God speaks
Today was World Communion Sunday so I thought I’d talk about God speaking.
It is a bit of a truism, even a cliche, for religious people to say God speaks. It isn’t only the Christian faith but all faiths have a belief that God speaks. Exactly how God speaks is more of an open question but the basic notion is agreed on. The difficulty is that God doesn’t speak the same way we speak to each other. God doesn’t cause air molecules to vibrate and impact our eardrums, send us letters or even emails. God’s communication is more subtle than that and often harder to recognize. So how do we know when God is speaking to us or has spoken to us, whatever the medium of communication?
I am not about to say I have the final word on how to know the voice of God but I do have at least one idea about it. When Jesus was asked what the most important command was, well here’s the story from Matthew 22:36-40 from the New Living Bible translation
36 “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”
37 Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
So there it is. If you want to know if you are hearing the voice of God, run what you hear through those two things. Let’s try an exercise. Imagine for a moment God says to you, “You need a private jet.”* That sounds like a pretty cool thing but run it through Jesus’ words and then try to tell yourself your private jet is an example of loving your neighbour as yourself. See the footnote for why I chose this example. When we take into account the environmental impact of air travel, the “neighbourly” outcomes of running your own plane compared to taking the money to run the jet and doing something more worthwhile with it, the absurdity of a jet airplane for one person . . . it becomes clear to most people that a private jet is not a symbol of neighbourly love but something else.
I cover this in a bit more detail, at least I think I did, in the sermon so give it a listen and let me know what you think.
“God speaks” Trinity Presbyterian (to download, right-click and select “Save Link As . . .”)
Blessings,
* If you have the stomach for it, the following link is to a video, less than six minutes, of two high-profile “evangelists” attempting to justify having a private jet . . . each. Kenneth Copeland And Jesse Duplantis Defending Their Private Luxury Jets