It is a very comforting thought to think about the fact that God loves you and me enough to have made a plan for our life and he planned it before you and I ever existed because he’s known everything for all time so that you weren’t just an accident.
God had a plan for your life.
Now, whether you understood that or not is a different issue, but he does have a plan for every single one of us.
And the very fact that he has a plan is an expression of his love for us that he thinks enough of us that he wants the best for us.
He has a plan that he has laid out in his word that uh if we will just follow his word, follow his plan, we’ll have life at its very best because his plan is always the best.
His plan is not always the easiest, but it is the best.
Some of his plans may lead us to places like we have to climb mountains or walk through valleys or whatever it might be.
But he has a plan and I would simply ask you in the beginning of this message.
Have you ever asked God to show you his plan for your life?
Have you ever asked him if you were following his will and his purpose for your life?
Or did you just sort of grow up thinking I’ll do what comes next or I’ll do?
What’s the most convenient to do?
If you have never asked God to show me you will for my life?
What is your plan for my life? If you’ve never thought about it, you need to think about it now.
And this is a good time in this message for you to think about it because God has certainly done that.
He’s made a plan. And the question is, if he has a plan, is he willing to guide you in that plan?
And the answer is yes, because here’s what he says.
He says in Psalm 32 I will teach you and instruct you in the way in which you should go.
I will guide you with my eye upon you.
Then he says in Proverbs 35 and six, trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not to your own understanding in all your ways, acknowledge Him and He will make your path straight.
Listen to that. If you will acknowledge Him, consider him open the door for him, acknowledge that he’s there, recognize Him, his power.
He says, he’ll make your path straight.
If you will simply trust Him and follow his guidance and direction for your life.
So that’s what I wanna talk about. The very idea that God would guard our life.
But in order for Him to do that, there’s something that people oftentimes don’t think about.
And that is, if he’s going to be my guide, I’ve got to be willing to listen to what he says, God has a plan for your life and he’s continuously giving you a sense of direction.
But if you’re not listening, you’re gonna miss it because you see, it’s one thing to be guided.
It’s something else to be a listener. And that’s the part that I want to talk about today.
And that is the fact that our responsibility is to listen to him.
Now, if you’ll turn to mark the fourth chapter, look there for a moment.
There are three passages here and mark that I want you to notice because Jesus was very conscious of the fact of that whenever he spoke, he wanted people to listen to him.
And so look, if you will in this fourth chapter of Mark and beginning in verse one, he began to teach again by the sea and such a very large crowd gathered to him that he got into a boat in the sea and sat down and the whole crowd was by the sea on the land.
And he was teaching them many things in parables and was saying to them in his teaching now watch this and this is the way he begins listen to this, behold the soul without the soul.
So he begins his parable by saying, listen to this.
And if you look at the uh 23rd verse of the same chapter, he said, if anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.
And he was saying to them, take care what you listen to.
It’s not only necessary to listen, but you have to be careful what you listen to.
And then, uh look, if you will, in the seventh chapter, we stayed right in Mark, look in the seventh chapter and look if you will in the um uh 14th verse of the seventh chapter.
And he begins here after he called the crowd to him again, he begins saying to them, listen to me all of you and understand because he knew that regardless of what he said, if they weren’t listening, when you gonna do them any good.
And you know what’s interesting in uh John, for example, uh and different other parts of the gospels too.
But in John, Jesus says, truly, truly, I say to you 25 times, he puts two Triers together.
Truly, truly. I say to you, which is Jesus way of saying, this is how important this is, this is a word of authority, this is the truth, you need this listen carefully.
Don’t miss anything I’m about to say. So he would say truly, truly.
And one of the examples of that is when Nicodemus came to Jesus by night and said to him, Jesus, we know that you’re a teacher, a man from God because we see all these miracles you’re doing.
Jesus said to him immediately. Truly, truly, I say to you except a man be born again.
He cannot see the kingdom of God. There was no Him around about it.
Truly, truly, I say to you and I believe that Jesus is still saying that to us, truly, truly, I say to you when he speaks to us, he wants to give us a sense of direction for our life.
He wants us to understand how absolutely important. What he’s saying is. Think about this.
Jesus never said anything that was not important. He didn’t just casually come across with things.
He spoke clearly and his goal was to give direction.
His goal was to lead them to make right decisions, the decisions in their life.
So when I think about how Jesus said it truly, truly, I say to you that is without any question, this is a word of absolute authority.
