So what are the conditions there? What does it look like, when a relationship is in bad shape? Actually there's no passion, there's no fire, there's no excitement, there's no joy. It's actually ho-hum. Is that right, ho-hum? No ho-ho, it's ho-hum. So when relationships have deteriorated, the ho-ho has gone, and there's just ho-hum [Laughter] isn't that right? Okay then. Now what would that look like for a Christian then, who started their relationship with a lot of ho-ho, and now it's ho-hum? The core behind that, is they've stopped hearing and responding to Jesus; and they've substituted personal connection with Jesus, hearing what He has to say, with religious duties, or religious habits. Now I believe it's great to have habits. We need to have habits, but they are not a substitute for living connection with Jesus. Now that really creates a bit of a problem, because if we individually stop hearing Jesus and responding to Him, we are now living our life out of habit and routines, and it lacks passion, life, vitality, spontaneity - it becomes ho-hum and routine.
The problem is, most people don't know when they stopped hearing and responding. They just drift that way. It's true of marriages. It's true in families. It's true of all relationships, that if they're not nurtured and built in the communications area, they will diminish until there's nothing left. Now understanding that means we need to place a high priority on personally, and corporately, hearing the voice of God. Of all the skills you could learn in your spiritual journey, if I could just nail it down to one, it would be this: learn how to hear His voice; and then choose to consistently say: yes, and respond by doing something. Would that be true? That sums it all up aye? You don't need much more than that, but I'll give you a bit more [laughs], because it raises a lot of problems and a lot of questions, so here's a couple of questions I could ask you straight away to just get you thinking.
Here's the first one. What's the last thing that Jesus said to you? How long ago was it? What have you been doing about it? If that's a bit of a guilty response after that, and it's a long time since you last heard Jesus speak personally to you, your relationship is in trouble - not with Him, He's fine. You're the one who's in trouble, because you've replaced a living, vibrant connection, with routine, and it gets boring, and you get bored. You get to quit on doing the stuff that God wants you to do, so that's interesting isn't it? Well okay then, so we'll think about that. So Jesus actually made a number of cautions. Looking through the gospels, and Jesus' teaching, did you realise, eight times it's recorded in the gospels alone, Jesus said: that he that has ears to hear, let him hear. In other words, He's saying: make sure you stay tuned in to God; and He gave many, many warnings related to that. In the Book of Revelation, which is about the end time church, it's about the revealing of Jesus Christ, seven times He said: let he that has an ear to hear, hear what the spirit is saying to the churches.
Now here's an interesting thought: God is speaking to you individually; God is speaking to the church. Now if God is speaking to you individually, then He'll speak in a personal way, about the issues of your life, about your relationships - He's interested in every arena in your life. He does want to talk to you about that. But He also wants to talk to us corporately. Now when He talks to us corporately, I'll put it down in a simple thing. It means: He's talking to Bay City people, about something, at one time; hence the need to place importance on what God is saying to us. Now I can go on the Internet, I can hear all things God's saying all over the world, to all kinds of different people, but they're all around the world. What I need to be hearing is what God is saying to us here, in Hastings, New Zealand; and so to do that I need to be attentive to that, so Sunday gatherings for example, we gather at church like this. I wait on the Lord for messages. I just don't think: well give me something to do you know? I'm listening to God. In fact, if I don't hear from God, I get quite upset, under pressure, and I don't know what to do. It's no trouble, if you have experience, and if you're a teacher, to have a message; but it's something else to hear the voice of the spirit, and say what God is saying to us; so when I bring messages, I endeavour to hear, or have something quickened, by the Holy Spirit, that's what He is saying to us. He is saying at the moment, He's inspiring and calling us, to follow Jesus; to actually centre our focus on Him; and to understand in our life and personal walk, what it'll mean to follow Him, to be a follower of Jesus Christ, not just a Christian.