MVP: Community of Christ-Followers

Make the Vision Plain: Community of Christ-Followers
(Joel 2:12-16, 25-29; Luke 18:9-14)
10:30 am, Sun, Oct 27, 2013 Windsor UBC, J G White

     For a few days last week I didn't bother shaving.  When I did, with my electric razor, I was trimming off stubble that is mostly white on my chin, not black.  A dozen years ago my beard was dark, there was hair on the top on my head, and I'd hunt with curiosity for stray white hairs at my temples.
     I'm always seeing changes in me; not just my hair.  And a decade ago I looked out on a different congregation here.  How many of you have arrived after I did?  What we are doing and how we're doing those things shifts a bit; definitely.  Sometimes I look upon my congregation like I look at the hair on my head: I see what has been lost, and if not lost, just gotten older.  I wonder about what opportunities have been missed, what mistakes made, what sins unforgiven, what time unredeemed. 
     The Lord will restore the years that were lost.  So preached Joel, 2400 years ago, in the Middle East.  Inspired by a famine brought on by a locust plague, Joel the Hebrew prophet preached severe warning and great hope to a struggling people.  I want him to talk to us today.  I'll make up for the years of the locust... (Msg)
     Windsor Baptist, my faith family – we change.  Are we and the Lord doing this well?  How much is what we are becoming different from what we are today?  The new vision statement we are dabbling with says we will be a Community of Christ-Followers.  This is of course what we are, and have been, for almost 194 years.  We are a gathered people of many ages.
The ancient poetry of Joel 2 says
     Blow the trumpet in Zion; sanctify a fast;
     call a solemn assembly; gather the people.
     Sanctify the congregation; assemble the elders;
     gather the children; even nursing infants.
     Let the groom leave his room, and the bride her chamber.
The sense of being a gathered community is strong in a Church like us.  We are focused on this – on Sunday mornings.  It's the heart of what we are, eh?  And oh, how we want more of everyone to gather like this: the older, the children and babes, the husbands and wives.  A big happy family, following Jesus.
     And we want this – us – to be spiritual and positive.  We might say “spirit-filled”.  Joel claims that God was saying
     I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.  Even upon the menservants and maidservants in those days, I will pour out my spirit. 
     Positive enthusiasm, and everyone right with God.  We want this for all!  It would be a fulfilment of our prayers.   What Joel promised was a fulfilment of Moses' desire, centuries before.  Moses had once said to Joshua, “Would that all the LORD's people were prophets, that the LORD would put his spirit upon them!” (Numbers 11:29)
     We, today, are still praying for this.  We want our children and grandchildren, our brothers and sisters and parents, our neighbours and friends to be filled with God.  So, we want them to know Jesus and the salvation He brings.  That spirit-filling, prophesying, dream-weaving vision from 2400 years ago got brought into the story of Jesus 2000 years ago.  A guy named Peter takes this Hebrew Bible prophetic text through Jesus Christ, who sent the very Holy Spirit who was filling people one particular day. 
     Plenty of people today are looking for that connection with the Divine.  Seeking that personal unity with God or the Universe or whatever they think they need.  Our story (in the Bible) celebrates how available God is to human beings.  The Holy Spirit comes upon and into people... because of Jesus – the story of Jesus – what his life and death and coming back to life does.  When Peter, 2000 years ago, preached a sermon, he used the scroll of Joel, and went on to tell the story of Jesus.  Having the Divine Spirit with our spirits depends upon what Jesus did – the One who was executed by crucifixion, and later was alive again. 
     And that pouring out of God's Spirit that Joel predicted resulted in really amazing communication about the Gospel – the powerful story of Jesus.  Everyone in Jerusalem that day heard and understood.  It transformed them.  And what a multicultural, motley crew surely got united that day, in that city.  Thousands of people joined Jesus, and one another.
     Here, we are a variety pack of folk saved by Christ and filled by the Spirit.  We are sons and daughters, old men and old women, slaving servants and pensioned people.  Shall we get along and love to be with one another?  Allison Friars spoke a great little image yesterday here.  To be multi-generational is like having a chocolate cake by setting the flour, eggs, coco, milk, butter and so forth in a bowl together.  It ain’t a cake.  To be inter-generational is to put all the ingredients together to interact, and create a lovely layered cake.  MmMmm.  But will the eggs want to get cracked and integrated?  Will the flour willingly be sifted?  Will the butter line up to be creamed?
     We must soul-search: do we really want everyone in on the party – a festival of the Holy Spirit, an army of Christ's ambassadors, a family of faithfulness?  Am I willing to welcome whosoever may come?
     Luke 18: two men went to the Temple in Jerusalem to pray.
     Look at whom this parable was told to by the Master: whom.  It was told to those who trusted in themselves and despised others. (NRSV)  Peterson's translation says He told his next story to some who were complacently pleased with themselves over their moral performance and looked down their noses at the common people. (Msg)
     We shall be a Community of Christ-Followers.  So we've got to behave like a community, a family, a body, etc.  Not just for the sake of getting more into the body.  For the sake of being on mission with the Lord God today!   But it starts with being a team and a family ourselves, with Christ as head of the household, head of the body. 
     We're going to follow Christ – be saved, believers, regenerate, Christians, disciples, etc.  But we also are reaching with open arms to those who are on the way, on the fringe of faith, and those not even close yet.  Shall we include them?  Shall we focus on reaching them... not just inviting church people? 
     Listen to Clarence Jordan's “Cotton Patch Version” of Luke 18(9-14), Bible with a southern accent. (1969) 
     Jesus gave this Comparison to certain ones who had a high regard for their own goodness, but looked down their noses at others: “Two men went into the chapel to pray.  The one was a church member, the other was an unsaved man.  The church member stood up and prayed to himself like this: 'O God, I think you that I am not like other people – greedy, mean, promiscuous – or even like this unsaved man.  I go to church twice on Sunday, and I am a faithful tither of all my income.'  But the unsaved man, standing way off, wouldn't even lift up his eyes, but knelt down and cried, 'O God, have mercy on a sinner like me.'  I'm telling you, this man went home cleaned up rather than that one.  For everyone who puts himself on a pedestal will be laid low, and everyone who lays himself low will be put on a pedestal.” 
     It can be very easy for me to put myself on a pedestal: of traditional church as usual – centred on Sunday mornings of enjoyable music and entertaining sermons that hint at being practical.  The pedestal of a solid wooden pulpit at the centre of a large sanctuary where we can imagine this space filled with people praising God, the organ resounding – band playing, and me out-singing everyone. 
     I likely have plenty of people to support me on my pedestal!  And I'm already good at looking down my nose at those who don't appreciate my way of worship, the words I use in my sermons, and they patterns of my conversation. 
Instead of me, maybe there are two others who should be put on the pedestal of my life.  God.  And those whom God cares for deeply. 
      You and I must behave like a community of Christ-followers.  It's not a matter of saying we are.  It's not a matter of coming out on Sundays.  It's a matter of interactions and actions and attitudes. 
     Only by the grace of God found in Jesus Christ will this happen in you and me, sinner.  Only by the outpouring of the Spirit of God will this happen in you and me, believer. 
     The Lord will restore the years that were lost...