And so 25 times just in the gospel of John alone, we see Jesus beginning a conversation like that.
Truly, truly, I say to you that is what I’m about to tell you is very important.
Do you remember when you were growing up and your mother or your dad said, sit down, I wanna talk to you.
Usually that meant uh oh maybe I’ve done something wrong or uh this is, but anyway, you realized immediately this is important.
So you ask yourself the question, I wonder if God’s been speaking to me and I haven’t been listening.
God’s guidance is of no value if I’m not listening and no one else can listen for you.
There may be someone who can give you a suggestion here and there and so forth, but God doesn’t speak, watch this carefully.
He doesn’t speak most of the time for somebody else to come tell you.
But there are lots of times we hear through other people, God saying something that really applies to our hearts, but God can speak to you personally.
He spoke to the apostle Paul, but he spoke to those people whose names are not in the Bible, God speaks to those who are willing to listen and all of us need divine guidance in our life in every area and He is ready and willing and committed to showing us and telling us.
So when we talk about listening to God, you say, well, how does he speak his primary way of speaking to us is through His word, the Bible.
And sometimes people will say, well, what do you, how do you hold up the old Bible?
I’ll tell you why, because I’m not the authority, this is the authority.
And if you go into church somewhere that you don’t see one of these, then have to be just like this one.
But nobody opens a Bible. You should have questions. Why is it that the ultimate final authority is not opened?
Because this is the authority and what I wanna share with you came from the authority.
So the word of God, this is the way He speaks. This is his primary way of speaking.
And of course, he speaks to us through prayer. He gives us guidance often times.
And when somebody says to me, well, I’ve never heard God speak.
I would say to you because you’re not listening because I know that He speaks to a lost person through his holy spirit to convict Him of sin.
They can brush it off very easily and move on.
He speaks to one of any one of his Children very clearly if we are willing to listen to him.
So I would ask you this in your prayer time.
How much time do you give to listening to God or you do all the talking?
If you sit down to pray, you sit down and say Heavenly Father, I just wanna thank you for today and, and go, you go on and on and on and then you say in Jesus name, amen.
And you get up and do whatever you’re gonna do. That’s not the way to listen to God.
So I simply want to say this, you need to give God time to speak because if He has a plan, he wants to show you what the plan is.
He wants to guide you to in the plan.
When God speaks, he speaks to you about your life and it’s always good.
It may be a warning sometimes, but even that’s good.
So he speaks through his word, for example, he speaks through prayer.
He speaks through circumstances, the things that happen to us, that God will speak through those things.
And you know, I mentioned to you about falling and my first thought when my head hit my arm, thank God not the floor.
Um I thought God, what are you up to? Because I don’t believe there are accidents with God’s Children.
You’re walking in his will and something happens. He’s up to something.
And I instantly wanted to hear what he had to say. Well, did I hear? No, not.
Then it took me of two or three weeks to really begin to understand what he was doing in my life.
But he had to get my attention.
Now you say, well, you mean to tell you that God did that to get your attention.
I can tell you. Absolutely. Yes, he did. And I listened to him and thank God.
And secondly, I would go through it again if necessary for God to show me what he showed me.
So sometimes his circumstances are painful, but you have to ask yourself the question, what’s more important, my ease, comfort, and pleasure or hearing from God.
If you’re willing to listen, he will use circumstances that are difficult sometimes uh in order to get the message to us, and then sometimes God speaks through other people, he may choose someone that you don’t even like or someone that you have a difficult time having a relationship with.
But sometimes God speaks through others.
So the important thing is this and that is that he’s speaking because he wants to give us clear direction for how he wants us to live.
And it’s unwise for me to think that he’s got a plan and that I’m not gonna listen, listening is listen, listening is the key.
And so I would simply say to you before when you decide to pray.
When you kneel down, I sit in the chair or whatever, it might be just think about this before you start talking and telling God every about all these things that He already knows about or complaining about or whatever it might be.
Why don’t you take time just to be quiet and just sit quietly and just say this to him.
Heavenly Father, I need to listen to you.
I’m gonna be quiet and I just want you to speak to my heart and help me to listen carefully so that I can do exactly what you want me to do.
How do you think God will respond to that?
I’ll tell you how He will say to you exactly what you need to hear.
And when he does don’t say, oh, well, I, that’s just my imagination.
Though God promises to lead you listen to what he says.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not to your own understanding in all your ways. Acknowledge Him.
He will direct your path, but I must acknowledge Him, respect him, love him, adore him and obey Him whatever he says.
