St. James’
Anglican Church
Fresno, California
Fr. Carlos L.
Raines
[This is the third in a series about hearing God's voice]
Today we are continuing with our series “How do I hear the
Lord’s voice and obey?” We have shifted
to a new reality since we were forced off our property. It was as though, leaving the land, we also
left a whole way of doing the work of the Lord.
You seem for many, many years Bishop’s committees, Chapters and now
Vestries worked like this: we start with
an opening prayer usually prayed by the rector that said, “Our Father in
heaven, grant to us Your wisdom and insight and love as we endeavor to do Your
work for our parish. Come and be present
with us in all our decisions and help us to do your will.” Then we present issues, work our way through
an agenda, debate, decide, vote and finish.
At the end, we pray something like “Oh God, thank you for your guidance
and direction. Please bless all we have
done and grant to your servants success as we continue to serve you in Jesus’
Name, Amen.”
It’s as though Jesus was given a chair in the meeting off to
the side from which to observe passively as we decide the issues of the Church
and bring them to Him at the end to ask Him to bless it all. Yet we seldom if ever simply asked His
thoughts and desires anywhere else in the meeting no matter how difficult or
contentious the meeting seemed to become!
T.S. Eliot, in his poem Choruses from the Rock describes how the 20th
Century viewed Jesus by describing Him as “The Watcher, the Critic, the
Stranger….” So often, that’s the Jesus
of our decision making.
It has not been easy for me to make the transition. Old habits are hard to break. But we are learning to break them. We are learning the things I am about to talk
about. We are learning to pray and ask
Him things throughout the meeting as though He occupies a chair. I mean THE Chair!
But even if we ASK Him...how will we recognize how He
speaks? What does He sound like? What are His ways of communicating to
us? Remember last week the Treasure Hunt
I described where Fr. Noah Lawson had a bunch of students pray to discern who
God might want them to speak to about Jesus.
After silence and listening to God in their hearts, numerous details
came up that sent them out looking for an angry man in a red vest. But they had no clue where to start looking
until a timid voice in the back seat spoke up.
She said “When we were listening for God’s voice I kept seeing a
Starbucks, but I just figured that was because I wanted some coffee!” At the local Starbucks they found the angry
man in a red vest. As a result of their
ministry to him, he returned to the Faith...and a whole car full of saints
discovered how God can speak if they will but listen! Alone, each of those clues meant little. But each one was crucial for God to paint the
picture to direct His people for a moment of eternal Kingdom work. This is surely one way God speaks if we take
the time to listen.
In today’s Gospel, we find these words: “While waiting by the Sea of Galilee, He saw
two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net
into the sea, for they were fishermen.
And he said to them, ‘Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.’ Immediately they left their nets and followed
Him.”
To obey God collectively as the church we need unity! Otherwise we are torn many directions and
incapable of hearing and obeying God.
What creates unity in a church?
What happens for example if we ask everyone here “Where should we build
our new church home?” In no time at all,
there will be nearly as many places are there are homes in our city: everyone
will want the church to be just down the street! Then we get to fight and see who wins!
Or we can all, like those teenagers we spoke of earlier, get
on our knees and start to ask God where He wants our church to be. Then we start gathering the pieces. Perhaps a very clear picture emerges of a
location or area where He wants us. And
if it is quite stunning, it is likely that we nearly all will see it and come
together in one mind, one opinion, to do His will. And if not, we keep finding ways to seek His
will until we have such unity. But that
kind of unity can never come from fleshly seeking “what makes sense.” Nor can it come from a clergy dictatorship;
the clerical “my way or the highway” attitude we sadly see in many clergy.
Once in a quiet time in our old chapel I heard the voice of
the Lord speak in my heart and say “Carlos, you are always happy to do My
will...whenever it also makes sense to you!”
At the first declaration I smiled...a compliment from the Lord! Then He finished the sentence. “Oh...I don’t think that was a compliment,
Lord. But it sure was a sweet
rebuke!” I have tried ever since to
remember those words. And every now and
again do a few things I think He is asking me to do that make no sense to
me! Just for practice!
“I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but
that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.”
How can this happen without each one of us following Jesus
through communion and listening prayer and fasting?
Here’s another example from today’s Scriptures:
Do two walk together,
unless they have agreed to meet?
“For the Lord God does nothing without revealing His secret
to his servants the prophets.
The lion has roared;
who will not fear?
The Lord God has spoken;
who can but prophesy?”
He deeply desires communion and union with us and invites us
to partner, to yoke up WITH him! We
present our whole selves knowing He already knows everything about us:
O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O lord, you know it altogether.
This surrendering ourselves to His loving embrace enables us
to begin to abide in Him and in His love.
He is life: to abide in Him is to have a well of living water rising up
from our belly daily and, through our lives, the Holy Spirit can not only speak
that life into our hearts and lives, but into those who dwell around us. To fail to abide in Him is by
definition, daily death, isolation and
loneliness. “You fail to come to Me that
you may have life...”
