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Thank you.
It's good to be with you today.
Hey, I do work at South Carolina Babs Convention, so I work with Chelsea Berger and Michelle
Schultz and Tim Rice.
Tim actually hired me four years ago.
Tim's a great guy, but Michelle and Chelsea, I mean, you know.
Come on, people.
They're the best.
So the Serve Team, South Carolina Babs Convention, our primary responsibility is to help churches
see their communities clearly.
And then as they see their communities clearly through training or resourcing, we help them
hopefully launch healthy, successful ministries.
And that's everything from disaster relief to hunger ministries, ESL ministries, or foster
care and adoption, or prison ministries.
We have Heart for Schools, which is a vision to see every school in South Carolina partnered
with a local church.
And so there are about 1,200 schools, elementary, middle, and high school across South Carolina.
And right now we have about 500 of those partnered with one of our South Carolina Babs Convention
churches.
So we're almost halfway there of seeing that vision realized.
So that's kind of the work that we do at the convention.
And I just want to say it is really an honor to be here with you today.
I appreciate your pastor's invitation to join you.
So my favorite day in elementary school was the three-legged race.
And, or my favorite day was field day.
And three-legged race was my favorite.
And I think it was my favorite because you didn't have to be the fastest kid in school,
right?
Three-legged race, if you're not familiar, it's where you have a partner and you tie your
inside leg together.
And the goal is that you are most in sync with your partner.
And really, whoever is most in sync with their partner, they're going to win, right?
And so your partner can't go left and you go right.
Your partner can't go fast and you go slow.
But if you go, you know, start out slowly and you kind of measure your steps, you can really
get pretty quick.
And I think I probably go quicker with a partner than I can by myself because they're dragging
me along at the time.
So field day was my favorite.
Three-legged race was the best.
And the reason I'm thinking about that is your pastor mentioned that you're in the middle
of this series on prayer.
And so I began to think about this three-legged race because the goal of that is to be in sync
with your partner and for me, prayer is about aligning ourselves to God, right?
So we know that prayer is a conversation with God, but at its core, prayer is an attempt
to align ourselves with God.
Prayer at its core is not about me telling God what he ought to do.
Prayer at its core isn't just me talking to God and it's not even just about me waiting
to download something from God.
It is at its core an attempt to align ourselves with him.
You may be familiar with the name Richard Foster.
He wrote a number of books.
He wrote probably his most well-known work is Celebration of Discipline.
He talks about the spiritual disciplines.
He talks about prayer and fasting and meditation and so forth.
And he says of prayer, he says, prayer catapults us onto the frontier of the spiritual life.
And then he continues to say this of prayer.
He says, in prayer, real prayer, we begin to think God's thoughts after him, to desire the
things he desires, to love the things he loves.
And I would add to love the people he loves, to will the things he wills.
Progressively, then we are taught to see things from his point of view.
Isn't that a beautiful picture of prayer that we would be so aligned with God that we would
begin to think God's thoughts, that we would begin to will the things he wills, to desire
the things he desires, to love the things and the people he loves, that we would progressively
begin to see things from his point of view.
Man, that is prayer.
That is what it means to be in alignment with God.
And we could talk this morning about the different types of prayer.
You know them.
You know, we could talk about prayer of praise or adoration or prayer of supplication
or prayer of confession or lament or intercession, right?
There's corporate prayer and there's personal private prayer.
But this morning, I really wanted us to have the conversation around if prayer is an alignment
with God, an attempt to align with God, then what does a life aligned with God through prayer
look like?
Right?
Don't we want to know what it means to have a life of prayer?
What does that look like?
Or stated differently, how do I posture myself so that I can be in alignment with God through
prayer?
So those are our questions.
We're going to be in 1 Samuel chapter 3.
Let me give you a little background as you turn there.
So 1 Samuel chapter 3.
The beginning of Samuel tells us about Hannah.
Hannah was a devout woman who made annual trips to the temple.
She prayed to God with great devotion and she was grieved because she could not have children.