And so oftentimes people have a difficult time admitting and being willing to do that.
Now, how can I, how can I identify the voice of God?
Because people oftentimes say, well, I’m not sure God is speaking.
Well, first of all, it’s always gonna be consistent with the word of God.
It’s always gonna be consistent with the word of God.
He’s not gonna say anything to you that is inconsistent with the word of God.
And usually he speaks quietly softly.
So it’s like a whisper, you just know that it came from God.
It doesn’t make any difference what anybody else thinks. You know that He’s spoken to your heart.
And so when He speaks to you, he will speak to you, listen, he’ll speak to you in a way, the exact proper way that He knows you can hear him.
So you see, he, he doesn’t make it complicated if he says tomorrow, I want you to go in and resign your job.
What? But you know that God said it to you crystal clear.
What would you, what would happen if you did that? I can tell you this.
If God tells you to leave one place. That’s because he’s already planned the other place.
God is never behind in any issue. And so somebody says, well, God would never do that.
I can think of three staff members and two or three other people that come to my mind quickly.
That that’s exactly what God did.
So don’t underestimate how intense God is on directing and guiding your life, whatever it might be.
So sometimes we have to ask ourselves the question. OK, God. Uh how are you gonna do this?
It’s always gonna be consistent with scripture. Sometimes it’s very quietly. He speaks to us, it’ll always be clear.
He’ll never give you any mumbo jumbo about anything. He’ll tell you exactly what to do and listen.
He doesn’t use a lot of extra words.
He goes straight to the issue and says, here’s what I have you to do.
I want you to do this. And so I want you to stop that, start this.
I want you to start reading the word of God every day.
If God says that to you, you know why?
Because He wants to guide you in some issue, that’s, that’s to be found in the word of God.
And so sometimes uh you’re gonna have a clash with what God says to you versus what other people may think.
That’s why you don’t have to go telling everybody what God said to you.
Secondly, a lot of things he says to us will clash with our flesh that doesn’t fit who you are.
I don’t want you heading in that direction. I don’t want you developing that relationship.
Very, very specific and clear and always speaking to our spirit.
So he’s gonna speak, our responsibility is to listen. Now.
I think you’re gonna have a few people, for example, are tuned to God.
They’re tuned into certain kind of music, they’re tuned into certain stations they listen to or news or whatever it might be.
But if you tune your heart to God, you say, well, how do I tune my heart to God, I’ll tell you how you take you, you set aside a definite time to sit and be quiet and just say, God, I want you to speak to my heart.
You’ll be surprised what you begin to sense about the presence of God in your life.
You say, well, I’ve never felt that. Well, did you give him an opportunity? He’s promised listen.
He’s promised in his word to guide us.
And if he’s going to guide me, I must be willing to listen.
And the question is, am I willing to listen?
You’d be surprised how clearly God will speak to your heart if you’re willing to listen to it.
So, um, somebody says, well, how does he get our attention?
Well, one way he gets our attention is restlessness.
And I think about, uh, one of the first times in my life that I realized that uh, my wife and I were planning to go to California with the whole mission board.
So they call it in those days and to work in the church out there for the summer.
And, uh, we had everything all set because we had the summer off in June, July and August sound like a good thing to do.
And I felt like that was the right thing.
One Saturday morning I woke up and I felt very restless. I thought, what’s this?
And I knew enough to know that that feeling was from God. This a restless thing.
I had no idea of what, what the subject was.
So I just said to her, I just need to spend some time praying and just asking God to give me direction.
And uh so I just got on my knees and I remember that Saturday morning sometime around nine o’clock of air.
I don’t know what time, but I know that I, I was there till six o’clock.
I was so restless. Wondering God, what in the world are you saying to me?
And what he said to me was so unlike what I expected, he said, I want you to go to the mountains and spend these three months and just relax and trust me.
Well, that sounded selfish as it could sound, go to the mountains.
And so it happened that our father had given our house up there and uh so we are gonna pack up and go to the mountains for three months and just take it easy and we could be serving God.
That’s all I got.
We went to the mountains, we were going to California.
We went to the North Carolina Mountains.
We’ve been up there about maybe a month or so and uh we were out fishing right off the uh dock there and somebody came, a fellow came down the steps and he said, are you Charles Stanley?
I said, yes, sir. Are you a seminary student? I said, yes, sir. So make a long story short.
He said, um, are you, uh would you be willing to preach for us next Sunday?
