Decibels of Deity Part I, God Speaks Through the Bible

We have a choice. I just want to say, you know, it's really a joy to serve you as a church, just to see the wonderful way that God's weaving things together. Each of you have something to contribute, a gift to give. Some of you have talents that are yet to be discovered. Some of you wonder, where do I fit in here? What difference can I make? And I want you to know, every one of you is important. Every one of you, God brought here for a purpose. I just pray you won't let yourself drift along. And if you've been disappointed once or twice, join the club. Get up, clean yourself off, and go back into the fray, folks. We don't know how long we have. You think things are stable in this world. I think you're mistaken. I'm just going to go as long as I can, as hard as I can, until it's over. And I want you to come along. That's why this church is here. And we're here to help if you need help. But most of you here, in this service particularly, you're here because you're okay. You just need to get on board and do what you can. In Psalm 1, we read about the kind of man and woman that God wants us to be. And I want us to look today at hearing the Lord. Hearing the Lord. I've entitled this series, The Decibels of Deity, because in many cases, I'm not sure God's speaking loud enough for me to hear. I want Him to turn up the decibels. Listen, as a Christian, one of the fundamental tenets that we believe is that God is speaking today. He's speaking today. Now, we all know the Bible tells us many, many times that God spoke. Now, how many times do you read, And God said, and God said, all the way back to Genesis, all the way through the Old Testament. And God said, and God said, and God said. We know He spoke then, but He's speaking today. The question is, what is He saying? Would you know today, if God was speaking to you, would you know that it was Him? Chuck came up here unrehearsed to me. I had no idea what he was going to say. And he gave such a wonderful entree to this message. He heard God speak to him. Not an audible voice, but in a way that he could discern in his heart. He could hear God speak. And those were words of comfort in the midst of what he's going through. That God is speaking is not the issue. But what he is saying, that is, well, that's a whole different thing. How do I know God's speaking? Because, friends, everything I understand about God tells me He wants a relationship. And let me know, a relationship requires communication. If you don't have a communication thing going, you don't have a relationship, right? The problem is that communication, at least as I've discovered it, is often misunderstood, even in the best of circumstances. Men, have you ever done anything to send a signal to your wife that was misunderstood? You know, sometimes when my wife speaks to me, it tries to communicate. Sometimes I don't hear what she's saying. Sometimes I hear it and I don't understand it. I mean, do you have that problem? Anybody? Men, listen, there are two things, and this is in the message, there are two things you need to understand about women. And nobody knows what they are. Nobody. I don't know anybody that has discovered it. But, you know, if communication with my wife, whom I see every day, who I know intimately, if that's a challenge from time to time, is it any wonder that it's a challenge to communicate with God, who we cannot see? No wonder it's difficult at times. There's no formula for this. In fact, I get a little skeptical of people who walk around saying, Oh, the Lord is telling me this. I've been with people who do the weirdest things. They'll be talking and say, Okay, Lord. God's right here speaking into their ear. I'm sorry I don't buy that anymore. I did when I was naive and thought that maybe they were just more spiritual. Now I just think they're wacky. You know, even pastors have a difficult time. I don't always hear perfectly. Some of you think that I go upstairs and pick up the red phone in my office. What's the message this week, Lord? I don't have a God fax or anything. Just like you, I have to do these things I'm going to talk about today over the next several weeks. When I'm gone, a couple of weeks I'm gone, Dave's going to bring a message on this, and I'm going to come back and bring several more. This is very important. Because we need to hear the Lord. And when I do know that God spoke, I'm very certain about it. I want you to know that. Sometimes I can tell you with certainty this was the Lord. And when it's Him, then I know I've got a choice to make. It's like with Carol. Sometimes when I call her, I don't say, Hi, hon. This is Jay. How many of you do that with your spouse? I mean, as soon as they hear your voice. In fact, there's just one little sound I make, and she says, Oh, hi, hon. I don't even say a word. It's just this little sound. I'm not going to tell you what this sound is. It's just a sound. One of those little sound things. You all have them, don't you? Those little cute things you all... But I want to focus on today ways in which God speaks to us through Scripture. And I'm going to go through this very quickly because most of you know this, and I've prayed through this a