Scripture referenced
The passage this message was preached from, in full, with every other passage it reached for.
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Hebrews 13:17 spiritual leaders are called to watch over our souls and should do so with joy
17 Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they watch on behalf of your souls, as those who will give account, that they may do this with joy, and not with groaning, for that would be unprofitable for you.
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Keep this verse
Ecclesiastes 3:11
God has set eternity in the human heart
11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in their hearts, yet so that man can’t find out the work that God has done from the beginning even to the end.
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Ephesians 2:10
we are God's masterpiece, created anew in Christ Jesus
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before that we would walk in them.
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Romans 8:1
there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus
1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who don’t walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
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Hebrews 7:24-25
Jesus lives forever and always intercedes for those who come to God through him
24 But he, because he lives forever, has his priesthood unchangeable.
25 Therefore he is also able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, seeing that he lives forever to make intercession for them.
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Psalm 46:10
be still and know that he is God
10 “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth.”
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Psalm 27:14
wait for the Lord, be strong and let your heart take courage
14 Wait for Yahweh. Be strong, and let your heart take courage. Yes, wait for Yahweh.
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Lamentations 3:25
the Lord is good to those who wait for him and seek him
25 Yahweh is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.
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Isaiah 64:4
God acts for those who wait for him
4 For from of old men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, nor has the eye seen a God besides you, who works for him who waits for him.
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James 4:8
come near to God and he will come near to you
8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
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Hebrews 10:21-22
draw near to God with a sincere heart and the full assurance that faith brings
21 and having a great priest over God’s house,
22 let’s draw near with a true heart in fullness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and having our body washed with pure water,
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Hebrews 11:6
it is impossible to please God without faith
6 Without faith it is impossible to be well pleasing to him, for he who comes to God must believe that he exists, and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him.
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Recap
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
Guest preacher Jason brought a message built around a simple idea: every person who has put their faith in Jesus has direct, unobstructed access to God, what he called a hotline to heaven. The sermon sat inside Tribe's ongoing series on hearing the voice of God, and Jason aimed to make that idea practical rather than abstract. He offered three steps for actually making that connection through an ongoing life of prayer.
What was said
Jason opened by naming the problem most people already feel. We live inside a constant noise of devices, social media, and competing voices, and that noise trains the ear of our hearts to tune in to the wrong signal. He described two hotlines available to us: one that leads to condemnation, shame, anxiety, and fear, and one that leads to the voice of a father who says we are loved, forgiven, and free. The enemy's line is the one many of us pick up by habit, often without noticing.
The foundation for the heavenly hotline, Jason said, is that we have been designed by God to hear his voice. He pointed to Ecclesiastes 3:11 and the idea that eternity has been set in the human heart, then noted that the word "heart" contains the word "hear" inside it. That was not just wordplay for him. It was a picture of how God has wired us from the beginning to receive what he wants to say.
He then talked about what Jesus is doing right now on our behalf. Drawing from Hebrews 7, he described Jesus as a permanent priest who always lives to intercede for those who come to God through him. The Holy Spirit is doing the same, interceding with groanings too deep for words. Jason's point was that a conversation about you and me is already happening in heaven, and prayer is how we put our ear to that line and listen in.
From there he laid out his three steps. The first is to stop. He quoted Psalm 46:10 and leaned on the idea that hurry is one of the greatest enemies of a person's soul. He cited pastor and author John Ortberg on the danger of settling for a mediocre version of faith by being too rushed to actually live it, and he quoted Walter Adams, who was the spiritual director of C.S. Lewis, saying that hurry is the death of prayer. Several people in the room shared what it had felt like to disconnect from their phones, whether on a paddle board, a solo cabin retreat, or a camping trip, and Jason let those conversations breathe.
The second step is to pause, or in the biblical language, to wait. He used Psalm 27:14, Lamentations 3:25, and Isaiah 64:4 to show that God acts on behalf of those who wait for him. Waiting, he was careful to say, is not passive. He used the image of an unprotected left turn at a green light. You are supposed to yield, and many of the crises in our lives, personal, relational, and spiritual, might have been avoided if we had waited rather than rushed past what God was trying to say.
The third step is to make the connection, and Jason said we do that through two things: sincerity and faith. Sincerity means coming to God without pretense, being honest about what is actually going on rather than dressing up a heart that feels like it has everything together. He held up David as the example, a man who made serious mistakes but threw himself on the mercy of God with an open heart. Faith means trusting God the way a child trusts a parent, not because you have the answers or the formula, but because you believe he has your best interest and will be good to you.
Jason closed by asking one question of everyone in the room: do you have a time and a place set apart, protected from the tyranny of the urgent, devoted to drawing near to God? He was not asking about a formal method or a religious routine. He was asking whether there is a moment in the day where you stop, wait, and just let the line connect.
Touch points
Things you could actually do this week.
- Pick one day this week to put your phone in a box for several hours and notice what happens when the noise stops.
- Set aside a specific time each day that is protected from interruption, just for sitting quietly before God.
- When you pray, start by telling God honestly what is actually going on in your life rather than dressing it up.
- The next time you feel the urge to rush into a decision or fire off an angry message, wait a full day before acting.
- Memorize Romans 8:1 and say it out loud the next time the voice of self-condemnation or shame shows up.
Doing a Bible study?
Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages in order, questions for the group, and room to write.
