Amen. So, God's silence, when I started to think about this, is really about your perspective of the silence. It's really about what that is. I mean, whether it's physical or it's mental, we have to turn the ambient noise down in our lives. I'm using big words, maybe, right? Ambient—the environment, the noisy environment that we are in. We have to turn that down in order to hear that whisper.
I'm going to explain something to you. I was asked a long time ago, before I became a pastor here, to run the production team. I knew a lot about production. I knew a lot about the technology behind the different parts of production, but there was one particular part I did not study; I did not really understand. So, I had to get brushed up on it, and it was sound. I didn't know sound.
So, if I can have the production team put that sound of our soundboard on the screen. I was asked to learn how to work this, and I'll be honest with you, when I look at this, some of you look at it and you're like, "I know what this does," but if you don't know what this stuff is, it's a bit overwhelming. It's loud, right? You look at it and you're like, "Well, there's a lot going on here. This is a loud instrument that I got to learn how to operate."
What I've learned is I started to get on YouTube because how many know YouTube University is the best place to learn things? Amen. You get on YouTube and you start learning, right? I didn't really have anyone to teach me, so I started learning. What I learned was each one of these sections is plugged into an instrument, and then you could start to adjust the volume of that particular instrument.
I also learned that different instruments have different tones. Some tones cut through other tones and can drown out other tones. There are voices of vocalists that sing that can drown out instruments based on the tone of their voice. So, you have to be able to mix the sound. That's what this is. This is a personal mixing console.
Some people call it a soundboard, but in the industry, it's a mixing board. You have to mix the sound. If the sound team does not mix the sound, you know what you get? You get chaos. You get a bunch of noise, and it doesn't sound good. You could have the best sounding vocalist, guitarist, drummer—it doesn't matter. If it's not mixed well, it sounds like racket because some people are hitting the drums too hard, some people are playing at a higher volume than others, and it doesn't sound good. It would barely sound like a song.
And so, when you start to look at this—let's applaud the sound team, okay? Because they really make the worship team sound good. Okay? And I was like, "Oh no." Sometimes people have bad days, and we need to lower their volume a little bit, right? Any of you get tired of the racket? Sometimes you got to lower the volume a little bit in your life.
See, some of you don't do that. Some of you have no mix for your life. So, what you got is you got a bunch of chaos you're listening to. You're listening to different preachers, different pastors, different religions, different books. You got all this mixing involved, but you don't know how to put that trusting God fader up a little bit. Some of you are putting other things up—my career, I'm going to put that way up; my education, I'm going to put that way up.
And some of you have no idea how to balance your life and mix it. So, you could stop blaming God for His silence and start positioning yourself to hear the things you need to hear. The loudest thing should be God's voice in your life. That should be the loudest thing. Even when He's silent, it should be the loudest thing in your life. His voice needs to be up because if He speaks, you need to listen.
Now, if you got a bunch of other things that you like, like maybe addictions that are a priority in your life, you need to turn those down and turn them off. Maybe you got some friends that are always in your ear; you need to shut them up if they're not following God and giving you godly advice. Some of you don't even have your biblical fader up at all. You barely even touch your Bible. You think today is going to be enough for you to get into heaven? It will not be, okay?
'Cause, uh, I'm a sinner. You're listening to a sinner, alright? Everyone that steps up here is a sinner. So, church isn't enough. You need to hear God's voice in the midst of silence. What are you listening to? Are you listening to Instagram because some TikToker sounded really keen? And you know, everyone on—I'll be honest, everyone on social media is a salesman. So, if you want to listen to salesmen in your life, good luck, 'cause they'll sell you any idea, and it'll make anything sound good, okay?
Just, it's like the woke movement, but we won't go there. But they're selling things that you're buying. You got to be careful. You got to see what your mix is. Turn up that fader that God has just a little bit more so you could hear it. That way, you're shutting down the rest. Turn down some of these faders, some of these levels. Turn them down in your life so you can hear God.
In Psalms 27:3, it says, "I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong; let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord." Let me tell you something: waiting is normal. Some people say, "Well, I've waited on God for two weeks. I waited on God; He said nothing, Pastor Rob. He said nothing to me. Is He even real? Is He even there?"
