Slide 1:
1,500+ votes
~40% chose: “How to hear the voice of God.”

 Slide 2:
Americans continue to report high stress, widespread loneliness, declining trust in other people, and significant difficulty making decisions and planning for the future.

Slide 3:
“How do I know what to do?”
“How do I stop feeling alone in big decisions?” 

Slide 4:
Bad news: I don’t have a 3-step solution for God to function like divine GPS.

Slide 5:
Good news: God is a speaking God.

Slide 6:
– Genesis 1 – God creates by His word.
– Genesis 12 – God calls Abram.
– Exodus 3 – God speaks to Moses from the burning bush.
– Prophets – The prophets repeatedly say, “Thus says the Lord.”

Slide 7:
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. Hebrews 1:1-2

Slide 8:
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. John 10:27

Slide 9:
16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17

Slide 10:
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Psalm 119:105

Slide 11:
The clearest voice of God is the Word of God.

Slide 12:
God does not usually give us a script for every decision
– The Bible does not tell you which specific job to take
– It does not name the person to date
– It does not lay out every life choice in detail 

Slide 13:
God does give wisdom

Slide 14:
9 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God… Colossians 1:9-10 

Slide 15:
How God Leads Us:
– Through His Word
– By His Spirit
– Through prayer
– Through wisdom
– Through godly counsel
– Sometimes through circumstances 

Slide 16:
The Problem: Projecting Our Voice onto God
– “The heart is deceitful above all things…” (Jeremiah 17:9)
– The danger of making God into a “cosmic tooth fairy” who exists to affirm our preferences.
– Emotional intensity ≠ divine authority.

Slide 17:
Cautions:
– “I have peace about it” = it must be God.
– “This opportunity opened up” = it must be His will. 

Slide 18:
19 Do not quench the Spirit. 20 Do not despise prophecies, 21 but test everything; hold fast what is good. 1 Thessalonians 5:19-21

Slide 19:
Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; 2 but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. Isaiah 59:1-2

Slide 20:
I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Psalm 32:8

Slide 21:
Practical Steps:
1. Read God’s Word
2. Pray for wisdom
3. Repent of sin
4. Surrender “my will”
5. Seek wise counsel
6. Obey God and trust Him

So here’s what’s fascinating. We, we had over 1500 votes last weekend, which was a lot of votes. We had 40% roughly that all chose the same thing. And you all chose how to hear the voice of God, which with, with 10 topics for 40% of the people to choose one topic. That just, that just seems interesting to me. And it’s not honestly the one that I would’ve guessed, would’ve been number one. So it led me to first ask this question of why do we think that that is the topic that people are the most interested in? Asked. A lot of people talked about wife about it for a while, and I, I think some of it comes to this idea of, okay, we’re in this moment in time where there’s just so many options and there’s so much unknown and there’s so much ambiguity.

And if someone could just show me exactly what to do, that would make my life so much easier, because we live in a culture right now where by and large that is true. All the knowledge that you could you and I could ever want is at our fingertips, which is very different than it was 20 or 30 years ago. My kids like to remind me that, that I was born in the 19 hundreds. Something about that sounds old to them. And here’s, here’s what, what’s true, the childhood that I grew up in looks very different than the childhood that they grew up in. And there’s a lot of different ways that, that plays itself out. Like one of those is with video games. So our, our kids, like we’re, we’re not an anti screen. We, we believe it in moderation. Our kids play video games.

And my son, anytime he gets stuck on a video game, he searches it up. So he, he goes to a, to a iPad or he asks me to do it on my phone, and he figures out what is the answer to this solution right now. Now, now, if any of you were in my age demographic and you grew up in the eighties playing something like Super Nintendo or before that Nintendo, you know, that that was not an option. And so what we did when we got stuck at a spot in a video game is we just failed over and over and over. Like, you could get stuck in the same spot for hours, or sometimes for days or sometimes for weeks. There were some video games that you just gave up on. You’re just like, ah, it’s, I, I can’t ever solve this because there was no other option.

