Discerning God’s Heart

If the goal of prayer is to delight in God’s presence and develop deeper communion with Him, few of us want to settle for a one-sided relationship. At some point in our prayer journey, we’ll want to actually hear from Him. This is what Scripture calls discernment. And while prayer is about delighting in our personal relationship with God by sharing our hearts with Him, it’s also about learning His heart for us and for those around us.

When we pray to discern God’s heart, we’re asking to know God’s will. But we’re also asking that God would form and shape us into the kinds of people who are actually capable of accomplishing it. This means discerning God’s heart is less about finding the right path when faced with a decision and more about tuning our hearts and desires to God’s heart and desires. This is partly what Jesus means when He tells His disciples to pray, “Your Kingdom come Your will be done…” (Matt. 6:10). Discerning God’s heart is about surrendering our will to God’s. We want His will, not ours, to be done in our lives, in the lives of those around us, and in our world. Praying this way is about alignment. We want to bend our desires to God’s desires. And not just for ourselves.

We want to develop the heart God has for those around us as well. We want to hear from God, we want to respond to His voice, and we want to become people who carry out His will.

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 I’m on my own.   No one looks out for me or protects me. I experience a continual sense of need. Nothing’s quite right. I’m always restless. I’m easily frustrated and often disappointed. It’s a jungle, and I feel overwhelmed. It’s a desert, and I’m thirsty. My soul feels broken, twisted and stuck.  I can’t fix myself.

I stumbled down   some dark paths still. I insist. I want to do what I want, when I want, how I want, but life’s confusing. Why don’t things ever really work out? I’m haunted by emptiness and futility,  shadows of death. These are the opening words of David Palin’s anti Psalm 23, and let’s be honest, it’s how many of us live today, even if we don’t say it out loud.

This is the quiet despair beneath all of our busyness and the ache behind our dune scroll. We live often overwhelmed, broken. And haunted by emptiness, and here’s what makes all of this even harder. The world we live in today doesn’t help us find peace. It actually trains us to avoid it. Things like prayer feel difficult, even impossible because our modern age does not feel like green pastures and quiet waters.

It’s more like dark casinos with loud slot machines. We’ve mentioned this back in January, but like a casino, our secular age is built without windows. There’s no glimpse of anything beyond the now, and there’s certainly no view of anything transcendent. Instead, our world is designed to drown out the voice of God through noise and stimulation, and the whole time it lies to you and it lies to me.

Whispering. Your luck and good fortune is just around the corner. You just need to believe in yourself and start manifesting, and so you go back to the slot machine over and over all while your soul slowly withers away. Good morning everyone. Welcome to church and Happy Mother’s Day. There are many practices from the way of Jesus that I believe are designed to help us escape this anti Psalm 23 world, but chief among them is prayer.

We’re in the middle of a church-wide practice of prayer, and we believe in faith that this practice will deeply form us for decades to come. To mention what we said a lot last year, we believe in moments and marathons. We believe this month will be filled with moments that will change the trajectory of.

Our prayer life. And so last week we explored the first movement of prayer and it was delighting in God’s presence. And I hope that you practice that this week. If not, that’s totally fine. And that’s exactly how David opens his prayer. Look again at verse one, the Lord is my shepherd. I have what I need.

He lets me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He renews my life. He leads me along the right paths for his name’s sake. Notice the, the compilation here of both delighting in God and enjoying his presence. But notice verse four starts a shift. I wonder if you can see it. Verse four then says, even when I go through the darkest valley, I fear no danger for you.

Are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows only goodness and faithful love pursue me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord as long as I live. Did you catch the shift?

What David does here is he moves from talking about God to talking with God from consolation to conversation, and this is the step we want to take today. This is a scary step. But it is a necessary step to become a person of prayer in the beginning, and this is totally fine, and we don’t believe it just takes one week to progress to the next stage.

But in the beginning, our prayers are mostly one sided. We feel really good and productive. If we spend even five minutes just talking at God for a long time. Again, five minutes feels long, especially when we’re beginning to pray. Then we think, great. I’m getting good at prayer, and that’s wonderful. But just like any deep relationship, as prayer matures, we move from consolation to conversation or to put it more directly from talking to listening, and that’s what we hope to talk about today.

