“God Told Me!

Acts 8:26-40

I’m so very excited these days because we’re about to launch a new ministry that will help many people as the future unfolds. Our first church bus is on the way! It’ll be here in about 90 days!

I can see the bus being used for our kids, and for our Kindred Spirits. I can see it bringing women to Crafters who find it difficult to come now. I can see our new church bus picking up folks on Sunday morning, and bringing them to programs during the week. I’d really like to see us develop a drop-in kind of ministry where those who don’t get out much can come to the Christian Life Center once a week or so, and have a nice lunch and some good Christian fellowship. It’s important for people to get out and be with others. Those in our church who have difficulty getting around will be helped immensely through this new ministry.

So I’m excited about the possibilities!

But even more, I’m excited about how it all was made possible. You probably know that we’ve been working on this idea for a good while now. The vision was clear, but we weren’t quite sure how we were going to pay for that vision! Isn’t that the way it always is!? And we have many other pressing needs and ministries to support and develop. So the Church Council decided that we’d just let folks know about the dream, and see what happened from there. I wrote a little newsletter article…and the response was amazing!

A few handfuls of folks caught the vision of how people would be helped through this ministry, and they gave generously. There were some small gifts, some medium-sized gifts, and some pretty big gifts! All in all, we raised around $80,000! One of the donors wanted to give a gift in memory of her mother who recently passed away. She saw how such a ministry would have helped her mom while she was living. And so she gave. Someone else had watched as one of our church members struggled to maneuver their car into a parking space one Sunday morning. Afterwards, he struck up a conversation with the driver who told him that he’d just had cataract surgery and he wasn’t supposed to drive yet, but he hated to miss church. So our donor thought, “You know, I’ll bet a church bus will make this man, his family, his doctor – and all the other drivers - very happy people!” And so he gave.

In a sense, all of these generous givers are reflected in the story of one church member who gave a nice gift. She tells me she was home one night vacuuming the carpet and thinking about some family financial matters when the Lord spoke to her and said, “Church shuttle bus!” It was as clear and certain as that! So she gave her gift – just like the others did - because God told her to.

Now, not everyone was moved to give a gift. And that’s okay. God speaks to us all in different ways and for different things. But what I want to focus on today is that God does speak! God speaks to people even today!

You know, I recently read about a great big church that wanted to serve their community. So they hired a firm to do some market research. They identified the needs of people in their area, and all the necessary socio-economic data. Then they brought together some focus groups of community people, and used them to test out some ideas. A high-powered Madison Avenue advertising firm was hired to develop a public relations campaign, and they bought up large chunks of broadcast time aimed specifically at their target audience. Once all the preparation was done, they launched the big endeavor and opened their doors.

But very few people came!

Most everybody else in that town by that time was already going to the little Pentecostal church down the street! You see, months ago, and without anything other than a sense of calling, they had decided to just go ahead and reach out to others with Jesus’ love! When the pastor of the big church asked the uneducated, non-seminary trained, bi-vocational pastor of the Pentecostal church how in the world they knew what to do to reach all those people, the fellow simply said, “Why, God just TOLD us!”

Listen to Acts 8:26 and forward:

“Now an angel of the Lord SAID TO PHILIP, ‘Go south to the road – the desert road – that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.’ So Philip started out, and on his way, he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of the entire treasury of Candace, the queen of the Ethiopians. This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah the prophet. The Spirit TOLD PHILIP, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.’”

And you know the rest of the story – how the Ethiopian man came into the love of Jesus Christ and his entire life was changed through the ministry of Philip. And we might ask, “How, Philip, did you happen to be in the right place at the right time and accomplish all that?

And can’t you just hear Philip’s answer? “Well, God TOLD me…”

Those are three of the most important words in the Christian faith.

“God told me…”

I think it’s unfortunate that we tend to laugh a little bit at people today who believe such things. I remember when I heard the call to ministry and came home to tell my best friend Dennis Astrella and a few others about it. They laughed, and laughed, and laughed! It made absolutely no sense to think that God would call ME into the ministry. And I was just left to say, “Well, I know it’s true because…well, God TOLD me!”

“I’m going to become a missionary because God told me to…God told me to go and forgive my sister…God told me that the abused children in our county need a Child Advocacy Center…I was home vacuuming the carpet and the Lord told me to help buy the church bus!” We modern Christians sort of snicker at people who think they hear God telling them things. We don’t much believe that God really speaks to people like that.

But God does! Always has! Always will! In fact, the heart and soul of what it means to walk by faith is to listen for and then follow the voice that whispers to your heart.

Hebrews 11:1 says, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” In other words, faith is being so sure that God is leading you in a direction that you’re willing to go there even before you can see the rhyme, the reason, or the reality. You go simply because God told you!

“Philip, go south to the road – the desert road – that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.”

Now, if I were Philip, I’d probably not respond so quickly. I’m sure I’d ask some questions. “Why, Lord? WHY do you want me to cancel my Monday morning tee time and go to the Gaza strip?” I mean, wouldn’t you ask that question? And then maybe I’d ask, “Lord, do you have any idea how much an airline ticket to Israel costs? Where am I going to get the money for this? And besides, haven’t you heard the State Department warnings about travel to that part of the world?” Think about it for a minute…what about passports…and inoculations…and the fact you’re on the schedule to be an usher next week? What about the threat of SARS…and terrorism…the amount of insurance you’ll need to take out when you rent a car from Hertz to drive from Tel Aviv to the Gaza strip?”

