Hear the King (Praying the King’s Agenda #1)

This past week I heard a lot of people celebrating the fact that we were finally moving from 2020 to 2021.

I understand the sentiment, but honestly — circumstances do not know a year has changed. Life just continues, even though a number ticked over in our minds. It is still just another day.

Then I saw a graphic that helped me understand why so many people felt crushed by 2020. There is a news outlet that, for the past several years, has taken the top Google search terms from the previous year and plotted them on a graph. What stood out about 2020 was that it was nothing but peaks. Constant peaks.

Think about it. I know this feels like a decade ago, but it was only a year: the House was going through impeachment proceedings. People wanted to know what was happening, or simply what impeachment even was, so the searches spiked. You would expect that spike to fall off after the Senate acquitted and the president remained in office. But before it could decline, suddenly everyone was searching for Wuhan, as reports of a new virus began spreading. Before that could decline, there was a horrific helicopter crash that killed a famous athlete, his daughter, and several others. Before that could decline, another search term. And another. And another.

Look at the whole graph and it is nothing but spikes. There was never a lull. And that was after they removed every search term relating to the coronavirus and the pandemic.

No wonder we are exhausted. If you had the news on in the house or in the car, or you were scrolling a social feed, 2020 was an unbroken stream of bad news.

So if there was ever a time to stop and genuinely pay attention and pray, it is now.

Why 21 Days of Prayer, and Why This Theme

This is the fourth year we have begun the year with 21 days of prayer. When we did it the first time I assumed it was a one-off. I am not much of a traditionalist. But that was right around when we started having elders, and they came to me and said, we need to do that again. So we did. And again. And again. By the fall of 2019 I had already penciled it onto the preaching calendar for the start of 2021, sight unseen. I had no idea what 2020 would hold or how badly we would need this.

We are part of a national church network that rolls out these 21 days of prayer each year. Last year their theme was Praying the King’s Agenda — but being me, I had already made my own plan and written my own devotionals. I do not regret it, but it was an enormous amount of work. So this year I decided I would just use whatever the network provided. Their theme this year is Moving Forward, and I thought that was perfect: we have just moved into a new building, we are moving into a new year, let us spend the time praying about moving forward.

But as I looked through the materials, I dipped back into last year’s theme — and realized it fits where we actually are far better.

We spent much of 2020 in the book of Mark, and we will be back in Mark in February and will spend much of this year there. And in Mark we keep seeing Jesus revealed as the King — not the king of Rome or of any earthly empire, but the King of the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is not concerned with a geographic location; it advances in the hearts and minds and lives of people. We have been watching this King reveal Himself.

So it hit me: we should not just focus on moving forward. We should understand the King and understand His agenda. Because as we pray the King’s agenda and come to understand it more deeply, we will find ourselves coming alongside Him and serving with Him.

That is our theme. Over the next three weeks: Hear the King. Obey the King. Serve the King.

Let me explain the order. I believe what God ultimately wants is for us to serve — not just to serve Him, but to serve alongside Him. King Jesus is inviting us to come make a difference in the world. But before we can get to serving, we have to reckon with obeying. I do not know about you, but I find myself happy to obey certain things I read in Scripture while other things make me uncomfortable and I would rather skip them. If we are truly going to serve the King, we do not get to pick and choose. We have to bring our lives into full surrender and say, whatever God calls me to, I will obey.

And then it dawned on me: before we can get to that kind of obedience, we first have to actually hear the King.

The Great Commission

Our key passage for all three weeks is Matthew 28. Let me back up a couple of verses for context.

Jesus has died on the cross and risen on the third day. He has spent about forty days with His disciples. Now He calls them to a mountain in Galilee, and He is about to ascend — you can read about that in Acts 1. Standing on that mountain, He gives one final set of commands.

Verse 16: “Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted.”

Let me pause there. If you have ever struggled in your faith, if you have ever had doubts and looked around at other Christians thinking they seem to have none — you are not alone. Some of the eleven who had spent three years with Jesus, who watched Him die and then saw Him raised, still doubted in this very moment. If you wrestle with doubt, God does not reject you or think less of you. In the face of your doubts, keep going. These men kept going, and when you get into Acts you see exactly how God used them.

Verse 18: “And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.'”

This passage is so famous it has a nickname: the Great Commission. The dictionary defines a commission as “an instruction, command, or duty given to a person or group of people.” So Jesus stands on this mountain with one final command and commissions them to go and make disciples.

