
Our topic for this evening is, Do you talk to yourself or listen to God?
It's been said in my family, as I'm sure it has been in others, that when we observe someone speaking to themselves, they will be asked on occasion, are you talking to yourself? And the response is normally, well, every now and then I like to have an intelligent conversation. Some do it and they don't even realize they're talking to themselves, which is really fun. You bring it to their attention later that they were talking to themselves. They said, No, I wasn't. But, Oh, yes, you were. rAnd that's great, that's wonderful. There are certainly times when talking to yourself is important.
- Luke 12:13-31
Jesus, in this parable, is relaying to us the need to make the right priorities. There are two conversations that take place here. One, the rich man with himself, and then God very briefly, a very one-sided conversation, God to the rich man. But we're going to use the same principle, though we're not really going to be delving into the parable itself.
We've talked about it previously. We're going to lay this argument of, Do we talk to ourselves or listen to God? in three areas. And, how we treat our brethren, our approach to Bible study, and then of course, in how to be saved.
Do You Talk to Yourself, or Listen to God in How you Treat your Fellow Man?
How do we treat our fellow man, in that area, do we talk to ourselves?
Do we do it our way or do we listen to God? To what God says, maybe you've heard some people say this Do unto others Before they do unto you Now I'm gonna take the fight to them I'm gonna make sure I get my lips in first and hopefully they stay down and don't want to fight That's the idea there. Maybe you've heard others say something like this.
Do unto others worse than they have done to you. I'm not just going to get even, I'm going to get ahead. Well, those are all worldly things. Worldly ways to approach individuals. Do we have, let me ask this question. You can ask, and answer for yourself. Do we have an eye-for-eye mentality? When it comes to dealing with people that we come in contact with, you know, eye for an eye, that's a biblical principle. If you lived in the Old Testament time, of which we don't.
Do we withhold the gospel from individuals because we look at them and think, Nah, they're not going to be interested to hear what the Bible has to say? Do we hold back the gospel from people that we come in contact with because we feel like based on what we see or what we hear from them they're not worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ?
That's the worldly way of dealing with people. Do we tell everyone else about the wrongs that we've suffered at the hands of our brethren instead of going to that brother or sister and working it out with them specifically?
Now that would be the idea of talking to ourselves when it comes to dealing with people today, our fellow man, sometimes even brethren. But maybe we need to do a little more listening to what God has to say.
- Matthew 7:12
Well, what does that mean? I would assume, and this is not much of a stretch for me to assume this, I'm assuming that every single one of you, just as I do, understands how we as individuals would like to be treated.
You want to be treated a certain way. That means the way you want to be treated is the way you treat other people.
- Romans 14:13
There is a time to cast judgment over the things that people do, but there's also a time where we need to step back and we need to make sure that we are not the problem that is going to cause our brethren to stumble. This happens most often when we are too quick to judge, too hasty to judge. Maybe we don't have all the information, but we're casting doubts and dispersions to somebody else about something that somebody else has done. We need to be careful with those things.
- Philippians 2:1-5
He goes on from there to talk about Jesus coming down from heaven above humbling Himself, taking on the form of a servant, taking on a physical presence, a human body, and living perfectly before God and His fellow man.
Do we talk to ourselves or do we listen to God in the area of how we treat our fellow man?
Do we Talk to Ourselves or Do we Listen to God When it Comes to Bible Study?
The need for Bible study, even being present at the time of Bible classes when it's assigned. Maybe you said these things or have talked to someone who has said these things. I've heard them before. You know, I work hard during the week and need to rest on Sunday morning, so I will not be at Bible class, but I'll make sure to be there for worship services.
Someone else might say, I do not read anything about Wednesday night Bible study in the New Testament, so I think I'll just stay home.
Someone else might say, I would like to do better, I would like to read and study, but I don't know where to start.
These are all ways that we talk ourselves right out of studying the Bible. We talk ourselves right out of being on time for Sunday morning Bible class or even arriving for Wednesday evening Bible study and fellowship. Talking to yourself to justify not studying God's Word or meeting with the saints is a dangerous proposition to take.
It's a dangerous stance to hold. You know, I knew a man, he was one of the members at the congregation where we were when we were living in Alabama. And I don't know how many years he'd been a member of the church. It'd been a while. And the preacher that baptized him, he went up to him and he says, What is it that I can do, that's going to do me the most good as a brand new Christian to grow and to learn more? And this is what the man had to tell him, said two things. You be in the pew every time the doors are open, doesn't matter what the reason is, doesn't matter if it's Sunday Bible class, worship services, Sunday evening worship services, Wednesday evening Bible class, gospel meeting, VBS, you be there and you be in the pew. You listen in fellowship and you encourage others. He says the second thing that you need to do is every opportunity that you have, to read your Bible. This man worked a couple of different jobs, and he worked a job in the morning, and he worked a job in the evening, and sometimes he would leave straight from one, and he'd go right to another, and he'd get home, and there weren't be many hours left, and he had to go right back to work again.
But as far as I know, till the day that he died, and he died in his house, we knew that something was wrong because it was a Wednesday night and he wasn't there. He was there for every service. He took his grandkids, whose parents didn't care one whip about going to meet with the saints. They weren't members of the church anyway, but his grandkids would come with him and he would always be there to pick them up.
But do we talk to ourselves or do we listen to God when it comes to Bible study? You know, Paul writes to Timothy, we read it in our New Testament.
- 2 Timothy 2:15
The idea there is not so much sitting down and reading your Bible. We've used this verse many times to talk about how we need to sit down and we need to read our Bible and we even use the King James word study. Honestly, I prefer the American Standard because of the implications, and the idea of giving diligence as it is here and in other places.