lot in the last several days because I was so overloaded with preparations. I had to pray more than usual. And I know that many of you already know this. I sense my challenges to maybe bring some of you back online, as it were, with God and hearing Him. Some of you out of fear of excess or weirdness or misuse or possibly just layers of neglect have taken the Word of God for granted. How many of you thought you'd start reading through the Bible again this year and you've already gotten... You're still in Genesis and you're six days behind and sinking fast. We need to look at this. The Bible says, Jesus speaking, saying, Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds. That's an overhead. Man does not live by bread alone, but every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. This is a profound Scripture, Matthew 4.4. The reason it's profound is Jesus draws a clear parallel between physical food and survival and spiritual food and survival. And in the same way that your physical body will begin to deteriorate if you don't eat, so your spiritual life will begin to deteriorate if you don't feed the Word into your life on a regular basis. Count on it. I mean, it's an axiom. It's a fact. Jesus said it. Yesterday, we had an Elder's Council meeting. It's sort of the men appointed as corporate officers of our church. And we started our meeting. One of the brothers just said, It's 1998. Could I read Psalm 98? And he read that Psalm and the Word filled that room. And I've got to tell you, I dragged myself into that meeting. I had so many other things on my mind. And when he started reading that Word, it just lifted me up and fed my soul. And then we dove into the meeting, and it was like a power bar of the Spirit. It was great. We need to be doing that. The problem with many of us is, folks, we've lost the expectation that the Word is going to make a difference. As Dallas Willard writes in his book, The Spirit of the Disciplines, he says this, We stop reading the Bible altogether, or else we take it in regular doses, choking it down like medicine because someone told us that it would be good for us, though we really do not find it to be so. The open secret of many Bible-believing churches is that only a very small percentage of their members study the Bible, with even the degree of interest, intelligence, or joy they bring to bear on their newspapers or Time magazine. Unfortunately, I believe that's true. Jack Deere writes this. He was a theologian, professor at Dallas Seminary. He said, The Bible is more than a theological treatise. It is a guide to dynamic encounters with a God who works wonders. Someone can say, Good. It's a guide to dynamic encounters with a God who works wonders. I want to read the Bible because I want to encounter God. I want to read the Bible because in it I want to discover who He is, and I want Him to lead me into encounters with God. You wonder why a lot of people can just sort of diss you about your faith? A lot of people just kind of say, Hey, that's fine for you, but I'm interested. You want to know why? Because they don't see anything in you that makes them think that there's something going on. It's just you've got a faith, and they've got their set of beliefs, or not. What we need is to have this book so turn us on that we're having dynamic encounters with God so that when people encounter us, they say, Wow, something's going on in your life. What's that about? And I believe, friends, in these next weeks, God wants to do that, to get us back into this book to hear His voice so we have dynamic encounters with the living God. So we're encountering Him in places and times we least expect, or sometimes where we most expect. January the 4th, our first service here, I paused in the midst of the service and had sort of a leading of the Spirit to call forth people in business. If you missed that service, we prayed for people in business. And part of that word was some were there and very discouraged because they had failed in the attempts they had made in a particular business, and God was going to come around and refresh them. Well, last week, someone came to me and said, You know, I had failed this, this, and this, and the whole bottom had fallen out. The next day, I woke up challenged by that word, trusting God. I passed a certain qualification test that I needed to get a certification, and I got a job offer, and things turned around in the space of 72 hours. Now, you can say, Oh, well, that was really coincidental. I have to tell you, I think it was because the Word went forth, and they applied their faith. They had a dynamic encounter with God, and that's what He wants for each and every one of us. So how do we get into the Word in a way that's going to bring life to us? Well, very quickly, number one, you've got to expect the benefits. Just forget the introduction part. Expect the benefits. All right? The first benefit is that Jesus is revealed. You're going to get to know the Lord as you read the Bible, and I want you to know this. The most important thing, if you're a new Christian, or if you're one that's still establishing your faith, start reading the Gospels, and ask these two questions. Ask these two simple questions as you read