 Well, happy August weekend, Radiant Church. Jane and I are so glad to be back. We had a couple of great weeks of vacation, but we missed you guys, and we missed those of you who are over at the Portage campus. Actually, this month I met so many people from the Portage campus, just randomly coming up to us all over town. So it's exciting what God is doing over there with Pastor Stefan and Candace and the team over there. God is on the move in our city, amen? And I'm excited because this weekend, we are beginning a brand new series that's gonna carry us through the first part of September called Tuned In, and we're gonna be talking about how to hear the voice of God, how God speaks to us. And for some people, this is kind of a controversial idea, the fact that God speaks, or the fact that God would maybe speak to some people, but speak to all of us, that God wants to have a dialogue and not just a monologue. I know that all of us come from a lot of different environments and different kinds of religious background. Some of us maybe have never grown up in church and have no idea that this is even a controversial idea, but there are some circles where the idea that God still speaks is a big theological obstacle. But here's what I would say, I think for all of us at one time or another, it doesn't matter how long you've been in this game of following Jesus, learning to identify in here and understand how God speaks to us is more of an art than it is a science. How many would affirm that and say in your own personal life, learning to hear God speak to you in the different ways that God speaks to you, obviously through the Bible, but that's just one of the many ways that in the Bible, God spoke to people. Now, before I get hate mail, there will be some people that say, see, they believe in extra biblical revelation. No, God, the Holy Spirit and God the Father and God the Son never violate the scriptures, the Bible, the word of God. The Bible is the foundation of our lives, but out of what God has spoken in truth in the scriptures, God wants to continually speak to us throughout every day of our life. And so over the course of the next several weekends, this is what we're gonna be talking about called tuned in and this incredible radio was my father-in-law's radio and we've had it in our basement for several different years, but how many grew up with a transistor radio or actually a radio that was not digital, you actually had to dial. You had the old school dials, okay? So I had a Philco transistor radio when I was a kid and I also grew up in an era where if you wanted to change the channel on the television you had to actually get up out of your seat and walk to the television council. And because I was the kid in the family that was my job, I was the remote control. So dad would say change the channel and it didn't take much because we only had three channels. But I spent a lot of time in my room with my transistor radio. It had two bandwidths. It had AM and it had, thank you. And in Grand Rapids, the station I like to listen to on AM was Wood and the FM station was 98 WGRD. WGRD, 80s rock, big hair, baggy jeans, shoulder pads, and total etabular music. I would sit in my room and listen to GRD because it was a really strong signal. But then I discovered AM and there was some talk show and so you had to work really hard at dialing in, adjusting the antenna just so in order to get the frequency. And so it took work, it took energy, it took focus to dial it in because just like in this room right now, there are all kinds of sound waves, radio frequencies that are moving through this room that you don't see and you're not interacting with. If you were to turn the radio on and adjust it to the right frequency at just the right angle with the antenna, with the right amplification and strength, you can pick up those frequencies that are communicating information, songs, sports programming, news. And they're in this room right now but it takes a tuner and somebody to tune it into the right frequency to actually be able to interact with it. Now, here's why we've called it tuned in and it's this, it's because God is a God of dialogue. God is a God who speaks and he's always speaking. And if you've never grasped that idea or you've struggled with that or you say, you know what, I've never heard God speak, we're gonna talk about some of those realities and we're gonna unpack what it means to really hear from God but here's what it's really all about over the next several weeks is we wanna help you learn how to tune in because just because you've never heard it or you may not think you've ever heard God speak or interacted with your creator, I want you to know that doesn't mean that he isn't communicating with you, just means we've gotta tune our soul and our spirit in to be able to hear the voice of God. And then in a couple of weeks, we're gonna have prophetic presbytery. And anytime you use the word prophetic, people immediately are like, whoa, okay, this is weird, prophets, people are gonna come into the church, they're gonna call me out, they're gonna say everything bad that I've ever done embarrass me and I'm because God's mean. Now God's, that's not how prophecy