Make the Vision Plain: Intergernerational

Make the Vision Plain: Intergenerational

(Jeremiah 31:27-34; 2 Timothy 3:14-17)

10:30 am, Sun, Oct 20, 2013 Windsor UBC, J G White

A little fellow in church service for the first time saw the offering plate being passed. When it came by he piped up: “You don’t need to pay for me, Daddy. I’m under five.”

The new stated vision we are formulating begins by claiming that we, Windsor Baptist, will be an intergenerational community. Look around. We already are. Not that I want you to guess at everyone’s age. But you see various generations. Most of the youngest are elsewhere in the building. We want to remain a congregation of every generation, every age and stage.

God plants and grows faith in people of all ages. Echoing the words in the first chapter of the book, Jeremiah 31:28 says “I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the LORD.” Those were words to Hebrew people millennia ago, and they remain an inspiring promise from history. A promise that still is coming true. God growing spiritual children in every generation of human history.

We could decide to be a fellowship of people of certain age groups and not others. Be a youth and young adult church. Or a church for retirees. But to leave any out is to be incomplete, in our minds and and hearts.

A congregation in a town is like a human family. I happen to be at an early middle-age stage of life. I can go down the valley and visit, along the way, my parents, then my 90 year old grandfather, then my step-daughter and my almost 7 month old grandson. I have a grandson, and still have a grandfather.

So too in our local family of faith. And we want to keep it this way. The promises of Jeremiah’s day get completed in this age of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world. We heard also from 2 Timothy 1 - a letter from Apostle Paul to Apostle Timothy. I am reminded of your sincere faith, says Paul to Tim, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you.

If you are 16, you know your faith was passed on to you not only by the Holy Spirit, but by people of older generations. You who are pushing ninety know that your faithfulness and prayers to the Lord have led to the growth of personal faith in others, younger.

Now is the time of salvation! For people of every age. So we must share visionary focus and be ready. Across the span of our ages. Across the cultural differences among us. Some of us are from West Hants. Some of us like County Music. Some of us went to Acadia. Some of us moved here for work. Some of us were born outside Canada. Some of us don’t yet know what to be when we grow up. Yet despite our diversity we can be a rich family of Faith.

Along with the salvation of people that the Lord works to bring about, God frees people to respond and be responsible. We discover there is no “fate” that traps us in the chain of life’s events. In Christ we shall be free. The real freedom of the individual to live in the forgiveness and love of God was foreseen in the prophecy of Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 31:29-30

In those days they shall no longer say:

“The parents have eaten sour grapes,

and the children’s teeth are set on edge.”

But all shall die for their own sins; the teeth of everyone who eats sour grapes shall be set on edge.

Ezekiel 18 says the same this about this proverb. You sin, you are responsible. And your children will be responsible for their own sins, not for yours, and for their own reconciliation with the Lord.

These words came out long before Jesus. Yet they point to the individual freedom from sin and death that Jesus would bring. We know that a person can’t rely on their parents or grandparents to have a right relationship with God for him or her. And today, fewer and fewer people simply follow their parent’s footsteps into churches and into serving the Lord day to day.

The story is told of a young girl who asked her mother in the kitchen why she always turned over cans from the cupboard before opening them with the can opener. “I don’t know” the mother had to admit. “Your grandma always did it; let’s ask her.” Not long after, mother and daughter were with grandmother, who told them why she always turned a can over before opening. “In the old pantry, in the basement, the cans would always get a bit rusty and dusty on top. So, I opened them on the clean end, the bottom.”

We don’t need to do things our certain ways just because we always did. We have hymn boards here with numbers. Why? Well, when there were invented, there were no weekly bulletins. This was the one place to read the hymn numbers. These are actually redundant. We turn the tin can over for no reason, anymore.

The reasons for our methods are sometimes long gone. The personal spiritual needs of each succeeding generation change. The Lord can meet them all. We want people to be free in their spiritual lives to seek and find Jesus in the best ways possible, and serve Him in new and wonderful ways when they are saved. As we talk with one another, across the generations, we learn new things from one another.

So we want to be not just multi-generational, we want to be inter-generational. Various ages knowing one another, seeing the changes, encouraging one another in the Lord.

2 Timothy 3:14b-15a (NIRV) says Don't give up what you are sure of. You know the people you learned it from. You have known the Holy Scriptures ever since you were a little child. “You know the people you learned it from.”

Less and less in Nova Scotia today is faith passed on from parent to child to grandchild. Giving faith in Christ to the next generations a definite challenge. It is a missionary challenge, on our own doorstep, in our neighbourhoods and families.

