Ephesians 1:1-7 - "Unfathomable"

Today we begin a new series, taking a look at Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.  We’re going to call this series, Unfathomable… -difficult or impossible to fully understand or comprehend.  Unfathomable could be something that is tricky, really hard to figure out - like a Rubiks cube.

[have you ever tried solving a rubiks cube?]

Or it could be something deeper than that, bigger, beyond fully understanding - so profound  that it simply blows your mind.  Things that blow your mind.  And you’re like, whoa… Unfathomable.

The first three chapters of Ephesians themselves have been described as the profoundest thing ever written.  Full of mind-blowing truths.  Truly unfathomable.  Truths about God, about Jesus, about what God has done for us in Jesus, what is true of those who believe in Jesus.  That’s just the first 3 chapters.  Chapters 4-6 are all about our response, how we are to live in light of the unfathomable things God has done for us in Christ - and some of those things will blow your mind too.  Or should…

I believe this could be a very important journey for us, because for many of us, I think we tend to suffer from a bit of blasé syndrome due to overexposure.  It’s the old adage - familiarity breeds contempt.  What that means is that the more we are exposed to something, the more we are around it - the more prone we are to begin to take it for granted.  To lose our respect and awe.  Even those things which are rather awe-inspiring, we can get to the place where we don’t hardly even notice how awesome they are.  They lose their lustre.  Their wonder, their grandeur.  It’s like sunsets in Texas.  Ho hum, just another amazing sunset (yawn)...  The same thing happens in relationships.  And it happens in our faith.  Many of us who have grown up in the church - we’ve heard so much and been exposed to so much.  It gets kind of old hat.  "Been there, done that" disease.  The problem is not with the Awesome.  The problem is in me.  The Lord finds my desires too weak.  And time and the worries of the world can cause vision-leak.  Sometimes we need to be reminded just Who and what we are talking about here.  Awesome.  Unfathomable.

But, before we begin, question: Telephone.  Who here has ever played the telephone game?  If we played that in this assembly, what would be the outcome, do you think?  What are the chances that the last person ends up with a message that is quite different than at the first?  Now when we want to learn exactly what the first person said, how do we best go about that?  We usually just go straight to the first person - but what if they were suddenly taken from us?  Admittedly, that would make matters more difficult.  [I’m a fun guy —> I’m a fungus]

What many people assume about the Bible is that it is like the telephone game, and that Paul’s letters, along with all the rest, were passed along in semi-whisper form, from one person to the next, and to make matters more problematic, not only is the originator no longer with us, these messages originated in a language we don’t speak: it’s all Greek to us.  Literally.  So people picture them being translated from one language to the next and to another and to another.  Lost in translation, right?  How much gets lost in translation?  No telling.  How many times has the Bible been translated?  I mean, what does your average unbeliever assume?  Even if it was just once every other century, that would be ten iterations of lost in translation.

[como te llamas / ako sa volaš] - even with such rudimentary pleasantries things get lost in translation...

But here’s the thing - what if the originator didn’t merely whisper to one person?  Which would be a lotta of pressure on that one person!  But let’s say we’re not talking about just one recipient of the first message, but a dozen of them.  And what if we went to each one of them, and compared their versions of the original to one another.  But wait - what if the originator wrote it all down, and then that writing was received by dozens of faithful, reverent followers, who then proceeded to carefully make copies.  By hand, yes, but one mistake and they started all over.  Exacting standards of quality and accuracy.

This leads us to why the telephone game fallacy utterly breaks down when it comes to the New Testament.  Sure, the originator has died and we no longer have the original letter - but we have a bunch of these really old copies, and scores more which are almost as old.  And that’s important - because the closer in time you get to the originator, the better - the more accuracy you can reasonably expect.  

All these copies, these ancient manuscripts, each one carefully reproduced by a careful reverent adherent.  And when we compare these copies to one another, there is almost total agreement.  Just a few words here and there, most of them articles and such which have no impact on the meaning of the text.  Plus - that whole lost in translation thing?  Knocked ov-er!  Seriously - Gru just pulled out his master blaster and blew that theory to smithereens.

