The Fullness of You

Judges 20:27 NIV

And the Israelites inquired of the Lord.

Do You Hear From God?

We all communicate or try to communicate when we have relationships.  We use a wide range of methods; some are effective and others aren’t so successful.  We use touch to communicate our love or our anger, perfumes and colognes to attract attention so that we are noticed.  Clothing communicates as does the way we look at someone with our eyes.  We smile, frown, fold our arms, tap our fingers and grimace to get a point across.  Our expressions say something.  Sometimes we don’t even realize what our faces are saying to others.  A compliment, word of encouragement and criticism all are parts of communication.  Sometimes we communicate a point by being late or early, by pausing before answering or by blurting out a reply.  We are constantly communicating, sometimes even by keeping our door closed or staying in the car.  Communication is a universal part of our lives.

We are not all masters at communication; sometimes we misread the message being given us and other times we don’t realize that we are saying something unintended.  There is in the Christian community and even outside of it a level of frustration when it comes to communicating with God.  Many would like to communicate with Him but it doesn’t seem possible.  Perhaps you have been disappointed with how communication has gone for you in your relationship with God.  You have tried but either you don’t feel like God gets through to you or you don’t get through to God.  Today, we are going to look at that vital part of life, communicating with God.

When we read the second and third chapters of the book of Genesis, we get a clear picture of the psychology of sin with regard to the relationship between God and His people.  Before Adam rebelled against God, communication between them was comfortable and relaxed.  God met with Adam, gave him the responsibility of naming all the livestock, beasts of the field and birds and waited to hear what names he gave them as the Lord herded the creatures past them.  He made Eve and together they all lived as friends.  When Adam rejected God’s command to not eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, communication between them was shattered.  Adam and Eve hid from God and even though they heard the Lord moving about in the Garden of Eden, they tried to keep from being seen.  It was God who broke the silence between them.  He called out to Adam and Eve, “Where are you?”

Sin clearly wrecked the lives of Adam and Eve.  Death became their end rather than life.  It also demolished the desire of the two to meet with God and hear from Him.  We cannot overstate this.  Sin shot clear through the desire of people to be in communication with God, warped their view of God and put them at odds with Him.  God came to Adam and Eve with the very same level of affection and love but Adam and Eve due to the damage to their personalities were not able to accept it.  Adam’s reaction to God tells us all we need to know about what Sin did to him.  “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”  (Genesis 3: 10 NIV) 

God stayed the same.  He continued to be available to Adam and Eve.  It was Adam and Eve who closed the door on God.  Bombard every human with ten thousand times ten thousand the amount of sin Adam and Eve had within them while they were still in the Garden and you can easily see how huge our problem is when it comes to communicating with God.  Our door is shut pretty tight.  We almost never make our minds available to God and it takes a miracle for us to hear from Him.  The problem is not with God.  It is with us.

There are only a few people in the Old Testament who seem to be really determined to hear from God.  One would be David in his early years.  The expression, “hunger is the best sauce” seems to apply to our discussion.  When David was desperate he immediately turned to God for guidance.  The Lord gave the people of Israel the Ephod to help them hear from Him.  It was the High Priest’s responsibility to use it on behalf of the people.  In the Ephod were the Urim and Thummim which were used to answer “yes-no” questions.  They looked like dice and were tossed to get answers from God.  In 1 Samuel 23: 9, David called the priest to him and asked to use the Ephod to find out if the people of the town where he and his men were camping would protect him if King Saul and his army came to get him.  He wanted God to speak to him about the danger he faced.  When the Lord through the Ephod told David that the people of Keilah would not protect him, David fled.

This happened again and again with David.  He faced a crisis and got the priest to use the Ephod to discover what God said he should do.  He asked God whether he should pursue an army of Amalekites who had taken his wives and the wives and children of the soldiers of his little brigade captive while they were away.  (1 Samuel 30: 7)  When he wanted to know if the people of Judah would embrace him as their new king after Saul died, he consulted God with the Ephod.  (2 Samuel 2: 1)  Facing a vast army of Philistines and being greatly outnumbered, David wanted to know from God if he should attack the invading army and so he had the Ephod brought to him to see what God said.  David believed God would tell him what to do if he asked.  When there were life and death sorts of decisions to make, David took time to find out what God said he ought to do.  It is fascinating that as David solidified his hold on the country as king and foreign powers stopped being a threat to him, we no longer see David seeking out the Lord for guidance.  He certainly didn’t look to God for direction when he thought about sleeping with the married Bathsheba and later when in his pride, he considered numbering all the fighting men of Israel, David did not consult with God then either.  Both times, the consequence of not letting God direct his path was deadly and impacted the nation for generations to come.

Although we see several times, kings of Judah wanting God to speak to them, they nearly always went through prophets rather than meeting individually with the Lord themselves.  Moses of course talked with God all the time but he is the exception rather than the rule before Christ came and completely changed our relationship with God.  There is in the New Testament a titanic shift in how God makes Himself available to us.  Before Christ went to the Cross to die for our sins, the Lord promised that all who put their faith in Him for their salvation would have the Holy Spirit as a part of them.  God would live in us and become part of who we are.  The Bible makes an assumption that we must either accept as true or reject outright.  It is that the Holy Spirit is a part of every believer not just as some external force but as God joined to the personality and thus available at all times to guide, empower and help.  The Apostle Paul states, “those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” (Romans 8:14 NIV)  Sons of God are led by the Spirit of God.  That is the assumption Paul makes.  If you are born again, the Holy Spirit leads you.  His “voice” is a natural part of your life.

John 10 presents a generally overlooked proposition.  It is so clear and decided that we must face squarely God’s statement.  Using the metaphor of sheep and their shepherd Jesus said, “The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep.  The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.  When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.” (John 10:2-4 NIV)  Jesus later adds, “I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.” (John 10:16 NIV)  He then declares, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” (John 10:27 NIV)

God states unequivocally that if you belong to God and are one of His, you will hear his voice because He will be speaking with you and you will know it is Him.  Why are so many Christians not experiencing this?  Why do they feel like they do not hear His voice?  We will take up that topic next week.  For now we must by faith accept this assertion by Jesus that we have God’s voice in our ear.  He speaks to us and we can and should recognize when it is Him speaking to us.  We have the most exciting and noble of all abilities; the capability of hearing God speak to us at any moment.  Those not born again are deaf to God.  They cannot understand Him speaking because it is just gibberish to them, like an American trying to make sense of Cantonese.  But the one who is one of God’s own, who is born-again is given the ability by God to hear Him speak and understand what He says.