I’ve shared before the wonderful way Charlie Harvey once asked a question about reaching youth today. Some of you know Charlie and Fran Harvey were long-term Baptist missionaries in Africa. One year, at the Evangelism Conference, Charley Harvey said this. (1:00:12 - 1:03:15)

Despite the challenge, we are the missionaries to those around us here. We want them to know Christ, and the freedom of soul He brings! This mission is for every generation.

God has vision for all generations to know Him. He foresees. Jeremiah 31:27, 34 says The days are surely coming, says the LORD…

No longer shall they teach one another, saying, “Know the LORD,” for they shall all know me, from the least to the greatest, says the LORD.

They shall all know the LORD. Every generation. What a message for today! Is it for today? These 2,500 year old words? Do you not feel the voice of God to us now in these ancient passages? The vision of every one, from the greatest to the smallest, knowing the God who seems so mysterious to so many.

Paul to Timothy said, Don't give up what you are sure of. (2 Timothy 3:14a, NIRV) or, Continue in what you have learned and firmly believed. (NRSV) What have you been sure us that God is up to? Sending Himself in Jesus - also a human - to show us the way of life, the way of God’s Kingdom. To die by crucifixion so that the evil in us dies, and we can live free from wrong. To arise after death so we can know life is eternal. To be present with us in this life now, as God the Holy Spirit.

As Charley Harvey said, we know that Jesus can make a tremendous difference in everyone’s life; hold onto that! Even when you’re unsure how to give Jesus to them.

Conclusion Jeremiah 31:34 “...for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.” This is what our God does for all people, and this ministry is for all ages and stages of life.

In our Fall edition of Mosaic, from Canadian Baptist Ministries, is a First Nations story, “My People are in Prison.”

An informal group of Christians in the Duncan, region (BC) have banded together to support the leaders of the Cowichan Tribes. Several churches are involved.

Sarah, 82 years old, is one such tribal elder whom they work with. Some of her own children experienced the tragedy of the boarding school abuse we hear about so frequently. Sarah is grieved at the lingering impact as children returned, ashamed and angry at their parents and their culture. Many in turn became abusive and some now pass on their distrust and animosity towards “white” people to the next generation.

There's the parents eating sour grapes and setting the children’s teeth on edge!

But Sarah has been able to deal with the ghosts of her family’s past and has been instrumental in creating initiatives to help others. She was the first one to put into action the Cowichan knitting project — buying wool, washing, carding, dyeing and making the yarn for the traditional sweaters that are so sought after by tourists. Currently she is working with the Catholic sisters, visiting communities, distributing food and other necessities. She also spends a lot of time counselling young people in marriage and family issues.

“My people are in prison. They don’t know who they are,” says Sarah, describing the lostness she sees. Sarah fervently believes that only faith in Christ can heal the trauma in her people. She has become a dear friend to the whites in the local Baptist churches, and is a great help in navigating protocol and cultural issues as they seek to help their First Nations neighbours.

Every age and generation is involved in that story of the Gospel; and at least two cultures.

God plants and grows faith in people; God ‘faith-plants.’

God frees people to know Him and be healed.

God has vision for all; God foresees all generations knowing Him. This is God’s heart.

Today, we are an intergenerational church; let us keep this among our goals, in our vision: for the sake of every generation here among us, and to whom we reach out, with the Gospel.

Hearing God: Not the Voice

Hearing God: Not the Voice

(Matthew 4:1-11)

10:30 am, Sunday, October 6, 2013, Windsor UBC, J G White

Many stories could be told of an unusual Nova Scotian woman, years ago, who took up a hitch-hiking ministry.  She was very zealous about talking to people everywhere about the Lord.  As she hitch-hiked around her county, she talked a lot about Jesus to those who picked her up, whether they wanted to hear or not!  Sadly, she was thought of in her home town as eccentric, at best, or an unwell religious fanatic, at worst.

I knew this lady and heard from her all sorts of things she had been directed to do by the Lord.   Hitch-hike in that direction.  Stop and speak to so-and-so.  Stop for a meal with someone else.  I wondered if she thought God told her what clothes to put on each morning, or even what way to hang the toilet paper roll in the bathroom. 

One story from her life was about the New Yorker.  She told friends in her church one day that she was praying for a car.  She needed a car.  Weeks later, she mentioned she was praying, in particular, for to Lord to provide a Chrysler New Yorker.  That sounded rather a specific request for the Almighty.   

But soon, her friend’s jaws dropped when she sailed along one day driving a New Yorker!

What the friends of the woman later found out was that a close pastor friend of hers, who’d had this big car, was thinking of getting himself a new car; and then he did; & finally decided to give his old car, the New Yorker, to the hitch-hiker. 

Did our God guide that woman to pray for that particular car, and then answer that prayer?  Or was it her own voice, her own ideas, which came to fruition by the kindness of a pastor? 

Our listening to God question today is How to know what is Not the Voice of God.  The still small voice has several rivals.  We are not told explicitly how God the Holy Spirit led Jesus to spend His forty days in the wilderness, and we can also wonder about how Satan actually expressed his temptations to Christ.  We’ll look at this event in more detail momentarily.

First, let’s notice three mistaken interpretations about life here with God.  Three ways we can be tempted to think God is going to guide us.  The first is the Message-a-Minute view.  And this was really what the hitch-hiking Christian expected.  God could and should guide a believer every moment of the day in every decision to be made.  Really?

This is actually neither necessary nor completely good for us.  I don’t see Paul or Peter, or even Jesus, having constant promptings from God the Father about every word to say, action to take, and thing to avoid.  The New Testament does not paint that kind of a picture for us.  We can get definite divine guidance daily, but not about every moment’s activity. 