[pic of manuscript] - i.e. we have thousands of these for the New Testament!

And how many languages are we talking about here?  How many translations, in other words?  Just one.  None of this straw man tactic, oh the Bible’s been translated so many times.  Sorry, Jack - just one time.  Here’s the original Greek.  And the English version you have in your hands or on your device?  That is the result of hours and hours of careful and scholarly research, linguistic experts producing the most reliable translation possible.  Seriously - please don’t ever let anyone get away with saying that you can’t trust the Bible because it’s been translated so many times.  That’s not true at all.  That’s hogwash.  Or is it hogwarts?  Wishful fiction?

My point being - we can trust this book.  It is completely trustworthy.  Reliable.  What we have you can take to the bank.  In fact, when it comes to reliability of ancient historical documents, there are two things we look for: how many of these old copies do we have - the more the better - and how close are they date-wise to the original - the closer the better.  Which is exactly what you would want in the example of the telephone game…

[NT numbers vs second closest - the Iliad?] - - [2nd pic / relative reliability]

But the reason I bring this up today is that here in the very first verse of this letter, what we know as Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, we have one of these things we call a textual variant.  There are a few early manuscripts - including this one - which do not say “in Ephesus” in verse 1.  They do have the title, “Pros Ephesos” at the top.   But there are some other important observations about this letter as we begin.  There are no closing personal greetings (as in most of Paul’s other letters).  In fact, Paul appears to not have even met his readers - but we know from the book of Acts that Paul went to Ephesus multiple times, founded the church in that city, and probably spent as much as three years combined living in Ephesus.  What many scholars believe is that this letter was intended to be circular, not for one assembly, but to be circulated among a number of churches in the vicinity of Ephesus.  But we want to keep that in mind as we read - Paul is most likely writing to believers he doesn't know, whom He has never been able to teach, in churches which were planted not by him but by those who came out of the mother church in Ephesus.  Does it change the meaning?  What do you think? But it does give us context as we read what Paul (or, rather, God thru Paul) is saying to his hearers.  And to us!

So - verse 1.  Typical greeting - but let’s not just yawn and glaze over it.  Paul an apostle.  A sent one.  A first-hand eyewitness of the resurrected Lord, Jesus the Messiah.  And for Paul, this by the will of God.  The Greek word for want.  God chose Paul.  God wanted him, to bless him.  We struggle perhaps at times to know what it is that God wants for us, but in Paul’s case, there was no mistaking it.  Jesus wanted him - to be an apostle, no less.  It’s kinda hard to miss when He appears to you in a blinding light in the middle of your journey.  And Jesus had a deviation in mind for Paul, a much more significant journey.  A sent one.  In Paul’s case, he learned - and we along with him - that Jesus was sending him to be His witness among the Gentiles.  And not just to one or two or a few - ALL of them.  Most likely, you and I can each trace our spiritual lineage back to the Apostle Paul.  We have him to thank - along with countless others who passed it on.  This was also the case in this great ancient metropolis of Ephesus.  Ephesus was a large and prosperous and modern city for its day.  There was a thriving assembly of Christ-followers there in that city, a mix of Jewish and Gentile believers, and Paul was the one who had planted it.  They had him to thank!  And the work had spread and there was a growing number of churches in this region of Asia Minor.  Paul hadn’t even met many of these believers, much less discipled them - someone else had.  Someone else had passed the Good News of Christ on to them.  But this has always been God’s missionary method: I will bless you, and you will pass it on.  Through you I intend to bless families everywhere.

Paul calls these believers saints - not because they were fans of the football team which plays in New Orleans - but because God called them that.  The word means holy ones.  He chose them for that - more on this later.

But here’s the first thing we need to observe this morning - the centrality of Christ to our faith.  Paul was sent out by Christ - and for Christ.  These Asian believers were faithfully trusting in Christ Jesus.  Paul’s greeting wishes for grace and shalom were not only from God our Father but also from the Lord Jesus Christ.  It is all about Jesus.

