John K. Jenkins Sr - Can You Hear Me Now? - Part 1

All right, get your Bibles and open them up to Jeremiah chapter 33. You know what to do : stand on your feet. Jeremiah, that's in the Old Testament, page 695. I want to read these first three verses . When you get it , say, "I got it." Got it? Verse one: Moreover, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah a second time while he was still shut up in the court of the prison , saying, "Thus says the Lord who made it, the Lord who formed it to establish it; the Lord is His name." Verse three: "Call to me, and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things which you do not know." Let me read that verse three again: "Call to me, and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things which you do not know." Amen. I want to talk about, "Can you hear me now?" Turn to your neighbor and say, "Can you hear me now?" Can you hear me now? Turn to the other side: "Can you hear me now?" Great! Father, thank you for the time to spend in Your Word. I pray that You anoint our time, anoint us to be Your mouthpiece and Your instrument. Speak Your truth, that Your truth be proclaimed, and that lives be changed and impacted. In Jesus' name we pray. And everybody said, "Amen." Amen.

I never cease to be amazed at how technology has changed over the years. I've never ceased to be amazed that we've gone from wired telephone systems to cordless and wireless telephone systems. As a matter of fact, it's amazing to me that you can talk to somebody on the other side of the world with a cordless wireless device. Anyone who has spent any time in the technology field with telephones knows that phones are great when they work , but there are some times and places when cell phones, in particular, don't work very well. If you go through a bad area or where the signal is weak, you're likely to drop a call, especially if you have AT&T. [Applause] It is what it is; it's the truth. You find yourself dropping a call and then calling the person back , and what do you say? "Can you hear me now?" That 's a good question - a question that I think we ought to talk about today as it relates to the recognition that in this technological age , you can be in an area and in a situation where your phone call, your conversation, may not be heard. But we also need to recognize that just as that's true in the natural, it's also true in the spiritual-that there are people who fail to recognize that you can be in a particular place and a specific part of your walk where your prayer to God cannot be heard . That 's what I want to talk about today. I want to discuss whether God can hear your prayer .

As a matter of fact, this verse here is so powerful. Jeremiah, the prophet, has the assignment of declaring and preaching to the people of Judah, who have disobeyed God and found themselves in sin. God sends Jeremiah to prophetically warn them about the coming judgment in their lives , and God says to them- I love this verse right here in chapter 33 . God essentially makes a declaration in verse number three. He says , "Call to me," and in verse three , He says, "I will answer you and show you great and mighty things which you do not know." Here 's a promise from God. Here 's a declaration from God. As a matter of fact, what I have studied and learned about the things of God is that people who accomplish incredible things in their lives are people who have a prayer life. If you want to see someone who did something significant in life, you'll find that somewhere along the way, that person had an integral, powerful prayer life with God. Some of you will never go anywhere until you learn how to pray-until you learn how to really pray.

Some of us only pray when we have our backs against the wall, when we're in trouble, when we face a challenge, or when we have an issue. But let me tell you, that's not what impresses God . When you can have a prayer life with God that continues whether or not you have drama, that's what captures God's attention. Here 's what the promise of the scripture says: God says, "Call to me." Now let me walk through this for just a moment . God says, "Call to me," and that word " call" is an important word because in Hebrew , the word call means to cry out, to make a proclamation, or to utter a sound. It means to open your mouth. One of the problems we have is that we want to pray nice , cute, quiet, silent prayers. Now, don't get me wrong; God can hear your silent prayer, but there should come times when you are not ashamed to open your mouth and cry out to the name of God. There should be seasons and times when you recognize that God wants to hear your voice, and that's what this passage emphasizes: you are verbalizing ; you are crying out .