E. Stanley Jones wisely wrote,

I believe in miracle, but not too much miracle, for too much miracle would weaken us, make us dependent on miracle instead of our obedience to natural law.  Just enough miracle to let us know He is there, but not too much, lest we depend on it when we should depend on our own initiative and on His orderly process for our development. (A Song of Ascents, p.191)

Another common idea about God’s will and guidance is the Whatsoever-Comes view.  Whatsoever happens is, in the end, what God wanted, after all.  The Lord is sovereign, of course, powerfully in charge of everything, so everything happening is according to plan.

I talked briefly about this last Sunday morning.  One problem with this is it actually leaves out the need for God to guide us consciously.  Also, it leaves out the powers of evil in this world, which still accomplish bad and wrong things.  Wrong things do happen, and for the wrong reasons.  Thanks be to God that He can do good things in the midst of disaster!

Some of our Old Testament stories challenge us when thinking about how unchanging God’s plan is.  Read Exodus 32 and remember how Yahweh determined to destroy the people, after they built and worshiped the golden calf, and start over with Moses and his family.  God said to Moses, “Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.” 

But Moses had a real heart-to-heart with the LORD, and did not accept this plan.  Moses’ prayer was answered when God relented, and “the LORD changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.”  Even a human can work on the master plan with the Master Himself. 

Thirdly, there is the It’s-All-in-the-Bible View.  The verse that tells us the disciples were all in one accord is not guidance to buying a Honda car.  The New Testament book after Philemon is not telling the men of the house to make the coffee: He-brews.  I recall my Old Testament professor telling of a man in a church where he’d pastored, who was convinced a scripture was telling him to apply cream cheese to his wife’s hair. 

This greatest of all books is not like the owner’s manual of a car.  Every detail of your life is not secretly hidden in it.  Then again, maybe the Bible is like an automobile manual: when I look for an answer about some detail of my car, it’s not in the book!  The principles and inspiration for our lives are in the Bible; much detailed guidance must come from the Holy Spirit communing with our human spirits. 

So, as we get to know the Voice of the Shepherd, we must guard against other ideas that vie for attention.  People sometimes wonder, and rightly so, about the voice of Satan.  Not often like the deep, scary voice of some demon in the movies, the Evil One will communicate in one’s own thoughts, the voice of people around us, and even use the scriptures. 

Matthew’s record of Jesus’ forty days in the desert is instructive.  But you might want to turn in your Bibles now, not to Matthew, but to Deuteronomy 8.

Forty days and forty nights, fasting in the desert.  It’s a desert; it’s deserted; and there’s no dessert!  Or even bread and water.  And Jesus is tempted… by the Tempter. 

Some of the round stones nearby look like loaves of bread, freshly cooked.  “So you are the Son of God: turn the stones to bread.”  Jesus finds the answer in a scripture.  He does not have a copy of it with Him, of course; just about no one did.  He had memorized much of it.  Such as Deuteronomy 8:3…  One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.  Perhaps knowing the Bible – a lot of it – will help us recognize the ideas that look good but are not.

Jesus saw Himself at the pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem.  “Throw yourself down,” the Accuser suggested.  The Bible, Psalm 91, says God will send angels to protect you, “so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.” 

No.  Jesus remembers another phrase from the fifth book of Moses.  Deuteronomy 6:16.  “Do not put the LORD your God to the test.”  We too must remember that the Bible can be used rightly and wrongly.  God may speak here; but the Evil One quotes it too!

Thirdly, Jesus gets a vision of the kingdoms of the world.  By bowing to the devil, could they all become His?  “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only Him,” says Deuteronomy 6:13.  Jesus finds the right path, the Tempter leaves, and Christ is cared for by better visitors, angels attending to His needs.

Hearing from the Tempter does not mean you are worse than others, or even that you are possessed or some such thing.  Jesus heard the voice of Satan!  We may remember that Peter the apostle at least once spoke for Satan!  “Get behind me, Satan,” is what Jesus said to him on that occasion.  Recognizing the sources of the voices and ideas that come to us – this is key.  Then we obey God, and not the rivals. 

And so, “hearing God” is found in our day-to-day experience.  James Dobson described a prayer when seeking the will of God.  “I get down on my knees and say, ‘Lord, I need to know what you want me to do, and I am listening.  Please speak to me through my friends, books, magazines I pick up and read, and through circumstances.’”  (“The Will of God” radio broadcast, December 3, 1982)

The Lord whose speaking we grow to recognize is the best Guide and Friend we can rely upon. 

 Some years ago, a pastor was one day called by a parishioner whose husband had recently died.  The woman informed the minister that God had told her to give the husband’s suits to him.  Would he please come over, she asked, to see if they suits would fit? 

The pastor very sensibly replied, “If God told you to give them to me, they’ll fit.”  (Bud Robinson, as in Hearing God, Dallas Willard, p. 205)

We believe in a competent God!

A God who speaks, every so quietly, subtly, and surely. 

A Spirit who wants to have fellowship with us day-by-day even more than we do. 

A Saviour who will be our Good Shepherd, and whose voice we can learn to recognize and follow. 

And a Saviour who speaks to our souls again today, as we eat bread together, and drink the fruit of the vine. 

Hearing God: The Voice

Hearing God: The Voice

(John 10:1-6)

10:30 am, Sun, Sept 29, 2013 Windsor UBC, J G White

Call to your dog, and it may well come to you, gladly. Call you cat, and it may just stare and walk away. Stories are told of old, retired, circus elephants, reunited with a former trainer. They recognize the old master's voice, and on command, will do the old routine of tricks, after many, many years. An elephant never forgets, we are told.

Hebrew prophets of old spoke this way:

The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's crib; but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.  Is. 1:3

Even the stork in the heavens knows its times; and the turtledove, swallow, and crane observe the time of their coming; but my people do not know the ordinance of the Lord.  Jeremiah 8:7

Isaiah and Jeremiah spoke these words of the Lord in the 8^th and 7^th centuries, B.C., when the Hebrew people were a nation about to fall to the Babylonian empire. They warned: God's own people don't even know their God anymore!

