit

to be poured out. I wasn't actually thinking about

rebuking the enemy. Have you ever heard when people

will brag about other Christians, they'll say that

person can pray, paint off the walls.

It's a weird ability. I've never seen that spiritual

gift listed right. Normally when we tell somebody,

oh, that person's a prayer warrior, it's because we've

stood in a circle, we've awkwardly held somebody's hand.

Our palm sweat has mingled with theirs, and we have heard

somebody raise up volume and sound eloquent.

And we have said that person knows how to pray.

But you don't know. You just don't know.

The people that I go to for prayer are normally the ones

that have the aroma of the Lord. They're people that I know will

set aside time to be with the Lord.

People that could have an awkward prayer or an

uncomfortable prayer. I like it when I hear somebody

pray and it sounds like how they talk.

That's my preference. Let me tell you, yesterday we

had this really beautiful ceremony at Carteret

Correctional Facility in Newport.

It was the Jumpstart Prison Ministry graduation program.

Oh, it was amazing. It really was amazing.

For those that serve with Jumpstart, I I don't know how

many of y'all would be in service today, but would you

just stand up for a second if you have served with Jumpstart

in any capacity this year? So you got a couple here.

So all right, let me let me tell you something about Jumpstart.

I mean, there are some that do it part time and I'll be doing

it part time. But the people who just stood up

are some of those that did it full time.

There's other people that are doing other things at this

moment. You can't see them like Josh and

Mary Jo Kaiser and you know, so I mean, it's a 40 week

commitment that we walk through a 40 week study book

discipleship with them. We talk about responsibility,

accountability and respect and honoring authority.

And it was really great because honestly, we're just talking to

these guys who as I, as I like to put it, they're fighting for

their life, but not, but not with like fists, right?

And not with violence, at least not anymore.

They are struggling to reclaim their identity because when you

end up in prison, almost always it's because of your own

choices, right? And and when you end up there,

you have to now come to terms with the fact that everywhere

you go, what they call you is offender.

Well, the gospel is we are all offenders.

Romans 323 says we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of

God. Man, I loved, I loved being

there. I loved hearing their

testimonies. I loved getting to fellowship

with some of their family members and loved ones that came

there to celebrate with them. Jay got to sing a couple songs a

cappella. I'm going to ask if you just

sing those a cappella up here real quick.

No, no, none of them. OK.

I did tell her I wasn't going to ask her to do that, so she knew

I didn't mean it. But, man, I loved it because you

gave such a genuine prayer. And I went over to her and I

told her that was such a good prayer.

And she said, really? Because I felt like I just.

I don't remember what you said. You said like, I stumbled over

it or something like that. You blacked out.

Yeah. She was scared to do it.

And you know what? She did it scared.

There you go. You know what that's called?

Yeah, that's faith. It's honesty.

It's true. And so a lot of times we try to

emulate those that sound very eloquent in how they pray or in

the power that that sounds like how they pray.

Let me ask you something. If all of your relationships

were all polished in how you spoke to them, if you had

prepared a statement, I won't even go down the rabbit trail of

if you said their name every fifth word like we do sometimes

in prayer, right? But if you had everything

polished, would you feel like you had a genuine relationship?

You would not. But we'll talk about this.

Told you it might be a little offensive, but I hope that it'll

be helpful. Before I read Matthew 6, I want

to share a story that some of you might recognize, but I

didn't really know it until a couple months ago.

It's not miraculous in the least, not at least in the way

that we consider miracles to be these days.

But it's a pretty human story. It was something that happened

in the year 1969, and it's every preacher's favorite guy to share

illustrations from Mr. Rogers, right?

Who didn't love Mr. Rogers back in the day?

But on his show, he invited somebody named Officer Clemens.

Officer Clemens was a black police officer to sit beside him

and cool their feet together in a little plastic kiddie pool.

It looked pretty simple, and it was childlike.

It looked ordinary to us. But in 1969, it was

revolutionary. Why?

Well, I'm glad you asked. I have the answer for you.

See, at that time, most public pools in America were

segregated. And so you could not go to a

public pool and have black and white people in the same pool.

And without putting out a big press release or a huge

statement or making a speech on television, he invited an

African American man onto his show.

And they both stuck their feet in a kiddie pool for everybody

to watch. You might think that's the

coolest thing about the story. But once the camera stopped

rolling and and they were done, he looked at Officer Clemens and

he dried his feet with a towel. If that sounds familiar to

anybody who's read the the Bible.

And he looked at him and he said this.

He said only Mr. Rogers gets away with these things.

He said you make every day a special day just by being you.

But Officer Clemens said it was the first time in his life he

ever believed a man truly loved him.

What happened between them was simple and slow, and it would be

hard to make a movie off of that one brief conversation.

But the act of speaking honestly and listening openly created a

relationship between them. And I want you to understand

something today. Prayer works the same way.

Your prayers are not performances to be witnessed by

God. They are not things that you

grow in so that you sound better.

The only way you'll sound better is if you grow in your

confidence. But you're not supposed to be

praying to him in order to sound better to anybody else.

Could you imagine if every anniversary I I wish my wife a

happy anniversary and then I took a Facebook poll.

Hey, what did you guys think of how I wished her a happy

anniversary? She liked it and that's fine.

But I want to know if you guys approve.

This is what we do with our prayer.

In fact, it sinks in so deeply to us that many of us, if we're

asked to pray publicly, and I'm not even talking about right

here, I'm talking about in our small group of 10 or 11 or 12

people, if, if we're asked to pray publicly, many of us, we

get anxiety. Is there anybody here willing to

say they get anxiety praying in front of people?

OK, this is good. Don't let people think they're

alone. We get anxiety over it.

But many of us who just had our hands up, we don't have anxiety.

If somebody overhears us talking to our friend at church, there's

a disconnect, isn't there? We have to address it.

