Welcome to the In Touch podcast with Charles Stanley for Wednesday, October twenty first. Do you find it difficult to recognize God's direction? Discover how the spiritual discipline of listening to God can bring greater clarity to your walk with Him. Communication is absolutely vital to all of us in everything we do. Not only in our relationships with each other, but it is also vital in our relationship to God.
Now, communicating with the Lord involves both speaking and listening, and most of us are much much better at talking to God than we are to listening to Him. And so, what I want us to talk about this morning is how to listen to God, how to listen to Him, how to be able to hear what God is saying. And know that you're getting it straight, that God is spoken, and that you have heard God give you direction or whatever it is that you need at that moment.
Some want you to turn with me, if you will, to the 50th chapter of Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 50. I want us to read just one verse, and he says. The Lord God has given me the tongue of disciples, or the tongue of a learner, in order that, or that I may know how to sustain the weary one with a word. He awakens me morning by morning.
He awakens my ear to listen as a learner, as a discipler. He says he's given me the tongue of a learner. In order that I may be a help to those who weary, and how did I learn to be that helper? By being willing to listen as a learner.
Now, you can learn how to listen to God, and I want us to look at this whole idea in three aspects. And the first is this: our ability to listen to God. Our ability to listen to God.
Now. When we think about our ability, our ability to listen to God is limited. It is limited to believers only. The only way you and I can hear from God is to hear through our spirit. A lost man, as well as a believer, has a mind.
So you don't hear from God through your mind, and we all have the flesh and our emotions. We don't listen to God through our minds or our emotions, our feelings, the flesh. We hear from God through our spirit. God sent His Holy Spirit to indwell believers in order that you and I could receive from God. For we are listening to Holy God, and so Holy God speaks to His Spirit, who is within us, and His Spirit conveys to us the message of the Lord.
So all listening to God begins with the work of the Holy Spirit indwelling us through the salvation experience. The Holy Spirit is God's divine receiver. He is His earthly receiver, implanted, so to speak, in every single believer.
So our ability to even listen to God begins with the fullness or the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in our life.
Now the second thing I want us to notice here is this, and that is our approach to listening to God.
Now that we are capable of hearing Him, if I'm going to be able to listen to Him, I must be able to hear what He's saying with clarity if it's going to have any effect upon me at all.
So here's what our approach is: we learn to listen to God by understanding. How God speaks to people today.
Now we said He speaks in one of three ways primarily. He speaks through His Word, through other people, and through circumstances.
Now the Word of God is His written revelation of His message to mankind, and the primary way in which God speaks to us is through His Word.
Well, how is he going to speak to us through his word? Only if I am willing to spend enough time or to spend time meditating upon the word.
Now, God has given us the word as a means of listening, because that's the primary way through which He speaks.
Now, we've said He also speaks through other people. Everything everybody tells you is not always the truth. You can't believe all the suggestions and the advice you get.
So God has not only given us that word as the book of instruction; the word of God is God's safety check for us to discern the truthfulness of what is being told to us by others. Even when God speaks to them in order to speak to us, and there are times when you and I need to hear it. We need to hear it audibly. How do you know, and how can you discern whether it's from God or not? God's word is His check vowel.
If somebody tells you that God has told you them to tell you to do something, you can always go back to the word to see if what they're saying is in keeping with the principles of Scripture.
Now, you can only check that out if you know what the Word of God teaches.
So, if we're going to have the capacity to listen to God, if we're going to learn how to listen. We begin with understanding that our ability finds its source in the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, and that our approach is to go to the Word of God primarily to be attentive to what God may be saying through others to us and through our circumstances.
Now, deliberate, willful sin in the life of a believer is static. Interference to my listening spirit, because my spirit is grieved when I sin against God, and so grieving the spirit by sin, is inviting static and interference, so that I will not be able to hear and to listen to God as I ought.
Now, the third thing I want us to look at here is this, and that is the attitude which you and I must have if we're going to develop. The kind of capacity to listen that God wants us to have.