But lots of questions come up. Whose voices are we listening to? How do we know it’s the right one? And do we even need to hear God if he already has everything in his word? Turn with me now to John chapter 10, as you’re returning there. It’s, uh, John chapter 10. Uh, remember Psalm 23 may be familiar to most of us, but it was foundational for the people Jesus was speaking to in John chapter 10.

They likely had Psalm 23 memorized, but not only that, they likely had the chapters before and the chapters after memorized as well. But chief among them was Psalm 23, and in that deep tradition, Jesus, here in John chapter 10, makes a really bold and personal claim. Let’s read it starting in verse two. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.

The gatekeeper opens it for him and the sheep. Hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought all his own outside, he goes ahead of them. Notice that that’s very important. We’ll look at that again later. He goes ahead of them. The sheep follow him because they know his voice and they will never follow a stranger.

Instead, they’ll run away from him because they don’t know the voices of strangers, first of all, know what Jesus says here, makes this crowd very angry. After his teaching is done in verse 20, some of them even say quote, he has a demon. He’s literally crazy. Why would anyone listen to him? Now the question, of course, as we read this, this sounds beautiful.

Why would they react with such anger? Jesus was being very specific with his language. What Jesus was doing here to a crowd who knew Psalm 23, was claiming that Psalm 23 was about him, where you can go back to Psalm 23 and actually read it. The Lord Jesus is my shepherd. I have what I need. So this is the type of claim he makes, and this is the type of claim you and I believe as Christians, but also in the modern day.

John 10 here actually makes some Christians mad or at least uncomfortable because it seems as if there is a interpretation that Jesus claims to speak to us today. Anybody remember that? That old hymn, he walks with me and he talks with me. He tells me I am his own. We should sing that right or anyways, in that way too.

Um. Now my question of course initially is why would anyone have a problem with this? This sounds pretty incredible. The problem is some people interpret this passage that we just read as actually only being about salvation. Meaning we only read John 10 as a passage about how to get into heaven. And so there is a time in your life, Lord willing, where you hear the voice of the shepherd.

He calls you to become his own. And you say Yes, you walk forward, you pray the prayer, however that looks like, and now you are a child of God and true, amazing. But we believe the gospel is about the kingdom, and it’s not just how you get in, it’s how you also live after. And so we believe the good news of Jesus is not just about getting us into heaven.

It’s a very poor way to read your Bible. It’s also about getting heaven into us. And so it’s the beginning of a lifelong obedience to the voice of the shepherd. Another words, we don’t just hear his voice to enter in. We hear his voice day to day. How do we hear his voice day to day? Well, primarily God speaks to   us through the Bible but he may also guide us through promptings of the Holy Spirit, the wise counsel of godly community, shifts in our desires that align with his will and providential circumstances that are too significant to ignore.

  All of these are how we best discern God’s voice. And it happens when we listen to him in prayer. And so when we talk about prayer, it’s not just this one-sided conversation. When we pray, we are not talking to the heir or to a distant disinterested God.

No, we are talking to God the father. Remember this last week, we are talking to God the Father who loves us, and in prayer we are listening to Jesus the shepherd who leads us. So. How can we know it’s the shepherd’s voice? Well, in John 10, Jesus says, the sheep will know his voice. My question, of course, is how the scriptures also warn.

We use scripture to interpret scripture. The scriptures warn not every voice is trustworthy. In fact, the enemy disguises himself as an angel of light. So there is a way where we think it’s the voice of God, but it’s actually the world, the flesh or the devil. So this is where a lot of us just give up. I don’t even, I’m not even gonna try to understand the voice of God because what if I screw it up?

I totally get that. I have a story towards the end of this message that I agree with that it’s a really scary thing. But Pete, Greg, great book on prayer. He’s a author, pastor, founder of the 24 7 Prayer Movement. He gives what I would call the ABCs of discerning the shepherd’s voice. And I think it could be really helpful for us in trying to figure out is God speaking to us today or not?

So according to him, and I agree, first we must, if we’re hearing a voice from God, we must first discern if it’s really him or not. If it’s affirming. The enemy’s favorite weapon is condemnation, but the spirit uses conviction and it’s so important to see the difference. Here’s the thing, if you believe God may be speaking to you in prayer, listen, God doesn’t just point you to a problem.

God also points you to a solution. The enemy loves to just point out the problem and keep making you feel bad about it. Also, God, when he speaks to us, he doesn’t just confront us of our guilt, although I believe He does that so that we turn, but he also comforts us with His grace. This is how the voice of God always works.

