181: Josh Sommerville - Exhortation: Hearing God Above the Noise

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:13

   Welcome to good for selfie and talks. I’m Levi and I’m Chris and I’m Brian, thank you for joining us this week. On this podcast, we select one taco week to help us get the Bible in our daily news feed. We post a new episode of the start of each week with a short intro before. Hand to kind of set the stage for the talk. You’re about to listen to and now let’s talk more about this week’s talk.

2. 0:50

   Hello and welcome back this week. We’re listening to an excitation that was given by brother Josh Somerville at the Verdugo Hills Ecclesia, this past Sunday, sorry, for a little bit of delay getting the Episode posted, but I needed to get the audio from the excitation because I really wanted to share it. The subject of the excitation that I kind of gave it brother. Josh didn’t give it a specific title was hearing God above the noise and it just felt super timely when he when Josh was giving it especially with everything that is going on in the world right now with the events going on, in Ukraine. And everything else in the news where there seems to be more and more noise constantly fighting for our attention. And in his agitation, Josh is just looking at What we can take and reminds us to be still and focus on God, and letting ourselves.

3. 1:40

   Feel his presence to be able to make our decisions rather than focusing constantly on trying to jump from one thing to the next. And whether that for you is taking quiet meditation, going for a walk, whatever it might be for you that allows you to kind of be calm and be a little still.

4. 1:57

   It really allows you to focus and not be so reactionary. I just really like this excitation especially right now. I know myself personally I felt like it had been a very noisy past couple of weeks. So I really appreciated the Josh gave this excitation and I really enjoyed it. So I thought it would be an appropriate one.

5. 2:17

   Especially timely to share with everyone. And so, I hope you enjoy it too. And that you find it, encouraging in your walk, and you’re able to find some time to be still and focus on God and hear his presence around you. So with that, I will turn it over to brother Josh for his exhortation, hearing God above the noise.

6. 2:39

   A couple of things before. I begin, I didn’t get a chance to talk to Keeton last week after his exhortation, but I was thinking about how him and I were on the same wavelength. In some ways, he started his exhortation talking about the struggle of getting up and going to work and I can relate to that. And as I contemplated his thoughts and compared them with the topic that I’m going to be sharing with you all today, I think what I took away from it is the key word for us to remember is that word struggle.

7. 3:17

   You know, Keaton is a young Brothers, starting out his career. He’s newly married. And so he shared with us an aspect of his personal struggle, which is getting up and getting going, especially when you read about the vanity of it all, and it can be depressing. And I understand that and I can relate Because I remember what it was like when I was a young newly married, man.

8. 3:42

   I was working a manual job and going to school at night to get a teaching credential and it was stressful. And but I’ve learned that over the years of marriage that God has always provided for me and my family. And the other thing is that there is a struggle that we are all dealing with and that struggle is hopefully building us to something better. I also wanted to say before I start to thank our brother David for his prayer because What he did in about 2 minutes was boiled down my whole exhortation. And I was ready to break bread as soon as he said. Amen.

9. 4:22

   So it was a, it was a beautiful prayer brother. I really appreciate your thoughts and your heart, it’s it’s really good. So maybe me and David are also on the same wavelength will see. But I was going to I do want to share and I will share with you what I’ve been thinking about for a while and it is about the past few years and how they’ve been so crazy and how they’ve affected all of us and they’ve affected his all in, you know, in different ways.

10. 4:51

    God willing we’re coming to this, close of a pandemic that has challenged us physically. Because many of us have been infected. We’ve been subjected to wearing masks working from home being separated from those that we love unable to travel getting shots in our arms. We’ve been challenged mentally with anxiety and stress, regarding the news, surrounding the ladies, strain, or the most recent surge in cases or listening to what we should be doing to prevent the spread or trying to determine who to believe on whether or not, we should be getting a shot.

11. 5:28

    And we’ve been challenged spiritually because we’re unable to meet in person. And while we have members all over, not just here, we have members that have stopped attending in person and only attending on Zoom we’ve been through it in an insanely divisive election between Trump and Biden that has caused concern and has damaged relationships and Ecclesia has And it’s not going to be long before that’s going to start again.

12. 5:57

    At leashes have also been divided over covid and what to do with masking and vaccinating. And as Brother David said, we’ve, you know, the disaster in Tonga. It’s affected our members from, you know, of members that we have here and our brothers and sisters in Tonga, and that’s going to continue to affect them for years to come.