You, you couldn’t Google it, you couldn’t go online. And then I remember in my childhood that they came up with this thing that was called, it was crazy. It was called Game Genie Look like this. Anybody out there? Remember Game Genie three of you? Great. so, so here’s what Game Genie worked. You put the, the, the cartridge. That’s how video games used to work. You put the cartridge on the Game Genie and you plugged it in, and then it basically cheated the game for you. And when you first started using Game Genie, it was the coolest thing in the world because all of a sudden you were invincible. You couldn’t die. You could cheat, you could skip past things. You, you had infinite lives and infinite ammo and infinite all the things that you could want. And it was amazing at first. But, but here’s what you found if you used the Game Genie, is that it actually made the game not fun because all the challenge of overcoming an obstacle was taken away.

And so as a result of it, it just kind of lost the magic of video games. Hey, here’s where I think that we’re walking in today, hoping, we’re hoping that all of a sudden I’m gonna hear the audible voice in my life of God just telling me every decision that I need to make all the time no matter what. And if we peel back the layers of why here’s, I, I think the driving emotion behind that, it’s because of what research tells us about our country right now. Hey, here’s what research says. Americans continue to report high stress, widespread loneliness, declining trust in other people and, and significant difficulty making decisions and planning for the future. So we have all these things of just unknown and stress and anxiety and loneliness. And so we’re trying to look ahead and trying to figure out what should I do?

And those feelings lead us to this place of just kind of despair. And, and so if we’re honest, here are the couple questions that, that we’re struggling. We’re asking ourself, how do I know what to do this, this difficult decision I’ve got in my life right now? Now, how do I know what I am supposed to do? Or, or how do I stop feeling alone in big decisions? I’m just wrestling with it and wrestling with it. I’m, I’m unsure and I, I, I’m, I’m not sure what to do. And so I, I just wish somebody else would make the decision for me. So if that’s you, let me start with some bad news. And the bad news is this, that I do not have a three step process that I’m gonna give you today that you’re gonna walk out of here where God functions like some type of a divine GPS, where all of a sudden you’ve got a burning bush that’s just on your shoulder 24 hours a day.

And it’s saying, Nope, don’t do that. Hey, hey, here, here’s what, what I think you should do in this situation. Here’s what you should order off the breakfast menu. Like, that’s not what today is going to look like. But I do have some good news. The good news is that when we look at the totality of scripture, that our God is a speaking God, that God does in fact speak to us and God wants us to hear his voice. And hopefully we all walk out of today feeling more confident that God does want to speak to us and knowing what does it look like to chase after his voice? Now, here’s what we know. If you look at the Old Testament, old Testament, God is progressively revealing his character in nature, progressively revealing who he is. And over the course of time, he, he’s showing us that he wants to speak to us.

So, so you see this all the way in the the very beginning, Genesis chapter one, the creation account. How does God create the heavens in the earth? How does he create us? He creates us with his words in Genesis 12, that God calls the literal voice of God calls Abraham who would become Abraham. In Exodus chapter three, God speaks to Moses through a burning bush. The audible voice of God is speaking to Moses, that the prophets throughout the Old Testament are constantly using this phrase. They’re saying, thus says the Lord. That that what what it meant to be a prophet was not that, that they were prophesying about the future. That’s what we think of a prophet. But in the Old Testament, primarily, that’s not what they did. They simply spoke as a messenger on behalf of God, the words of God to the people of God.

If you’ve got a Bible, we’re gonna go through a lot of different verses today but we’re gonna start in Hebrews chapter one, Hebrews chapter one, starting in verse one. So if you open the book of Hebrews and you start at the very beginning of the book, this is what it says long ago, at many times, and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed the heir of all things through whom also he created the world. And so in this progressive revelation, that that means that if you open the Bible and start from the very first beginning, first page, and you read through, the further you get into the Bible, the more that God is revealing his character and his nature, who he is. And what the author of Hebrews is saying is he’s saying that the ultimate fulfillment of that is in the person of Jesus.

So the Old Testament, it’s foreshadowing, it’s pointing ahead to the person of Jesus that Jesus was God. And so, if we wanna know who God is and the voice of God, we simply have to look at the person of Jesus, the character and the nature of who he was, the teachings of Jesus. That that is my best understanding of the character and the nature of God, because that’s who God revealed himself to be in Jesus. Then look what Jesus says in John chapter 10, verse 27. Jesus says, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. Jesus is saying that, that his teachings are a way for us to understand the voice of Jesus. He’s not saying that if you are a Christian in here, that you should hear the literal voice of Jesus. And you know, oh, hey, that’s the voice of I hear all these other voices.

