God Hears You - Pastor Brad DeLong

Psalm 34, I've read it many times, came alive to me this week. David has just been through a pretty precarious situation. If you read about the backstory there, it's probably annotated in your Bible. He just had to act like he was crazy to escape a crazy king. Verse four, he says, "I sought the Lord and he heard me." All right, you can go home. It's that powerful. That'd be all the word. If that was all the word you got today, it'd be enough. I sought the Lord and he heard me.

And then he says, he delivered me out of all of my fears. They looked to him and were radiant. Their faces were not ashamed. This poor man cried out and the Lord heard him. That's two times. And heard him and saved him out of all of his troubles. The angel of the Lord encamps all around those who fear him and delivers them. There's a tie between hearing and delivering. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who trusts in him. Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints.

There is no want to those who fear him. The young lions lack and suffer hunger. But those who seek the Lord will not lack any good thing or any god thing. Come you children, listen to me. I'll teach you to fear the Lord. Who is the man that desires life and loves many days that he may see good? Keep your tongue from evil, your lips from speaking deceit. Depart from evil and do good. seek peace and pursue it. David was using his mouth, voice, and lips to talk to the Lord.

We ought to use our mouth, voice, and lips to talk to God more than anybody. The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry. Three times the face of the Lord's against those who do evil to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart. Save such as have a contrite spirit. For the last month or so, God's just been giving us plain simple word, faithfilled word.

Today will be no different. We're going to discuss a subject just as simple, but just as profound, straightforward title. God hears you. He hears you. I believe I believe just because of how good he is that that title alone was the answer to somebody's prayer and questioning. If you've ever like me taken for granted the simple fact that he hears you and you want to thank the Lord or you just want to thank the Lord. Maybe you've never taken it for granted. I wonder if you just slip your hands to heaven and thank God right now that he hears you.

that you're not just speaking into the void and into the empty air, but God hears your voice and he loves the sound of your voice and and he gave you that voice for this expressed purpose that you would praise him and and call on him. And Lord, I thank you, Jesus. And I never want to take this for granted. I pray that you would give us a fuller understanding of what it means that you hear us, Lord, that we seek you and that we find you and that you hear every prayer and every cry and every utterance of your name.

I pray you'd help us in our faith today. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Amen. I know I can feel that you're with me already. I don't plan to preach too long famous last words, but I feel a very specific direction at the close today. And I know that you all will continue with me. You can be seated, but let's stay in that vein of faith together. despite what it may look like. That is not Lauren Stoops right there. That was AI. But he does hear you, Lauren.

He does hear you. I really don't have any uh frills or illiterative titles or I did man of math a couple weeks ago. I don't have any wild props and and illustrations for you today. I've just come armed with a simple mandate and a simple message. I've come to convince somebody, multiple somebodyodies, whoever you are, from the word of the Lord and from the power of the Holy Ghost that's here, that God hears you. That God has been hearing you. That God has never not heard you.

He hears you even now. He will hear you in the future. He will hear you when you come to this altar in a few minutes. He will hear you whether you believe that he's hearing you or not. He will hear YOU WHEN YOU DOUBT THAT HE HEARS YOU. HE'S GOING TO HEAR YOU WHEN you think he's distracted. When you think that God is unresponsive, he's going to hear you even then. He hears you even in the midst of a crowded world full of people all desperate to get his attention and to receive his answers.

Every time you call on him and on his name, our God hears you. He hears you. In that vein of simplicity, today I want to use a simple analogy in order to try to demonstrate this this truth. I quoted this passage a few weeks ago. I want to circle back to it. It always piques my interest both as a father and as someone who calls on my heavenly father day after day. It brings me such hope and such clarity. And you can think about this when you're praying today.

Jesus says this to us in Matthew 7. Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you'll find. Knock and it will be open to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be open. Or what man is there among you? If his son asks for bread, you give him a stone. Anyone done that recently? No. Okay, good. Or if he asks for a fish, YOU GIVE HIM A SERPENT. I don't even have a serpent to give, but I wouldn't have one in the first place.

If you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father who's in heaven give good things to those who ask him? He uses the comparison between his response to his children and the response of an imperfect and earthly father who may be evil. And I was looking at that word. I was thinking, well, maybe it doesn't actually mean evil. We'll maybe we'll soften that a little bit. It actually means evil. It means fathers who are the opposite of good.