through the Gospels. Jesus, who were you, and what were you like? And it'll begin to just unfold you. Alpha will help you with that, but reading the Bible, just those Gospels, you'll discover a person you never really knew. It's a wonderful exercise. When I was given my first Bible by a fellow college student, I meant to bring it down with me, it was a Phillips translation. How many of you have a J.B. Phillips translation? Not many left anymore. There's so many out. And I read that. But I just divided it until the binding fell off. And then my second year in school, I got another one, and just did the same thing. I just read it over and over and over again. I have that one. The first one just fell apart and I lost it. But I just couldn't get enough of it, because it revealed Jesus to me. Someone I had heard about, but never really knew. That is a profoundly important thing. C.S. Lewis said, when we come to Scriptures, it's not a question of learning a subject, but of steeping ourselves in a personality. It's not a question of learning about something. It's a question of steeping ourselves, encountering a personality in Scripture. Second, read the Bible expecting daily guidance. Daily guidance. Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light for my path. It's astonishing to me how many times God will use Scripture to speak to me about a decision that I need to make or a direction I need to take every single day. Friends, 95% of all things you need to know about God's will are clearly spelled out in the Bible. I mean, every ethical and moral question you kind of struggle with, almost every one of them is clearly spelled out. But for those 5%, they're just about you. You know, like, Lord, should I take this account or should I get involved in this deal or should I go out with this person or whatever it might be. It's healthy to read the Bible asking the Lord to speak to you. Many times I have done that. And just in the course of my normal reading, something will, quote, jump off the page. You ever had that experience? Wow! Jumped off the page. When I was first diagnosed with a serious back condition about 8 years, 7 or 8 years ago, I was really taken back because I'd never had any serious problems in my life, health-wise. And I said, Lord, I just need to know that this isn't going to just overwhelm me. And I got alone with God. It took 2 days and went to a room and just got alone with God. And out of the pages of Scripture jumped Jeremiah 33, 6. I was just reading through Jeremiah. Who would read Jeremiah about healing? Not me. He's an angry prophet. And Jeremiah 33, 6 says, Nevertheless, I will bring health and healing to him. I will heal my people and restore him to wholeness. And it left off the page. And I said, Now, He didn't tell me about the journey. He didn't tell me the years that it would take. But I stand before you today rejoicing in God's faithfulness. He spoke to me through His Word. He comforted me. And even if He doesn't give you a direct leading, listen, once you've opened the Word and put it in, you can say, Well, Lord, I'm listening. You know what? God just wants us just to listen. Just listen. And you can trust Him. If He doesn't give you something specific, just trust Him to follow your own best discernment. God gave you a good brain. And if He doesn't give you a clear leading in Scripture, then just follow your best intuition and trust God to direct you. Number three, expect Him to empower your obedience. There are many of us who desire and want to live lives that are pleasing to God, not in order to gain acceptance, but because we've been given acceptance at the cross. You desire to honor God with your life because He's purchased life for you at the cross. But you'll not be able to live an obedient life, listen to me, you cannot live it, cannot be done without being in God's Word on a regular, I would suggest, daily basis. You can't do it. You've got to have the Word in you. You've got to have that infusion of life, the rhema of God, to feed your soul. Otherwise, you're just going to fall again and again and again. Look at Psalm 119 on your outline, would you please? How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your Word. I have hidden your Word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Young people, are you struggling with issues of temptation? Put the Word in your heart. Memorize it. Lay hold of it. It'll protect you. God will fill your thought life with things that are from Him and not things that are coming from the evil one. It's the only way to live an obedient life. Next, as we read in Psalm 1, blessedness comes from being in God's Word. Blessedness, by the way, friends, isn't just being happy. Modern translations say they interchange happy for blessed. I think blessed is far more significant than happy. Happy, by the way, is circumstantial. It comes from the word happenstance. But to be blessed means literally, listen, to be approved by God. You might want to write that next to blessed. To be approved by God. It's the opposite of being cursed. And since D.A. Carson writes, since this is God's universe, there can be no higher blessing than to be approved by God. If God says, good job, I approve of you, who can