It could be scary to have a Jeremiah or Isaiah arise in our midst today. The warnings could be just as fierce. The story of God's own people forgetting God's own voice is oft repeated in history. And some today would warn that many Christians are weak when it comes to knowing the Master's voice.

We just heard some of Jesus' own words, rather gentle words, about knowing His voice. He is the Shepherd of sheep who know His voice and can be called out, and led. Almost seems ironic that Jesus' pastoral figure of speech is not even understood, and He has to go on to say more to make it clear!

This Jesus can yet be our Good Shepherd, though His voice comes by the Holy Spirit, and the record we have in the Bible. We who are redeemed by Christ, are filled with the Spirit, the presence of God with our spirits. Anointed is one of the Bible words for this. The first letter of John says: As for you, the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and so you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, abide in him. 1 John 2:27

Abide in Him. Stay with Him. Do not forget or let the fellowship fade.

When it does fade, it is time for renewal, reunion, re-acquaintance, relearning the Master's Voice. Some believers have not been well-taught about the Voice in the first place.

One of the classic lessons about knowing the will of God for your life, or for any particular moment, is to use the Three Lights, three things to guide the way: circumstances, impressions of the Spirit, and the Bible.

What happens and is happening gives us definite clues about God's plan and path for us. But, of course, not everything that happens is what God wants. I'm not a fan of the cliche, “If the Lord want's that to happen, He'll make it happen.” That's sort of true, but we could easily say this about something the Evil One wants to happen; then, when it occurs, it's the devil's work. Ephesians 2:2 warns of the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Next Sunday morning we'll walk with Jesus through His own desert temptations with the Accuser.

Along with sensing God in our circumstances, are the impressions of guidance or truths from the Spirit of God. I shall never forget a dear lady from Cumberland county who told her story of being assured of salvation and the presence of God. She remembered an old TV commercial for Mr. Clean, who waved a wand and everything went sparkling and bright from floor to counter-top to cupboards and windows. She said she felt like that one day in her own body, from her toes sweeping up to her head: the thrilling cleansing and beautiful presence of the Spirit of God.

And along with circumstances and our spiritual moments is the witness of the Bible. Dallas Willard wrote: “It cannot be stressed too much that the permanent address at which the word of God may be found is the Bible.” (Hearing God, p. 183)

But recognizing His voice is not simply a matter of matching these three up. This is not enough. We recognize a message is His voice because we are familiar with His voice.

We can suppose that sheep know the shepherd by getting to know the sound of his voice, the attitude and way he speaks, and what the guidance actually is. So it is with the Good Shepherd. There can be said to be these three factors in the Voice of God: the Quality, the Spirit, and the Content of what we are being told.

A main Quality in God's voice is the weight of authority. What God speaks is clearly and simply right and true and strong.

Jesus spoke as one with authority. This was the comment of the people who heard Him teaching.

The plain authority of an idea that comes to us can help us know it is of God. Many of our own ideas and thoughts are less secure, and more sneaky in their quality. E. Stanley Jones wisely wrote: Perhaps the rough distinction is this: The voice of 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. (A Song of Ascents, 1979, p. 190)

So the old cartoon of a little devil on one shoulder, and a little angel on the other, whispering into your ears, is not quite right. The still small voice has a simple authority, He is not competitive with us or cajoling us.

Another aspect of God's voice to us is the spirit of what is said. It's been called “a spirit of exalted peacefulness and confidence, of joy, of sweet reasonableness and of goodwill.” (Willard, p. 177)

After Christ taught about being the Shepherd and the Gate of the sheep, John 10 describes the response. Many of them were saying, "He has a demon and is out of his mind. Why listen to him?" Others were saying, "These are not the words of one who has a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?" John 10:20-21

The wisdom we gain is from the Lord, and of this wisdom James says: the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. James 3:17. This is the feel, the spirit of what God says to guide us. The still small voice is all of these things.

Thirdly, along with the quality of authority in the Voice, and the spirit of peace and mercy, is the actual Content. What we are being told by God. Now, we will be told amazing things, but the Holy Spirit's voice will speak things that are true and right, for God is true and right. What God tells you or me or us will jive with what the Bible tells us about who God is and what the Kingdom is like.

Charles Stanley comments: “God’s voice will never tell us to engage in any activity or relationship that is inconsistent with the Holy Scriptures.” (How to Listen to God, 1985, p.51)

So, let's think about a case study. Can we discover a vision statement to be a word from the Lord?

Windsor Baptist will be an intergenerational community of Christ followers. We will continue to be, not a building, not an organized society, not a series of religious events… we will continue to be a people, a church family, a faith community within the larger area.

I believe this is consistent with what scripture teaches us about God’s Kingdom and God’s people on earth. I’m just now reading Andy Stanley’s book, Deep & Wide. He speaks at length about the New Testament fellowship. The word that gets translated “church” in the New Testament means gathering of people, and might just as well be translated as gathering.

Look at how many of the epistles / letter greet the churches as gatherings:  When Paul, or others, send their greetings, they say, “greet the church/gathering in their house.”  It’s at the end of Romans (16:5), of 1 Corinthians (16:9), Colossians (4:15), and the start of Philippians (1:2).  Romans 8:29 tells us: those whom [God] foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family.  Galatians 6:10 actually has the phrase “the family of faith.”  And we want to be a complete family. An intergenerational community of Christ followers.

...With an intentional focus on youth and young families, by 2017. This narrows our focus, as we believe we need to do.

We think about this; we react with our feelings about its meaning. We talk with others about it. Something you say out loud, or someone says to you may stand out as from the Lord.

I hope we do regular praying about this: our conversation with the Lord. In that inner thinking with Him, and the silence of our questions before the Lord, we may hear a still small assurance of this vision, or some message to correct it. He may speak silently thru something we see in our community: an impactful glimpse of need out there that God impresses upon us.

