Listening to God for Messages

How do we know when we should preach a particular message to a people?

The prophets of the Old Testament often used the Hebrew word massah (משּׂא) to describe their messages. It’s normally translated as vision or prophecy, but the literal meaning is burden. The prophets felt God burdening them with weighty matters which commanded them. Jeremiah even described his burden as “a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot” (Jeremiah 20:9).

Should we expect the same to hold true for us? Should we expect our messages to burn within us, or to lay heavy on our hearts until we deliver them?

Perhaps, but we should remember that the prophets were speaking to a rebellious nation. We, on the other hand, may be preaching to Anna, who gardens. Our scheduled messages may not weigh upon us in the same way as a prophet’s. Still, we can expect moments when we will be given a prophet’s burden to speak to a weighty matter. It could be an inner compulsion to deliver a warning, or an awareness that we should speak words of comfort. Whatever it may be, there will be days when we feel a divine urgency behind our speaking.

The question then becomes, “How do we best sense these massah messages from God?”

Discernment is best done when we live our lives in relationship — with God, with people and with the Scriptures. The intersection of these three relationships provides a listening space for intuiting burdens from God. We preach out of this listening space.

It is salient first to cultivate a relationship with the living God. If God is just a concept to us, or if we have allowed our relationship to dessicate, or our hearts to harden, we cannot hear God speaking. Our messages will sound hollow and be lacking in power. Authenticity comes only when we have an honest prayer relationship with God in which we confess our shortcomings freely and we walk in a just, merciful and humble way before God (Micah 6:8).

Such a relationship is marked by an attitude of tenderness and responsiveness to God. Some people call this openness, “listening prayer.” The opposite attitude is to be stubborn and rebellious and unable to heed God. Hebrews 4:7 reminds us:

“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts.” (Hebrews 4:7)

But it is not enough just to listen to God. If we wish to discern messages, we must also know people. How can we expect to decipher what God wants us to say to people unless we understand them? Those who deliver the most pertinent messages are acquainted with the joys, hopes, struggles and fears of the people they address. Personal relationships impart relevancy to our messages.

When we are ignorant of people, we end up speaking to our own interests. Or, we make the mistake of assuming that people are more developed spiritually than they really are. This makes us sound irrelevant, or harsh. It is only when we become familiar with people that we can be their true soul friend and communicate on their level to their hidden doubts and private struggles. This makes our preaching honest and pastoral.

The third listening relationship is with the Scriptures. The Bible is the story of God’s self-revelation to the world through a chosen people. When we believe in the story, it becomes ours and God speaks through it to strengthen us.

In other words, the Scriptures are a common language that we have with God. When we become fluent in that language —living and thinking in it — we can hear God say all sorts of things. But if we are not fluent in God’s common language, we hear nothing.

We are most able to hear spiritual words for others in the listening space provided by these three relationships. Sermon preparation involves prayerfully listening to God, studying people and meditating in the Bible.

"The Spirit has taught us in meditation to ponder its meaning, to put aside, if we will, the responsibility of preparing the message we’ve got to give. Just trust God for that. But first, meditate on it, quietly ponder it, let it sink deep into our souls. Have you not often been surprised and overcome with delight as Holy Scripture is opened up as if the gates of the Golden City have been set back for you to enter? A few minutes silent openness of soul before the Lord has brought us more treasure of truth than hours of learned research."

Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-92)

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