But notice that the command was never limited to those eleven. Listen to what is embedded in it: go and make disciples who will observe all that I have commanded. Well, observing all of it necessarily includes obeying this very last command. Which means the disciples were to make disciples who would make disciples who would make disciples.

Which means that if you call yourself a follower of Jesus, you are a disciple — and you are to observe all He has commanded, and this is one of His commands. This is for you. It reverberates forward. It was never only for the eleven.

I believe this is the primary item on King Jesus’ agenda, and that everything else on His agenda ultimately points here. Have you ever been in a meeting with a long agenda where one item is clearly the important one, and the rest are there to clear the way for it? That is what is happening. Jesus gives many commands in Scripture, and I believe they all end up pointing to this one. These are His last words. That makes them enormously important. He commissions them — and the commission extends to you.

In two weeks we will look at serving. Next week we will look at obeying. Which means today we have to stop and deal with hearing.

The Sheep Know the Voice

I was recently talking with a pastor who spent eleven years serving a small farming community. He told me about going out to visit one of the families — a farmer with a flock of sheep grazing up on a hill. It was getting toward twilight, and the farmer said, “Hey, could you call the sheep down? I have a couple of things to take care of, and they need to be in the barn for the night.”

He wanted to be helpful, so he walked out and started calling. “Hey! Sheep! Sheep! Come on, time to come in!” The sheep kept grazing. Completely ignored him.

A minute later the farmer came back with a slight grin. “What’s the problem? Why won’t they come?”

“I have no idea. I have been calling them.”

“It is this easy.” And the farmer just called out — one short sound. Every head popped up and turned toward him. Then one more sound, and the entire flock came pouring down the hill and into the barn.

That is exactly what Jesus describes in John 10: “He who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.” And then He says plainly: I am the good shepherd. My sheep hear my voice.

The point is that when we hear our Shepherd — when we hear our King — we know that is the voice we obey. We do not hear a stranger and go do what he wants. God may use all sorts of means, but ultimately it is about Him. Not about what some pastor wants for you. Not what your parent wants for you. Not what your spouse wants for you. It is surrender to the King, hearing His voice, and doing what He calls you to.

That is why in the transfiguration — when Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up the mountain and is suddenly transfigured before them, seen not in His earthly clothing but in His heavenly glory, with Moses and Elijah appearing beside Him, and Peter being Peter starts talking without knowing what he is saying — a bright cloud overshadows them and a voice says (Matthew 17:5): “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.“

Not “obey him.” Not “trust him.” Listen to him. Because inherent in truly hearing God is that once you have heard, you go.

So when we talk about hearing the King today, I do not mean hearing the words and thinking, that is nice. I do not mean hearing them and thinking, Jesus really had a way with words. I do not even mean, I grew up in church, I know those verses, I have Matthew 28:18–20 memorized. It is not just hearing with our ears, or even with our minds. It is letting it filter down into our hearts so that it changes us and we go live differently.

If we are going to get to obeying, and then to serving, we first have to truly hear.

Three Ways We Hear from God

I will readily admit God can speak through all kinds of means. I have a friend who became a full-time missionary because of a song. I know a couple who served in Central America for years because of a sermon. In my own life, the whole journey toward planting this church started with a website. God can use anything.

But after years of studying Scripture and years of ministry, I see three primary ways God speaks: through His Word, through His people, and through His Spirit.

1. We Hear God Through His Word

I have a friend who was a full-time schoolteacher — a genuinely great guy I was trying to recruit into leadership in the young adult ministry I oversaw. He had a close college friend who was in seminary in Florida. When spring break came around, he was single and reasoned that Florida in early March beats Iowa in early March, so he made the trip.

His friend still had classes, so he ended up with a lot of alone time. During one of those stretches he was reading Scripture, and while working through Colossians he sensed God say: quit teaching. Go into full-time ministry. Go into collegiate ministry — share the gospel on a college campus.

Within two years he was on full-time staff with a campus ministry, helping launch a brand-new chapter at a major university.

Now, I have read Colossians many times. We did an overview of it here a few years back, and we will study it in depth in the next couple of years. I love that book. And I have never once read it and heard, quit being a pastor and go into full-time collegiate ministry. Never.

But I will say this. When I was living in South America, happily serving as a missionary and assuming full-time missions was what my wife and I would do for good, I was simply reading through the book of Acts — and I sensed God say: come back to the United States and work in the church.

