Drawing Near to God #7

Drawing Near God Overview

In this seventh installment of the Drawing Near to God series, the pastor builds on a foundation of line-upon-line teaching, anchoring the message in James 4:7-10 as the cornerstone passage. He opens by setting the historical context of the scattered Jewish believers who, under pressure from the Judaizers and the surrounding culture, began drifting from their first love and compromising their walk with God. The sermon then moves into a rich exploration of how Christians hear the voice of God, drawing from Mark 4:24, Luke 8:18, and Proverbs 4:20-22 to establish three distinct dimensions of hearing: what we hear, how we hear, and the effort we invest in hearing. The pastor uses vivid illustrations, including thunder over open water and the power of echoing strongholds, to show how God’s voice is meant to be unobstructed and dominant in the believer’s life. Key passages from 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, Proverbs 18:21, and Psalm 29:1-9 are unpacked to reveal the weapons of our warfare, the creative power of spoken words, and the thundering majesty of God’s voice. The message closes with a powerful examination of John 6, where disciples walked away from Jesus because of offense, contrasted with Peter’s declaration that only Jesus has the words of eternal life.

Drawing Near God Outline

• 0:00 – Introduction and Series Foundation: The pastor explains the value of building teaching line upon line, emphasizing that faith comes by hearing repeatedly, and opens in prayer asking God to enlighten hearts with heavenly treasure.
• 5:30 – James 4:7-10 and the Historical Context: An examination of the scattered Jewish believers, the persecution of the Judaizers, and why James urges humility, repentance, and drawing close to God as the answer to spiritual drift.
• 14:00 – What You Hear Shapes Your Life: Drawing from Mark 4:24, the pastor teaches that the content of what we consistently listen to determines whether good or bad multiplies in our lives, using the news cycle as a practical illustration.
• 24:00 – How You Hear Matters: From Luke 8:18, the message explores how our internal posture and spiritual condition filter every word we receive, showing through examples of children and offended people how perception distorts truth.
• 33:00 – Inclining Your Ear and the Heart Versus the Head: Proverbs 4:20-22 is opened to show that God’s word must travel from the head into the heart through persistent, effortful hearing, where it becomes life and health to the flesh.
• 41:00 – Pulling Down Strongholds and the Power of Your Words: Second Corinthians 10:3-5 and Proverbs 18:21 are combined to reveal how strongholds form through repeated negative hearing and how declaring God’s word aloud reshapes our lives through the creative power of the tongue.
• 49:00 – The Voice of the Lord in Psalm 29: A verse-by-verse walk through Psalm 29:1-9 illustrates that God’s voice is like thunder over open water, powerful enough to break the cedars of Lebanon and strip away every obstacle between the believer and God.
• 55:00 – John 6 and the Bread of Life: The pastor unpacks Jesus’s teaching on eating His flesh and drinking His blood as a metaphor for continuous, heart-level communion with the Father, contrasting disciples who left in offense with Peter’s revelation-driven confession.

Scripture References

James 4:7-10, Mark 4:24, Luke 8:18, Proverbs 4:20-22, Psalm 46:10, Philippians 1:27-28, 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, Proverbs 18:21, Psalm 29:1-9, Genesis 1:4, Luke 11:35, John 6:43-45, John 6:50-51, John 6:52-58, John 6:61, John 6:66-67, Ephesians 4:29, Matthew 11

Key Takeaways

• Faith grows not by hearing something once but by hearing the word of God again and again until it moves from your head into your heart and produces lasting fruit.
• What you consistently listen to will determine whether goodness multiplies in your life or whether even the good you have begins to leave, so guarding what you hear is a spiritual discipline.
• God’s voice is meant to thunder over every competing voice in your life like lightning over open water, unobstructed and undiluted by the noise of circumstances, politics, or fear.
• Strongholds are built by repeated negative thoughts echoing in the mind, but they can be torn down by persistently speaking and hearing the word of God until His voice becomes the loudest reality.
• Offense is one of the greatest threats to spiritual growth, capable of causing people who were present with Jesus from the beginning to walk away, while those who press through offense receive revelation from the Father.
• Death and life are in the power of your tongue, meaning your own spoken words carry more creative authority over your future than the words of any doctor, politician, or critic.
• Drawing near to God is not reserved for comfortable seasons or refreshing conferences but is most urgently needed in the middle of battles, when every natural voice says God’s promises will not come to pass.

Drawing Near God Notes

Persistent Hearing Transforms the Heart

The central thrust of this message is that transformation does not happen through a single encounter with truth but through relentless, repeated exposure to God’s word. The pastor draws on Romans 10:17 in spirit, showing that faith comes by hearing and hearing. The word must first enter the mind, where it faces resistance from false beliefs, old desires, and competing philosophies. Only as a believer keeps returning to the word does it begin to sink below the level of intellectual debate and settle into the heart, where it takes root and produces the fruit of healing, prosperity, and godly character.

Three Dimensions of Hearing God

Jesus addresses hearing in three distinct ways in the Gospels and Proverbs. First, He warns about what we hear, because negative input displaces goodness. Second, He instructs on how we hear, since a heart carrying offense or pride will distort even pure truth. Third, Proverbs calls us to incline our ear, a word meaning to go uphill with effort, suggesting that receiving God’s word requires deliberate spiritual exertion. Together these three dimensions form a complete picture of the kind of listening that opens the heart to divine revelation rather than merely filling the mind with religious information.

The Couch Illustration on Trouble

In a moment of warm pastoral humor, the pastor recounts a story of a furniture salesman who described a couch as large enough to seat five people without trouble, prompting a customer to reject it because he knew no one without trouble. The point lands clearly: everyone faces difficulty, and drawing near to God is not a luxury for easy seasons. It is the urgent, necessary response to battles, sickness, financial pressure, and relational conflict. The incline of Proverbs 4 demands that believers put more effort into hearing God’s voice precisely when circumstances make that most difficult.

Strongholds, Words, and Creative Power

Second Corinthians 10:3-5 reveals that the believer’s warfare is not against flesh and blood but against fortified patterns of thought built by hearing negative messages repeatedly. These strongholds echo like a chamber, stealing sleep and replacing peace with anxiety. The solution is not merely to resist bad thoughts but to fill the inner life with God’s word spoken aloud, because Proverbs 18:21 declares that death and life are in the power of the tongue. Your own voice is more persuasive to you than any other voice on earth, which is why declaring God’s promises is not optional decoration but essential spiritual warfare.

John 6 and the Danger of Offense

Jesus’s bread-of-life discourse in John 6 provoked mass departure among His disciples, not His enemies. People who had walked with Him from the beginning turned back because His words offended their expectations. The pastor uses this passage to show that offense is the mechanism by which the enemy steals the word before it reaches the heart. Peter’s response stands as the model: despite confusion and moments of frustration with Jesus, he had heard long enough and deeply enough that the Father had written the truth on his heart. His confession was not intellectual but revelatory, and that is the destination God intends for every believer.

The Voice of God Like Thunder Over Water

Psalm 29 paints a vivid portrait of God’s voice as thunder that breaks the mightiest cedars, shakes deserts, and strips forests bare. The pastor draws on his Navy experience to illustrate that thunder over open water carries no buffers, no trees, no buildings to absorb its force. He applies this image to the believer’s inner life, calling every listener to remove whatever buffers God’s voice: corrupt communication, unchecked media consumption, unresolved offense, and misplaced loyalty. When those barriers are gone, His voice enters with full force, and the response of everyone in His temple is simply glory.

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