God is always speaking to us, in a huge variety of ways.

This is foundational to what we believe and how we worship at Newberg Friends. The second line of our vision statement is “Listening to Christ”. It sets us apart from many other evangelical churches, because we believe with absolute certainty that God wants to speak to us, and that he DOES speak to us.

But it may be the thing I get questions about more than any other. It’s not always easy to hear from God. I think for some people, it seems like others are in some kind of super magic world, where they understand things that the rest of us simply don’t.

Here’s a scene from the movie Anchorman where somebody is able to hear and understand WAY more than you or I could… [PLAY clip]

I really don’t think it’s like that.

I think God wants to be understood, and that hearing from God is not as crazy as understanding a dog’s bark. God is always speaking…but sometimes we’re blind to it, like Bruce in Bruce Almighty. [PLAY clip]

We all miss God’s voice at times.

Sometimes, it’s because we are looking or listening for the wrong things.

People talk about those beautiful moments when God DOES speak in an audible voice, and I think it makes us think that hearing from God MUST be that way.

But there are other stories, just as beautiful, just as profound, where God doesn’t speak with an audible voice.

Alan Akins said this when I asked him about a time when he heard from God:

One thing I do is set aside some time, usually during my drive to work, when I turn off the radio and actually talk out loud to God. There are other times when I may do a "formal" prayer, but during the drive, it is more conversational where I talk about the day, the week, what's going on with family, my bad behavior in interactions with Michelle or the children and how I should apologize to them for hurtful things I have said, and the unloving ways I have acted. If I have questions, I don't expect an answer right away, and I haven't gone to the step of writing down what I've asked to look for answers in the future. It's just me talkin' with God, and if prayers in that time are answered later, then great, but I don't keep a list. Usually, I just feel better having talked with a friend for a spell.

Amanda Watson remembered something that happened in India.

We had this amazing moment when all the girls in the home prayed out loud for us. So when I asked Amanda about a time when she heard God, she said this:

one would be obviously at the girls home when i was crying. i just felt like god was hugging me and our team when all the girls were praying for us. that was a good one!

I asked Jill Beals, too, and in the very act of telling me she didn’t have time to answer the question, she answered the question!

I would love to respond to this but I am on my way out the door to go to the coast solo for the weekend to be with Christ and listen to him with the volume of daily life turned down. One hopeful prayer is that this time at the coast will further tune my heart to the way Christ "speaks" so that when the volume of daily life ramps back up again all that Christ "says" to me comes through the din strong and clear. All of a sudden I've got tears in my eyes now just thinking about this.

Our experiences show God speaks in all kinds of ways.

The bible shows us this, too. It isn’t always a big, booming voice from God, laying everything out on the table perfectly clearly.

In the book of Genesis, Joseph hears from God through strange dreams, but it isn’t crystal clear. It gets him in trouble with his brothers, actually.

Last summer, we looked at the conflict between Paul and Barnabas about John Mark. When we did that, we sort of brushed over some amazing verses that begin that story. Turn with me to Acts chapter 13. [READ v. 1-3]

Now, this story has those magic words that sometimes limit our thinking.

It says that “the Holy Spirit said”. We don’t know exactly what that means. We don’t know if some heard it audibly or not. What we do know is that a group of people are worshiping, not thinking about a missionary journey at all, when the whole group gets the clear sense that Paul and Barnabas have a special work that God wants them to do.

Now, just imagine this. I don’t know that this is what happened, but it’s possible. Imagine that Paul or Barnabas didn’t “hear” anything at all themselves from the Holy Spirit. What if the first way that they “heard” what the Spirit said was through the flesh and blood voices of their brothers and sisters in the church?

We can say with confidence that a community, a group of people worshiping together, is a great way to hear from God. And I think it’s not too much of a stretch to say that sometimes, God speaks to us very clearly through the voices of other people.

Sometimes we use the phrase, “a meeting for clearness.”

A meeting for clearness is an intentional gathering of people who meet to listen to God together, to help someone become “clear” about what God is saying to them. Two of the times I’ve asked for a meeting for clearness were the two times I most clearly “heard” God speaking to me. God’s voice wasn’t a rolling thunder voice.

His voice sounded a lot like my friends who were a part of those meetings, because God spoke through them.

God speaks through his followers. And I think I want to make this a little deeper than just friends talking to friends. God can and does speak in those random moments, but I think if we made the effort to be a little more intentional; if we made the effort to more often share with a few of our closest friends the things we were most concerned about, I think we would hear Jesus through each other much more often.

For a country with shows like Jerry Springer, where some people will say anything in front of anyone, many of us don’t let others into the important places of our lives.

