Hearing God's Voice Through Worship

Welcome to Worship in the Word with Pastor Robert Morris. Thanks for listening today. We are in a series titled Frequency, and Pastor Robert is sharing with us how we can tune in and hear God. I'm your host, Jenae, and I'm here with my co-host, Patrick.

Hey, everybody. Well, as we've learned in this series so far, there are many ways that God speaks to us, and today's message is about hearing God's voice through worship. This message really hits home for me because I often feel like my lifeline to God is through music.

I totally relate to that. I also feel closest to God during worship. This message is packed with great stories, scripture, and wisdom about how God doesn't just want to speak to us, but he wants to meet with us. And Pastor Robert will explain exactly what that means.

This is such a great message, so let's listen in. 35 years now, I've been in ministry, and the number one question that I get asked is, by far, people ask me, how do I hear God? How can I hear God? And how can I know that it's God speaking to me? So, in this series, we've been talking about how to hear God. In the book, I talk about how to hear God, the different ways that God speaks, practical ways. We're going to get into some very practical ways to hear God, but today I want to talk to you about hear God's voice through worship. Now, I want you to think about how many times you've been in a worship service and you've sensed the presence of God, and God has spoken something to you that you needed to hear.

I mean, just changed your life. God speaks through worship. The reason God speaks through worship is because he's there. He's there. Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am.

I'm right there in the midst. I can remember one time that this young lady got saved, and she went home. She was living with a guy.

He was in a rock band. She went home and said, I'm moving out. And the guy said, why are you moving out? She said, I got saved. He said, well, I want to get saved too, literally. And she said, well, I'm serious.

And he said, I'm serious too. She said, I gave my life to Jesus. He said, I want to give my life to Jesus. So, she told him the only way she knew how to get saved, which was the way that she'd gotten saved. So, she said, okay, next Sunday, you come to church with me. And when the pastor says, if you're a visitor and you want to give your life to Jesus, you come down the front. She said, then you go down to the front.

So, he said, okay. So, the next week, they came to church. And during the worship, he said, he started thinking to himself, I'm getting sick. I'm getting sick. And he started thinking, I'm going to throw up. I'm going to throw up right down the back of this lady in front of me. That's what he was thinking. And so, he said to his girlfriend, I got to go because I'm about to throw up. And she said, it's just the devil.

Just stop it. Like that. So, he said, all of a sudden, he felt better. But he was sensing God's presence in worship.

You know, he was sensing something different. So, I want to talk to you about worship. Let me read you a couple of scriptures about the tabernacle in the Old Testament.

All right. Exodus chapter 25, verses one and two. Exodus 25, verse one says, then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the children of Israel, that they bring me an offering from everyone who gives it willingly with his heart, you shall take that offering.

Now, here's what he's saying. When they come to church, I want them to come to give. A lot of times, we don't even think about this.

I'm not talking about money at all. Don't even think about that for a moment. But God is saying, when they come to the tabernacle, I want them to bring a willing offering. Now, I'm going to tell you why that's so important in just a moment.

Okay. Then he goes down in verse eight and says, and let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them. Dwell would be another word for live. And then verse 22, he says, and there I will meet with you and I will speak with you. Now, we're talking about hearing God, God speaking. I've told you, God speaks all through the Bible, all through the Bible. The Bible starts with God speaking to Adam and Eve. It ends with God speaking to John on the island of Patmos, God speaking. So God wants to speak with us, but he also wants to meet with us.

This tabernacle is actually called the tabernacle of meeting. So let me just take these two phrases. He says there, I'm going to meet with you and I'm going to speak with you. Okay.

So here's point number one. I will meet with you. I will meet with you. God wants to meet with you. Now, when the Lord started speaking this to me, I just thought that this is what I want to share on. I want to share it with the whole church. And then eventually I put it in the book.

But I remember thinking, I've got two great points. I will meet with you and I will speak with you. And then when I wrote down, I will meet with you. I thought, what's the difference? I will meet with you and I will speak with you.

What's the difference? And the Lord started showing me. God can speak to you without meeting with you. All through scripture, he might send a prophet to give you a word from God, but God's not there. He's not there meeting with you. There was one time when a hand showed up and started writing on the wall.

