The Voice by William Hutson

Here we are.

Excited about what God's going to do this morning.

What I feel.

Psalm chapter 78.

We're going to read verses 1 through 4.

If you turn there, you realize it's 72 verses.

We're not reading all 72 verses.

Just know.

Verse 1 says, Give ear, O my people, to my law.

Incline your ears to the words of my mouth.

I will open my mouth in a parable.

I will utter dark sayings of old, which we have heard and known and our fathers have told us.

We will not hide them from their children, showing the generation to come the praises of the Lord and His strength and His wonderful works that He has done.

The writer had a real poetic way of saying, just listen up.

And he was trying to shake his generation.

We don't really know what was going on at the time.

We know David was king.

But he was trying to shake his generation awake.

He said, listen, give ear, oh people, listen to what I have to say.

We'll talk about what he said, but on the night of April 18th, 1775, most of the people in the Massachusetts countryside were asleep, unaware the British troops were marching toward Lexington and Concord.

If no one sounded the alarm, the colonial militias would have been caught unprepared.

But Paul Revere rode through the darkness, urgently warning the town, the famous phrase, the British are coming.

His message was unwelcome to some, alarming to all, but it was exactly what the people needed to hear that night.

And because someone was willing to deliver a hard truth, communities woke up, prepared themselves, and changed the course of history.

And I come today with a challenge.

I'm not necessarily here to sound the alarm.

What I am here is to challenge the church to lift up their voices in the midst of a broken world.

The question is, is there somebody here that's willing to march into their home, to the four walls of their house, and be the voice of God in the most important place in your life? Part of our second installment of our Summer in the Psalms series.

I'm going to be preaching today on the voice.

Everybody say the voice.

Let's go to the Lord in prayer.

Lord, we thank you for your presence, for your spirit, for your grace, for your mercy.

I thank you for your faithfulness, for your goodness.

Lord, I pray that you'll meet us here today.

This is about you.

We want to hear your voice.

God, we want to hear your voice, but we want to be your voice.

We want to carry this to the places that it matters.

God, I pray that you'll use us.

Anoint me to preach this word the way you gave it.

Anoint them to receive it, to grow, to apply it to our lives.

And I pray that we'll leave this place differently, having encountered an almighty God.

Give you the glory and the honor.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

You can be seated.