- Jason said God is not just someone we learn about but someone who wants us to hear from him directly. What is the difference between knowing about God and actually hearing from him, and where do you find yourself right now?
- Jason talked about the 'hotline to hell' being the voice of condemnation, shame, and anxiety, and contrasted it with what Romans 8:1 says. Which voice have you found yourself tuning into most, and what makes it hard to put that one down?
and 3 more questions in the guide
Resumen en español
El mensaje resumido, en español.
Un pastor invitado llamado Jason predicó en Tribe mientras Brian y Lissa estaban ministrando en una conferencia en Dallas. El mensaje giró en torno a la idea de que Dios nos diseñó deliberadamente para escuchar su voz, y que cada uno de nosotros tiene acceso directo a él a través de la oración, como una línea directa al cielo. Jason habló de cómo con frecuencia terminamos escuchando la voz equivocada, la que nos dice que no valemos nada, que somos un fracaso, que estamos condenados, en lugar de la voz del Padre que nos dice que somos su obra maestra, que somos amados y que no hay condenación para los que están en Cristo.
Para conectarnos con esa línea directa, Jason propuso tres pasos sencillos: primero, detenerse, resistir el ritmo acelerado y el ruido constante de la vida moderna; segundo, esperar, no de forma pasiva sino con una actitud activa de confianza en que Dios va a actuar; y tercero, hacer la conexión, acercándose a Dios con un corazón sincero y con fe, igual que un hijo que confía plenamente en su padre. Varios miembros de la congregación compartieron sus propias experiencias de desconectarse del teléfono y encontrar a Dios en la naturaleza y en el silencio.
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Pasajes bíblicos mencionados
- Hebreos 13:17
- Eclesiastés 3:11
- Efesios 2:10
- Romanos 8:1
- Hebreos 7:24-25
- Salmos 46:10
- Salmos 27:14
- Lamentaciones 3:25
- Isaías 64:4
- Santiago 4:8
- Hebreos 10:21-22
- Hebreos 11:6 (referenciado en forma general sobre la fe)
Read the full transcript 8,801 words
Yes, you do. God, for everything that you want, for all that you do for us, We are so grateful. Are so eternally grateful. For Jesus, your son, for that precious blood that was spilled for each and every one of us. We are so thankful.
You deserve all the glory and all the praise. All powers, all dominions, all thrones are yours. Just worship you in this place today. We welcome to Tribe. If it's your first time with us today, we just wanna say thanks for being our guest.
Hey, team. Can we put our hands together for any first time or returning guests we got today? Yeah. Welcome to the party. And we're so glad that you chose to come on a day like today.
Obviously, I'm not Brian or Alyssa. So, like, did Alyssa grow a beard? No. Did Brian grow hair? No.
But I am so glad to be here. To be invited back, I've been able to to come out throughout the years that you guys have been around and to be a part of what God's doing here. It's just a special thing. So good to be with you today. As you guys know or maybe don't know, Brian Lissa and the team are ministering at the FAI conference in Dallas Yeah.
Which is awesome that we have the ability to send out our team from tribe to go and be a blessing to others. How cool is that? And so they asked me along with senior pastor Jesus to be here today, and I am so glad and so rejoicing to be able to be the one man band, you know, lead worship, preach, do it all. But how many guys know I'm not alone? Come on.
Holy Spirit is here. You're here. We're gonna have a good time today. And I've heard, So I'm gonna do my best, you know, a preacher, not just a preacher, but to give you opportunity just to kinda chime in, and feel free to do that. And I know you guys have been in a series and kind of on a journey now.
This is week six here Yeah. At Saloon. I love doing church in a bar. I think that's the coolest idea ever, by the way. But this is week six of a journey of learning how to hear the voice of God, of learning how to trust the voice of the Holy Spirit as he leads us as a community, as a faith community, where he wants us to go.
So, I just wanna applaud all of you that serve, all of you that give. You are making a difference. And sometimes we overlook the little things because we look for the big things. But I just wanna tell you, in your faithfulness, in your obedience to trust God, and to step out in your giving, in your serving, the way that you honor your leaders, come on, that is so powerful and so important. Hebrews chapter 13 verse 17 actually reminds us that our spiritual leaders are called to give watch over our souls and that we, as a community, as a tribe, should give them reason to do so with joy, not with sorrow.
Say with joy. With joy. Not with sorrow. Not with sorrow. I wanna say this about your leaders.
They love serving you. You are well loved in this house. You really are. And you give them a tremendous amount of joy, which is a good thing. Because I've been to some churches, but that's not always the case.
So thank you for giving them a reason to watch over you, to care for you as under shepherds. How many thankful for our over shepherd king Jesus? Amen. We have an amazing senior pastor, and we get to serve at his pleasure. And, we're so thankful for that.
My wife, Candice, and I, about five years ago, moved from Dallas, Texas, which is not where I'm from originally. I'm originally from San Diego, California. So if I accidentally chug in a bro dude or I don't know. Whatever the cool kids are saying these days, forgive my slang. I'm But originally from Southern California, kinda grew up with sand between the toes.
And then about nine, ten years ago, I had the pleasure of being able to move here to Jackson, lived here for three years with our kids. I've got my son, Ketan, today with me. This is Keith. Keith, say hello to the Wow. Farm.
Yeah. So I'm gonna train with the kids. But my wife, Candice, and I felt a real strong calling from the Lord about five years ago to move to Salt Lake City, Utah, which is where we currently reside, and we planted a church. Yeah. So you have to be a little crazy to plant a church in a place like Salt Lake City, in case you haven't been there.