We have to figure this out. So the reason we're calling this

home for the holidays is we're trying to come home to all the

basics of the Lord. And I don't care how long you've

walked with them, there's always room to grow.

If there's no room for you to mature left on this earth, he'll

just take you home. But since you're here, we're

going to grow together. And last week we discussed some

important things, but this week we're going to discuss prayer.

Prayer is important. And in Matthew 6, we see what we

call the Lord's Prayer. Now, if I were to say, just

recite it in the way that you know it.

Are you ready? Our Father who art in heaven,

just stop, Please stop, stop. Same thing as earlier.

You do want those things if you're a believer, but you've

learned to memorize it and you've regurgitated it so many

times it sounds like it belongs at a funeral.

And I'm not bashing you. That's how it sounds in any

church that recites it all together at one time.

Now, there's beauty about speaking scripture out together

and prayers together, so don't hear what I'm not saying here,

but Jesus didn't give this to you to memorize it.

Memorizing scripture itself, beautiful, helpful, useful.

That being said, was that really what Jesus was going for?

I don't think it was. He actually said when you pray,

don't be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street

corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them.

I tell you the truth. That's all the reward they'll

ever get. He says when you pray, go away

by yourself, shut the door behind you and pray to your

father in private, and then your father who sees everything will

reward you. So he's talking about personal

prayer here, and he says in verse 7, when you pray, don't

Babble on and on as Gentiles do. They think their prayers are

answered merely by repeating their words again and again.

Did we not just do that? He said, don't be like them, for

your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask

him. And then he says this, pray like

this. Our Father in heaven.

I'm reading from the new Living Translation.

May your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come soon.

May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today the food we need, we know that is what our daily

and forgive us our sins as we have forgiven those who sin

against us. And don't let us yield into

temptation but rescue us from the evil. 1 Then he says if you

forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will

forgive you, but if you refuse to forgive others, your Father

will not forgive your sins. That's a hard teaching.

And when you fast, don't make it obvious as the hypocrites do,

for they try to look miserable and disheveled so people will

admire them for their fasting. I tell you the truth, that is

the only reward they will ever get.

But when you fast, comb your hair and wash your face.

It's just good advice, guys. Hygiene matters.

And then no one will notice that you're fasting except your

father, who knows what you do in private.

And your father, who sees everything, will reward you.

We get so legalistic about this. We see this where it says don't

pray with your many words in front of people in street

corners and synagogues, and we say I'm not even supposed to

pray publicly, so I can't do that.

That is not what it's saying. The heart is these people want

to be seen for their prayers. They want to be seen for their

eloquence. They want to be seen as holy

people. You should only want God to look

at you and increasingly see himself reflected in your

spirit. You can pray anytime, anywhere

for anybody. Some of my best prayers that

I've ever had have been ones I was not prepared for.

But I ran into somebody at Food Lion or Walmart or a parking

lot, and they said they had an issue and I prayed for them.

And before you think I'm a great guy, I do it there because I'll

forget later. And then five days later I'll be

like, oh, they asked me to pray for the grandma who was in the

hospital. Hey, how's your grandma doing?

Oh, she's been out of the hospital for three days.

Praise God, Right? We've all been there.

I want to be a genuine man of faith, and so when you ask me

for prayer, I try to do it right then if I can.

That's the reason. But it's in public.

Am I in sin? No.

The fasting thing, if there's one thing people love more than

the time where we give at church, it's fasting.

How many of y'all have a problem being hangry, whether it's

fasting or not? Yeah.

OK. All right.

So fasting. It says don't let people know.

I have had many conversations, many more than I ever thought I

would with people who were fasting.

And you can tell something's off.

You'll invite them to lunch, you know, or you'll say, why don't

you come over on Tuesday? And they're like, I can I got

something going on. Oh, that's cool.

You know, what are you doing? Can't really say.

Why can't. Why can you not say?

It's happened in this church office in past years before

What? What is going on?

Why don't you want to go to lunch with us?

Well, come here. Shut the door.

I'm fasting. Please don't tell anybody else.

This whole thing is about don't make the things that you do for

God about you. So may I give you some freedom

here after church one day, if somebody invites you to lunch

and you happen to be fasting, say I'd love to, but I'm

fasting, it's OK. What he's saying is don't walk

in a church so hungry. I got kids so I'm familiar with

the the theatrics. Hey, would you mind emptying the

dishwasher? What's wrong?

Nothing saying don't be childlike when it comes to this.

If you're looking for the accolades that you get for

praying publicly or for fasting, your heart is off and you just

made yourself hungry for nothing.

The reward that you got was people saying, oh wow, you're

fasting, and it's hard to catch that one at the bank.

Jesus is teaching that prayer is not about memorizing the exact

words or a formula. He's talking about the heart

behind them. English grammar didn't exist

back then, but there are some key ways that we compare things.

1 is a metaphor where you actually call somebody something

like man, that guy's a rock. That normally means that man,

he's immovable or maybe he's not too not too bright, right?

But there's something called a simile and a simile uses words

like or as to compare something. And he said when you pray, pray

like this. So this is a pattern, but it was

never meant to be a map. Prayer is the conversation that

forms you, but Jesus doesn't just teach us how to talk, He

also teaches us what kind of Father that we're talking to.

When you listen to that, because you don't just need to learn to

hear His voice, you also need to learn how to speak to him.

Conversation is of great benefit.

If you only go to Him to get information, it's a problem.

But listen to what He tells the prophet Jeremiah in the Old

Testament. Jeremiah 33 verse 3 says, ask me

Jeremiah 33:3

and I will tell you remarkable secrets that you do not know

about things to come. It's a promise to Jeremiah, but

I'm telling you it's possible. If you can be trusted with

things, He'll give you things. Does that make sense?