In/through Christ: The entire first half of this letter, all this profundity - Paul is focused on who we are in Christ, all the ways God has blessed us in Christ, 12x in the first 14 verses, some 19x more through chapter 3 (interestingly then not once in the rest of the letter).

Unfathomable… Things that will blow your mind (or should).  We encounter at least 17 of these mind-blowing realities in just the next twelve verses, and they are all centered on Christ:

Every spiritual blessing (in Christ)[3]

He chose us (in Christ) [4]

-Before the foundation of the world

-Holy and blameless before Him

Predestined us [5, 11]

-Adoption as sons (through Christ) [5]

-Inheritance (in Him) [11]

Grace - the glory and riches of His grace  (in the Beloved/Christ) [6]

-lavished on us [8]

Redemption (through His blood) [7]

-Forgiveness

Made known the mystery of His will/desire

-His good pleasure [9]

-His purpose (in Christ) [9/11]

-Works all things [11]

Summing up of all things in Christ [10]

Sealed (in Him) (having hoped/believed in Him) [13]

To the praise of the glory of His grace (THREE TIMES - 6, 12, 14)

All of these are things which God has done FOR US.  We will look at this later, but what does Paul says our part is in all this?  Listen, and believe… [verse 13]  We listen to the Gospel, the Good News, the Word of Truth, and we believe.  We respond in faith, and trust.  We trust that it is true, and obey it, we live into it with all our heart and all our strength.

But look at Paul as he jumps right into it.  The very first thing he says right out of the gate shows how caught up he is in the unfathomability of our God.  Verse 3 - Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ.  He hasn’t lost the wonder of it all.  Blessed be our God…

[eu-logia/eu-logos] - this word for blessing means a good word.  It gives us our English word, eulogy.  A eulogy is when you say something good about a person - usually at their funeral.  Altho from a certain perspective, doesn’t it make sense to say something good about a person while they’re still alive?  Well Paul has good things to say about God.  And God has good things to say about us - He blesses us.  And we understand that speaking is God’s means of creating.  That is how He created the entire universe - and it was good.  Blessing, for God, is Him creating and manifesting goodness, His goodness, His breathtaking goodness.  Speaking is God’s means of creating - and He creates goodness for His people.  He eulogizes, He blesses His people.  Yes, God, our God, blesses us.  

Psalm 67:6-7  

The earth has yielded its produce; God, our God, blesses us.  God blesses us, that all the ends of the earth may fear Him.

-This is what He does.  He cannot help Himself in fact.  From the very beginning, He began blessing His creation - gen 1.22, gen 1.28, gen 2.3, gen 5.2, gen 9.1, gen 12.2-3.  And so we glimpse the dance of creation.  God, the God Who creates goodness, Who blesses, He blesses His people, who bless Him in return and bless others.  We pass it on.  The happiest Being in the universe invites us to His dance, dresses us up, takes the lead, and when we get in step with Him two wondrous things happen.  We get caught up and lose ourselves in the rapturous joy of the dance, returning joyous worship to Him.  And then all eyes are on Him, the blessing, blessed God.  To the praise of His glory.  

Thus, God is the ultimate Source of any and all blessing, all goodness, and when directed towards man, "to bless" specifically means to endue with (or invoke) power for abundant and effective living, for success, prosperity, fruitfulness, longevity, etc.  To the praise of His glory.

-And so there is this two directional blessing Paul gives us here.  We are blessing God, returning thanks and praise to Him, this One Who has first blessed us, given us out of His abundance everything we might ever need for spiritual success, all the spiritual resources and power necessary in order to be fruitful and multiply our faith, in order to love Him with all our heart and soul and to love our neighbors as ourselves.  IN Christ.  And because this transaction takes place in the heavenlies, we are talking about resources which generally we may not physically touch or feel and which may in fact not be confined to this time or space.  It encompasses something like prayer, where we can participate in seeing God’s power unleashed in both the present and the future and in places where we are unable to travel - whether the other side of the world or the other side of the street - and into people’s hearts.  But much more than that - we cannot name one single blessing, one single necessary spiritual resource that God has withheld from any one of His people.  Every spiritual blessing.  Every last thing that you and I might ever need for spiritual success - He has given us every single one of them!  That right there is enough to put us on shouting ground.  It ought to blow our minds.  Unfathomable!  Because really, how is it possible to even begin to wrap our brains around that?  Every spiritual blessing.  Thus we get our first glimpse of the mind-blowing nature of our relationship with God that Paul unpacks in this letter.

