Part 2 – Who Do You Need to
Listen To?
We are surrounded by advice, suggestions, opinions,
and insight on what to do and not to do, what to think, and how to look at
everything going on in our lives. Seldom
is sharing their “two cents” as benign as it sounds – simply adding a bit of
info to the mix. There is a purpose
behind sharing it: persuade you to see it/do it their way. In the last lesson, we looked at who not to
listen to. In part 2, will look at who you should.
Who we listen to is not as insignificant as we can
convince ourselves it is. What is the cry of God’s heart in Psalm
81:13?
Oh that My people would listen to Me,
that Israel would walk in My ways! Psalm
81:13
Listen to Him! Instead of walking in the counsel of the
ungodly, He wants us to walk in His way.
How blessed is everyone who
fears the LORD, who walks in His ways. Psalm
128:1
The words “blessed” and “walk” are the exact same
words used in Psalm 1:1.
·
Esher – to have great joy and
inner peace.
·
Halak - the movement that is
natural to whatever is moving.
If we truly want to have great soul-deep joy and
experience genuine serenity, then we need to (1) tune into what the Lord has to
say – we need to listen to Him, as well as filter all we hear others say
through what He has said, and (2) we need to move like He moves.
I fear that we tend to listen so infrequently that we
deduce that the Lord rarely speaks. Yet, when John encountered the Lord in
Revelations 1, he said “His voice was like the sound
of many waters.” That doesn’t sound very quiet. John was actually comparing Him to the waves
that constantly crashed along the shores of the island. Waves crashing on a rocky beach can easily be
over 70dBA. (For comparison, ordinary conversation at 3 feet is 65dBA and traffic
on a busy street around 80dBA.) The issue
isn’t the volume. The constant sound of
waves – the constant sound of anything, unfortunately including the constant
voice of the Lord, can easily become background “noise” drowned out by an even
busier, noisier life. When you go to
the shore, you can’t help but hear the waves crashing against the rocks, but it
doesn’t take long and constantly hearing the waves requires intentionally
listening to the waves to really hear them. God is not silent. He is constantly speaking to us, but we must
intentionally listen to Him to really hear what He has to say. We need to be fully focused and connected,
intentional.
Listening isn’t all we are to do. We are to halak,
like He halaks!
Now, Israel, what does the
LORD your God require from you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all
His ways and love Him, and to serve the LORD your God with all
your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the LORD’S commandments and His
statutes which I am commanding you today for your good? Deuteronomy 10:12,13 (note: “ways” is the
word derek
- path repeatedly traveled.)
What does
moving like the Lord moves mean to you? Is it simply black and white obedience
– following the rules, do the do’s, don’t do the don’ts?
Therefore I, the prisoner of
the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with
which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience,
showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity
of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Ephesians
4:1-3
For this reason also, since
the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you
may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and
understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to
please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in
the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious
might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving
thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the
saints in Light. Colossians 1:9-11
Therefore as you have
received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly
rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you
were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude. Colossians 2:6
NAS: “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord” – “walk in
Him.” NIV: “live a life worthy of” –
“continue to live in Him.” This is about
living, acting, speaking, thinking, feeling like Jesus. It is about halak like Jesus halaks - moving inside and out in a way that is
natural to Jesus. The only way it is going to be “natural” to us is that He
lives through us. His nature replaces
our own. That means we have to die to self.
I have been crucified with
Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the
body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians
2:20 NIV
Therefore we have been
buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from
the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of
life. Romans 6:4
That means we need to learn how to “walk” – halak - differently. Is
Psalm 86:11 the desire of your heart?
Teach me Your way, O LORD; I will walk
in Your truth; unite my heart to fear Your name. Psalm 86:11
What is the Lord’s
responding promise?
I will instruct you and
teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon
you. Psalm 32:8
The best kind of counselor is one that never takes his/her
eyes off of you. The word translated
“instruct” is sakal – the wisdom that
learns from everything that happens, good and bad. This is a promise of hands
on, constant, intimate involvement so we can go the right way and do the right
thing the right way – so we can halak
like Jesus!
We have to choose who we listen to. We really do need to
have selective hearing. When is that a
good thing? It is good when we think about what we think about. Discern who
is talking and filter what is being said through the character and word of
Christ.
We demolish arguments and
every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take
captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:5
Captive thoughts are selective thoughts.
Isaiah 11:1-5 is a Messianic prophecy about Jesus and the
fulfillment of one of the promises made to David. Pay specific attention to Jesus’ selective
hearing.
A shoot will come up from
the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the
LORD will rest on him — the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit
of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD—
and he will delight in the fear of the LORD.
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he
hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with
justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of
his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness
will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist. Isaiah 11:1-5
What or whom decided how
Jesus would speak, hear and how He would act, move – halak? It is simply the “Spirit of the Lord.” I love John the Baptizer’s statement in John
3:34. “He gives the Spirit without measure.” That same Spirit that was upon Jesus is upon
us through faith in Him. “The Spirit of
wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of
knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.”
In partnership with the Holy Spirit we need to choose what we actually
listen to regardless of what we see and hear.
When is selective hearing
NOT a good thing? When what is good, righteous and godly is what is being
tuned out.