works. Prophecy is God as a father speaking words through human beings that are to build you up, to encourage you and to strengthen you as you pursue his purpose in your life. It's always to encourage you, it's always to strengthen you. God's not going to call your sin out, trust me. I'm asking you to trust me as your pastor when we have prophetic weekend, if this is new to you, that it's not gonna be weird, it's not gonna be hokey, it's not gonna violate scripture and it's not going to call out your sin. God is not gonna call out your sin. I might, God won't. So I'm kidding, all right. Everybody, turn with me in your Bibles to first Samuel chapter three. First Samuel chapter three. This weekend's message is really just an introduction to the idea that God still speaks. God still speaks. And I want to draw your attention to first Samuel chapter three because this is a Old Testament story. I know all summer we've been going through heroes of the Old Testament. Well, this weekend we're gonna talk about another one and his name is Samuel. And Samuel's name actually means the Lord hears and the Lord speaks. Samuel was a child that was miraculously conceived in response to his mother named Hannah's prayer and petition of God. God gave her a son, she made a commitment that I will lend him to the Lord. I will give him back to you if you'll give me a child. She was barren and miraculously God gave her a child and she brought this child named Samuel to Eli who was the priest at the house of God, the tabernacle, where the Ark of the Covenant was, the presence of God was. And when he was old enough, she gave him to Eli to train up so that he could serve in the house of the Lord. This that we're about to read the very first 10 verses is talking about how Samuel encountered the voice of God for the very first time. Verse number one of chapter three, it says, now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord in the presence of Eli. And the word of the Lord was rare in those days and there was no frequent vision. At that time, Eli whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see was lying down in his own place. The lamp of God had not yet gone out and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord where the Ark of God was. Then the Lord called Samuel and he said, here I am and ran to Eli and he said, here I am for you called me. But he said, I didn't call, lie down again. So he went and he laid down and the Lord called again Samuel and Samuel rose and he went to Eli and he said, here I am for you called me. But he said, I didn't call you my son, lie down again. Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord. That's something worth underlying. Samuel did not yet know the Lord and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. Verse number eight, and the Lord called to Samuel again the third time and he arose and he went to Eli and he said, here I am for you called me. And then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, go lie down and if he calls you, you shall say, speak Lord, your servant hears. And so Samuel went and he laid down in his place and the Lord came and stood calling as at other times, Samuel, Samuel and Samuel said, speak for your servant hears. Some interesting historical dynamics were taking place right there. Eli was a man who had been a judge over the people of God for many, many years. But as we just read, his eyesight began to dim. It's interesting that there was a correlation between the fact that it was rare in Israel at this time for people to have visions like many of the prophets before that had come. You know, Israel was established on a prophetic ministry under Moses and it was carried on. But there came a time where that really slowed down because people weren't seeking the Lord. And so there wasn't a widespread reception of the word of God and there wasn't vision. Eli probably represented the closest thing to a prophet, but even in the natural, his own eyesight began to grow dim. And now he's older, he's kind of corrupted in his heart a little bit and he's got this young man who is dedicated to serving the Lord named Samuel that he's taking care of. And they live in the tabernacle. They live in the house of the Lord. It's like living in church. So he's kind of training him to serve the Lord. It says he doesn't know the Lord, but he's serving the Lord, which means he's volunteering. He's a part of team rating. He's showing up, he's doing sound. He's helping with the offerings and different things like this, but he's new to experiencing or encountering the Lord. He doesn't have a personal relationship with the Lord. And at night he lays down and it's interesting, he says he's laying close to the Ark. Proximity leads to intimacy. And so as he's laying down next to the Ark, the Lord speaks to him, but he hears the Lord, but he doesn't understand that it's the Lord. How many parents in here, sometimes you can shout for your kids in the other room and if it's dinner time, they come running, but if you're shouting to your kids to go clean your room, they act like you're 100 miles away. And there's other times where, when you're telling your kids to do something, they have selective hearing. And then there's