But that one, that’s the voice of Jesus. That Jesus saying that, that if we follow him in his teachings, if we’re followers of him, then we know the path that he has for our life. We know the direction that we should go because he’s laid it out for us. In Second Timothy chapter three, starting in verse 16, it says, all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for proof, for correction, and for training and righteousness that the man of God may be complete equipped for every good work. Back in January, we, we really unpacked this verse but that that idea of it being God breathed, meaning the word

Of God, the reason we call the Bible the word of God is because it’s the breath of God

Being breathed out

To us for us, so that

We might better understand who God

Is

And how he wants us to

Live. Then

Look, in Psalm one 19, verse 1 0 5

Says, your word

Is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

It’s

One of those famous verses.

We’ve

Got a song about that verse.

But,

But here’s what I wanna point out about the verse. It does not say that

Your word is a floodlight to my feet. ’cause That’s what we want it to be.

You know, we want

God to

Just illuminate

Every

Decision we might ever make for the rest

Of our lives. But it

Doesn’t describe

God’s word as that. It says that God’s

Word is a lamp. Now, now, I don’t know if you’ve ever used a lamp before,

But they

Don’t shine very far in front of you

That if this was a, a pitch

Black room right now, it’s completely dark in this room and I had a lamp on stage,

I would

Probably only be

Able to

See about 10 feet in any one direction.

I wouldn’t be able to see to the walls,

I wouldn’t be able to see to

The back of the room.

And I think sometimes what we want for God

To tell us is, God,

I I want you to tell me everything,

All the details,

And here’s what God

Is

Clearly revealing to us, that that’s not going to happen.

But what God does do is he

Helps us to know what is the next right

Step

That

I should take. That’s

What a lamb does

For our path. That, that here’s what the Bible tells

Us over and over and over again,

That the clearest voice of God for your

Life and for my life

Is the word of God.

There’s an old pastor

Joke that says,

Do you want to hear

The audible

Voice of God in your life?

Take your Bible, open it up and start

Reading it out loud

To yourself. That’s the closest

You’re ever gonna get

To the audible voice of God.

And that’s true. The,

The God’s word has revealed who God is

And does help me know through the formation of my mind and my heart

How I should live.

If I’m looking for direction, the primary place

Has

A Christian that I can find direction in my life

Is through the Bible.

And now, now here’s,

Here’s the, the challenge with that. What we want

Is it for to answer every

Question, but

God does not usually

Give us a script for every decision,

Meaning the Bible’s not gonna tell you which

Specific job you’re supposed to take,

And the Bible is not going to

Tell you

The person that you’re supposed to date. And the Bible is not gonna lay out

Every detail of every life choice.

When I was a youth pastor, one of the things that, that I remember vividly

Is, is I’d

Have these seniors in high school and they’d come sit down. They’re just so

Stressed,

So much anxiety, and they’re, they’re trying to figure out,

Okay, what college should I go to? Here’s

Option A or option B, or sometimes it’s option

A-B-C-V-E-F-G-H-H

Come. So

Here’s all

These options. And they were just

So distraught.

And I remember oftentimes they, they’d say, which one does God want me to do? They, they, they had this fear of, if I choose option A, but God really wanted me to choose option B, then I have ruined God’s plan for my life and I can never make it up. And, and here’s what my answer always was, with his much empathy and, and compassion as I could possibly give them, I I’d say, Hey, I, I got good news and I got bad news. God doesn’t care which college you go to. That was my, that doesn’t sound very pastoral. And, and I would say, it doesn’t mean that God doesn’t care about you. But I I think you can be in the center of God’s will and go to any one of those colleges. I also think you can go to any one of those colleges and be outside the will of God because your role as a Christian, my role as a Christian is to maximize my giftedness for the kingdom of God.

And so you can go to any one of those places as long as when you’re there with your mind and with your heart and with your choices, you are doing your best to honor and to glorify God. So God does not give us every single detail. So when we have hard choices, what are we supposed to use? Well, we’re supposed to use wisdom because God does give us wisdom. Now, look what Paul writes. And Colossians Paul in Colossians chapter one, starting in verse nine, writes this. And so from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.