You remember that? God was speaking, but he wasn't there. So there are ways. And even now, you can, someone can speak with you and not meet with you. You can send someone a letter, you know, if you're old fashioned, or you can send them an email or you can send them a text, right? Or you can call and talk to them on the phone and you can speak with them, but there's no meeting.

So there's a difference. So I think this is very important where God's talking about worship. He says, I do want to speak to you. And we're all, this is, this is, we're talking about a book that I wrote frequency about hearing God. I'm telling you, yes, God wants to speak to you, but here's a great truth that we miss. He wants to meet with you too. You say, well, what's the difference?

Okay. Well, you can hug someone when you meet with them. I, we referenced earlier that one of my good friends, Gavin McLeod is here.

He's been actor and played captain of the love boat and things like that. Well, we talked on the phone Saturday before he came. Today, the first thing when I saw him, we hugged. We spoke Saturday, but today we met.

We met together. You see what I'm saying? There's a difference.

Okay. So God wants to meet with you and then he makes this statement. Now when they come have them bring an offering. Why is God saying that?

Let me tell you why. Because when you give to God, it's in his nature that he gives back to you. Now we all, I know we always relate this to money, but I want you to know that it's more than that. When you give something to God, God gives something back to you. Now, please understand this. We really don't have anything to give God.

As a matter of fact, what we actually had to give him most of the time, isn't that good. We're worried, right? About something. We're anxious about something. We're upset about something. We're angry about something.

We're hurt about something. So we give God our hurt. God gives us his healing. We give God our worry.

He gives us his peace. See the difference with a meeting and not just speaking with is that there can be an exchange. You're listening to Worship in the Word with Pastor Robert Morris. I loved Pastor Robert's first point about God wanting to meet with us. You know, at first glance, this seems so similar to speaking with God, but there's so much more that can happen when meeting with God. There's this opportunity for an exchange.

There really is. And God definitely gets the short end of the stick as far as the exchange goes. But man, do we need that encounter. Giving him our hurt so we can become whole again.

Trading our anxiety for peace. Those are the types of meetings that change and pierce our hearts through and through. Well, let's jump back in with Pastor Robert as he shares more about meeting with God. Let me show you a scripture. Genesis 28 verses 16 and 17. It says, Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, Surely the Lord is in this place. And I did not know it. And he was afraid and said, How awesome is this place. This is none other than the house of God.

And this is the gate of heaven. Okay, well, I've told you before, I'm a grammarian. I love grammar. And I love math.

I love those two subjects. So this jumps out at me. Now, maybe none of you had jumped out it.

I understand that you might have strengths, you do have strengths in other areas. But if you're a grammarian, that jumps out. Because Jacob said, Surely the Lord is in this place. And I did not know it. Okay, let me say it again. He said, Surely the Lord, I see one shaking your head. So you got it.

Surely the Lord is in this place. That's present tense. And I did not know it. That's past tense. Okay, that's a no no.

You don't do that. I have to tell my wife and my sons and my daughters all the time when they say, Dad, will you read over this article I wrote? Okay.

No. And my wife sometimes will say, Will you read this that I wrote? And don't correct the grammar. Because we're running through the editorial department, they'll correct the grammar. I just want to know the content. And I want to know if the theology is right.

And what do you think about the content? And I say to her, sugar, I have to correct the grammar because I can't read it until I correct the grammar. Okay. So I see this, and I think, okay, that's grammatically incorrect. Okay, here's the only problem with that. That's the Bible. So you can't say something wrong with the Bible.

Something's wrong with me. So what I realized is that here's what Jacob was saying. Surely the Lord is present tense, still in this place. And I did not know it. But I know it now. I know it now. But I didn't know it.

But I know it now. Okay, let me give you a definition of worship. Worship is becoming aware of the presence of God. That's what worship is. Worship is an encounter with God.

And if you were going to read the story, what Jacob does is he says, God, I'm going to serve you. He first before this, he calls him the God of my father. After this encounter, he calls him my God. In other words, before this, he says, you're the God of my parents. And he meets with God. And he says, you know, the Lord is here. And I didn't know it.

But I know it now. So we give to God worship. God will speak to you if you really give your heart to Him during worship. I can remember one time, I've been ministering a lot and I was very tired. And I was in a worship service. And I was just kind of sitting there and all of a sudden I thought, what am I doing? I need to be worshiping God. My strength comes from worshiping God. I'm tired, but I need to be worshiping.