times where when you're speaking to them in the other room and they find out something good is going on, man, they can hear every little one. What did you say? What's going on with so and so? I mean, it's amazing how kids' hearing changes, how tuned in they get, depending on what you're talking about. Samuel is this young man and he hears the voice of the Lord, he's confused, Eli sends him back. And then ultimately, Eli figures out what's going on. God is encountering Samuel, this young man, he's revealing himself to Samuel and he's speaking to him. And how many know? God knows that Samuel doesn't know his voice. He knows that there's confusion in his heart, but he's speaking to him. And what he's looking for is two things. Number one is he's looking for understanding that Eli would help him understand that it was God that was speaking to him because he heard things, but he didn't understand what they were. And number two, he's looking for a willingness to receive what he's about to say. And that's the response. Here I am, Lord, your servant is listening. I think that the day in which you and I live in is very, very similar to the days of Samuel and Eli because in some ways, we're a very distracted generation and culture of people where there's so much noise around us. I don't think it's that God's not speaking to us. It's just that we're not so good at tuning in to the voice of God by tuning other things out. And so because of that, there's kind of a drought for the word of the Lord and for spiritual direction. This whole idea that God would speak to us, look, there are a lot of people would say, well, I believe that God spoke in the Old Testament and obviously God spoke in and through Jesus and the apostles but I don't know that God speaks to us anymore like that. There's lots of different reasons why people believe that but here's what's important for us to understand. God spoke to Samuel because he had a task of reformation upon his life. And I believe the reason why God speaks to us and why it's necessary for each and every one of us to know how to hear and to understand how God is speaking to us and when God is speaking to us is because God's voice is the single most important factor in your life and fulfilling the purpose for which you were put on this planet. You're not just put on this planet to kind of make it up as you go along and hope that when you get to heaven, God will say, hey, that was pretty good. I mean, it's kind of like a craft project. God sent you to earth with some glitter, some Elmer's glue, construction paper and let's see what they come up with. No, the Bible says in Ephesians 2, 10 that you're his workmanship, that he has good works and a good plan for your life that he prepared before the foundations of the world. Here's my question for you. If God has an intricate blueprint for your life and my life, how in the world will we ever know that we're fulfilling it if God only speaks to us in generalities that seven billion other people can claim as their own? We need the voice of the Lord. Samuel needed the voice of the Lord, but he had to learn it and he had to receive it and embrace it. You see, the reason why God is not on mute is because from the very beginning of how God reveals himself, he's a God who speaks and the very first chapter of the Bible says in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and God said, what did he say? Let there be light. God said, God spoke. Do you know that in the very first chapter of the Bible, Genesis chapter one and Revelation chapter 22, the last chapter of the Bible, it shows God speaks and Revelation 22 it says, and the spear and the bride say, come. God speaks in the beginning, God speaks in the end and God speaks all the way through the Bible. Here's why. Speaking is not just something that God does. Communication is part of who God is because when Jesus taught us to pray, what's the very first thing? What's the first line of the Lord's prayer? Come on, we all learned it, at least the first line. What is it? Come on, our Father who art in heaven, stop with the first two words, our Father, not just our Creator, our Father. Why is that significant? Because a Father is relational. The very first thing Jesus teaches his disciples about prayer is that if you're going to pray, you need to relate to God as a Father and what that implies is communication, intimacy, closeness. God wants to know you. God's not the God of the deus that sits back and winds up the universe, throws it out there and says, oh, let's see what happens. Now God is a Father, He gets down on His knee and He talks with us at every different level of our life. God wants to speak to us, God wants to encourage us, God wants to sometimes correct us, sometimes discipline us because that's what fathers do. But all the way throughout the pages of scripture, God reveals Himself part of His nature as that He's a God who speaks. Jesus taught us to expect that God is gonna speak to us. Think about these scriptures. I'm gonna read several of them to you, but here's what Jesus said about you and I in our relationship with God and the voice of God. John 8.47, he says, whoever is of God hears the word of God. You hear the words of