Trinity

Last Sunday was Pentecost which is the day we remember when the Holy Spirit came upon the first followers of Jesus.  The Spirit of God appeared like tongues of fire, but more importantly the Spirit of God entered into the hearts and lives of the disciples giving them unexplained courage and the ability to share the truth of Jesus in ways they never thought possible.  The day of Pentecost reveals that God is not just the unseen force that created the universe; God is also a Spirit that is present in our hearts, lives and world here today.  God is not just spirit out there somewhere; God is spirit, the Holy Spirit, right here in our lives.

So God is seen in the Bible as the creator of the world and the one who sustains the world by his power.  God is seen in the person of Jesus and in fact Jesus said that he and his Father are one and that when we see Jesus we are seeing God the Father and on the day of Pentecost we see God as a personal Spirit that engages each individual.  We call these 3 persons or expressions of God the Trinity.  While there is one God, there are 3 different and unique expressions of God.

The word trinity is never found in the Bible, but the concept or idea of the trinity certainly is.  In some of Jesus’ final words on earth he said, Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  And in a book of the New Testament we don’t often read from, Paul’s letter to Titus, we see how the early church understood that God was at work through these different person.  Titus 3:4-6

So while the word is never used, the concept of God at work as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is clear.  Now because of our desire to understand how things works, most of our time is spent trying to define the trinity, but the truth is that we can never fully understand how God can be three and yet one.  It is one of the divine mysteries of our faith and we shouldn’t try to explain it as much as we should try to understand what it means for our lives.  If God is three-in-one, then what does that tell us about God and what does that say about how we are to live our lives and how we are to live out our faith.
The first implication of the Trinity is that if God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit and if God has related to the world through these 3 persons, then God is relational.  In deeply personal ways, God relates to himself as Father and Son.  We see this in the life of Jesus. While Jesus was fully God, he prayed to his father.  Jesus sought communion with his father, he poured out his heart and life to his father.  God is relational and the implications of this are twofold.  First it tells us that God wants a personal relationship with us, and it tells us that God wants us to be in relationship with one another.

Because God is relational, God wants to have a relationship with each of us God.  God wants to know us personally and God wants us to know him.  God wants to speak to our lives, our situation, our needs and our future.  The problem having this personal relationship with God is that God is infinitely and completely holy, pure and perfect and we are not, which means that on our own, we cannot connect with God.  But God loves us so much and so wants this personal relationship with us that God sent Jesus to take on our sin which separates us from God so that we can be forgiven and made pure and holy.  God welcomes us into a relationship with him through Jesus Christ; in fact, this is what Paul says to Titus.

If we go back to Titus 3:4-6 we see that it is not just a passage that expresses God as three in one, it is also a passage that tells us that we are able to enter into a relationship with God through the love of Jesus which forgives us, and the work of the Holy Spirit which cleanses us and makes us holy.  So through the work of God as the Son and Holy Spirit, we are able to enter into a personal relationship with God the Father, but it doesn’t stop with that relationship.  God also wants us to be in relationship with others.

If we are created in the image of a triune God who is relational, then we are also relational beings.  This means that God created us to be in relationship with one another.  The Bible makes this clear from the beginning.  After God made one person he looked and said, it is not good for this person to be alone so he made another person – Adam and Eve.
When God chose to work in the world, he chose to work not just through one person, Abraham, but his family.  God’s desire was to build a nation that could reach out to the people around them.  God called Israel to be a light to the nations which meant they had to be in relationship with those around them.  Jesus chose 12 disciples to be in community with him, and the Holy Spirit was poured out on a group of people that made the church.  God has always worked through people, which means we are called into relationship with one another and we are encouraged to stay in these relationships of faith where we help one another grow.  Look at Hebrews 10:24-25.

The reason we stress and encourage people to be part of a small group is because it is the relationships that can develop through these groups that help us grow in our faith.  Just this week I heard that testimony again and saw the power of those relationships in action.  When Matt Christopher was in his accident, Dan and Trish called members of their small group who have continued to reach out to them.  At the hospital I heard from both Dan and Trish how important their small group has been and how confident they are that their group will be there to help through this time.  This is how God intends it to be.  We were created as relational beings who need to have a relationship with God and one another.  This is one of the implications of the Trinity.