Let me tell you something. You read the Bible, you realize that the Bible's really a list of people that waited for miracles to take place. And in the midst of that waiting, things got worse. In the midst of those problems, things got even worse. Things got terrible. And you start to realize, wait a minute, the Bible's a document of a bunch of people screwing up because they couldn't wait long enough for God to move.
Waiting is normal. Waiting in His silence is normal. This is a character trait of God. He will wait for you while you wait for Him. That's funny. Then both of you aren't going to make any progression if you just continue to wait on God. He will wait longer than you. He's got more patience than you. And I think we forget about that. We think, "God, You need to move right now because I'm busy. God, I'm tired of waiting. Where are You at?"
What if He doesn't do anything? What if He doesn't give you that miracle you're praying for? How strong is your faith when you feel that God has let you down? How strong is your faith in those moments?
So, my first point this morning: God's silence is not a pause; it's a reset for something greater. You have to remember that God's silence is not a pause; it's a reset for something greater. There's a moment in the history of Israel where they begin to build, and they wander the wilderness for 40 years. Then they begin to build a nation. They ask for a king; God gives them a king. They ask for wealth; God gives them wealth. And they're able to build the northern and southern kingdoms and build this massive kingdom together.
And then, all of a sudden, in an instant, they hit a trial where the Babylonians come, which you've learned in school, which is documented in Scripture. You learn this: that the Babylonians come and they take them and they exile them. You could read through this process, at least through the exiled process, through the Book of Daniel.
In the Book of Daniel, they start to tear down their ideology, tear down their culture. They tried to give them new names; they tried to change everything about them, their identity. And they're trying to get the Israelites, through being exiled, through being held captive, they're trying to change their identity. They're trying to destroy it. They take down the temple that they built; they begin to tear things down, try to tear away their history. And they're exiled, and they're in turmoil.
And the people of Israel are like, "What happened? We were God's people. He blessed us with so many things. We relied on Him; we've worshiped Him, and now He's taken it all away from us. We're a nation in turmoil, a nation in chaos."
And there's a beautiful psalm; it's a song that was written during this time in Psalms 137. The title of the song is "How Shall We Sing the Lord's Song?" How should we sing it now that we've lost everything? How should we sing it now? We're in captivity and have been exiled from the promises of God.
In verse one, it says this: "By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there, we hung up our lyres, for there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors mirth, saying, 'Sing us one of the songs of Zion.'" In other words, he's talking about being mocked. "How we used to sing by the sea." He's saying, "Sing me your song, Israel, as we mock you, as we make fun of you. Sing me your song."
How shall we sing? This is their response: "How should we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?" And then it shifts. Verse 5: "If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill. Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy."
What this is telling us is that it doesn't matter the situation. It doesn't matter that we don't hear God; we don't feel Him. We did not get a good sermon. It doesn't matter that we didn't feel these things. We didn't feel God's presence; we didn't walk alongside Him; we couldn't hear our name when He said it. It doesn't matter. We must never forget about His promises. Never.
And some of you are like, "What are His promises?" They're found in here. See, the problem that we have with modern Christianity is it's very hard for some reason to read your Bible. For some reason, there's an allergy to reading God's Word. I don't know what it is, but everybody wants a word from the pastor and not a word from God.
And let me tell you something: we want to hear God's voice, not just my voice. I know I'm screaming at you now; it's because I love you, and my time is limited, and you're going to forget 90% of what I preached on in three hours. So, let me yell at you 'cause I love you. I'm a brother, okay?
We must not forget. If you don't know what those promises are, you're not reading God's Word. If it's not clicking right now what I'm saying, "What are His promises?" You got to read God's Word. Stop waiting on YouTube for some chat moderator to give you a word from God. Some of you young people know what I'm talking about, okay?
You need to connect with real people. You need to hear real sermons in real life, not on a screen. You need to feel God in the room when the community of believers are feeling God in the room. You need to hear God in the room when the community of believers is hearing God in the room. No offense to those of you tuning online; thank you so much for tuning in. We love you very much. Come join us. Thank you.
God's silence is not a pause; it's a reset for something greater. This is the perception we need to have. Now, King David went through a very dark time. If you know the story of King David, he had an affair, and then he tried to cover it up by murdering her husband. And then God notices that, condemns him for it, and says, "Now your son is going to die," stricken him with illness.