This is why prayer really matters a whole lot.

Jesus is teaching this to everybody who will listen to all

of the believers there. He's not talking about the

prophets or the spiritual elites.

He has got in the flesh, talking to people in the flesh, ordinary

people, people who feel unworthy, people who feel

unsure, people who do not even feel spiritual or anything of

the sort. Think about this, the creator of

the universe is not distant or annoyed when you pray, He bends

down to listen to you and leans towards your voice, just like

Mr. Rogers drying Officer Clemens feet and taking the time

to just talk to him. God actually desires this with

you and even though we may theologically know this, I want

you to practically know this. God is not bothered by the sound

of your voice. You are not a bother to Him.

Maybe you were a bother to your parents.

Maybe you were bothered to your boss or to your friends.

And you always feel like the burden.

You are not a burden to Him. He actually tells you to take

your burdens and give them to Him.

That's a different sermon. He wants to hear your voice and

oh, does He want you to hear His.

You can. We're going to talk about that.

This is where everything in Matthew 6 starts to click a

little bit. Jesus didn't give you a script

to recite. He gave you a rhythm to live in

and it needs to be daily. So when he said pray like this,

he's giving you a blueprint for a relationship.

And out of that relationship will come the best and most rich

prayers you have ever prayed in your entire life.

So we're going to talk about how to learn to hear from God.

But first we're going to learn how to talk with God.

Before we talk about learning to talk with God, I'm not going to

do a fake prayer. Let's pray.

Just kidding. I just want to see who amongst

you put your heads down. It's another thing that we've

learned to do. Why do we do it?

Preference. Reverence.

Yeah, reverence for the Lord. Do you do that when you talk to

your boss? Hey, it's time for your yearly

review. Thank you for your time.

Maybe you need to. I don't know.

I don't know, maybe if you're the one that forgets your

anniversary and your spouse's happy anniversary, happy

anniversary to you as well. We say reverence.

Do you do when you walk into the voting booth?

I hope not. It's a reference thing.

It falls back to like medieval times and the reverence of a

king here on earth. It's a reference thing.

But the Jewish people didn't pray that way.

They actually would have considered it irreverent, and

I'll tell you why. For them, they like to open

their eyes and look at God's creation while they address the

Creator. There's nothing wrong with

having your head bowed, but the moment that a lot of preachers

say let's pray, everybody does it like they're about to dive

into a pool, like they're synchronized swimmers or

something. And it doesn't make your prayers

heard more. But we've learned to do it.

I remember learning my bedtime prayers and I put my hands

together like this and I take a knee at the bed and, you know,

then all the words run together. It's not now I lay me.

It's now I lay me right. Pray the Lord my soul to keep.

Yeah, these are fun. These are fun things.

You know, if I should die before I wake Mom, how possible is

this? There's nothing wrong with

closing your eyes and bowing your head if that makes you more

comfortable in your relationship with the Lord.

Personally, I do it sometimes, but I rarely do it unless I'm

listening to a speaker who says, please close your eyes and bow

your head. And then I honor the authority

because I like the rules. But I want you to understand

that bowing your head is not Kingdom culture, it's church

culture. It's not necessarily bad, it's

just something that we've learned to do.

In the modern church Jewish tradition, the common prayer

position was always with your hands out and your eyes open

looking up that creation. This was their way of saying,

while I'm seeking God, I'm expecting God.

This is why you see things like this in Psalm 121.

It says I lift my eyes up to the hills.

Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord.

What I'm afraid of is in America, I'm afraid that we

don't expect God to answer prayers.

We know that prayer is important, so we might as well

close our eyes and bow our head. Plus, if we do that, we assume

everybody else is closing their eyes and bow in their head, and

then we don't have to worry about who's seeing us.

Pray. Oh man, we made it about us

again, didn't we? Prayer is about asking God and

expecting Him to show up. Think about that.

I lift my eyes into the hills. Where does my help come from?

It comes from my eyes closed and I look at the carpet.

So I just want to encourage you there.

If there was one person in the Old Testament that really knew

how to speak to the Lord, I would actually go to Moses.

So go ahead and turn to Exodus. Exodus 33, if prayer is a

conversation with our Father, I want you to know that Moses

gives you a really clear picture of what that can actually look

like. Most people, when they think of

Moses, what do you think of pardon the Red Sea and leading

them out of Egypt and all those really fun plagues?

We preached that about two years ago.

He's the Red Sea guy, the 10 Commandments guy.

But long before he stood before Pharaoh, Moses stood in front of

God in honest conversation, and it carried his entire life.

And Exodus 33 is a very intimate moment that we get in his life.

But to understand the weight of this, I want you to understand

that this part, this part that we're about to read, God has

already shattered Egypt's power. He's already split the Red Sea.

He's already fed his people in the wilderness and LED them with

a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire.

And even with everything that God did, God's people still

didn't know how to relate to him.

So at Sinai, while Moses was on the mountain receiving the

commandments, Israel built what they built, the golden calf.

That's still a term that we use today.

And they started worshipping what their hands could control

instead of the God that was outside of their control.

So by the time you get to Exodus 33, Moses is leading a nation

that doesn't know how to talk to God yet.

Isn't it tragic when you think about it like that?

They had seen his power, they had received his deliverance,

but they had not learned his heart.

They'd seen his rescue, but they couldn't understand what it was

to be in his presence. And so Moses was the one person

that kept going back to God over and over again simply to talk

with Him. I wish that I knew some of what

they talked about. That'd be pretty cool.

Every time I think about things like this, I always think I'm

going to ask him about that one day when I step into glory.

But I probably won't, probably won't care by the time I get

there. This is why Exodus says that

Moses would pitch the tent of meeting outside the camp.

He would set aside a place to talk with God.

