The following is a transcript of a message originally delivered on Sunday, December 20, 2009 at The Refuge on Hilton Head Island, SC. As you read, bear in mind that it was written to be a talk, not a blog, though I have slightly altered it in order to make it more literary in nature. Enjoy…
Good morning, everyone! Welcome to The Refuge! We are so honored to get to worship with you today! If you are here for the first time, we want you to know that you are in a safe place…no matter where you are on your spiritual journey, you belong here…and it is our prayer that we all leave this place a little closer to God than when we arrived!
Here we are just five days away from Christmas. And although many people are thrilled and excited as the big day approaches, sociologists will also tell you that the holidays are a tremendous source of stress and angst for millions of Americans. In fact, a study was recently commissioned in which sociologists were able to narrow down a way to tangibly measure holiday angst by simply asking one single question. And so this morning, I’m going to ask you that question to measure your holiday angst. Are you ready?
“Finished all your Christmas shopping yet?”
And with that, let’s move on. Today we are continuing our series entitled, “Presence: The Real Gift of Christmas,” and the basic premise of the series is this. Two thousand years ago Jesus was the first Christmas present, but today the real gift of Christmas is the Holy Spirit, God’s consistent presence in our lives! And even though it’s a little taboo to talk about, we believe that if God exists, and if He was able to create everything…the stars, the oceans, the planets, life itself…then something as simple as speaking probably isn’t out of the realm of possibility. In other words, we believe that God speaks…today…and that He has been speaking all along. And we believe that He speaks today through His Holy Spirit.
In his Bible study Experiencing God, Henry Blackaby talks about the Holy Spirit’s role in our lives, and he says that the Holy Spirit speaks to us in at least four different ways. So three weeks ago, we talked about how the Holy Spirit often speaks to us through other people. And then two weeks ago, we said that the Holy Spirit speaks through Scripture. And then this last week, we talked about the fact that He speaks to us through prayer and that it is incumbent on us to seek Him in prayer, to prioritize prayer, and to understand that prayer is a conversation, not a Christmas wish list! Well today, I want to talk to you about the fourth way Blackaby says that the Holy Spirit speaks to us, and that is through circumstances. And this might be the trickiest one of all.
I heard a story once about a man who got caught in a huge flood. Weather reports had been warning residents to evacuate, but this man, being a strong believer in the divine providence of God, decided that he would wait it out and trust in God’s deliverance. So while he was sitting out on his porch watching the flood waters rise, a police officer came by and offered to give him a ride to higher ground.
“Oh no, Officer; God will provide, ” he stated with confidence.
The waters continued to rise, so the man had to move to the second floor of his home. Eventually a boat came by and offered him a route to safety.
“Oh, no thank you; God will provide, ” he matter-of-factly repeated.
The waters kept rising until finally he crawled out of his second story window and onto the roof. About that time a helicopter flew overhead and dropped a rope ladder down to the desperate, stranded man.
“Go on without me,” the man shouted. “God will provide!”
As the waters kept rising, the man was forced to tread water as he awaited divine providence. Eventually, however, his weary arms and legs simply gave out, and he drowned. In Heaven, the confused, disgruntled believer rushed up to God and asked, “Why God? I trusted You for provision. I waited for You. Why didn’t You save me?”
God replied, “I sent you a car, a boat, and a helicopter; what do you want from me?!”
Sometimes it’s hard to read the circumstances!
We’ve talked several times during this series about Moses and the Israelites. There was a time in their history when Moses led perhaps millions of Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. But it wasn’t easy. When he first appeared to Pharaoh and demanded that he free the Hebrew slaves, Pharaoh doubled their work load! Even after God sent nine plagues on Egypt, Pharaoh still refused to let them go. It took the death of every firstborn Egyptian son before he finally agreed to free them. In fact, he didn’t just allow them to leave; he demanded that they go! But once they left, Pharaoh changed his mind and dispatched the army to chase after them. The Israelites, who were not trained fighters at all, panicked. An army was attacking from the rear and the Red Sea was before them. All the circumstances said, “We did the WRONG thing, and we are SO gonna pay for it!” In fact, they even asked Moses, “Why did you bring us out here to die in the wilderness? Weren’t there enough graves in Egypt?”
Sometimes it’s hard to read the circumstances. Sometimes the circumstances are deceptive. Sometimes God works around the circumstances. Sometimes God works through the circumstances. And sometimes God works in spite of the circumstances, as He did with the Israelites that day. Moses raised his staff, the Red Sea parted, the Israelites crossed safely, and Pharaoh’s army was washed away when the waters returned.
