Is It Just Me? | God Hears You | Pastor Alex Himaya

It's just, there's all this pressure, you know? And sometimes it feels like it's right up on me, and I can just feel it, like literally feel it in my head, and it's relentless, and... I don't know if it's gonna stop. I mean, that's the thing that scares me the most, is that I don't know if it's ever gonna stop. Yeah. Well, you do have a nail in your head. It is not about the nail. Are you sure? Because, I mean, I'll bet if we got that out of there... Stop trying to fix it. No, I'm not trying to fix it. I'm just pointing out that maybe the nail is causing... You always do this. You always try to fix things when what I really need is for you to just listen. See, I don't think that is what you need. I think what you need is to get the nail out of there. See, you're not even listening now. Okay, fine. I will listen. Fine. It's just... Sometimes, it's like there's this achy... I don't know what it is. And I'm not sleeping very well at all, and all my sweaters are snagged. I mean, all of them. That sounds really hard. It is. Thank you. Ow! Oh, come on. If you would just... Don't! And all the men said... Amen. I don't know if you've ever felt like you're not being heard, but we're going to talk about it today. And I want you to just hear out of the chute. Your God hears you. And before I dive into that, let me just deal with a couple of things. Number one, this. I wish I had a great story. A guy fell on me, and I broke my wrist. And the amazing thing is that it happened overseas, and I flew

25, 6 hours back with both bones broken through. And the point of me telling you that is I'm tougher than you think I am. And I am praying for all of you who golf. I am praying for the rainiest six weeks we've ever had. And that all the rain we need all summer comes in the next six weeks. Because if I can't play golf, you can't either. And let me just tell you about Easter weekend, 18,000 people on campus on Easter, 24,400 over the weekend. By far the most we've ever had as a church. And God is doing incredible things. Listen to this. The one day offering to feed the world, we gave $481,386. To feed children all over the world. Here's the amazing thing I heard this morning. The first gift from the Allen Gamble campus financially came into the one day to feed the world. Guys, we are so proud of you and what God is doing there in your midst. Highest attendance we've ever had at Allen Gamble last night. And God continues to do amazing things across all of our campuses. 2,400 plus students at Dodgeball and 164 people in the last 10 days have given their lives to Jesus Christ and our church. And I'm just grateful. And I hope you're grateful. And I hope this doesn't get old to you that we get to see this with our own eyes and get to be a part of God doing something in our day and in our land. Both in us and through us. And today I want to jump into the text. Would you just take your hands and hold them in your lap and would you ask God to speak a fresh word and a new word to you this morning. Would you ask him to allow it to be so incredibly clear to you that there's no mistaking that it was him speaking to you

through his word and by his spirit and a prompting in your spirit. And so Father today we thank you that you are the God who hears us. You're El Roy and today we worship you and we pray Father that you would speak to each of us in a clear way and we thank you that you hear us when we cry out to you. In Jesus name we pray and together we all say amen. I know a stat. I've read a stat. I've preached a stat. You've heard this stat over and over and over again and here's the stat. The majority of problems in marriage are due to a lack of communication and a lack of communication or miscommunication is usually because you either don't hear the other person or you don't feel like you are being heard by the other person. Which is kind of funny because Meredith just the other day was saying to me that she wasn't feeling heard or something like that. I wasn't really listening. But here's the truth, we all have moments when we don't feel heard, right? And in those moments, what we want to do is to take one of these, right? You know, and just scream at the people around us so that they can hear us. And as a parent, I would say things to my children, and they would say, yeah, sure, dad, whatever. And then somebody younger or cooler than me would say the exact same thing, not even as well as I said it. And my kids would go, wow, that was life-changing. And I'm just staring at them. And sometimes thinking, I taught them that,

that they said to you, but I learned to just accept it. And here's the application, parents, you need to get your kids in students and in student ministry so somebody other than you is echoing your voice. And look, it's one thing to feel like your friends don't hear you. It's another thing to feel like your kids or your spouse doesn't hear you. And by the way, I was kidding about Meredith. At least I haven't heard her say that. But it's a whole nother thing when you feel like God doesn't hear you. When it feels like your prayers reach the ceiling and turn and do a U-turn, that heaven becomes brass and it feels like everything you are saying is falling on deaf ears. And that is exactly the situation that the Hebrew children found themselves in when we get to Exodus chapter three. They've been in slavery for hundreds of years. They've suffered through this back-breaking work and they had cried out to their God, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the God of Joseph, whose own cries reached heaven from the pit of a prison. And those prayers moved God to elevate Joseph above everyone else in the whole land. And now that very same God is giving them the cold shoulder.