And that was a constant prayer for her.
God bless me with a son.
It was a constant prayer for Hannah.
She had difficulty in her life.
She was mistreated because she couldn't have kids.
And so Hannah continued to pray.
God bless me with a son.
And this one trip, she went to the temple.
She brought her offerings and she was there outside the temple praying.
And just in desperate prayer, Hannah was talking to God saying, bless me with a son.
Bless me with a son.
And in fact, she makes a commitment to God.
She says, if you will bless me with a son, I will bring him back to the temple in essence
and let him be raised here so that he will serve you all the days of his life.
Bless me with a son.
And she was so desperate in her prayer.
The Bible says in 1 Samuel chapter 1 that she is praying so fervently and deep in her heart.
Her lips are moving, but no sound is coming out.
She's just praying to God.
Well, Eli, the priest, sees her.
It's kind of a funny scene.
He sees her and because her lips are moving, but no sound's coming out, Eli thinks she's drunk.
And so Eli kind of jumps on her and he's like, woman, how long will you be a drunk?
Do away with the wine.
And she's like, bro, I ain't drunk, you know.
I don't know if she said it that way, but she was like, no, I'm just desperate.
And so he switches gears really quickly and he's like, well, let me pray over you.
It's like, that's a good cover, you know.
If you do something stupid, then you're just like, let me pray over you.
I'm like, yeah, Eli's a nice guy.
So Eli prayed a blessing over her and said, may God grant you your request.
And so Hannah leaves and she does conceive and she gives birth to a son.
She names him Samuel.
And then she comes back to the temple and she presents Samuel to Eli.
And she says, hey, do you remember I was the woman on the steps and, you know, you prayed
over me.
This is Samuel.
That's a significant commitment.
I just want to say my wife, Mindy, and I, we just celebrated 25 years of marriage.
We were married for 10 years before our daughter, our daughter Maggie came along.
And she is our miracle child, blessing from God.
But she stays at my house.
You know what I'm saying?
I don't take her to somebody else to raise.
She's at my house.
So this is a significant commitment that Hannah makes.
And it just reveals her devotion and dedication to God and her thanksgiving.
So one other thing for background to know is that Eli, the priest, the Bible says that his
sons were worthless men.
Yikes.
That's strong words.
So they didn't say, you know, they're not the best or they have some room for improvement.
Scripture says his sons were worthless men.
Says that he took, they took things for their own gain.
They weren't pointing people towards the kingdom of God.
They were, they were pointing people to themselves.
They misused the offerings that were for the temple and offerings to God.
And they had been warned, but they continually were selfish and evil people.
And they did not know God.
So that's Eli and his son.
So that's the context.
So first Samuel chapter three.
And again, we're going to read this with an eye toward what does it look like to be,
to be positioned, to posture ourself so that we can be in alignment with God through prayer.
So first Samuel chapter three, beginning in verse one.
Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord in the presence of Eli.
And the word of the Lord was rare in those days.
There was no frequent vision.
If you will jump down to verse seven.
Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.
So this is a very familiar passage.
So what happens is Samuel lays down to go to sleep and God has a word for Samuel.
So God calls Samuel, Samuel.
Samuel did not yet know the Lord.
And so he did not recognize the Lord's voice.
So he stands up and he goes into Eli and he said, yes, Eli, you called.
And Eli said, I didn't, I didn't call you.
Go lay back down.
And again, the voice of the Lord comes, Samuel.
Again, Samuel doesn't recognize the Lord's voice.
He jumps up and he runs into Eli and he says, Eli, you called.
And Eli said, I didn't call you.
Go lay back down.
And at this point, Eli probably thinks Samuel took after his mom, you know, and he's like,
what's up with Samuel?
You're hearing voices.
Samuel goes, lays down a third time.
God calls Samuel.
Samuel gets up and goes into Eli.
And finally now Eli perceives that God is speaking to Samuel.
And so Eli really instructs him and helps him here.
And he says, Samuel, God is speaking to you.
So I want you to go lay down.