upstage that? And what we have to decide early on is whose approval do we want? Do we want the approval of our associates and our friends and our competitors? Or do we want the approval of God in our life? Once you make up that decision, then it's pretty easy. I want to be blessed by God. Then get into His Word. Psalm 1 says, the man who delights in his law, meditates on it day and night, will be approved by God. I want to be there, don't you? I want God to say, hey, put that little tag on my ankle. God approved. And finally, stability. Psalm 1 talks about a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in season, whose leaf doesn't wither, and whatever he does prospers. Friends, are you regularly soaking in the word finding stability in your life? Giving the strength to resist temptation and lust and greed and pride and doubt and fear? David writes, if your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction. That's, you see, the reason why some of you go through such difficult times is you don't have enough of the Word in you to sustain you in the times of darkness. I think we have a copy there of Psalm 19 verses 7 through 11. I mean, just look what this says. This is what God says He makes available to you. The law of the Lord, that's the word, is perfect, reviving the soul. Are you kind of dried out? The law of the Lord will revive your soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes. The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever. The ordinances of the Lord are sure and altogether righteous. They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold. Think of it, friends. People give their lives to gaining gold, much pure gold, and the Bible is more precious than that. And they are sweeter than honey from the comb. By them, as your servant warned, in keeping them, there is great, what? Reward. So expect the benefits as you read God's word on a daily basis. Next, exercise your faith. Now, I've already made mention, I believe there's a strong parallel in Scripture between physical disciplines and spiritual disciplines. Some of you don't like to hear this because it, you know, it's been a stumbling block for you, but Paul writes in 1 Timothy 4, verse 8. I just looked this up this morning. Look at this scripture. For physical training is of some value. How many of you have some kind of physical regimen you follow? Anybody? Many of you. All right. But godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. So just as physical exercise and discipline is good, so much more is spiritual exercise and discipline good for us. You know, lots of people get convicted this time of year about their physical condition. I couldn't help but watch, you know, the QVC Blitz in the month of January. You know, if you're a channel surfer, I mean, this is the month that they sell every imaginable kind of workout piece of equipment. I mean, things you hang upside down from and sideways and this and that. And then they sell you clothes to put on so you can look good, you know, hidden in your basement working out and shoes and juicers and diet stuff and all this the whole month. And at the particular health club where I go on a regular basis, I mean, the ranks swell in January. I mean, you've got to wait for stuff and it's like a hassle and you just can't get in. Why? Because a lot of people say, oh man, I've got to do something. And so they go charging in and, you know, for a week or two you can see the pain on their face. You can tell that they hate every minute of it. And then February comes and, you know, lines start to thin out a little bit and by the time it's March, hey, it's back to the same guys that were there the December before. And so you start maybe a couple new ones. What's going on there? Well, it's difficult to discipline yourself. Sometimes we just get too aggressive. We promise too much. You know, how many of you have dieted and lost a few pounds? Huh? How many have lost hundreds of pounds? Anyone lose thousands of pounds? I mean... But it all comes back because you go on this sort of huge crazy diet that you know you can't sustain. And exercise can be that way as well. How many of you have some equipment that you bought in a moment of weakness and it's sitting down there just, you know, you're hanging your laundry on it? Huh? Why? Because you get all pumped up I'm going to go do this and then... You see, if you haven't learned the lesson, just let me share with you once again what I've discovered. There's no quick fixes in the body of the flesh or in the spirit. It's a long-haul proposition. That's good news, by the way. That means if you just go incrementally, bit by bit, slowly, letting this thing make sense to you, it's going to take hold. I want to encourage some of you. I'm looking into some of your eyes and I know you don't understand this book. You were raised Catholic or something and you were not told to read it. Or maybe you went to a church and, you know, the preacher never used the Bible. He used something else to teach from. And you never really understood how to get into the Bible. Friends, it is not difficult. There are so many ways. And I'm going to talk about just a couple of them here for a moment. You know, if you