Sermon Notes

When God Speaks!

How to Recognize God’s Voice

 We Recognize the Voice of God Through Intimacy

John 10:27

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

My = possession, ownership, authority

John 10:3-4

To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.

Own = Clear identification of intimate ownership

Know = To know experientially or through intimate relationship

 “The more you know God, the more clearly you can hear God.” - Henry Blackaby

 “Oddly enough, many people struggle to know how to pray because they are focusing on prayer, not on God. Prayer is all about relationship, it’s intimate and hints to eternity. Prayer is simply the medium through which we experience and connect with God.” - Paul Miller

“you know the value of prayer: it is precious beyond all price. Never, never neglect it.” - Thomas Buxton

We Recognize the Voice of God Through Consistency

Know = Facts about something or someone, to recognize or perceive

John 10:14-15

I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.

Psalm 63:1

O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Proverbs 8:17

I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me.

Mark 1:35

And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.

Luke 5:16

But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.

Prayer is spiritual work, and human nature does not like taxing spiritual work

 “Prayerlessness is the inevitable result of pride or a lack of faith, usually both. You fail to pray, instinctively, because you are too proud to realize you need God or too unbelieving to grasp God’s willingness to help.” - Paul Miller

John 10:5

A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.

Not = NOT NEVER EVER

We Recognize the Voice of God Through Obedience

John 10:27

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

John 14:21

Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”

John 14:23

Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

This obedience is far more than having a list of Jesus commandments so that we can recite them or lock them in a safety deposit box for safe keeping but It means to grasp fully, with the mind. That the commands or expectations of Jesus are fully integrated into the way his disciples live. It’s not a matter of following a few rules. It is a way of life

 “Sometimes we miss God’s presence because he no longer appears to us, or speaks to us, in the familiar ways of yesterday. I’ve noticed that God tends to speak differently to me in different seasons of life.” - Peter Greig

No man gets to God, who does not follow after him.

- Read your bible

- PRAYER in silence and solitude

- Prayer in community