Now, let me unpack a couple things that Paul writes. Paul says, I’m praying that you might be filled with the knowledge of God so that you might live for him. So let’s start at the end. But what’s the, what’s the goal of the wisdom and the knowledge of God in our life? It’s so that we might bear fruit in every good work and increase in the knowledge of God. So the end result of God’s wisdom in my life, in our lives is that we are bearing fruit, that we’re making decisions that honor and glorify God, that I’m learning more and more about him. So how do I accomplish that? What Paul does not pray for is I’m praying that the audible voice of God starts directing every decision that you ever make. That’s not what he says. He says, I have not ceased to pray that you might be filled with a knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding. So how do we understand? How is Paul saying that they’re supposed to know this spiritual understanding? Well, it’s through God’s word. It’s through teaching about God’s word. It’s through the church. It’s through community. If you look at all of scripture, here’s the primary ways that God is leading us. First and foremost, it’s through His word. Secondly, it’s through the power of the Holy Spirit. And what that means is, is not that most of the time in my life that I’m going, going to hear

The Holy Spirit telling

Me what to do.

But

When I combine these two things together, think about the

Word of God,

That when I am opening the word of God and I’m praying that God

Use this

And speak to me, that through

The power of the Holy Spirit, God

Is taking the word of

God

And making it real,

Alive, fresh

Right now, and apply to my life in that moment

That, that some of you have experienced this, that you’ve

Read the same verse a hundred different times in life and multiple times you’ve read it and you’ve got something brand new, a new perspective, a new concept, a new idea

That it applied

In your life, in that moment, in afresh, in a new way. That’s because

The Holy Spirit reveals God’s

Word in a real way that becomes applicable

To us, that through the power of the Holy Spirit, we wanna live in a way that

Is in constant prayer, talking to God so that my thoughts, my words, my actions are glorifying him. So God

Is leaving us through the Bible, through the Holy Spirit, through prayer, through

Wisdom, through godly counsel. That means that, that I’m seeking godly counsel in the Christian relationships I have in my life. And then sometimes through circumstances. Now, notice that I say sometimes because I think what we

Like to do is we like to say, well, hey, look

At the circumstances of my life. Clearly that means

This.

And sometimes circumstances are

Just weird

Circumstances. Sometimes if my car doesn’t

Start,

It’s because my car didn’t start.

Sometimes

It’s because I need a new battery. Sometimes it’s because I didn’t fill it up with gas.

Like those

Aren’t circumstances that are divine that are necessarily telling me something. Sometimes circumstances are

Just the result of choices

That I’ve made in my life. So sometimes circumstances you can look back

And say, God has

So divinely orchestrated

This, that it’s, it’s clear what God

Was doing, but sometimes that’s not the

Case.

And so here’s

The problem

When it comes to hearing the voice of

God, the

Problem is that oftentimes we can project

Our voice

Onto God. We can

Hear what we want to hear. And

The Bible warns us about this in Jeremiah chapter 17, verse nine. It

Says, the heart is deceitful

Above all things. What does that mean? It means that my heart can convince me that I’m hearing

The voice of God

When sometimes it’s not the voice of God. And it’s just something I want,

Like for

A 16-year-old to say,

I really feel like the voice of God is

Telling me that I need to drive

A

Ferrari. Like that’s,

I just feel

Passionately

That that is what

He’s telling me that I am supposed

To do. You

See, the danger is that we can make God some sort of a cosmic tooth fairy who simply exists to affirm my preferences. So if I

Have a feeling a certain way,

I just naturally said, well, that, that must then be from God. There’s a danger connected to that. I’ll,

I’ll give you a couple very, very real examples.

My sister, when she was in college, my older sister when she was in college she was very connected to a bunch of just different Christian groups connected to Christian camps and Christian bands. And she had about an 18 month period

Where

Three different Christian guys, three

Told her that God had told

Them that she was

Supposed to be their wife.

Three different guys. God told me that we’re supposed to get married now. Now, can I just tell you I’m a hundred percent

Sure biblically, that

God did not tell

All three of them. Like

Biblically, we can be a hundred

Percent sure at

Least two of them lying like wrong.

