I believe that one of the most important things that any of us will ever know is that God desires to be in a love relationship with each of us and that He builds that love relationship by communication. The Scriptures are filled with stories of God speaking to people. Throughout Genesis alone there is story after story that simply says “God spoke . . .” To Adam and Eve, to Cain, to Noah, to Abraham, to Hagar, to Isaac, to Jacob and to Joseph. To read the Bible is to see clearly that God spoke, but there is a measure of faith required to believe that God still, continually speaks, and that He speaks to us and that we have the ability to hear Him, understand Him, believe Him and obey Him. Whether it is through Scripture, a specific impression in our hearts or in our minds, through the words of a friend, a moment in time, a reflection upon nature or even an audible voice, God speaks, in fact, even now, in each of our lives, I believe that God is speaking. Many of you know that if you come to me with an issue, a problem or a need my general response is to ask you “What is God saying?” I’m a big believer that we can’t know what we are supposed to do, even the reality of what is actually happening in and around us unless and until we have heard God’s voice in the midst of whatever it is we are going through. Often I’m told, “I don’t know what God is saying” or “God’s not speaking”. If I can be brutally honest, usually, not always, but usually, what that means is “God isn’t saying what I want Him to say” or “God has already spoken but I’m not happy with His answer so I’m waiting for Him to say something else.” Hearing from God is a gift, it’s a privilege, it’s an opportunity but above everything else, it’s a responsibility. I’ve been told that I give people too much freedom, I’ve had pastors tell me that my beliefs and teaching that we all hear from God is dangerous because it gives people too much authority. I don’t even argue any of that anymore, I’m steadfast in my beliefs, the Father didn’t send the Son and the Son didn’t fill us with the Holy Spirit so that someone else could stand between us and God to tell us who God is, what God desires and what God is saying. If you are in Christ then the Holy Spirit is in you and He is not there so that I can tell you what God wants you to say, do and where He wants you to go. We all need teachers, we all need shepherds, we all need authority, we all need mentors, we all need accountability, we need each other and the truth of Scripture is that God gave the church, He gave to all of us singularly as the Body of Christ: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers for the purpose of equipping the saints (that means all of us) for the work of the ministry and the building up or encouraging of the Body of Christ until we reach unity in faith and knowledge of Jesus and begin to live in maturity. We all hear from God, the purpose of church leadership is to teach us that we hear from God and to teach us how to live according to God’s voice, encourage us not to give up on God’s voice and to build and bind us together as we all individually and corporately follow God’s voice. I share all of that today because our text verse, Hosea 1:2 provides a great test case for how we react when God speaks and what He says doesn’t make any sense to us. One of the biggest challenges to teaching people that they hear from God is, what do you do when they come to you and say “I believe God is speaking to me . . .” and then the next thing they say is something that I really don’t want to agree with. I came to the conclusion that I can’t teach people that they hear from God and then tell them they haven’t heard from God when I don’t agree with them. My task is to steer all of us to God’s character, is this something that sounds like God, is this contrary to what we know about God, what we see about Him in Scripture. One last point on this, if you don’t know Scripture it doesn’t mean you won’t be able to hear from God, it means you won’t be able to discern what is from God and what is not. The only way to truly, confidently and faithfully hear God’s voice is to be filled with God’s Word. The Bible is the fullest revelation of who God is that we have been given, the Holy Spirit reminds us of the words of Jesus, He inspires us to read, understand and interpret God’s Word but apart from God’s Word we have nothing to use to discern and divide God’s voice from every other voice that competes for our attention and affection. If you want to not only hear from God but know that you have heard from God you must become faithfully filled with God’s Word, there is no shortcut or substitute.