Or at least that's what it feels like, that God has closed his ears to them. But when we look at the scriptures, we know that he hadn't. In fact, in this key verse that we're looking at over these four weeks in Exodus chapter three, God reassures Moses that he hasn't turned a deaf ear to them. Let me take you back to the verse that we started in last week, verses seven and eight. God said, I have certainly seen, say seen. We talked about that one last week, that God sees you. The oppression of my people in Egypt, I have heard, say heard, their cries of distress because of the harsh slave drivers. Yes, I am aware of their suffering, so I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians. Now, this word heard is the Hebrew word shema. Say shema. It means heard, or we'll talk about it. It means a little bit more than heard, but you've heard this Hebrew word many, many times. We talk about it around here all the time. It is the abbreviation for the prayer in Deuteronomy chapter six. The shema, hear O Israel, the Lord your God is one. You are to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your mind, with all of your strength. In fact, repeat after me in Hebrew, if you will. Shema Israel.

Adonai Eloheinu. Adonai Akat. The most prayed prayer in the history of the world. And here's the most important part. That word shema does not just mean heard. It more literally means pay attention. Pay attention to, and there's a big difference between the two. In fact, when your wife says to you guys, are you even listening to me? And you say, sure, I'm listening. You said da-da, da-da, da-da. That's not exactly what she meant. She meant are you paying attention to me? Did you shema me or are you just hearing me? And today I want you to hear the God who shema's you isn't the God who just hears you like some background noise that he is actually really listening to you. And it is the cry of the heart of every believer, in fact, I would say of every non-believer that finds himself at the end of their rope hoping there's a God in heaven who can hear us. When you lose that job, when you come up short in the budget, when you're left on read by a boyfriend or a girlfriend, when you just get off the phone with a doctor and the news is not good news, all of us say something like David said in Psalm 31 where he says, turn your ear, God.

to me. We all want God to hear us at the moment of our biggest need and when we need rescue and when we are desperate what we need most of all is to know that God hears us and this phrase turn your ear is a really cool Hebrew word picture but because it literally means stretch out your ear and if you were raised in the generation I was raised in and you hear that phrase stretch out your ear your mind goes to Bugs Bunny when he heard the girl whistle the bunny girl whistle right and his ears would turn and go straight to her and that whistle would lift him up and move him over to her hey baby right that that that is the word picture in the Bible in the Hebrew language that that God in heaven he hears us and his ears stretch out to us and they stretch down to where we are why because the call of our heart is so strong that it literally moves God in heaven now I want to show you a few other scriptures today that prove what what it is that I'm trying to say to you today I want to begin in Mark chapter 10 and it's the story of Bartimaeus it says when Bartimaeus heard say heard when he heard that Jesus of Nazareth was nearby he began to shout say shout Jesus son of David have mercy on me they had a response for him and they said to be quiet many of the people yelled at him that but he only shouted louder son of David have mercy on me when Jesus heard him he stopped and said tell him to come here so you got this guy Bartimaeus blind Bartimaeus by the way therefore he can't see Jesus but he hears Jesus and when he hears Jesus he wants Jesus to hear him so he starts to shout and he cries out in fact that word for shout is the Greek word krazo which is about a like a raven it's a raven's call to screech is really what it means to screech or to scream in other words he's not just whispering hey Jesus he's yelling he's at the top of his lungs he wants to get Jesus attention and look what happens they try to shut him up and they said hey hey knock it off Bartimaeus in other words what they're saying is hey your voice is not the voice worthy of being heard at this moment and is it just me or does anyone else ever feel that way at times that you have a complaint or you have a concern and someone else or maybe everyone else is trying to shut you down and maybe they they begin by saying you