You can’t always judge the will of God based on circumstances.
But the problem is that I know people who attempt to discern His will almost exclusively by way of circumstances. You know these people, right? “God…show me a sign. Give me a sign. I’m going to put a fleece out on the ground.”
Every little thing becomes a sign from God…a cloud in the sky…a word in the newspaper…SQUIRREL! It’s like the UP dog, you know, Dug? In case you haven’t seen it, in the movie UP, Dug and his dog buddies are constantly distracted by squirrels, or at least by the thought of squirrels. So they’re in mid-conversation and all of a sudden someone will yell, “Squirrel!” and they just stop and look. And sometimes I think we look at circumstances that way. Sometimes I think we abandon a consistent, steady, antiphonal dialogue with God in favor of the flavor of the month, in favor of crazy circumstances, in favor of “SQUIRREL!”
“Show me a sign, God! I don’t want to do the hard work of learning to communicate with you! I don’t want to pray and read my Bible. I don’t want to seek wise counsel from others. I just want You to write it in the stars.” SQUIRREL!
Now for a guy who’s supposed to be talking about how God speaks through circumstances, I seem pretty down on them, don’t I? But I’m not. God speaks through circumstances. He does…A LOT! We just have to be careful that we don’t come to rely on them as God’s exclusive means of communication.
A few years ago, I was working as a Student Ministries Pastor in Savannah, and I felt like God was going to be moving me soon. And all of a sudden, I started seeing these license plates. At first, I didn’t think anything about it. But then, over and over, the car in front of me would have a license plate with three letters on it…AWT (or something like that…I can’t remember exactly). And so I started wondering, “Is God trying to tell me something? Is He going to lead me to do something SO RADICAL that I will need a MAJOR sign of confirmation?”
And I even started praying about. And you will NEVER believe what happened next? NOTHING! Time went on. I continued to see those license plates. And then one day I learned that Chatham County had recently release new license plates, and apparently the three letter sequence I kept seeing was just a really common one on the new tags. So thankfully I didn’t quit my job and apply for a job at Applied Water Technologies (which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange as AWT)! Why? Because circumstances can be deceptive!
But circumstances can also be very telling. It can be dangerous when we try to use circumstances as the only gauge for what the Holy Spirit is speaking to us. But when we use circumstances in conjunction with the other ways that the Spirit speaks, they become a tremendous tool! Think back to the time of Jesus’ birth. There had been prophecies that the Messiah would come for 4,000 years! Every Jewish person had heard the story. Every Jewish scholar knew that the timing was right…Daniel had predicted His arrival almost to the day! And so can you imagine what Joseph (Jesus’ earthly father) must have been thinking as the events surrounding his Son’s birth started to fulfill those prophecies, the prophecies that he had been taught all his life! I mean here’s Joseph, engaged to this young “virgin” girl…who just showed up pregnant…riiiight! And if that wasn’t enough, an “angel” appeared to Mary…and told her that the child was conceived by the Holy Spirit…riiiight! So all of this was probably a little much to take in for Joseph…except that it was happening exactly the way the Scriptures said it would!
14 All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’). Isaiah 7:14 NLT
And now…Joseph’s virgin wife…is pregnant…and God is speaking through the circumstances.
“This is my Son. This is the One you’ve been waiting for.”
And in case Joseph missed it, an angel also appeared to him…to let him know that Mary was telling the truth about her pregnancy and that he shouldn’t divorce her. Huh. Go figure. And while she was pregnant, when she visited her cousin, Elizabeth, who was also pregnant, Elizabeth’s baby, John the Baptist, actually leapt in the womb at the sound of Mary’s voice. Huh. Go figure. And three months later, Caesar Augustus actually issued a decree that forced Joseph to travel to Bethlehem to register for a census just as Mary was ready to give birth, thereby fulfilling the prophecy that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.
6 ‘And you, O Bethlehem in the land of Judah, are not least among the ruling cities of Judah, for a ruler will come from you who will be the shepherd for my people Israel.’” Matthew 2:6 NLT
Huh. Go figure.
God was still speaking through the circumstances. I mean what are the odds that a couple who lived in Nazareth in the region of Galilee would have their baby in Bethlehem in the region of Judea. And by the way, when Jesus was born, an angel choir announced His birth to nearby shepherds.
Huh. Go figure.
And wise men came from the Far East to find and worship Him, too. How did they find Him? They followed a star!!!!
Huh! Go figure!