And Jesus just calls us out, dads. All right? But he says, "You, even you being evil, you'll still give your children what they ask." He paints the picture that if all of us earthly dads are attentive and generous and responsive, even though we're imperfect and evil, how much more will our perfect and wonderful and generous Heavenly Father reward us with good things when we ask? I'm going to draw in this simple comparison to make a a point. Just a few weeks ago, I heard a cry from my office.

I was in the office and I heard a cry from the sanctuary. The sanctuary had quite a few people within it. And we hear cries in this room all the time. We've got a lot of babies around. That's the way we like it. You want to know what a healthy church looks like. It should have a baby or two or 10. And we love it around here. All right. I see you all during the message passing babies around. We got nurseries over here. And we got nurseries over.

We like that. Okay, bring on the babies. So, I don't really think much of it when I hear a baby cry in the sanctuary. You all have a lot of babies. Babies cry. So, it it it doesn't typically pique my my uh curiosity or at least have any alarm bells go off. But, but not this particular cry. This cry was unique. This cry I knew was from a 2-year-old little girl with brown eyes and brown hair and a smile that will melt any person on this planet.

This cry arrested my attention. I was probably doing something else. I can't exactly remember what I was doing, but despite all the other people and voices and noises and cries in the room, it it rippled through those airwaves and caught the attention of this imperfect dad with his very imperfect hearing. It did not take more than 3 seconds for me to determine through all the other noise and distractions, even the wall that separated us, that that's my Selena. And that's her cry of distress, one that I am attuned to, one that I am now very accustomed to.

You probably heard her this morning. Many of you parents know it's it's pretty well involuntary. It's almost automatic that when your kiddo cries, even in a room full of people and other babies, you just know it. you can hear it over all the other noise. It's it's how you were made. It's how you were wired. And some call this the selective uh attention hearing or pardon the reference, the cocktail party effect. When a parent's ears and brain and and eyes will tune into the cry and the frequency of their own child, their brain actually takes that sound and prioritizes it over all others.

It automatically starts closing down all the other sounds and prioritizes that sound. And then you have something called auditory acoustic discrimination. It kicks in where parents can determine is that cry for fear or pain or hunger or just general disontentment. So when we're at the house and I hear a kiddo crying in the basement, usually I can tell pretty quickly if that cry is coming because they're hurt or because they have hurt feelings. Me and Mariah have actually said someone's hurt. You know it. You can hear it.

And you start running. We're uh we're made in God's image and and he's attentive to our cry. And this is why when when Wesley walked in a room at 2 am the other night, I could hear him sniffling and I knew he wasn't crying because he was afraid. He may have been a little afraid. He shallow breathing. I'm dead asleep, but before I know it, I'm standing up and I'm moving towards him where I was already awake. She heard him before I did. Okay, I didn't say I had perfect uh uh you know, intuition there, but and I IT'S ALMOST INVOLUNTARY.

YOU HEAR the cry, you know something's wrong. You're up out of bed even when you're asleep. And when you consider our text and the later Psalm 121 where it says, "God will not allow your foot to stumble. He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep." This reality starts to sink in a little bit. Not only is he always awake and always alert, but Psalm 34 paints the picture all the more fully WHEN IT JUST READS THIS VERY VERY MATTEROF FACTLY.

DAVID SAYS, "I SOUGHT THE LORD and he heard me." I sought the Lord and he heard me. Period. NO DOUBT. NO DOUBT ABOUT IT. Even before the OUTPOURING OF THE HOLY GHOST, HE HE KNEW. AND THEN HE SAYS, "THIS POOR MAN CRIED OUT AND the Lord heard me. The righteous cry out and the Lord HEARS THEM. THE EYES of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their cry. I read those four this week and I got so overwhelmed that God is that attentive to my prayer that a praise break just broke out there in my office and I thought it'd be fitting if we just stop and we just thank the Lord that he hears us.

Oh, would you just TAKE A MOMENT AND THANK GOD THAT HE HAS HEARD YOU EVERY single time? AND EVERY TIME I CALLED on you over and over and OVER AGAIN, YOU HEARD ME. OH GOD, I DON'T EVER want to take that for granted. I don't want to take it for granted. All my faith and my prayers are based on this. And if I struggle with this, and if you're struggling with this today, the Lord knows it is trying to settle some things. I got so overwhelmed.

And then when I uh studied that verse 15 and got into the the language there, it it painted an even more uh poignant picture that theme theme of that psalm is to teach us of God's care and concern for his children, his continuous care. Verse 15 points this out. The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous. His ears are open to their cry. When you look at the original wording there, one rendering gets a little closer to the Hebrew. gives you an even better picture.