13. 6:17

    And as our brother said in Russia we have what’s going on over there. And that’s very upsetting and discern disconcerting and hard for us to understand what those brothers and sisters are going with going going through as we hear live in live in peace. And on top of all the things that are going on in the world around us, we’re dealing with our own personal problems, whether it be our jobs, our homes, our health, our families, our Ecclesia, and it just continues to build, and it can become overwhelming and debilitating, and stressful, and it’s hard to know if there’s ever going to be an end to it. So it is hard to allow God, to speak to us. It is difficult to hear him above the noise. It can feel almost impossible at times to listen because we are so consumed by the problems going on around us and affecting us.

14. 7:22

    Some of us may be struggling to sleep. We might wake up hours before we need to, because we’re dealing with the stress, we get through the day. We struggle to get through the day. and then we can’t seem to turn our minds off. So what do we do? We watch TV or we listen to music.

15. 7:47

    You might play a podcast or read a book or scroll through Facebook or do anything to take our mind off. What is bothering us and help us to fall asleep. So in essence, we’re using noise to block out the noise. That’s in our minds and it seems ironic, but it is what we do.

16. 8:06

    Only to then wake up and start the process over again. Psalm 46:10. Be still and know that I am. God. I will be exalted among the Heathen. I will be exalted in the Earth. This whole salmon fact, is just a beautiful Psalm filled with words of encouragement. But I wanted to single out verse 10 purely because of what those first two words say to be still.

17. 8:43

    Be still. Don’t move. Don’t speak. Don’t do anything. Just be still and be quiet and know that he is God. There’s something that happens when we allow the silence to come to the Forefront of our minds. The ears begin to work again. We hear sounds. Instead of them working so hard to block out the noise or work so hard. Filtering what we want or need to hear. They can finally relax when it is silent and do what God intended them to do, which is to here. So, let’s practice being silent.

18. 9:51

    Do you hear yourself breathing? Genesis 2:7 says and the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils. The breath of life and Man became a living soul. What a gift that we’ve been given? To have life to have breath.

19. 10:18

    To be walking Miracles, living breathing creatures. It’s incredible. When we sit in silence, can we feel our heart beating? The blood pulsing through our body without any control on our part.

20. 10:41

    How can anyone think anything different and some higher power that work? And if we continue in this silence, what else do we begin to notice?

21. 10:56

    You notice your body? maybe the aches and pains of Life, the sore muscles, The twinge in your back. Maybe your bottom going numb, on the seat you’re sitting on.

22. 11:13

    First Corinthians 6:19 and 20. What know you not? That your body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit, which is in you. Which he have of God and ye are not your own for ye are bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are gods. just a reminder that God gave us not only life but he gave us these bodies and were here alive today, only because of his grace We belong to him and to glorify him in all that we do. Continuing in this silence, brothers sisters. We can hear God’s creation.

23. 12:04

    We don’t hear it in here. But I went out during the break and just sat in the parking lot for a few minutes. You can hear birds insects. The soft murmur of conversations in the distance. A random child laughing.

24. 12:28

    And I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s taken a moment in silence like that. And sometimes many of us might enjoy doing that in special places, like Idlewild to find a quiet place to close our eyes and just be silent and allow those sounds to come to the Forefront of our minds.

25. 12:48

    The Bible gives us lots of examples, of moments, of silence and quietness and I want to share some of those with you. Because we might think that God is in the loud and the powerful especially with what’s going on in the world around us and in 1st Innings 19 11 through 13. Elijah God speaking to Elijah and he says go forth and stand upon the mount before the Lord and before and behold the Lord passed by and a great and strong wind rent, the mountains and break in pieces the Rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.

26. 13:25

    And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, a still small voice, And it was. So when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entering of the cave. Entering in of the cave and behold. There came a voice unto him and said what doest? Thou here Elijah.

27. 13:48

    Elijah is running away and terrified for his life. But he needed a reminder of who was in charge and although God created that urged, the wind and the earthquake in the fire. It was when he spoke to Elijah. It was in that still small voice and it seems that with God, we’re always looking for the fire and brimstone to occur. And we know that when Christ returns, it will be loud and unmistakable, but there are lessons in the Bible that we can learn.

28. 14:16

    That show was the power of Silence. One of the beautiful things we find in the Book of Job is chapter 2, verses 11 through 13, when jobs three friends. Heard of all this evil that was come upon him. It came everyone from his own place, he life as the Tema night and bildad the shuhite and zophar the Namath a’ight.