And you and I might have trouble believing this because either we are caught up in the blasé syndrome - or maybe the way God appears to be blessing us is not what we had in mind.  The way He is speaking and creating goodness for us doesn’t feel so good… Remember, we’re talking about a transaction in the heavenlies.  You may not be able to touch it or feel it.  Not yet at least.  This is where faith comes in.  Lord, I will believe - even if I can’t see it (or feel it) just yet.

In Christ - this is the means of blessing.  Jesus is the means.  He is the repository.  Talk about our ship coming in - it’s Jesus.  The HMS Jesus.  Blessings down, and blessings back up.  Blessings down - all these mind-blowing ways in which God has blessed us, showered His breathtaking goodness on us - they all come to us by way of His Son.  And this is all for the express purpose of blessing returning back to Him.  To the praise of His glory.  Blessed be our God.  The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Eulogizing Him.  Blessed be Him.  Blessed be His Name.  Not that we are showering any goodness of our own back on Him.  We are not somehow adding anything to His infinite goodness and perfection and majesty.  Ha!  Far from it.  No, we are reflecting back to Him the goodness which was all and always His to begin with. 

Sailing on the good ship HMS Jesus.  On life’s journey, Jesus is our point of origin - all things are from Him.  He is our means of getting there - all things are through Him.  And He is the destination - all things are for Him.  As we will see.

Every spiritual blessing.  In Christ.  There are 16 more mind-blowing unfathomables in the rest of this section.  We’ll take a look, but it’ll have to wait until next week…

"With unimaginable love also comes the risk of unfathomable pain. And the deepest souls hold out for such peril."  JmStorm.

Micah - “Hear, Hear!”

 Come back!

Joel, Jonah, Amos, and Hosea use the word return (shub, H7725) some 50 times.  After that Israel is going into exile.  Judah is next.  And the next 6 prophets only use the word 9 times.  Then the last three (Daniel, Zechariah, Malachi) use it 47 times.  I urged you to return, to come back to Me, and you didn’t, so now you’re going away, but eventually you WILL come back.  I will bring you back. 

There are a couple of words which Micah uses more than these other prophets.  One is the word, will.  Future tense, indicative mood.  It is the language of future fact.  I will do this.  You will experience this.  They will do this.  This will happen.  "I will" is the language of the settled and decided future fact.  The language of promise.  I will, you will, they will, it will - 131 times (!) (in 105 verses) in Micah.  Over and over again.  This thing is as good as done.  It is GOING to happen, as surely as summer follows spring.  Basically at this point Israel is staring at the unavoidable consequences of her waywardness dead in the face.  

[read verses 1.1-7]

Another word which we see in Micah is the word, hear.  Israel (and Judah) have NOT been listening.  They are not listening, they are not paying attention, in other words.  Hear, hear!

What does it take to hear?

[story of Austin Chapman - deaf filmmaker whose poor quality hearing aids convinced him there was nothing much to hear but then who finally gets good hearing aids and hears for the first time: “When Mozart’s Lacrimosa came on, I was blown away by the beauty of it. At one point of the song, it sounded like angels singing and I suddenly realized that this was the first time I was able to appreciate music. Tears rolled down my face and I tried to hide it. But when I looked over I saw that there wasn’t a dry eye in the car.”]

[recording of lacrimosa - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE2muDZksP4]

Israel wasn’t listening.  Altho, sometimes the enemy of hearing is actually noise.  Isn’t that true for our world today?  Isn’t there so much noise?  And isn’t it true that we so willingly tune in to the noise, to the cacophony of the world, rather than tune in to the sounds of heaven?