Another implication of the Trinity is that just as God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all unique and have specific gifts and purposes, so are we.   We are all unique and different.  Look at God; we see that God the Father is the one who created the world, and God the Son, or Jesus, is the one who redeemed the world, and God the Holy Spirit is the one who sustains the world and gives people power.  Each person of the Trinity is unique and has specific gifts and the same is true for all of us.  We are all different and we all have different gifts and skills and abilities.  We all have different temperaments, different opportunities and different perspectives and each one is needed if we are going to function well as a whole.

Paul talks about it as a body – we are one body, but we are each a different part of the body and each part needs all the others.  The arms need the legs, the legs need the feet, the feet needs the brain the brain needs the heart, the heart needs the blood, the blood needs the lungs…  Every part needs every other part and every part has its own special and unique gifts and purpose and it is the Holy Spirit that gives each of us the unique gifts we have.

Look at 1 Corinthians 12:4-11.  It is the Holy Spirit that gives each one of us these gifts but we don’t use them for ourselves but for others, which means we need to be relationship with one another.  We are personally gifted by the Holy Spirit, but we need to use the gifts we have with others to be all that God wants us to be.  It’s just like the Trinity.  Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all unique and yet they are one and work together for the common good.

Another implication of the Trinity is that God wants everyone to know him.  By expressing Himself in 3 unique ways, God is giving more people the opportunity to know him.  Some will experience God simply as God Almighty – the creator of all things and the power, mind and force behind the universe.  Some will experience and connect with God more through the person of Jesus.  These people understand the fullness of God as they see God living in the flesh and blood of this world.  Some people experience God through the Holy Spirit or the power and presence of God in their own lives.  These people have a deep sense of God’s presence in them and understand God more through spiritual dimensions and disciplines.  We are all different and we all experience God differently and because God wants everyone to be saved, God came in three unique and different persons to draw in more people.

I want to encourage you to think about how you experience God most fully.  Is it as Father, Son or Holy Spirit?  This can be a helpful thing to know because it tells us where we can go deeper in our relationship with God and it can tell us where we might need to step out of what is comfortable for us so that we experience God in new ways.
I experience and understand God most when I look at the person of Jesus.  I tell people that my faith is very Jesus center.  I tend to pray to Jesus, speak to Jesus, and ask myself often, what would Jesus do?  Through the years I have come understand that I relate to God most fully through the person of the Son, Jesus Christ.  I was sharing this with a woman in my first church who said, yes I know. I can tell that when you pray.  She went on to tell me how she relates to God more through the Holy Spirit.  Her prayers are to the spirit of God; her connection is with the internal spirit and power of God that comes through the Holy Spirit.  Her comments challenged me to try and lead prayers in worship that included God as Holy Spirit and include those references more often because that is how many people connect with God.  Because God wants all people to know him and be saved, God reaches out to people through different persons because each one of us will connect with God differently.

And the last implication of the Trinity is that because it is something that we cannot explain, it humbles us.  There are still parts of God that are beyond our ability to comprehend.  As enlightened as our society has become, we can still echo the words of Job who said, How great is God – beyond our understanding (Job 36:26) and God’s voice thunders in marvelous ways; he does great things beyond our understanding (Job 37:5).  The Trinity humbles us because God’s ways are beyond our understanding and the Trinity should cause us to stand in awe because it reveals God’s great power and his great love for us.

We can’t explain the Trinity, but we see it throughout scripture.  God is three-in-one, God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit and the Trinity has implications for our lives.  It means God wants a relationship with us, it means God wants us to be relationship with one another.  The Trinity tells us we are all different and gifted with unique and personal gifts and it tells us that God loves all people and wants all people everywhere to be saved. We can’t explain it, but how amazing and awesome is our God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  

Next Steps
Implications of the Trinity

1. While the word Trinity is never found in the Bible, God is often described in three persons - Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  How do these scriptures help us understand the Trinity?
• Matthew 3:16-17,  28:19
• John 10:30, 14:16-17, 14:26
• 1 Corinthians 6:11, 12:4-6 and 2 Corinthians 1:6-8
• 1 Thessalonians 1:3-5 and 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14
• Titus 3:4-6

2. The Trinity implies God is relational.  In what ways can you strengthen your personal relationship with God by growing closer to other people?

3. The Trinity implies we are all unique.
• What fruit of the Holy Spirit can you identify in your life?  See Galatians 5:23.
• What gifts of the Holy Spirit can you see in your life?  See 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 and Romans 12:3-8.
• How can you use your gifts to benefit the church?