don't do that, if you don't begin, you'll never make progress. Some of you are thinking, that's the problem though. I've tried and I failed. I'm not a disciplined person. You know what? You're thinking, I'm not a disciplined person. There's no point in me even trying. I mean, I'm never going to hear God anyhow. Oh yeah, you'll hear God. You know what He's going to say to you? I'm here to help. I'm here to help. You know what God loves? To hear you say to Him, help me. Help me. Help me. There's incredible power in acknowledged weakness. When you say, you know what God, I so want to be in Your Word and hear Your voice. Help me. Help me. Help me. The Lord hears that and He responds to it. You've got to start to read letter A and meditate on the Word just a little bit. Meditate means just to think it over, just to let it cogitate in your mind just a bit. You need to cultivate some consistency. You need to check your motivation. Is it a duty, an obligation, or are you just simply saying, Lord, I want to connect with You today. I want to hear You today. I'm just listening. You know, I want to hear You. Speak to me. And the Lord will say, and we have an overhead that says this, He'll say, I do want to speak to you. Check your B-mail. Check your B-mail. Read what God has sent you for today. It's in the book. He wants to speak to you. And then when He does, friends, letter D, you've got to welcome the opportunity to obey. And this is where the work comes in. Sometimes we hear things that we may not want to hear. The Lord may say to you, you know, it's time for you to forgive this person. You say, I can't forgive that person. They hurt me too deeply. And then you've got to work that through. You can't just brush it off. You've got to work it through. The Lord may say to you, you know, your attitude about giving really stinks. I know, but you know, I've got to take care of me and my family, God. Then I'll get back to you later. No, let's talk about that. Or serving, perhaps. Or maybe it's just, the Lord wants you to share something with someone that works down the hall from you and you just keep encountering them and the Lord puts it on your hands and you say, oh, that's so difficult. Friends, listen. Obedience is what brings maturity. Obedience is what grows you up. James 1.22. On your outline, James 1.22. If it's not on there, just jot it down. Here's what it says. Don't be just a hearer of the word, listening to it, and so deceive yourself. Do what it says. Everyone say that. Do what it says. If the Lord speaks to you, do it. If you fall flat in your face, you know what? God is very gracious and He'll teach you in it. He'll pick you up and He'll carry you on. Exercise your faith. Very important. Number three, just a few excuses to avoid. There's just a couple of snares that are going to get you. When you walk out of here, if you're motivated to get back in the word of God on a regular basis, here's what's going to happen. First thing you're going to say is, hey, you know what? I'm really kind of perceptive about all this. I know he's talking about a little regular reading, getting in the word on a regular basis, and to be honest, I'm just too busy. I mean, I can say that I can do this, but I am so busy. Jay, if you knew how busy I was. How busy are you? Well, I'm so busy that, you know, I pace at the microwave. Maybe you're like, the majority of Americans now, you know, are moving away from buying frozen juices because they hate to wait for it to thaw out. So they buy them in bottles. That's true. We're all in such a hurry, you know? Hurry this, hurry that. If we could just, I thought about putting on an extension in the building, a drive-through word for the day. You're cruising your way to work, here's your word, just go hand it out the window. Probably catch some attention. But the problem is, you see, we serve a God who's not in a hurry. I checked again, just to be sure, it never says in here, Jesus hurried off to Bethany. He was late for a meeting. Never happened. Never once does it say, Jesus hurried anywhere. So the only solution to your busyness, friend, is to plan. You know what? Because sometimes it falls on you very clearly that when you plan to do it, it happens. Do you plan to eat? Do you plan to eat lunch today? Bet you do and you'll be there. Plan. Just start to shift things around and make some plans and God will empower the plans that you make. Just like you make plans to exercise or plans for your own. Take a shower. You allow 10 minutes for a shower. If you're a teenager, you allow 35 minutes for a shower. Whatever it is. Allow time for God's word in your schedule. Letter B, where do I begin? Just very quickly, Pastor Scott ran up here and handed me something in the beginning service. I would suggest, if you're having struggles, don't start in the beginning and try to work your way through, but start in the New Testament and if you care to, we have made available at no charge or cost anything, these little Victory Bible plans. Now, some of you have taken 50 of these from us over the last years and thrown them away. If you haven't taken one, come and get one. The elders will have them up in the front near the sides of the banners here. You come up after, just get