A Prepared Atmosphere

Hello, and welcome to the Salt Church Podcast. Thank you for tuning in to this week's message. Join us as we explore God's Word providing practical teaching for day-to-day living. The message you are about to hear was recorded live at our Sunday morning worship experience. If you would like to learn more about Salt Church, please visit us at saltchurch.

org. We hope that you are encouraged by today's message. So we are in a series called Frequency, Cutting Through the Noise. And the idea of this series is Hearing God. And a lot of that is kind of what God was telling me.

You know, I was a little bit afraid to get up here on stage. Not afraid, but you know, with guests coming in and things like that. You don't want to be too abrupt. But I felt God was telling me, I need you to stand before the people and tell them I've got purpose for you. I've got something next for them to do.

And it's going to be awesome. But I only do this because I'm tuning in and hearing God. You need to tune in the frequency to hear God. And we've been talking about how to tune in and hear God. We are in week two of this series.

Next week, we're going to have a guest speaker that's going to share a little bit about what it means to hear God. And I think that's going to be an incredible thing as a local church planner in Richmond. His name is Josh. He's a good friend of mine. And he was going to share with us next week.

But this week, I just want us to focus on preparing an atmosphere. Last week, we talked about preparing our hearts. And we talked about a polluted heart, a distracted heart, and an immature heart is what we need to get rid of so we can tune in and hear God. And I want to hit a little further on distracted heart. I talked a little bit last week about what it means to have a distracted heart.

And then I shared some things about what we can do to prepare an atmosphere so that our hearts are not distracted. So, I'm going to dig into that a little bit more this week. And this is going to be very, very, very practical. How can we hear God? One of the number one questions we hear as pastors is, how do I hear from God?

I really want to hear from God. How do I hear from God? How do I hear his voice? Our theme verse for this is, my sheep hear my voice and know them, and they follow me. John 10, 27.

My sheep hear my voice. He didn't say it's an impression. He doesn't say it's some kind of cool vibe that we have. He says, you can actually hear my voice. And you've got different people with different opinions about how we hear God's voice.

You have people from different theological backgrounds. Some of my dear brothers in other theological arenas would argue that perhaps God doesn't speak audibly, but inaudibly and impressions and stuff. But I want to tell you today that God not only speaks inaudibly, but he does speak audibly. And you can hear him clearly if you tune in. And he says, they hear my voice.

I know them. And what do they do? They follow me when they hear my voice. So let's look over to 1 Samuel 3, 1. And we're going to talk about that today.

And I think this kind of sets. If you know who Samuel is, Samuel was the great prophet of the Old Testament. He anointed Saul. He anointed David. He was probably one of the most popular prophets of the Old Testament.

He was called by God at an early age. His mother Hannah had him out of the grace of God. She wasn't able to have children. And she prayed and prayed to have a child. And here is Samuel here in this scripture.

And it says this in chapter 3, verse 1. The boy Samuel ministered before the Lord under Eli. Eli was the priest he was serving under. And in those days, the word of the Lord was rare. Underline that, rare.

And there were not many visions. There were not many visions. It was rare. Now, when we think of rare as a definition, we usually think of it as in limited supply, right? But in this particular scripture, if we read the context of the scripture, he's talking about value.

The value we put on something. Therefore, people didn't hear God because they didn't value his voice. So today, I want to talk a little bit about valuing his voice. If we value his voice, how do we do that? If you want to hear from God, you're going to value his voice.

If you value something, what do you do? You make it a priority in your life, right? If you value your family, what do you do? You set aside everything to make sure your family flourishes. Your children, if you value your children, what do you do?

You look for the best districts to live in so that your children can flourish and be with friends and grow in knowledge and understanding of culture and all that. You decide where you're going to live. You decide where you're going to work if you value your family, right? If you value a hobby, you decide where you're going to live based on that hobby, right? You put money, you put more money than you're supposed to put on anything in a house in a little condo just to live next to the ocean if you're a waterman.

And you spend lots of money on trips that only last a week or two and they're gone, right? Because you value it very much. You put your money, you put your focus, you put your time. When you value something, you put priority to it. When you value golfing, what do you do?

You go and you buy a place in a golf course. It's going to cost you a lot of money, but you do that. You value the things that you put forth and put priority on the things that you value most. But how much do we value God? How much do we value God?

