Whose Voice Are You Listening To?

We can all pick out a certain voice. Our spouse’s, our child’s, our parent’s, and that’s because we’ve spent years with them, we value them.

There are so many things and so many people trying to get your ear. They are trying to get you to listen, then respond, and then follow. Some of these are innocent enough, others appeal to the broken parts of us, even the worst parts of us.

Sometimes the voices we respond to sound similar to God’s, but because we haven’t taken the time or placed a specific value on God’s voice, we mistake them for God's.

Whose voice we listen to and respond to in life has profound implications.

In 1 John, Chapter 4, we are in this early church. There were few written Scripture texts available, especially those that would become the New Testament, so the early church depended heavily on apostles, prophets, and teachers. Some of these had begun to spread false teachings that denied the true nature of Jesus in an attempt to “improve” on the simple, old truth of the Gospel.

1 John 4
Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.

What is testing the Spirits?
You can have a spiritual experience that’s not based in Jesus Christ. These spiritual experiences, new teachings, new discoveries, or “improvements” can feel so compelling and appeal to something within us.

We often mistake compelling for true.

Whenever anyone says, “God says,” or “The Lord told me,” it should be tested. But how do you test it? By the Word of God. By who Jesus was, what Jesus did, and how Jesus did. This is why it’s so important to be rooted in Scripture. It allows us to see, taste, smell, or hear when something is off.

It’s a guarantee that there are other voices trying to position themselves as authority in our lives. They’re even using bits and pieces of Christianity and Scripture to do it. This is exactly what was happening in the early church.

Just because someone is quoting the scriptures publicly doesn’t mean they are honoring Jesus.

How do you test the Spirits?
They will always tell the truth about Jesus, and if they don’t, they aren’t. They’re not just a little off, they’re opposed. But if you hold onto the truth of Jesus, the firm foundation built in His word, there’s another promise you can claim or push back.

1 John 4
4 You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because “the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”
5 They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.

If you embrace the voice that IS God, believe that Jesus IS God – fully God and fully human – it has undeniable implications in our lives, and our lives in others’ lives.

We listen to the voice of God and speak the truth of God into the world, but we go further than that. John has already challenged us not to love just with words, but with actions.

1 John 4
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 

Have you ever had a crush? What happens when they make the first move? It changes everything. So, when we listen to God, He always calls us to something.  

God’s love always makes the first move.

God made the first move to you. He pursued you and loved you. Even when you weren’t necessarily looking for Him. Loving like God means us making the first move, even in places where it’s not our responsibility to make it.

Your story would be a lot different if someone didn’t make a move or did. But the good news is that God did! And when it came to your relationship with God, someone else did too. Our lives would be so different had God not initiated and pursued us.

Imagine what the story in the world around us could be if we took the initiative as a response to what God did for us.

1 John 4
11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

Think of the wind vs. the wind’s effects. We’ve seen what the wind can do, but do we live our lives professing that we don’t believe in the wind because we haven’t seen it?

This means that the world experiences God through His people. When His people learn to hear, then listen, then respond, and then do.

• Listen to hear
• Listen to process
• Respond
• Do

Most of the time, we don’t hear God in the burning bushes or voices from the sky, but rather when God’s people do to others what God first did to them – love, take the initiative, make the first move.

God shows up in the world when we show up in the world with God.

People see God through how they see us, and specifically through how we love.

Many Christians are fascinated with the supernatural – angels, demons, or power encounters – as a means of acquiring knowledge or gaining a higher plane of understanding. This isn’t about who knows the most, it’s about who knows God’s voice the best and then does something about it.

The world around us is fascinated by Jesus, but often not by the true Jesus. Who’s going to show them the true Jesus?

1 John 4
13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

When you make the first move, when you love, it takes energy and effort. It requires investment and involves risk. Where you’re drawing from when you do this is absolutely critical. It’s like drawing water from a well.

What well are you drawing from? Yours? God’s? Someone else’s? Something else’s? Are you digging the right well deeper?

It’s easy to try to do God’s work while drawing from your own well, but at some point, your well runs dry.

How do we avoid this? By being deeply rooted and reliant first.

1 John 4
16 And so we KNOW and RELY on the love God has for us.

How do we KNOW and RELY?

• Know – Having an intimate relationship with something, like a marriage of many years. The voice you can’t mistake. This isn’t a big emotional or spiritual high, it’s something built consistently, humbly, and faithfully over time.
• Rely – Depending on, literally, to be saved by. This is saving faith, but also “stake your life on it” faith. For example, when you get on an airplane, you’re trusting it and can’t get off. You have to see it through.

You have to stake (build) your life on it. How much of your life would be different if your faith was removed from it?

What if we were the people who weren’t just casual about this, but prioritized it? What if we staked our lives there?