| Asbury Free Methodist Church |
Making the Invisible God, VISIBLE
Hearing God
Have you ever heard someone say, ‘God spoke to me’, or ‘the Spirit spoke to my
heart’, or ‘God revealed this idea to me’? What comes to your mind when you
do? Do you take three deep breaths and try to still your heart beat from a
pulsating tremble of fear and angst at what this person might say? Do you slowly
blink your eyes so as to not make a scene and brace yourself for 5 minutes of
weirdness? Or are you interested in what they may have to say?
One thing that marks Christianity’s uniqueness is the fact that Christians believe
God wants to talk with us. Yet, how do we hear his voice? How do we know that
what we are hearing is not our own subconscious? We are going to be looking at
this subject over the next 6-8 weeks at Asbury Free Methodist Church but let me
offer a few suggestions on how to approach this.
Dallas Willard in his book ‘Hearing God: Developing a Conversational
Relationship with God’ provides some terrific insights on how to know if it is God
guiding you or someone else. He states that there are two kinds of guidance,
mechanical and personal. Mechanical guidance is like a person driving the car,
you make the commands and the car follows. Personal is very different because
the one receiving the commands has the faculties to consider what is asked of
them. Personal guidance is very difficult.
Remember the TV movie made into big screen movie called “The Stepford
Wives”? It was about a town called Stepford in which a new couple arrives to
move in but find a strange phenomenon. They notice that all the women are
ecstatic about sewing, cleaning their houses, manicuring their lawns and baking.
They exist to make their husband’s lives pleasant and comfortable. They have no
opinions or interests beyond this point. However, the feisty newcomer realizes
that all these wives have been mechanically reproduced to serve this one function-
a totally controlled wife.
Some believe God is like this, either a terrible task master who is in the business
of creating Stepford worshippers, or a controlling paranoia parent who provides a
new message every minute and leaves the receiver as a mere infant forever. But
this couldn’t be farther from the truth. As a matter of fact, our free will and
personalities are evidences that God desires nothing of the sort. Love never
operates like this, not in this world nor in the divine realm. Understanding how we
are created will help to see that God wants to communicate with us. In the story of
the 10 Commandments , God is getting the runaround from the unwilling
spokesperson, Moses, to complete the task because Moses has a speech
problem The LORD said to him, “Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him
deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD?
We can draw another conclusion from this: who gave man his ears? Surely the
Lord who created the ears did so for a reason.
Some of you don’t believe in God-you are blind and a fool. Some of you believe in
God but don’t believe He can communicate with you-you are deaf and dumb.
Some of you clearly heard God in the past but have found that experience has
died out. Come and learn and be renewed; come to hear God speak through His
word, through His people, through prayer and through your circumstances-it will
change you forever!
Have you ever heard someone say, ‘God spoke to me’, or ‘the Spirit spoke to my
heart’, or ‘God revealed this idea to me’? What comes to your mind when you
do? Do you take three deep breaths and try to still your heart beat from a
pulsating tremble of fear and angst at what this person might say? Do you slowly
blink your eyes so as to not make a scene and brace yourself for 5 minutes of
weirdness? Or are you interested in what they may have to say?
One thing that marks Christianity’s uniqueness is the fact that Christians believe
God wants to talk with us. Yet, how do we hear his voice? How do we know that
what we are hearing is not our own subconscious? We are going to be looking at
this subject over the next 6-8 weeks at Asbury Free Methodist Church but let me
offer a few suggestions on how to approach this.
Dallas Willard in his book ‘Hearing God: Developing a Conversational
Relationship with God’ provides some terrific insights on how to know if it is God
guiding you or someone else. He states that there are two kinds of guidance,
mechanical and personal. Mechanical guidance is like a person driving the car,
you make the commands and the car follows. Personal is very different because
the one receiving the commands has the faculties to consider what is asked of
them. Personal guidance is very difficult.
Remember the TV movie made into big screen movie called “The Stepford
Wives”? It was about a town called Stepford in which a new couple arrives to
move in but find a strange phenomenon. They notice that all the women are
ecstatic about sewing, cleaning their houses, manicuring their lawns and baking.
They exist to make their husband’s lives pleasant and comfortable. They have no
opinions or interests beyond this point. However, the feisty newcomer realizes
that all these wives have been mechanically reproduced to serve this one function-
a totally controlled wife.
Some believe God is like this, either a terrible task master who is in the business
of creating Stepford worshippers, or a controlling paranoia parent who provides a
new message every minute and leaves the receiver as a mere infant forever. But
this couldn’t be farther from the truth. As a matter of fact, our free will and
personalities are evidences that God desires nothing of the sort. Love never
operates like this, not in this world nor in the divine realm. Understanding how we
are created will help to see that God wants to communicate with us. In the story of
the 10 Commandments , God is getting the runaround from the unwilling
spokesperson, Moses, to complete the task because Moses has a speech
problem The LORD said to him, “Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him
deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD?
We can draw another conclusion from this: who gave man his ears? Surely the
Lord who created the ears did so for a reason.
Some of you don’t believe in God-you are blind and a fool. Some of you believe in
God but don’t believe He can communicate with you-you are deaf and dumb.
Some of you clearly heard God in the past but have found that experience has
died out. Come and learn and be renewed; come to hear God speak through His
word, through His people, through prayer and through your circumstances-it will
change you forever!
| Hearing God Series To Listen to the Sermon Series click on the Picture Above June 29, 2008 "Do You Have Religion or a Relationship?" Pastor Kevin Normile |
Recorded
Sermons
Sermons
If you would like a CD of any of the Sermons email pastorkevin@asburyfmperth.com |
 | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  |