Our financial lives and our relational lives and our career plans are often places where we make gigantic decisions completely on our own.

If we do want to be a community that listens to Christ, we’ll open up more and more avenues for hearing from Christ if we find ways to let others into the important decisions we’re making in life. Pastors often talk about how we wish people in crisis would have let someone in a lot sooner, so that God could have the chance to work and speak through his body, the church.

Listening to Christ is not just something we do on our own, in silence. And it isn’t just something we do in our worship gatherings all together. It’s something we do with a few friends, as we journey through life together, and strive to help each other hear from God.

Alan again:

I was asked by David Andres about participating in Kid's Club, which I've been involved in since. It probably wasn't something I'd have thought of on my own, so I attribute it to Christ. I love kids and connecting with them is important to their growth in Christ, to the health of the church, and for me, too, to see God in each of their faces.

And another part was being asked to work as an audio tech. That came to me via Michelle via Lisa Nauman. I'm more of an in-the-background type of person and serving the church and its members in this way is meaningful to me. And it's since expanded into being responsible for more things, like publishing podcasts. But I firmly believe that this was a call or a suggestion from God to help me connect with people and therefore with him.

One woman talked about her Listening Life group:

Being in a listening life group has encouraged me to be more intentional about listening to God both individually and with a group.   Sometimes it takes me a while to hear a message- I mean really hear it!   There have been several times that I’ve been so moved by a truth from God… Then looking over my journal I discover that the whole week (or longer- much longer) God has been trying to speak the same truth to me. I guess I was finally at that place where I was open, receptive and ready to listen to God.  Sometimes it takes time,

Listening to Christ becomes a way of life.

I expect and look for God to speak about big things in my life. But sometimes, God’s direction to us comes in gentle nudges. Sometimes, like in Philip’s case, God doesn’t say, “Hey, why don’t you go tell that Ethiopian about me?” Sometimes, God just says, “Hey, you know that desert road out there? Why don’t you go take a stroll?’

So, rather than limit God in how he can speak to us and what he speaks to us about, we’re better off when we assume God might be using any possible means to talk to us about any part of our life.

Philip could have very easily disobeyed God because the message wasn’t about a “big decision”.

But he didn’t. He evidently had the practice and the intentionality of listening for God’s direction and doing what God said.

He obeyed the little nudge. “Go to the road? Ok, you got it God.” And off he went.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve ignored that first little nudge from God, because it seemed insignificant or weird or simply not what I was hoping for from God.

It’s only once Philip is on the road, it’s only once he’s obeyed that he hears from God again. And once again, it’s not something huge. It’s something manageable. It’s something he can do. “Philip, go to that chariot and stay near it.”

I love that! I could do that! God is leading Philip in a way that seems possible for me to imitate. I can go to a certain road. I can go to someone and stay near them. God isn’t asking the impossible. Step by step, nudge by nudge, God is asking Philip to do things that are very much within his ability.

And once he gets next to the chariot, once he’s in the place that God has led him to, he finds that God has already been at work in the Ethiopian’s life too.

God sets the table perfectly.

It’s God who leads this Ethiopian to believe in Jesus. Philip obeys and gets to the chariot, and he finds out the man is reading a part of the book of Isaiah that speaks very clearly about Jesus himself.

It’s a no-brainer. Thanks to God’s leading, Philip finds himself involved with a man who is seeking, who is trying to find out and understand what God is all about.

God does speak to us.

And, more often than not, God asks us to do things that are manageable.

Let’s listen!

God may be trying to get our attention through a friend’s words, through a book we’re reading, through the bible, maybe even from a little fleeting thought that we think is our own.

God might be speaking about anything! It’s not always the huge decisions in life. Sometimes, it’s the little nudges that we turn aside or ignore.

I want to close our service today by leading us in a prayer exercise that I’ve learned from others.

This is a simple thing that could be done every single day, an intentional way to look back and pay attention to what God is doing in your life.

Close your eyes if you feel more comfortable. We’ll begin by dedicating these moments to God. Ask God to be with you as you think and pray in the next few minutes.

Think back over the last 24 hours. Don’t worry about remembering every single detail of every single minute. Ask Jesus to help you look back and remember one time where God might have been nudging you. You might have missed it at the time, or you might have acted on it. Ask God to bring to your mind a time when he was trying to break into your life in the last 24 hours.

Thank God for working. Ask him for help if you can’t remember. Take the time to reflect, and ask him to help you learn from this reflection time how to hear him better next time. We’ll pray together silently, and I’ll close in prayer in a few minutes.