4.  The Trinity implies that God wants all to be saved.
• Which person of the Trinity do connect to the most?
• How can you challenge yourself to connect to God in other ways?
• What person can you pray for this week to come to know the Lord?

5.  The Trinity humbles us.    We don’t know all the ways of God.  Read Job 38-42 and be ready to be humbled by the ways of God.

To Remind You

I have to be honest and say that in the last few years I am finding it harder and harder to remember things.  I really notice it with names, but it’s also dates, appointments and information in emails that I’ve received or sent.  I continue to forget what it was I needed as I wander through the grocery store but I am happy to say that in the last 2 years I have not forgotten to buy toilet paper and that because thanks to many of you, I have not had to buy any toilet paper.  It’s a long story…

While sometimes I can laugh off my inability to remember things and joke about getting older and having a senior moment, sometimes I find it really frustrating and so I make lists, double check emails and do all I can to try and remember.  I was reading some articles this week about why we forget things and learned that the amount of information being generated is expanding exponentially.  At the end of WWII,  knowledge was doubling every 25 years, now it is every 13 months and soon it will be every 13 hours.  No wonder I can’t remember things – there is more and more for us to remember every year.  When I was in High School all I needed to remember was my address, phone number and the all important locker combination, but today I have to remember my address, email address, phone number, church number, cell number, multiple passwords for computers, emails, and a dozen web accounts as well as pin numbers, social security numbers and a dozen other items needed just to get through the week.

I don’t know that it’s just all that there is to know that makes it hard for us to remember as much as it is our desire and drive to know more that is the problem.  At times we are so obsessed with what’s new and exciting and always looking for more that we fail to focus on what we already have or where we have come from.  Because we are always looking forward, we forget to reflect on where we have been and what we have learned and the timeless truths and promises of God that help us.  Stress, multitasking, poor diets, lack of exercising also make it hard for us to remember, which most of us can probably agree with. When we are under a lot of stress, whether it’s from our job or school or health, it’s easy to forget things.

Thinking about all of this, I guess it makes sense that today we struggle to remember, but failing to remember is not a new problem, it is an ancient problem.  After God led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and miraculously brought them through the Red Sea and safely away from the armies of Pharaoh and the hardships of life in captivity, they immediately forgot God.  Look at Exodus 15:22-25.

God had just miraculously parted the Red Sea and led the people through on dry ground.  God had just done miracles with water and yet 3 days later they were complaining because they didn’t have any water.  Three days is all it took for them to completely forget God’s power and ability to provide.  They didn’t go to Moses with faith and trust and ask him to ask God to provide them water, no, they complained because God had led them into the desert to die of thirst.

So Moses asked God to provide water and He did.  God led the people to a place where there were 12 springs and 70 palm trees which meant it was a place of abundance.  Now you would think this would help the people remember that God was there to provide for them, but once again the people quickly forgot.   6 weeks later they again have completely forgotten God.  Look at Exodus 16:1-3.

So half way through the second month, or 6 six weeks since they had walked through the Red Sea and 5 ½ weeks since God had provided them with water in an oasis, they have once again forgotten God and His ability to care for them.  They go as far as saying it would have been better for them to have stayed as slaves in Egypt where at least they had good food.  They have forgotten God’s power, presence and purpose for them.

So failing to remember is not a new phenomenon, which means we can’t blame it on the rapid increase in information and the increased access we have to that information.  Failing to remember is part of our human condition and it is something God has always had an answer for.  For Israel, God’s answer wasn’t just a command for them to remember, He gave them resources to help them remember.

To help them remember how God led his people out of slavery God told them that each year they were hold a special meal where they would tell the story of how all the plagues God sent on Egypt never touched them.  This meal, called the Passover, was a reminder that the angel of death passed over the homes of the Israelites.

God also told them to set aside a day each week to remind them how He created the world and then rested on the seventh day.  God told the people to write his law on the door posts of their homes so every time they went in or out they would remember who God was and how God called them to live.  God told them to set up stone memorials to remember how God provided for the people in certain times and places and God even told his people to wear special clothes that would remind them of God’s law and God’s presence.  The tassels on their clothes (tzitzit)

were to remind people of their religious obligations and the special arm wraps called tefillin and phylacteries are full of symbolic meanings to remind the people of God and his word.

