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One scholar said that the most important word in the Bible is not love, faith, hope, peace, or believe—but here. This word is central to understanding how we receive from God, because Jesus taught a parable about a sower who sowed seed into a field. Three people heard the same word but reaped different results based on the quality of their hearing.
Just because you're sitting in the same room does not mean you're hearing the same thing. Don't get mad at someone's harvest when you don't hear what they heard. Some people don't have hearing problems; they have comprehension problems. The problem isn't communication—it's who you're communicating to.
In Mark 4:9, Jesus says, "Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear." When God the Father looks at Jesus after His baptism by John the Baptist and the Holy Spirit descends like a dove, the Father says from heaven: "This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Hear him."
Consider Deuteronomy 6: "Hear, O Israel, love the Lord your God with all your heart." And what about faith? "Faith comes by hearing." Your hearing will determine your destiny. Everything in the kingdom is tied to our ability to hear God.
We're living in a generation that has become spiritually deaf. You can come to church and hear a good sermon, but the real question is: Are you hearing for your own personal confirmation, or are you hearing a word from God?
Everyone desires to hear God on a deeper level. But be careful when you want to hear God directionally while you won't commit to God devotionally. Many of us seek to hear God for the big things that will impact us publicly, but God says: "You can only get to know what I'm doing in public when you seek me in private."
Do you have a prayer closet where you're not praying to impress people, but because you need the God of the universe to wake you up and lead you daily?
The quality of your hearing is connected to the condition of your heart. Your heart is like a filter. Sometimes God is speaking, but you may be misinterpreting what He's saying because you need to clean your filter.
Have you changed your filter? You may be saved, but do you have a new heart? Jesus may have changed your life, but did you allow Him to change your mind? If you don't change your mind, you'll walk yourself back into the life He saved you out of.
Healed people hear differently. The more you heal, the healthier you hear. Sometimes when you try to help someone and they get offended by your help, the problem isn't what you said—it's how they heard what you said.
If you're doing all the talking in your prayer time, you can never hear what God's voice sounds like. Doing all the talking is like calling someone, talking on the phone, and hanging up before they can say something back.
Sometimes we get louder because we think God can't hear us. But if your connection gets bad, the problem isn't the volume—it's the connection. Sometimes you're always loud in your time with God because you may not be as close as you need to be.
Hearing the voice of God requires sacrifices. We live in a culture that has an illusion of success absent of sacrifice. Ain't it a trip when people want your glory but don't know your story? They want your breakthrough but don't know what you've been through.
If they knew half the hell you had to go through to get where you are today, they'd celebrate what God did in your life. But many say, "God, I need the favor, but God, I don't want the fight."
There's a difference between being blessed and being stretched. Strength doesn't only come from God blessing you—sometimes strength comes from God testing you. Some of us only want to be trusted with the blessing but can't handle the stretching.
Even when we look at Jesus on the cross, we often shout over the fact that He hung there. But I shout over the fact that He didn't just hang—He also survived being stretched. They hung Him high. They stretched Him wide. No stretching, no blessing.
For some of you, you're calling a stretching season an attack from the devil. But in our text, it's not the devil testing Abraham—it's God checking one of His faithful followers. Have you gotten comfortable with the blessing I gave you? Because when we get blessed, we often get comfortable.
Do you have anybody in the room today making up in your mind that the settling season is over? "I'm not settling for good when God has great with my name on it."
God told Abraham, "I will make your name great." So I have to test you because I made a promise to make you great, and you cannot become great because favor is always on the other side of your comfort zone.
Many of us struggle with making sacrifices—not because we're selfish, but because we're addicted to playing it safe. Where do you keep settling for safe? What is God calling you to do that scares you?
God told Abraham, "You and your wife Sarah will have a son." They laughed because they were too old. Be careful how you handle God's word for your life. Even though His promise comes to pass, you may create scenarios outside His will that fight against His promise.
They got impatient with God and decided to have a child another way. Abraham slept with his servant Hagar, and she had a child named Ishmael. An Ishmael season is when you choose to do things out of God's will because you want to do it your way.