It wasn't in the middle of town. It wasn't in the middle of

everybody. It was literally on the outside.

And he would go there as a rhythm of life, not just for

emergencies. Oh no, somebody's approaching

us. Let me run to the tent of

emergencies. No, it was the tent of meeting.

And so he would meet with him, and that's where he would get

clarity. He would get courage.

This is where he would speak to God and God would actually speak

back to him. And then Scripture gives us one

of the most curious descriptions of of this prayer that you can

see in the entire Bible. This is what it says.

The Lord would speak to Moses face to face as one speaks to a

friend. So when we read that in a

moment, I want you to know that is not one of those comparisons.

It's not a metaphor or a simile. It is not theological poetry.

It's a historical reality that happened.

So in Exodus 33, look at verse 7.

It was Moses's practice to take the tent of meeting and set it

up some distance from the camp. Everyone who wanted to make a

request of the Lord would go to the tent of meeting outside the

camp. Whenever Moses went in went out

to the tent of meeting, all the people would get up and stand in

the entrances of their own tents.

They would all watch Moses until he disappeared inside.

And as he went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come

down and hover at its entrance while the Lord spoke with Moses.

When the people saw the clouds standing at the entrance of the

tent, they would stand and bow down in front of their own

tents. Inside the tent of meeting, the

Lord would speak to Moses face to face as one speaks to a

friend. Afterward, Moses would return to

the camp, but the young man who assisted him, Joshua, son of

Nun, would remain behind in the tent of meeting.

To me, that one sentence changes everything, that he would speak

to him face to face as one speaks to a friend.

There's no indication that God was only willing to do that with

Moses. What about you?

Can God do that with you if He so desires?

I would say that He can, and this is the heart of prayer.

Not reciting the things that you've memorized, not hoping

that you've prayed good enough or well enough to please Him.

Talking to him like somebody you love.

Talking to him like someone you can be honest with.

Talking to him like somebody you can be real with.

This is important because a lot of people really believe today

that their prayer only counts if they say it right.

But throughout Scripture you see that Moses talked to God with

honesty. He said things like this like,

Lord, if you keep telling me to lead these people, but you

haven't told me, who will go with me?

Sounds a little whiny. If I found favor in your sight,

show me your ways. If your presence doesn't go with

us, don't make us leave this place.

It's desperate and personal and emotional.

And Moses didn't hide his confusion.

He didn't fake his confidence. He didn't say, well, I'm leading

all these people, these people, so they better know that I know

what's going on in front of these people.

He would say, Lord, if you're not going with us, please don't

make us leave. Can you imagine how people must

be there? Well, you don't know if he's

going with us. I'm sure he will, but I'm

talking to him right now. He was honest about where he

was. Think about the way that you

talk to someone that you trust a whole lot, somebody who knows

the deepest, darkest parts of you and they still love you.

Think about these people. You don't rehearse your

sentences with them. You don't worry about how it

sounds. And I would ask you this, Do

your prayers with the Lord sound similar to those conversations

that you have with that person? That's what we're shooting for

today. I want you to talk to the Father

who calls you his own the same way that Moses talked to God,

the way a friend talks to a friend.

Most people know who CS Lewis is.

He's the author of Chronicles of Narnia.

And truthfully, a lot of even greater things that he wrote

than that. But not a lot of people know the

name Joy Davidman. That's the woman he would

eventually marry. But she was somebody who

initiated conversation with him and they had like nothing in

common. Personality wise, she's very

bold and brash. He was very thoughtful and

methodical and calm. He lived in Britain, she lived

in America. She would send letters asking

theological questions and he wrote her back and over time

they developed a friendship and a relationship and then out of

that sparked an actual romantic relationship.

Neither one of them were looking for any sort of romance or any

sort of marriage or things like that, but over time they

developed into what became a very intimate relationship.

Now, I'm not telling you that writing a letter is going to get

you married, guys and girls or whatever, but what I'm telling

you is time plus attentiveness equals a relationship.

If she had gone to him saying, hey, you probably have money

because you've written these books, you're an eligible

bachelor, what do you think about us?

What would he have thought? She's not in this for me.

She's in it for what she can get.

Let's think about what we pray about and if God wonders if

we're in it for us and what we can get or if we're in it for

Him. All of your best relationships

that you have, whether it's a marriage, whether it's a

friendship, whether it's a work relationship, whatever it is,

all of them have developed because you have invested your

time and your relationship together.

This is why prayer can feel differently for every believer.

I do want to say this because I did that fake prayer at the

beginning. If you pray loudly and boldly

like that and it's genuine, go for it.

I do love prayers like that when they're genuine and it's really

not my job to judge if they're genuine or not.

But I can also tell if somebody's been in the presence

of the Lord and if they have a genuine relationship.

If that's your personality, pray as big and bold and loud as you

love it in the in the right place.

But some of us, that's just not how we talk.

Some of us are big personalities when we walk into the room.

Some of us we kind of whisper our conversations.

Some of us when we have something real to say, we prefer

to write it down or journal it. Anybody who prefers to write out

something important they need to talk about before they do it,

Journal your prayers. Then whatever it looks like to

you is OK as long as it's genuine.

The first time that I preached on prayer after Pastor Tom

retired, I had somebody ask me, so how long do you think is long

enough to pray? And I said, how long can it be

genuine? Because to be honest with you, I

think God is honored a lot more by three minutes of a genuine

heartfelt prayer than by a one hour set aside time period where

your mind keeps wandering wondering how many times you had

Taco Bell this week or whatever. You might want to take that to

the Lord. So I just, I just, I do want to

say this. If you have ever said that

you've spoken to God and not heard from him.

If you've ever decided that prayer doesn't work of before,

and I've done it too. I've gone to him when I've been

in a crisis. I've ignored him in my

mountaintop moments and I've gone to him in a crisis and

said, God, I need an answer right now.