He is affirming To quote Saint Ignatius of Loyola, he says the following quote,   it is characteristic of the evil spirit to harass with anxiety, to afflict with sadness, to raise obstacles backed by licious reasonings that disturb the soul, whereas it is characteristics of the good spirit to give courage and strength.

Constellations, tears, inspirations, and peace.  Saint Ignatius, by the way, it’s really helpful. He spent a lot of his time trying to figure out how do you discern the voice of God? That’s a really good summary of most of his teachings. However, if you’re a good thinker, you’re thinking, but what if it feels good even though it’s wrong?

Anybody else worried about that? That’s why it’s the ABCs, not the A. Okay, so we can easily assume it’s very easy ’cause we’re so, it’s just so easy for us to get caught up in lies. It’s easy for us to assume certain sins and lifestyles. If it feels good, then I need to keep going with it. But that’s why affirming is just one step.

We must also make sure it’s biblical. Hear me? The shepherd’s voice never contradicts the library of scripture. So our desires, even like our sincere ones, can deceive us. The world, the flesh, the devil. They convince us all the time that sin is good, beautiful, and true. It’s why we have the word of God. It’s why we have community, all sorts of things.

It’s why church I think is a beautiful answer to so many of these problems. But hear me. If the scripture say it is wrong, there’s no other way around it. And that’s what it means that Jesus is Lord. To follow Jesus is to trust that his ways are higher than our ways. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and so I’ve even experienced this in my own life.

If it’s biblical and you want something, it feels affirming, but the Bible says no. You begin to train your heart. You say no to it, and you will see by the grace of God, God will begin to change those desires within to align to his will. So if you’re trying to figure out, is God’s voice speaking to me about a certain situation or a certain topic, first of all, is it affirming?

If it is, that’s a good step. But the next step needs to be is that biblical and Pete, Greg mentions the last step needs to answer the question, is this Christ-like? In other words, does what I am hearing match the character of Christ? Can you, and by the way, you need to read the Bible in order to answer this question, but can you imagine Jesus saying this, whatever this thing is he’s saying to you based on what you know of him in the gospels and the writings of scripture, and I don’t think you can answer that right away.

Take some time to process. But when thinking about the character of Jesus, notice the imagery Jesus uses in John chapter 10. Jesus leads us as a shepherd, not a sheep dog. I love that line here in John 10 that he goes ahead of them and he calls them to follow. What does a sheep dog do? They’re great sheep dogs leave from behind.

They bark. They bite, and they intimidate to get their way. Sadly, it’s how many religious leaders try to lead people. And I think it’s antithetic antithetical to the way of Jesus. But what does a shepherd do? A shepherd leads from the front and he speaks, he guides and he invites totally different mode of communication.

And this matters because our theology and understanding of God shapes everything else about us. If you’ll remember last week, we addressed, God is our Father, not a traffic cop. If we view God as a traffic cop, it’s very awkward conversations. You just wanna hurry and get through it, prove your papers that you’re innocent and move on.

But if he is your father, you just wanna spend time with him. That was our point last week, this week. Jesus is a good shepherd. He’s not a sheep dog. He’s not barking at you. He is gentle and kind. And so since Jesus is a shepherd, not a sheep dog, he whispers far more than he yells. We actually, I, I can back this up.

I think you see this form of communication throughout the Bible. I love that they’re actually learning First Samuel this morning, because Samuel, he keeps going to Eli. Anybody know this story in the middle of the night? ’cause he thinks Eli’s calling to him and he keeps getting up, saying what? And Eli’s like, I’m not saying your name.

Go back to sleep. I’m sick of this. And he keeps saying, what, what, what? And finally, Eli realizes this is the voice of God. Go back and listen. It’s in the form of a whisper. Jesus, after he resurrects, he’s so gentle and unassuming, what is one of the first things he does? He goes with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, and he is so quiet, so gentle that the disciples almost missed him.

One of the greatest examples of God’s whisper is the story of Elijah. The climax we have of that in is in one Kings 19. So we’re in a lot of scripture today. Hope you don’t mind that. I certainly don’t. Verse 11, chapter 19. This is a famous scene and here is the following. He says, then he said, go out and stand on the mountain in the Lord’s presence.

And at that moment, the Lord passed by a great, a mighty wind was tearing at the mountains and was shattering cliffs before the Lord. But the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.