Do we want to hear from Him? How much do we value hearing His voice is the question. Do we want to hear from Him? And if so, do we value the time we set aside to be able to hear His voice? So here's some practical examples of how to do that.

So I want you to, you know, take notes and I want you to actually do this this week, okay? Take some time as you're in your prayer time, as you're fasting, or maybe you're not fasting. Maybe you're just praying right now. Maybe fasting isn't the next step for you. Whatever it is, I want you to take the next step and do this.

So first of all, I want you to set an appointment. Set an appointment with God. In your busy week, in everything that you've got going on, set an appointment. Set an appointment. Why do you want to set an appointment?

Because you set an appointment for everything else. You might as well set an appointment for God, amen? You meet with people. You don't even like. You set appointments for people like Mark, you know, just play brother.

But why would we not want to set an appointment with God? Let me show you in Scripture what that looks like. Exodus 19, 10 and 11, the Lord also said to Moses, go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow and let them wash their garments and let them be ready for the third day. And on the third day, see he's timed it, the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. And then down in verse 19 it says, and when the sound of the trumpets grew louder and louder, Moses spoke.

And what happened? God answered. God answered with thunder. In fact, the New King James Version says, God answered with his voice. Why do we need to set an appointment?

Well, God set an appointment. And let me say this, a missed appointment is a disappointment. A missed appointment is a disappointment. We set appointments all the time, but if we miss out on the most important appointment we can make, we're going to be disappointed. We need to clear our schedules.

In fact, how do I do that? Well, pull out your nice fancy eye watches. I sound old trying to even pronounce it here. I promise I'm only 41 years old, so I'm still in the Mac age, okay? Your eye watches and your iPads or your smartphones and you pull those things out and you set an appointment.

If you use a handwritten calendar, you set an appointment with God. You clear your schedule. And in fact, you can do it anywhere. It doesn't really matter if it's in the morning, if it's in the afternoon, it's in the evening. I heard about one pastor who actually had an appointment with God in McDonald's, six o'clock in the morning, every day.

In fact, he got customer of the month, okay? Because he was at McDonald's every morning. He took out his computer, he took out, put in his headset, put on some worship and just focused on God and had his quiet time, his time with the Lord. He set an appointment every day. So set an appointment, however that looks, set an appointment.

And number two, be still and worship. Be still and worship. So there's two parts of that. Be still. Be still.

Look at Psalm 46 and verse 10. It says, be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among nations. I will be exalted in the earth.

What do we think of when we think of being still? Still. Sleeping? Okay. Just being present, being settled, being there, being focused.

Our hearts need to be still. It's not just about a physical being still. It's about our hearts being still. We need to settle down. How many of you feel like at times you have weary hearts?

You can't focus on God if you have a weary heart. Look at Moses. Moses was leading the Israelites out of bondage from Egypt and were racing towards the Red Sea, right? Because they were running from the Egyptians who had delivered him or set him free, but they were coming back to put him back in bondage. And they were standing on the edge of the Red Sea.

And Moses said to the people in Exodus 14, do not be afraid. Be still. Oh, they're coming. Oh, what are we going to do? Oh, can you imagine what was going on in that crowd as everybody was trying to figure out what was going on?

Oh, no, the Egyptians are coming. They're going to kill us. They're going to enslave us. They're going to do things to us that we've never imagined. What do we do?

And Moses says, be still and see the salvation of the Lord. Some of us need settled hearts so that we can see the salvation of the Lord and which he will accomplish for you today. So do you have an anxious heart? Do you have a heart that's all over the place? Be still.

Be still. Be settled. Because before you can hear God, you've got to calm your heart. You've got to let your burdens go. You've got to be still.

You've got to be settled. You've got to know. You've got to release your burdens to him. You've got to be focused on him. He says, my yoke is easy and my burdens are light.

He says, cast my burden, cast your burdens on me. I will wear your burdens. You need to release your burdens by being still. In 2 Chronicles, I love the story of King Jehoshaphat. And he heard that he had vast armies coming at him from all sides as he was the king of Judah.

And he didn't know what to do. Now, what would you think a king would do as they heard that vast armies were coming? What would they do immediately? They'd start bringing in the most intelligent people in their armies and putting them together, strategizing. What are we going to do?

How are we going to protect the gates? What are we going to do in this situation? Instead, Jehoshaphat does something completely different. He proclaims a fast over the land. And they immediately gather together, fast, pray, and inquire of God.