don't really believe that do you or someone who wants to see you fail so they try to keep you quiet this is the very tactic of your enemy to get you to doubt God or even just be embarrassed so that you don't call out to him because he knows that your father hears you and I want you to know today if God is your father if he is your God he is a good good father and he does hear you in fact let's jump to another story in John chapter 11 and it says Jesus looked up to heaven and said father thank you for say it hearing me and look at what he goes on to say read it with me you always hear me be great for you to preach that to yourself right now in your heart and in your mind you always hear me God look even Jesus needed to know that someone was listening to him that God heard him his own father and listen as a father and as a son myself I can attest to you it is so important that your father hear you and I mean both your earthly and your heavenly father look the reason Jesus ministry was so effective was that the father heard him they had an intimate love relationship with one another his father listened to his prayers and answered his prayers and the good news is is that his father is your father and as a believer and as a child of God listen he is listening and he wants to answer you and it is so important that the one you are talking to not only hears you and is paying attention to you but can actually do something with your request I don't know if you've ever called into customer service of one kind or another recently anybody I know it was bad a few years ago when you had to wait on hold and now they fixed it with AI and it's some sort of a mechanical voice that sort of sounds human but isn't and I find it to be actually worse because at the end of the day all they do as AI is leave a message for somebody else and if that's all AI is we had that back in the 80s it's called an answering machine right and and the type I'm the type of person who always is trying to go around that that algorithm I'm pushing keys and pushing zero screaming in the phone representative representative why because I need to get someone who can help me on the phone right and I've heard that if you cuss in that hold time that they hear it and

they answer I haven't tried it yet you should try it and let us know if that works but listen every desperate prayer you have ever prayed is like that you don't want to leave a message do you you want to be in touch with someone who hears you and can help you and in the Old Testament where I want to spend the balance of our time today is a story about a woman named Hannah and she was in need of help and she went to the temple one day to pray and there was a man there by the name of Eli and he was the priest and this story's in 1st Samuel chapter 1 open your Bible or open your app where we've given you all of the scriptures and if you read the opening chapters of 1st Samuel you will agree that the priest Eli was of no use to this woman I picture her walking in seeing him and yelling representative right because she needed a God who would hear her and help her so let's look at the story and 1st Samuel 1 and beginning in verse 9 Hannah got up and went to pray Eli the priest was sitting at his customary place beside the entrance of the tabernacle Hannah was in deep anguish crying bitterly as she prayed to the Lord and she made this vow O Lord of heaven's armies if you will look upon my sorrow and answer my prayer and give me a son then I will give him back to you as she was praying to the Lord Eli watched her seeing her lips moving but hearing no sound he thought she had been drinking must you come here drunk he demanded throw away your wine just like a man right fact all wives look at your husband and say just like a man that you see the man the human not God right saw her lips moving but he did not hear her because he was not listening but she was crying out not for human help she's crying out for divine help now watch this verse 15 oh no sir she replied I haven't been drinking wine or anything stronger but I am very discouraged and I was pouring out my heart to the Lord in other words I was praying like you should have been praying priest right and then look at verse 16 don't think I am a wicked woman for I have been praying out of great anguish and sorrow in that case Eli said go in peace may the God of Israel grant the request you have asked of him nice recovery for Eli right blame the poor woman for drinking when she explains she's more spiritual than you then play it off like you're

gonna help her right now watch this this is called the book of first Samuel because it's about Samuel and do you know what Samuel means let me show you this in verse 20 in due time she gave birth to a son she named him Samuel for she said I asked the Lord for him she asked the Lord for help and the Lord heard her and not just heard her but answered her and not just answered her but helped her write this down Samuel means the Lord has heard me and she marked the end of a barren period by proclaiming the goodness of God through the name of their child and every time she looked at that child or thought about that child or told someone his name is Samuel let me tell you why we pick the name Samuel you see I was in the temple and I was praying and an old guy thought I was drunk but anyways God heard me and he helped me and his name is Samuel Shema El Shema El means the God who hears El is God Shema is hearing Samuel is Shema El the God who hears me and every time you read or hear that name Samuel from now on I want you to remember this God is listening to you And let me ask you this question, okay, if God hears us, does that mean that we should do all of the talking? Does it mean that we should, you know, have this one way megaphone that we are talking to God through? Of course not. I'll never forget my pastor when I was a youth pastor challenging me and saying, Hey, Alex, who do you think has more to say of value? You or God? It was no question. And I remember walking away from that little life lesson thinking in my time with God, I need to listen a whole lot more than I speak because he's coming with a whole lot more value than I'm coming with in the morning. How is it that we can learn to tune our ears to God, right? He's a covenantal God, meaning what? Meaning he's a loving God. He's a relational God.