This is how we assume God speaks these crazy huge moments that are hard to deny. But notice and after the fire there was a voice, a soft whisper. Other, I think the King James says, the still small voice of God. This is actually how God speaks through the whisper. So. If he only talk, mainly talks, excuse me, through the whisper, how do you and I detect in prayer the still small voice of God?

I want us to stay in one Kings because I want us to look at the story of Elijah to get some clues. Elijah’s journey here is a masterclass and listening to God and what we’re gonna do quickly, and I admit that’s very quickly, I hope that you read one King 17 through 19 this week. In fact, in your prayer guide for your Your family prayer guide, you’re gonna be reading the story of Elijah with your family.

But I want us again just to kind of look at some highlights for us to discern how does God speak to us today? First of all, this is another set of ABCs, okay? First of all, we must listen for God’s whispers to be ambiguous. They’re very often ambiguous. Let’s look at verse two, then. The word of the Lord came to him.

Leave here and turn eastward and hide at the Wadi Cher, where it enters the Jordan. You are to drink from the wadi. I have commanded the ravens to provide for you there. Now, here’s some context. Israel, at this time, he’s being ruled by a corrupt king named Ahab, who had a terrible wife named Jezebel. And I know the worst thing to do on Mother’s Day is to preach on Jezebel.

So I’m stopping right there. I wanna have a good afternoon. But Ahab acts wickedly, and the people follow him. He’s one of the worst kings. He institutes idolatry. So Elijah’s job as a prophet is to come in and declare their wrongdoings and to bring them back to God. And so finally, God speaks to Elijah and it’s probably gonna be something cool, right?

Like, Hey, go Smite Ahab, you know? Something neat. No. He says, Hey, go away from everybody. Become a hermit and go to the wilderness and we’re gonna feed you by way of ravens. This seems entirely ineffective. How does the prophet, who’s supposed to call out the sins of Israel, how is going away from them and being fed by ravens any effective at all?

The important part so far in the story is that Elijah listened and obeyed. Here’s what’s really huge in the Christian life and in prayer. Listen, we don’t understand. In order to obey, we obey in order to understand. So Elijah doesn’t go, I don’t like the plan, God. Uh, let me tell you about this guy named Ahab.

No, he just says, okay, and he goes to the wilderness. John Ortberg, he notes the following about Abraham, but also can be said about Elijah and also can be said of you and me. He says, quote,   God was deliberately, repeatedly ambiguous with Abraham.  Meaning not always clear. It didn’t always make sense. It didn’t, he didn’t connect the dots for him. 

Why? Because God was aiming at something far more glorious for Abraham than just someone who could follow rules. God wanted a friend.  So notice the, the friendship language. God in a whisper, the fatherly shepherd like voice is telling you just enough. He doesn’t tell you everything. It’s not always clear ’cause he wants you to abide in him.

And stay with him in prayer, which leads to the second point. So we must listen for it to be ambiguous, but also listen for God’s whispers to be brief. I know in my life I expect God when he speaks, I have the whole book to write down. It’s usually not even a sentence long what God is saying. Next. Look at one Kings 18 verse one After a long time, which by the way, the rest of 17 is really cool.

Uh, he, uh, uses a widow to, to also help restore him. And then he actually raises the widow’s son, uh, to new life. Uh, resurrects him. But now chapter 18, verse one. After a long time, the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year. So at the beginning of chapter 17 to now three years, he’s kind of in the wilderness away from the people of God.

And now he speaks again. Go and present yourself to Ahab. I will send rain on the surface of the land, but that’s it. So three years. He’s the one who prophesied. There’ll be no rain. Now it’s time to go to King ha Ahab. And guess who really hates Elijah King Ahab. Guess who has a lot of power to do something to Elijah King Ahab.

And he just says, you know the guy who hates you? Go to him. No further explanation, no plot line. No. Like, don’t worry, I’ll protect you. It’s just go. And what does Elijah do? He listens and obeys Listen, I have found the whisper of God to be like, headlights in the ninth. We wish we can see the whole journey, but he gives us just enough to keep going.

This is how the voice of God works, works here in the scriptures and works here today. So what happens next? Lastly, his voice, his whispers often ambiguous. It’s often brief, but it’s often costly when you actually listen and obey his whispers. It will cost you something. One Kings 19. Verse one and two.