That’s how many of us would do it. We’d make darn sure this thing made perfect sense to our little human minds, all the pertinent facts were considered, and – most of all – that we agreed with the idea. Then and only then would we be willing to strike out on such a great adventure. You see, the sad fact is that most of us don’t really give a hoot about the will of God unless it conforms exactly to the will of ME! Not until the vision passes muster with our own limited and sinful sensibilities are we willing to consider it the will of God.

But a person of faith – like Philip – understands that that’s living life backwards. If God has to prove to you and me in advance the wisdom of everything God calls us to do, then there is no such thing as faith.

“Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Long before you can see the result, you commit yourself to make the journey for one reason and one reason only:

Because God told you. And that’s faith!

One of the missed lessons in the Christian upbringing of many of us was the section on how to hear God’s voice. Maybe we missed Sunday School that week. Or maybe our Christian mentors weren’t comfortable teaching the subject. Whatever the reason, may I ask you today: do you listen to God? Have you learned to hear God’s voice? As we look to the future of our church, are we tuned in more to the Lord or to ourselves? As we face what we face in our individual lives, are we able to hear God speak?

Well, we can’t cover it all here today. Maybe Steve will develop a class in the weeks ahead on how to listen to God and discern God’s will. If he does, I hope we’ll ALL sign up! But for right now, let me share a couple of insights on learning to listen to God.

First of all, start reading and studying the Bible. In many respects, the Bible is the story of God’s journey with human beings. When your modern mind questions whether God really speaks to people, you’ll read stories about folks like Noah, Abram and Sara, Moses, Deborah, David, Ruth, Mary, Joseph, Peter, Philip…people who are famous to us for one reason and one reason only: God TOLD them to do some pretty awesome things…and they stepped out in faith and did them. You see, faith is built upon being able to discern the voice of God in your life!

The Bible also shows us how people sometimes get it wrong. There are stories in the Scripture where the people thought they were doing God’s will, but later on, it turned out not to be. You have to be careful when you read the Bible because in one section, someone might think they hear God telling them to purify the land by killing all the non-Jews – which they go ahead and do in God’s name - only to find out later in Christ that God made people to live together in peace – Jew and Gentile alike. So you’ve got to take in the whole story of how people just like you and me, struggle daily to hear God’s voice more clearly.

And reading the Bible helps you to get to know the character of God. God is always good. God is always on the side of people – especially the weak and the lost. God is always working toward healing, reconciliation, justice and unity. So if you’re feeling led to break off relationships, to give up on people, to put up walls between yourself and those you disagree with, to run away from folks who let you down, to judge others rather than love them…that’s probably not the voice of God speaking to you. You see, that’s not how God is. That’s not what God is like. But if you’re hearing a call to do something that will build-up someone else, that will make it more possible for a future reconciliation, that will bring friendship to a stranger, that will have a healing effect on broken people, that will help solve a problem, or that will benefit the larger community and strengthen the Kingdom of God…then it may well be God speaking to your heart.

The better you get to know God, the more able you’ll become at discerning God’s voice amidst all the background noise in your life.

A second way of becoming more able to hear God’s voice is by immersing yourself in prayer. People who have a commitment to regular prayer almost always discover over time a growing sensitivity to the heavenly whisper. You’ll remember how, in the final days of Jesus’ life, he more and more goes to prayer. And when the praying is over, Jesus has a clearer sense of the direction he needs to take as the Cross looms ahead. Prayer sensitizes our human spirit to the presence of the Holy Spirit. And when these two spirits touch…amazing things begin to happen!

And then one more quick thing - Christian friends. Be sure that you have in your life a few friends who you know are truly committed to Christ. You see, as you face the uncertainty of life, there is no shortage of people who are willing to give you an opinion of what you ought to do. But most of the opinion that comes into our lives is purely secular, self-serving, and generally non-Christian. Everybody needs someone they can trust to represent God’s will to them as they face life’s challenges. You may not agree with what your Christian friend has to say, but at least you’ll have the honest input of someone whose only interest is God’s glory and your good.

So immerse yourself in the Bible, give yourself to prayer, and surround yourself with devoted Christian friends. You will begin, over time, to more clearly hear God’s voice in your life.

And if you’re facing a situation right now where you really need to know what God wants you to do, let me offer you this:

If it calls you higher, if it will help other people, if it requires you to stretch your faith beyond where it is right now, and if it will give God a good name…you just may be hearing the voice of God.

How do you know for sure? Well, you don’t. You never will.

That’s why it takes faith to do what the Lord tells you.

One day, Saul the king of Israel was on a hilltop with all his military commanders. Out ahead were their enemies – the terrible Philistines. Saul and his generals wanted to know if it was God’s will to go and attack the Philistines and drive them out, so they plotted and planned, consulted and analyzed. They even brought in a priest wearing an ephod so they could get some spiritual guidance.

Meanwhile, Saul’s son Jonathan and his armor bearer were over on the next hilltop. Seeing the enemy of his people, Jonathan said, “I think God wants us to go get the Philistines!” The armor bearer, overwhelmed by the sight of the fearsome Philistines who greatly outnumbered them said, “But how do we know it’s the Lord’s will to engage them?”

Jonathan scratched his head, then cracked a crooked smile and said, “Well, I suppose if they kill us…we’ll know it wasn’t God’s will! But if we prevail…we’ll know it was! So let’s roll!”

And they did…because God TOLD them. You can read the rest of the story in First Samuel 14.

As you go out into your life this week, remember that “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things you can’t see yet.” Ask God to guide you this week.

And long before you can even see the result, commit yourself to making the journey for one reason and one reason only:

Because God told you.