Think about it. Even if Joseph had been able to dismiss the angel visitation as some sort of hallucination (after all, most of us have a way of rationalizing the supernatural when it does happen in our lives), I find it hard to believe that his faith and confidence didn’t grow exponentially with each fulfilled prophecy. God was speaking…through the circumstances! God was communicating…it was very clear to anyone who would look at the situation objectively that this was the work of God!
About two months ago, Rachell Rivera (member of The Refuge) came to me with fire in her eyes and said, “We need to support families for Thanksgiving. I’ve contacted Bluffton Self-Help and told them we could take four families.”
And then Debbie Stewart (member of The Refuge) found out that we could purchase a whole Thanksgiving meal for $36 through Angel Food Ministries. And so we started thinking, “We can support more than four families if it’s only going to cost $36/meal.”
So we took a leap of faith, based on what we sensed God was leading us to do, and we pre-purchased twenty meals. Fast forward: you guys were so generous that we paid for all those meals. But when Rachell called back to let Bluffton Self-Help know that we had more meals than we originally thought we would, they told us that they didn’t need our food anymore…they had it covered. So there we were with twenty Thanksgiving meals, purchased by you, but we didn’t know of anyone who could benefit from them.
So we asked Johnnie Hamlin (member of The Refuge) who works in social services to ask around, and she called CAPA – Child Abuse Prevention Association. When she asked them if they needed any food for the people they were serving this Thanksgiving, they told her, “Yes…desperately…we need twenty meals!” Twenty meals! Not twenty-one, not nineteen – twenty meals! God speaks through circumstances! At that moment, if there had been any doubts before, we knew that God had guided the whole process! He had a plan all along that we knew nothing about! And to get us to carry it out, He spoke to us through prayer and through circumstances. And when it was all over, He used circumstances to remind us that He is still God – ever-present, ever-sovereign!
Now you might say, “Preston, that’s great. But how in the world am I supposed to know when the Holy Spirit is actively speaking to me through circumstances? I mean if circumstances are so deceptive, how do I discern His will in my circumstances above my own will or someone else’s will?” And you see, this is the MILLION DOLLAR question! Because at the heart of this question is the key to hearing the Holy Spirit when He speaks into your life. And the question doesn’t just pertain to circumstances, but to all of the ways that the Holy Spirit speaks. You see God speaks through people, but so does the Devil [bad advice, criticism, discouragement, etc.]. God speaks through Scripture, but so does the Devil [like when he twisted Scripture to tempt Jesus in the wilderness]. And God speaks through prayer, but so does the devil [a thought here, a whisper there].
The key…is alignment. When Joseph began seeing the pieces of the puzzle falling into place in the form of his Son, Jesus, Scripture and circumstances worked in tandem to communicate God’s will for his life. Joseph knew the Scriptures, and he listened for God’s voice in the midst of his circumstances. And if we want to hear God speak, I mean really hear Him speak, faithfully, consistently, then we’ve got to understand the concept of alignment.
I mentioned earlier that it can be dangerous when we try to use circumstances as the only gauge for what the Holy Spirit is speaking to us. But the same can be said of His other means of communication, too! There are times when I open up the Bible and the words just come screaming off the pages at me. But there are other times when I struggle to hear God speak through Scripture, especially if I’m searching for answers about something very specific.
There are times when God speaks through someone else with such clarity that I feel like God Himself is standing right in front of me. But then there are other times when every person I talk to gives me a different answer.
There are times when His voice seems to resonate with crystal clarity in prayer. And there are other times when it feels like my prayers are bouncing off the ceiling.
So how am I supposed to hear Him when He speaks? I have to look for alignment. If I sense God speaking something to me during prayer, I begin to look for confirmation in Scripture, in my circumstances, and through others. If I read something that resonates in my heart, I begin seeking God in prayer about that, bouncing it off of other people, and looking for practical ways to apply it to my life. If everyone I love is telling me the same thing, I start praying hard about what they’re telling me and look for confirmation in Scripture and in my circumstances. If God seems to be aligning the stars of my circumstances, I search the Scriptures, seek Him in prayer, and bounce the ideas off of someone else. Inevitably, if God is speaking in one of these four ways, He’s speaking in at least two or three of them. The key…is alignment!
Give yourself the greatest gift you could possibly give this year. Tap into His presence! Seek Him like never before! Learn to be listening when He speaks! And then do what He tells you to do! That’s what Christmas Presence is all about!
Copyright 2010 www.prestonroydparrish.com