Again, I recognize I’m leaving out some context. Please read the whole story this week. It’s absolutely beautiful. But verse one, Ahab told Jezebel everything that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah saying, may the Gods punish me and do so severely if I don’t make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.

Now, I do have to give some context for this to make sense just before this. It’s a huge moment in my life ’cause God used one Kings 18 to call me to ministry. But it’s this great moment where Elijah calls down fire from heaven on Mount Carmel and exposes the emptiness and foolishness of Baal and all of their prophets.

But now, so God like showed up Ahab and says, this is the true God, not the ones you’re worshiping. But now Elijah gets a death threat, and this death threat actually puts him into a tailspin of fear, anxiety, and depression. And this is what then leads. He runs away and then God meets him. How? Not in the fire, not in the earthquake, not in the wind, but in the still small voice and gives him exactly what he needs.

Listen, though, Elijah listened and obeyed to the whispers of God and he paid a heavy price for it. There is, let me be clear, we wanna do this, but there is a price to pay if you are willing to follow the whispers of God. We see it all throughout the Bible and all throughout church history. But please hear me, there is an even higher cost to pay if we don’t listen and if we don’t obey.

That’s right. And I wish somebody told me this a few years ago. A few years ago, I had no idea that God’s whisper would lead to my wilderness. I had no idea that God’s plan would lead to my pain, but it did. And again, I wish somebody warned me. Now I am so sorry. Some of you have heard versions of the story every once in a while.

Just bear with me. It’s a little bit of a different angle, so stay, you know, engaged, but. We are coming up actually on the four year anniversary, just this next month of God shaking up my world. In the summer of 2021, I went before our church and I asked for a one month sabbatical. Rookie move should have at least asked for six weeks, but that’s another story.

It’s fine. As I learned more about it, it wasn’t sabbatical, it was just a few weeks off. But anyways, we survived all things 2020, and I felt this, honestly, this whisper of God, which I was being very fascinated with, didn’t grow up thinking that way. I didn’t think I could hear God’s voice. So in 2020 grabbed a hold of my life.

I had a spiritual director, and I began to journey. What does it mean to actually listen to God’s prompting? So I did it. I said, okay, I think I need a sabbatical. This was July. Our church wasn’t necessarily doing well. It was kind of a risky move, but I was like, that’s fine. You guys will survive without me.

So I went a month and the very first morning of sabbatical, literally the very fir at 6:00 AM a mentor of mine calls me and offers me a job to pastor a large church in California. I’ll fast forward the story. It’s not that suspenseful, I’m here right now. But, uh, my initial reaction was No way. I thought maybe he heard about my sabbatical and I assured him it’s not because I hate my church.

I love it. I’m not doing this to run away. I just wanna be faithful. But then I started thinking, what a crazy coincidence on the first day of sabbatical, God maybe is calling me to go. So I say, okay, I will honor the Lord by praying and giving him space this month to see if it’s what we should do. And it was awkward because I was already gonna go to California that month.

So we actually went to that church incognito and got some details about the church. And so during that whole month, it honestly seemed like God was speaking to me through the scriptures. Every day through my normal reading plan, things would leap off the page and it looked like my name was on it, but I still didn’t wanna go.

And so I got these questionnaires from this wonderful church, by the way, and I just was like so brutally honest, like. I made sure they would never hire me. In fact, I was so honest you guys would fire me based off of these answers. I just didn’t want the job. So I was just super honest and this was fun.

And they’re like, you made the next round. I was like, what? Did you read my questionnaire? No. I kept making it over and over again and it got to the point in January of 2022 they flew out my wife and I to California to preach not at this church. ’cause they were still not so sure. So I preached at one of their church plants so that they can take their final examination and figure out if they want us or not.

Now I’m like totally talking with my spiritual director. We board the plane and I realize I just have a simple prayer. Don’t tell it to Jordan. I’m trying to like make this where if God’s speaking to me, I don’t want to have any other outside like influences. And all I said was speak God. Your servant is listening.

So I said that over and over we landed. Speak Lord for your servant is listening. So the first morning we woke up at the hotel and in my Bible reading plan, which was normal, I stumbled upon Matthew chapter 14 and verse 27 shook me. It felt like the Holy Spirit said, read this verse. It was highlighted. It says immediately Jesus spoke to them, have courage.