You know how they test hearing?  They put you in that small sound proof chamber, and put those headphones on you, and you’re supposed to listen for the tiny beep, that still small noise.  And it wouldn’t be so hard - but then they turn on noise.  They turn up this static background noise, and it makes it so much harder to hear what you’re actually trying to hear.

[picture of an ear] - Ear, ear drum, bones, nerves, neural/cerebral processing - and then it gets handed off to the mind and the heart, which control what kind of motor responses will result from the reception of the audio signals.

Talk about complexity [Darwin’s Black Box - the nucleus of a cell and irreducible complexity… “"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down," Charles Darwin]. When we encounter complexity in the world, our minds instinctively understand that there is intelligence behind that.  Some intelligent being accounted for that “random” anomaly.  I call complexity an anomaly because one of the most fundamental laws of physics tells us that randomness increases.  In our current universe, randomness is always naturally increasing.  Things get more random, they break down.  Everything breaks down, doesn’t it?  Our cars.  Our houses.  Our toys.  Our bodies.  Even relationships are prone to this.  Without some measure of intervention, sooner or later everything breaks down.  And we, the people of the Book, understand that this is a result of the Fall.  All that which was designed by our Creator to last forever - now is subjected to what the Bible calls the law of corruption. 

Romans 8:21 

…that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

The entire universe is enslaved to this principle of corruption, of decay.  Randomness increases.  The Law of Corruption means Stuff breaks down - UNLESS acted upon by some external force.  Unless you introduce some energy - AND intelligence - into the equation.

[pictures of peter ellenshaw paintings] - Take a look at this “picture”.  Our fallen nature with an assist from Darwin assumes that what we glimpse in this screen is a photo of a place that it arose by a long series of successive helpful slight modifications.  I.e. random.  But what if I tell you that the image you see on the screen is actually a painting, a bunch of paint on canvas?  What would be the best explanation for how this painting came about?  If a bunch of paint were thrown onto a canvas, what are the chances that something like this would result?  We look at a painting, and we can easily intuit that there is intelligence behind this beauty - but why then, when we look at the real thing, are our fallen corrupted minds wont to dismiss the idea that there is intelligence behind this?

[picture of trees in a row]

How many trees in a row does it take before the most reasonable answer becomes intelligence as opposed to randomness?  And what if you had to stake your life on it?  What is the most reasonable explanation for that row of trees?  Just because you did not see them planted, or cannot even see the one who planted them, means nothing.  Any reasonable open-minded thinking person can see that this is no random accident.  But this is exactly what many thinking people are desperate to believe about the universe, and about humans specifically.  That we are random accidents, hopeful mutations.  We say hopeful mutation, because outside of the Marvel Comic Universe mutants overwhelmingly tend to struggle to even survive. Much less multiply.

Let’s go back to the ear.  Look at the amazing complexity of this design.  What is the most reasonable explanation to account for this?  Random accident?  Or the product of ingenious engineering?  Complex structures do not arise from random accidents.

Psalm 94:9  

He who planted the ear, does He not hear?  He who formed the eye, does He not see?

Isaiah 42:20  

You have seen many things, but you do not observe them; Your ears are open, but none hears.

A reality with which all parents are familiar. There is more to hearing than the mere physical anatomy of the situation.  Ears are always open.  They are always on.  Like Alexa/Google/Siri - unless our battery dies.  Or we get this…  

[no signal logo]

But when it comes to our always-on ears, our mind has the ability to tune out.  It tunes out when we’re asleep.  And it tunes out the noise when all it is is noise.  Our minds tune out what they perceive to be noise.  It’s Charlie Brown’s teacher.  Woh woh woh.  When our child is not listening to us, when they are not hearing what we are saying, it’s not that their ears are not functioning.  Ears are always on (assuming they are in fact healthy).  No, something needs to happen in the mind and heart of this audio receiver.  There is this thing called attention.  Hearing is about paying attention.  And yes, one could say that there is a cost, a price to pay when it comes to paying attention.  

Another option for when ears don’t hear is when they’re operating in a vacuum.  Sound waves cannot travel in a vacuum - did you know that?  There is no sound in space.  All those cool space explosions in Star Wars and the Marvel Universe - in space your ears wouldn’t hear a thing.  And I do think that one plausible explanation as to why some people don’t hear the Word of the Lord is that they are operating in a spiritual vacuum.