It says, "The eyes of the Lord are toward the godly. His ears are toward their cry." Another rendering is they're attentive. They they attend continually to your cry. The phrasing suggests that God is actually just he's postured towards you. You ever walk up to a door and you're listening to hear what's going on in that room and I've never done like the glass thing. You put the glass on there. Just imagine God leaning in apparently continually waiting on you, posturing himself towards you to hear your prayer and doing that steadfastly.

And then you see this in Psalm 116. It says, "I love the Lord because he's heard my voice and my supplications because he's inclined his ear to me. Therefore, I will call upon him as long as I live." The the pains of death SURROUNDED ME. THE PAINS OF SHIELD laid hold of me. I I found trouble and sorrow. THEN I CALLED UPON THE NAME of the Lord. He said, "Oh Lord, I implore you, deliver my soul." The word incline there just means that God kind of bent down.

Now, he doesn't really need to, but it shows God's posture. You ever been talking to someone and they're just looking off or they're looking over your shoulder? Probably talking to me sometime. Hopefully I don't do that to you often and I if I'm looking around, but when you're looking at someone and they're looking you in the eyes and they're listening intently, you know it. Now, maybe you can't see that God's doing that, but his word paints this picture. He's leaning in. And when you look at that with Psalm 34, you just get this image of the Lord our God with his ear towards us.

There's been some times in in recent times when our kiddos have been sick and and we just checked in and we open the door and we and we look in and we listen and we listen for their breathing and we're listening for faint. You know that our God loves you so much that when you're afraid and you're at home or you're on the job and you you breathe a prayer under your breath, Lord, I don't know what I'm doing. I hear you. I'm with you. I remember being at the auto auction.

I had a limited amount of money and I was able to get into the auto auction and in rolls this blue Honda Civic and as soon as it does all these guys swarm it and they're checking the thing and they're they're looking at it and they're listening to the engine. I thought there's no chance I'm getting that vehicle. There's just no way these guys are going to outbid me all day and I we needed a car. engine blew up and we're broke as a joke and and all the things.

It starts price starts going up. We're getting close to my cap. I knew what Kelly Blue Book and all stuff said. And I remember bowing my head saying, "Jesus, help us." I don't know if the Lord wanted me to get it more than those other people, but the bidding stopped. And you could think, well, yeah, those guys knew their price. And I thought the same thing. The owners came up to me and said, they said, 'We can't sell this car for that cheap. We can't sell it at the dealership for that cheap.

You have to go to this dollar amount. That's the lowest we can go. Happened to be the dollar amount I had. You think God hears you? He hears you every time. I don't even know who I'm talking to today. I don't know how far I'm getting today. Little me, part of me is a little worried. I'm like, "Okay, Brad, you're jumping. That's all right. Following the Holy Ghost." In honor of Sister Carol Kesler, who told me uh a couple years ago, she said, "Pastor, you preach better when you're not on your notes." She meant it as a great compliment.

I thought, "Man, I'm on my notes 95% of the time." Love Sister Kessler. We miss her. She believed this. Every time you call on him, I was thinking this morning, first time I knew that the Lord heard me. I was at 13th and Grao. I was on one of the uh you really can't compare this room to that one. That room was just long. And I was midway back sitting with mom and dad. The Holy Ghost was moving on a Sunday night. And my brother was up in the choir loft.

I don't know what he had done that week acting up, but I was burdened for him. I think I was about eight years old. You were up there singing. And I remember putting my head down. I said, "Lord, will you please touch my brother?" And when he let the Holy Ghost move on my brother and within about three seconds, I saw my brother's countenance change. He was already worshiping God. He was up there. I watched his countenance change and he jumped the pew to get out of that choir loft and got in the altar and was seeking the face of God.

And I knew in that moment, God hears me. God hears my prayer. I don't have the list of psalms in front of me. You put that first Psalm Psalm 43 up with Eric, but know that the Lord has set apart for himself who is godly. The Lord will hear when I call him. Go to Psalm 5 if you don't mind. Give ear to my words, oh Lord. Consider my meditation. Keep going for me. Give heed to the voice of my cry, my king and my God.

For to you I will pray. My voice you'll hear in the morning, oh Lord. And not just in the morning, but when you think nobody's listening and when the house is quiet and all you got is your Bible and maybe a cup of coffee. Brother Aaron, right? Praise God. And the Holy Ghost, he's hearing you. I just get this image in the morning of the Lord waiting on me. All right, get up, child. Get up. I'm ready for you. I'm ready to listen to you and I'm ready to talk to you.