It is, I don’t be afraid. Now, how would you interpret that? I thought, great. Okay, God, it brought my defenses down. It began to shift my desires and I started to think through, I might have this job. It felt like it came down from heaven and I said, God, I am willing to obey. We came home a few weeks later, we announced to the church on a Sunday night and it was all sad.

Can you raise your hand if you were there? God bless your heart. Okay? They didn’t leave after this, which is crazy. Okay? So I was like, guys, I think God’s calling me. It’s not so sure I’m gonna go preach and view of a call next week, but I want you to hear about it first. So we cried together. It was really sad moment.

Fast forward again, we’re driving to California that Wednesday, ’cause we had to go to Disneyland first before I, come on guys. Let’s take advantage of this. So we go to Disneyland and all of a sudden things just start popping up. And I can say this now with full assurance. Nothing was bad on either side. I think just God’s will became really clear.

Um, but I kept hearing this whisper, have courage in his eye. Don’t be afraid. And I kept interpreting it like, I’m gonna get this job. It’s okay if there’s some worries, I’m gonna get this job. But then Saturday morning came around and we drove home from California with tears in our eyes. I was embarrassed.

I didn’t even get to preach at this church. I told my church that I was leaving ’em. So I came back the next Sunday on my 30th birthday and said, will you take me back? And Caleb said, maybe. And, um, yeah, boy. And so here’s what happened though. I decided that day I was in my bed all day long. My wife made me get up and go to church.

So shout out to moms. Uh, happy Mother’s Day. I found a way, uh, to make this a Mother’s Day message, but I decided I had no idea how to interpret the voice of God, and I will never try that again. It embarrassed me. It hurt my church. It set us back. There’s no way I’ll do that again. And on my worst days, especially that weekend, I echoed anti Psalm 23.

I said, I’m on my own. No one’s looking out for me, nobody’s protecting me. I experienced continuous sense of need. Nothing’s quite right. I’m always restless. I’m really frustrated and I’m super disappointed. But I kept talking to him, but I wasn’t willing to listen. At least that’s what I thought. Fast forward a couple months after self pity.

I’m super, super grateful to be at Passion Creek Church and we just said, Hey, no risk it, no biscuit. What’s the point? I already quit this church once. Let’s just see what happens. Let’s just try the craziest stuff and if it fails. Kind of already failed five months ago anyways. And so we get all of our money together, I see what’s on our bank account.

We empty everything to buy what you see now. We decided to go from a Sunday night church that’s at another church to meet here in the mornings. And we risked everything. We started to implement things like Party with the Pastors. Maybe you’ve heard that before. And Growth Track. We laid out this three year discipleship roadmap of the nine practices of Jesus so that we can zig where the world zags.

All the while me and Caleb saying, we probably have a year left, but that’s fine. Let’s keep going. And looking back now, God never stopped whispering to me and I was following his voice without even recognizing it. And by the grace of God, even just four months ago, I was in my reading plan. It’s on my, my own study Bible.

It’s circled, and I have the date of Matthew 14, that first time in 2021, and I put on the side, okay, God’s calling me to go to California. And I remember the next year when I saw it, I crossed it out. Saying, God, I, I, I misheard you. I’m so sorry. I’m so stupid. Four months ago, I see it again. I see the verse, I see my note, I see the cross out, and I don’t, I’m not adding anymore.

I mean, it’s a mess on this page of the Bible. So I’m just talking to God. There’s that is over, but I read it again. Have courage. It is I don’t be afraid. And those memories of California flooded my mind, imagination both the embarrassment and the shock. But now I had a new understanding. He was speaking to me all those years ago, and I did hear his voice.

I just never imagined that his whisper would lead to more pain, but it was for my good. See, I didn’t misunderstand his voice. I just misunderstood his plan and I judged it too quickly. And that’s the process of prayer. It is following the shepherd’s voice to places you would never go on your own and still taking each and every step because you know his voice.

Q, our working definition   prayer is the sacred practice of delighting in God’s presence, discerning God’s heart. Depending on God’s power and directing God’s hand,  discerning God’s heart requires the humility to keep following his voice. And so I want us to be a praying church who doesn’t just talk to God, but listens to God, but listening requires discernment.

So this week in your groups and on Saturday. We’re gonna be talking about all things discernment. Now, discernment involves mastery and mystery because it is both a practice and a gift. When the Bible literally uses the phrase discernment, it’s often written as a practice. It’s something to do. Hey, practice discernment.

