Welcome. It's great to have you here
today. My name is Richard.
I'm the exec pastor here, and it is a privilege to be baptized in
people today. I cannot wait.
I promised Claire, who overseas the preaching and everything
here, that I will preach on topic today and then I will get
out the way and then we will baptize some people, which will
be incredible, right. First of all, you are joining us
in a midst of a press series which we have been doing for a
few weeks now. Claire started off a few weeks
ago talking about digging holes brought to spade and everything
else. Great imagery.
Then there was this incredible talk the following week.
It was amazing. It really spoke to me deeply.
I did write it, but it was really for me and I, I'm glad
you guys got to listen to that. And then just to bring things
down, Claire then followed with the topic of fasting, which
really kind of hit a bummer, but it's a great topic and it was a
great talk. And off at the back of that,
we've now been fasting. We've invited you, the church,
to fast every Wednesday morning, whatever that looks like for you
with a particular topic and focus every single week.
And so this week's focus is praying for our youth and our
children. So we lift them up.
We have some amazing, incredible young people in this building
and it is a privilege to to walk with God with them.
But why don't you lift them up and pray for them this week?
I'm going to wave. You are one and and it is an
absolute privilege. So pray with them, pray for them
and join us as the church and we pray on Wednesday morning for
God's blessing over them. And then we've had Jenna Pritt
did a great talk last week. All I remember is him talking
about brushing his teeth. But it's about that persistence
and obedience in following God on a regular basis.
And he used that example of brushing his teeth, landed him a
wife because I don't think she would have accepted him without
it. But also just the simplicity of
prayer, just doing that thing on a regular basis this week,
today, this morning, I'm going to talk about listening prayer.
Now, to get us started on this, I'm going to do a little bit of
a survey. I need your interaction on this,
right? Communication.
It's a conversation. OK, You have a phone in your
hand. We're not talking about family.
Oh, some of you do. You are really involved in this.
I need you up here. Like demonstrating this.
Anyway, you've got a phone in your hand.
You've got a friend you need to reach out to.
How do you reach out to them? Who were here in the room is
like, I'm going to text them. I'm going to send them on
WhatsApp. Just a text message, a few
words. That's all they need.
They don't need anything else. Put your hands up.
If that's you, that is me. Thank you.
Gen. XS and Millennials like don't
disturb me, I don't want to be disturbed with anything more
like you are my people. We can text each other.
I'll give you my number afterwards we can just message
and then about 3 days later I'll reply to you.
That is us now. OK, moving up now.
Who loves a good long drive? Because you know that when you
want to drive, you can hit that call button and have a good
hour, 2 hour conversation with someone who's a phone caller who
likes a phone call. Oh man, you, you guys sometimes
call me and I'm I'm busy basically I see, I see a phone
call. I'm like, just don't want to see
that. But some of you are wired that
way. You love a phone call that
tricks your box. OK, right.
I need AI, need I need to know who are the sickos in the room
who enjoys a video call. Be ashamed of yourselves.
Why? I have three daughters in the
house and inevitably at some point I'll walk past and find
that I am suddenly on a camera talking, looking.
I'm like, Bella, can you tidy up your room?
Oh, hi various friends that can see me.
This is wrong. Just no.
Meet up with a person. You don't need to see their face
all the time. You don't need to see where
they're at. You don't need to see what their
bathroom looks like. Come on.
It's just inappropriate. OK.
Right. We've moved past the sickos now.
Now it's confession time. OK?
I need to know. I need to know who in this room
And and we do prayer. My right, your left afterwards.
Who in this room does voice notes?
Oh come on, A surprising amount of you strange people.
Why? I'll tell you what happens with
a voice note is you. You hit that button, you've got
this vague idea of what you're trying to say, and then you
start by saying something along those lines.
You say hello, you, you kind of get to the point.
About 3 minutes later, you're on a completely different topic.
You're talking about something else.
I'm on the other end of that call listening to this at 1 1/2
speed because I haven't got a clue what you're talking about.
And then for some reason you expect a response like just
wrong. Anyway, thank you for that.