If anyone does not abide in
me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered,
thrown into the fire, and burned. 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you,
ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear
much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. 9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved
you. Abide in my love. 10 If you keep my
commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s
commandments and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy
may be in you, and that your joy may be full. John 15
To abide in Jesus is to share in
what He is doing: even to be told as though we are friends (“for I no longer
call you servants, but friends, for the servant does not know what the Master
is doing.”) For if we abide in Him daily
and surrender to His will as we learn to hear His voice, then He will befriend
us and tell us all that the Father is doing.
“Father,” we may then ask, “what are You doing and what can I be doing
to do that with You?”
2 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd
of the sheep. 3 To him the
gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name
and leads them out. 4 When he has
brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for
they know his voice. 5 A stranger they
will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of
strangers.” John 10
God speaks in enigmatic ways that
maximize our freedom to listen and choose.
He respects the spark of free will and life He has created in us. He will never coerce. Just get used to it! Many of us wish we could just get clear commands
each morning; a kind of divine to-do list!
But that is what bosses give to us!
Their focus is not on us at all, but upon the task. They want us to obey so they don’t get in
trouble with their bosses! They are NOT
interested in a relationship with us! But the one who created the galaxies and
who numbers the billions of stars and gives to each of them a name; the One who
knows the very number of hairs on our heads and every thought in our hearts
before we can even speak them; this One wants to be our friend. So He wants to whisper to us.
Like Elijah when he was vexed,
depressed and weary, having made his way by a weary and long journey back to
the starting place of Israel. When the
nation was forged God spoke to all the people in the earthquake, fire and
wind. And they begged Moses: you go talk
to Him! He’s too terrifying! And God said, it is well that they said
so. And God promised a mediator in the
person of Moses and then in the coming prophet like Moses. That prophet was Jesus. And He speaks to us in the still, small
voice...often translated as “a whisper.”
Now what happens if I
whisper? You must come very close to
hear me. You must put your ear right
nearly against my lips. Then you can
begin to hear. The One who whispers
invites you and me into deep intimacy.
So He can not only speak heart to heart, but also kiss our cheeks like
the Father of the prodigal son.
God spoke to Elijah like this: not
in the earthquake, not in the fire, but in the still small voice; in the
whisper tone. This is not how bosses
talk. It’s now how drill sergeants talk.
It’s how parents talk. It’s how
lovers talk. It is how friends
talk.
11 And he said, “Go out and stand on the mount before
the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong
wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but
the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but
the Lord was not in the earthquake. 12 And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was
not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper. 13 And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his
cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. I Kings 19
So how does God speak to us in
this whisper? Well, we gather in order
to do “listening prayer.” We invoke the
Holy Spirit and call upon Him who dwells in us to open the eyes and ears of our
hearts to enable us to sense Jesus in our midst. He it is who promises us to “show us what the
Father is doing” and to “reveal to us the Father.” So we carry any needs or concerns we have to
Him and then, having done so, we quiet ourselves to listen. After a time we may share with one another
what we “heard” or “saw” in terms of a word or perhaps a picture or anything
else that might be a clue. Frequently we
will begin to see confirmations or patterns that start to show us the whisper
of our Lord. There might be a prophecy;
a word from the Lord that someone has heard in his or her heart. Perhaps a word of knowledge. Various Bible verses might come to
someone. If there is nothing yet to give
a clear picture we might write down what we heard so far and continue to
meditate over the times apart and seek clarity in our prayers until we meet
again in order to gather, be quiet and listen.
At St, James in the main service
once the bread and wine are consecrated, once we have already been fed by the
Word as well, we always take time to be in silence in a listening posture
encapsuled in these words: “Man does not
live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” and
“Speak, Lord, for your servants are listening.”
We may frequently stop our vestry
meetings or any other meeting in order to return to the Lord’s feet in an
attitude of listening prayer. It is our
way now. We follow Jesus who taught us
true sonship when He said “I do only the things I see My Father doing” and “I
say only the things I hear my Father saying.”
Since we share in His sonship and inheritance, so we want to be like
Jesus, our Brother. Let Him, brothers
and sisters, teach you how to enter His Sonship, His brotherhood, His
inheritance.
Or God may speak to us in a dream,
or vision!
17 So when they had gathered, Pilate said to them, “Whom
do you want me to release for you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called
Christ?” 18 For he knew
that it was out of envy that they had delivered him up. 19 Besides, while he was sitting on the judgment
seat, his wife sent word to him, “Have nothing to do with that righteous man,
for I have suffered much because of him today in a dream.” Matthew 27
If only Pilate had known how God
speaks! Perhaps it was not inevitable
that it would be Pilate who must condemn Jesus to death! Perhaps he really was free to demure and
another would have taken the guilt upon himself. Who knows?!
But we do know this: God can speak to US in dreams as well which we
would do well to heed better than Pilate did!
Peter gave eternal witness to this
New Covenant expectation concerning dreams and visions within the Church of
Jesus Christ!