You don't have to be talking about a literal child. Some of you birthed an Ishmael relationship. Some of you working on an Ishmael job. Some of you saved and loving God, but you got an Ishmael attitude.
Ishmael represents the seasons when we attempt to get ahead of God—when we say, "I trust you, but to a certain extent."
But here's good news: Even though he birthed an Ishmael season, God still blessed him to have an Isaac moment. My mistakes did not stop God from trusting me with the promise He gave me. God's grace is sufficient. I don't have to be perfect to be blessed by God. I just need to be a child of God.
Now Abraham has both Ishmael and Isaac growing up in the same house. Have you ever had a bad decision and a good decision growing at the same time? Have you ever been in the best season of your life while experiencing some of the worst hell at the same time?
Has everything been going great at work but falling apart at home all at the same time? Abraham had to navigate a contradicting season. You will not have walked by faith until you survived walking through a season where some days were good and some days were bad, and you still didn't give up on God.
The text says, "Abraham, take your son, your only son." Now, Isaac isn't literally his only son—we just unpacked that. But in the original Hebrew, "only" literally means unique, special, chosen. It's saying: "Take the son I promised you, the one I want to use for the purpose and plans I have for your life."
"Take your only son and go to a place that I'll show you." He said, "I'll show you when you get there." I don't know about you, but I couldn't have handled that assignment without more details. You want me to leave and go where? I'll show you when you get there.
But some of us are going to miss out on God's favor because we're addicted to answers. God is not obligated to always give you an answer. If He is Jehovah Jireh and will always provide, then if He's not providing an answer, it must be because you don't need it.
He said, "I'll show you because in this season, I need you to let go of your need for an answer and trust me with your assignment." For some of you right now, you need to stop focusing on answers you don't have and start focusing on the assignment that you do have.
In this season, remove all the distractions out of your life and focus on your assignment. This is not the season to have fun and be entertained while drifting away from the assignment God has for your life.
The text says, "Early the next morning." He didn't procrastinate. Some of us are missing God because we're moving too slow. Delayed obedience is still disobedience.
You're missing what God wants to do in your life because you keep hesitating: Should I do it now or should I wait for my people to confirm what He said? Don't wait on confirmation from other people. If God already told you to do it, just do it.
Early in the morning. We have to break up now. Early in the morning. I quit—not in two weeks, but now. Early. I'm trying to get the spirit of procrastination off your life, because if you get out of procrastination, you might bump into purpose.
What if the speed of your obedience will determine the speed of your overflow? When God gives you a word, you better respond with urgency.
Some of you are behind schedule—not because of other people, but because of your procrastination. You're in a season where you're acting like you're still sowing when God says you're about to start reaping. But because you didn't prepare appropriately in the sowing season, the reaping season may overwhelm you. But He's given you the grace to catch up.
This is why Paul said, "Don't be unequally yoked with unbelievers." It's a principle not just about a pick—it's also about pace. It's the imagery of a yoke put on a donkey and an ox. An ox is ready to till the ground; a donkey is stubborn and distracted. Some of your friends look like that donkey while you're trying to till ground and they're distracted by what everybody else is doing.
You're talking faith; they're talking fear. You're trying to pray; they want to play. If you're going to pick up the pace, you're going to have to examine the pace of the people you're connected to. You may be moving at the pace of those you're connected to. You didn't move that slow until you got connected to them.
Abraham takes the journey early in the morning. He picks the right people—Isaac and his servants with donkeys to carry everything he needs. They get to the mountain. He tells the servants: "Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I will go over there. We're going up to worship."
For some of you, you thought worship was just a song. This is what they call the law of first mention—and that's where the text is heading.
Worship is not about a song—this is what's called the law of first mention. The first time worship appears in scripture sets the origin of what it means throughout the rest of scripture. Abraham tells his servants, "Stay here with the donkey and the boy go over there. We're going up to worship." What he's really saying is that worship is about a sacrifice.
You don't show how much of a worshipper you are based on how good you sing. You show how much of a worshipper you are when you can sing even when you don't feel like singing. There are moments when you don't feel like showing up, don't feel like lifting your hands. But when you think of the goodness of Jesus and submit anyway—that's true worship.