Now, who in their earthly mind today would do that? Think about the wars that we have going on right now. You know, let's just stop and fast and pray. You know, let's just pray. Let's just pray.

Let's just seek God, see what he says to do. I mean, it just doesn't seem right. But this is what Jehoshaphat did. And he understood exactly what it meant to have a sovereign God over your kingdom. Do you have a sovereign God over your life is the question.

Do you allow God to be sovereign over your life? He inquired of God, but they first, get this, and they worshiped. They fast, and they worshiped, and they prayed. And some of you are like, well, you know, but, you know, I pray all the time, but do you ever start it off with praise? You pray, but do you praise?

Because you haven't released your work, you haven't released your burdens. You pray, look how he starts it off, and this isn't in your notes, but he says, you will rule over all kingdoms. Power and might are in your hands. He's worshiping God. He's lifting him up, and that's what they were proclaiming.

They were proclaiming God over their kingdom and over their land. They were releasing their burden. The kingdoms were coming against them, but they were not worried because God was in control, and they released their burdens to him, and here's how. God responded, 2 Chronicles 20, 17. You will not need to fight this battle.

Because here's what's going to happen, Israel, or Judah. Here's what's going to happen, Judah. Position yourself. Stand still. Stand still.

Let your hearts be settled. Stand there and see the salvation of the Lord who is with you. And as they gathered together to go out to face the enemy, what did they do? They opened up with music. They sent the lead worshipers before them as they went out.

And in the middle of the worship, what happened? The enemy began to turn on themselves and they killed themselves. Isn't that amazing? Like when in worship, it confuses the enemy. When you worship, you confuse the enemy and the enemy ends up destroying themselves.

We need to enter into his presence, prepare an atmosphere through being still and worshiping. How do I do that? Well, I put on a praise song. I usually put on, maybe you have a favorite praise song that you like to play. And I just listen to that and I just praise God and I just set my heart right.

So even before you go into Bible reading, we think of quiet time as Bible reading and prayer. We need to set time to be still and just worship God for a minute. Set your hearts right so that you can hear from God and so that he can hear your prayers. In fact, there's a story in the Old Testament about two priests that were killed because they burnt the incense outside the tabernacle rather than carrying the incense as the Lord commanded into the tabernacle. Incense represents prayers going up.

You see that in Revelation 8, 4, where the prayers of the saints go up in heaven, the burning incense. You see incense represented here in prayer. What happened? They burned the incense outside of the tabernacle. Before the presence of the Lord was actually in the room, they were praying.

And what happened? They ended up dying as a result. We need the presence of the Lord to be available to us to be able to hear the Lord. So we open up with worship. And then, and I missed this point in your notes, so you're going to have to kind of turn to the notes part on the back and write this down.

I discovered this about 10 o'clock last night. And I said, oh man, I left one point out. Somehow I did that. I'm sorry about that. But write this down.

Next, you pray and read. You pray and read. It was a very important point. Thank you, my lovely wife. It was a very good point that I left out.

I think Satan was trying to keep that point from getting in there. But I got it in there now. So write that down. Pray and read. In fact, it's exactly what, let's just talk about prayer for a minute.

Setting up in prayer. Mark 1 35, early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up. He left the house and went off to a solitary place and prayed. Our Lord prayed. He went off to a quiet place.

He prayed before he even went to his day in his ministry. The psalmist David said in 119, verse 147, I rise before dawn and cry for help. And I have put my hope in your word. Why do we pray before we go into the word? Because we're releasing it to him.

Let me, let me just tell you how to pray. Some of you asked, well, how do I pray? Here's how. I'm just going to tell you real quick. Whatever's on your heart.

Just tell them whatever's on your heart. Because you can't go to the word and begin to dig into the word if you don't have a heart that's ready to receive it. If you're filled with burdens, then you're just whining, right? You're whining to God and you're going into the word whining. Your head's not in the right place.

So release your burdens to God. If you have family issues, if you're worried about your family, pray for your family. If you're worried about your finances, pray for your finances. If you're worried about your health, pray for your health. Whatever your burden is, lay it down before the Lord.

Pray, pray, let release those things, release those burdens off of you. Because if you don't, you're not going to be able to hear from God because you're going to be focused on your issues. You've got to trust God before you go into His presence to receive a word from Him. How do I read the Bible then? Next, we read.

We read. How do we read the Bible? Where do I start? How do you read the Bible? Between the covers.

