Being Established - Is Your Church Still Hearing God?
God said why was there no man when I came? When I called, why was there none to answer? Isaiah 50, 2.
He could ask that same question today. Churches everywhere struggle to know clearly what God is saying to them. Christian leaders and ministers candidly admit they have difficulty discerning God's voice. Everywhere we go, we meet Christians who tell us they do not hear God speak to them. Even more alarming are those who conclude they do not hear from God because he does not speak to people today. That is a lie from hell to distract you, to discourage you, and to turn your face and turn your eyes off of God and to believe that God is distant and is not relevant to your problems or to your life or to your situation or to your church any more.
God is speaking. The problem is people have become disoriented to his voice. The heart of experiencing God is the simple truth that God is a person who relates to people by speaking to them and by guiding them into His will with their listening to His voice. The problem is that many churches have not hear God speak to them as a congregation in many years.
It is imperative that pastors and leaders of churches know their role is to move people from where they are to where they need to be and teaching them the essentials to be established in God's love and God's relationship. Too many pastors and leaders are maintaining in the church and worst yet, are coasting to retirement or the next assignment. But we have a job to do. Every Christian must know how to recognize God's voice, otherwise, how can they obey Him? Apart from God's personal involvement in our lives, our life experience will be no different from that of non-believers. Unless we communicate regularly with our Lord, we will miss out on much that God desires for us. Even more so, it will rob others of gifts God wanted to give them through us.
Make no mistake, God still speaks to His people in various ways in His timing and when people here God speak their lives were never the same again. I pray today that God will clearly speak to you as you hear God's word today. If you have been living your Christian life at a level below what God desires for you, we pray that today will help you begin to enjoy the richest dimensions of the Christian life. Jesus says I can do nothing on my own. Only as I hear, do I judge, and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who has sent Me. John 5:30
I. Does God speak to churches today?
A. God's written word: His only word. Some today believe that because we have the inspired written word of God from the Holy Spirit that He does not speak any longer today because we have the Bible to guide us and lead us and that nothing needs to be added.
B. Christian experience. They emphasize personal experience with little or no biblical verification. Those who adhere to this outlook lean much more towards their own personal interpretation of how to live the Christian life. In the more radical cases, descriptors, if consulted at all, are twisted an interpreted to fit the need of the day.
C. Christian doctrine. Another school of thought influences the way people approach their relationship to God. This view elevates doctrine and diminishes Christian experience. It changed challenges the position that the Christian life is a dynamic relationship with a person who communicate regularly with His people. Since biblical times some have seen Christianity as a theology, or a set of doctrines to be followed. They find safety and theology, so they claim to dogma and facts about Christ rather than enjoying a vibrant relationship with Christ. They reject the availability of god's personal Guidance and instead opt for a lifeless set of doctrines to live by. In John 5:39-40 Jesus says “you pour over the scriptures because you think you have eternal life in them, yet they testify about Me. And you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.” Jesus did not convince them for studying the scriptures but for elevating the scriptures above the Messiah to whom the scriptures directed them.
If you are not careful and you are like one of these you will become like that which you worship. Those who worship they will lifeless, silent god and brace a lifeless religion that offers nothing but silence. The Christian life is meant to include so much more! The fundamental nature of Christianity is a relationship between God and His people which includes Him talking and us hearing.
II. God still speaks.
A. God speaks in the Old Testament.
Creation. The psalmist proclaims the heavens are telling of the glory of God and their expands is declaring the work of his hands. Day today pours fourth speech, an night tonight reveals knowledge. Psalms 19 according to the Bible all of nature caries God's fingerprints. God speaks in a general way through the majesty of the cosmos He created.
Angels. The word Angel means messenger or one who is sent The Bible depicts Angels as heavenly beings sent by God to relay messages to people.
Prophets. Like Angels, prophets relayed Gods messages to people at God sends messages included for telling future advance, but the role of a prophet was to proclaim God's word to people whether it concerns the present or the distant future.
Dreams, visions, small gentle voice, Pillar of fire, burning bush , preaching, judgments, signs, miracles, writing on the wall, a donkey, Thunder and lightning smoke and storms, and even face to face.
B. The New Testament
The Risen Savior. when Jesus came to earth nothing changed and everything changed. God continue to reach out to people, often in ways that mirrored Old Testament ways. Yet now there was a new dimension to his communication. The writer of Hebrews said, long ago God spoke to the fathers by the prophets at different times in different ways. In these last days, He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed all things and through whom He made the universe. Hebrews 1:1-2
The coming of the Lord Jesus was not merely another means by which God expressed his word. Jesus was and is God's word. The Apostle John wrote that the word became flesh and took up residence among us. John 1:14
Prayer. While Paul was praying in the temple, God spoke to him warning him to flee his enemies and instructing him to evangelize the gentiles (Acts 22:17). In scripture prayer is often presented as a 2 way conversation wherein people hear God respond to their prayers.
The church. Jesus walked on earth as God in the flesh. When the risen Christ return to His Father’s side, God established the Church to be the visible manifestation of His presence. Acts 4:31 says speak the word of God with boldness.
The Holy Spirit.
The key is not how God spoke. God steadfastly refused to limit Himself to only one way of communicating. The significant point was that Almighty God chose to communicate with people. God speaks uniquely, He speaks personally, He speaks consistently, He speaks faithfully, He speaks unmistakably. God's purpose of speaking is to reveal His character, to reveal His purposes, and to reveal His ways.
If you are not hearing the voice of God speaking to you in your life you need to take inventory of your relationship with Him. You need to ask the question, is there sin in my life that is preventing me from hearing God's word in my life?
You cannot know God if you do not communicate and hear from God.
An established life begins by being rooted in a firm relationship with God.
