Ephesians 1:15-23        How Do We Apply What God Speaks to Us?              Oct 14, 2007

As a golfer approached the first tee, a hazardous hole with a green surrounded by water, he debated if he should use his new golf ball. Deciding that the hole was too treacherous, he pulled out an old ball and placed it on the tee. Just then he heard a voice from above say loudly: "Use the new ball!" Frightened, he replaced the old ball with the new one and approached the tee.  Now the voice from above spoke: "Take a practice swing!"  With this, the golfer stepped backward and took a swing.  Feeling more confident, he approached the tee when the voice again rang out:  "Use the old ball!"

      We have all heard jokes about God speaking to people in funny ways.  Yet over the past weeks, we have discovered that God does still speak today.  God speaks to us through His Holy Spirit, by the Bible, in prayer, and through our circumstances.  Today I want to do two things with you.  I want to see how God speaks through other people and especially through His Church.  And I want to see how we can apply and respond to all we have learned over the past six weeks.

      First, let’s look at one last means by which God speaks.  God speaks through His people, through the Body of Christ which is the Church.  We must remember always that the Church is not a building or a steeple, but the Church is the people of God.  And the Church is the living Body of Christ in the world today.  Paul writes in Ephesians 1:23 that the “Church is the body of Christ.  The Church is the fullness of Christ who fills all.”  This is strong and mystical language.  Do we think of the Church is this exalted manner?  The very word for Church in the Greek New Testament means simply “the gathered ones.”  The Church, God’s gathered ones, is God’s plan for uniting people together and reconciling the world.  As people commit themselves to one another, God speaks through the Church for the benefit of every member.  God speaks to us through our Sunday Schools, Bible studies, hymns, our prayers, and our liturgy, through the many traditions that have blessed believers for hundreds of years.  Sadly, when people are separated from one another and from the Church, we will not hear all that God has to say to us.    

     Why is this so?  Why can I not just read my Bible and pray at home alone?  Will God not speak there?  Yes, God does speak there.  But God has made us for relationships.  It is not good for us to be alone.  And the Bible is filled with accounts of how God used people to convey His message to other people.  In the book of Acts, Cornelius, a Roman soldier, was in prayer when an angel appeared and told him to go find a man named Peter who would tell him about God.  Let me ask you…Why did the angel not just tell the Cornelius about God?  Because uses people to share the good news.  Cornelius needed to meet Peter and become involved in the Church.  And if you know the story, Peter needed Cornelius to help him overcome his racial prejudice against Romans.  God spoke to both of these men through each other.  

     It is crucial for everyone who wants to hear the voice of God in their lives to be part of a church body.  God has a place and plan for you in the Body of Christ.  Paul says in I Cor 12:18 that “God has placed the parts, each one of them, in the body just as He wanted.”  Did you know that?  God wants to place you as a part in the body of Christ.  There is a work for you to do.  There is a Word from God for you to hear.  There is a place for you in the mighty work of God to change the world.    

      So we have learned that God speaks today in many ways.  In the Bible, in prayer, in our daily circumstances, and through other people in the church.  In all ways, God moves by His Holy Spirit.  How are we then to respond and live this out?  If God is speaking to us, what are we to do?

       The first task before us in hearing God is to develop our friendship with God.  The Bible is all about God in connection with people.  God is King.  We are His servants.  God is leader.  We are followers.  God is savior.  We are a freed people.  God is friend.  We are God’s friend.  How important is such a friendship with God?  Well, friendship is like good health; you don't realize what a gift it is until you lose it.  

       The second task before us is better to understand God’s ways.  Isaiah 55 says, “My ways are not your ways.”  This is a cop out for many Christians.  They say that we cannot understand God, so they give up.  But Isaiah 1:18-20 says, “Come let us reason together, says the LORD.”  God says that we can understand.  It is true that God’s ways are not like our ways.  Our ways are sinful and selfish.  God’s ways are loving and giving.  God’s way is finally the way of the cross.  When Jesus first told his disciples that he would suffer and go to the cross, Peter said, “No, Lord, this will not happen to you.”  You see, Peter’s idea of the Messiah was about conquering the Romans, taking back the land, and being a winner.  Jesus’ idea of the Messiah involved loving the enemy, giving himself away, and going the way of the cross.  So Jesus said to Peter, “Get away from me Satan.  You do not understand the ways of God but only the ways of men.”  Let me ask you—How much do you understand the ways of God for your life?  I will tell you that the more you understand the ways of God, then you will know that it is a path of sacrifice, hardship, and giving away.  It is the path where we find our real life only because we have lost our old lives.  The way of God is the way of the cross.    

When we realize God’s way as a call to take up our cross and follow Jesus, then finally, we will develop habitual obedience.  We have said this from week one.  Hearing God speak to us is not for the merely curious, the skeptic wanting to prove God, the thrill seeker wanting a new spiritual high.  The voice of God calls us to obedience.  Habitual obedience. The voice of God calls us to the way of the cross.  German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “When Christ calls a person, he bids him come and die.”  Bonhoeffer knew of what he spoke.  He spoke out against the Nazis for the truth of Jesus Christ and he was hanged in 1944. 

    Is God still speaking to men and women today?  Oh yes.  Ezekiel 22:³⁰ says, “I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap….”  You see, God is searching and God is speaking to find men and women who will build up His Kingdom, who will stand in the gap, in the hard places of the battle, who will take up the cross.  God is seeking a friendship with those men and women.  God will show His ways to those men and women.  God will lead them into a long and deep obedience.  To truly hear the voice of God is not an easy thing.  Because God’s voice is one that calls us beyond who we are today to become more than we have imagined.  God’s voice is one that calls us to great tasks that we cannot do on our own.  It has always been so for those who would hear the voice of God.  It will always be so.  Are we ready to listen?  Amen.