He’s our, our pastor is going on vacation. I didn’t know him from Adam.
I didn’t know anything about the church and didn’t know anything about anything up there. But I said, yes.
So I went and preached for them and they um said, would you preach next Sunday?
I said, yes. Then they said, we’re having a party tonight at church. Would you come to the party?
I said, yes. Next thing I knew they were calling me to be their pastor.
I thought, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, because I had, I had another year of seminary.
And so to make a very long story short, I ended up being their pastor after a seminary.
If I had ignored my restless spirit, I would have gone to California and probably would have done a mediocre job out of the will of God.
And so watch this, his plan was totally unlike anything I would think.
But in order to get me to the mountains that church and the teaching that Bible Institute and finally, with a few other things going on, finally get me to Atlanta and finally all over the world, suppose I had said no to God.
That’s why it’s so important that we listen carefully.
And so when he says, when he says, truly, truly, that’s what he means.
Sometimes he gives us a restless feeling.
Sometimes he just whistles something quietly is what I want you to do. And that I don’t.
Somebody says, well, does God speak a, I don’t think he does 99.9% of the time somebody says, has he ever spoken quite, has he ever spoken to you in an audible voice?
I would only say for me personally, maybe once or twice.
I heard it. But, uh, but that’s not normal. Two critical times.
Did I hear him say Charles? No, I didn’t, I didn’t hear that.
Probably would have fainted if I heard it. So I, I, I didn’t hear that.
Let’s put it this way. It was so loud and so clear. It was as if it were audible.
He knows exactly what it takes to get your attention.
He knows how to stop you long enough so that you start listening.
But if you determine you’re gonna have your way anyway, you’re gonna do it your way anyway.
Will he stop you? Sometimes he will and sometimes he won’t. And nobody knows when that is for me.
He stopped me dead for you. He may not do that.
I certainly hope that you’d be wise enough to listen more carefully than I did till I got the message.
But all of that is an expression of love.
He says, here’s my plan now for you to have the plan, you must be willing to listen.
And I think they’re primary reasons that people don’t listen.
And that sometimes people say, well, I don’t believe God speaks today. Well, let me just say this.
You are absolutely wrong. God speaks today and what he says to each individual, he says according to what the need is and what He wants to say, what, what’s his plan for your life?
That’s why developing a listening heart is so very important. What that does?
That keeps us always in tune with Him. Lord, what are you saying?
If somebody comes to me and says, I have a question for you. My first response is God.
I want to be sure I’m hearing what I need to hear in order to give the answer I need to give.
And if you just think about all during a day, you and I should be in tune with Him.
We’re in tune to so many other things. We need to be in tune with Him.
Because listen, I don’t think God just speaks at seven o’clock at night, 11 o’clock on Sunday morning, God is in the process of speaking to you and to me all during the day and evening, don’t you wake up some time?
I wake up some time. And I think God, what are you saying to me?
And sometimes out of a dead sleep, he awakens us because he has an undivided attention.
No sound, no noise, no light, nothing wants to give us direction for our life and say it’s foolish to try to live your life in this day and time without his direction.
And it’s the safest thing you can do is to listen is to invite him and his opinion and his direction for every decision you make.
So people say, well, I’m not too sure he speaks. Yes he does. You know what the problem is?
We’re too busy, but the truth is we don’t believe Him.
We don’t value his voice enough to take the time to listen to him.
That’s the reason people don’t hear them because they, they, they got their minds full of other things.
And I, I think about one of the reasons uh people are afraid of what God would say if you opened your heart to God and said, Lord, I’ll do anything you want me to do.
Are you willing to say that to him?
And I’ve met a lot of folks down through the years who’ve said, oh, I’m not about to say that to God because I don’t know what he’ll say or what you’re saying is you don’t trust him.
So here, here’s a God who has a perfect plan for your life and you don’t trust him.
And this plan is always the best plan.
Listen, not any of us can come up with a better plan for a life than God has because he’s a God of love, unconditional love.
He doesn’t love us, whether we obey him or not, he loves us, whether we, whether we obey him or whether we don’t obey him because he’s God and because he wants the best for your life.
And so when I think about the reasons that people don’t listen, sometimes they’re angry with God.
Something happened back there in their life either with their marriage, with their Children, with their finances, with their jobs, something happened and they blame it on God and they got angry with God.
And so therefore, you know, they’re not interested in what God has to say about it.
Sometimes they just have a rebellious spirit and sometimes the reason they don’t listen is because there’s sin going on in their life and they won’t give it up.
