In this the last message in this series I want to build a little bit on what I said last time. In the last sermon we looked at the hunger that is in our souls to know God. That hunger, that ache, that longing has been placed there by God – it is what partly distinguishes us from the animal kingdom. We are made in the image of God and we have a desire to know God and connect with God. Our world, I believe, is also hungry for transcendence – as people look at us and as they look to the church the challenge is this - do they see that connectedness with God in our lives?  Are we a people that know God, not just about Him? It would be great at the end of this year if all of us could look back and say “I think that I know God better through this year, or I have heard God speak to me more clearly than I have before.”

Today I want to look at hearing the voice of God. Evangelical Christians make a great deal, and rightly so, of our faith being described in terms of a relationship with God. We cannot see him, we see by faith, we cannot hear him, certainly not as we hear one another, yet when God comes to live in us by his Spirit we have an inward assurance that he is with us, and in our praying and reading of his word we sense that he is communicating with us. Many of us as Christians still struggle a bit with how this works and I hope that what I say today will be of some help to you.

I want to look at two things: 1. how does God speak today; 2. how do we recognise his voice?

1.How does God speak today

In his book Knowing God JI Packer reminds us that having faith in God is about coming into a relationship with him. In the bible that faith is described in relational terms and there are three main ways or pictures that God gives us as a way of describing that relationship and I may have touched on this the last time - we are a chosen people in a relationship that is akin to a parent and a child – he is our heavenly father who wants the best for us;  secondly the relationship is sometimes described as like the relationship between a lover and his or her beloved. The church is the bride of Christ and there is an intimate communion between us and God.  And thirdly God is the shepherd and we are the sheep – he knows us intimately, he searches for us when we go astray, he guards us, he guides us, he speaks to us and we recognise his voice. He lays down his life for us.

In all of these relationships there is communication at the heart of them. Now his voice may not be as audible as that between human beings but it is a genuine relationship in which God speaks to speak to us and us to him.

How does God speak? From the scriptures and personal experience we see that there are six main ways in which God speaks –

a)Phenomenon plus audible voice: for example we see this in the story  of Moses and the burning bush. He sees a bush on fire and yet not being consumed, he goes across and he hears an audible voice.

b) Supernatural messenger or angel: Abraham entertained three strangers who told him that he and Sarah would have a child. An angel called Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her that she would give birth to a very special child. We also see angels addressing Joshua, Gideon, Samson’s parents, Isaiah, Zacharias, the women at the tomb.

c) Dreams and visions: Paul (in Acts 16:9) had a vision of a man standing and pleading come over to us in Macedonia and help us. Joseph had many dreams given to him by God. Daniel experienced dreams.

d) An audible voice on its own. In our reading today we saw that Samuel heard this voice (1 Samuel3), the voice of God calling to him. It was so loud that he thought it was Eli calling.

e) God speaking to us through other people. God perhaps laying something on someone else’s heart for us, or it could be someone sharing a bible verse or a preacher preaching God’s word and it comes to us with a new power that we never saw before.

f) Finally what we call the still, small voice. God speaks to our spirit. The Holy Spirit connects with our spirit and leaves a very strong impression upon us or we hear an inner voice that is so clear that we know God is speaking.

I believe that God can speak today in all of these six ways. As we look over all of these ways in which God speaks we may be able to say, yes I have felt God speaking to me in that way or that way. There is a tendency perhaps to want the more spectacular and the clearer kind of communication rather than simply through other humans or the still small voice. Yet, as Dallas Willard says (and he is one of the evangelical giants of the spiritual life today),– “the still, small voice - or the interior voice as it is sometimes called – is the preferred or most valuable form of individualised communication for God’s purposes. It is the usual way in which God individually addresses those who walk with him in a mature, personal relationship”. In John 14 Jesus told his disciples that he was leaving a counsellor, a comforter, a teacher with them – the Holy Spirit - and “he will teach you all things.” (14:26) Just as in a close marriage relationship where an intimacy and an understanding builds so that you begin to think each other’s thoughts so our spirit mingles with God’s Spirit and we find that our thinking processes are more and more aligned to his thoughts. The more mature we are as Christians the more we hear the still, small voice – the less we need the dreams and the visions. God tends to use those almost in an emergency situation or where he is about to do something especially significant.

Today God primarily communicates with mature Christians through the inner voice. Listen again to Willard for I think that this is very important to hear today and I quote at length – “Many who claim to speak for God refer to their visions, dreams and other unusual phenomena – or to their vague impressions or feelings – but with no clear, sane meaning. This does not mean that they were not truly spoken to. But Moses was spoken to directly or conversationally. His meaning when he spoke for God was, therefore, always specific, precise and clear. As Bible history proceeds, it is noticeable that in the process of communication the greater the maturity, the greater the clarity of the message and the lesser the role played by dreams, visions and other strange phenomena…In the lives of the NT personalities visions, angels and dreams continue to play some part, as I think they may do today – but it would not be too much to say, however, that where these were the main, as opposed to occasional means of interaction, that indicates a less developed spiritual life both in the individual and in the church group… When the spectacular is sought, it is because of childishness in the personality. Children love the spectacular, running heedlessly after it. It may sometimes be given by God – it may be necessary – because of our denseness or our hard heartedness. However it is never to be taken as a mark of spiritual adulthood or superiority. If spectacular things do come to them, those who are more advanced in the Way of Christ never lightly discuss them or invoke them to prove that they are right or “with it” in some special way.” (“Hearing God” D Willard  p.102-103).