So I just started worshiping God. As I was worshiping God, all of a sudden, in my mind, I had what the Bible would call a vision. I could see myself. I could see, well, first I could see this big hall.

And it looked like in Roman times to me, everyone was dancing. There were doors at the end of the hall that were probably 50 feet tall, tall as the ceiling and a throne at the other end. And the Lord was sitting on the throne. And all of a sudden the doors open and I stepped in and I looked like a soldier.

I had that, the sword in my hand, the spear, scars all over my body, blood from war. When I stepped in, the music stopped, every white body parted. And the Lord said, have everyone go out.

So everyone left. It was just the Lord and me. This is happening in my mind during worship while I'm just standing there worshiping God. And I said, the Lord said, how's the battle going? And I said, we're winning, sir. And then the Lord took his crown off and I took my helmet off. And then he sat down his scepter and I sat down my sword. And then the Lord went like this, come here, son. And I just ran and hugged him, sat in his lap on the throne and went to sleep.

And I had these scars and I felt like the Lord would just touch my arm and the scars would go away and all the dirt from battle and all the mud and all the blood. And I was just completely clean and I was invigorated. I was ready to go. And I went back out then and I turned around. I said, it's so good to see you, dad.

He said, it's good to see you, son. And then I put my helmet on. He put his crown on. I picked up my sword.

He picked up a scepter. The doors opened up and everybody came back in and I looked totally different. And this is what I heard someone say.

No one knows what happens when they close the doors. And I remember thinking no one knows that I'm his son. They just think I'm the captain of the army. But I know that happened in worship. It changed my life. I had a meeting with God. He didn't just speak something to me, but I met with him. If you're just tuning in, you're listening to Worship in the Word with Pastor Robert Morris. If you missed the first few messages of this frequency series or want to check out another series, visit PastorRobert.com or call 833-933-WORD. Janae, that vision Pastor Robert just shared was so powerful.

It was so powerful. And it's so incredible that we can curl up in our king's lap. Well, I just keep thinking that's the kind of encounter where the nature of your relationship with God completely changes. It's when he's no longer the God of your parents or grandparents or pastor after that. He's your God and he's your father. The crazy part is that we are all able to have this kind of moment with God when we enter into worship. Pastor Robert has so much more to share with us, so let's continue. All right, here's the second thing is God says, I will speak with you.

I will speak with you. And we're talking about worship. Worship is when God manifests his presence.

It's when he makes his presence known. If you've ever studied scripture about the presence of God, there's the omnipresence of God. Omni comes from the word all. God is all present. There's the omnipresence. There's the inner presence in that the Holy Spirit lives within us and there's the manifest presence. And that's what we sense either in our quiet time or in a corporate worship service when we sense God's presence so strong.

It's when he makes his presence known. When I was traveling and speaking, I remember they asked me to speak one time at a Lions Club meeting and it was at a luncheon. And I went in and I remember we sang some songs. A guy greeted us.

So I'm glad you're here. Then we sang some songs and then a guy got up and made some announcements and then they passed a bucket around and we gave some money to help people. And then I got up and because I was supposed to speak and I spoke and I used the Bible. And then when I sat down, this other guy got up and said, now, if you want to join, come down here at the front.

I remember thinking to myself, I've seen this before. This looks like church. We sang songs. We had some announcements. We did an offering. I talked from the Bible.

And then they said, if you want to join, come down the front. And I'm standing there and I said, Lord, what's the difference between church and a Lions Club meeting? And the Lord said to me, church is when the lion shows up.

The lion of the tribe of Judah. When I show up, that's church. And if the lion doesn't show up, son, he said, all you've had is a Lions Club meeting. See, when God shows up, it makes all the difference.

He wants to meet with us and he wants to speak with us. The scripture I used before talks about this tabernacle. Exodus 25, eight and nine says, and let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.

I read that one, but look at the next verse, verse nine. According to all that I show you, that is the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings, just so shall you make it. Now, this is the Old Testament, Moses, the tabernacle of Moses. Okay. It's called the tabernacle of meeting. We refer to it as the tabernacle of Moses, so we can compare it to Solomon's temple. Okay. Or David's who had the tent, the tent of meeting.

