Hearing God’s Voice from His Word
James 4:8 says, “Come near to God and he will come near to you.”
Take a moment and turn your attention to God. Tell God that you desire to trust and obey Him. Ask God to speak to you from His word.
Psalm of the Day
Psalm 34:15-18 The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry for help. 16 The face of the Lord is set against those who do what is evil, to remove all memory of them from the earth. 17 The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears, and rescues them from all their troubles. 18 The Lord is near the brokenhearted; he saves those crushed in spirit.
Read the Entire Psalm
God is a personal being. He is beyond fully comprehending but we can know some about Him and we can relate to Him because He has made Himself known. This verse talks about His eyes, His ears, His face and the fact that He hears and is near and He saves. He doesn’t literally have ears, but He is a personal being. He is more than a force or an idea. He is personal. Praise Him for being personal and present.
Scripture Reading
1 John 1:1-4 – New International Version
1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2 The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4 We write this to make our joy complete.
Having God’s Ear through Prayer
- Express thanks to God.
- Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal sin to you.
- Confess your sin to Him and receive forgiveness.
(1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sin He is faithful and just and will forgive our sins.”) - Bring your personal requests to God.
(Psalm 62:8 “Pour out your heart before God”) - Pray for someone in your small group.
- Join with others from River and pray for Austin and Jenni as they serve stateside. Pray for their friend Sam who they invested in and continue to invest in through online apps as he moves to a new place. Pray he would find a church and grow in his faith.
Living as God’s People by applying the Bible
Scripture Reflection from the Sermon
What do you know for certain? Has what you are certain about decreased or increased the past year? Maybe it has held steady, or maybe it goes up and down. When have you been certain about something and been proven wrong? How did that affect your confidence in other areas of “certainty?” Some question the ability of mere humans to be certain at all. In order to function in life, you have to operate with at least a relative degree of certainty. Even the die-hard skeptic has to have some level of certainty that his food and water are to some degree safe to eat. You have to have some level of certainty that the laws of nature will remain uniform and not change day to day. You have some level of certainty that the people you know and trust are who you think they are. Yet we can be disappointed, can’t we? We can be shocked when things that seemed certain proved to be other than what we thought they were. So, what are we to do? How can we trust ourselves enough to even claim to have certainty in what we believe about God? We must not start with self; we must start with God. There is evidence in creation for God. There is evidence in our own hearts and minds that God has placed there for his existence. There is evidence in the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. I am certain that God exists and the gospel is true because of the evidence. I am also certain because I trust God and believe that he has made himself known to me. My certainty is ultimately in him, not in myself.