And he created you to have a relationship and to have it with him. So if he is listening to us, he turns his ear to us. He also wants to talk to us, meaning what? We also need to be ready to hear from him. And so many times we don't want to hear people today. We don't want to hear, we just want to be heard, right? And we don't want to listen. It's amazing that we walk around with these phones that we used to have conversations with people on and talk to people. And now we use them primarily to make one-sided comments. We use them like it's a megaphone and we walk around screaming to be heard but not willing to hear anyone else. And truthfully, that includes God. And if you turn the page in 1 Samuel to chapter three, I'm afraid what was true back then is still true today. Let me show you what I mean. Now in those days, messages from the Lord were very rare. And they were rare not because God didn't feel like talking but because people didn't want to listen. And I think we live in a day like that today where people don't want to listen to God. So you got Samuel, his mom said that she would give him to the Lord if God would give her a son. Now she's given him to Eli the priest and he's raising the boy at the temple. Okay. And look at verse two. It says one night Eli who was almost blind by now had gone to bed. The lamp of God had not yet gone out and Samuel was sleeping in the tabernacle near the ark of God. I wish I had time to talk about that. But suddenly the Lord called out Samuel.

He got up and ran to Eli. Here I am. Did you call me? I did not call you, Eli replied. Go back to bed. So he did. And if you've read the story before, you know that Samuel goes back three more times. And God calls to him three more times. Eli the priest finally figures out it's God who's talking to him. And so he explains to Samuel, the boy, how to hear God's voice. It's so practical for us today. Look at what he says to him. He says to Samuel, go and lie down again. And if someone calls again, say, speak, Lord, your servant is listening. So Samuel went back to bed and the Lord came and called us before Samuel, Samuel and Samuel replied, speak, your servant is listening. Look, if you want to hear the voice of God, this is how you begin your day. Is by saying, speak, Lord, your servant is listening. And that word servant implies that you are ready and willing to do whatever it is that he says. And by the way, I have found that the most helpful reflection question I can ask myself and ask the Lord, particularly when I feel stuck, is what was the last thing that God told me to do? And did I do it? And here's what I found to be true personally. The voice of God will get quieter and quieter and quieter until you obey the last thing he told you to do. And here's what I found to be true. He will not give me a new word until I obey the last word. And he is under no obligation to tell you what to do next when you haven't obeyed what

he has already told you. And can I get really, really practical with you? God's already told us a lot in his word and we want the blessing of God, but we don't want to obey the commands of God. We want him to tell us what to do next in our relationship, but we're not listening to his words about purity. And you keep living with your boyfriend or your girlfriend when you know that's not God's best for you. And he has a plan for you. We want him to give us financial direction, but we haven't obeyed him in the concept of putting him first in our finances We fight him on the tithe and yet we want him to bless our business Do you see the duplicity in this and now how do you hear God's voice? If you want to hear the one who hears you What is it that you listen for and by the way? He speaks in so many different ways. Sometimes when people hear me say something like well God told me Or God spoke to me and said Privately They'll say is it just me pastor or does God not speak to me that way at all and Sometimes I walk away from those conversations wondering Did he or she think? God speaks to me out loud Because he doesn't And so let me just clear this up real quick for you today and tell you just a few ways that God speaks to me He speaks to me through his scripture This is why I talk about the app all the time. I find it to be one of the most pragmatic and practical Tools in my personal relationship with God because on the daily tab on our app It doesn't just show you what to read. In fact, it's helpful to 80 people like me I push that little earphone at the top right corner and I listen to it while I Look at it on the pages. In fact, I'll just explain to you how I do it every morning First thing when I get up while I'm brushing my teeth