It's a little different. Some people like to use the word weird, and that's good. But we moved there five years ago in 2018 to plant Courageous Church. We started four years ago. We're actually coming up on our fourth anniversary birthday this September, which is amazing.
God has been so good to us. So we're so thankful to be able to answer the call to what God's doing in the earth, and he's building a church. Yes. He's building people like you and me, stone upon stone, living stones, Peter says. And he's brought us together, and he's gathered us from different parts of the earth and different parts of Wyoming, different parts of the city, and different parts of The United States, and he's he's doing something that only he can do through the power of his holy spirit.
And I just believe there's something really amazing that happens when we come together. The bible says actually, where two are through a god in his name, there he is in the midst of them. So right now, you and I get to host the presence of the king. Hallelujah. Presence of Jesus himself.
I just think that's amazing. So welcome, king Jesus. Can we pray? Father, we thank you today for setting your holy spirit. Jesus, we thank you for your spirit that reigns in us and over us and through all things.
As the song declares, you are worthy of it all. All our praise, of all of our serving, all of our giving, every offering of worship that we lay at your feet, every sacrifice that we make, Lord, you're worthy of it all. And we thank you that today, Lord, as we have gathered together in your name, we've done so to hear from you, not just about you Mhmm. But to hear from you. So, Lord, open up your heart and so that we can know it.
We pray these things in Jesus' matchless name. Amen. Amen. In case I I missed you in the beginning, my name is Jason. I'm so happy to meet with you guys.
Today, we're we're we're gonna talk about what I'm calling our hotline to heaven, which is a lot of fun. I love that you guys are are kinda walking through a journey of learning how to better hear the voice of god. This is probably one of the most important things that God wants us to understand how to do. And especially in a day like today where we are surrounded by Brian like to use this word, a cacophony of different voices. She just love that word.
I love that Brian likes to use big words like that every once in a while. He just drops them on you guys. But we're surrounded by a litany of voices all competing for our attention. Right? We've got our noisy devices with our cell phones and our iPads and our computers, and then we've got social media and the voice that it has in our life, and then, of course, the world itself that you guys talked a little bit about this couple weeks ago, voice of the enemy and how he wants to come at us from all different sides.
Today, I wanna talk to you about what it means to access your hotline to heaven. If you put your hope, faith, or trust in Jesus, you have direct access to god. Can we just pause for a moment and just think about how amazing that statement is? You and I have been given direct access to the god of all the universe, the god who created the cosmos, the stars, the sun, the moon, who created this beautiful earth and these mountains that we get to enjoy. By the way, I don't understand what it is about this town that you guys practice pain and call it recreation.
But my son and I went up on Snow King the other day and got yelled out by a whole bunch of folks because I guess there was an event going on that we weren't supposed to be a part of. So we just marched right up. So let's go hike that sucker. It's been a few years. That was fun, wasn't it, buddy?
And by fun, I mean miserable. Nothing like coming back to Jackson to remind yourself that you're out of shape. Right? As my friend Doug would say, fat is still a shape. So for those of you, we've got donuts off to the sun.
But I love this town, and and and I love the fact that that god has revealed himself to us in creation. He's he's done all these amazing things that he has orchestrated by his own hand, and then he gives us access to him. He gives us a hotline to hear from him. And I love this, that god is actually really eager for us to hear his voice. And maybe you didn't have a a picture of god like that growing up.
I don't know where you're at today. Some of you maybe you're you're new to following Jesus or maybe you've walking with the lord for many, many, many years, as these two fine people have demonstrated. And, I don't know where you're at, but I I do know this, that that god is eager for you to hear his voice. He's absolutely eager for you to hear from him and not just about him. Today, hopefully, we can do that.
Anyone remember the old Batman show from the sixties? Most of you that weren't alive in the sixties don't. But I remember the old Batman show with Adam West. Mhmm. Yeah.
Many years ago when my grandparents were still alive, I would spend my summers with them in Sacramento, California growing up. And and one of the things that I always looked forward to was our kind of nightly routine of putting on the old Batman show. And everybody remember in the old Batman show that Batman had this red telephone? He had this kind of red telephone. It was like a hotline with the commissioner, he could receive calls directly from the commissioner.
Yeah. It looks like that. Anytime there was there was something going on in the city or there was there was somebody committing a crime, the phone would ring and Batman would answer and it'd be the commissioner on the other line. And there was there was nobody that he had to go through. It was direct access.
And I believe that kind of like Batman with his amazing red phone there, that you and I have been given access, direct access to god through what I'm calling today our hotline to heaven. Wikipedia, the source for all things true on the Internet, defines a hotline as such. Are you ready? A hotline is a point to point communications link in which a call is automatically directed to the preselected destination without any additional action by the user, without any additional action. I like that.
So in the same way, I believe that when you and I pray, we have an automatically directed hotline or point to point link to heaven itself. And as I've already said, the really cool part is that god is already on the other side of the line eager for you to hear his voice, eager for you and I to connect with him. So today, we're gonna talk a little bit about how we can access our hotline to heaven or a subline for this message would be hearing from god through an ongoing lifestyle of prayer. Hearing from God through an ongoing lifestyle for now. As as a pastor and as a as a leader, I am passionate about prayer, but I've always loved prayer.