- 2 Peter 1:5
like 2 Peter 1 in verse 5 is with the same speed and desire that you wanted to get out of the world and become a Christian is the same desire, same speed, same diligence you need to take in preparing yourself, making yourself presentable to God, a workman that needed not to be ashamed and you do that by rightly dividing King James or handling aright the word of truth.
You may not believe this. I'm going to clue you into something. The Bible was not written to preachers. The Bible was not written to elders or other forms of church leaders if you will. But the Bible was written to men and women specifically at the time of the first century to help them get to know God and their Savior, Jesus. It was written to everyday people just like me and you. Which means you don't have to have a certain degree. You don't have to have a certain mental acuity level and IQ test in order to read and understand what the Bible has to say or ask questions of other people.
You know, if you want to study more but you don't know where to start, there's a handful of people in here that I'm sure would be more than willing to help you out in that area. All they need is to know what your need is. You see, the first century Christians were instructed to study.
- Colossians 4:16
Now, we have no idea what that letter to the Laodiceans was. For whatever reason, it wasn't canonized, it wasn't put into our New Testaments, but the principle of study is the same between the Colossians and Laodiceans, between us and the Word of God.
- 1 Timothy 4:16
Take heed to the teachings of God's word and continue in them. Why? If you do that, you will save yourself and those who hear you, we will have an opportunity to spread the word to people who are willing to listen. It may take a while to find the one that says, yes, I want to listen, I want to know, I want to do what God says. But if we're not prepared with what the word of God says, when we get a yes to that, it doesn't even matter. We don't have anywhere to go.
- Matthew 5:6
We need to be those who are hungering and thirsting, not only after righteousness, but the knowledge that comes before we can be righteous in the sight of God.
- 1 Peter 2:2
We should have a longing for knowledge that comes from the word of God. Once we are able to learn the instructions of how God wants us to live, and how God wants us to be pleasing to Him, then we can grow our faith and change our lives to match the pattern that we see in His Word.
The more knowledge we have of God's Word, the greater our faith can become.
Do we Talk to Ourselves or Do we Listen to God when the question is asked, How am I Supposed to be Saved?
What is it that I need to do to be saved? Have you ever said yourself or maybe heard somebody say when it comes to this idea of salvation, just believe in Jesus and you'll be saved? Just fall down and pray for the Lord to save you. Or, I will confess that God for Christ's sake has pardoned me. Or, maybe this one, I just want to be saved like the thief on the cross.
Or this one, it doesn't matter how you're baptized, you can be sprinkled on or poured on or immersed. They're all the same. It doesn't matter.
There was a radio evangelist, if you want to call them that, that said this, just place your hand on your radio and repeat this prayer and you will be saved. I've heard the audio that goes with that particular statement. And that's exactly what the fellow said. And then he would go on and he would pray this prayer and then he would conclude at the end of it, If you prayed that prayer along with us, you've been saved.
If you said any of these or heard any of these, then there's too much talking to yourself, and not enough listening to God.
- Romans 1:16-17
Paul very clearly says that if we're going to know what to do in order to be saved, we have to go to where the power of salvation rests, and that's in the Word of God.
- John 8:24
That's the second time in that particular context, that Jesus is speaking, where He used that particular phrase. If you believe not, you will die in your sins, but you have to back up to verse 21 and find the first instance where he used it, and here in verse 24, He explains why He said that. He said it again. If you believe not that I am if you don't believe that I'm the son of God. You're going to die in your sins.
- Acts 3:19
This is immediately after, just a few days after, that first sermon on the day of Pentecost, Acts chapter two. Peter is again speaking with those Jews in Acts chapter three. And this time they're, they're not necessarily asking what must we do in order to be saved. But Peter's coming right out and telling them again, if you don't repent and be converted, you're not going to be saved. It's not going to be possible.
- Matthew 10:32-33
Now, there are conditions to being saved. And that does not contrast with that does not contradict the message of the New Testament that salvation is free to everyone. That's what a lot of these Bible coaches and televangelists and radio personalities want you to believe that salvation is free and all you have to do, in their words, is call on the name of the Lord, and since salvation is freely given, then there you go.
But the need to receive a gift in a certain way does not prohibit the gift from being free. For instance, if I were to Place a $20 bill down there on the table. And I tell Roy that it's a gift for me to him. If Roy just stays in his seat and doesn't get up and we all just move about our day and he says, thank you, did that $20 bill actually change possessions and he becomes the owner of that $20 bill? No, because it's still right here on the table. But if I tell him that this gift is free, all he's got to do is get up and come down here and get it. And he gets up out of his seat and he comes down the aisle and he comes and picks up the $20 bill he puts in his pocket, did he earn it? No, I told him it was free. All he had to do was come get it. He came and got it. He was obedient to the call and he received the gift.
"Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so, we also should walk in newness of life." — Romans 6:3-4
Many in the religious world want to disagree with the concept of baptism because they say if you've done that, then you've earned your salvation. No, no, no. It's just like the example of Roy in the $20 bill. Salvation is freely given. It's made available to everyone through the Word of God. It's made available because Jesus came down from heaven above and he died on the cross as a human being.
And because he lived perfectly in the sight of God, He alone had the power and the purity to shed His blood and forgive us of our sins. And because He did that, He dictated the terms on how to get into His Kingdom that He said He was going to establish.
- Matthew 16:18
Maybe you're one who spent more time listening to themselves than listening to God.
- 1 Timothy 2:4
But if we're going to all be saved, then we're all going to have to be where the saved people are, and that's in Christ.
- Ephesians 1:3
Are you ready to listen to God on how to be saved, and how to live your life in a way that you can be a fruit-bearing Christian? If so, great. If there's anything that we can do to assist you though, to help you make that decision or renew that decision in your life, please contact us.