one of these plans and it tells you every day there's a reading on Old Testament, New Testament, and Psalm. And friends, I've used this now for about 10, 11 years. It is a great little tool. It keeps you from just like letting it fall open, you know? You know what happens when you do that? You always fall and you say, well, Lord, speak to me. And like today was the one about Judas went out and hung himself. I don't know, like that doesn't relate to me. Turn around. Oh, go and do likewise. No, I rebuke that, you know? You've got to have a plan. You've got to have a system that you're going through. Some of you are saying, you know, I don't understand the Bible. I've tried to read it. I don't understand it. I checked on this. Well, listen, there are 75 Bible translations available to you now. And I mean, there are some of the greatest. I go to some of the cell groups and small groups where some of you know so much more than I do about the Bible because at the bottom of your every page are these notes. I mean, I paid something like $35,000 for a graduate education and I didn't learn nearly what you learned from those notes. And that was in the 70s, by the way. The notes are terrific. There's not a person here that can't understand the Bible. If you just get one of those Bibles that have all the notes, it explains everything. I bet God checks those now and then. Those are unbelievable notes. It's dry and boring. It's dry and boring. Am I talking to anybody here? Anyone here get in the Bible and said, you know, I try, but... Especially when you get into Leviticus and places like that. Well, don't go into Leviticus for now, okay? Get into where you can make headway. But the reason why so many people fail the test here is they do one very significant thing that some of you are doing this morning. You're politely looking at me and smiling or not, but you're just looking at me and listening. And here's what I've discovered. United States Air Force did a very well-documented study in this. 90 to 95% of things that you hear with your ears only pass through your brain and out the other end in 72 hours. Right through. 72 hours. That means... I thought about this. All the messages that I labor to prepare and Dave and everything, they're gone. Except for 5%. That's unbelievable. I mean, that was one of the most depressing discoveries I've had in a long time. But that's what they say is true and I tend to believe it. What did I preach on last week? See? All right. What was it? Service. Service. How about the week before that? Very good. I didn't preach. Dave did. But one reason why we work to give you one of these is you increase the rate of what you retain by like 3 or 4 times just by filling in the blanks. And then if you pull this out tomorrow and say, okay, let me just review this. Friends, it will greatly affect you. Now, when you read the Bible on your own, I strongly recommend a little bound little journal where you jot down, okay, Lord, here I am. Here's my pen. Speak to me. Just show me. Pull something out of this. What am I thinking about? A legal pad works just great. Just jot it down. Every time because you don't want to walk away and just read it and say, well, that was good because it'll just go right out the window. Write it down. Mark it down. Let it be part of your life so that when you check your B-mail, you'll get something out of it. They'll take it with you. Well, friends, that's it. The last thing is simply to exhort each other. All I mean by that is I have found that there's no substitute for people coming alongside and saying to me, how are you doing with reading your Word? My first year as a Christian, I had a guy every single day. I started reading my Bible the first month or two because I just didn't want to say no to him anymore. The best thing I can think of is if you get a partner that says, hey, let's kind of get, maybe in your cell group or your PK group, your women's study, someone that will say to you with a little bit of strength, hey, did you read the Word today? Or better yet, hey, this is what I found when I read the Word. What did you find? Terrific way to be encouraged there. Hearing God in your life begins by treasuring Scripture in your heart. Friends, there's never been a people more blessed than the American people with resources to understand God's Word. Never. God says that whom much has been given, much is required. I need to let you know this as I close today. If you're not in the Word, I trust you sense some measure of conviction because what it means is you'll not hear God, you won't have dynamic encounters with Him, your life won't make a difference, and you know what? You could end up walking through 1998 and be at the same place spiritually that you began the year. I pray to God that you'll learn to listen to His voice as you read His Word and trust Him to change you. Would you stand with me and pray, please? Lord, I thank you today that your Spirit is here, present in power, and I thank you that you revealed your Word to us in the person of Jesus Christ and in the written, inspired Word of God that we hold here today. Lord, we thank you for the power that's there. And we ask you to make that Word alive in our hearts. In Jesus' name.