I’m excited, because what I’m talking about today is at the heart of why I’m here at Newberg Friends.

We’ve been in this series looking at our vision statement, and we’ve gotten to the second line: “Listening to Christ”. I’ve said before that this is the line that stands out as so important, that distinguishes us from many other churches.

Listening is our foundation. It’s our solid base. Listening to Christ is what drives everything else. It drives the changes in our character that we long for and that God wants to bring. It drives our service and action in the world, propelling us toward God’s mission in our world.

The “changing in the Spirit” and the “living out love” in our vision statement are directed, empowered, and given life by the way we listen to Christ.

Listening is never an end in itself.

As important and foundational as listening is, we don’t want to stop here. We don’t want to be passive, because God isn’t passive!

We want the life changing power of God’s Holy Spirit to transform us from the inside out!

We want our action to be motivated, empowered, and infused by the power and direction of God!

And I do not believe either of those things happen over the long term unless and until we are listening to Christ intently and intentionally.

I’ve been working with Sarah Baldwin and Steve Sherwood and others to prepare for Quaker Heritage week over at George Fox this coming week.

I’ve found myself incredibly energized by our conversations, remembering why it is that I’ve found myself here at Newberg Friends, here as one who calls Quakers my spiritual family.

It’s not because I think we have something that nobody else does. It’s not because I’m interested in furthering a denomination. It’s not because I want to make Quakers out of the whole world.

I’m here, and I’m excited about this today, because I firmly believe that this emphasis which links intimate spiritual interaction with God to vibrant life change and social action is God’s heart and God’s plan for our lives.

For all of us! This is what it means for anyone to follow Jesus, and we have a wonderful tradition of showing it to the world.

But what really energizes me is not heritage. It’s not history. It’s NOW. It’s today. It’s living and listening to Jesus, seeing my life changed and transformed so I get to join his followers as we join God’s kingdom in our world NOW.

To us, to us with a history that includes a time when we listened so much it led to passivity and quietism, I want to remind us that when God speaks, he calls us to act.

Listening leads to obedience, and listening leads to action. God grieves over this broken world we live in! God never rests in his quest to heal the wounded and call the arrogant and the oppressors to account.

In just a moment, we are going to listen to several powerful encounters in the bible, encounters where people listened to God…and heard a call to change and a call to love. The bible is full of examples that open our eyes to the way listening to Christ naturally leads to changing in the Spirit and must push forward to living out love.

I hope when you read our vision statement, I hope when you hear the phrase “listening to Christ”, that you hear in that a call to holy obedience, to sacrificial love, to holy service and action! If you are picturing only quiet reflection, then we are not adequately conveying the power and the message of God’s word!

I remember vividly the day that one of our staff members, tears flowing, passionately said to me: “Are we going about Kingdom work or not? Are we serious about following Jesus or not?”

Listening will prepare us for Kingdom work!

And the flip side is also true: Kingdom work is impossible without the preparation of listening.

One of the beautiful things about those under 30 today is that they need very little convincing to “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.” They want to change the world.

Music from Bono and U2, Sarah MacLachlan’s “World on Fire”, Nickelback’s “If everyone cared”… Movements like the One campaign and Invisible children…when we open our eyes, we can’t help but see the way that there is a huge grassroots movement for social action to change our unjust world.

I’m glad for it! I believe God is in it, in many ways explicitly, and in many more implicit ways. I’m glad so many people want to do something to change the world.

But it will not work…it will not work without the saving, changing, empowering love of Jesus Christ!

Just like we can’t have “listening to Christ” without it leading to “changing in the Spirit” and “living out love,” we can’t have changing and saving the world without the power of Jesus Christ.

Our beautiful young generation who rightly wants to change the world must also remember that the hopes and dreams of the social gospel, the people who thought we could bring about heaven on earth by our goodness and our love….those dreams died a horrific death in the foxholes of World War I and the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

Our hope is in the link. It’s in the link between a deep, intimate, obediently listening life with Christ and radical change through the Holy Spirit that enables us to live out love as God directs us each and every moment of each and every day.

Listening is not an excuse for refusing to take action!