And we may even search the scriptures about this vision statement. This too is needed. The Holy Spirit will use chapters and verses to speak into our Church vision this fall:

Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Deuteronomy 6:7

Train children in the right way, and when old, they will not stray. Proverbs 22:6

Jesus said, Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation. Mark 16:15

Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household. Acts 16:31

In all these activities, we listen for the voice of the Spirit: human talk and activity, the still small voice, the Bible. We tune in to the messages we get that have the quality, and spirit, and content that sound like Him. We want to recognize the Master's voice in our thoughts about this vision for Windsor Baptist. And we want everyone to be confident about the Shepherd's voice in every situation.

Of course, we can err, we can be led astray. Next week is really part two about The Voice. What is not The Voice? Even quotations from the Bible can be from other than our God.

It takes time, I'm sure, for a lamb to get to know the voice of the Shepherd. But staying near the other sheep who already know the voice is a big help. Let's stick together, as we develop our listening skills for God. Let's help each other as we grow to walk with the Lord.

Hearing God: How God Speaks Today

Hearing God: How God Speaks Today

(1 Kings 19:11-13)

10:30 am, Sun, Sept 22, 2013 Windsor UBC, J G White

Thirty years ago, Guideposts magazine told the story of an ordinary housewife, Virginia Lively, who started to weep, and continued to weep for four days.

On the morning of the fourth day, alone in her living room, there was a sudden hum and crackle in the air.  She saw a ball of white light through a window, spraying showers of multicolored light in its wake and approaching her with amazing speed.  Then it was right there, beside her, and as she looked at it she saw a face.

‘He is perfect,’ was her first thought.  His forehead was high.  His eyes were large, but she could not fix their colour any more than she could the colour of the sea.  His features were lost in the overwhelming impression of life brimming over with power and freedom.  

Instantly she knew this was Jesus.  She saw his utter lack of condemnation, that nothing she had ever done or ever would do could alter the absolute caring or the unconditional love in his eyes.

According to Virginia’s testimony, Jesus was present with her in this way for three months, and then His presence began to fade.  When she last saw Him, He said to her, “I will always be with you.”  (December 1982)  Invisible, quiet, but still with her.

Amid our experience and the stories we know, it is important to have a handle on how God speaks with us now.  We just remembered the famed moment with Elijah the Hebrew Prophet, in the mountains, hearing from God not in the great wind, or earthquake, or fire, but in a still small voice.  

It is the ways humans conversed with the Lord in the past that still go on today.  We have no reason to doubt this.  It is often the extraordinary, miraculous stories that stay with us, eh?  Yet there is also a lot of ‘ordinary’ hearing from God: in scripture, and in our Christian lives.

A survey of events in the Old and New Testaments illustrates the many ways people experience God speaking.  Like the experience of Ms. Lively, there can be a phenomenon and a voice.  Abraham with the fire that consumed his sacrifices in Genesis 15, while making a covenant together.  Moses hearing instruction when he stopped long enough to investigate a bush that was on fire but not burning up, Exodus 3.  Ezekiel’s vision of the wheels and things in the sky.  Jesus’ baptism in Matthew 3, with the Spirit descending like a bird, a dove.  Later, in Acts 9, Saul the persecutor of believers seeing a bright light and hearing from Jesus.  

Akin to this are the times an angel or other supernatural messenger visits someone.  Aside from all the Old Testament events, we might think in the New of the angel visits to the parents of John the Baptizer, and Jesus, and then the shepherds when Christ was born.  

Then, there are dreams and visions.  Dreams we think of happening in sleep, and often needing explanation.  They are like those the patriarch Joseph interpreted for the Pharaoh and others in Egypt, or that Daniel interpreted for Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, or such as Paul saw in Acts 16, leading him to travel to Macedonia.  

Visions usually seem more direct, and happen in our waking moments, such as with Peter in Acts 10 when he saw the collection of non-kosher food and was told to eat.  

A simple, audible voice, is a communication from the Lord many people long for, at special moments, to make the way certain.  We read in scripture of things like young Samuel learning to answer the Lord, calling him in the night; 1 Samuel 3.  The boy thought it was simply the voice of his master in the Temple, not the Lord God almighty.  

All these voices from the Lord are the more special, rare moments.  From day to day, there can be much more hearing from God in other ways.  One is the human voice.  Some other person speaks, and you detect that it is also a message direct from the Lord.  Moses had been told by his Lord, “Now go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you are to speak.”  The children of Israel heard many a time the Lord’s word from Moses’ mouth, and his Brother Aaron’s.  

A flood was on its way, forcing everyone to evacuate. The police rowed up to the most pious woman in town and said, "Ma'am, you have to leave this house! People are dying out here!"

     The woman replied, "No, I'm not leaving. God has always helped me before, and He will do it again."

     So as the water started to rise, she went to the second story of her house. Another boat came by, and the captain yelled, "Ma'am, you have to get on this boat or you're going to drown!"

     The woman replied again, "No, God helped me before, and He will do it again."

     The water rose even higher. This time she went to the top of the roof, where a helicopter came and hovered overhead. The pilot called into his loudspeaker, "Please climb aboard, ma'am. You are going to drown!"

     The women sniffed and again replied, "God is going to save me!"

     But the water rose higher, and soon she drowned to death. She went to Heaven, and there she asked God, "Why didn't you save me, O Lord?"

     And God replied, "I did help--I sent you two boats and a helicopter!"

Most of us have more stories of the Spirit speaking thrugh human voices than of spiritual dreams, angels, or supernatural happenings.  And don’t forget that ofttimes God can speak through the written words of another person.  

One of my few dramatic moments was 22 years ago when I was trying to decide upon my calling to be a pastor.  I was on the quest for a while, and the final straw that convinced me, that instantly made me feel sure, was a devotional reading for the day, December 2.  

Many of us have a sort of vision of the kind of person God wants us to be.  We must be true to that vision, whatever it is, and we must try to live up to it, by living the way we believe we should live…  But many a person fails to fulfill that promise and God’s disappointments must be many.