But, but of the three guests,

How many of them she married, zero

Would

Be the answer. She married, none of them.

But they

Had this strong feeling, this strong emotion, and they convinced themselves that this emotional intensity therefore meant it was a divine authority. And emotional intensity does not equal divine authority. My mom, she, she works

At a

Kids camp. She runs, she’s a director of a kids camp, kids youth camp. And every summer they’ve got about

50 college kids

That are there working at the camp doing all kinds of different stuff. And she would tell you for the last 20 years, she’s been doing it for over 20 years. She has not had a single summer where one counselor didn’t tell another counselor, God told me that we’re supposed to get married every single summer.

Why does that happen? Well, they’re tired. Camp is a lot of work.

They’re around kids, they’re emotionally exhausted,

They’re physically exhausted. They,

They, they haven’t got enough sleep. And so some combination of all those emotions causes them to feel

Like, well, hey, God

Is telling me something and it must be

True.

We also sometimes

Use God’s

Voice as a convenient excuse. And so you’ll hear people say things like, Hey, God told me that we’re

Supposed to break up.

And now that’s very convenient because hey, now it’s not my fault. It’s,

It’s the big guy. Like, if

You got a problem, don’t take it out on me. Like, what was I gonna do? I had to say,

I had to

Say yes to him. Or sometimes you’ll ask somebody for something. You see this a lot in church. Someone say, Hey, we wanna vol you to volunteer for this position. People are like, Hey, lemme pray about it. Because what does it do? It skirts me from having the responsibility. Well, hey, no, I’m gonna pray about it and then I’m gonna use that as a convenient excuse to say, well, I can’t do it ’cause I prayed about it. I just don’t, you know, God told me, no, sorry,

<Laugh>, like, so we gotta be cautious to use God in

Ways that I’m hearing God’s voice

Because it, it

Just happens to line up with the

Choice

That I wanted to make. So here are some cautions. Having a peace

About

It doesn’t mean that it’s

Always

From God. Now, also an opportunity opening up does not mean that it’s always from God. So, so now we’re at this point in the message where you’re like, well, man,

You

Started by saying that God speaks to us. And then you talked about the

Bible,

And now you’re really

Hammering this idea of we gotta be

Cautious about not taking our own emotions and projecting them onto God. And so where then does that leave

Us? Look what Paul

Writes in one Thessalonians, one Thessalonians chapter five, starting in verse 19, three verses very short verses all very powerful. He starts with this, do not quench the spirit. So he is given this warning. He’s saying that the Holy Spirit wants to speak to us, wants to move in us, and he says, do not quench the spirit. So just pause and reflect in that for a moment. So as much as we want to be cautious, we don’t want to do something that removes the desire that we have individually and collectively for the spirit to be moving in our hearts and our lives. And then he goes on to say, do not despise prophecies against, again, prophecies, primarily speaking on behalf of God, a word coming from God. So don’t despise prophecies. And then in verse 21, he says, but test everything. If you are someone who circles or underline, circle and underline the whole section.

Don’t quit the spirit. Don’t despise prophecies, but test everything. Then he says, hold fast to what is good. And so it’s this combination of things that work here where I wanna be receptive to what God is wanting to do in my life, speak into my life, guide me in my life, but I also need to be cautious and I need to test those things to make sure that they are in fact from God and not just things that I think want to be from God. So I created what, we did a talk similar to this about six months ago with our staff. And I created a flow chart, a a flow chart that actually sort of backwards, and you kinda have to follow it around it’s in the notes if you wanna go to the notes. But here’s the flow chart that I created that I think is the natural right way to answer the question.

If I think that God is speaking to me, here’s, here’s the flow chart to ask. So here’s where I start. Does this align with scripture? So if I’m praying about something, I feel like God is telling me something, I i need to start with the Bible. And if it does not align with scripture, I can be very positive, a hundred percent confident. That’s not a word from God. Like God is never gonna tell you to steal something. I know that because that’s contrary to what he’s already revealed to us in scripture. God is never gonna tell you to divorce your spouse to marry somebody else. Now, I’m a hundred percent sure of that because that is contrary to what we see in scripture. So starts with measuring that against the Bible. If it is aligning with scripture, that leads to this question of, is Jesus glorified? Meaning it’s not just something that I want, but is Jesus glorified? If the answer is no, that he’s not glorified, then probably it’s not from God. And we, we do this all the time. We say, well, God is leading me to this bigger opportunity with more money and more popularity and more things.

