Good morning.  Today we will continue our series that we began last week that takes a look at Communicating With God.  Last week, if you were not with us, we took a look at Talking To God.  This week, we move on to take a look at Listening To God’s Voice.  And then next week we will conclude this series with Being Receptive To God’s Voice.  But for this week, our focus is on Listening To God’s Voice.

One of the basic claims we have as Christians is that God is alive and He wants to have a relationship with us.  In fact, our salvation is based on the relationship we have with God.  But you can not have a relationship with someone without communication.  In order to have a relationship with someone you must speak to them, you must listen to them and they must speak and listen to you.

Do you remember the story in the Old Testament about the Tower of Babel?  Do you remember why the work stopped on that tower?  The work stopped because there was a break down in communication.  The people wanted to be greater than God.  So God gave the people various languages.  This caused a break down in communication.  There became a break down in communication because they could no longer understand one another.  And when they could no longer communicate with one another they could no longer be productive.  The work came to a halt.  Here is a timeless truth found in that story.

In order to be productive you must be able to COMMUNICATE.

This truth is true for families, for business partnerships, as well as your relationship with God.  When there is a breakdown in communication you will cease to be productive.  When it comes to communication, it is important that you can not only talk, like we looked at last week, but you need to be able to listen as well.

I heard a story about FDR that when he was president he got tired of saying the usual things all the time at those White House receptions.  So one evening he decided to find out if anybody was paying any attention to what he was saying.  As each person came up to him and shook his hand he would smile and say, “I murdered my grandmother this morning.”  Person after person greeted him and would respond with, “How lovely” or “That’s nice.”  FDR realized that no one was listening to him.  Finally a foreign diplomat shook his hand.  FDR said, “I murdered my grandmother this morning.”  The foreign diplomat looked a little shocked but leaned in to the president and said softly, “I’m sure she had it coming to her.”

Some people just don’t listen at all.  But God wants to speak to us and He wants us to hear Him.  Before we read that, let’s begin with a time of prayer.  Let’s Pray!

Many times, people will ask questions like, “How can I know the will of God?”  They are looking for an answer to a challenge, direction at a fork in the road, or whether or not to take an opportunity.  What they are really asking is “How can I hear God speak?”

A man who had been married to his wife for about 30 years began to get frustrated at her not answering him.  He suspected that her hearing was going, but she would not admit it, so he decided to do a test.  When she did not know he was in the room, he stood behind her chair across the room and gently said, “Can you hear me?”  She did not respond, so he moved a little closer and asked again.  She did not respond, so he moved even closer and tried a third time.  A fourth time, when he was now right behind her, he asked, “Can you hear me?”

Suddenly she spun around in her chair and said with slight aggravation in her voice, “For the fourth time, Yes, I can hear you!”

Now I think that sometimes we don’t think God hears our prayers, when the truth is, we don’t hear His answers.  Matthew 13:9 says, “He who has ears, let him hear.”  But in order to do that, we must first listen.  Go ahead and turn with me to Luke 10:38-42.  Here in this passage, Jesus is at the home of Martha and Mary.

Jesus is fully engaged in His teaching ministry and His fame is growing.  People are gathering to hear Him speak.  Earlier in this chapter He preached the parable of The Good Samaritan, and sent out the 72 disciples to proclaim the kingdom of God.  Now we drop in on Him on His road trip.  Listen to this story.  Luke 10:38-42 says, “1”

Now, I believe that there are a few things that we can learn today that will help us be able to communicate better with God.  And it all involves being able to listen to Him.

First, I Must Turn On My Heart.

In verse 42 Jesus says, “…only one thing is needed.  Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

There were a lot of things that she could have been doing, but she wanted to do one of them far more than any of the others.  She wanted to hear what Jesus had to say.  This is the first secret.  Do you want to know what God has to say to you?  I mean do you really want to know?

Jesus said that Mary had chosen the one thing that was better than all the others.  Another translation of the Bible says that she chose the one thing that was necessary.  You see, her heart was tuned into God.  She had one desire, and that was to listen to what Jesus had to say.

