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Sermon Series on “Hearing from God”
St. Stephen's Anglican Church
The Rev. Jeffrey O. Cerar, September 21, 2014


The Lord Says, “Follow Me.”


Text: Genesis 12:1-8

“Hearing from God.” That is the topic of the next three sermons I will be preaching. I have invited you to pursue a Bible study on this topic during the upcoming four weeks. This is not going to be a point-by-point recipe for how to obtain God’s guidance for everything that comes up in your life. Rather, I want to look at the fact that God is a communicating God, and examine what He has been saying to His people from day one. For I believe that once we grab onto the pattern of God’s communication, we will be in a position to hear better what He wants us to hear from Him.

I’ll get to that pattern in a minute. But first, let’s take a look at the starting assumption that God has things to say to us. Everything God has shown us about Himself in scripture tells us that God has things to say to us. The Bible itself is proof that God wants to communicate with us. He reveals to us in the Bible what He wants us to know about Him, about ourselves, about the meaning of this world and of life, and about what He is doing.

In the Bible, we find the very nature of God revealed in a surprising way. And that is that He is three persons in one: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We call this the Holy Trinity, and it is a colossal thing for Him to reveal. It means that He is communal by His very nature. God is the basic, original community. The One God has never been alone. Before anything existed, there was God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And God said, “Let us create man in our image.” (Genesis 1:26) So, in creating humankind, God created community. God said, “It is not good that man should be alone. And so He gave Adam a mate (Genesis 2:18) God gave to the man and the woman the ability to come together as one flesh and conceive children. And so God created family. And family grew into communities, and communities into nations. And all of this is a reflection of the communal nature of our Triune God, who created humankind in His image.

It is in God’s very nature to communicate with His creation. We see that with Adam and Eve, and with their children, and with the generation of Noah. We see it in God seeking out Abraham and communicating His plan to Abraham. And down through the Bible, God communicates with the people He has set apart as His own.

The entire Bible is God communicating to us. And the story it tells is of God’s ultimate communication: sending the Son into the world to be the “Word made flesh” and to dwell among us, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

God has communicated to us that this world is fallen because of the invasion of sin. And rather than allowing that to continue forever, and rather than wiping out the whole thing, God has a plan. It is a glorious plan to redeem the world.

That is God’s plan. God is all-powerful. And yet, He wants to do His work through the hands and feet and hearts and minds of human beings. Therefore, God has plans for individuals and congregations that will make that happen. “I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

It is often ridiculed as simplistic and naïve to say that God has a plan for your life. But why wouldn’t He? He created you. He knew you in the womb before you were born. He gave you your DNA. He called you to Himself. He led you to be part of a body of worshipping Christians who are in His grand plan for redeeming the world. Why would He not know exactly where He wants you to fit into His plan?

So the question we come up against is, “How can I know God’s plan for me?” I referred to a pattern in God’s communication with human beings. The Bible shows us that God’s way of preparing us to hear from Him looks like this: God says, “Follow me. Trust me. Listen to me.” This is the pattern that we will be exploring over the next few weeks.

“Follow me, trust me, listen to me.” If we want to hear from God, we have to listen to Him. But He starts with us not in discernment, but in action. He says, “Follow me.” To follow God requires that we trust Him. But also, once we follow God, we learn that we can trust Him. And once we trust God and are following Him, we can listen with belief and acceptance and obedience.

Today, we begin with “Follow Me.” I want to look once more at the foundational story of Abraham. Here was a believer before Judaism. He lived in a place called Harran, which was in northern Mesopotamia, in what is known today as the Kurdish region of Turkey. He was a well-to-do man with herds and flocks and servants. He had a lot of family, although he and his wife had no children, because she was unable to conceive. God came to Abraham and said,

Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.

Here we see God taking the initiative to communicate with a man who He knew would listen to Him. What He communicated was His command, His plan and His promise.

God was saying, as He said to so many others in the Bible, and as He says to you and me, “Follow me.” You don’t hear the words “Follow me” in this passage, do you? And yet, God said, “Go to a place that I will show you.” In other words, “I will lead you there.” As you read the rest of the story in Genesis, you see that God was there with Abraham. He appeared to him four more times, each time reiterating the promises. He promised Abraham and Sarah a child of their own flesh, even though they were old, and she was barren. He promised that their descendants would be as numerous as the sands on the seashore. God changed his name from Abram, which means “exalted father,” to Abraham, which means “father of many.” And He changed the name of Abraham’s wife from Sarai, which means “princess,” to Sarah, which means “mother of kings and nations.”

God beckons us to follow Him as the beginning of the life He wants to give us. There was a time in the Gospel of John when people began to turn away and stop following Jesus. His message was not what they were looking for. And he asked His disciples, “Are you going to leave me too?” (John 6:67) The disciples answered, “Where would we go? You have the words of eternal life.” We tend to hear this as, “You are the one who can save us.” But it is more than that. Eternal life is the life God made us for. It is the life He intended his creatures to live in constant contact with Him, operating in His grace and enjoying His love. The life He offers makes our time on earth worth living. And it extends on into the eternal future.

