Can God Speak To Me Personally?

John 10:2-5

The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.
The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice.
He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow
him because they know his voice.
But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not
recognize a stranger’s voice.

John 10: 27

My sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me

Can God speak to me personally?

Diane and I often like to go for a walk down at the beach near our house in Fort Erie. There’s
a nice trail there, and part of the trail goes through the woods. It’s a very nice place to go for a
walk.
The only problem is that while we are walking down there, sometimes we will get a
notice on our cell phones saying “No service” And when you get that message, you know that
you’re not going to be able to receive phone calls, and you can’t call out to other people
either.
And I was thinking that that is kind of an analogy to the way that we sometimes feel about
our relationship with God.
We wish that somehow we could have a better connection with him. We believe that God is
there, but we just don’t seem to be able to hear from him as often or as clearly as we would
like. It feels like our line is disconnected!
And so the questions we want to address over the next few weeks are ones that I
think many of us struggle with:
“Is it possible for me to have a direct, personal experience of God in my life?
How can I hear God speaking to me in the midst of my present life situation?

How can I receive the guidance and direction I need from God when I am facing important
decisions in my life?”
A few moments ago, we read those words of Jesus from John 10: “My sheep listen
to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”
So the question we want to begin with this morning is:
How do I learn to recognize his voice?
Can I hear God speak to me personally?
I believe the answer you give to that question, will be largely shaped by the kind of image
you have of God.
If you see God as primarily a sovereign king, sitting up in heaven, in all of his omnipotence
and power, busily running the universe, you may feel that you are far too insignificant for him
to pay much attention to you at all. Why would he want to speak to me, with all of the much
more important things he has to do?
And certainly God is the sovereign king of the universe, but he is much more. We need to
also understand that God is a loving heavenly Father, who wants more than anything else, to
pursue a love relationship with his children.
And so long before you were ever aware of it, God was at work in your life, bringing you to
the point where you would be able to hear his voice speaking to you, inviting you to respond
to him in faith and love and obedience. I believe that even right here in this moment, he is
calling you into that love rel’ship to he longs to have with you.
But having said that, I think we do need to acknowledge that if God is going to speak to us,
there are a couple of major obstacles that need to be overcome.
The first obstacle has to do with the nature of God himself.
One of the reasons we have a hard time hearing God is because he is so much bigger, so
much greater than we are.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my
thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:9
Imagine you are walking along the street, and as you look down, there in a crack in the
sidewalk, you discover an ant hill with all these little ants running in and out. Even though

you’re standing right next to them, those little ants are completely unaware of your presence,
until you decide to kick that ant hill with your foot. And even then, even though their life has
been thrown into chaos, they really can’t grasp what has caused that. Because you’re just too
big for them to comprehend.
You’re completely outside of their little world down there on the ground. And it’s the same
thing with God. An architect designs and creates a house, but he is not part of the house,
he exists apart from it. In the same way, God created the universe, but he himself exists
apart from it, outside of the created universe. And so for that reason we are unable to
perceive God with our physical senses,
But the other obstacle relates to a fundamental problem we have with our own human
nature

Isaiah 59:2: “It’s your sins that have cut you off from God. Because of your sins,
he has turned away and will not listen anymore.”
Genesis tells us that before the fall, God would walk with Adam and Eve in the garden.
They enjoyed intimate fellowship together. But then after they sinned, all of that changed.
They were banished from the garden, and ever since there has been a great gulf separating
us from our Creator, who has now hidden his face from us, and we are unable to connect with
him.
Nevertheless, in spite of the inherent challenges of an omnipotent, holy God trying to make
himself known to finite, sinful human beings like us, the Bible affirms over and over that yes,
God still wants to reveal himself to us.
He longs to re-establish an intimate, loving relationship with those he has created.
Isaiah 30:18 “So the Lord waits for you to come to him so he can show you his love and
compassion. For the LORD is a faithful God. Blessed are those who wait for his help.”
So then how does the God of the universe communicate with us?
The most basic fundamental way God speaks to the human race is through his
Creation
Romans 1:20 “For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky.
Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities–his eternal power
and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.”
So God’s fingerprints are all over his creation, and we can easily see the imprint of his

creative power everywhere if we only look for it. But the universe only gives us a very limited
understanding of who God is.
So he has also spoken to us through his Word. God is not just sitting silently in
heaven, he is “the God who speaks”. In Genesis 1, God says “Let there be light” and there
was light. And so He speaks the whole universe into existence through a single word
And then as we look at the Biblical record, we find that all through history, God has taken
the initiative to speak in a meaningful way to his people. He speaks to Adam & Eve in the
garden of Eden. He speaks to Abraham, Isaac & Jacob. He speaks to Moses at the burning
bush. He speaks to Samuel as a young boy in the temple. God speaks to the prophets, to
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel.
But then when Jesus arrives on the scene, God begins to reveal himself to us in a
whole new way. Through his Son
Heb 1:1-2 “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in
various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir
of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.”
So now He doesn’t just speak to individuals, he shows up in person.
“The Word became flesh and lived for a while among us” (Jn 1:14)
When the son of God appeared on this planet, God was pleased to have all of his fullness
dwell in him. That’s why Jesus said to his disciples:
“Anyone who has seen me, has seen the Father”
Just as surely as Moses was face-to-face with God at the burning bush, the disciples were
face-to-face with God when they stood in Jesus’ presence.