And next time when you hear that voice, that's God.
I want you to say, speak, Lord, your servant hears or your servant is listening.
And so sure enough, Samuel goes and he lays back down.
And again, the fourth time now scripture says that the Lord came and stood by Samuel and called
out Samuel, Samuel.
And this time with a little instruction, he was expecting God to speak, right?
So he said, speak, Lord, your servant hears.
So God had a word for Samuel.
He says in verse 11, the Lord said to Samuel, behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel at
which the two ears of everyone who hears it will tingle.
God definitely has a word for Samuel.
And here's what God says to Samuel.
I want you to go and talk to Eli and I want you to tell Eli that because of his sons and
their lack of faithfulness, because of their evilness, I am going to bring down judgment
on Eli, his sons and their whole family.
Yikes.
I don't know about you, but when God speaks to me, I like to like ramp up a little bit.
Like, let's start easy, you know, give me something I can do easy and then get to the hard
stuff.
So Samuel has got to go tell Eli, who is raising him, his mentor, his discipler, his teacher,
his dad in some ways, Samuel's got to go tell Eli, yeah, God's going to bring down judgment
on you.
And so it says in verse 15, this is great, it says in verse 15 that Samuel lay there all
night.
Yeah, he did.
He did not want to tell Eli, right?
He probably was tossing and turning, trying to figure out how he could get out from telling
Eli or even just trying to decide, how do I bring this up?
You know, hey, Eli, could you pass the salt?
By the way, God's going to bring destruction on you.
So there you go.
So he struggled all night and apparently he didn't want to tell Eli because in verse 17,
Eli presses him and says, verse 17, what was it that he told you?
Do not hide it from me.
May God do so to you and more also, if you hide anything from me of all that he told you.
So verse 18, so Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him.
Verse 19, and Samuel grew and the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground.
So if prayer is aligning ourselves with God, it's an attempt to be in alignment with God,
to think what he thinks, to will what he wills, to desire what he desires, to see how he sees.
If that is what prayer is, then how do we posture ourself to be in alignment with God?
There are several, several truths that we can pull out of this passage, out of the scripture
with regards to prayer.
So how do I posture myself to be in alignment with God?
The first thing is we must expect God to speak.
We must expect him to speak.
Not because we're great, not because we're so wonderful, but because God is great.
And God has a history and a habit of speaking to his people.
We could pull out dozens of passages.
I've just pulled a few that came to my mind.
Psalm 85, 8 says this,
Let me hear what the Lord will speak, for he will speak to his people.
Revelation 3, 22,
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
John 10, 27,
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them and they follow me.
God's voice is not an Old Testament phenomenon.
It's not a New Testament phenomenon.
It's not just an age-old experience.
God still speaks today, right now.
He is alive.
He is at work.
And he speaks to his church.
And he speaks to his children.
And so my question for you is,
Do you believe that God still speaks?
Listen, if we don't believe God still speaks, what are we doing here?
Why would we spend our time reaching out to a God who has closed up shop?
God still speaks.
And let me also say that God doesn't just speak to your pastor or the hero missionary on the field or whoever spiritual leader you listen to their podcast.
Sure, God speaks to them.
But God also speaks to me.
And God also speaks to you because you know him and you're in relationship with him.
And he has historically always spoken to his people.
So do you expect to hear from God?
We recognize with Samuel, at first, he did not expect to hear from God.
And he even heard the voice of the creator of the whole universe.
And he just didn't have context for it.
He didn't know because he didn't expect to hear his voice.
So we must expect God to speak.
The second thing that we can pull from this passage is that we must learn to recognize his voice.
We must learn to recognize his voice.
So it's one thing to expect him to speak.
It's another thing to recognize when he speaks.
And again, we see with Samuel, he heard his voice several times and didn't recognize his voice until Eli was able to disciple him in that.
Say, okay, this voice you're hearing, that's God.
Here's how to respond, right?
And so we must learn to recognize God's voice.
And so I think this is true of non-believers.
It's true of new Christians.