But this is what I commanded
them, saying, “Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you will be My
people; and you will walk in all the way which I command you, that it may be
well with you.” Yet they did not obey or
incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of
their evil heart, and went backward and not forward. Jeremiah 7:23, 24
We have a very gracious God, but He is still God. We can’t
listen to Him on our own timing. An
example of this truth is an unfamiliar part of a very familiar story. The
context is twelve spies were sent into the Promised Land to bring back an
eyewitness report of what an amazing promise it all truly was. Instead ten of the twelve brought back a
report of fear and discouragement. The
other two countered that it wasn’t the size of the challenge that mattered, but
the size of their God. The people
listened to the ten rather than to God. Numbers 14:30-45 picks up the story.
Note God’s response and their response to God’s response.
Not one of you will enter
the land and make your home there, the firmly and solemnly promised land,
except for Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun. Your children, the
very ones that you said would be taken for plunder, I’ll bring in to enjoy the
land you rejected while your corpses will be rotting in the wilderness. These
children of yours will live as shepherds in the wilderness for forty years,
living with the fallout of your whoring unfaithfulness until the last of your
generation lies a corpse in the wilderness. You scouted out the land for forty
days; your punishment will be a year for each day, a forty-year sentence to
serve for your sins—a long schooling in my displeasure. I, GOD, have spoken. I
will most certainly carry out these things against this entire evil-infested
community, which has banded together against me. In this wilderness they will
come to their end. There they will die.”
So it happened that the men
Moses sent to scout out the land returned to circulate false rumors about the
land causing the entire community to grumble against Moses—all these men died.
Having spread false rumors of the land, they died in a plague, confronted by
GOD. Only Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh were left alive of the
men who went to scout out the land.
When Moses told all of this
to the People of Israel, they mourned long and hard. But early the next
morning they started out for the high hill country, saying, “We’re here;
we’re ready—let’s go up and attack the land that GOD promised us. We sinned, but
now we’re ready.” But Moses said, “Why are you crossing GOD’S command
yet again? This won’t work. Don’t attack. GOD isn’t with you in this—you’ll be
beaten badly by your enemies. The Amalekites and Canaanites are ready for you
and they’ll kill you. Because you have left off obediently following GOD, GOD
is not going to be with you in this.”
But they went anyway; recklessly and arrogantly they climbed to
the high hill country. But the Chest of the Covenant and Moses didn’t budge
from the camp. The Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in the hill country
came out of the hills and attacked and beat them, a rout all the way down to
Hormah. Numbers 14:30-45 MSG
Moses recaps this event in Deuteronomy 1:41-46.
Then you said to me, ‘We
have sinned against the LORD; we will indeed go up and fight, just as the LORD
our God commanded us.’ And every man of you girded on his weapons of war, and
regarded it as easy to go up into the hill country. And the LORD said to me, ‘Say to them, “Do
not go up nor fight, for I am not among you; otherwise you will be defeated
before your enemies.” So I spoke to you, but you would not listen. Instead you rebelled
against the command of the LORD, and acted presumptuously and went up into
the hill country. The Amorites who lived in that hill country came out against
you and chased you as bees do, and crushed you from Seir to Hormah. Then you returned and wept before the LORD;
but the LORD did not listen to your voice nor give ear to you. Deuteronomy 1:41-45 NAS
If we do not choose to listen when He speaks, He has
every right not to listen when we come crying to Him because it didn’t work out
the way we thought it should.
How long will you simple
ones love your simple ways? How long will
mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge? If you had responded to my
rebuke, I would have poured out my heart to you and made my thoughts known to
you. But since you rejected me when I called and no one gave heed when I
stretched out my hand, since you ignored all my advice and would not accept my
rebuke, I in turn will laugh at your disaster; I will mock when calamity
overtakes you— when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster sweeps
over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelm you. Then they
will call to me but I will not answer; they will look for me but will not find
me. Since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the LORD, since they
would not accept my advice and spurned my rebuke, they will eat the fruit of
their ways and be filled with the fruit
of their schemes. Proverbs 1:22-31 NIV
When God is not listening, we know it, and it is a
very lonely place. He is all-knowing and
knows exactly what we are saying, but beyond our words, He is listening to our
hearts.
If I regard wickedness in my
heart, The Lord will not hear; Psalm
66:18
When you ask, you do not
receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on
your pleasures. James 4:3
If we feel like God is not listening, one of the first
questions we have to ask ourselves is: Have I been listening to Him? The next question is: What am I listening
for? Are we listening for a confirmation of His presence or confirmation that
we are right? Do we truly want His wisdom and direction knowing that it comes
at the price of willingness and the cost of our willfulness? Proverbs 2:2-12 is all about if and then. If
is a choice; then is the promise.
Make your ear attentive to
wisdom, incline your heart to understanding; for if you cry for
discernment, lift your voice for understanding; if you seek her as
silver and search for her as for hidden treasures; then you will discern
the fear of the LORD and discover the knowledge of God. For the LORD gives
wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound
wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding
the paths of justice, and He preserves the way of His godly ones. Then
you will discern righteousness and justice and equity and every good course.
For wisdom will enter your heart and
knowledge will be pleasant to your soul; discretion will guard you, understanding
will watch over you, to deliver you from the way of evil, Proverbs 2:2-12a
We are back to our original question: Who do you
listen to? Your answer will decide whether you go forward or backward, climb
out of your pit or dig deeper.