After his resurrection, Jesus left to return back to his Father. And I think sometimes we
make the mistake of assuming that after Jesus left, then God stopped speaking personally to
his people. But we know that is not the case. Jesus promised that after he left, he would send
the Holy Spirit to teach us and guide us into all truth. John 16:13-14:
“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own
but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future. He will bring me glory by
telling you whatever he receives from me.”
And so whenever a person receives Christ into their life, his Spirit comes and takes us
residence in their heart. And so now, because He is always present in the life of the believer,

God can speak to you and I clearly any time he wants to through his Holy Spirit living inside of
us.
So then, does God still speak to his people today? I believe the answer is a resouding
Yes! He does! God has not changed. He wants to speak to you every bit as much as he did to
Abraham, or Moses, or the original 12 disciples.
So I know what you’re going to say: Well, if he wants to speak to me, then why can’t I seem to
hear him? This is a critical question for us as Christians. Because if we’re not able to
recognize when God is speaking to us, then we have a fundamental problem in our
relationship with God. We all need to be able to hear from God personally if we are going to
walk with him through life
So over the next couple of weeks we want to look in more detail at this question:
How can we learn to hear God speaking to us today?
Now if you’re looking for God to suddenly part the clouds, and write out a message in neon
lights in the sky, or if you expect to hear a thunderous voice from heaven, you are probably
going to be disappointed. I can’t say I’ve ever heard God speak to me in an audible voice, but
nevertheless there have been many times in my life, when I have sensed God speaking into
my life very clearly.
The real question is not whether God is speaking to us. The more important question
is: Are we listening?
You may not be aware of it, but right this second there are thousands of radio signals in the
air all around us. But I can only hear them, if I turn my radio on, and tune it to the proper
frequency.
That’s sort of how it is with God. That’s why Jesus often said “The hearts of these people
have become hardened and their ears cannot hear” Matthew 13:15
Do I have ears to hear what God wants to say? Am I tuned in to what he is trying to tell me?
How do we tune in? There is no magic formula here, but generally I think God has
established certain channels of communication by which he wants to speak to us:
God wants to speak to us thru his written word, the Scriptures
God has given us the scriptures of the O & NT as his primary means of revealing himself to
us. Here he paints for us a picture of who he is and what his purposes are for our lives.

But you see this is not just a book of dead words and sentences. Heb 4:12:
“The word of God is living and active. It penetrates like a sword into our hearts, judging the
thoughts and attitudes of our hearts.”
Thropugh this book, God has given us a wealth of practical instruction on how we are to live
our lives. And next week we’re going to look at how God can give us guidance and direction
through the scriptures.
But the Bible is much more than a book of rules that we are to follow. If we only think of it in
that sense, then we have missed its primary function, which is to open our eyes to be able to
see Jesus.
The Holy Spirit wants to take the words of this book, and thru them make Jesus come
alive in our hearts. Yes, the Bible teaches us all about doctrine and ethics and theology, but
it does much more than that. It points us to the living Jesus. And so as we read this book, we
should be asking the Holy Spirit to open our ears to hear what He is saying to us, but also to
open our eyes so that we can see Jesus more clearly.
But in order for that to happen, we have to allow the Spirit opportunity for him to speak thru
his Word. He can’t do that if it’s just sitting on our shelf collecting dust. We have to set aside
times where we crack open our Bibles and actually read it.
I would encourage you to have a specific time and place each day where it’s just you, the
Lord and your Bible. And say Lord, would you speak to me today? Is there something about
yourself that you want to show me? Is there something about myself that you want to show
me?
Jesus said “My sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me” The
more we spend time with the Lord on a regular basis, the more we get to know him, the easier
it will be for us to recognize his voice speaking to us.

He will speak to us as we are praying, and spending time quietly listening to him.
Sometimes he will give us a strong desire or burden to do something, to pursue a certain
course of action.
Sometimes he will convict us about a sin in our life, that needs to be confessed , and
corrected. He will show us that we need to make some adjustments in our life
What I want you to understand this morning is this: God is always at work around you,
always wanting to reveal himself to you in the context of an intimate love relationship.
And He wants you to have a vital, personal experience of himself. It’s not enough for us to
just know “about” God.
He wants us to know him in an intimate and personal and genuine way. And so would you
take a moment to listen to his voice, as we talk to him this morning.