When it comes to communicating with God, you have to be focused on listening to what He has to say.  Mary had one focus, and we need to have that same focus in our lives today.  And it begins with the heart.  Her heart was what caused her to want to listen to Jesus.  She loved and adored Him.  She valued what He had to say.  So in order to listen to Jesus, we must turn on our hearts.

Second, I Must Tune Out Interference.
Our problem isn’t that God isn’t speaking, it is that we are not able to hear His voice over all the noise in our lives.  We have too much going on, and too many things that get in the way of us truly listening and being able to hear God speak to us.

This is what one minister had to say about distractions and being able listen.  He says, “The other day I was talking to my wife Karen in the living room.  All 10 of our kids were in the room with us.  The baby was crying, the one year old was whining, and 2 of the preschoolers were playing chase around the couch.  One of my kids was playing “Bop It Extreme,” and the other was telling a blonde joke.  I can tell you what all of the people in the room were doing, but I cannot tell you what Karen was saying.  Finally, I had everyone leave the room.  I was sitting right next to her on the couch, but I could not hear what she was saying.  I was truly distracted.”

You know, I am sure that we are all like that.  We may be able to leave a service and we can tell you who all was there, who was not there, where people sat, but we cannot remember what the preacher was talking about.

We tend to be like Martha.  We get distracted.  Martha was distracted with all of her preparations; and she came up to Jesus and she said, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself?  Then tell her to help me.”

But I want you to notice what Jesus had to say.  Verse 41 tells us that Jesus said, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things…”

So, what are some of the things that interfere with us being able to hear God?  There are many, but allow me to share 3 main distractions that keep us from hearing God speak to us.

First, is Busy-ness.

Luke 10:40 told us that, “But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.  She came to Him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself?  Then tell her to help me.”
Notice that Martha was distracted.  One of the chief reasons that we don’t hear God, is that we are simply to busy to hear Him.  There are so many things...most of them not bad things…but they were still just things!  For example, do you know why Martha was distracted?  She was distracted because she had opened up her home to let Jesus and the disciples come in and stay with them.  In other words, she was distracted because she was helping Jesus.  You see, she was so busy doing good things, that she missed the best thing ever!

One of the problems of our lives is that we get so preoccupied with the trivial that we don’t have time for the important.  We don’t have time to listen for God, because there are so many other demands in our lives.

We have sports, music lessons, school, our jobs, and the list goes on and on.  We have a gazillion things to do, and we know that no matter what happens this week, we will not get them all done.  The result is that we give God the leftovers.  But let’s be honest for a moment, how many of you actually have any left over in your life?  In your time, your money, your talent?  When we decide to give God the leftovers, that means we are not giving Him anything, and because of that busy-ness, we hear nothing.

A second distraction would be Anger.
Again, Luke 10:40 told us that, “But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.  She came to Him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself?  Then tell her to help me.”

Another reason that we don’t hear God is that we have clogged up the system with unresolved anger.  When anger and bitterness have your attention, God won’t get it!  You can’t be focused on the hurt another person has caused, or the things that another person has done, and focus on what God wants to say to you all at the same time.  Martha was so busy working and getting angry at Mary for not working, that even when she was in the same room with Jesus, she did not hear Him!  She only went into the room to complain about Mary, not be with Jesus!

(Keep flashing the number 17 up on the screen.)

Now, I want you to watch the screen, and I want you to not think about the number 17.  I want you to think about some other number, any number other than the number 17.  Just forget about the number 17.  If you think about the number 17 while you are watching the screen, then you have missed the point.

Now, I would be willing to bet that no one was able to think of another number other than the number 17.  Even if you are forcing yourselves to think about some other number, it requires a great deal of effort since your focus is on the number 17.

That is how it is with anger and bitterness.  You may want to think about God and hear from Him, but the sin of anger and the hurt of bitterness are so much in focus, that God isn’t.  So ask yourself, who is it that is keeping me from hearing God?  If you think of someone, then you need to forgive them first, or you will not be able to let God effectively work in your life.  You have to finish the conversation with them, in other words, stop sending unresolved anger down the line, and then you can open a line for God.  So, anger gets in the way.