That was confession time. Anyway, going back to those
texters, if you want to, if you want to talk with me, that's
fine. Everyone else, you've got
Claire, you've got Yasmin. Talk to those guys.
Let's just just know. All right, next question and
taking it into our talk, how do you approach prayer?
How do you talk to God? How do you engage with him?
How do you move in that area? Because prayer is fundamentally
and simply a conversation with God.
And so how do you approach that is is a is a question is what
we're asking as we go through this.
I mean, anyone can do this. Anyone can talk to God.
And yet so many of us will turn around and say, yeah, I can
leave a voice note, a 5 minute voice, I can FaceTime, but I'm
not very good at prayer. And so many of us kind of hit
that challenge. And it's almost like we see it
as a completely different thing. And what we often mean is that
we don't know if we've said the right things, if we've
communicated it in the right way.
And the reason why we say that is simply that we don't always
hear a response. We don't always get something in
return. Often one of the reasons why we
pray and we don't feel like we hear anything in return.
Why it feels one way is simply because we approach it like a
voice note or voicemail prayer. You see, what do you do when you
leave a voicemail or leave a voice note?
You, you leave one. It's short, it's a, a little bit
of ram and it's a whole lot of awkward.
And when I became a Christian, that's pretty much how I
approached prayer. So I became a Christian in my
20s. I've never been taught how to
pray. I'd never really grown up with
it. It was a whole new concept to
me. And so when I prayed, I'd often
do this thing while driving around the city and I just had
it on. I kind of desire burning desire
to pray for the city 'cause this is where I live.
This is where I want to see God move in the same way they've
moved him life, my life. I wanted him to meet with
others. And so my prayer would be
something like this. God, hi, can you, can you just
listen to me for a second? I've, I've got a few things to
say now. I don't really know what to say.
I don't know how to say it, but I need help with this thing.
And if you're willing to help with this thing, God, I I
promise I'll be good. OK, I won't do that.
I promise. I'll try to be good.
And yeah, but ultimately, if you could just help with this thing,
that would be amazing. Thanks.
And then it'll be super awkward. A little bit more awkward
silence. I'll try praying in songs.
That was, that was fun. And then inevitably at some
point I'd hit the radio and just sing along the way the rest of
the way. You know, I didn't really know
how to pray. And I've got to be honest, that
was a really good effort for someone with no experience of
praying. And I give myself absolute
credit and points for that because that was the best I
could do and I was super proud of it.
But my hope, my way of praying, was the hope that God was
possibly going to respond to that message and he was going to
reply to that rather than the expectation that he was on the
other end of the phone. And I think this is how some of
us approach prayer is We're willing to leave a message,
we're willing to pray and hand it out there, but we're not
always expecting that response. You know, there are other people
that have prayed. And, you know, if you've grown
up around Christians, if you've been around church for a long
time, you know, you've probably got some awesome prayers in the
back pocket. You can just like start nice and
easy and you can talk about how good God is and how amazing.
And now halfway through your prayer, you're pretty much
shouting, screaming your, your Pentecostal style.
You're amazing at prayer and it sounds incredible and honestly,
it lifts the faith in the room and honestly, it's it's full of
truth and it's an amazing way of praying.
But at the end of it, you just hang up and you're finished,
you're done. And it can sound articulate, it
can sound powerful and it's all true, but you just hang up once
you've finished. Now some of us out of difference
will also tag on the little if it's in your will or God, would
you do this? And then we hang up again and
that's pretty much how many of us can approach prayer.
Basically we're saying, God, I've done my part, I've prayed,
I've left a message with you and my request, and now it's up to
you. And if something changes, if I
get that job, if that person's healed, if revival comes, then
praise and glory and honour be to God.
Most I. But if it's not, you know,
you're always mysterious. And, you know, I know you use
all things for the good of those who love you.
And this is hardly the way that we read in the Bible about the
disciples speaking to their Jesus and to their God.
And I think that there's a different way of doing it.
And, you know, there's some great verses.
I'm literally just gonna throw up some verses just to reorient
our our thinking. One of them is Isaiah 30.