It's true of someone who's been a follower of Jesus for 50 years.
We all wrestle with this idea of, I'm trying to discern God's voice.
Is this God's voice I'm hearing?
Or is this just my opinion?
Is this God speaking to me?
Or is this some old accusation that I'm just going to trust in and I'm going to believe in?
Is this God's voice?
Is this the enemy's voice?
Is this God's voice?
Or is this just me feeling guilty about something?
So how can we begin to familiarize ourself with God's voice?
There's three thoughts I want to give you.
These are three truths as we're trying to weigh and discern what does God's voice sound like.
The first is that God will always speak with consistency and with continuity.
God will always speak with consistency and continuity.
So what does that mean?
That means God will never speak in a way that disagrees with or is contradictory to who he has revealed himself to be.
Who he has revealed himself to be in scripture.
Who Jesus has revealed to be.
How we have experienced God.
God is not going to speak to me in a way that contradicts who he is.
And that's a pretty easy one, right?
I can come to you and I can tell you all kinds of things.
Well, God told me this.
And if it doesn't line up with who you know God to be and who scripture proclaims him to be
and who he is revealed to be in the person of Jesus,
then you can pretty well decide I'm mistaken, right?
God will never call me to be selfish.
God will never call me to oppress someone.
God will never call me to wave the flag and shine the spotlight on me
so I can have this glory.
God will speak to me and God will speak to you with consistency and continuity.
That's the first truth that we can begin to discern what his voice sounds like.
The second is that God speaks in specifics.
I want you to think about times in scripture where God speaks to people
and how specific he was with them.
I think about after Saul met Jesus on the Damascus road,
he goes and waits in Damascus.
And God speaks to Ananias about going and laying his hands on Saul.
And he says,
Ananias,
I want you to go to the house of Judas on Straight Street.
There's a man there named Saul.
He's from Tarsus.
And he's praying and he's seen a vision of a man named Ananias come and lay hands on him.
That's very specific, right?
He didn't say,
I want you to go into Damascus and just be nice.
You know,
he spoke in specifics.
I think about Joshua walking around Jericho.
God says,
I want you to walk around the city once a day for seven days.
And on the seventh day,
I want you to walk around seven times.
I want you to blow your trumpet.
I mean,
very specific.
Joseph was engaged to be married.
God spoke to Joseph and said,
I want you to take her as her,
as your wife.
She's going to give birth to a son.
That's for me.
I want you to name him Jesus.
God still speaks.
And he speaks in specifics.
Are we expecting to hear from him?
And can we recognize his voice when he actually speaks to us?
The third truth is that God will always speak for his glory.
And this goes along with him being consistent and speaking in continuity.
God will always speak for his glory.
It'll be that his name is lifted up.
It will be that he is proclaimed throughout my community.
And throughout the nations.
It will not be for your glory or my glory.
It will be for his glory.
But I believe that it will be for our good.
And it will be for the good of those whom he calls us to.
So we have to expect God to speak.
We have to learn to recognize his voice.
And this really pours fuel on the second thought.
As we respond with obedience.
It really pours some fuel on that recognizing his voice.
Because I have found that the more I am obedient to his voice.
The more I'm tuned in to what his voice sounds like.
The more I'm obedient.
The louder his voice gets.
And the more unmistakable it gets.
So now hang with me a second.
Right now this room could be filled with music.
It could be filled with the sounds of a symphony.
And so all we would have to do.
Is to plug a radio in.
And to tune it to the appropriate frequency.
And we hear music.
Right?
So music right now is playing.
And it's within our reach this music.
But we've got to be tuned into it.
Right?
So that's how a radio station works.
They don't just all of a sudden start playing music.
When you decide to turn it on.
The music's been playing.
Right?
So as we are obedient to God.
As we actually do what he's called us to do.
For me it sharpens that tuning.
It sharpens that connection with God.
That alignment with God.
And it just raises the volume.
Now if I hear God's voice and I ignore it.
I hear God's voice and I just.
Ah.
I don't want to do that.