And the third distraction is the distraction of Worry.
In Luke 10:41, it says, “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things…”

You see, worry comes from a word that means to strangle or to choke.  Martha was stressed out.  If there is any one word that could describe many of us here today, it would be stressed.  We always feel like we are under the gun, going down for the third time, never able to accomplish what really matters.  Our stress in life keeps us from our rest in the Lord.  So worry is a major distraction that gets in the way of us hearing God.

Those are just a few of the distractions and the interferences that we need to be able to tune out in order to hear God speak to us.  And that just leaves us with one last step today, and that is:

I Must Tune In To His Voice.
It isn’t enough to want to hear God, and to seek to eliminate things that are keeping you from hearing Him.  We must actually tune in to Him.  Luke 10:38 told us that, “As Jesus and His disciples were on their way, He came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to Him.”

You see, Martha opened her home to Jesus.  She did all the things that needed to be done in order to hear Jesus, yet she never truly tuned into His voice.  Mary on the other hand did.  Listen to the verse that introduces Mary to us.  Luke 10:39 says, “She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what He said.”  Now, in order to truly hear God, we need to tune into His voice.  And in order to do that, there are a couple of things that we must do.

First, We Need To Be Where God Speaks.

The reasons that Mary was able to hear Jesus, is that she was in His presence.  I once had the pleasure of speaking at a Father Son Banquet in West Virginia.  It was a great message.  By show of hand, how many of you heard me speak?  No one.  None of you heard me speak while I was in West Virginia?  Well do you know why?  Because none of you were there!

Doesn’t it make sense that if you want to hear a particular speaker, you arrange to go to his speech?  That is how it is with God as well.  If you want to hear His speech, go to where He is speaking!
So, let me ask you a question.  And I want you to answer it our loud.  Where does God speak?

Well, obviously God speaks at church, and that is one way to hear Him.  Another source would be your Bible.  Get into it, read it, learn from it, and I promise you that you will hear God speak.  Sometimes, we can even hear God speak in other people.  The best counselors we can have are those that don’t even know they are counseling us, and that is what happens when groups of Christians get together and grow together.
So, we need to be where God is speaking.

And Finally This Morning, We Need To Be Completely There When God Speaks.
You may say that you are here.  You come to church every week.  But let me ask you honestly, how intent are you on hearing God speak?  Look at Mary.  She was sitting at the Lord’s feet, and all she was doing was listening.  She wasn’t thinking about where she was going to go for dinner after He was done talking.  She wasn’t thinking of all the things she had to get done that week.  She wasn’t even wondering when He was going to shut up.  She simply sat and listened to Jesus.

Mary and Martha were both in the same house with Jesus, but only one was really there.  I believe that we may be in the room with God, but have no room for what He is saying to us in our minds.  We sit in this sanctuary, and we may attempt to fill out an outline, or maybe just keep the kids quite.  We may just find ourselves doing the routine, but not seeking to hear from God.
Do you go to the Bible, and/or to church, for information or for formation?  Now listen to the difference.  Going for information just means you want to increase either your Bible knowledge, or meet your quota of a quiet time or church attendance.  Going for formation means that you are seeking to hear from God and be transformed into His image.

As we wrap things up this morning, allow me to share one last story with you.  A country boy went to visit a friend in New York City.  It was about noon and they were downtown by Times Square in Manhattan.  The streets were filled with people.  Cars were honking their horns, sirens were wailing, and the sounds of the city were almost deafening.  The country boy said, “I hear a cricket.”  His friend said, “You have got to be kidding.  You couldn’t possibly hear a cricket with all this noise.”

The country boy listened again and said, “Yes I’m sure of it.  I hear a cricket.”  So the 2 boys listened very carefully for a moment and then the country boy walked across the street to a big cement planter where some bushes were growing.  He looked into the bushes and sure enough there was a cricket there.  “That’s incredible,” said the city boy.  “You must have super-human ears.”

“No.” said the country boy.  “My ears are no different then yours.  It all depends on what you are listening for.”
So let me ask you this morning, “What are you listening for?”  Are you just listening for the closing prayer, or are you truly listening to God.  God wants to speak to you.  You just have to tune in to Him.                                         Let’s Pray!