On the inside. Wherever. If you need a devotional, get a devotional. If you want a word study, get a word study. Whoever you are, wherever you are, wherever you are in your academic journey and studying the Bible, use something.

There's a lot of easy versions you can read. Maybe you are a student of the Scripture and you use kind of heavy word-for-word translations. But in your quiet time, maybe change it up and use the message paraphrase. I love the message paraphrase because it kind of makes things sound like us, you know, and you can kind of understand it a little more. Now, if you are going to deep study, yeah, you probably want a word-for-word like the NASV or ESV or something like that, you know, deep into it.

But for your quiet time, think about, you know, NIV, a thought-for-thought translation is the NIV. It's very, very popular. You can use a Bible living translation. It's a very popular thought-for-thought translation and the message. And just go into the Word of God.

Just go in there. And as you open up your heart, just read and let God minister to you. And then, fourthly, we listen and write. Now, I think this is probably the most practical thing that we need to do is listen and write. Listen.

First Chronicles 28, 19 says, all this, David said, I have in writing as a result of the Lord's hand on me, listening to the Lord. And he enabled me to understand all the details of my plan. Habakkuk 2, 2, then the Lord replied, write down the revelation and make it plain on paper or on tablets so that a herald may run with it. We need to listen to God and then take some time to write it down. Write down what you believe that God is telling you.

You don't know how good that does. I think this is probably the one of the most practical things about hearing from God. I still go back to notes that I wrote down from years ago just to look and see what God was telling me. And even today. What you'll notice as you go into that moment of just listening to God and writing down what you think He's saying after you've kind of looked at the Word and maybe He's pulling it off the pages, or maybe He's just telling you something at that moment, you know, that you need to hear.

Write it down. Even if you don't know if it's from God, write it down. Write it down and go back to it and meditate on it. You know what I do just very practically? I get some of that ambiance, like Christian version of ambiance music, you know, maybe some Bethel or some Leland or something like that, and they've got the worship in the background.

You just hear the synthesized pianos and all that stuff, and I just let that play, and I let that play, and I just stop, and I just get my focus off of everything, and I just listen to God. And what you'll notice is as you're listening to God, it will go from the third person to the first person. It will go from the third person to the first person because you'll start out like, God loves me. God is gracious to me. God, you know, God has all my needs.

He takes care of, He supplies all my needs according to His riches and glory. And it will switch from God to God speaking directly to you. I, I love you. I love you. I care for you.

I have all your needs taken care of according to my riches and glory. I am a healer. I can bring help to your situation. I am a comforter. I am a supplier.

And He will begin to speak to you more and more specifically as you write down. Now, maybe you're reading in Ephesians 5 and you're a husband or you're a wife and you see what God's telling you about it and that you should love, you know, conditionally. And maybe it grips your heart as you read this passage. You feel like, God, you know, maybe I'm not loving my wife unconditionally. And maybe I'm a bit critical.

See, that's how God speaks to us, you know. And you start treating them better because you see it in Scripture. You feel like God is just telling you maybe you should, you should affirm them a little bit more. Maybe you should love and appreciate them a little more. And I believe you're, you're, you're, you write down what you believe He's saying.

And then allow that to just take time to develop and move inside of you. But what's really important, kind of going back, we want, we value, what we value, we make time for. Going back to the beginning, if you value something, you make time for it. And it's amazing how much time you can spend in certain places. Like some of you can spend time in the mall for hours and hours and hours.

I can spend time in a surf shop for hours and hours and hours. But take me to a mall, I'm ready to get out of there in about 45 minutes. You know, it's like, let's get out of here, you know. It's amazing, you know, the things that we value the most and how much time we spend in those things. But I, I, we value what we give time to.

Let me just share a story I read in the book Frequency, which is based on this message. Bill Hybels is, or was the pastor of Willow Creek in Chicago, one of the largest churches in the United States. And he wrote a book called Whispers, How to Hear from God. And he talked about a man who came to him. I mean, he's a successful executive.

And said, Bill, you know, you talk about prayer all the time. And I don't, I don't really have time for that. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm a traveling executive. I got a lot of things going on. And, you know, how, why do you, how do you make time for that every day?

I mean, it just doesn't make sense. And Bill said, you know, I don't want to compare schedules. You know, everybody's busy. But I make time for what I value most. And, and my, I value hearing from God.