Even as a young boy when God first got ahold of my heart, it was such a delight to be able to learn how to hear and recognize his voice. And that's hopefully what I think we can do today. As Ephesians mentioned, we live in a noisy world full of distractions, and God wants to help us learn how to discern or decipher his voice from the voices around us. The first thing I wanna begin with today is this. God has purposefully designed you and I to hear from him.
He's purposely designed do you guys believe that today? Yeah. What do guys think about that idea? It's sweet. Jay thinks it's sweet.
Profound. Jay, would you mind telling us why you think that's so sweet today? He's got his own microphone. Jay shows up.
Because we're his creation. Like, the fact that he created us to hear from him makes me think that there's nothing else that we're really supposed to do besides talk to him and show us how the whole point of us being here is to have relationship with him. And that's if he designed us with that, it means that's what we're designed for.
So good. Did you guys catch that keyword he used? Relationship. That's what we're doing here today. We're we're entering into a a living, breathing, vibrant relationship with god.
You see, a lot of people that they have a, I think, a a very minimalist perspective on what it is we do as a church when we come to Galilee. What we're actually doing here is relating to God. We're entering into relationship with God and each other. Jesus said, here's you if you wanna if you wanna boil down all of the 10 commandments and all the law into two things, here it is. Love God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love each other.
What is he essentially saying? He's saying relationship. Entering a relationship with each other because you can't love something that you're not in a relationship with. And so today, the invitation for us is to understand that all of us have been designed this way, to enter into a relationship with god, whereby we can hear from him, whereby we can have an actual living relationship with him. We know in the beginning that god spoke the earth into being.
We know that he created everything, and then he spoke to Adam and Eve in the garden, and then he spoke to Abraham out in the desert, and then he spoke to Moses in a burning bush, and then he spoke through the prophets, and then he spoke through his son, Jesus, who put on flesh and walked among us. And now he speaks to us through his holy spirit, through his word, which is amazing because it tells me that god is a god who speaks. He's a god who loves for us to hear his voice. I believe the the main reason that he does this is because, as I've already mentioned, he's actually designed us this way. He's designed you and I to hear from him.
Ecclesiastes chapter three verse 11 says it this way. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart. He said eternity in the human heart. Anybody ever notice that your heart has an ear right in the middle of it?
How do you spell it? H e a r t. It kinda looks like this, I think. I'm do my best here.
Alright.
Your heart has an ear in the middle of it. A big one, that God has designed for you to hear his voice. Ecclesiastes three eleven. He has set eternity into our hearts. His his divine imprint is upon every human heart.
The markings or you can even say the blueprints of god's design for you and I includes the ability to hear him, to listen to him, to receive his voice. And as those who have put their faith in Christ, we are now created anew in Jesus so that we are literally the handiwork of God. Listen to Ephesians chapter two verse 10. It says it this way in the Lt, for we are God's masterpiece. Say, I'm a masterpiece.
I'm a masterpiece. Turn to your neighbor. Say, I'm a masterpiece. Did you know that? If you're single in this room, go hard with every single person and say, I'm the masterpiece you've been looking for, baby.
Me and my big ear in the middle of my heart. You're a masterpiece. That's the way God sees you now in Christ Jesus. But for many of us, the problem is is that the ear of our heart has not been listening to the voice that tells us we are his handiwork, that we are a masterpiece. Instead, the voice that we end up listening to is the voice of self condemnation, of doubt, of shame.
And what ends up happening is this ear in the middle of our heart begins to become tuned to the frequency of that voice so much so that that's all we hear twenty four seven. And so what happens is rather than answering our hotline to heaven, the one that leads us to god himself and all the things that he wants to say to us, we end up picking up the hotline to hell. For you Apple users, that was not a that was not a purposeful decision. But we end up picking up the hotline to hell, which leads to what? Combination, accusation, shame, lies, fear, anxiety.
That's a big one. My time with people, especially in Salt Lake, that seems to be the number one issue that I see people face. Anxiety. Young people. My my kid's age.
My son, Keaton, is 12. And there's just a epidemic of anxiety amongst young people today like never before. You know why? Because they've been listening to the wrong hotline. They've been picking up the wrong phone.
And here's what that phone sounds like when you look and answer it. Did you know that you're a loser? How could you be such a waste of time? You're worthless. Nobody cares about you.
You're an idiot. I'm never amount to anything. And for some of us, that's the battle right there. We've been listening to the wrong hotline. We've got in front of the enemy, in front of our own self combination up to the ear of our hearts.
We need to put down that hotline, and we need to answer the one that leads to heaven. Here's what heaven's hotline sounds like. Are you ready? The apostle Paul says this in Romans chapter eight verse one. There is, therefore, now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
It says things like, where have all of your accusers gone? I don't condemn you. It says things like, you're forgiven. You're free. You're my child.
You're my love. You're my beloved. You're the one in whom I delight. For many of us, we've heard the other voice for so long that we project that voice onto a loving father who actually wants us to hear the opposite. All over this room today and all of your lives, I don't know what everyone's wrestling with, but I know this all those voices come for us, don't they?
And for some of us, the the battle is learning how to not just put down the receiver, but to stop picking it up, especially when we make mistakes. When we blow it, what does Paul say? There is therefore now no condemnation with those who are in Christ Jesus. The invitation to the Jesus life is to a life where you're no longer condemned, but you've been acquitted. You've been justified.