But for most of us, the challenge of hearing is that of paying attention.  And then there is this other thing called response.

Micah 6:3

“My people, what have I done to you, and how have I wearied you? Answer Me.”

God says His people's lack of response is because they have grown weary, they are tired of Him.  Impatient.  It is the law of diminishing returns.  We get tired of the same old stuff - even when it's amazing 5-star stuff.  And in our modern pop-culture age, things get old and tired and outdated not in years and decades but in minutes - and milliseconds.  And so God says, Remember!  Remember what I have done for you! 

Micah 6.4-5  

“Indeed, I brought you up from the land of Egypt and ransomed you from the house of slavery, and I sent before you Moses, Aaron and Miriam.  My people, remember now what Balak king of Moab counseled and what Balaam son of Beor answered him, and from Shittim to Gilgal, so that you might know the righteous acts of the LORD.”  

Remember!  Never forget, never lose the awe and grandeur of Who I am and all I have made and done.

And Micah says, As for me, I will watch.  I will wait for the Lord.  I will even bear with His indignation - because I have sinned against Him. (7.7-9) I will remember who He is, and who I am.

Micah 6:8  

He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, to love kindness (chesed), and to walk humbly with your God?

Walking.  Humbly with your God. 

And here’s a thing about our ears.  Healthy ears are what make it possible for humans to walk.  Structures in our middle and inner ears help us regulate our equilibrium and retain our balance.  We can’t even walk right without our ears.  And isn’t that true in a spiritual sense?  Isn’t that what the Lord is saying?  Hear!  Hear, hear!  Hear O Israel!  The Lord is God.  He is the One and Only.  And you will love Him with all your heart.  You will do what is right, and love chesed, and walk humbly with Him.  Walk humbly with Him.  Because it is so easy to grow tired of Him.  To get sidetracked.  To get out of spiritual balance.  We start paying attention to other things.  The noise!  So much noise!  We lose sight of Who He is.  What He has done - His righteous acts.  His wonders!  The grandeur and perfection and majesty of Who He is.

But there must be an initial humbling, this initial lowering of ourselves, where we initially acknowledge that God is God.  That there is a God, and I am not Him.  That He made the heavens and the earth and all that is in them.  Unbelievably complex.  Including me.  And therefore I am accountable to Him.  He is Lord, and I will bow my knee to Him.  I think this initial humbling is about removing the spiritual vacuum.  It is about emerging from the vacuum chamber and out into the atmosphere, the world of sound, not only where your physical ears can hear beautiful music and birds and all the attendant noise, but where your spiritual ears can hear the still small sound of the voice of God.  I will bend my ear and listen to Him.  I will pay attention to Him and rank myself under Him and do what He wants.  This is the price we must pay.  I will live into doing what He wants.  He has told us.  He has shown us.  He has made it perfectly clear.  The heavens - everything around us - is declaring that there is a God, and He is glorious.  We just need to choose whether or not we will pay attention.  Whether or not we will humble ourselves, get off our high horse and acknowledge that He is God.  But in the end we find with the saints of old, that whatever price I think I have paid, that it was all more than worth it.  In the words of Hudson Taylor, I never made a sacrifice.

And for those of us who have done that, who have made this initial acknowledgement, there is the need to keep paying attention, the daily need to walk humbly with our God.  Walking humbly with God means we defer to Him, we tune in to Him.  Every day.  Because as we see with Israel, it doesn’t take much.  It doesn’t take much to get off track, to tune out.  We’re not talking about signal loss as much as we are talking about competing stations.  Isn’t that what happens on the radio?  You have this one station you really like to listen to, and invariably it seems as tho some other station will come along, set up shop closer to where you live, and it starts crowding out the station you’ve been listening to.  That’s what happened to the Israelites.  They were camping out in Shittim, in the plains of Moab, God had brought them so far and through so much, and King Balak hires Balaam to curse them, and instead God speaks through a donkey and through Balaam and blesses His people.  But there they are, camping right beside the banks of promise.  And [Num 25.1-3] they begin to play the harlot.