I'm afraid to do that.
And I begin to ignore it.
And I'm not obedient.
I think it gets harder to hear his voice.
I believe God still speaks.
God is still faithful.
But I think the more that I am obedient.
The louder and more unmistakable his voice gets.
And as we hear the voice of God.
The only appropriate response is what Eli instructed Samuel.
Speak Lord.
Your servant hears.
Or yes Lord.
Here am I.
I was in a restaurant with my wife Mindy.
A couple of years ago.
We serve.
Before we come into South Carolina.
We serve through the North American Mission Board.
Served an inner city community in Des Moines, Iowa.
It was a poverty impacted community.
We ran a ministry center there.
And this one season in our time there.
We had a new boss.
And so this new boss took us to lunch.
To get to know us.
To tell us his vision.
He wanted to hear about our ministry.
And kind of what we were trying to accomplish.
And so it was an important meeting.
Right.
It was our first meeting.
Really first time sitting down with him.
And so we're sitting there at lunch.
Having a conversation.
And my wife Mindy was just distracted.
She was just not part of the conversation.
It was really odd.
But she just wasn't with us.
And so it got so bad.
That eventually she said.
I'm sorry if you'll excuse me.
I'll be right back.
And so then I'm worried about her.
Right.
Because I think she's sick or something.
So she gets up.
And she walks around the table.
Our boss was facing us.
And so I'm trying to like watch.
What is Mindy doing?
And trying to pretend to listen to my boss.
And that's hard.
That's harder to do than you think.
But I don't think he knew she left.
He was just talking.
Like he was just still going.
And so I'm watching her.
And she walks over.
She just walks like straight up to this table.
There were three ladies sitting there.
And she just starts talking to them.
And I'm like, you know.
It's an adventure with Mindy.
I'll just say.
It's never dull.
Like we're doing.
I don't know what we're doing.
But let's do it.
So I'm trying to listen to him.
And watching her.
And she bends down.
Starts talking to these ladies.
And then all of a sudden.
All three women at the table.
Just burst into tears.
I'm like, well, great.
We've done it now.
We're going to get kicked out of this joint.
Right.
She talks to him for a few minutes.
Comes, sits back down.
And she's part of the conversation.
And we're talking.
And we've finished the conversation with our boss.
And so I'm like, what in the world happened?
Right.
She said, God was just talking to me.
And I knew he was calling me to do something.
And I just.
That's why I was distracted.
So what happened was she goes over to this table with these ladies.
And she says something like this.
Excuse me.
I'm sorry to bother you.
My name is Mindy.
I'm a Christian.
And sometimes God speaks to me.
And I need you to know this today.
God loves you.
God is with you.
And you're going to be okay.
To which all three ladies burst out crying.
And they were crying because the lady Mindy was speaking to had just received a cancer diagnosis.
And her two friends just took her out to lunch to be an encouragement to her.
To say, we support you.
We're with you.
And she was starting her treatments the next day.
And how good is God that he would take such gentle care of this woman in the middle of a restaurant, in the middle of heaviness, that God saw fit to speak.
And he said, I'm just going to touch you today.
I'm going to bring you my goodness today, my blessings, my compassion today.
And he did that through somebody else in the restaurant.
And so Mindy was expecting God to speak.
And we didn't sit down at our lunch and we're talking with our boss and she thought God was going to say something to her in that moment.
But her general rule of life, the way she has aligned herself said, I expect that God's going to speak.
And so I'm going to listen for his voice.
And I'm going to recognize his voice because I've heard it over and over.
And I've been obedient to his voice over and over.
And in the midst of our really important meeting, God spoke.
And I just ask you, do you believe that God speaks?
For some in this room, you may not know Jesus.
And maybe right now, you're sensing God speak to you, maybe for the first time.
If you don't know Jesus, I want you to hear me say, he knows you.
And he is pursuing you, not to do you harm, but for your good.
He is welcoming you and offering you an opportunity into the family of God to call you son and daughter,
to bring you forgiveness, to bring you hope for a future.