You've been sanctified. You've been made holy, righteous, set apart, and not because of anything that you've done, but because of the grace of a loving father in heaven who so desperately wants us to hear that voice. And for many of us, it's part of the religious conditioning of our lives. God hates us or he's mad at us or he's angrily or he's just waiting to strike us down. But that's not the voice of a loving father.
Heaven's hotline says, love you. Pride you. You're doing a great job. Look how far you've come. Look what you're doing.
This is amazing. You are the apple of my eye. You are the one that I sent my son to die for because I love you so much. Could you imagine with me for just a moment what our lives would look like if we started answering that hotline every day we woke up? You look in the mirror, you see all the things that you're not happy about or whatever.
You get to remind your soul. No. I've got direct access to a god in heaven who loves me, who's created me in you in Christ Jesus. I'm a masterpiece. Turn to somebody and say, I'm a masterpiece.
Turn to that other person that you didn't tell that to and say, I'm a masterpiece. Because of what Jesus has done, no longer are we condemned. Because of what Jesus has done and his triumph over sin and death and the devil, we now have direct access to God forever. And here's what it looks like. It looks like Jesus having a conversation with the father about you and I right now.
That's what he's doing. Let's go to the scriptures. Hebrews seven verse 24 to 25 says this, but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore, he is able to save completely those who come to god through him because he always lives to intercede for them. Jesus is pleading to the father on your behalf right now.
In fact, the scriptures go on to tell us the holy spirit is interceding on our behalf with words or with groanings that are too deep for words. The reality is that they're having a conversation about us right now. Jesus is doing this forever and ever and ever because this is what he lives to do, to intercede on your behalf and mine. To intercede means to step into the gap on behalf of another, to to take on the issues of another and to present them before the father said God could do something about it. That's what Jesus is doing for us right now at this moment.
And I think that's amazing because it means that he's having a heavenly conversation about us, and then he invites us to put our ear to the receiver to listen in, to hear the conversation that Jesus is having with his father about you and I. And the way that we do that is through an ongoing lifestyle of prayer. It's by coming to him in prayer. And here's the cool part about prayer. You don't have to be a super Christian to pray.
You don't have to be very religious, pregnant, being professional to pray. Anybody can pray, which means that anybody can learn how to do this. How are we doing? We doing good? Mhmm.
K. So today, I wanna I wanna just share three practical ways that I think that we can listen in on the conversation, that we can put our ear to the receiver, heaven's hotline, to engage in what the father and what Jesus are saying and doing right now. Okay. Three practical ways. Are you ready?
I'm gonna keep this very simple for us today. I believe that the eternal things typically are simple things. Number one, we need to stop. Number two, we need to pause. Number three, we need to make a connection.
Say it again. We need to stop, pause, and make a connection. Let's start with the first one. Stop. Psalm forty six ten says it this way, be still and know that he is God.
How many of you could say stillness is not my specialty, pastor Jason? Any idea? It's okay. We can all raise our hands together. I look around the room, see that you're not the only one.
That's right. But for many of us, this is the battle to slow down, to become still, to stop. The psalmist says be still or stop and know that he is god. The invitation for us as people of god is to stop. We do this when we practice salad.
We intentionally slow down to stop so that we can hear his voice. And we we stop our workings. We stop our laborings. We stop our strivings. We stop our doings.
And probably the most important thing, we stop being in such a hurry. Hurry, I think, is the the greatest enemy of our souls in 2023. Would you agree with me on that? Yeah. It's okay if you don't believe, but I'm glad that you do.
Hurry. Hurry is an enemy of our soul. Pastor and theologian John Ortberg says this about hurry. I like this quote. For many of us, the great danger is not that we will ever renounce our faith.
The great danger is that we will become so distracted and so rushed and so preoccupied that we settle for a mediocre version of our faith. We end up skimming our lives instead of really living them. That really resonates with me. Walter Adams, which is a name you may not know, was actually the spiritual director of CS Lewis. He mentored CS Lewis, and here's what Walter Adams had to say about it.
He said to walk with Jesus is to walk with a slow, unhurried pace. Hurry is the death of prayer and only impedes and spoils our work. It never advances it. Hurry is the death of prayer. You know it tells me?
It tells me we need to slow down. We need to stop. And when we stop, we actually give ourselves or or give ourselves time to notice that god is actually speaking. He's actually wanting us to hear his voice. Author John Mark Comer.
Written a lot of great books. Some of you might know that name. He says this about hurry. It's a phrase that he uses quite a bit, and I've kind of adopted it. He says, beware the tyranny of the urgent.
Beware the tyranny of the urgent. What is seemingly urgent in your life that truly isn't? Emergencies that aren't really emergencies? Things that aren't really the important things that you and I are supposed to give our attention to. He says, beware of the tyranny of the urgent.
Those things that press upon you in a way that always feels like it's urgent. You've got to get to it. One of the one of the things that we did yesterday, we went up to the park, we went paddle boarding. We took Brian and Melissa's paddle boards, went to Stream Lake, my son and I, and, just just left everything in the truck, didn't didn't take anything with us and just literally a paddle, a board, and he and I, we just got out of the water. We spent about four hours doing that.
Yeah. It was a lot of fun. And you know what? It just allowed us to slow down. It allowed us to just resist the need to have to stay plugged in, to stay connected to the world.
It's notification devices. Ding. Ding. Ding. It's always on.