And you know what? Almost always I feel like I do

get an answer. He is.

Aren't you glad he's not petty? Oh, now you want to talk to me?

Sometimes we're afraid to go to him.

He already knows the things we've done.

He. Doesn't just know the things

you've done, he knows the things you've thought about doing.

If he wanted to thump you with the sky finger, he would have

done it already. How kind that He has given you

time to repent. And return to him.

Now I want. You to know this when you talk

to. God, this is going to sound

basic, but hear me, God is listening.

I want you to picture that God. Is leaning into your

conversation. If you've ever been in a

conversation with somebody and you can't hear them well and so

you what? You literally lean and say that

again. Sometimes we'll turn our ear

closer to them so we can hear it better.

He wants to hear you. He doesn't have trouble hearing.

So the leaning in is purely relational.

But he loves you. Of course he wants to hear about

you. Of course he wants to hear your

thoughts, but we don't go to him to get from.

Him but when we. Consistently go to him.

I want you to know you'll always get from him.

God is always listening. The Lord's Prayer is really.

Not the Lord's Prayer is. It it's our prayer, it's our

pattern. And so I don't know, I just want

to give you some real steps that you can actually put into

practice. I think it'll help you.

And so the first thing is start with what's actually happening

in you, not what you think God wants to hear.

Many of us, even if we want to do that, Oh, look, there's a

typo. Many of us when we go to the

Lord, we start with what we. Think he wants to?

Hear I literally worked for somebody not at this church so

don't be like I think it was Pastor Tom it wasn't I worked

for somebody one time that would often start his prayers.

Oh God, who has the cattle on 1000 hills and I understand the

biblical. Reference there but.

It's just a weird thing he didn't have.

Cows this guy. That I worked for.

But he always addressed the God who had the cattle on 1000

Hills. You don't have to open it the

way that you think you're supposed to.

Hey, God, I'm in a crisis. Hey, Father.

Hey, Dad. I'm lonely today.

Hey God, I'm confused today. Talk about what is actually

happening in. You not what you think God.

Wants to hear. The second thing I would tell

you is say the quiet part out loud.

Maybe you're like, well, you just said I could journal it or

I could do it in my head. Yeah, I did.

But if you're bold enough, at some point I would say it out

loud. The Bible says faith comes by

hearing comes by hearing. I would advise you to have parts

of your prayers out loud. And maybe you say, well, I I

don't, I don't want the people in my house or the people in my

office to hear me. Take a walk.

Just go out to the front porch for a minute.

I don't go into the bathroom and close the door.

Go get a loan and say the quiet part out loud.

God, I'm scared. I don't know how I'm going to

fix this. I don't know what my kids are

going to choose. I don't know what's going to

happen next, but I know you. But most importantly, if you

really. Want to learn the right way to

talk to? God ask for correction and not

just comfort. Many of us will say that if God

gives me correction, I'll listen to it.

That's negotiable. But ask for it, You say, why

would I ask for it? Because it will make you better.

This pattern that he gave us, the Lord's Prayer, our prayer,

what does it say? Father, forgive us as we forgive

those who sin against us, if the only type of correction you ask

for in a prayer is correcting other people.

They're probably praying about you too, by the way.

You might. As well ask them, God, I think

this might be off in me. God, do you see something that

you don't like? Would you just show me?

I want to be more like you. I promise you, on the other side

of that correction, you'll be so much more at peace.

Hear me when I say this a dishonest.

Prayer only asks God. To fix the circumstances.

But an honest prayer will always ask God to shape their

character. So talking to him, really.

Is just about being honest and. Forthright and if you don't

believe me, just take a stroll through the Psalms.

Let's read through some of the stuff that David prayed to the

Lord before he has prayed. Things that I would look at and

actually disciple somebody. Do not pray that prayer.

It was honest, it was in his heart.

You do not have to ask God to shatter the teeth of your

enemies or anything like that. OK, let's talk about how to hear

from the Lord because if learning to talk with God is the

first half of. Prayer, then learning to hear

from him. Is the other half.

You can go to First Samuel 3. It's one.

Of my favorite things, I to be honest, you don't.

Even know a better way to teach hearing from the Lord than first

1 Samuel 3 · chapter mention

Samuel chapter 3 we're going to talk about Samuel before we get

there let me just. Kind of set the backdrop for.

You Samuel was not a prophet yet.

He was not a spiritual giant. He was not trained to hear the

voice of God. He was simply a boy that grew up

around holy things and he served faithfully and he was learning

how to be near God before he even knew how to recognize God.

That's important and probably somebody needs to hear that

today. Sometimes you have to learn to

be near God before you learn to hear from Him.

Just getting His presence. A lot of times we want to hear

him, but we're not even close to him.

The starting point for every believer who wants to hear His

voice is to get close to him. And I want you to know this

before we read the scripture and we go further.

God is far more committed to speaking than we are to

listening. We have very small attention

spans. At one point I worked for

Starbucks. It was like a licensed one

inside of a Target. And on the day one of training,

they said, OK, I want everybody to be quiet for a second.

And we said OK. And we sat there and sat there

and sat there and they said, how long were you quiet or like 10

minutes like something like that had been. 3 minutes.

They had a training technique to say that the.

Baristas are supposed to engage. You in a friendly manner the

entire time that you're at the counter waiting for your drink.

Now, whether or not that happens where you go, but that's the

idea. Because when it's silent, they

don't want you to feel like you've been ignored and that

more time has passed than has. We hate silence.

Whenever I train. People on how to preach or

deliver a message. One of the things we always have

to combat without fail is don't be afraid of silence.

But I'm going to tell you what 2 seconds of silence up here often

feels like maybe 15 seconds of silence in a conversation at a

table, at least to us. But sometimes you need silence

so that you can take in what was just discussed.