And he says this. How gracious he will be when you
cry for help. As soon as he hears, he will
answer you, whether you turn to the right or to the left, your
ears will hear a voice behind you saying this is the way.
Walk in it. Or Isaiah 50.
He wakens me morning by morning and wakens my ear to listen like
one being instructed in Jeremiah 33.
Three call to me and I will answer you and I tell you great
and unsearchable things that you do not know.
You know, God always has something to say.
And if we're willing, more so if we're willing to respond, we
will start to hear those things. I was talking to my kids as I
often do. And, and so hey, we've got some
friends coming around. We need to do some things.
We need to wash up. We need to tidy up.
Could you do that? Silence.
Hey guys, I literally just asked you if you could just tidy the
house a little bit. Could you just help me do that?
Silence. OK, guys, can you turn off the
TV? Can you even hear me?
And one of them responded, Yeah, Dad, we can hear you.
We're just not listening. Some of your parents have just
hit the rage point of view. The truth is, we can all hear.
We just don't all listen. Listening is different because
it requires a response. And see, that's the difference
between a voicemail prayer and listening prayer.
See, a voicemail prayer is, hey God, here's my request in the
best way I can articulate, and now it's over to you.
Whereas listening prayer is God, here's my request.
Now tell me, what do you want to do about this request?
And more importantly, how can I respond?
How can I join in? And what I'm going to do for the
rest of my time talking is I'm going to give you 10 ways that
you can hear from God. And each and every one of you
can do this and respond to this. And you can turn these ten ways
of hearing from God into listening to God and responding.
OK, sound good? All right, First way is
invitation, right? Who we are in the room.
Confession time again is a swifty.
Come on you. It's it's no, it's not a place
of shame. She's a talented woman.
OK, Now if you went to the Eras concert or whatever concert, if
you just got into her presence, does anyone in this room think
that you could make such a great impression if you got some face
to FaceTime with her? So much so that she would be
like, Oh my gosh, you're literally the most amazing
person I've ever met. Can I give you my number?
Can I take yours? Can we like start a friendship?
Can I, you know, 2 weeks later, I'm really sorry Beyoncé, I
can't meet with you because I've just met this amazing person and
I'm going to spend time with them and Oh my gosh, me and
Travis are expected and you're the first person I want to call.
I know way too much about Taylor Swift, but for the point of
this, this is really exciting. Who here really thinks they can
make that kind of impression on someone and get that kind of
response, that kind of invitation?
And yet somehow we come before God as if it's absolutely
nothing. And yet the God of the universe,
the God who created heaven and earth has invited us, has
basically said here's my number, call me.
Here's my invitation to reach out and speak to me.
Jeremiah 33. If you call me, I will answer.
I'm better than Richard who I knew my replies to text.
I will speak to you. I will listen.
You know, the absolute first way that we hear from God is this
invitation. Now, I would say that every
single person in this room has had some kind of invitation,
whether it's AI wonder if there's something to this God
thing or hey, I feel like going to church today or I want to
have a chat with my Christian friend because there's something
different about them. Basically what you're saying is
there's some part of your heart, some part of your being that's
gone. I feel like I want to go in that
direction. I want to move over there.
You've been invited by the living God to come and spend
time with him. The first way we respond, the
first way we hear from God is by being invited.
You know, it's at this point we respond to it and we decide how
to RSVP to that. And today we are going to
baptise 6 people in this service, eight people in the
next service who have not just responded to that initial call,
but they've said yes. This is the response that I want
to make for the rest of my life. This is how I'm going to respond
to this invitation that God has shared with me.
It is an incredible, incredible invitation that God speaks and
it's one of the first ways that He speaks to every single one of
us. Secondly, through others, you
can hear from God through reading a book, you can go to a
verse of group, you can even hear from God watching TV.
I've seen some crazy programmes and God has spoken so directly
to me and He's spoken through my kids.
Not in the last example I gave, but other times if we're willing
to listen. You know, each and every single
Sunday you come and hear a talk and I'm not asking that you
remember every single part of this talk.
I'm asking as you sit there to go, God, here I am.