29. 14:39

    For they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with job and to comfort him. And when they lifted up their eyes, a far-off and knew him, not, they lifted up their voice and wept and they rent everyone his mantle and sprinkled dust upon their heads towards heaven. So they sat down with him upon the ground, seven days and seven nights, and none speak a word unto him. For they saw that his grief was very great. Job was devastated and struggling. And his friends sat in silence for a full week. when I think upon that, and I contemplate on that, I would like to think that they sat there and cried with him. Held his hand.

30. 15:36

    Rubbed his back. Held his head in their lap as he slept. Brought him food or something to drink. But there was nothing they could, they could have said, there’s nothing that would have given him encouragement or cheered him up. So I say anything. They showed him Comfort. They showed him support and encouragement without saying a word, just to sit in silence. Maybe that week of Silence was what job needed to just be and to breathe.

31. 16:21

    In John chapter 8, we read about the woman caught in the act of adultery, and they asked him in verse 5, they asked Jesus. Now, Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned, but what’s a us out? How does Jesus respond? But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote in the ground as though he heard them. Not And we can picture the scene. Of this crowd getting quite worked up. And they’re dragging this woman who’s probably resisting and fighting against them toward Jesus with this plan that they already have in their minds to accuse him. And there’s instigators.

32. 16:59

    I’m sure if you know encouraging the rest of the crowd hyping each other up. that what they’re doing is righteous, that what they’re doing is just and yet Jesus says nothing.

33. 17:15

    We’re not told how long that silence lasted could have been. Minute. And a minute is a long time when someone asks you a question and you don’t answer those moments of Silence, proved to be powerful. Maybe it gave. Jesus just a moment to breathe a moment to think. Even though we’re sure he didn’t need it but maybe it was for them to give them a moment, a moment to think. Christ, not allow himself to be brought to their level. But his State of Mind was always calm. We’re also exhorted that we should do things to the glory of God but to do them quietly.

34. 18:12

    In Matthew chapter 6 and verse 3. But when thou doest alms, Let not thy right hand. Know what I’m sorry. Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand do with that. Thine alms may be in secret and thy father, which seeth in secret himself, shall reward, thee openly and it’s a funny verse.

35. 18:32

    If you think about it, literally, because it would be impossible for me to donate to the Ecclesia with my left hand, while hiding my right hand. So that it doesn’t know what I’m doing. I think it’s going to figure it out. But we understand the meeting. There’s no gain by making noise about donations.

36. 18:52

    Just do that quietly. And in Matthew, 6, and verse 6. But when thou prayest enter into thy closet, and when thou has shut the door, pray to thy father, which is in secret and thy father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly, Again, we don’t take that verse. Literally we don’t run and pray in our closets.

37. 19:17

    And we understand that the point is to not make a big scene about prayers. To pray in a quiet place to God. Quiet place can be outside on a walk. We’re sitting in your backyard or just listening to the wind and the birds and giving God praise.

38. 19:38

    And as we turn our attention to Jesus, we see the example that he gave us when he was struggling. And hearing about the death of John, the Baptist Matthew 14 verse 13, when Jesus heard of it, he departed that spy ship into a desert Place apart. Jesus went to be alone. The find a quiet place to mourn. The death of his friend to pray to his heavenly, father to collect his thoughts to gather strength. We also read Mark 1:35 and in the morning also about Jesus rising up a great while before the day he went out and departed into a solitary place and their parade. This was a way for Jesus, to collect his thoughts and I’m an example to us, as well.

39. 20:26

    Especially now as we live in a world, that’s so noisy and troubling. We need to find a quiet place to be able to gather our thoughts and approached our heavenly father in prayer. And here we are, aren’t we? Because now is we’re about to partake of the bread and the wine and we silently pass them from hand to hand.

40. 20:49

    We allow for that moment of peace and quiet to wash over us as we are reminded again and internalized. The thought that God sacrificed his son for us. That we should be giving that we should be given everlasting life in his soon-coming kingdom. We need to remember that even Christ in his Darkest Hour was looking looked for a quiet place where he could approach his father in prayer where he could lay his struggles at his father’s feet to gather up his strength for what lies ahead. In Mark chapter 14 and they came to a place which was called Gethsemane.

41. 21:35

    And he saith to his disciples sit ye here while I pray And he taketh with him Peter, and James, and John and began to be sore. Amazed, and to be very heavy. And saith unto them. My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death. Tarry, ye here and watch. And he went forward a little. And fell on the ground and prayed that if it were possible, the hour might pass from him.

42. 22:05

    And he said, Abba Father. All things are possible unto thee. Take away this cup from me. Nevertheless not what I will. But what thou wilt?

43. 22:34

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44. 22:49

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45. 23:30

    God, bless and talk to you next week.