God hears you. When you uttered that prayer this morning, before you ever got in this building, God heard you. Would you go to Psalm 10 for me? The Lord is king forever and ever. The nations have perished out of his hand. Lord, you've heard the desire of not just the words. You've heard the desire of the humble. You'll prepare their heart. You'll cause your ear to hear to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed that the man of the earth may oppress no more. Would you skip on to the next one?

In my distress, I called upon the Lord. I cried out to my God. He heard my voice from his temple. My cry came before him, even to his ears. I don't know what I was thinking before this week. Why I didn't have the appreciation I have for this simple truth that I have now. When I read something like that, my cry came before him, even to his ears. I think about, well, Lord, you got a lot of people crying out to you. How can you hear mine?

Well, if me being imperfect and evil can hear that little one crying in a room full of people, God can hear you. And he does. Would you go to the next one with Eric? This is the Lord's speaking to us. The psalm starts with the uh saying that he who abides in the shadow of the Almighty be safe and will dwell under the shadow of his wings. And the Lord says, "He shall call upon me and I will answer him. I'll be with him in trouble.

I'll deliver him and honor him. And then one of my favorite psalms, Psalm 139. Oh Lord, you've searched me and known me. You know my sitting down, my rising up. You understand my thoughts are far off. You comprehend my path and my lying down. You're acquainted with all of my ways, even the ones I want to forsake. For there's not a word on my tongue. Behold Lord, you know it all together. Another rendering says, "Before the word even gets to my mouth, you know it." And Jesus says, "Your father knows what you have need of before you even ask him." Someone has been praying for healing and you've been wondering if he's even hearing you.

Someone's been praying for that provision we talked about a couple weeks ago and it hasn't come yet. And you're wondering, "I don't even know if God's hearing me." I'm here to tell you from what I believe is the Holy Ghost impressing me, he did hear you. He did. He heard you. He heard you every time. Every time you asked God for help, he heard you. Even the times you thought, even the times you couldn't even voice the prayer, God heard you. Even before you asked him, he heard you.

We had one of our new family members, precious uh family members come Fall Fest last year. I had no idea that this happened, but he said before he walked in the building, he had asked the Lord a very lifealtering yes or no question. Said, "Lord, I need to know if your answer's yes or your answer's no." And I believe that you're going to tell me that answer today at church. Three weeks earlier, the Lord had been dealing with me about a message. It was just yes, Jesus loves you.

And I'm talking to Sister Christy Scott in the office. I said, 'C Christie, I don't know what's going on with this, but I just feel like we need to put the word yes in big bold, as big and bold as we can get. We need to make it as big. It needs to take up most of the screen. I I told him, I said, "I'm not smart enough to know what you asked God today on the way to church. I'm not omnicient. All I know is that three weeks ago, the Lord started dealing with me and days before you got here, he was he was procuring your answer.

I stood right over there with him and he said, "I ASKED GOD, YOU GOT TO TELL ME YES OR NO, and you need to make it plain." AND THEN THE THE TITLE GOES UP ON THE SCREEN AND HE SAID, "ALL RIGHT, I GET IT, GOD. I GET IT. I GET IT. I get it. You're going to pray a prayer at this altar today. The Lord knows what you're going to pray before you even pray it. And he's going to hear you and he's going to respond.

Here's the second point as I hurry along. He heard you the first time you asked on the first day. One of my favorite stories is Daniel praying and fasting for 21 days. He's ma meeting resistance. He's not even getting his answer. He's getting resistance. Some of you haven't got your answer. You're just getting more resistance, more attacks, more life, more storms, more floods. Lord, I thought you were going to answer me. I thought you heard me. and and yet here comes the enemy attacking you all over again.

I think we're in the vein right now. Instead of God's answer, you've been getting the enemy's answer, which may be a part of God's answer. The angel comes to Daniel. Would you throw that up for me, brother? He's doing a great job. said to me, "Oh, Daniel, man, greatly beloved." Oh, if we could know how much God loves us, that someone's been wandering about this and wondering. You've been threatened over an answer. Tuesday of this week, I had a different message planned. I had written quite a bit of it.

It's probably just I wasn't hearing God. And the Lord comes and says, "No, you're going to talk about this He said, "Do not fear, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand." Our posture when we come to God matters. If my kids come to me and say, "I demand that you give me a cookie." Right now, I might consider it. We're going to have words first. I might make them wait a while. 2 Chronicles said, "If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I'll hear, forgive, heal." Well, that's conditional.