And one of the practices that that John Mark shares in his book, the realist elimination of hurry, that I've kind of adopted. I think it's a great practice for us is is have a day where you just put your cell phone in a box. Ever tried doing that before? Now I know a lot of us, we work off these things. We answer emails, text, and all that.
But I just wanna encourage you, maybe even challenge you today for you younger people too. Have a day where you just disconnect and you just avoid it, the tyranny and fear too. Are you with me? Have you ever tried doing that before? When you wanna share what that was like, what that experience was like?
You want to? Sure. Okay. Come on. Get this gal a mic.
What did that feel like? What was that like?
It was refreshing. I think just that ability to be in an unplugged area where you not only can't access your phone, but it it just doesn't work.
And it
just forces you to appreciate God's nature. And I think that when you're that's my favorite part about camping is that you can't access all of that stuff. And so you're in the heart of what God created, and and that is just I don't that's where I connect with him most or best is in his place, in in the mountains, what he created, and it's just him and me and the sounds that he made, like the birds and the wind.
Isn't that beautiful? Yeah. Isn't that wonderful? Who else who else has ever experimented with putting the phone away for a day?
In college, I was just going I was going through it one semester, and I just got done with rewatching Francis Chan sermon, and he likes to do little retreats by himself in a cabin. And I was like, I'm in Ohio. We have cabins. So I emailed all my college professors saying I'm not gonna be in class for three days. I'm going through it.
They're all gracious and nice. They're like, oh, it's fine. Booked a cabin, middle of the woods. There was a hot tub. But Bonus.
Big bonus. It was amazing. Just me, fireplace, crickets, deer, hot tub, Jesus. It was an amazing time. And I whenever I get overwhelmed and stuff, I always think back to just the peace and calmness of that weekend and how badly I need another captain.
So good. So what you're trying to tell me is that life actually went on. Mhmm. It didn't stop. It didn't didn't stop.
Mhmm. Alright. I think about the I don't know if you guys have ever read the Yellowstone one star reviews. And one of the complaint it's really funny. We have that.
Of the complaints is that there is no cell phone service in Yellowstone, and the Lord really upset about it. And so it just reminds me that sometimes the Lord will put us in seasons or in places where he's, you know, where we haven't made that choice and he's giving us that opportunity to connect with him. And he's he's gracious and kind to take away the noise so that we can have that hotline to him. And, you know, sometimes we fight it, but I just need his grace and his kindness. And so So good.
Mhmm. Yeah. I noticed when we entered into the park yesterday, my phone said SOS on. And I thought, know, that's actually how most of our lives are when we have cell phone service. We're just in emergency urgency mode all the time.
And just to be able to disconnect for a few moments, for a few hour, whatever it is. Just wanna encourage mean, that's why many people come here. Right? Because they're just drawn to the beauty and the souls of this place. That's why a lot of people stay.
But we had another comment in the back. Another thought on what's that like to just disconnect, to stop?
Well, well, my this is not the best, I'm gonna try to to speak. I think that the world all around is so, you know, so crazy because but the only thing that we have to do is to put everything in those moments, hard moments. It's wait. We have to wait for the voice of God. He relax on us and give all the time the rest.
Yes. But sometimes, we worry for any situation, and we forgot that God is in our presence. So we have to think about the real relation that we have with him because he's the only one we can trust. But sometimes we lose that some moments. I know that everywhere all every all the world is passing in our moments.
That's right. But the only thing that we have to do is to pray, to to wait for the voice, to search for the holy spirit. And sometimes we don't do it. So the most important thing is that we have a a a lord that love us. Yes.
And we have to wait for this moment.
Well, really, you just preached point number two. Are you guys ready for it? Once you've stopped, then you pause or the biblical word that you've been using is you wait. You wait. And not just wait, but you wait on the Lord.
You wait for him to move, for him to take the first step, the initiative. And for many of us, this is a challenge because we like to move first. Mhmm. We like to make the first move. Psalm 27 verse 14 says this, wait for the Lord.
Be strong and let your heart take courage. And then he says it again, wait for the Lord. Lamentations three verse 25 says, the Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. Isaiah sixty four four echoes this. From of old, no one has heard or perceived by the ear.
No eye has seen a god besides you who acts for those who wait for him. Just love the language of that. That god is a god who acts on our behalf when we wait, who gives our hearts courage when we wait, who is good to us when we wait. The truth is that waiting on the lord is not a passive position. It's not an idle position.
It's an active stance that you and I take to enter into a relationship with a god and then waiting on him. Anyone ever been to an intersection where you've got that left green light but not the left green arrow? Yeah. And you've got oncoming traffic that's coming at you. I've got an intersection at our near our house that actually does this.
And what are you supposed to do when you get to that unprotected turning arrow? It's just a green light. You're supposed to yield. Supposed to wait. And so many accidents I've seen, you've probably seen a few in your day too, are when people decide not to wait.
Think about this. How many accidents or crises might have been averted in your life had you waited? Instead of hitting the send button on that angry email to your boss, just waited an extra day. Instead of sending that text message to somebody because they didn't get back to you right away, you freaked out, would be waited. Or maybe even more seriously, what if god had been speaking your heart about decision and you and you instead of learning to wait on him, you just rushed into it.
How many things could be averted in our life if we could just grab a hold of this practice and learn how to wait on the Lord. I'll tell you what, this has been a challenge for me because I'm a doer. Any other doers in the room just like to get after your life? Come on. Let's go.