So if you don't know God and your pulse is quickening and maybe your heart rate is up
and you're hearing a voice that sounds a lot like love, that sounds a lot like forgiveness,
I want to do for you what Eli did for Samuel.
That is God's voice.
And the most appropriate response is speak, Lord, I'm listening.
And then to be obedient with whatever he's calling you to do.
And for others in the room that maybe have known God for years and years, let me just remind you that we will never experience the fullness of God without a life aligned with him in prayer.
We just won't.
We will be anemic.
We will have no power.
And we can go to church Sunday after Sunday.
We can do all, you know, check the box and do all the right things and not do all the wrong things.
But we will be missing a deep and abiding relationship with the creator of the universe if we are not aligned with God through prayer.
So let me ask you this.
How are you aligning yourself with God?
Are you spending time in his word?
Are you spending time in prayer?
Are you meditating on his word?
Are you surrounding yourself with other believers who, like Eli did for Samuel, help point you to God, help you discern God's voice?
How are you aligning yourself with God in prayer?
My challenge for you is that you would answer that question this week.
That you would just get alone and find some moments with God and just be honest with yourself.
How are you aligning yourself with him?
And then my last question is this.
How is God calling you to display his love in your community?
When God speaks to us, it's for his glory, it's for our good, but I'm confident it's for the good of those around us.
One of my biggest fears is that I will receive God's grace, his mercy, his compassion, his forgiveness, his love, his hope.
I'll just receive and receive and receive all these things from God.
And then I will never let those flow through me into my community.
That's a fear that I'm going to allow God's love to stop with me.
I'm going to allow his voice to end with me.
We are called to love God and to love other people.
That's the abundant life.
And so how is God moving you into your community to love your community?
To display God's hope and God's goodness and God's forgiveness?
We must expect God to speak.
And we've got to tune in and begin to familiarize ourself and begin to recognize his voice.
And then when we hear the voice of God, we've got to respond with obedience.
And I promise you, as you respond with obedience, his voice gets louder and gets louder and gets louder and more unmistakable.
And I'll say this, I have not figured this out.
I'm not up here because I'm some expert on prayer and my life is perfectly aligned with God.
We're all works in progress.
We're all moving towards him.
But I do promise you that if you will listen for his voice and begin to be obedient to the things that he calls you to,
you will find that alignment.
And that is the purpose of being alive.
That we would think his thoughts, desire the things he desires, will the things he wills,
love the things and the people he loves, that we would begin to see life from his point of view.
That's my prayer for you.
Let me pray for us as we close.
God, I'm so grateful that you love us.
I'm so grateful that you're patient with us.
We could all give testimony around this room of how we have ignored your voice.
We've missed your voice or we've just chosen to be disobedient to your voice.
But yet you still speak.
You still call to us.
You pursue us not to do us harm, but for our good.
And we're grateful that you are so kind, compassionate, loving, that you would offer us such grace and such mercy.
God, I pray over these in this room.
God, I pray that you would speak loudly to them, God.
That they would begin to orient themselves.
That they would begin to tune into your voice, God.
And that they would be bold.
That they would be confident.
That they would move with courage, whatever it is you called them toward.
Help us to discern your voice, God.
And just give us the courage to be obedient where you call.
God, I pray for this community.
God, I pray that our neighbors, that our school system, that those we encounter at work, those in our family.
God, they would experience you because we have listened to your voice.
They would experience you because we have been obedient.
That they would experience a touch from you because we have so aligned ourself with you.
That it is just the natural expression of our life.
That we would walk step for step in sync and in alignment with you.
May we do that, Lord Jesus.
And we're thankful and grateful for your patience with us as we do.
It's in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
Thanks again for listening to the Willow Ridge Church weekly podcast.
We hope that you enjoyed listening to this week's message.
If you'd like to learn more about who we are or explore additional resources, visit us online at www.willowridgechurch.com
or by searching for Willow Ridge Church on Facebook and Instagram.
We'll see you next time.
Thank you.