It was in the simple words of that author that I heard God saying to Jeffrey George White: My vision for you is sure; not to take this path would be a disappointment.  

The story of Elijah on mount Horeb, in a time of personal crisis, points us to an even more subtle, and potentially more common, hearing from God.  The so-called Still Small Voice.  The records of the Old Testament bear witness to many a moment of dramatic fire - and the Lord is there.  Or wind and storm - and the Lord is there.  Or an earthquake - and the Lord is in it.  In 1 Kings 19, Elijah responds to the quietness, not the dramatic eruptions - and this is his turning point.  From fear and fleeing, to turning back and returning, anointing new kings, and even taking on a disciple, Elisha, who would follow in his footsteps.

The still small voice, the inner voice, may indeed be the prime way to hear from our Lord.  In our own mind, our inner thoughts, we can learn to hear our God speak.  Knowing what thoughts are from the Lord and what are not - this is the training of the disciple.  This is our spiritual journey, our walk with the Lord; and learning how to recognize His voice we will explore in the next two weeks.  

I believe it really is the way of Jesus, to hear from God every day, moment by moment, in our inner thoughts and awareness. Our prayerful attention to God opens the door.  We do not need miracles to hear from the Master.

E. Stanley Jones wrote

God cannot guide you in any way that is not Christ-like.  Jesus was supreme sanity.  He went off into no visions, no dreams.  He got His guidance through prayer as you and I do.  I do not say that God may not guide through a vision or dream; but if He does, it will be very seldom, and it will because He cannot get hold of our normal processes to guide them.  For God is found most clearly and beneficially in the normal rather than in the abnormal.  And Jesus is the Normal, for He is the Norm.  (p. 283,The Way, 1946)

We can learn the ordinary, daily voice of the Shepherd, the Spirit, our God.  We seek His voice day by day.  We look for it everywhere.  Seek the Lord, while He may be found, says Isaiah 55, call upon Him while He is near.  Walking with Him, more of His thoughts become our thoughts.  Not all, of course; our union with the Lord is incomplete and tiny.  His thoughts are not our thoughts, Isaiah says.  But as Job 26:14 beautifully puts it, while meditating upon God’s Creation: These are indeed but the outskirts of His ways; and how small a whisper do we hear of him!  

How small a whisper do we hear of Him; yet the still small voice will be so often enough. Last week’s hymn could be ours again today.

I ask no dream, no prophet ecstasies;

No sudden rending of the veil of clay;

No angel visitant, no op’ning skies;

But take the dimness of my soul away.

The simple way, the still small voice, the inner thought that comes from your Lord is the daily, usual way to hear from God.  Next time I want us to delve into how we recognize the inner voice, among our own thoughts and feelings and distractions.  How the sheep get to know the Shepherd’s voice.  

Hearing God: Is God Silent?

Hearing God: Is God Silent?

(Exodus 33:7-11; Acts 16:6-10)

10:30 am, Sun, Sept 15, 2013 Windsor UBC, J G White

In the mail last week I got my latest edition of Saltscapes magazine, and there was an article about the 1967 UFO incident in Shag Harbour.  Shag Harbour - area from which our Tidal Impact team came to us last month - this hamlet even has a little UFO museum today.  

Have you ever seen a UFO?  Do you believe earth has been visited by aliens?

Have you ever heard God speak to you, with a clear message?  And yet, for many, even many Christians, to hear messages from the Lord regularly would be considered weird, odd, unreal.  Decades ago, comedienne Lily Tomlin asked, “Why is it that when we speak to God we are said to be praying, but when God speaks to us we are said to be schizophrenic?”

There is a Paradox in Prayer: we are expecting answers, asking for answers, but not expecting or almost ever hearing a voice.  

For all our lives we have been singing that the Lord tells us things and shows us the way.

Saviour, Like a Shepherd Lead Us

All the Way My Saviour Leads Me

He Leadeth Me

Lead On, O King Eternal

Jesus, Saviour, Pilot Me

Trust and Obey

Speak to Me, Lord, that I May Speak

And He Walks with Me, and He Talks with Me

What a Friend We Have in Jesus

Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah

But in the day-to-day lives of many, this close friendship with the Father, or Son, or Spirit, is very quiet; the talk is usually one-sided.  We may not want to admit it.

Scripture itself, the story of God’s people, expresses these moments.  Psalm 22, which Jesus quoted from the cross, begins:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from helping me,

from the words of my groaning?  

O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;

and by night, but find no rest. (22:1-2)

In extreme circumstances God can seem afar off.  But from day to day many believers could admit that their Lord is silent 99.44 percent of their lives.  But: God cannot be silent?

In this Year of Listening, it seems right to have a sermon series on Hearing God: how to listen to the Spirit.  I take some cues from the late Dallas Willard, American philosopher, Christian writer, Baptist.  

When Dallas was a young assistant pastor, in the church of his in-laws, one Sunday dinner was startling for him.  The meal was over, but folks lingered, savouring the last tidbits and reflecting on the morning service.  The Senior Pastor’s sermon has focused - with excited energy - on their upcoming building project of a new sanctuary.  The Pastor spoke of his vision for the church’s increased ministry.  He indicated how strongly he felt God’s guidance in the way the congregation was going, and he testified that God has spoken to him about thing that should be done.  (Willard, Hearing God, p. 16)

At the dinner table, Dallas’ wife’s grandmother seemed deep in thought.  She was a woman of unshakable faith and complete devotion.  Finally, she quietly said, “I wonder why God never speaks to me like that.”  (Ibid, p. 16)

That simple comment came like a bolt out of the blue to the young assistant pastor, Dallas, and forever changed his attitude toward glib talk about God’s speaking to us our about divine guidance. (Ibid, p. 17)

Perhaps many people truly think that some people - only some special Christians - get much of this God speaking to them.  I notice that, usually in a joking way, there is the expectation that pastors know God better others do!  