So God didn’t just command the people to remember, he gave them resources to help them remember because God knows how easily we forget.   We still use some these same resources today, in fact, we are celebrating one this weekend.  Memorial Day is a day that our nation has set aside to remind us of the men and women who gave everything they had to not just help our nation but to help people around the world.  Tomorrow isn’t just a day to have a picnic; it is a day we as a nation have set aside to help us remember because without it we would forgot.  Without Memorial Day, we would forget the sacrifice so many people have made on our behalf and we would forget the values of sacrifice and service that are so much a part of our nation.

Without Memorial Day we would also forget to say thank you to the men and women who have served and those who continue to serve in our today.  We would forget to pray for and support those veterans who have physical and emotional needs from their time of service and we would forget that it is our duty to care for them.
Like the Passover and other special days, Memorial Day is set aside to remind us of these things because without it we would forget.  I hope that at some point tomorrow we will stop and remember the sacrifice and service of those who have given so much and if we have the opportunity I hope we will say thank you to those who have served and those who continue to serve our community, nation and world.

But this weekend we don’t just celebrate Memorial Day, we also celebrate Pentecost.  In the Old Testament, Pentecost was known as the feast of weeks and it came 50 days after the Passover.  The feast of weeks was to include an offering from the first fruits of the harvest as a reminder that God provides for the people.  In the New Testament it was during Pentecost that the Holy Spirit came upon the followers of Jesus and filed them with power.  Acts 2:1-4.

What the Holy Spirit did that day was move the disciples of Jesus from the safety of the upper room out onto the streets where they shared all that God had done for them and they shared all the truth about Jesus.  The Holy Spirit wasn’t just given to provide power; it was also given because God knows that we are prone to forget.  According to Jesus, one of the reasons God sent the Holy Spirt was to help us remember.  Look at John 14:25-27.

Because God knows we are prone to forget and that symbols and memorials only go so far in helping us to remember, God decides to send his spirit into us to help us remember all that He has taught us through Jesus Christ.  God understands our forgetfulness and so throughout history has provided outward signs and here an inner spirit, God’s Spirit, to help us remember.  Today we still have these outward signs and God’s spirit to help us remember.  We have a cross to remind us of Jesus and we have set times of worship to hear once again the story of God’s work in the world and the story of God’s presence in our lives and we have special days like today that remind us that the Holy Spirit has come to live inside us to help remind us of all these things.

God has done all of this to help us remember and the foundation of all that God wants us to remember is: God is here with us and God is here for us.  Just as God was with Israel in the Old Testament, God is present with us today and God provides for us because God loves us and that is ultimately what He wants us to remember.

While God has done his part in providing so many things to help us remember, we need to do our part as well.  The resources God has given aren’t any good if we don’t use them, so to remember we need to read God’s word.  To remember God we need to celebrate in times of worship where our hearts and lives are directed away from the world and centered and focused once again on God.  We need these special days to remember the powerful way God has provided for us.  We need times of prayer where we ask God’s spirit to speak to our hearts and remind us of his truth and love, but most of all we need to live lives that reflect God each and every day.  As we live for God we will remember God.

There is a Chinese proverb that says:
I hear and I forget.
I read and I remember.
I do and I understand.

When we do, when we live out the reality of God in our world, when we are faithful and obedient and strive to be the presence of Jesus in our families, community and world, it is then that we more fully understand God and remember.

Next Steps
To Remind You

1. Memorial Day is to remind us of those who have sacrificed and served for our nation and world.  Take time to remember those who have served.  Seek out a veteran or current member of the military to honor and thank them for their service and sacrifice.

2. What might be the causes of your forgetfulness?
• Stress
• Multi-tasking
• An obsession with what is new and exciting
• A focus on ourselves and what we want and need
• Lack of sleep
• Poor diet
• Trying to do too much

3. What resources that God has provided could help you remember God’s presence, power and purpose for your life?
• Reading, reflecting on, or writing out Scripture
• Regular worship and set times of prayer
• Consistent giving of a tithe or offering
• Intentional times for serving God and others

4. Identify one truth of God you want to remember this week:

What can you do to make this truth an ongoing part of your life?

I hear and I forget.  
I read and I remember.  
I do and I understand.  
~ A Chinese Proverb ~

Prayer Part 2 ~ Being Silent

Today we are going to learn about prayer from a man whose prayers helped bring rain to a nation after a 3 year drought, raised a child from the dead and called down fire on a sacrifice in an awesome challenge against all the pagan prophets in Israel.  This man is the prophet Elijah and his life story can be found in 1& 2 Kings.  Elijah came from a small village in northern Israel and his name means, the Lord is God.  He was sent to speak to King Ahab because both Ahab and his wife Jezebel were leading God’s people into sin by allowing the worship of false gods and idols.