Our listening to Jesus leads us to join what he is doing to change the world. God is not pleased with what we have done with the world he has made. He cared for the world before we did! He longs for it to be different!

And God longs to find people who are willing to listen to him, listen to his calling to be changed and to live out love.

Let’s listen to some of those kinds of people, the kind of people found all through the bible. Isaiah was one who listened, and heard God giving just such a call. Listen as our readers read. [READERS Isa 6: 1-8]

What happened when Isaiah heard from God?

What happened as he came face to face with the God of the Universe? [ASK]

It led to God changing him. The coal represented forgiveness, grace, making things right. He recognized his sin, his own and his people’s, and God healed it.

It led to a call. God has something to say to his people, a mission that needs to be accomplished, and he asks for someone to go. Isaiah says yes. His action, his service, his way to live out God’s love comes as a direct response to God’s call.

Let’s listen to another person, the prophet Jeremiah. [READERS Jer. 1: 4-10]

How about Jeremiah? What happened when God spoke to him? [ASK]

He has his fears, inadequacies. It’s not as much sin that needs cleansing as the fear of failure, of not having the stuff.

God brings change. God gives words. God calls: go do what I’m asking you to do, trying to change the path for Israel

What do you notice as you listen to Hosea’s call? [READERS Hosea 1: 2-3]

[ASK]

God flat out gives him a mission, a very difficult mission; a mission to marry, a mission to love.

Sometimes our listening to God gives us a direct call to live out love. And sometimes it’s a difficult call, a call to love someone who is difficult to love. Have you heard God calling you to love the unlovable? How have you responded?

Jesus himself had to listen to God. Listen to the night before he faced the cross. [READERS Matt. 26:36-46]

How about Jesus? What happened in his listening? [ASK]

He’s talking and listening. Can I not do this? Is there any other way? We don’t get to read what the Father’s response is, but we can guess. God tells him he’s got to stay on the difficult journey. Ok, Jesus says. If it’s not possible, you’re the boss. If it has to be this way, ok.

Listening leads to a difficult call, and it leads to the strength and the courage to go ahead with the most difficult thing in the history of the world.

Finally, let’s look at a little episode in Paul’s life. [READERS Acts 16: 6-10]

This is pretty minor. But, what do you notice in this experience? What does the Spirit tell Paul? [ASK]

The Spirit stopped him from going one place, and in a dream sent a call somewhere else.

Are we willing to let the Spirit stop our doing? Josh and Thailand leading to India. It’s got to be out of a place of listening, for our own good (so that we don’t think we’re the messiah) and for the good of those we help (it’s only Jesus who really can bring long lasting change.)

We could go on and on.

Using the bible, using our own experiences in this room, we could point to countless examples of people who listened to Christ.

And we would find countless examples of God’s words leading to change, to personal transformation. God calls us to a holy life, to a set apart life, to an obedient life.

We would find countless examples of God’s words leading to a call, to a specific mission, to a specific task to spread his love and to do his work in our broken world.

This is why I do what I do!

This is why I am here at Newberg Friends. Because I believe that the bible and history and my experience show an inseparable link between listening to Christ and lives transformed for service.

I want to join Jesus in changing the world. I believe, with the staff member I mentioned earlier, that we ARE about the business of the kingdom right now. Sitting quietly in the middle of brokenness and evil is not an option.

But I believe just as strongly that no one–not me, not you, not Bono…not even Oprah!–no one will change the world without listening obediently and intently to God. We cannot do it alone. We cannot do it in our own power.

We must be changed, our own tainted motives burned out of us. We must be directed, obediently following to where Christ leads and not just to where our hearts and minds want to go.

We want to be a people who listens and responds.

And I believe we will, and that we are. A growing community, listening to Christ, changing in the Spirit, and living out love.

Here’s the last thing I’ll say, to those who maybe are still struggling to hear the voice of God, still wanting to know what it is God might say: it’s a safe bet to say that what God is saying to you is either some change he wants to bring in your character, or a specific way he wants you to act and live out his love in our world…or both!

Let’s listen to Christ right now.