Do you remember the rich young man who came to Jesus and asked Him, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Luke 18:18) That’s what he was asking about. His life was pretty good. He had money. He said he had kept all the commandments, so he had tried living as God had told him. But still, there was something missing. He was asking, “What must I do?” And Jesus told him to sell everything, give the money to the poor and follow him. It’s easy to get all wrapped up in “sell everything,” and to ask if Jesus would tell us the same thing. But notice that the bottom line of Jesus’ answer was “Follow me.” What must I do to gain life? Jesus said, “Follow me. Don’t let your possessions get in the way. Follow me.”

He told others who had family obligations and social obligations to lay those things aside and follow Him.

He told the disciples to pick up their cross and follow Him.

For Jesus is the way the truth and the life. (John 14:6) He is the way. There is only one way, and that is to follow Him. Our problem today in this society, and the problem the world has always had, is that we want to go “our way.” Jesus once told us that the way that leads to life is narrow, and the way that leads to destruction is broad. Our way is a broad way, because everyone gets to make up his own way. And we live in a culture that celebrates, defends and protects everyone’s own way. It has become such a high value that we don’t expect people to share values anymore. We don’t expect people to have a common understanding of truth. We don’t have a universal moral code anymore. We can’t even define marriage anymore as a lifelong union between a man and a woman, because our culture wants to protect people’s right to see it otherwise.

That is what sin is. That is what is wrong with the world. For the Creator is the one who is supposed to show us the way. He is the one who is supposed to define life for us. The One who made us is the only one who is in a position to expound authoritatively on what our design parameters are, and our performance capabilities and our operational limitations. He is the one who has the warranty. He is the one who knows how to fix us.

And so, God communicates to us: “Follow me.” Follow me and you will find life. The ideal for each one of us is to get to the point where we will set aside “our way,” and follow Jesus wherever He goes.

Something in us tells us that is too risky. There is that “my way” mentality working on us. We like to believe in a myth of security. We like to imagine that we can minimize the risk of life and know that things are going to be easy and secure. But that is a childish fantasy. Life is risk, because we don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring. Life is risk, because everywhere we turn, things are beyond our control. And that is true also of our life with God. We don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring. And we aren’t in control. But God knows. And God is in control. And God has a plan. And He has invited us to follow Him.

As you follow Him, He will lead you to a land that He will show you. He will take you to the circumstances where the people of this earth will be blessed through you. And as you spend time with Him in prayer, God will show you more. As you gain a deeper and deeper understanding of His Word, God will show you more. As you work, play and study with people of faith, God will show you more. He will lead you in the way He would have you go.

In Liberia, there are scores of Christian doctors, nurses and aid workers whom Samaritan’s Purse sent to minister to the people’s health needs. When they went, they didn’t know they would be dealing with the worst outbreak ever of the dreaded Ebola virus. But they are still there, risking their lives. And they are following Christ.

Anglican Frontier Missions has a husband and wife team whom we know and support. They are preparing to go and spread the Gospel in a country where such activity is regarded by the Islamic leadership as a crime. It is risky. But they are going there to follow Christ.

Nigeria is a dangerous place for Christians these days, especially up in the north. We have a Nigerian friend who has established a haven in the northern part of that country for Fulani Christian converts—a safe zone where they can go to escape the death threats. It isn’t safe for our friend, but he is following Christ.

In Plano, Texas in 2003, about 3,000 American Episcopal Bishops, clergy, and lay people came together to form what has become the Anglican Church in North America. We don’t know what tomorrow will bring, and we aren’t in control. But still, we are following Christ. Some of us are worshipping in hotels and auditoriums. Some are gathering in living rooms. Some are building houses of worship for which we don’t have all the money yet. It’s risky. But we are following Christ.

Our mission is to reach North America with the transforming love of Jesus Christ. It’s not easy. It seems like most people aren’t interested; or they don’t want to be transformed. They want it their own way. It’s risky to share the Gospel these days. But we are following Christ.

Yes, people want it their own way. Even many Christians tend to think that God exists for us. But the Biblical truth is that we exist for God. The psalmist said, “Know that the Lord is God. It is He who made us, and we are His.” (Psalm 100:3)

When we follow God in His way, it is risky, but it is the path to true life. We don’t do it because He promises success as the world understands success. We don’t do it to win His favor. We don’t do it so we can boast of being a heroic risk-taker. We do it because we trust that God will do wonderful things with the faithfulness of His people who follow Him.

If we as a people can get to the point that we will follow God wherever He goes, we will see His glory, the glory of the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

© Jeffrey O. Cerar, 2014

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