Now, friend, I want you to get a pencil and piece of paper. I want you to get ready to write down some very basic, simple things that, if you will apply to your life, you will learn how to listen to God.
Now, here's God's objective. God's objective is that you and I learn how to listen, so that we won't always have to get off somewhere by ourselves, very quietly, before the open Bible to hear what God is saying. There may be times that we'll have to do that. He wants us to develop such a listening heart, a listening spirit, that being able to hear God speak to us is the way of life.
So that whenever God wants to say something, there will always be that subconsciousness within us that's always listening to whatever God may want to say in your business, whether you're at the computer or sitting at a conference table or at home, whatever you may be doing, always sensitive to any moment that God may want to say something to you. That's God's goal.
Now, how do we develop the kind of lifestyle? How do we develop the capacity to listen, whereby that's possible, so that you and I make that we make right decisions, the best decisions. That when we face difficulties and hardships, that we can hear the still small voice of God, and we'll know what to do. All right, I want you to jot these four words down. How do I develop?
How do I develop a listening spirit? The four words I want you to jot down. Number one is priority. If I am going to learn to listen to God, I must make that a priority in my relationship to Him. Lord, teach me how to hear what You say.
That needs to be a priority. When you open the Word of God to meditate upon it, make it a priority. And Lord, speak to my heart. Teach me how to listen to what you say, friend. As a parent, you will never be able to teach your children any lesson in life more valuable than to teach them how to listen to God, so that when they leave home, they're still having divine instruction clearly given to them because they've learned to listen to the Lord.
Learning to listen—it must be a priority. Secondly, I must pursue that. It can't just be a priority. I must pursue it. That is, when I open the Word, there is that desire within me, that hunger within me, that thirst within me, to to be able to learn how to really discern what is God saying to me.
So you study to learn to listen to God. You make it a priority. You pursue it, study it, and the third word is to persist in it. Because you see, the first time you begin to meditate upon the word of God, and you think, "Lord, I want to, I want to learn how to listen." Well, you're not going to know what you need to know the first time or the second time. It may be months, it may be a year or so.
But learning how to listen, the fourth word is simple enough, and that is to pray. Ask Him to teach you how. But if you don't make it a priority and pursue it and persist in it, praying over it is useless. Those four words, if you want to know how to get on your face before God and know that God has spoken, or in the midst of your daily activities when you need to hear something from God, the impression of the Spirit—you're not going to hear an audible voice, more than likely—but it's that strong impression, that check of the Spirit. You just know God has suddenly intervened in the midst of your affairs.
Now, with those four words in mind, I want to give you the five characteristics of a listening spirit. How do we listen? Five characteristics of a listening spirit, and in order to be able to learn to listen, we must develop this kind of a spirit. First of all, and I'm going to give you a scripture under each one of these. If I'm going to learn to listen to God, I must develop first of all.
If you'll jot these down, a teachable spirit. I must develop a teachable spirit. A teachable spirit is one that is open, that acknowledges that there is a need to learn. A teachable spirit is able to learn, willing to learn, open to learning, acknowledging that there's something to learn.
Now I don't mean having an open mind to everything coming and going. I'm saying to be open to God to teach you how to listen to Him.
Now, the second phrase I want you to jot down is an attentive spirit. And I want you to turn, if you will, to Proverbs chapter four, an attentive spirit, and listen to what He says in this particular proverb. Very interesting how He says it. He says, "My son, give attention to. Listen to this.
Give attention to my words. And listen. Incline, incline your ear. Incline your ear to my sayings. Incline your ear to my sayings.
Do not let them depart from your sight. Keep them in the midst of your heart, for they are life to those who find them, and health to all their body." I want you to listen to what that passage says. If you're going to develop a capacity to listen to God and to know that you've heard Him, He says, first of all, you must develop a teachable spirit. Secondly, you must have an attentive spirit. You're willing to take the time and to concentrate on listening to God.