God. In John 10, verses four through five, he says, when He brought out all of His own, He goes before them. It's part of a story about the shepherd and His sheep referring to God and you and I. He says, He brings them out, He goes before them and the sheep follow Him for they know His voice. A stranger, they will not follow, why? But they will flee from Him for they do not know the voice of strangers. John 10, verse 14 through 16, he says, I am the good shepherd. This is Jesus, I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me. Just as the Father knows me and I know the Father and I have other sheep that are not of this fold, I must bring them in also and listen and they will listen to my voice. John 10, verse 27, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. In Matthew, during the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, he quotes the Old Testament when he's tempted. He says, man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Notice this, Jesus said, my sheep know me and they know my voice. He didn't say they know my book. You see, the book echoes the voice of God but God, as Jesus said, has a proceeding word that you need every day of your life. Not just a word that was spoken one time but just like a child needs the voice of their father, you and I need a constant ongoing communication with God. Why is it so difficult for us to fathom that the God who created the vastless universe would want to and have the capability of speaking to us? I was watching the news reports after Joy Behar on the view, you know, ripped our vice president who said that God spoke and called it mental illness. Oh, God speaks to you? Why? I mean, why is that so unfathomable? If God really is a creator, if he has all power and he reveals himself as a father and he loves us and you and I have a spirit created in his image, why would God not take advantage of that? Why would God not do that? What kind of a father gives birth to a child who stands back and go, now I'm never gonna speak to you again? I mean, can you imagine a kid running, a kid running into the living room where a dad was and say, dad, dad, what do you think about this in that color? And he goes, and five years ago, he wrote down on a piece of paper, it says, I love you. So every time the kid comes in, he goes, dad, dad, today I graduated from high school. He just holds it up. Ari said it. Just repeating what I said a long time ago. It's still true. Yeah, no, but the child wants to hear the son wants to hear the dad today say, I'm so proud of you today. You see, we gotta get over a lot of kind of the misconceptions and fears that we have about the fact that God speaks to us. God wants to speak to us for two reasons. Number one is, Jesus said, he's the good shepherd and we're sheep. And here's why sheep know the shepherd's voice. It's because a shepherd is the first voice that a baby lamb hears when it's born. Because the shepherd's the one that helps the mother give birth to it. So the baby lamb comes out there and it's the shepherd that embraces it and speaks. It's the first voice and it bonds. Scientists say that both in children and in the animal kingdom, infants bond and are marked indelibly by the voice of their parents. They know that voice. So the first reason is because you is a sheep. The second reason is because you are a child and a child knows the voice of their parents. You know the voice of your parents when you came up. You were startled by other voices, but you know the voice of your mom. You know the voice of your dad when Jane was pregnant with our kids. Actually, Ashley, this is before the days of ultrasounds, we thought Ashley was a boy. We had a whole different name. So we referred to her as him and probably confused her. But I mean, I would talk to her every single day and tell her how much I loved her. And so when I'm holding her in my arms for the very first time, she wasn't startled by my voice. Why? It's because from the moment of her conception, all the way through her process of development, I was speaking my love over her. So when I actually held her in the moment of her birth, it was not surprising to her. That's why the voice of God is so significant and important. I know sometimes we think to ourselves, well, that could be kind of weird because anybody could say that God said anything to them. God told me, God told me, listen, if somebody says God told you and it doesn't line up with this, then God didn't tell you. God didn't tell you to go down to the bar and hook up with Mr. Cowboy with tattoos, full sleeve of it, who's not serving Jesus and the Lord just gave me such peace about it. No, that was the devil and your own lust. Don't make me come down there and preach. Don't portage, don't make me come over there. And listen, we have to make sure that the scripture is the foundation that we build our life upon just like marriage vows are what we build our marriage on. But you don't say, hey, I said everything I need to say to you when we got married, Jane, 26 years ago, I said, for better or for worse, till death do us part in sickness and in health, that should be enough. And now we don't communicate anymore. It's just, that's just the way that it is. Now, we