I have to share with you that when I went back and read these stories of Elijah and King Ahab, all I could think about was what an amazing builder King Ahab was.  In fact, work that was done while Ahab ruled in Israel 3000 years ago can still be seen.  In the middle of the Jezreel Valley there is a hill called Meggido.

Meggido in the Jezreel Valley

For centuries this hill was a fortress occupied by many different nations.  Because you could see for miles in every direction from the top of Meggido and every army had to cross through this valley, every nation wanted to control this location.

When Ahab was king of Israel he held this ground and he worked to establish it as a permanent fortress.  Ahab had a water system constructed for the city which is still present today.

Ahab had them dig a well from the top of the hill down into the ground

Well from the top looking down

where it then connected to a tunnel he had built coming in from a natural spring.

Tunnel that carried water into the well.

This water system meant that the spring would provide fresh water for the people at the top of the fortress and today you are able to walk through it.

Stairway down into the well dug by king Ahab

This is one of the places where the history of the Old Testament really came to life for me.  Ahab was no longer just a name in a book or a person from history, he was the man who had this well dug and while he may have been an evil king married to a very wicked woman, he was real and walking through the well he had dug makes this story of Elijah more real to me than ever before.

So back to Elijah…  Elijah was called by God to condemn the problems and sin created by Ahab and Jezebel, but they didn’t listen to Elijah so God sent a three year drought to the region.  For three years, not only didn’t it rain, but Elijah was a wanted man.  Knowing that his life was in danger, Elijah fled into the wilderness where God cared for him every day by providing him with food and water.  Eventually Elijah returned to Ahab and it was his prayers that caused the rains to return to the nation.  It was also the prayers of Elijah that moved God to send down fire on a sacrifice in a challenge Elijah made to prove that God was real and the pagan god Baal was not.  It’s an amazing story found in 1 Kings 18 and if you haven’t read it or haven’t read it in a while, I invite you to do that this week.

All of Elijah’s prophetic messages to Ahab and the people of Israel made him an unpopular man so even after the rains returned Elijah once again had to flee into the wilderness.  Exhausted, depressed and ready to give up, Elijah sat down to die.  Even though God had provided for Elijah in situations like this before, he didn’t have the strength or faith to trust God again.  In many ways, Elijah is just like us.  We can see God provide and care for those around us and maybe we have even see God work in our own lives in very special ways in the past, but we get tired, frustrated and lose our faith so that we find ourselves ready to give up on God and on our ourselves.

This is exactly where Elijah is.  He is hiding in a cave and God asks him what’s wrong.  Elijah again tells God that he is done.  He just can’t keep going.  He his alone, exhausted, frustrated and in despair and this is what God says, 1 Kings 19:11-13a

God spoke to Elijah in the silence.  In the stillness and silence God said I’m here and I’m with you and then God gave Elijah this message, 1 Kings 19:15-18.

God had always had an answer for Elijah’s problems.  God’s plan from the beginning was that He was going to provide people to stand with Elijah and those people would bring justice and avenge those who were doing evil.  God makes clear to Elijah that he is not alone but that there 7000 faithful people in Israel who will work with him.  God knew this all along, but Elijah wasn’t listening.  Elijah was so busy complaining and running and feeling sorry for himself and talking to God that he never was still and quiet to be able to listen for God.

How many times are we so busy complaining, running, talking to ourselves and others and even talking to God that we never turn off the noise and still ourselves long enough to be able to listen for God?  On the mountain with Elijah, God makes clear that He isn’t always going to shout in order to get our attention.  God isn’t always in the loudest voice, the hottest trend or the most earth shattering new experience.  God is often seen and experienced and heard in stillness and silence and if we don’t learn how to be still and silent, we will miss God’s voice and we won’t hear the words of hope, encouragement and direction that we so desperately need.

Elijah’s experience on the mountain teaches us the importance of silence when we pray, but for most of us silence is uncomfortable.  Why do you think they play music in many elevators?  It’s because standing in a small box with other people who are invading our sense of personal space in total silence is awkward.    Why do you think they install state of the art music systems in cars?  It’s because unless you have been married for 25 or more years, driving in silence with someone in the car for more than about 5 minutes is awkward.  Try it.  Next time your family or friends get in your car to drive to State College, see what if feels like to drive in silence.  See how many miles it is before someone actually starts talking – or laughing.  If you hang around your family or friends in silence for too long people will think you’re mad at them.  We just don’t do silence well.