But I’ve also mentioned before the community turkey dinner Sharon and I attended a few years ago.  On the other side of me sat a woman I’d never met before.  After introducing ourselves, she asked, quite seriously, without ridicule, “Do you think you know God better than I do?”  No was my answer.  How hard it is to judge someone else’s relationship with the Lord, not to mention a complete stranger!

Alison read that great, descriptive scene from Exodus 33 of how Moses had conversation with the LORD.  This is just after Moses came down the mountain with the ten commandments, saw the uproar of everyone worshipping a golden statue, and threw down and smashed the stone tablets.  The people are rebuked by Moses, and the word of the Lord to them is that God will no longer go with them!  

Then we hear about how humble Moses would meet with God.  He went out to a special place, and spoke with God ‘face to face,’ as a with friend.  He seems to be the only one doing this, and yet, in the purpose of time, all believers are to have this kind of relationship with the holy God.  

Personal Divine communication not for special spiritual people; it is for all disciples of the Master. Years ago, Dallas Willard wrote an article for Christianity Today, asking: is Discipleship “for Super-Christians Only?”  No, of course not.  Today we ask, “Is Hearing from God for Super-Christians only?”  Again, the answer is No.  

In the biblical story of God’s people, the relationships deepen and grow.  Remember the beautiful promise in Jeremiah 31:34?  No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the Lord," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

In the time of the Messiah, we hear Him, Jesus, say to his disciples,  “I have called you friends.”

In our lives of faith, we can be growing in our relationship and communication with the Holy Spirit year by year.  New ways, new language, deeper fellowship is possible.  

I am learning to use a cell phone right now, with my own mobile number…  So too I can learn that hearing from God is also for me.  Also for you. And we keep learning how.

Look again at that scene from Acts 16.  The Apostles, those first missionaries of Jesus, received guidance for travel and ministry from the Holy Spirit.  We read that Paul and Timothy set out traveling.  They were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia.  How did the Spirit forbid them?  Next they attempted to enter an area called Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them.  Again, we may wonder how the men got this divine message.  When they got into the city of Troas, Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” This convinced the missionaries that God wanted them to go there.  Here we see the method - a dream - but wonder, perhaps at our own dreams: when is one from God, and when is a dream from indigestion?  From imagination?  

I’m confident that Paul and the others had clearly learned to know the Master’s voice, the leading of the Spirit.  In places like 1 Corinthians 12 we can read about the ability to distinguish between spirits, to discern what is of God and what is not.  This is an important spiritual gift to cultivate and receive from God.

Let me remind you of this Good News:  It is a reasonable expectation to hear from the Lord, and to develop a conversational relationship with God.  

Salvation is about a personal relationship with God, because of Jesus Christ, with Jesus Christ.  It is more than relying upon Jesus and His sacrifice by death to deal with our personal sin and mortality.  Salvation is a relationship with God, now, and forever.  It is a personal connection here with the Spirit of Jesus, to use Luke’s phrase.  Or, as John tells us, Christ promised His disciples, before He died, that the Spirit would be with them.  The Holy Spirit… will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.  (14:26)

We must celebrate the everyday ways we know God speaks.  We can cultivate and learn holy conversation more and more.  It is not more far-fetched than other listening skills we naturally develop.  Not as strange as a UFO.

Brian Brown tells the story of being at the community pool with his family. Kids were screaming, playing, and splashing in the pool, music was playing, the lifeguard whistles were blowing and in the midst of the conversation, his wife shooshes him. He said, "What are you doing?"

"Shoosh, did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" he said.

"Listen!"

And over all of the noise, she had heard their youngest daughter screaming. As she listened to it, she then said, "OK, everything's alright. That's a happy scream."

He said he was blown away that, over all of the other voices, she not only recognized her child's voice but was able to identify what type of scream it was. Why? Because every day she talked with them and in the process learned the sound of their voices.

Maybe that's what it takes for us to understand His voice, that everyday communication and spending time saying to God, "Speak to me."

A parent learning the subtle sounds of her particular child is wonderful, amazing, and natural as can be.  The Spirit will give us super-natural skills to hear and know Himself.

We sang Rev. George Croly’s hymn, Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart.  This song prays, in such a personal way, for simple, clear fellowship with the Lord.

I ask no dream, no prophet ecstasies;

No sudden rending of the veil of clay;

No angel visitant, no op’ning skies;

But take the dimness of my soul away. (1854)

It is the taking away of the dimness of our souls that we ask for from the Heavenly Father.  Let us not seek messages from God in dreams and visions, with the visit of a celestial angel, the opening of the heavens.  These things happen: unusually.  But let us seek and learn the simplicity of the Shepherd’s voice, daily, as sheep who can learn this.  

God is not silent.  The ways of speaking and hearing are not purely physical - sound waves on the eardrum or things we can see with our eyes - but if God is personal, there is personal communication.  Two-way communication!

A twelve year old boy became a Christian during revival meetings. The next week at school his friends questioned him about the experience. "Did you see a vision?" asked one friend. "Did you hear God speak?" asked another. The youngster answered “no.” "Well, how did you know you were saved?" they asked. The boy searched for an answer and finally he said, "It’s like when you catch a fish, you can't see the fish, or hear the fish; you just feel him tugging on your line. I just felt God tugging on my heart."

As I said, last week, I went fishing in August. That’s almost as amazing for me as finally getting a cell phone.  I felt the mackerel tugging, and reeled it in.  

This fall, let’s seek our God to become more confident in how the Lord tugs at our hearts, and minds, and bodies.  How we can listen and hear God.  It is not as strange as seeing and believing in a UFO.  And, If I can learn to fish, if I can learn to use a cell phone, I can learn to hear God more.  And so can you.  Next Sunday we’ll check in on How God Speaks Today.

And maybe soon we be singing Chris Tomlin’s hymn, In the Secret...

I want to know You,

I want to hear Your voice

I want to know You more.

I want to touch You,

I want to see Your face

I want to know You more.