Abraham moves forward in faith, saying to Isaac, "We will worship and then we will be back." He's speaking on the language level of faith. Though God told him to do something he doesn't understand, he knows God made him a promise before the problem showed up. So he won't allow his problems to make him blind about God's promise.
He tells his servants and donkey to stay behind—not everyone can go to the next level with you. Sometimes you can't take off when you're carrying too much baggage. Some of us are emotional hoarders, holding onto too much of the past when God is trying to take us into the future. The donkey represents your flesh—for this season of elevation, you have to leave your feelings at the floor and not allow your flesh to talk you out of what God is trying to talk you into.
When Isaac asks, "Where is the sacrifice?" Abraham responds, "The Lord will provide." He didn't speak on the level of his problem. He chose to only speak on the level of his provision. Do you have 99 problems but won't allow your language to lower to the level of your problems? Will you keep speaking on the level of your provision? "I may not have the job yet, but God, I thank you for everything I do have. I'm blessed going in and I'm blessed coming out."
Abraham raises his knife to sacrifice Isaac, and God stops him. Why? God says, "I needed to see if you could sacrifice Isaac in your heart, not with your hand." God is checking whether you can release the idols in your heart—things that are right to love but in the wrong place.
God cannot allow Isaac to die as the sacrifice because he's not God enough to do it. "I need somebody who's man enough to fill it, but God enough to heal it. So your son can't do it, but my son can. My son's name is Jesus."
Jesus was the sacrifice for your life to get you back connected with the Father. And Jesus being the example of what it looks like to follow through with this sacrifice, he says to us: "If anyone wants to follow me, he must deny himself, pick up his cross, follow me. That's the full expression of worship."
Abraham gives us three heart checks that we must allow God to search our hearts with:
Number One: Check Your Heart for Settling
Don't settle. Abraham had to constantly break the temptation to settle. Settling is the result of small thinking. In Abraham's bloodline there was a pattern of settling—his father pitched his tent, which literally means to become complacent. He was supposed to leave his kindred and country, but he settled. So God had to skip a generation and use Abraham. Break the spirit of settling off your life. Break the spirit of settling off your bloodline. God did not call you just to have just enough or to always be at almost. You're more than a conqueror. You're a royal priesthood.
Number Two: Check Your Heart for Stubbornness
Stubbornness is the worship of your own opinion because it's impossible to walk in obedience and your opinion at the same time. Abraham gave up stubbornness in order to grab obedience to God.
Number Three: Check Your Heart for Self-Sabotage
It's a sad thing to see a believer defeat themselves. The greatest enemy to your vision is your vices. Self-sabotage is when a person unknowingly or knowingly defeats themselves. Before you get to the ram in the bush, you're going to have to look at certain people and certain things and say, "Stay here. We'll be back." Because true worship releases dead weight.
When Abraham named the place "The Lord will provide" (Jehovah Gyra), he was creating a name based on his experience of God. What names could you create for God in your life? When has he shown up for you? Think of heartbreak you've experienced when people you trusted betrayed you and you wondered how you'd do life without them.
For you, maybe he's been Jehovah Bestie, Jehovah Therapist. For some, he's Mr. Fix It, a mind regulator. He's showing us how to create an intimate personal relationship with the Father. We can get lost in only talking to him one day a week for an hour or hour and a half, but this message is a challenge: take him with you. He does not want weekend visits. He wants full custody of your life. You are his child.
Abraham would never have been able to experience this if he couldn't hear God. You have to recognize the difference between the voice of the devil, the voice of yourself, and the voice of God. For some of us, we hear ourselves so strongly that we think it's God.
That's why you have to know the word of God—because the word of God reveals his character. Sometimes when he won't speak to you in your heart or verbally, he'll send you a text message. He'll give you a word that he already said. That's all you need.
Do not be discipled by culture. Abraham could never have done this if he couldn't hear God's voice. Some of you want to give your life to Jesus or rededicate your lives to Jesus. You want to follow Jesus. You want to make this your home church. The call today is simple: deny yourself, pick up your cross, and follow him. That's the full expression of worship. Do you need to pick your cross back up today?