14 But
Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them: “Men
of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear
to my words. 15 For
these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of
the day. 16 But
this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel:
17 “‘And in the last days it shall be, God
declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams;
18 even on my male servants and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. Acts 2
So another practical gift the Holy
Spirit has giving to His church is the very gifts of the Spirit that enable us
to minister supernaturally as Mark 16 described:
19 So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them,
was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. 20 And they went out and preached everywhere, while
the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs.
Mark 16
The supernatural gifts of the
Spirit are employed by the Spirit in order to show He is “working with us and
confirming the message by accompanying signs” just as the Spirit did in Jesus (“ 37 If I am not doing the works of my Father, then
do not believe me; 38 but if I
do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may
know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the
Father.”) and again,
( “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s
name bear witness about me, 26 but you do not believe because you are not
among my sheep. 27 My sheep
hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”)
So in the same way we may declare
boldly “If you don’t believe that we speak the words of the Father, Son and
Holy Spirit, then believe because of the supernatural works and signs that you
see in us!
Gary Facciani recently had a
kidney stone the size of a .22 caliber bullet.
It was declared by the surgeon to be “calcified” and required immediate
surgery. Some of our brethren prayed
over Gary and when the day of surgery came and one more image was taken by the
surgeon, he came up to Gary and said simply “What happened to it?” Gary said “What happened to what.” “The kidney stone! It’s gone!”
“Well, you’re the doctor!,” Gary replied. “You tell me!” Then Gary went on to tell the doctor about
those who had prayed for him and about how permanent damage to his heart was
similarly healed several years earlier by prayer. And then the God-given punchline. Gary said to the doctor, “Doc, this is not
for me; it’s for you! This is so you can
believe in God and in His works in this world.
You can think about it! I will be
back for a last check up. I will ask you
then what you think.”
Gary’s’ boldness is a reflection
of the power of the early church to proclaim with God’s direct help, the
resurrection presence and power of God in the Church, which is His new creation
born on the cross and given life through the resurrection and empowerment
through baptism. This is our identity. This is who we are when we trust in Him and
believe in His presence and power.
Tongues and interpretation,
prophesy, words of knowledge and wisdom, it is by these things that we can also
hear God and be directed by Him.
This attitude is even powerfully
demonstrated in the Old Testament when Jehoshaphat the King, facing impossible
odds in an invasion of the land by enemies intent on extermination, stood
before the people, having declared a fast and prayer, and said to the God of Israel, “We do not know what to
do, but our eyes are on You!” The answer
from God came when the “Spirit came upon Jahaziel...in the midst of the
Assembly” and he prophesied those marvelous words; “the battle is nor yours,
but God’s.” They needed only to stand
firm and watch the Lord supernaturally deliver them!
Prophecy also directed the early
Church to launch the very first missionary journey that we know of. It occurred during a time seeking the Lord by
fasting and prayer as detailed in the 13th chapter of Acts:
1 Now there were
in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called
Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and
Saul. 2 While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the
Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I
have called them.” 3 Then after
fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.
So, finally, as we look at the practical
ways we can “prepare the way of the Lord” in order to hear and obey Him, we see
that fasting and prophecy go hand in hand...as witnessed in both Testaments of
the Bible! Notice the church of Antioch
was FASTING and praying. During that
fast and prayer as they were gathered together “the Holy Spirit said “Set apart
for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” How did He say that? We aren’t told, but almost certainly it seems
to me that this was a prophetic announcement from one of the members. But they did not just do what they were
told! They tested the word with more
fasting and prayer! And THEN they laid
hands on the two and sent them off.
If we want to know that what we
are hearing is truly from God we must not be afraid to “test everything.” Pray over what we think we are hearing. Ask for further confirmation if it is a big
step of faith. God is happy to offer
further confirmation if our attitude is not escape from obedience, but
clarification and assurance. It will
still take a lot of faith to accomplish His will, for His works are great and
bring great glory to His name. So asking
for confirmation is just godly care taking.
We meet in councils. We decide
corporately. We employ gifts of
discernment and wisdom. We move in
unity. We are guided and directed by the
Holy Spirit who reveals to us the secrets of our hearts and the secrets of
God’s heart!
It takes practice to hear God’s
voice. Practice in our families,
practice in our small groups and ministry teams, practice among our
leaders. It takes fasting and commitment
to fasting. It takes effort. It takes patience not to move or be impulsive
but to wait on the Lord. It takes inner
healing so that we can both believe and learn our true identity in Christ,
discerning our thoughts and desires from His.
But it is WORTH it!
The bottom line is that our God is
relational. We are not looking at the
cosmic boss who wants to be obeyed and cares little about who we are. Rather, we are dealing with the Father of
all, whose FIRST concern is to be in communion and union with us, becoming ONE
SPIRIT with us (1 Corinthians 6:17) and forming one Body with Jesus as our
head. If we truly seek to abide in Him,
then He will tell us all that the Father is doing and as we strive in the
Spirit to obey what He shows us, we become His friends (no longer merely
servants!) and we can “ask whatever we will” and “it will be done for us”
because His will become our will gladly and we join in unity to accomplish His
works even as we delight in His presence!
“Glory to God whose power working
in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine! Glory to Him from generation to generation in
the church and in Christ Jesus for evermore!”