If it’s not glorifying God, I need to be cautious to ask the question, okay, is this just what I want? Or is it from him? If Jesus is glorified, then it leads to this next question. Has this been confirmed through prayer wise counsel and the church? And now I’m not talking about the church, like you need to sit down with me every single time and say, Hey, Kurt, tell me one way or the other. Is this the thing? But the the point of the church is you’re connected to a spiritual community and you’re underneath the spiritual authority of other people so that you can come and you can check with those people and say, Hey, I feel like God is leading me this direction and I have searched through scripture and I think this glorifies Christ. And and I want your wisdom and discernment in my life to know, is this something that is true?

And you want people that can do two things. One, they can affirm, Hey, yes, I I do think this is God, but they can also say, Hey, I don’t think that this is from God. I I think you need to be really cautious that, that the way that we function as a church, as an elder board, I I can’t just walk in and say, Hey, this is what we’re gonna do. ’cause I’ve heard from God that I have to submit to their spiritual authority that we have to collectively be seeking the mind of Christ together. But if, if wise counsel also says, yes, we think this is good, that ultimately leads to, well, this could be from God, however, use caution. It could still not be from God, but like we’ve got to hold things loosely that, that we are desiring and wanting and chasing after the voice of God in our life, while also knowing that we are prone to manipulate what we think is the voice of God to get the things that we want.

And so there just has to be a caution with it. Let me give you just some full transparency in my life. I don’t remember a single time I’ve ever heard the audible voice of God. And probably some of you’re disappointed. You’re like, well, I was hoping that you were just like so much holier than me, that that was just like an everyday occurrence. But I, I don’t remember one time hearing the audible voice of God in my life. I have really dear friends, godly people that I trust that, that they have said they have had that. But, but I also wanna be cautious to say, if you’ve never heard the audible voice of God and you’re like, what’s wrong with me? How come I’ve never heard that? It’s okay. You’re in good company. Probably the vast majority of us who are Christians who love Jesus have never heard the audible voice of God.

Now, I do feel that I’ve had different moments in my life where God was leading me in a certain direction. The reason I’m in ministry today is because I was in eighth grade at youth camp and I felt God compelling me to be called to full-time Christian ministry for the rest of my life. I was eighth grade. It was a combination of an intellectual feeling and a and a spiritual emotional feeling where I just felt like this is right, this is what I’m supposed to do. And I still strongly believe that eighth grade, that calling was real and it was from God. But most of the time, that’s not how it works. The primary way that I hear from God is by spending time in God’s Word and asking God to reveal through scripture who I should be helping to form my life. So that that natural formation of who I am helps me make everyday decisions.

Most of the time, if I’ve spent enough time in scripture and I’m chasing after God, it’s easy for me to know the right decision on which decision is going to glorify God. Again, it’s not as much of a struggle if I’m chasing after him. Now, I also wanna add a caution. Sometimes the reason we don’t hear from God is for a specific reason. Look at what it says in Isaiah chapter 59, sermon in verse one. There’s multiple verses throughout scripture that would echo this same idea. This one just articulates it very clearly. It says, behold the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save. Or is his ear dull that it cannot hear? But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear you. Now, now let me unpack for a second just this, this concept of, of salvation.

So salvation is not workspace. I do nothing to become a Christian. It’s all what Jesus did for me on the cross. But once I become a Christian, there’s this process of sanctification where I am pursuing God and pursuing holiness every day. I am trying to become more and more and more like him. And I can be a Christian who’s chasing after God, who starts to still struggle with sin. But but here’s what it says throughout scripture. If I have an unrepentant sin in my heart and in my life, that that sin is going to make it more difficult for me to clearly hear the direction of God in my life. That, that, if I wanna be sure, confident that I’m hearing the voice of God, one of the things I’ve gotta combat is any unrepentant sin that I struggle with in my heart and in my life.

