Have you ever heard something even though you were not listening? Of course you have. It is not only possible but it is a phenomenon of the human information processing capacity. You know that can hear the radio while you talk to someone else, but you are not listening to it. The music, the news, the commercials cast but a background over which your conversation ensues. In fact, like a canvas of sound, what is said is painted on that scene of sound. You hear it, but you do not listen to it. You do not process it in a way that listening requires; you sift the word pictures which lie on top of that veil of sound.
Actual listening occurs from attention being focused on the topic which sustains your interest. You may hear a teacher or professor lecturing but the noise in your fantasy world captivates your listening. What the speaker says then becomes the backdrop for what calls you inside your minid. A preacher may be sermonizing but you might have drifted to the moon. As a result, what his message does is provide a launchingi pad for your trip to la la land. Ssimilarly, a friend of a spouse may be directing a conversaton at you, so to speak, but you may be listening to something else. For moments like these you might be regarded as a space cadet, one who has gone into interstellar space. In effect, though you may hear many thngs, you can only listen to those things you deem worthwhile listening to, or those things which qualify somehow for your undivided attention, your focus, your concentration.
Is God listening? we wonder. We can be assured that God hears all things, being ever present, ever powerful, and all knowing. But, is God listening? Although the analogy may not replicate that which God does, it provides some insight to facilitate our understanding of what God does with respect to hearing and listening. John 9:10 has something truly awakening to say. Being the germ idea of today's message, it states that, "...God does not listen to sinners." We then suppose by deduction that God might hear sinners, but he does not listen to them. The babble of billions of sinners (those who are not his children) just exists as an insignificant hum, perhaps. As God might hear the sinner, we might liken that hearing to your hearing of the refrigerator running while you are listening quite intently to someone else.
The latter part of John 9:10 indicates who God will listen to. It says, "He (that is God) listens to the godly man or woman who does his will." In order to understand that as it should be understood, it would seem that God listens but to those who do his will. For those outside of his will, God cannot be expected to listen to them, no matter their pleas or cries, their wants or needs, their desires and hopes. God may be hearing, but according to the Bible he definitely is not listening. Sure, God hears them, but God does not listen to them. In reality, according to that verse, God is busy listening to his own, those who desire to serve him. His servants would have to be, then, true children of God.
1 Peter 3:12 says that, "...the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer..." By this verse we can deduce that God not only listens to his children, but that his eyes are also on them. In effect, God's ears are attending to what his children say and his eyes are focused on them at the same time.
Who, by the way, would be a true child of God? A commentary on John 8:41 says that "...a true child of God (is one who) demonstrates an attitude of sincere faith and obedience..." That same commentary states that being born again of God is shown in one's obedience to God. At some point, to arrive in the great hereafter, in heaven with God, 1 Peter 3:15 says that we must, "...in our {your}hearts set apart Christ as Lord." That not being done as yet should stand at the top of one's list as a priority one objective. You have to be sure that people set apart other things -- be they graven images, foreign gods, likenesses of earthly objects -- as their lord. However unlikely it may seem, that is true. The bottom line is that no one can serve two masters or two gods. Either you set apart Christ as Lord or you set apart your brand new pickup Ford. Either you set apart Christ as King or you set apart just about any other thing.
Is God listening to you lately? We know that he hears all, but has God been listening to you? Does he listen to you as you might have listened to one of your children when he or she cried out for help, perhaps to ease the pain of a sore throat in the middle of the night, perhaps to stop the bleeding of a cut or scrape? As a hen tends to her chicks or as a mother tends to the welfare of her infant or child, God does likewise to his children. An argument usually surfaces here during this kind of talk. Some will contest that we are all God's children, but nothing could be farther from the truth. The actual truth is that we are all God's creation. That is truth in its purest, though most shocking form. Therefore, today you might just be one of God's creations, but not one of his children. Given that that is the case, God hears you, but he is not listening to you -- just as the scripture says. "God does not listen to sinners." That is, he does not listen to those whose sins are not washed away by the shed blood of his only begotten Son.