build a marriage on the commitment of the vows, but we build the intimacy by ongoing communication. So how in the world did hearing the voice of God become so controversial? Because listen, hearing the voice of God should not be exceptional. It should be the normal Christian experience. Relationship automatically equals communication. You don't have a relationship without communication, think of one relationship that you have that is not based on communication. I'm not talking about your fifth grade crush, where it's like you wrote a note, it's like, do you like me? Yes, no, maybe. And you went steady with that girl for six months and never spoke to her because you became boyfriend and girlfriend through a cootie catcher before a roller skating party and you were so nervous you could never talk to her. I'm not talking about that relationship. I'm talking about any other relationship. Imagine never communicating. Intimacy comes out of proximity, which develops and strengthens us. 15 times in the New Testament, Jesus said this, he who has ears, let him hear. And the ears that he's talking about are spiritual ears. Ears of our soul because rarely does God speak in an audible fashion that we can hear with our natural ears. Now it happens. It's never happened to me, but most of the time when God speaks to us, he speaks to us in our spirit. He speaks to us in an internal audible voice. He speaks to us through his word, through promptings, through leadings, through other people. And if we're looking for God to speak audibly, well, you know, those are gonna maybe be very few and far between, but the reality is Jesus, when he says he who has ears to hear, let him hear. He's talking about that you and I have inner ears of our spirit just like we have eyes of our heart that need to be opened up. And that's what over the next several weeks we're gonna be talking about. How do we get ears to hear what God is saying to us? In a world where there are so many voices that are vying for our attention and trying to say things to us, and there's voices of people on social media, there's voices in the realm of the demonic and God the Father is speaking to us. We even speak to ourself. How many of you have ever caught yourself talking to yourself? Be honest. I mean, you ever do that and then realize somebody's watching you? He loves us. Yeah, you bust out into your best column. He stows it from us, precious. People think you're half crazy. Maybe you are. Okay, so why is the idea that God still speaks to us so controversial? Let me give you three reasons and these are gonna be quick. The first reason why in our day the idea that God speaks to us is controversial is number one, philosophical. You see, you and I are children of the Enlightenment, the Renaissance period of time that produced something called modernism. The Enlightenment shaped Western civilization and crafted and created a very critical, scientific, modernistic worldview that basically said this, the only things that are real are those things that are measurable by our five senses. Touch, taste, feel, smell, and hearing. So if we can subject it to the scientific method and verify that it's real, then it's real. It's kind of like one of the philosophers out of the Enlightenment said this. He says, I think, therefore I am. Because I am self-aware, then I exist and I am a person. And modernism basically said that the only things that are real are the material world. And you and I have been shaped and we've been crafted by modernism. So we have a philosophical grid that we have been raised, educated, trained, entertained and socialized around. We are children of the Enlightenment. We are modern human beings. That's why we call ourselves sophisticated, Western civilization. That's just who we are. That's why there's such skepticism and doubt about anything that cannot be verified by the scientific method. And so when you begin to talk about God, even the existence of God, people will say, well, prove the existence of God. Well, what you're wanting God to do is jump into your Petri dish and subject him to your five senses. When God, God is the God who created over 100 billion solar systems just within our galaxy and over 110 billion galaxies outside of ours that are expanding at the rate of 160,000 miles per second, which is the speed of light. God's not getting into your Petri dish. So modernism has told us, well, the whole idea of God is really stretching. That's just a fantasy. And then if you wanna push it that even within the Christian realm, we say, well, God speaks to us. It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Come on, now God wrote a book. God doesn't speak to us anymore. He gave us the Bible and he said, just read that and I'll be back in a little while. Don't mess things up too far. The second reason why the idea of God still speaking is so controversial is theological. So this is talking about us. This is our camp. This is family. The church, Christianity. Why is it so controversial? Because the Enlightenment actually produced the Reformation and out of the Reformation came a school of thought called cessationism. And what cessationism says is that when God was done inspiring the writers of the