March 17, 2019, is the final Sunday of the “PRAY Like Jesus” series at St. Peter Lutheran Church. Our texts are 1 Samuel 3:1-10, Psalm 119:97-105, and John 10:1-10, 27-30. This is also the second Sunday in Lent, and it’s also St. Patrick’s Day.
At the end of the sermon, I talk about the “PRAY Day” interactive prayer stations we had during worship, which were a lot of fun. I’m hoping to do a blog post sometime with all the information about our prayer stations, but in the meantime, check out some pictures on the St. Peter Facebook page here.
If you’ve missed the previous weeks, here are the links to my sermons on Praise, Repent, Ask, and Yield. Here’s the final sermon in the series:
For the last four weeks, we’ve been looking at prayer through the lens of PRAY – Praise, Repent, Ask, and Yield. If you’ve missed some of those weeks, check the church Facebook page for links, or let me know and I’ll share them with you.
Every time I define praying, I try to be careful to say prayer is talking with God, rather than talking to God. It’s a two-way conversation.
Today’s question is, “How do we listen to God?”
As we’ve talked about different aspects of prayer each week, I’ve brought up Martin Luther and his understanding of the Lord’s Prayer in his Small Catechism.
This week, I want to turn to the founder of another denomination, John Wesley. John and his brother Charles are the key founders of the Methodist tradition. Charles Wesley was also a prolific hymn writer—our green Lutheran hymnal has a dozen of his hymns, including Hark, The Herald Angels Sing.
John Wesley agreed with the Lutheran doctrine that we are saved by grace alone through Jesus Christ, but he felt Luther focused a little too much on salvation and going to heaven and didn’t put enough emphasis on how God’s grace works in this life to make us more holy. He thought a lot about how we follow God’s will here and now, in this world, how we make ethical decisions.
So today as we explore how we listen to God in prayer in this life, I’m going to share something called the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral.” This is one of those cases of theologians and professors liking complicated-sounding names for simple concepts. Wesleyan quadrilateral just means Wesley’s idea of four points.
Again, the question is, “How do we hear from God to know God’s will?”
The first corner of Wesley’s quadrilateral is scripture, the Bible. Obviously you hear from God’s Word in worship here at church, but I hope this isn’t the only time you ever open a Bible. As a side note, if you want a new Bible or an easier translation to read, talk to me sometime—I have some extras I’m happy to give you or I can help you pick one to buy.
If you regularly spend time reading the Bible, the Holy Spirit might sometimes bring specific verses to mind at the right time to be helpful. For me, sometimes it’s through a song coming into my head to remind me of a Bible story or verse.
Of course, the challenge with listening to God through the Bible is that the Bible often does not answer our specific questions. In my senior year of college, I prayed about whether I should be a pastor, and I never found a Bible verse saying to stop applying for computer programming jobs and start sending in seminary applications.
What the Bible gives us is a good framework for knowing God’s general will.
One example I’ve heard (from Nicky Gumbel in the Alpha course) is if you’re wondering if you’re hearing God tell you to leave your wife for someone you met at work, the answer is no. If you’re wondering whether God is telling you to cheat on your taxes, the answer is no. God tells us in the Bible to not commit adultery and to not steal. Sometimes the commands are pretty clear.
I learned from the Bible that God wanted me to proclaim the good news and serve my neighbors, and this career is the best way for me to obey.
Most importantly, the Bible tells you God loves you. It tells you Jesus died for you to set you free from sin and to give you eternal life.
Today’s Gospel reading tells us Jesus is our good shepherd who comes to give us abundant life. Those are good places to start when you’re looking for an answer to prayer.
Did you hear in our Psalm today how much value is put on God’s word? God’s words are sweeter than honey. They’re a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. God’s word guides us in life.
So we listen to God through Scripture. The second point of Wesley’s quadrilateral is tradition. We listen to God through our worship traditions, through spiritual practices like confession, and through the historical experiences of Christians through the last 2,000 years.
Learning about church history and the lives of the saints help show us how God works. Right now we’re learning something from a guy who lived three hundred years ago.
Lutheran theologian Jaroslav Pelikan once wrote, “Tradition is the living faith of the dead, traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. And, I suppose I should add, it is traditionalism that gives tradition such a bad name.” (source on Amazon, page 65)
Point three is reason. God gave us brains to be used. We need reason to understand the Bible, to take those general points and apply them to our lives today.
Lutherans understand “scripture interprets scripture.” We don’t take every word in the Bible literally. There are all kinds of laws we don’t follow, because we read everything in the Bible through the lens of Jesus Christ.
Men’s Bible Study is reading the book of Deuteronomy right now, and when we read passages in the Old Testament about God saying to kill all the people in the promised land, we interpret those through the lens of Jesus saying God loves the world. We interpret parts in the Bible about people who are sexually different not being allowed in the temple through the lens of stories like Peter baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch.
Even though there are examples in the Bible of killing people of other religions, we stand in opposition to events like the New Zealand terror attacks against Muslims because the Bible also praises people of other faiths and tells us to not commit murder.
The Holy Spirit works through our reason so we can apply the general principles of Scripture to our particular situations.
The Wesleyan quadrilateral’s final corner is experience. Our relationship with God is personal. God is speaking to you, in lots of different ways: through other people, through events in your life, through your conscience, at the table through ordinary means of bread and wine.
I really do believe prayer is a two way conversation, even though most of us are much better at the talking part.
Sometimes God speaks through visions or audible voices. St. Patrick heard God’s call to go to Ireland as a missionary through a dream. Samuel heard God’s voice calling his name. Personally, I’ve never had a supernatural voice or vision as an answer to prayer.
Even though most of us don’t get clear answers like that, Samuel’s story is still helpful. Notice that God speaks to Samuel when he’s lying down in the temple. Most of the time I suspect we don’t take time to listen to God.
The Bible is full of examples of God speaking when people are silent, when people stop to listen. Jesus goes to a quiet place by himself to pray (Mark 1:35). David goes in to sit before the Lord. Peter goes onto a roof to pray. (examples from Bill Hybels’ book Too Busy Not to Pray – Amazon link).
Samuel also is in the temple, and of course God can speak anywhere and God is not locked up in this building, but coming to church definitely helps in hearing God.
Even though Samuel hears God’s voice, he doesn’t understand it’s God until Eli tells him. Eli’s not perfect—it takes a couple tries for him to figure out what’s going on—but when he understands, he’s able to help Samuel recognize God’s voice.
One of the most common ways God talks to us is through other people. If you think you’re hearing God’s voice, run it by someone else at church. Having a community helps us test what we think God is saying against scripture and other people’s reason and experience.
Jesus says the good shepherd knows his sheep, and the sheep know his voice. Jesus has called you by name.
This week, I encourage you to take the time to pray, and as part of your prayer, practice listening to the shepherd’s voice. Read God’s word. Gather for worship. Pay attention to your experiences. Pray and listen to God.
Right after worship, we have a variety of prayer stations set up in the fellowship hall. These are different creative ways of praying for you to take advantage of and incorporate into your own prayer life. It’s ok if some of them don’t work well for you. We all have different experiences. If one prayer method doesn’t work right now, try a different way.
All these examples of prayer are different ways of listening to God in everyday life, different ways for you to pray and spend time with God.
As you pray, as you spend time with God and pay attention to your relationship with your heavenly Father, may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Amen