It doesn’t take much.  It doesn’t take long.  Every day brings with it a new need for fresh grace and fresh fire from the Lord, fresh spiritual fuel for our journey.  And the challenge is the same for us as it was for Israel.  Hear, O Israel.  Hear, O church.  Hear, hear!  Listen up!  Pay attention!  Pay attention to the Lord.  You and I and all God’s people need Him today.  We need to listen to His Word and His Spirit and depend on Him today, because apart from Him there is nothing we can do.  And the problem is not with our ears.  The problem is with our hearts.  We tune out.  Our hearts and our minds tune out - we turn the voice of the Lord into so much noise.  Woh woh woh.  Or there’s too much noise in our lives, so much noise that it’s drowning out the Lord.  We need to find ways to eliminate the extraneous noise.  Silence - that’s what we need.  The sounds of silence.  So that we can really hear.  Taking the time to listen.  

When do you do your best listening?  And where do you do your best listening?  What does it take for you to be able to hear the still small voice of the Lord?  Silence.  It is a spiritual discipline.

Luke 5:16 But Jesus Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray.

Matt. 14:23 After He had sent the crowds away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray; and when it was evening, He was there alone.

Mark 1:35   In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place, and was praying there.

Luke 6:12   It was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God.

Morning - or evening.  It made no difference to Jesus.  Where is your mountain?  Where do you find your wilderness?  Your alone time?  Where do you & I find silence in our lives?  When?  Jesus would find it often.  In our day, it is an increasingly fleeting commodity, so many messages and voices and stimuli coming screaming at us - even from the moment we wake up?

Psalm 46:10  

“Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and private: and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship.

C. S. Lewis

Inner silence is for our race a difficult achievement. There is a chattering part of the mind which continues, until it is corrected, to chatter on even in the holiest places.

C. S. Lewis

The moment you wake up each morning, all your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists in shoving it all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other, larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in.   C. S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis was heavily influenced by a Scottish author named George Macdonald.  Macdonald wrote this about heaven: he described it as "that region where there is only life, and all that is not music is silence."  It is an interesting thought - one on which Lewis then elaborates in The Screwtape Letters.  There, the “senior demon” Screwtape reveals one very interesting plan of the devil.

Music and silence–how I detest them both!….[Hell] has been occupied by Noise–Noise, the grand dynamism, the audible expression of all that is exultant, ruthless, and virile–Noise which alone defends us from silly qualms, despairing scruples and impossible desires. We will make the whole universe a noise in the end….The melodies and silences of Heaven will be shouted down in the end. (The Screwtape Letters, 119-120, emphasis added)

In order to drive us away from God, Satan chooses to distract us with “Noise.” He knows that if we are overrun by countless distractions that we will be unable to hear the voice of God in silence.

[turning off the tv]

Jesus - "My sheep hear My voice…"

Samuel - "Speak Lord, Your servant is listening..."

Ending promises

2.12-13

4.1-7

5.2-3

7.18-20

Outline of Micah

•  Hear I: Judgment Will Come (ch 1-2)

1. 1.1 - Hear the Word of the Lord
2. 1.5 - Israel AND Judah
3. 2.1 - Woe
4. 2.3 - Thus says the Lord
5. 2.12 - A remnant

Hear II: Judgment Then Blessing (ch 3-5)

1. 3:1 - Hear Heads/Rulers
2. 3.5 - (False) Prophets
3. 3.9 - Hear the judgment on leaders (rulers, priests, prophets)
4. 4.1 - Last days
5. 4.9 - Purposeful punishment
6. 5.1 - Messiah/Bethlehem
7. 5.10 - The Pruning

Hear III: Indictment And Blessing (ch 6-7)

1. 6.1 - Hear (shama) the indictment
2. 6.3 - God’s heart
3. 6.9 - The indictment
4. 7.1 - The perishing
5. 7.7 - The watching (for the Lord instead of for calamity)
6. 7.11 - The Come Back