Listen, if you have sin in your life and you won’t deal with it, don’t expect God to fight you over that.
He will convict you in love and convict you and convict you and convict you.
And when you decide you’re just not gonna listen.
He turns you over to yourself and lets you make a mess of your life because he is not gonna give you the most valuable thing you could possibly have.
And that’s clear direction for your life and power and energy and strength to fulfill it.
If you’re gonna live in disobedience to him, the people, people who are living confused lives are living because they’re not listening to God’s clear guidance for their life and have an excuse.
Probably any one of these excuses. So what’s the consequences of all?
That is very clear.
If you decide that you’re gonna live your life and not listen to God’s guidance in your life, you can expect number one, you’re not gonna have His guidance.
Listen, not any of us are smart enough to figure out a plan for our life that matches God’s plan.
We just not, God doesn’t give us that kind of smartness.
He wants us to trust him, obey him, worship him, adore him and serve him.
So we’re not gonna get the plan unless we decide to trust him.
And so one of the things that we’re gonna lack, we, we, we’re gonna lack his divine guidance.
And the second thing that’s very bad, you don’t listen to God, you listen to the wrong voices and there are many people in deep trouble today because they’ve been listening to the wrong voices, not God’s voice.
Somebody else comes along and says, well, here’s what I think you should do.
This is the most profitable thing to do. This is the way you look the best.
This is the way you will be attractive on and on.
They go not listening to God, they listen to the wrong voices. So I’d ask you this.
What do you watch and listen on TV? What do you listen to on the radio?
Who do you listen to among your friends? Who do you listen to that you work with?
Who has priority in your listening? Is it God or is it somebody else?
The reason people miss his best is because they listen to the wrong voices and they’re deceived and they make costly decisions.
For example, they miss God’s best and here’s something else they don’t think about, think about this.
You’re in business and uh you work with somebody else, for example, if you don’t do your part, you don’t listen to God.
Somebody else suffers because of what you do.
And I think about dad’s father, everybody in your family is gonna suffer if you don’t listen to God and follow His guidance in your life, because you’re the dead.
In other words, God has made you the authority in the home.
And regardless of what some people think, that’s what God said.
Now, whether the Father lives up to that or not, everybody gets penalized if he doesn’t, but you can’t change the will of God.
Father, you and I have the responsibility by example and by our speech and by the way we live our lives, we have responsibility for our families.
You don’t listen to God. How do you expect your Children to grow up? Wanting to listen to God?
You don’t listen to God. You don’t get to God’s plan.
How do you expect your Children to look for God’s plan for their life?
And just to tell you, son of your daughter will do your best, do do the best you can.
That’s not listen. That’s not good enough. That’s a cop out.
Father you need by your actions and your conversation to listen to God to share what God says to you with your Children.
So when they grow up, they can’t ever remember the time they first saw you praying or heard you praying or saw you kneeling that you can’t, they, they can’t first remember the time when you started talking about something that God said to you.
Otherwise they’re gonna listen to the world.
You want them to grow up listening to God and learning to listen very early in life.
I can remember still hearing my mother pray. I can still hear the way she said it.
And some of the things that she said, she prayed over and over and over again and I watch God answer our prayers.
That’s all I needed.
If you don’t give your Children, your wife, your husband, a praying listening husband or wife, our father or mother.
You have deprived your Children out of the greatest thing you could possibly give them.
And my encouragement to you this morning is make a practice every day to get along with God.
And before you start doing all the talking, be quiet and let him speak that if you’ve never trusted Jesus as your savior, I can tell you what he’s saying.
He’s saying, repent of your sins, turn your life over to Christ.
He died for you. He shed his blood for you.
It’s possible for me to forgive you of all of your sin and give you a new beginning.
I know he’ll say that and I trust it. If you’ve never trusted him, you’ll do just that.
And if you have, I ask you the question, how much time in 24 hours of a day that you spend listening to him in order to make wise decisions in every aspect of your life.
That’s my prayer for you and father, how grateful we are that you love us enough to speak to us and you make it clear, you help us to avoid those pitfalls that are always out there.
I pray that you’ll make each one of us a listening servant so we can fulfill your purpose and your plan for our lives.
And that the impact of our lives would be such that our Children will be greatly impacted, the people we work with the people we love the people we surround ourselves with.
I pray the Holy Spirit, we will make each one of us like a listening post for people who are seeking Godly advice.
In Jesus name. Amen.