I value starting off my day and hearing, hearing God's voice. So, so the, so a few months later, the guy came back to Bill and his wife and says, hey, I want to have you over for dinner. And, and because I want to talk to you because I've started doing some of the things you, you've done and it's working. And, and so he went over and while they were there, he said, come on, I want to show you something. So he takes him to this room that overlooks the back porch and there's this rocking chair.

And he said, I like rocking chairs. And after talking to you, I've made this my spot, my place. And I, and I've, and it's working. I'm, I'm hearing from God. And I want to thank you that every morning for about 30 minutes, I get my coffee and, and I go out there to my rocking chair and I rock back and forth and I listen to God and I write down what God says.

Well, a few, a few years later, the guy comes up to him and says, you know, you know, you know, remember that rocking chair? Well, I was out there, I was, I was listening to God in that rocking chair and I believe that, that God wants me to leave my advertising business, the, the advertising executive position that I have and join your church and help you. And Bill's like, well, we're a really small church. We can't afford you right now. You know, things like that.

He says, I don't care. I've saved up enough money. I'm going to help you with this church. I'm going to, I'm going to do that. And I'm like, wow, hallelujah.

I'm praying that God would do that with us. You know, like, like, is there an executive in here somewhere where God's calling you just to, for, for no pay to help us out? And, and this guy helped, helped Willow Creek through some of the beginning stages, conquer some of those growth stages that, that was very hard to get through. Um, and he just devoted his time and his energy and he showed up. And this funny bill says, you know, you need to go back and pray because I don't want to be responsible for you.

Make sure that's God. He came back and he showed up at the office that morning, says, Hey, I'm ready to work. Where do I go? Um, but God spoke to this man. And then a few years later, the guy comes back to him and says, you know, um, I think God's calling me to go and help a pastor in Colorado, pastor friend of mine.

I'm going to go out there and get an advertising job and I'm going to help this pastor. He's going to plant a church out there and I'm going to support him financially and help his ministry out and get him through those times. So he said, are you sure? He says, yes. He says, okay, you need to do that.

You're hurt from God. Years later, he was sitting in that same rocking chair as cancer enveloped his body. And he was holding that note, that doctor's note. And he began to talk to God. He said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he said, well, he The days and weeks went by, and he ended up passing away, and Bill was called to do his funeral, and they asked about that rocking chair, he saw the rocking chair there, his rocking chair was still there, and he asked the family, what are y'all going to do with that rocking chair, and they said, we're keeping that in the family, we're going to keep that for our kids and our grandkids, because that's where my dad, my husband, my granddad, earth of God, earth of God.

God still speaks, and if you make a place, an appointment, a time, worship, be still, pray, see, read, create an atmosphere where you can hear God. You know why God wants to speak to you? Because he wants a relationship with you. He wants a relationship. He wants a friendship, and you can have a friendship with him today.

If you bow your heads, there are a few different times, types of people here today. Some of you are lovers of Jesus Christ and following him with everything that's in you. Some of you, you kind of walked away from God. Maybe you're trying to get back. Maybe you came here as an opportunity to find God once again and get back on the right track.

Maybe you don't know Jesus at all. Maybe you don't know Jesus at all. Maybe you're just trying to figure him out. Let me just say this for all of you, wherever you are, that God loves you, He cares for you, and He wants to have a relationship with you. With all heads bowed and all eyes closed, can you fall in any of those categories where you just, that there's second and third categories where you're coming back to God, or maybe you're finding God for the first time.

If that's you, I want you to be open and honest in a place where the Spirit is here. Some of you are like, I'm feeling so drawn to God right now, so drawn to Jesus. You know what that is? That's the Holy Spirit working on you. He's saying, come back to me.

Come to me. I want to have a relationship. I want to have a friendship. I want to be able to speak to you as someone speaks to their friend. That's you today.

I'm not going to embarrass you. I'm not going to make you come to the stage or anything like that, but if you would just, I just want to pray for you. If you just slip up your hand and just say, I'm ready to make a decision for Jesus. I'm ready to make a decision. I'm ready, Pastor.

I've walked away from Him. I'm ready to come back to Him. I'm all in. I've not been walking with Him at all. I didn't know Him, but I want to know Him.

If you pray this with me, Father, in the name of Jesus, I believe that You are the Son of God, that You died on the cross for my sin. Today, I make a decision. Today, I make a decision to walk with You. Come into my heart. Come into my life.

Change me from the inside. Make me a new being. Transform me to Your image, Lord. Today, I live my life.