Speak to me. What do you want to say to me
today? I'm going to discount 95% of
what Richard says, but what is that one thing that you want to
say that I can go away and think about because God is speaking to
you every single time you say here I am, I'm listening.
You know, we had the Alpha Holy Spirit day yesterday and it was
tremendous. We've only heard stories.
I haven't spoken to Andrew and Joanne, whoever they are,
wherever they are. Sorry, I know who they are and,
and got the direct feedback. But I remember running these
Alpha courses and we had, we had this one session where someone
was doing a talk and then someone on the course came up to
the speaker afterwards and says, I'm so angry with you.
I'm so angry with my friend. How dare, how dare my friend
tell you everything that's going on in my life right now, all the
things I'm struggling with. How dare my friend be so like
carefree and share all of this stuff.
And the speaker politely listened and said, I'm really
sorry. I've no idea who you are and I
have no idea who your friend is. This is just a talk that I
prepared is sometimes we come into the situation, we come into
a talk. Maybe you were here last week
listening to Prince talk, and you were like, oh, my gosh, that
man is speaking directly to me. And what I'm saying to you is,
yes, prepared a good talk. But God was the one that was
speaking to you. And you were hearing what he was
saying and deciding whether you wanted to respond to that or not
#3 worship. Yeah.
Fair, fair, fair. Worship is an incredible way.
I mean, I've encountered people that have come out of worship
and they've just been bawling their eyes out and crying.
And I remember approaching someone after the service once
and going up to them and saying, Hey, just tell me what's going
on. Like, you know, why are you
crying? Are are you OK?
And they're like, I have no idea.
All I know is I was in that space of worship and I just felt
like I, I was being like hit with wave after wave of love.
And it was in that space, through that aspects of worship
that God was speaking to them. God was talking to them.
God was moving in them, not through audible words, but
through this incredible sense of his presence, reminding them
that they're never alone. They absolutely loves them, that
he's absolutely for them, that he's absolutely never going to
give up on them. And in that space just spoke to
them over and over again. And they can put it into words,
but they felt what God was saying.
They heard what God was saying. Number four impressions.
OK, bring it down a little bit. My that horrible time of COVID
and there was a lot going on. And I was remember, I remember
the story the other day when we were doing introductions, but my
friend, his, his brother was hit with COVID pretty hard and was
in a coma, had been in a coma for about a month by this point.
And I, I said to my friend, like who's a atheist, he has no
interest in God. Like he loves having
conversations. It's not antagonistic, but just
that doesn't fit in his worldview.
And I remember praying with him, talking with him, just trying to
offer words of comfort. And I remember one day when I
was praying for him, I just felt like God said he's going to be
OK. And I was like, that's like, I
want to tell my friend this. And I'm honestly like a little
bit scared because I don't want to mess my friend around.
And I just, I just, and I remember God saying to me, look,
I'm saying this, I know you don't feel like this, but I'm
saying it. Why don't you tell him that I'm
saying it. His problem can be with me, not
with you. I said, OK, fine.
And I spoke to my friend and I said, look, I know this sounds
really hard and it's hard to hear, but I really, as I was
praying, I just got the sense that your brother's going to be
OK now. You know, I, I really want him
to be OK. I think that's part of my hope.
But I really felt like God was saying that he's going to be OK.
And I remember my friend just going, OK, thanks. 73 days.
His brother was in a coma 73 days like, and that was an
emotional journey for him. Every single moment of that.
No idea whether his only brother was going to live.
But when he came back to life, I mean, it was still a
tremendously long recovery and he's back to relatively normal
now. But I remember speaking to my
friend afterwards and, you know, crying with him, being really
happy with him. And he said, you know what?
I, I remember that time when you told me that God said he's going
to be OK. And if I'm honest, I, I, I
didn't want to believe it, but I, there gave me something to
hold onto. I just want to say thank you for
praying and thank you for giving me the encouragement.
That was bold. But God spoke and the difference
was I didn't just pray my prayer and leave it.
I was ready to respond and share boldly that moment.
And what wonderful way of turning it out.
Absolutely thank God for that. Impressions #5 a burden for
others, keeping it again, a little bit more real.