In John 8:34 Jesus speaks of the sinner to whom God does not listen. He says, "...everyone who sins is a slave to sin." Sinning is essentially living in disobedience to God and his precepts. Sinning represents the doing or the practising of any and all things that fly in the face of God. The same verse goes on to say that, "...a slave (to sin) has no permanent place in the family, but a son or daughter belongs to it forever." 1 John 3:6 warns us thusly. It reads, "No one who lives in him (that is, in Christ) keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him." That kind of English seems to be clear. It actually embodies one of the most frightening verses in the Bible. Matthew 7:21 warns all in this verse. It reads, "Not everyong that says unto me, 'Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven; but he that does the will of my Father in heaven.'" Great numbers of people pay lip service to God but God and his Son are far removed from their hearts. In so many words, much like the one who is up to his neck in the mud, that one is not clean. By the same token, no one can remain in the spiritual mud and be considered the property of Christ.
Is God listening? Yes! We know he hears everything, but is he listening? By now the documentation of the Word verifies that God hears it all, but does not listen to it all. Should you ever decide to become one of his children, God will change his hearing to listening. A call out to God will cause one's voice to rise above the din of those things which just hum on for an eternity. That call to God to receive his Son as Lord and Saviour God will listen to. Moreover, at that moment, you will be transformed immediately.
John 8:47 tells us about those who eventually belong to God. A similar phenomenon occurs as occurs when a person receives Christ. It reads like this: "He who belongs to God hears what God says." Finally, so to speak, when one becomes a child of God through Christ, he or she begins to hear what God says. I repeat, "He who belongs to God hears what God says." Should you be one of God's now, you can hear what God says and God will listen to what you say. That has all the markings of a sound relationship, don't you think?
Holding on to that relationship with God occurs when we remain in Christ by partaking of his word continually through reading it, obeying it, and drinking in its truth into our hearts. Jesus says, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me as the Scripture says, streams of living water will flow from within him." Better it is to have a listening God than for God just to be one who hears all but listens only to his own. Jesus says in John 6:35, "...I am the bread of life. He who comest to me will never go hungry and he who believes in me will never be thirsty..." Maybe today God has stirred up some thirst in you who do not serve him. Just maybe a decision from you will finally connect you to a God who will listen to you and from whom you will hear.
You know, much service and much attention is given to other gods who neither hear nor listen. People, nonetheless, serve all sorts of these types of gods. What can a golden calf hear and just how much can it listen? How much more can money hear and listen, let alone respond when cries of desperation leave the mouths of those who have lost all they own? Drugs, booze, barbituates, valium, and others, have no ears to hear nor minds to listen. Although they possess minds, and only this way to they have them. They have them only to control them. Anything that controls man has no ears but that man's ears, has no mind but that man's mind, has no life but that man's life. And they have that man's life totally until a call goes out to God in faith. Then God not only hears, but he listens. God not only listens, but he delivers from bondages. He not only delvers but saves completely.
1 Peter 1:18 says those who call on God "...are redeemed from an empty way of life." Hebrews 7:24 says, "Because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him because he always lives to intercede for them." We can find this in 2 Timothy 2:19. It states that "...the Lord knows those who are his...and everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness."
For any who want a God that not only hears but listens, it can all occur as easily as John 6:29 says, "the work of God is to beleive in the one he sent..." John 6:40 tells us that the "...Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life..."
What a day this is! You might believe that you know a god who hears, but rather than know him, you know of him; that is, you have heard of him, about him, what he is supposed to be and what you think he should be. But God can only really get to know you when you change your status. Until you receive Christ, God likewise knows of you, but you are not his. He can hear you but he does not listen to you. That can only happen when you make it happen. What a day this is! This can be the day that you get to ask God to lend you an ear. The day that God can and will listen to you. Are you hearing this today. John 8:47 says, "He who belongs to God hears what God says." Are you hearing this today. If you are not, 8:47 goes on to say, "The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God." Why don't you belong to God from this day forward. Is God listening? He is listening if you call upon his name today. Call out to him today in prayer.