You have to understand, I thought the local church was mostly politics. Why would anyone want to work in one? I wanted to be in a parachurch organization, something that seemed healthier. And God changed my heart through the book of Acts. Yet you could read Acts and not hear that at all.

So why did he hear “collegiate ministry” and I hear “work in the church”? Because of how God uses Scripture. In 2 Timothy 3:16–17: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

God has a plan for you. He has a way He wants to use you. Maybe it is collegiate ministry. Maybe it is working in a local church. Maybe overseas missions. Maybe it is being a better spouse, or changing how you raise your kids, or how you handle things at work, or leading something within the church. And so often you will find those things out through God’s Word — because it is profitable for teaching you, correcting you where you are wrong, rebuking you out of sin, and training you to be who God calls you to be.

A lot of us have a desire to become someone. It is a new year, so people are setting resolutions — lose weight, do this, do that — because we carry around a picture of our idealized self. But to become the person God actually sees you as, you have to put yourself where you can hear from Him through His Word.

Yes, God can use a song. He can use a sermon. He can even use a website. But one of the most effective ways He speaks is through His Word — because He does not have to use the song or the sermon or the website. He has already said what He needs to say in the Scriptures.

So get into the Word. That is why I strongly encourage you to use a daily devotional through these 21 days. Open it every day and the first thing you meet is Scripture, right there in front of you, with additional passages to look up if you want to go further. By putting yourself in front of it daily for three weeks, you create the avenue for God to work in your life and for you to hear from Him.

Hebrews 4:12 says of Scripture: “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

We talk about this constantly: what God wants is for you to love like Jesus loved and live like Jesus lived. For you to become that person, He has to carve away everything that does not look like Jesus, shaping you into His image. He gets down into the nitty-gritty. But you will not hear it if you are not in it.

Practice: Let the Word Speak

I do not want to simply say “go hear the Word of God” and move on. Let us actually practice it.

Romans 1 through 11 is essentially the apostle Paul’s thesis on the gospel. Then in chapter 12 he pivots: therefore, in light of all that, here is how we should live. So let this teach you, correct you, rebuke you, train you. Close your eyes and just hear it.

“Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight.” (Romans 12:9–16)

Father, help us hear from You. I believe there is something in there for many of us. Help us grab hold of the phrase that is ours — how You are calling us, what You want us to do, who You want us to serve, who You want us to love, what we need to approach differently. And let it not end in this moment. Give us the guts to act: if there is someone we need to apologize to, if there is someone we have not been living in harmony with, if there is someone we have been trying to outdo rather than honor. Help us be the people You have called us to be. Amen.

2. We Hear God Through His People

Inside the Great Commission Jesus tells His disciples to go and make other disciples. But stop and notice — He could have done it Himself. He is God the Son, all-powerful. He could simply open hearts and minds to the truth of the gospel and make people His disciples directly.

For years I have heard accounts of people in closed countries coming to faith in Christ because of dreams — Jesus appearing in something like His transfigured form and saying something to the effect of, go find this person, and they will tell you the truth about me. Usually it is a specific Christian. They go and find that person, the gospel is shared, and they put their faith in Christ.

But why not have Jesus simply say in the dream, “I died on the cross for your sins, I rose again, put your faith in Me”? Even in Acts, when Paul has his encounter on the road to Damascus, Jesus appears — and then Paul spends three days blind with something like scales over his eyes until God sends another person to lay hands on him. Then the scales fall and Paul gives his life to Christ.

Why? Honestly, I do not know. But it is His plan. He uses people, and He wants to use you.

God has always worked this way. Open the Scriptures and you find instance after instance where God sends a person — a prophet in the Old Testament, a messenger carrying the gospel into a city in the New. And it is not merely ancient history. God still uses pastors to help people hear from Him. You pick up a book by a Christian author and hear God through that author’s words. A songwriter writes something and God uses it to reach someone. God uses parents. He uses spouses. He even uses friends.

That is why I strongly encourage you to get into some kind of growth group — even if it is just you and one other person. When you do, you are creating space and opportunity for God to speak to you through another person. Yes, you can sit and read Scripture alone. But sometimes another person will pull out something you missed entirely.

I cannot tell you how many times this has happened to me. Our groups have often studied the sermon passage in greater depth. So I would spend all week studying and preparing it, preach it on Sunday, then meet with my group on Monday — and they would surface things I had never seen. I was hearing from God through His people.