We got action. I got I got bills to pay, things to do, people to see. And and so the the invitation is is not to for me is is not to wait and to slow down. It's it's to go a 100 miles per hour. But we are at risk when we do that because we rush past god.
Sometimes we blow past the things he wants to say to us. We make decisions without his counsel. That is insight. Without going to the word of god, aligning ourselves with what he's trying to say to us. That's so important.
Waiting on the lord, What you and I end up doing is we end up conditioning our hearts, the ones with the big ear in the middle. Remember those? K? We condition this guy to actually learn how to hear and discern the voice of god. And it's not by you and I talking.
I'm a preacher, so I do a lot of talking. My wife will tell you, I do a lot of talking at home too. But there's times where we need to learn how to shut up. Listen. And for some of you that are great listeners, I applaud you.
For many of us, that's the struggle. Stop, slow down, to pause, and to wait. Number three. So first, we stop, then we pause, and then we make a connection. We answer our heavenly hotline.
Truth is this. God has wonderful things that he wants to say to every one of us. He has wonderful things he wants to talk to you about. But he won't force you to make a connection. He won't force you to put your ear to the receiver.
He won't force you to do that because you have to make a choice to draw near. James four eight says this in the NIV, come near to God, and he will come near to you. Come near to God, and he will come near to you. Hebrews ten twenty one through 22 says this, since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings. So how do we draw near?
How do we make that connection? I think it's found in this verse. We do so when we choose to draw near to him with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings. Sincerity and faith. Those are the two ways that we draw near, that we make that connection with God.
Sincerity means you just gotta get real. You get honest with God. You stop trying to pretend that he doesn't know what's already going on in your life and in your heart and in the secret places that you don't want anybody to see. And you just pour out your heart and just tell him What's going on in your life? Here's the truth.
He already knows. He already knows. So what does he want you to do? He wants you to come to him with sincerity. Not a pretentious heart, not a prideful heart, not a camouflaged heart, not a heart that's got it all together, dresses itself up all nice on Sunday, nice button up shirt and jeans wearing them together,
the The one that I'm sweating for today.
Sincerity. You know when you've been with people that are sincere, don't you? No. They're just genuine. They're authentic.
They're real. Isn't that refreshing? Spend time with people that are sincere. I just love spending time with sincere folks. My heart's restored by the their sincerity, by their being honest and real and genuine.
And that's what God wants from us. Let me go ahead and pray for the answer to that heavenly heart. We just he's telling what's on our heart. Father, today, I'm I'm really wrestling with a, b, and c. I I really got a lot of this going on.
Would you help me with my anxiety? I got a big test coming up or I got a big decision to make or things didn't work out the way I wanted. You just pour out your heart. And when you do that, it actually draws him in close. The bible says that he gives grace to the humble, but he resists the proud.
God is drawn to humility. He's drawn to a sincere heart, to someone that just is willing to just be open and real with him. That's why David, I think, is somebody that's called a man after god's heart in the bible because he was sincere. David made a lot of mistakes. Would you agree with me on that?
Yeah. I had yet to send anybody's husband to the battlefield to die. He made a lot of mistakes. Some big ones, some horrific ones. But he had a sincere heart, When he blew it, he threw himself on the mercies of God.
He threw himself on the peace of God. He recognized that all that he had was a gift from God. He was sincere about it, and that's what God's looking for from us in prayer. He's not looking for your elaborate words for those of you that have to pray in the King James. Thus and now, thus saith the Lord.
He doesn't need that. He's okay with that. He doesn't need that. He's blessed by your sincerity. And number two, by your faith.
Hebrews says, it is impossible to please God without faith. So when you come before him, you you you come before him with a sincere heart and with faith. What is faith? It's trust. It's willing to place your trust in his hands.
It's willing to trust your heart to him. It's willing to trust that he's gonna be good to you. That he's got good things in store for you. That he's got grace and mercy in store for you. The Bible says in Hebrews that if we would come before his throne of grace with confidence that we would receive help in our time of need, that we would receive mercy and grace in our time of need.
We do so by faith. Faith means you don't have the answers. Faith means you don't have the formulas. Faith means that you're just willing to trust God like a child trusted parents. This guy's getting a little older, but I remember when he was really young.
He would come to me and say, dad, can I do such and such? And I'd say, sure, buddy. Of course, you can. He goes, are you sure? You sure about that?
Anybody have a have a child? It's like they just like to question you. They're just kinda like, you sure about that? You sure about that? But you know what?
Behind all the questions was a heart that was willing to trust. So I was like, okay, dad. You got my back. Alright, dad. We're gonna go out on these waters.
Okay, dad. We're gonna go hike that crazy high hill today. I'm trusting that you're gonna leave me. I'm trusting that you got my best interest in your car. I'm trusting that you really do believe that I am your masterpiece.
And that's where he wants us to go today, church. As we prepare to close, I just wanna encourage us. God is eager to make this connection with us, and that he also invites us to make this connection with him. Jesus said, when you pray, pray this way. It was always the assumption of Jesus that his followers would pray.
It's God's assumption that we will pray, that we will do this. But if we would stop, pause, and make a connection through sincere heart and faith, I believe that we'll hear the good things of God over our lives, that we'll answer heaven's heart, will actually begin to hear and distinguish his voice from the voices of those around us. So my final question I wanna leave with you today as we prepare to close is this. Do you set aside, carve out, allot time, devoted time to draw near to God and make a connection with him? Some of you that's maybe out in your in nature.