All right. But let me show you a New Testament scripture about the tabernacle of meeting. Hebrews eight, verse five says, these priests serve the copy and the shadow of the heavenly things. As Moses was divinely instructed when he was about to make the tabernacle. For he said, in other words, God said, see that you make all things according to the pattern shown you own the mountain.

Okay. So he said, I want you to do this according to the pattern. So Moses made this pattern. Now Hebrews says, okay, this is just a copy and a shadow of the real tabernacle. That's not the real one. Moses the tabernacle wasn't the real one.

That was just a foreshadowing of the real one to come. So there was a place, if you had been alive, when Moses was leading the children of Israel and you had been a Jew, you could go to a place where God dwelt. Think about that. Where you could meet with God and you could speak to God. This is what he said. I will meet with you and I will speak with you at this tabernacle.

Okay. Now here's my question for you. Wouldn't it be great if there was a place like that today? Now before you think of church, let me read you another scripture. 2nd Corinthians 6 16 says, for you are the tabernacle of the living God. As God has said, I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God and they will be my people.

Okay. If I told you that through my high and lofty position that I have as a senior pastor, I have arranged for all of you a personal meeting with God. If I told you that and you knew it was, I wasn't just blowing smoke, it was true. Would you show up? Sure you would.

Right? Well, there's someone that has a higher and a loftier position than I have. And I was just joking about mine.

Okay. But his name's Jesus. And he's arranged for you to have a personal encounter with God anytime you want it through the Holy Spirit. And you are now the place where God lives and dwells.

So we're talking about in this, in the book frequency, we're talking about hearing God. Listen, if you want a word from God, let me tell you how easy it is. Just, just watch. I'm going to give you a visual.

Watch everyone home. Here's how, here's how you get a word from God. Hey, I need to talk to you. He's right there. He lives in you.

He lives in you. You're now the tabernacle. I'm telling you, you can have some of the best experiences with God in worship. Enter his presence with singing, come into his courts with thanksgiving, praise. You probably all experienced this, what I'm talking about, in a worship service and God's all over the place.

Let me tell you one more testimony about God speaking during worship. Most of you know that, some of you might know, but a lot of people know that my wife was a goody goody growing up. I was a bady bady. I'm sorry.

My parents are here, but y'all know. So I've told the world about it by the, you know, so but when I got saved, it was dramatic. I mean, it was dramatic. I was on drugs. I was delivered.

Never wanted to go back. I was 19. Debbie was nine. She was delivered from bubblegum, you know. So I have this dramatic love affair with Jesus. And Debbie looked at it and thought, I don't know if I never loved Jesus that much.

I mean, I wasn't as bad as he was, you know. And so one day in worship, she has a vision. She enters the presence of the Lord and God speaks to her. She sees herself in a white wedding dress. She sees the Lord. She knows the Lord is her groom.

This is all scriptural. She goes running toward the Lord and all of a sudden she falls in a mud puddle that she didn't see. And she said mud was all over her, all over her.

Hair. She said there was not one place on her body or dress. It wasn't covered in mud. And she's in the mud puddle on all fours weeping because she was so dirty before the Lord. And she said the Lord brought back to her attitudes when she was young, a pride and bad attitudes toward her parents and things like that, sin. And she thought, I'm so dirty.

How could he ever love me? And all of a sudden she saw standing on the mud, two feet with nail scars in them. And there was no mud on his feet, but he was standing on top of the mud and he put his hand down with a nail scar in it. She put her hand in his hand and the mud just began to go away and he lifted her up and she was completely clean. And then as it went down, the mud became gold and they started dancing on streets of gold.

And here's what she thought. I was just as dirty as Robert and I needed a savior just like he did. And I can love Jesus just as much as he can. That happened in worship.

I just feel like we received the best news ever. We can encounter and experience God at any time. There's nothing keeping us from meeting with him at this very moment and having him envelop us in his arms and whisper his deep love.

What an incredible privilege to be allowed to enter his courts at any moment of any day. And I think we need to ask ourselves, are we taking hold of every opportunity to meet with God? Well, we encourage you to take a moment to think about what Pastor Robert shared today and really listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying to you. To get a copy of this message or any of the messages in this frequency series, visit pastorrobert.com or call 833-933-WORD. That's pastorrobert.com or 833-933-WORD. You can also follow Pastor Robert on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Next time, Pastor Robert will be sharing about how to value God's voice. Thanks for listening today and have a great week.