You can't learn to listen to God 90 miles an hour. You're going to have to take time to be quiet. And get still and learn to listen, so that then, in the rush of things, you can still hear God because you've developed a listening spirit.
Now, I want you to notice what He says will happen to you when you and I learn to listen to God. He says, "My son, give attention to my words; incline your ear to my sayings; do not let them depart from your sight." Now, He's talking about God's words. He says, "Keep them in the midst. What? In the midst of your heart." He says, "Because God's word, in the midst of your life, your heart, your spirit, are life to those who find them.
That is spiritual life, and health to their whole body." Do you know what he's saying? That our physical health. Has a direct relationship to our capacity to listen to and abide by the word of God. Meditation, listen. Meditation upon the word of God, quiet meditation upon the word of God, not only steals my body, it relaxes my emotion and releases my tension, and the stress drains out, and my body is renewed physically.
He says, "When you and I are able to listen to God, meditating upon the word, attentive to the word, our spirit is full of life and our body is going to be full of health." Third phrase I want you to jot down: a humble spirit, a humble spirit.
Now I mean by that simply this: that you acknowledge your need. You acknowledge the need you have to be able to listen to God.
Now, if you'll turn to the twenty-fifth Psalm, one simple verse here that I think is so important for us to grasp. The twenty-fifth psalm is very simple, very plain, but very important. He says, "He leads the humble in justice, and he teaches the humble his way." How do we learn anything? We learn by listening. He says he teaches the humble his way, so that you and I can listen.
But in order to be able to learn to listen to God, we must have a teachable spirit, open to learn. We must have an attentive spirit. We must have a humble spirit that is acknowledging our need to learn.
So let's say them together. In order to learn to listen, we must have a teachable spirit. Attentive spirit and a humble spirit. The fourth phrase is submissive. We must have a submissive spirit.
Why should God keep talking if we're not going to submit and obey what we hear? Would you turn to Deuteronomy chapter eleven for a moment? Eleventh chapter of Deuteronomy. He says in verse thirteen of this chapter, and it shall come about. If you listen obediently to my commandments, that is, if you listen with the spirit that is submissive, Deuteronomy chapter eleven verse thirteen, and it shall come about if you listen obediently to my commandments, then he tells what will happen.
So, if I'm going to be able to learn how to listen, I must submit myself to God to say, "Lord, whatever you say, I'm going to be obedient." Why should God keep talking if He knows I'm not going to do what He says? A submissive spirit. All right. There's one more phrase I want you to jot down. One more, and I'm going to give you a verse under this.
That is an expectant spirit, and I simply mean by that that you're anticipating God speaking to your life. You're expecting Him to say something. You're anticipating what God is going to say.
Now let's look at a verse here under this expectant. Turn to Proverbs chapter eight for a moment, verse thirty-four. He says, "Blessed, blessed is the man who listens to me." Now that stirs up my anticipation. That is, the man who listens to me is going to receive from me. The man or woman who listens to God is going to receive the message that they need at the moment in their life.
So, how do we develop a listening spirit? We must make it a priority. We must pursue it. We must persist at it, and we must pray and ask God to teach us. And then, our spirit must be characterized by five different words.
First of all, a what? A teachable spirit, a attentive spirit, a humble spirit, a submissive spirit, an expectant spirit—we're anticipating God listening to us.
Now, my friend, I believe the most important lesson you'll ever learn in life as a believer is to learn how to listen to God, and if you will simply apply what you have heard. Already, just those simple truths—they are very simple. God makes them simple so you and I can understand them, write them down, begin to apply them, and God begin to work them miraculously in our life. You'll learn no greater lesson than how to listen to God. Father, thank you for teaching us.
Such marvelous, wonderful, incomparable truths, in such a simple and childlike fashion. We are asking in Jesus' name that your spirit will seal this message and create a deep, abiding hunger within us, so that all that you want to accomplish in us, you'll be able to do it, because we've learned to listen. Is our prayer, in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for listening to today's podcast titled "How to Listen to God." If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by in touch.
dot org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