Bible, God stopped speaking and stopped doing miraculous things. Healing, miracles, casting demons out, angelic visitations, all of those types of things. The voice of God speaking and leading and guiding us. God doesn't do that anymore because God wrote a book. And it produced in Western civilization because the Reformation primarily affected the United States of America, England and its colonies and Europe, Western Europe. That's Western civilization. It produced a cessationism. Cessationism, the idea that God ceased doing those things was actually a fearful response to the indulgences of the established Catholic church that was taking it too far. So they said, we're not gonna do that anymore. So the scriptura, which means God only speaks through scripture, period. Well, that's not even biblical. The Bible you say is enough period actually says I'm not enough period. Because Jesus said to the Pharisees, you study the scriptures thinking that in them you're going to find me and actually I'm here and you've missed me. So it produced a theological bent that so much of the body of Christ struggles with. And here's what I want you to understand. Because it affected primarily Western civilization that makes North American context our primary focus here. We only make up 20% of Christianity global. 80% of Christians on the planet aren't Americans aren't subjected to a modernistic enlightenment cessationist worldview. Do you know that in 1901, there were less than 100,000 Pentecostal Charismatic Christians globally that could be recorded. Today is fastest growing movement on the planet. 665 million people that believe in miracles that God still speaks that have had angelic encounters and visitations that have seen miracles, people being raised from the dead and who would verify God still speaks to us today. So God is on the move in spite of our theological issues. Let me give you the third reason why some would say God's still speaking is controversial and it's practical. It's not philosophical, it's not theological. It's practical, what do I mean by that? Religious tradition has extinguished our expectancy. Religious tradition has extinguished our expectancy. I went to a Bible college that I similarly got kicked out of after a little while, year and a half. That's a whole nother story. I didn't do anything wrong. But I was asked to leave because I believed God still speaks and God still does miracles. They said, we don't want anybody graduating with a theology degree from our institution who believes that God still does those things. And so I had to leave and it was interesting to me. It was the first time in my life I had ever encountered Christians who were mad that somebody said that God spoke to them. It's like, I'm mad at you. God doesn't do that anymore. Here's what I want you to think about for a second. The New Testament tells us that the new covenant that we have with Jesus is a superior covenant to the old covenant. How can you have a superior covenant with inferior communication? You can't. A. W. Tozier wrote this years and years ago. He said this, he says, I believe that much of our religious unbelief is due to wrong conceptions of and a wrong feeling for the scriptures of truth. A silent God suddenly began to speak in a book and when the book was finished, lapsed back into silence again forever. Now we read the book as a record of what God said when he was for a brief times in a speaking mood. With notions like that in our heads, how can we believe? The facts are that God is not silent, has never been silent. It is the nature of God to speak. The second person of the Trinity is called the Word, the Bible, the inevitable outcome of God's continual speech. It is the infallible declaration of his mind for us put into a familiar human words. I think a new world will arise out of the religious mist when we approach our Bibles with the idea that it is not only a book which was once spoken, but a book which is now speaking. You see, there's nobody that I know of in this room, maybe you, who loves the Bible more than I do. I love the Bible. I am, this message is not to lower the value of God's Word in written form at all. I mean, I read the Bible every day. I've read it every day of my life with very few exceptions since 12 years old. I've read it through dozens of times. I've memorized chunks of scripture. I think about it. I get cranky and hangry when I have not read my Bible. Just ask my wife, I love the Bible, study the Bible, love theology, I am a nerd. But let me tell you something. The same Holy Spirit that inspired, inspired the apostles and the prophets to write the pages of scripture, the infallible and errant Word of God is the same Holy Spirit that lives in me and he's not silent. So when I read the Bible, I pray every day is this, Holy Spirit, open my eyes, open my ears so that as I read what you have perfectly given to us, I will hear today, which is my daily bread, what you are saying to me today. And God, I want to be so close to you on my walk with you that like Samuel, my reaction to you is this, I'm your servant, Lord, speak to me, I'm listening. You see, over the next couple of weeks, we're gonna learn a new language. We're gonna learn a new