I happen to talk fast. Sorry, I'm working on it.

But have I ever told you something?

You're like, oh, I need to write that down.

And then I kept going and you're like, ah, slow down.

See what I'm saying? I know this, I already know it.

But what I'm telling you is silence really is important

because God is speaking and he's committed to you receiving his

words. We need to be equally committed

to receiving them in this in this moment.

I want you to understand we're about to read part of the story.

And it says, in those days, the word of the Lord was rare and

visions were uncommon. This is not because God had gone

quiet, it's because his people had grown dull.

Their spiritual leadership had become corrupt, and their

worship had become mechanical, and the culture around them

normalized a faith without any sort of actual expectation of

God. So God was not silent as much as

people were not listening. But it was a problem from the

top down, because Eli was the top priest then, and he had two

sons named Hofni and Phineas, and they were corrupt.

They were using their priestly or pastoral authority for

personal gain, and they stole portions of the sacrifices meant

for the Lord. They intimidated people who came

to worship. They slept with women who served

at the entrance of the Tabernacle.

By the way, these are all still problems with some religious

people today. In other words, the people who

were supposed. To model holiness were.

Modeling rebellion, it's no wonder that people were distant

from God. And Eli wasn't innocent either

because even though he didn't do the same things that his sons

did, he did not remove his children from those positions.

He allowed it to happen. He'd go to them, say, ah, you

know, you shouldn't do that. Please don't do that again.

But he allowed it to happen. And both are wicked decisions.

So now you've got Samuel, who's grown up here learning.

And this is what we're going to find in First Samuel chapter 3.

1 Samuel 3 · chapter mention

The boy Samuel served the Lord by assisting.

Eli and in those. Days messages from the Lord were

very rare and visions were quite uncommon.

One night Eli, who was almost blind by now, had gone to bed.

The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was sleeping in

the Tabernacle near the ark of God.

Is he in his bedroom? He learned how.

To be close to God before. He learned to hear from him.

Suddenly the Lord called out Samuel.

Yes, Samuel replied. What is it?

And he got up and ran to Eli. Here I am.

Did you call me? I didn't call you, Eli replied.

Go back to bed. I like to think that's edited.

I like to think he. Was a little grumpier.

That's just me. But then the Lord called out

again Samuel, and again Samuel got up and went to Eli.

Here I am. Did you call me?

I didn't call you my son. Go back to bed.

Samuel did not yet know. The Lord, because he had never

had a message from the Lord before.

So the Lord called a third time, and once more Samuel got up and

went to Eli. Here I am.

Did you call me? Many people learn to hear from

the Lord, from somebody who teaches them, but at some point

you have to graduate to hearing for yourself.

And so it says. Eli realized it was the.

Lord, who was calling the. Boy.

And he said to Samuel, Go and lie down again.

If someone calls again, say speak Lord, your servant is

listening. So Samuel went back to bed, and

the Lord came and called as before.

Samuel. Samuel and Samuel replied,

Speak, your servant is listening.

And then the Lord said to Samuel, I'm about to do a

shocking thing in Israel. I'm going to carry out all my

threats against. Eli and his family from

beginning to. End.

I've warned him that judgement is coming upon his family

forever because his sons are blaspheming God and he hasn't

disciplined them. So I have vowed that the sins of

Eli and his sons will never be forgiven by sacrifices or

offerings. Samuel is lying in the

Tabernacle near the ark, close to God's presence, and when he

hears his name, he goes to the first place that he's heard

about God. Natural we all do this, but this

was a moment that God was ready for Samuel to mature.

He runs to Eli. Assuming that that's the only

voice that he could be hearing a.

Human one, But this is where a lot of us live.

Really lean into this. OK, I'm leaning in on purpose.

It's not just for bad posture. Often times with us, God speaks.

He nudges us, He convicts us of things, He whispers things to us

and we dismiss them as our own thoughts, our own conscience, or

our own imagination because we have not taken the time to learn

what His voice sounds like yet. Three times.

Samuel hears the call and. Three times he runs to the wrong

source. Only when Eli realizes what is

happening does he. Give Samuel the key.

That opens all of it, and that simple sentence reveals what?

Hearing God requires. He says speak, Lord.

Your servant is listening, is what he tells him to say.

The first thing it reveals is availability.

Speak. Lord means I'm open, I'm

receptive, I'm not. Coming to you with my agenda, I

am ready for your agenda. It also speaks to identity, he

says. Your servant is listening.

Honest question, don't have to. Answer it out loud when you go

to the Lord in prayer. Is it with the attitude of

somebody who's ready to serve him, or is it with the attitude

of somebody who is demanding some help?

His identity was. You want to speak to me?

I'm ready to serve you. His identity is highlighted

right in the middle, and it also highlights his attentiveness.

I'm listening. Do you know what active

listening is? Active listening is when you're

actually speaking to somebody. You're nodding your head.

You're saying, wow, I hear you. But you're not interrupting

them. You're just engaged in it.

And sometimes you repeat it back to the person that you're

speaking to. Availability, identity, and

attentiveness to the Lord. All right there.

I'm not big on just memorizing for memorization's.

Sake, but many times. If I feel like the Lord is

speaking to me, I'll say speak. Lord, your servant is listening.

It's great advice that Eli gave him.

Hearing God didn't just shape Samuel's experience, it shaped

his whole identity. Because if we were to continue

reading in verse 19 it says it says as Samuel grew up, the Lord

was with him and everything Samuel said proved to be

reliable. Maybe your?

Translation says none of his words fell to the ground.

What it? Means is he had learned to hear

from the Lord, so every time he spoke for the Lord, it was

always accurate. It never was flawed because he

had learned to hear accurately. Men and women of God, we can

achieve this, but it's going to take time and investment.

It's not even as spooky or spiritual as you think it is.