Here’s some hope though. Look what it says in Psalm chapter 32, verse eight. It says, I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you with my eye upon you. It’s this beautiful promise that God’s eye is upon us, that, that God wants to counsel us, wants to give us direction, wants us to accomplish what he wants for our life. And I think sometimes we put this pressure of all one wrong mistake, and I’m just, I’ve ruined God’s plan for my life. And I don’t think that is true, that God is sovereign and God can work through our mistakes. That, that we can get back on track very quickly when we start pursuing him wholeheartedly. And that’s what he wants. So what are some practical steps, practical steps of, of what does it look like to hear God’s voice in my life?

Step number one is this is to read God’s word. The the clearest way that we can understand God’s direction for our life is by spending time daily in the Word of God. Number two is to pray for wisdom. Wisdom helps give me the guardrails, the formation of my life so that I naturally know the right direction to go. Number three is to repent from sin. If I’ve got sin in my life that is unrepented, that is going to prevent me from the Holy Spirit working and guiding me the way the Holy Spirit wants to work and to guide it in my life, I’m forced to surrender my will, just like Jesus did at the garden. Not my will God, but your will be done in my life. I I don’t wanna hear things just because I want it. I wanna hear things because it’s what you want.

God, seek wise counsel, have Christians in your life that you say, Hey, I’m, I’m wrestling with this. This is what I think. Can you give me wise biblical counsel speaking truth into my life and being willing to submit to the authority of other people in my life? And then lastly, to obey God and to trust him. I’m gonna end it with a picture. This is a picture of Jan Pataki. Jan Pataki. Yes, his name is Jan. Jan Pataki was a, a Polish pianist, a a virtuoso amazing pianist. One of the most famous pianists in the world, toured all over the world. And then during World War I in Poland, the government comes to him and they say, look, morale is really down what we’re trying to go around the country and just get people excited. And so we’d like you to lead a whole bunch of different concerts across the country.

We we want to pay you to work for us, the government. And so that’s what he did. But he said, Hey, I’ve got one condition. He said, I will for five hours a day, do whatever concert you want me to do, as long as for three hours a day, I can practice my scales on the piano. I have no clue if this is scales or not, but it looks like I’m playing the piano. Now scales if you, if you play piano. That’s, that’s the basic practice thing of piano. And the government official, when he is having this conversation with Jan, he says, he kinda scratches his head. He says, wait, I don’t understand. You’re one of the greatest pianists in the world, and you’re telling me that you still need to practice for three hours a day. And he responds by saying, if I skip one day of practice, then when I’m in a concert, I will notice that I didn’t practice for a day.

If I skip two days of practice, then my coach would notice in the concert that I had not been practicing. He said, but if I skip three days of practice, then everybody will notice that I had not been practicing. You see, his mindset was, I need to spend so much time with the piano that it just is effortless, it becomes natural, the overflow of who I am what God wants in your life and my life. That if we want to clearly know God’s divine will, the direction that he wants me to go with my life, the primary way I do that is to spend time with God. If I spend time in God’s word, if I had the same passion as this virtuo so pianist, where I said, and if I skip multiple days, that everybody’s gonna know that, that I’ve, I’ve lost that, that that driving force, that that rudder in my life that is steering me in the right direction.

We wanna spend so much time in God’s word that it’s just becomes effortless. The natural overflow of who I am, the decisions that I’m making, my thoughts, my words, my actions. I know that they are in the center of God’s will because I’m spending every single day in it. And I know not, that’s not the answer. That’s exciting to hear. It’d be much more exciting if I said, Hey, all you gotta do is these three things then man burning bush all the time. But the truth is, God has spoken to us. God wants to continue to speak to us through the power of His Holy Spirit. And the primary way we do that is by spending time in his word daily. Let’s pray. Heavenly Father God, I pray that we will walk out of here, not discouraged, but encourage that you are a God who speaks, that wants to give us formation and direction and wisdom. And God, I pray for anyone in this room right now that is struggling with the unknown, that they feel like they’re caught, that they’re struggling with. Okay? What’s the next step? And God, I pray that your word would be a lamp that you would just speak clearly now that they could help. Know the very next step to take in faith, one step at a time, fully trusting in you. We pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.