How many of us when we get home turn on the TV or radio or find something to distract ourselves?  People run with ipods, feel the need to talk to others on their phone constantly and even fall asleep to music, movies, TV or social media because silence is so uncomfortable.  We don’t like silence and yet God is reminding us here that he is often only found in the still and silent moments of life, so silence needs to be part of our prayers.
Let me share with you one reason why silence is so important, if we are not silent we may never hear God because aren’t meant to do two things at the same time.  Believe it or not, we were not created to multi-task.  I know that you think you are able to do several things all at the same time and do them really well, but studies prove that this is not true.  In his book The One Thing, Gary Keller says, multi-tasking is a lie.  People can actually do two or more things at once, but what we can’t do is focus on two things at once.  Our attention bounces back and forth.

What happens when we try to do two things at the same time is that very quickly our brains bounce back and forth between these two things and each time it does it has to reorient itself to what it is doing and thinking and this takes time and that time, as miniscule as it is, creates a sense of distraction and inefficiency.  A 2009 Stanford University study proved that multitasking isn’t as effective as people think it is and what this means for our prayer life is that we need silence in order to hear God.  We can’t hear God if we are doing several other things at the same time.

If we are always talking to God, we can’t listen for him.  If we spend our time with God always reading His word – as GOOD as that is - we may miss hearing His word to us.  If we think we can pray and be quiet as we drive – our minds are really focused on driving and not listening.  To really hear God and experience his presence we need moments of stillness and silence.  We need moments where we stop the activity, stop the madness of our schedules, turn off the noise of our lives and simply listen for God.

Psalm 46:10 - Be still and know that I am God.
Psalm 37:7 - Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.
Lamentations 3:26 - It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord
God said to Moses and his people, Exodus 14:14 – The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still

One reason why we don’t like being still and silent is that when we are - we are not in control.  As long as we are talking and moving we are in control – we are in control of our schedule, our activities and our lives, but as soon as we stop we become vulnerable and yet is only when we are willing to be vulnerable with God by becoming still and silent that God is able to speak to us.

Another value of being silent is that when we are still and quiet all of our senses become more acute.  There is an old proverb that says, the man who opens his mouth, closes his eyes.  When we are able to be quiet we will not only hear better but we will see better.  In the silence, Elijah not only heard God but he saw God, which was why he pulled the clock over his face.  Richard Foster in his book Celebration of Discipline says, the purpose of silence is to be able to see and hear.

So when we are silent we not only hear better but we see better and we not only see better with our eyes but with our hearts and minds and spirits.  Silence helps us because more aware of God’s presence and spirit and it allows us to hear God’s word which is often spoken not to our ears but to our hearts.

So being silent is important in our lives of prayer and is a difficult practice for us to make part of our lives.  We are surrounded by noise and activity and distraction so to be still so we can be silent will call for us to be intentional.  We have to make time for silence.  We have to guard our times of silence by making sure we aren’t interrupted by phones, text, tweets and email alerts.  At first it might feel awkward and uncomfortable, like silence in a crowded elevator riding to the top floor, but in time the silence can bring the outpouring of God’s word spoken directly to us.

Elijah heard God in the stillness and silence, Jesus heard his father in the stillness and the silence of his early morning times of prayer and we will be able to hear and see and experience the presence of God if we can learn how to be silent. We are going to practice now as we close with a minute or so of silence.  Let us pray…  (SILENCE)




Next Steps
Prayer Part 2 ~ Being Silent

1. On a scale of 1 – 10, how noisy would you rate your life?  Are there ever moments of silence?  When?

2. Are you uncomfortable in silence?  If so, try to identify why.

3. Do you multi-task often thinking that you are being efficient and effective?  How might multi-tasking be keeping you from being able to really listen to your family, friends and God?

4. Stillness and silence will not suddenly enter into our lives; we have to intentionally create it.  What is one way your life can simply be quieter this week?  (Not silent, but quieter)

5.  What is one “noise” you can turn off for one day this week?
TV – Social Media – Radio in the car – ipod – tablet – games

6. Set aside 5 minutes of genuine stillness and silence in one of your days this week?