I will be honest: 2020 was hard on our groups. We started a new one, and it is going, but starting it caused another to wobble. It has not disappeared, but it is not what it could be. My own group moved to video calls, and there is such a thing as video fatigue. It has been hard for people to say, “yes, Monday night, I will hop on and meet with my group.” We have drifted.

So here is my encouragement, and I am not going to hand you a fixed schedule. Tell us when you are actually available. “I can do Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings at 6:30 before work.” Or “Tuesday and Friday nights.” Or “only Sunday afternoons.” List as many as you can, and we will do everything we can either to plug you into an existing group or to pair you with one other person. Put yourself in the position where you have every opportunity to hear from God through His people.

And one more step. Pull out your phone and send a text or an email to someone who has helped you hear from God. A former youth pastor. An older man or woman who discipled you in college. Someone who led a small group you were part of years ago. Your current group leader. Just say: thank you — you helped me hear from God.

They need to hear that. Because when you tell them, you are helping them hear from God through you. What they will hear is: well done, good and faithful servant.

3. We Hear God Through His Spirit

This one is admittedly fuzzier.

When we talk about hearing God through His Word, you can hold a Bible in your hands and read it. That makes sense. When we talk about hearing God through His people, you can look someone in the eye and say thank you for sharing that. But God’s Spirit is invisible. We cannot see Him. We can often sense Him, but it is harder to pin down — and sometimes people say “the Spirit told me” followed by something that sounds strange.

But just because you cannot see something does not mean it is not real. You cannot see air. You cannot see love. You cannot see time. All of them are entirely real.

When we talk about God we naturally think of the Father, and we think of Jesus the Son. But the Holy Spirit? Some parts of Christianity emphasize Him heavily; for others of us He is the stepbrother we talk to once a year at the family reunion. He is real, and He is essential.

Understand this: the Spirit is not an impersonal force like something out of a science fiction film. He is a person. He has personality. He has will. If He were not a person, Scripture could not say we grieve the Holy Spirit when we sin. He loves you, and Jesus sent Him to you.

John 16:13–15: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

Elsewhere Jesus says it is actually good that He goes away, so He can send the Spirit. In the flesh Jesus was in one location at a time. By leaving, He could send the Holy Spirit to dwell in every follower of Jesus everywhere.

And that Spirit speaks God’s truth to you. When you hear God in a song, that is the Spirit. When you hear God in a sermon, that is the Spirit. When you hear God through a website, that is the Spirit. When you are about to sin and something in you — not audible, but unmistakable — says do not do that, that is the Spirit. When you get the sudden sense that you should go help that person, or send that text, or make that call, that is the Spirit.

God is still speaking today. Often the Spirit is the one helping you hear Scripture, or helping you hear God through another person. But sometimes He speaks directly to your heart.

Which is why I want to recommend something that will feel awkward: sixty seconds of silence.

As Americans we hate silence. We get in the car and immediately turn on the radio. We walk in the door and turn on the TV. We want noise. Radio stations work hard to avoid dead air, because if someone scanning the dial hits silence, they keep going. Silence is bad on the radio. It is very good for our hearts and our faith.

So try it. No music. No talking. You do not have to fill it — you can say, “God, I want to hear from You, say what You need to.” But mostly just be quiet before Him. If you fall asleep, I will not hold it against you. Rest in His presence, and let Him speak.

He Has Already Spoken

There is one more way we hear from God, and it is through remembering. When we look at the cross of Jesus, we remember what He has done for us, who He is, and who He can make us to be. That is what communion does.

You may be craving for God to speak to you through His Word. You may be asking Him to speak through His people. You may be saying, God, I want to be the kind of person who can hear Your Spirit. But right now I want you to realize: God has already spoken. He has said I love you. Your sins are forgiven. I took care of it at the cross.

So however you are doing as one year ends and another begins — full of hopes and plans, or quietly afraid this year will not actually be any better, or simply exhausted from the relentless news, or carrying something heavy right now — go to Him and remember that He has already spoken His love over you, and He did it at the cross.

God, You have seen us and You watch over us. You know us. You seek us. You run after us. Help us to run toward You — in small steps and large steps, in small moments and small words and large actions. Help us to be open to You reaching into our lives, grabbing hold of us, holding us close. As we move through our days, through every routine and every habit, let us start thinking about You, knowing You, seeking You — or continuing to seek You. Help us to know You more. Amen.

Go and follow Jesus. Love Him with everything you have.