Application - Why Pray? and What is God Like?
This class centers around the idea that you can hear God. Every Christian can hear the Lord speak in their life. This is not just for the super-spiritual or the prophets of the Bible; if you are a Christian, the Holy Spirit lives inside of you and is in constant communication with you… regardless of your attentiveness.
This concept is so foundational that we’re going spend the entire class talking about it. I need you to be convinced without a shadow of a doubt that this is what the Bible says. That doesn’t mean it must ‘feel’ true. The emotions will come later. I need you to believe the Bible actually says this. Otherwise, you will have a constant distrust of and frustration with what we’re doing for the entire year.
Q: How do you hear God?
This concept is so foundational that we’re going spend the entire class talking about it. I need you to be convinced without a shadow of a doubt that this is what the Bible says. That doesn’t mean it must ‘feel’ true. The emotions will come later. I need you to believe the Bible actually says this. Otherwise, you will have a constant distrust of and frustration with what we’re doing for the entire year.
Q: How do you hear God?
- People already hear God’s voice. Whether they recognize it or not is a different question.
- Gen 1: all creation responds to the voice of the Lord.
- Gen 2:19 Adam and Eve heard it in the midst of sin.
- Gen 7: All the animals responded to the Lord’s call
- 1 Chronicles 7:12-14 (the Lord commands insects)
- John 6:44 44"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.
- John 10 (his sheep hear his voice 4 different times)
- they will not follow another.
- John 16:12-15 12"I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. 15All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.
- 1 Sam 3. Young Samuel heard the voice but needed to learn how to recognize it.
- Heb 4:7 7Therefore God again set a certain day, calling it Today, when a long time later he spoke through David, as was said before:
"Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts."[a] - Direction--Isaiah 30:21 21 Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it."
- God desires a relationship with us.
- When God created Adam and Eve, he walked in the garden with them.
- The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend. (Ex 33:11)
- God said to Israel “you will be my people and I will be your God” (Lev 26:12)
- Over and over we are called to seak God’s face, but God does not have a face (or any other part of a body). This langauge is to help us understand our relationship with him. When God hides his face from Israel, it is in anger. In the Priestly blessing (Numbers 6:22-27) we pray that God’s face would shine upon us. It’s about knowing the other person. It’s about intimacy.
- The great commandment is to love God with all our heart. This is God’s first priority in our life. You cannot love without relationship.
37 Jesus said to him, "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” 38 This is the first and great commandment. (Mt. 22:37-38) - We love because God first loved us (1 John 4:19)
- We are children of God (1 John 3:1-3)
- Abraham was called God’s friend (James 2:23)
- God loves us in the same way that God loves God. The measure of the Father’s love (affection) for Jesus is the measure of His love for us. This is the ultimate statement of our worth. It gives every believer the right to view themselves as “God's favorite.” It is not difficult to believe that God loves perfected believers in heaven. The difficulty comes with believing that He has affection for weak people in this age. God loves us like God loves God.
9 As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide (live) in My love. (Jn. 15:9)
23 That the world may know that You...have loved them as You have loved Me. (Jn 17:23) - John 14-17 is all about relationship: our relationship with Jesus, our relationship with the Father, our relationship with the Holy Spirit.
- Rom 8:15. We have the Holy Spirit, through whom we cry “Daddy God”.
- Luke 15: you are God’s treasure.
- Ways we hear God speak to us.
- Scripture, scripture, scripture
- we must be aware that the Bible reveals God to us…
- The Holy Scriptures we believe are the primary way the Holy Spirit communicates with his people.
- …AND that the Bible does not contain God.
- 39You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, 40yet you refuse to come to me to have life. (John 5:39-40)
- If we are not meeting God in the Scriptures and being transformed by his voice into his likeness then something is wrong.
- We believe in both special and general revelation: Scripture and Creation
- we must be aware that the Bible reveals God to us…
- Recognizing the voice of the Lord as we live out of our relationship with Him.
- Absolutely everything we believe God says to us during prayer is submitted to the revealed word of God found in the Scripture. Unlike Islam or Hinduism, we believe God will never contradict himself.
- Because of the subjective nature of personal revelation, ALL directive ‘words’ from either others or ourselves should be submitted to those in authority over us (family, pastors, elders) for discernment.
- We ‘hear’ through i) reading the Bible, ii) recognizing God’s voice in others, iii) personal prayer, iv) circumstances
- Community
- Primarily, community should confirm God’s working in your life, not point it out. We do not want to reject our own responsibility to hear the Lord for ourselves. God gave the gift of the Holy Spirit to every believer. Unlike the Old Testament, we do not need others to mediate between Lord and ourselves (other than the continued mediation of Christ).
- Doctrine: is like a fence that keeps us within agreed upon boundaries in Scripture.
- different denominations agree on different placements of the fence. (though some fences cannot be moved: e.g. the divinity of Christ, etc)
- Note: sometimes, from our perspective, it seems like God does not answer when we call to him.
- think of the laments throughout scripture.
- such an experience is the exception not the norm of the Christian life
- Scripture, scripture, scripture