There's something that every. Parent in this room would

understand instinctively. If we were to take 20 kids and

one of them was your kid and they were all talking in a room,

do you think that you could, with a blindfold, find your way

to them? Why?

You know their voice. You could find your way to them

because you know their voice. So this isn't even a spiritual

thing, this is just a routine thing.

Relationship always builds recognition.

You start to know their preferences.

You start to know the things that they'll eat.

You know if it's a restaurant, you got to get chicken Nuggets

because they won't get the main course.

You know everything about them. Because you spent time with

them, you know the sound of their.

Voice you know what they smell like when they need a shower.

You know your child the way that God knows you is a.

Lifelong pursuit for us to learn.

To know Him, scripture gives us a warning in.

First Timothy 4 and I promised. We'd get here First Timothy

1 Timothy 4 · chapter mention

chapter 4. The 1st 2 verses say this.

The Holy Spirit tells us clearly that in the last time some will

turn away from the true faith. They will follow deceptive

spirits and teachings that come from demons.

It's fun right? How could somebody who wants to

follow? God follow the.

Teaching of a demon, What do you think they don't know his voice?

And if you don't know his voice, any.

Voice will guide you. Think about this.

If you hear something, you don't have Eli to run to, but there

will be something willing to guide you.

First two says these people are hypocrites and liars and their

consciences are dead. Now the way that that has been

translated for many years is seared conscience in the new

Living Translation. It says their consciences are.

Dead, but what do? You do to sear something, you

apply it to high heat and you press and you push and if you

continue to sear it, what does it end up burnt?

Now the the flexibility. That was in.

It is gone. And here's what I want to speak

to because the Lord spoke to me about.

This this weekend. Several times I've had somebody

ask me, I'm worried about a seared conscience.

Maybe I have a seared conscience.

Do you think I have one lesson #1 if you're worried about it,

you probably don't have it. But I'm going to say probably,

and I'm not going to say you're not on your way because what the

Lord told me today, well not today, this weekend, was that a

seared conscience always happens when you suppress conviction.

So how does a seared conscience happen?

Every time that you know, the Lord says something.

To you and you know the right thing to do when you choose not

to get seared a little bit more. Seared a little bit more seared

a. Little bit more now most people

are afraid. Well, if I sear my conscience,

is it? Does it sear me all the way to

hell or whatever? You're worried about yourself,

worry about your relationship with the Lord.

Every time that it gets a little more dead, you become somebody

who finds it. Easier and easier to justify

what? You want to do, even when God is

speaking to you, something else. The Holy Spirit speaks and

brings conviction to us, but when you push it.

Aside, Or you delay responding to God, or you explain it away,

or you simply refuse to act when He tells you to do something.

The human heart does lose sensitivity, and over time the

voice of God will not grow quieter, but your willingness to

hear him will become weaker. That's what happened in the

House of Eli. That's what happened in those

days in Israel. So when God tells you to

forgive, he tells you to speak. He tells you to pray, listen,

and then you'll never have to worry about having a seared

conscience. Eli wasn't wicked in the same

way as his sons, but he struggled with the same danger

in a different way. Because he wasn't highly

immoral, but he was highly passive.

He honored his sons above. Honoring the Lord.

Is there anybody in your life that you struggle with because

you honor them more than you honor the Lord?

I got really quiet. Sorry, OK.

By the time judgement came and this message.

Was relayed to Eli. If he were to continue to read

it, he's not even shocked. He's not surprised why?

He's a high priest. He knows the Lord and he has

been willingly allowing sin to happen.

So when he hears the judgement is coming, of course he's sad,

of course he's distraught, but he's not shocked.

And many of us act like we're shocked after 13 years or

whatever of not listening to God, and then a consequence hits

and we're like, how could God allow this to happen to me?

He had 13 years of warnings. Samuel stands in a completely

different contrast to Eli because Samuel's the picture of

a tender and attentive heart. So with as much pastoral

authority as I can summon. Please.

Have ears to hear when I say this.

If you will not obey, what the Lord?

Has already told you. You should not expect new

instructions from him. A lot of times God has spoken

something to us. And he's.

Asked us to do something and we've pushed it off and pushed

it off and ignored him. And then we go to him and we ask

for something that's more important to us.

And God's still waiting for the yes, Sir, on what he already

asked you to do. And we want the new

instructions. And he may look at you and say,

I want to give you my words. But I can't trust you with them

yet. You didn't do anything with them

the last time that I gave them to you.

How do you listen? Well, the first one is you

create moments of stillness everyday.

We just talked about this. Get somewhere quiet.

I remember back when my first child was born, I hated silence.

Cassie would go to worship team practice on Tuesday nights and,

and I would just be alone with a newborn baby.

And I love looking at her and holding her, but you know,

they're not good conversationalists.

And so we couldn't talk. And I would always take her over

to a friend's house and go and spend time and I would say it's

fellowship and I'm building relationship and community.

And I was and I was avoiding some silence.

I don't know what I would do without these moments of silence

where I can actually hear from the Lord now #2 I would tell you

to look for repeated themes and please hear this.

One of the most overlooked ways that God speaks is through

repetition. Samuel didn't recognize the

voice for the first time or the second time.

He honestly didn't even recognize God's voice the third

time. He had to go and have somebody

guide him so that the 4th time he got it.

And I want you to think about if this has.

Ever happened to you? Maybe not with your name.

But a lot of times the Holy Spirit will bring the same verse

or the same idea or the same conviction or the same

encouragement to your attention multiple times and you're like,

huh, that's crazy. I've been hearing a lot about

forgiveness lately. Oh, that's crazy.

I've been thinking a lot about my cousin lately.

I haven't talked to them in three years.

A lot of times this is because God is being patient and gentle

and He's trying to communicate with you.