I remember one of my friends, he, he, he was just at home, he
was off work for a little bit and he reached out to a friend.
He just said, hey, this is really strange, but like, you've
literally just come to mind. I just thought I'd reach out,
see what you're doing. And his friend was like, hey,
I've got nothing on. I, I can always, you know, we
can hang out. So he came over and hang out
with his friend for a few days. They play music together, they
watch loads of movies together. They went walks, absolutely
nothing special. And his and my friend was just
going, I don't understand. But hey, yeah, it's nice to
connect with a friend. Anyway, the time together
finished and and he and his friend left and he went into the
room to tidy up. And he saw this little note on
the bed. And on the bed he looked at it
and it said, hey, I just want to say thank you for inviting me
round on that day you called me. I was pretty much set to to hurt
myself but you called me literally right at the right
time and gave me an alternative. And I just want to say thank
you. I really think you've made a
difference in my life. And all that happened was my
friend got a random thought, a prompting and responded to him.
A burden for others. And he reached out.
Maybe you have a burden for others today.
Maybe someone comes to your mind and you just need to FaceTime
them or something. Send him a voice note.
Please don't do whatever you need to do, but maybe you just
need to reach out promptings. A very quick story.
We used to do Christmas Day here, a meal here and, and
someone came up to my wife and she said this lady said, Hey,
this is really random, but God has just said the word ovens.
Like how random is that? And, and my wife was like,
that's really crazy because we've just put a list together
of things that we need for Christmas Day.
And one of them is like ovens. And so my friend was like, what
do you need? Show me the list.
And so two days later, 1500 lbs later, they got everything they
needed to provide for Christmas Day.
Real simple response, response and, and prompting.
And sometimes we listen to those prompts and go, no, I don't want
to part with my money. I don't want to part with my
time. But do you know what?
That can genuinely amazingly change someone's life.
OK, before I carry on, quick pause, quick interlude.
How do we know if this is God speaking or how do we know if
this is just our mind? You don't Simply put, I, I went
to Chicago once and we were walking around.
I sorry, I was walking around. I got off the train and I
literally just walked around the city as I got off the train.
Like I was feeling challenged at the time to, to be gracious, to
be kind, to be practical. And so I stepped out and there's
this homeless girl on the street, a veteran.
And I walked up to him. I said, hey, you know, just
talking to him. Is there anything I can get you?
And he goes, well, I'm really hungry at the moment.
If I can have some money. I was like, I'm not giving you
money, but I can go and pay for you and get some food.
It was like, yeah, that's fine. So we wanted to the station and
he went to this chicken place, $30.00 worth of chicken.
Later he walked out very happy. I was very bitter.
I was like, God, surely this wasn't you.
No man needs $30.00 worth of chicken.
Doesn't count. Don't matter how hungry you are.
That's ridiculous. And, and I bless him, I walked
off. I was so frustrated, like, God,
that clearly wasn't you. I'm never going to listen to
this again unless I'm 100% sure. And like Karen, I'm walking down
the road kicking the floor and everything else.
And then I came across another guy who was homeless.
Hey, can I, can you help me? And I said, well, what's wrong?
He goes, I'm really hungry. I was like, hold on a second,
come with me. And so I walked him back to the
first guy and I was like, this guy has $30.00 worth of chicken.
Have a party, enjoy yourselves. And I walked off.
Now I don't know if God was in that or not, but it's either
going to be God or it's going to be a great story.
All I'm encouraging you is just to respond and see what happens,
OK? It's not a faith building
message, is it? But it's, it's reality #7
conviction of right and wrong, genuine conviction of sin, comes
with a message of encouragement. You see, when God comes into
your life, and when I first encounter God when I was 20
something, it wasn't, hey, you're messed up, you're screwed
up, you've got no chance, you need my forgiveness, otherwise
you're dead. It was, I can see that you're
making so many mistakes, but if you're willing, I'm willing to
help you said God. That's what I was reading
through this. That's what I felt God was
saying. You see that?
It's so easy to hear the first part.