language. How many have ever attempted to learn a new language before? Taking Spanish or whatever you took. I took four years of Latin when I was in high school and I can't remember much about it other than a few declensions and conjunctions and things like that. But when you learn a new language, they tell you to do four things. Number one, they tell you to immerse yourself in it. And so we are going to be very immersive over the next several weeks as we talk about how to build a prayer life, as we talk about how to read the Scripture. We're gonna talk about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, how to be led by the Holy Spirit. We're gonna talk about some crazy things that God in rare times has done to speak to his people. And we're gonna learn a new language but we're going to, number one, we're gonna immerse ourselves in it. Number two, they tell you you need to seek out a teacher. Well, here's the good news. Not only am I gonna teach on it, but every single one of us have a teacher. Jesus said, I will give you, it's to your advantage that I go away because if I don't go away, the helper, the Holy Spirit, will not come. But he also called the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, who will lead and guide you into all truth. So we have a teacher, the Holy Spirit, to teach us. They tell you the third thing, this is funny, watch television. If you wanna learn another language, watch television in that language. Why? Because you're watching other examples of that. And so we're gonna learn from examples of some other people in the Bible and even in our church that have experienced God's speaking to them in very powerful ways. And the fourth way is they say practice, conversation. You gotta practice in conversation. And so we're gonna practice. How are we gonna practice? Well, here's the first thing that we're gonna do. We're gonna read our Bibles. How many have a Bible? Raise your hand if you have a Bible. Okay, check. Number two, how many have 24 hours in a day? Raise your hand, every person. Check. We're gonna take part of our day and we're gonna take our Bibles and we're gonna be intentional to immerse ourselves. Get alone with God and then we're gonna pray the prayer of Samuel. We're gonna say, Lord, here I am, speak to me. And we're gonna practice our dialogue with God. We're gonna talk to God. And we're also gonna practice listening to him speak to us. And we're gonna take our lives off of airplane mode. You guys know what that is? Get on a plane, take your digital device to airplane mode, why? So that phone calls, texts, emails can't come through. So many of us are living spiritually on airplane mode. It's like, got my Bible, it's one way. God says, I want you to take your Bible. In fact, if you have a Bible, here and over at porch, I want you to take it. I want you to hold it up. And I want you to switch your Bible off of airplane mode. Just do it, physically. Sometimes you just gotta be foolish. Just click it, off of airplane mode. If you have an Android, you can't do that because it's of the devil. But if it's an Apple device and you're truly saved, we're taking our relationship with God off of airplane mode. And you know what we're gonna do? We're gonna tune in. We're gonna hear the voice of the Father because what He has to say, we need to hear. I want you to stand up with me. And I'm gonna pray, ask the Lord to give us eyes to see and ears to hear. Heavenly Father, I pray that today, today, reminded of your words in Hebrew, it says, if you hear His voice today, do not harden your hearts as in the day of rebellion. Today, that we wanna hear what you're saying to us. Words of affirmation, words of love, words of direction, words of encouragement, words of destiny. If you're truly a Father and we're truly your children, Lord, we don't wanna live our lives missing out on everything that you have for us and what you wanna say to us. I pray that today would be the beginning of a dialogue and not just a monologue anymore. And for those of us who maybe have never, ever stepped over the line of religion into relationship, I pray that even today, today, we would open our hearts to receive the forgiveness, receive the grace of God and new eternal life that you offer because of your son Jesus' perfect sacrifice on the cross for us. We would even respond to that drawing of your Holy Spirit because I know that even now the Holy Spirit is doing that. Many, many people who are listening to me today, something going on on the inside of you and you know you need to get your life right with God. You know God's real. Maybe all of your life, you've been trying to find that real. It's not dried religion, it's not just formality and it's not even just things that are written down that we say that we believe. God is a Father who wants children, he wants to have a real relationship. Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord not only will he forgive you, but he's gonna flood you with life and he's gonna begin to activate relationship with you. You'll be born again, saved. Just a moment, we're gonna give you an opportunity to respond to that. But today, Father, would you give us eyes wide open, ears wide open in Jesus' name. Amen.