For some of you, it's at home in your prayer closet. Wherever it is, do you have a place that's devoted? A time that's devoted. You know what devoted means? It means it's sanctified, set apart, totally.
No one can touch it. No one gets to intrude upon it. The tyranny of the urgent doesn't get to intrude upon it. It's protected because it's between you and God. If not, I wanna encourage you to start today.
And why not now? Can we pray together in church? God, thank you that in these moments that you invite us to come close, to make that connection, Lord, that you are actually eager for us to do so because you love us, because you removed every obstacle, your son Jesus for us to come to you now in faith, to come before you because of the blood that was shed for us on that cross. Pray for anybody in here today or watching or listening this online. If they don't know you, that today would be the day that they turn their hearts over to you, Jesus.
Jesus, we recognize that amongst all the voices in our lives that yours is the most important. It's the voice that we want to honor. It's the voice that we want to discern. It's the voice that we wanna treasure. It's the voice that we wanna prioritize.
So, Lord, help us to hear. Help us to listen. Help us to stop, to wait, to make a connection. Lord, when we do, we thank you that we will begin to look more and more like the people that you've created us to look, your masterpiece. We pray all those things in Jesus' name.
And all God's people said amen? Amen. And amen. You guys received that today? Amen.
Alright. We'll welcome Jay as he comes with some final announcements today.
Let's all give a hand for Jason with that awesome Thank you. You're welcome. As Jason was talking, I couldn't help but think with the phone analogy, conversations I've had with people where they're just talking the entire time. It could be a family member. It could be a friend.
And you just feel like it's it's year in year. That's what they need at that time. And that's okay. But it just made me think about how often we run to that hotline to God, and that's what we're doing. We're just yammering and talking to God nonstop, which is a good thing.
Don't hear me say that's a bad thing. But I think we oftentimes forget exactly what Jason was talking about to stop and to pause. Because this whole series we're on right now is about hearing God. Right? Yeah.
Are you gonna really make him interrupt you to to listen to his voice? No. He's he's he's a gentleman. He's kinda he's patient. He want he wants to hear us talk.
He wants to hear everything that we're doing, everything that we're going through. That's a good thing. But, yeah, just make sure to pause. I saw it once on the word pray broken into an acronym. P for praise, r for pet, a for ask, which is what we spend a lot of our prayer time doing, at least I do myself.
And then the y is to yield Yeah. Which is so, so, so essential when you do that. So I'm gonna ask you guys to do that in our time of offering as we worship the Lord through our giving today. Make sure to yield to him. Praise him.
Repent. Ask him and yield. Wait for him to tell to tell you what he wants to do with your time, your talent, and your treasure. If you don't mind bowing your heads with me today, I will grab the offering. Lord, be with us.
We wanna hear from you. Remind us that in our relationship that it's two ways, Lord. We are so eager to hear from you, but we oftentimes forget to listen. Speak to us. We so desperately wanna hear what you have to say.
I just ask that you multiply our giving today, that you encourage us to be creative as you are our creator with with with what we give, whether it's our our treasure and help us to stay here at the Virginia in Toledo or a time where I take a day to work off to to love somebody that's in me or my talent, the gifts that you've instilled in me to further your kingdom here on the earth. It's in your name that we pray. Amen. If you're new to tribe and unfamiliar with the different ways we have to give, you can go to the black box right over there next to our saloon doors. There's a little slot you can insert cash or check.
Online, there's a give button on our website. Feel free to go there and click. Or my personal favorite way to give is through my smartphone. I just send open up a text at 84321 and text a dollar amount there. And if it's your first time, I'll ask you to set it up.
Couple quick announcements are dry mountain adventures. We have a family friendly hike on August 5 from nine to two, hiking to Ski Lake. So if you and your kids wanna get out in nature and have a guide, we have some awesome people at Tribe that are very experienced in the guided community and would love to take you out there and help facilitate a fun and safe activity for you
and your family. We also have some top roping going
on Wilson Canyon. This is the last one, to my knowledge, for the summer on August 11. Again, that'll be from nine to two. And then the last announcement is for Tuesday sign ups. On Tuesday service, I really encourage our tribe family there to to get.
They don't get to see everything that we have going on here in the Saloon, but it is awesome. I I think you guys can attest to that. But we're what's going on here is awesome, and it's expensive. So I encourage them to step up and give even though that's something that they may may not always get to experience the fruit of. They don't get to experience all this space we have here to spin around and have fun with all this space and our drive kids are running around.
They don't get to see all that, but I encourage them to step out to give to help us be able to keep doing this. And so something I'm gonna ask of you guys is on Tuesday night, we provide a meal for that service. And that's a great opportunity for us to break bread and spend time together. So if the Lord's gonna stir something up in you, whether you're a great cook or you wanna set aside some time to go pick up a meal from somewhere and bring it to that service, we have a sign up over on this little kind of bar counter. There's some different sign ups there.
If you want to do the hike, the
top rope, or sign up to prepare and provide meal for
our Tuesday night service, that would be much appreciated if you want to go ahead and sign up over there after service. Alright, draft fam. If you wanna go ahead and stand up. I know pastor Brian's not here, but if you were, you'd be praying over us right now. And most importantly, he would end it by saying, and remember, you got this.
Thank you
guys for coming out here today. We love you guys. Finish off those donuts, whatever treats we have over there. Have a great rest of your Sunday, and love you guys.
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