You're messed up, you're wrong, you've done wrong, you're
guilty, you feel you. That's condemnation.
That's not what God is about. God says you're struggling, let
me help you. And that's the invitation that
he's saying. And that's a conviction of right
and wrong. And that's how we hear from God,
by knowing that there's something that we're not quite
right in or with and we need to help.
Dreams is number 8. Some of you guys have had the
most tremendous God dreams and your whole life is written on.
When you wake up in the morning and you have the seven hour
stories to share with your partner, Please wait for them to
have coffee first. I don't have these dreams but I
did lose my glasses for five days once and I looked
everywhere and then I had a dream that they were in my car
under the seat and I went to my car and they were under the
seat. I am literally a prophet.
Like come five days, a lot of prayer and some dream, a lot of
sleep. I will give you the answer you
need. Or you can do it #8 #9 visions.
You just go through the Bibles, especially the book of Acts,
Saul, Cornelius, Peter, and Anias amazing visions of God.
And sometimes God speaks in those ways.
Just be ready. That's one of the ways and #10
audible voice speak Lord for your servant listening is one of
the most amazing quotes. We often pray and sometimes he
speaks audibly just as a show of hands.
Has anyone in this room heard the audible voice of God?
I expect way. I expect five hands.
There's at least 1012. Not everyone has this
experience. What a privilege it is.
Ask those guys if you shorthand and there's one huge one that
doesn't deserve to sit in a list, but it's really important.
Does anyone know what it is? Of course you all said the Bible
and scripture like God speaks so practically and tangibly through
scripture all of the time. This is AI haven't got Bible
with me. This is a powerhouse.
Imagine me holding up. This is a powerhouse of wisdom,
guidance, instruction. No, I've missed the point.
Now it is absolutely worth listening to.
I tell you. What I do on a daily basis is I
open up the Bible wherever I have a bookmark in the Old
Testament, New Testament, and then the Psalms, Proverbs area,
and I literally just pick one of them.
I read a chapter and I write down whatever stands out and it
could be utterly random, and then I spend time just thinking
about those. Sometimes it's just interesting.
Often God speaks to me through the day and I end up using that
quote either for myself or someone else.
God speaks so powerfully through scripture.
We have 6 people in the room this morning who have read the
scripture and responding to the scripture be baptised.
You see, what they've done is they've made a decision for, to
follow God and they've come to church and they've lived and
walked with Jesus and they, they have this response to say, now
I'm ready to respond and be baptised.
And it says in Romans 6, skipping all of my talk at this
point, sorry. Now actually let me say this,
what they're making, they're making this absolute, incredible
decision to make Jesus their Lord.
I, they're saying, you're in charge.
I trust you. I want what you want from me.
Cos I know it's way better than I could ever have imagined or
dreamed for myself. And I know because you are Lord
God that you can get me there and I can trust you every step
of the way. Secondly, they're they're making
this decision. Say I want him to be my saviour.
I am gonna mess up. I am gonna make mistakes.
I don't want to, but it happens. Life is challenging, but I know
and thank God that He's gonna save me, that He has saved me
through sin on the cross and He has made a way for me even to
have access to God, that He is saving me.
He's transforming me from the inside out.
He is rewriting my narrative. He is rewriting my life.
He is changing the way I see things, think about things,
approach things, act in certain situations.
And one day He will utterly save me.
He will do away with this heaven enough that is broken, that is
selfish, that is unrighteous, and He will take me into His
presence, into a place of heaven where absolutely he rules.
There's no healing, sorry, no healing.
There's no tears, there's no suffering, there's no pain and
there is absolute redemption. And that is the promise.
There's six people this morning are buying into when they say
yes, I am ready to respond to what God has done.
I am ready to be baptized and say my life belongs to God and
in front of my church friends, in front of my family, in front
of everyone that I could possibly invite.
And they responded and came here this morning or you just came to
the service. I am saying before you that this
is my God and I'm choosing Him forever more.
And today we are going to celebrate with these six people
and we're going to give them a huge round of applause and we
are going to stop listening to me and we're going to move down
there and we're going to baptize them.
Does that sound good?