I push that little headphone and I listen to the scripture for the day while I'm brushing my teeth and while I'm drinking my coffee and then I go sit in my chair and and I Listen to it again with the pages in front of me underlying and circling what the Lord is saying Look, it doesn't just tell you what scripture it gives you a way to respond and to ask God What do you want me to hear today? But but but it's not just the scripture that God speaks to me through He speaks to me in my spirit Through promptings to do something or to not do something. He speaks to me through other people and through circumstances through godly counsel Multiple voices by the way, that's Proverbs 11 14 to confirm to me what what it is that the Lord is calling us To hear you might take that and see what what he wants to say But but he speaks to us through other people doesn't he or in circumstances He Uses godly counsel multiple voices. He loves to speak to us in all kinds of way. He's the God who is speaking and and I have found This to be true. In fact, this is the way I say it to myself if it's odd, it's God Now now here's what I mean by that if it's something I would not come up with okay I'm prompted to do something to say something to hear something to move in a certain way And it's not something that I would come up with on my own Then then I reasoned through that and realize it has to be God For example, if it's give something be very sacrificial with something. That's God I don't come up with that on my own right if it's go talk to a stranger. That's God I would never volunteer to do that It's God. In fact, I'll tell you a story during a few a couple years ago limly my daughter and I were playing golf And the golf course we were playing on is in a neighborhood among houses and She was hitting her I had hit from the men's tee box and she was at the women's tee box So I drove the cart up and I'm sitting in the cart path watching her 15 yards away hit her driver and about 20 yards beyond her is a house and There's an older man who is messing around on the back porch

And while I'm watching her tee up the ball and get ready to drive the ball The Lord in my spirit says to me go tell that man. I love him I hear him and I have him in my arms. I Said no, thank you And I reasoned with myself I did not come up with that on my own That's the Lord speaking to me. So I got out limly hit her ball. I'm walking towards her. She's like dad It was a good drive. She thinks I'm gonna teach her something and she says it was a good drive I said, I know honey was a good drive Just walk with me and we walked over to this man's garage or back of back porch And I just said to him sir, I don't know you and I pray to God you don't know who I am But I have a message from the Lord for you. God sees you, he loves you, and he has you in his arms. And he just started bawling. And he said, sir, I don't know who you are, but I buried my wife yesterday, and I needed a word from God. And then he looked at me and said, can I give you a hug? Now, on my own, I would say no thank you. But I heard God say, give the man a hug from me. I've run into that man a few times since, and he's looked at me and said, I don't have a connection to God like you have. And I said, you can't. And we're talking about his connection to the Lord. My point is, if it's odd, it's God. And what I want you to hear is that he will speak kind words to you, words of friendship and words of love.

One of the ways I discern the voice of the enemy and the voice of God is the moment it feels like conviction sometimes, I don't know, is this God or the enemy? But the moment it turns to blame and shame, I know it's no longer my heavenly Father. When it's you shouldn't have done that, that could be the Holy Spirit. When it turns into you shouldn't have done that, you know good, da-da-da-da-da-da-da, that's no longer the Holy Spirit, he does not speak that way. He speaks loving words and kind words and words of encouragement and words of discernment. Isaiah 30 says, your ears will hear a voice say, this is the way, walk in it. But he also speaks words of caution and words of conviction and he will speak on purpose to give you your purpose. But no matter what he says, he wants those words to be words of life because he is the living God. Look at what Isaiah says in chapter 55. Come to me with your ears wide open, listen and you will find life. This is the invitation from your heavenly Father. God has his ears open, stretched out to hear you and he will respond to you and he wants us to have our ears stretched out to him because he does not want to be just a divine message board,

he wants to be a loving Father who hears and speaks. Let's pray together. Heads bowed, eyes closed and hearts open. And would you, in your own words, just ask the Holy Spirit right now, what's the last thing you asked me to do? And be honest, have you done it? And if he says something to you, I would encourage you to write it down and commit to doing it. The basis of our faith, guys, is that each of us can have an intimate, personal relationship with God in heaven. And that he wants to speak to each of us. And if you're here today and you don't know the Lord, you've never given your life to Jesus, I want to help you settle that. I want to lead you in a prayer and I want you to pray it out loud after me. If what you want to do is give your life to Jesus. You're gonna hear men and women praying all around you to every campus, but if that's you, you want to trust Jesus today, would you just pray after me and say, dear God, I know I'm a sinner, but today I ask you to forgive me for all my sin. Jesus, come into my life to be my Lord, my Savior, my forgiver, in the best way that I know how. I turn my back on my sin and I trust you alone, Jesus. Thank you for saving me.

In Jesus' name we pray. And together we all say amen and amen. Would you thank the Lord today for hearing from us. And let me just say, that's no big deal, honey, I'm just glad that your phone went off, no big deal, what's up, okay? Or your mom's phone, right? You know how to mute it, she doesn't know how to mute it. No big deal, you're good, okay? Camps pastors, come on.