So. Places that you may hear it is

maybe. In Bible reading or

conversations or sermons or just deep in your spirit, I'm just

telling you when you hear repetition, pay attention to it.

And to just double down on the last thing I said.

Just obey. The last thing God told.

You There's a recent Disney movie that said just do the next

right thing. That's great advice.

You know what's better? Do the last right thing.

Don't move on to the next right thing until you've done the last

right thing. Obedience keeps the heart tender

in your ears open. OK, as we close today, I, I want

to take us back to Moses in the tent of the meeting because

there's one part of that story that I read to you that I have

not addressed yet. Exodus says that whenever Moses

went out to the tent that the presence of God would descend

like a cloud and the Lord would speak to Moses.

What face to face as one speaks to A to a friend.

But the Scriptures also include a detail that most people skip

over. And I think it's one of the most

important details in the entire chapter.

It says when Moses returned to the camp, his young assistant,

Joshua, son of Nun, remained behind in the tent.

That one line has fascinated Jewish.

Teachers. Christian.

Theologians and me, wherever I land there for centuries.

Why did Joshua stay behind? Why wouldn't he go with Moses?

Yeah, you guys got to hear what God just told Moses because he

was next in line. He's the successor.

He's got a destiny, he's got a future and head ahead of him.

Most Jewish teachers believe that he stayed.

Behind because he was learning. He was hungry and he wanted to

be near the presence. Of God, even when nobody.

Was watching the Jewish desert fathers would teach that Joshua.

Stayed behind because he. Was in training for his heart to

recognize the voice that Moses had already learned to follow.

He stayed because proximity to the Lord's presence is always

preparation for you. You don't suddenly become a

leader the day God calls your name.

You become a leader by quietly learning to hear God's voice,

even if other people don't see it happening.

And so the same conclusion is here.

Joshua wanted to learn to hear the Lord for himself.

And what did we talk about earlier?

Sometimes you have to learn how to be close to him before you

learn how to hear from Him. And so after knowing that God.

Had just had a conversation with Moses.

He said I'll just sit here and bask in the afterglow of this.

Here's what that means for us. Faithful.

Men and faithful women always pass on what they've learned,

but you can't pass on something that you haven't practiced.

Moses taught Joshua how to be near God because Moses had been

near God. Later, even Eli with all his.

Flaws and failures was. Still able to teach Samuel one

sentence that opened his entire prophetic life.

Eli, as we talked about, was not a perfect.

Father, he wasn't a perfect. Priest.

He wasn't even consistent, but he still gave Samuel something

that Samuel would. Carry for the rest of his.

Life. And that's the confidence that

he could hear from the Lord. I just want to speak this to

some of you because some of us, we've had parents or mentors or

leaders who are not perfect. Some of them may have let you

down or disappointed you or even wounded you.

But I want you to hear this today, that even in imperfect

relationships, there are pieces of wisdom and there are glimpses

of faith and moments of truth that helped you find your way to

the Lord today. Don't throw away the good

because the people who gave it weren't flawless.

Celebrate what they did pass on, honor the pieces of faith that

they passed on to you, and pass the best of it to the next

generation. Your kids, your friends, your

coworkers, whoever's around you. Just like Moses passed intimacy

on to Joshua and Eli passed listening on to Samuel, we can

pass on the ability to hear God by becoming people who hear him

ourselves. And all of this lands on one

final scripture for today. Lord woke me up last night.

I was waiting to have one of those Samuel moments, but I, I

didn't get it, just woke me up. And if you do have the bulletin

that has some of the notes to follow, there's like 3

scriptures there at the end. And I want you to know I'm not

going to read any of them, but you should.

All scripture is profitable. We talked about that last week.

The Lord said in the middle of this night, He told me to share

this with you. Isaiah 3021 Your own ears will

hear him right behind you. A voice will say this.

Is the way you should go. Whether to the right or to the

left, God wants you to be more informed than you do.

He wants you to be more at peace than you want.

As much as you may desire clarity and direction and peace

and all of these things, He wants it more.

And so today I want you to understand that God's heart for

you is not mysterious. It is not a confusing thing.

It is not silence. There's a voice behind you.

There's a voice that is inside of you.

There is a shepherd that will speak in a way that you can

follow and as you leave today, I want you to think on these

things and speak to Him differently.

Try opening your eyes and putting your hands out when you

speak to him. Stumble, stutter through your

prayers. Make it genuine.

That's all he really wants. This whole year has been about

trusting in God. And trusting in.

Jesus, if we really trust Him. We'll start opening up.

More and more to him all the time.

As a good reminder, this happens to be the Sunday where we're

handing out this year's Christmas ornament.

So when you leave today, I would love it if you would please go

ahead and grab one of those Christmas ornaments on your way

out. And if you happen to not be

somebody with a Christmas tree, hang it from your mirror.

Remind yourself that you can trust the Lord.

This next year, we're going to be conquering a lot of hard

things. And Speaking of Conquer, Conquer

is a program that's designed to help.

Men who want to find all sorts of.

Relational freedom, it's not just about sexual issues or

whatever, but if you need to find relational freedom, freedom

from baggage, we've got some gentlemen right there in the

back corner. Joni, you want to wave your hand

there who are willing to talk to you after service.

It is a group that really, really holds each other

accountable and pulls each other up to a brand new level and I'm

so proud. Couldn't be more proud of them.

Would you all stand up as we end today in a prayer?

Guys, I I hope I didn't offend you with.

Some of my prayer stuff today unless.

It was in a good way, but please know my heart.

I want us to be a church that hears God.

I want us to be a community that knows His voice because a lot of

us want to know his will for our life and he wants you to know it

too. So let's encourage another one

another on to. These good things.

Spur one another on the good works.

But if you want to know the good works He has for you, learn to

hear His voice. Amen.