You’ll see that over and over in the scriptures, but also it’s a gift. It’s saying, God gifts people with the gift of discernment, which is why we love the phrase mastery and mystery. Mastery means it’s something you and I work on. So it requires us leaning in to read the scripture, to ask for wisdom. It works if you work it.

We need to keep praying, but at the same time, it’s all a mystery. It’s something God gifts you with. We are hopeless and helpless if God’s God doesn’t intervene. My favorite example, I’m so sorry I went over time. I’m gonna make this quick, but my favorite example of this is to green’s metaphor of floating, not swimming.

Hear me praying. Discerning the heart of God is not like swimming. It is like floating. Here’s how he describes it. Quote,   the floater is not passive. One who is passive will sink, not float at the same time. The activity of the floater is quite unlike that of the swimmer. The swimmer is in control of his or her own direction and speed, whereas the floater responds to cooperates with the wind and the current, the floater’s activity is a dynamic receptivity.

God is the sea in which he or she floats.  I had to go through California so that I stopped swimming and I can learn how to float, and I called it not caring, but it really wasn’t that, but it’s ultimately, God. I don’t know where you’re taking me, but I’m sick and tired of being in control. This is what I want our church to experience.

You can’t control it, but if you do nothing, you won’t experience it either. It takes a lot of practice and I believe we can do it together in your, the lazy river in your Let’s go to the Lazy River. That’s amazing. That’s the application for the week. Let’s go to the Arizona Grand and chill out. Okay. No.

Dino, you’re great. Uh, so, uh, we have a base practice and a reach practice, which simply means base is, we think it’s attainable for everyone. Reach. If you feel like challenging yourself, base practice this week, it’s in your guides. If you didn’t pick one up, it’s also in the lobby. On your way out is the   prayer of examine.

 We’ll talk about this on the podcast and in your group, so I’ll be brief here, but it’s essentially, you take five to 15 minutes every single day at the end of your day to review your day with God. You take note of where God was present and where you missed him. You bring about your guilt or anything else that comes to the surface.

But the point is you learn to have hindsight. You learn to see where God was in your day, Tyler state, and he puts it best quote, as we learn to recognize God. In hindsight, the most amazing thing happens slowly but surely. We learn to recognize God in the present. See the desire here. Step one is to see what God was doing in your past, and that’s gonna take a while.

But if you keep doing the prayer of examine, you will begin to notice those interruptions and conversations and whispers in the hear and now. And that’s a really fun place to be. And that’s the reach practice. Reach Practice is   listening. Prayer.  Again, you’ll read more about it in your guide and talk about it in your groups.

This will be, and I’m so encouraged, our prayer room was pretty full yesterday. I want it to be more full this Saturday as well. This Saturday at 8:30 AM what we’re gonna do, we’re not gonna swim, we’re gonna float, not at the river. The location will be the library. But listen, we are going to make ourselves available to God so that he can speak to us.

But hear me, we believe in the spirit of God. So we believe on Saturday and in your groups this week and after this service, if the pastor ever shuts up, we believe that God can speak through you as well to everyone else around. This is what we would call. Prophecy. Pastor Caleb and I will talk about it this week on the podcast.

Listen, his voice is affirming, it’s biblical and it’s Christ-like, and his whispers are ambiguous, brief, and costly. And the question is, will you listen and obey? And let me tell you, it’s scary. Very recently, I was praying in this very room, desperately asking God, I had a moment of insecurity right before going to preach.

And I was asking for his anointing for him just to cover me. And it was a feeling of desperation. And at the end of the service, someone walked up to me and I won’t highlight them. That’s not the point of this story at all. They just said to me, Hey, I feel like I’m supposed to share this with you. I could be wrong, but I saw you praying earlier and I saw it felt, it seemed like an angel of fire hovering over you.

I’m not sure what to do with that. Hope you’re encouraged. And I was like, amazing, because that’s exactly what I was praying for. And this person had no idea. I’m only connecting those dots to tell you I want to not force those things ’cause that’s swimming. I want to float, but I wanna make this normal where we are listening to the spirit of God.

We are speaking into each other’s lives and we’re willing to be wrong. But what if we’re right? And what if God uses, of course, the scriptures more than anything. But what if he uses your voice through prayer to speak to others who are also seeking him in prayer? Let stand and respond.