In my thirty years as a Christian I can think of possibly four or five occasions where God spoke to me in a very clear, unmistakeable and spectacular way. I tend not to speak of them but I heard and had unusual experiences - but I also knew clearly what they meant. These experiences required no interpretation. But most of my guidance and communication with God over the years tends to be of the less spectacular type, the ongoing daily relating to God in the intimate communion from the heart. In other words it is more fel’t than tel’t. You feel it deep in your heart. As John Bevere says “You can only teach so much about how to be intimate with God as it flows from the heart. In this lies the beauty of intimacy, it flourishes from our hearts, it is not taught in our minds.”

Sometimes it can be an impression, sometimes a stirring or an idea that will just not leave you. Sometimes we cry out to God wanting a clear word, or a vision, or that God would reveal himself like he did to John on Patmos, or to Ezekiel. But again as Willard says we must be careful – “if God spoke directly, or appeared to us, it would literally kill us, or at least unbalance us.” We cannot see God and live, he is so much “other” than us.

But he speaks today, he wants to communicate to us and we can know God, not just about him. Is this our experience? Is God this real to us?

2. Secondly, as we draw near to God, as we communicate with him and get to know him what does this look like? How do we know God is speaking and what impact does it have on our lives? There is of course the danger that we confuse what is just our own thoughts and ideas as God’s when they may not be. But as we grow in grace, as we saturate our minds in God’s word, as we sensitively and intentionally seek God’s will we find that we learn to distinguish our own voice from his voice. Listen again to Dallas Willard – “As we are transformed by the renewing of our minds God will help us learn to distinguish when the thought is ours alone and when it is also his…when thoughts recur always stop prayerfully to consider whether this may be the Lord… as he walks through our personality with a candle, directing our attention to one thing and then another.”

There are three things to note as we try and recognise the voice of God (remember Jesus said: “my sheep recognise my voice”  in Jn.10) – note the quality or weight of the communication; the content of the communication and the impact it has on us.

a) the weight of the word.   When God speaks it has a quality to it that we learn to distinguish as the voice of God. The best way to put this is that it has a weightiness beyond our own thoughts and ideas.  How can we distinguish the voice of God from our own subconscious? Stanley Jones puts it this way – “The voice of the the subconscious argues with you, tries to convince you; but the inner voice of God does not argue, does not try to convince you. It just speaks and it is self authenticating. It has the feel of the voice of God within it.”  It is like when we read the Bible – it is different from other books – it just is. It has an authority, a weightiness to it. Remember when people heard Jesus it says -“the people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law.” (Mk.1:22)

b) secondly note the content of the word. How does it square with the bible. Everything that we hear or think that we hear from God must be aligned and checked with the scriptures. In most cases actually God is speaking to us through His word anyway. It is the primary way in which God speaks to us so if we are not daily in the word we are missing opportunities for him to speak to us. This is the primary way he chooses to speak. He will not tell us to do something which goes against what he has revealed here. Also if it is a word which promises total exemption from suffering or failure it is not a word from God either despite what the health and wealth gospellers say. We need to be humbly open to God, abiding in his word, asking him to speak to us through it. Coming it to it expectantly day by day. Taking it seriously.

c) note the impact of the word on you. When God speaks yes it may be a word that unsettles, that challenges or rebukes us, but more often than not when God speaks directly to us the abiding sense is usually one of  joy, a spirit of confidence and peacefulness and of sweet reasonableness. It is the spirit of Jesus. Many times as Jesus appears to the disciples, especially post resurrection, he says peace be with you. The presence of Christ brings peace. A life that is in close communion with God is marked by peacefulness, by joy, by reasonableness – it is not frantic, or rushed or distracted. When God is in our lives there is a depth and a confidence about our lives.

The person who knows God, is a person who understands God. He or she knows about his character. The person who knows God is connected to God. His or her life is gently guided through this world. The three great lights of scripture, the inner voice and circumstances of life are usually aligned. Occasionally God will break in to give us a shake or to change the direction dramatically. But day by day we speak to him, we pray, we read his word, we stay alert. The voice of God enters the texture of our souls. We live and move in him. Christ is in us and we in him, he is just a breath away. In the adventure of faith we do not know him fully yet but hopefully we are getting to know him better and we are co-labourers in his kingdom. He calls us his friends and we grow into the relationship. Does this resonate with you. Perhaps you want to have this relationship but you do not know God. You can start that journey right now by humbly submitting your life to Christ. His Spirit will come and abide with you. As it says in John – “we will come to him and make our home with him” (Jn.14:23). This is a promise. When we seek God he will come and make his home not only with us but in us and so starts the adventure of a real relationship with him.

For others who are Christians – perhaps God has been distant recently and maybe you need to follow the advice I gave the last time – stop for him, slow down, press into him, abide in him, worship him. Or perhaps there is an habitual sin that is a blockage to closer fellowship with God. Or perhaps as is often the case there is someone you need to be reconciled with and forgiveness needs to be given, or received – that is blocking the moving of God’s Spirit. Do what is necessary. God is waiting.

So let us seek him. But let us above all, like young Samuel, say today, and often, “speak Lord, your servant is listening.”

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