God, if you read through those psalms, it matters our posture towards the Lord. Now, he will take it and I I still love my kids if they make that demand, but I may not be as apt to answer. They might need to learn a lesson first. But Daniel postures himself to understand. And the angel says, "From the first day, you begin to set your heart to understand and call on the your words were heard and I have come because of your words. The angel started moving because of his words.

It took 21 days. Maybe you're on your 21st day, but God heard you on the first day. And he heard you on the second. And he heard you on the third day and the fourth and the fifth. And he heard you when you didn't think you were even when you were praying in the spirit. He heard you. And he heard you when you were talking to that brother or sister and saying, "I just don't understand." He heard you when you were grumbling. even when you were grown.

And God heard the Israelites when they were grumbling. He heard them. God heard you the first time. He'll hear you the 21st time. And he may not have a time. You may not have his timetable. He's going to hear you hundth time, the thousandth time. I hope it doesn't last that long. But I've just come to convince you that God hears you. He hears you. To that saint who is doubting and struggling, he hears you. To the one who is hurt and wondering when God's going to heal you, he hears you.

To the one who's grieving right now, you may not even be able to express words. He still hears you. I really felt to help our kids today. And this is where we're going to land. If you're a a young man, young lady, even in youth age, you got some youth. You're 0 to 18. I'm going to have you stand for me. 0 to 18 in the room. Parents, help me out. Oh, yeah. Nathan, I didn't know you were. I'm just All right, kids. We believe in this generation.

We believe in them. I want you kids to hear me. Okay? Every time you pray, God hears you. when you're around the bed at night or you're in the living room and you're acting up and you don't want to pray. Oh, we know it in the Dong house. I got to help Mariah all the time. Wesley. He hears you every time, Miss Ev. God hears you, Isaiah. Every prayer, he's heard it, Zach. Every time. Every time you've called on the name of the Lord, Miss Ava.

Every time you're up here worshiping God, those hands lit. He hears you. Those prayers that mom and dad don't even hear. Those prayers in kids church when you're praying over your pet cat. He hears you. This altar call is not going to exclude the rest of us that aren't 18 or younger. But this week, I just felt the Lord nudge me to have every one of our young men and women who have a need to come and express that need to God. He's going to hear them.

Parents, you can help me out with this. You can join them. Maybe that young man or lady needs the Holy Ghost. I believe God will fill them with the Holy Ghost today. He hears you when you call in the name of Jesus. When you ask for the gift of the Holy Ghost, he hears you and he's ready. He's ready. Maybe there's a need in the family. That young man or lady's going to step out and they're going to trust God and God's going to hear them.

For the rest of us, we're going to pray that God answers their prayer because this this prayer could set up the faith for the rest of their life. I never forgot when the Lord heard me at 8 years old. And I always believed that God hears me. And then we're going to join them and maybe you'll come down and you'll lift your hands and one of these young men and women can pray for you. You all know how to pray. I know you do. Here's what I'm going to ask every young man, every young lady that has a need.

Or maybe you got someone in your family that has a need. Someone at your school. I know there's a a need close to the Elkins family. I'm going to ask the Elkins kids to pray and need for healing. There's a need in your life or your family. Parents, help me out. Everybody, you can stand with me. That way, it's not a spectator sport. And I'm going to have all of our young men and young women just begin to come. You got a need and you want to pray, just step down here right now.

Come on down. Oh yeah. You all are leading the way today. I'm putting a lot on your shoulders, but you're leading the way. And when you get down here, just get as close to the front as you can. I want you to lift your hands and begin to call on the name of the Lord and believe that God's going to help and God's going to touch and others are going to join you in just a moment. You all are leading the way. You're you're expressing faith, but they're seeing your faith right now.

So, close your eyes right now. Lift those hands. If you've got a need, just begin to call on the name of the Lord and he's going to hear you right now and he's going to respond. And church family, like I said, it's not a spectator sport and you know that. Would you just stretch your hand towards him? or if you feel like you could come down and join them, would you step out of where you are and join these young men and women in their faith and believe that God's I'm looking for some Sunday school teachers and parents and grandparents to come right now.

And we're going to believe that God hears our prayers. Ah, would you lift your voice right now knowing that the Lord hears you? Young men, young women, use that outside voice. Call him he'll hear you no matter what. But begin to pray and seek the Lord of God. you hear these prayers right now. And if you've got a need in the congregation, you can follow suit. If you need the Lord's touch or help, just step out of where you are and come down to this altar.

And we're going to expect that God's going to hear us in the name of Jesus.