David goes and he begins to fast. The Bible says he finds himself in loincloth; he finds himself just completely almost naked in sackcloth, and he's realizing he's giving everything he's got. He's giving everything he's got to God, and he's trying to fast. "God, heal my son." Suddenly, his son dies. He comes out of the room. It was three days of fasting and prayer, no sleep. The guards are watching him, you know, making sure he's okay, but he's giving it up, man. He's given everything he's got to God, and his son dies.
And it's on account—God tells him it's on account of your sin. David writes this in Psalms 22:1. This is what he was feeling. He says in verse one, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" That word "forsaken" is abandoned. Anyone ever felt abandoned by God before? It's just me? It's okay. I'm going to preach to myself this morning. Hang on tight.
"My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? Oh my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest." Watch this pivot. I love when the Bible pivots. When the Bible pivots, you should listen. You should listen to all of it, but when the Bible pivots, like it's going to pivot right now, it's a hard pivot. It's one of the biggest pivots in the Bible.
He says, "Yet." He says, "Though I can't sleep at night, though I can't rest, though I can't hear your voice, yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In you, our fathers trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them. To you, they cried and were rescued; in you, they trusted and were not put to shame."
In other words, that pivot—you know, we could feel sometimes that I think this is something internal that we just have built inside of us. We think we can't feel sad; we can't feel remorse; we can't feel like we're having a bad day; we can't feel like things just aren't going right in our lives; we can't feel depressed because we serve an almighty God. That is a lie from the pit of hell.
You're going to feel sad; you're going to feel terrible. Life's going to throw curveballs at you. There's going to be circumstances that are going to feel so heavy that you feel like you're pulling away from God, but you're not. At least, He's not pulling away from you. He's walking with you. Just 'cause you can't hear Him, you forget, oh, He's walking with you. He's there; He's just not saying anything.
And so, you think about this where David was going through. He's lamenting. He's already been beat up; he's already lost the son. And you see this heaviness, this shame that he's carrying. See, sometimes we can feel sad, worried, disappointed without trusting God, but we could still trust God. We can lament, and we can trust. They can coexist together.
And what God says is, "Bring that to me." When you're lamenting, I want you to bring it to me. Let me ask you this: we all have certain phone calls we don't answer. Can I be real? 'Cause you know what that phone call is going to consist of, right? Like, "Oh dude, they're calling. Oh, I'm going to have to call them back. I don't got 49 minutes to talk to them." You with me, church? Okay, trying to wake you guys up.
"Oh dude, this is—they're just going to talk about themselves, or they're thinking this circumstance is like the biggest thing ever, and I need to listen to them." And you have a bad attitude about it, right? "I don't want to hear this right now. I don't even know how to help them. I've already told them what to do. They keep calling me back. They want more. They're not doing what I told them to do."
They want all these excuses come to the surface why you won't help somebody. But man, what does God feel when we do that to Him? Stop calling people. Somebody, you need to call God. You know, it was funny. I remember I went to a pastor, and I said, "I don't know how to help. I don't know how to help these people. I feel like I'm not the right person for this." I said that, and he goes, "Well, you're not supposed to help them. God is."
And I go, "How do I do that?" He goes, "Well, I made you a pastor so you could pray for people." "Oh, so I just need to pray for them?" "Yeah, just pray for them. That's it." "Yeah, you listen, and then you pray with them." And I did that, and you know, people are like, "Oh my God, they helped me out so much." I didn't even do anything; I just prayed. I said, "Let's hold hands; we're going to pray." You know, I acted like, you know, I was a new pastor at the time. "Hey, we're going to hold hands. Honey, go get the oil; we're going to pray. We're going to pray through this."
You know why? 'Cause that's all we can do. And so, I think what people do is they hear silence, and they need to hear a voice. They need to hear a voice because God's being silent. But if I could just hear some kind of voice that is godly, that I can insert that—that God is speaking to me—that's a very dangerous place to be at because that brings about opinion.
So, this brings me to another point: God's quiet isn't your opinion, but it's for your praise. It's not for your opinion. And here's what I mean by that: God's silence is not an opportunity for you to insert your opinion and then make a decision off your opinion. Sometimes what we do is like, "Hey God, I got this job opportunity that's going to take me out of church, and I'm going to have to, you know, give more to my job and then give less to the church. See, it's less money, and then I'm going to have to, you know, really focus in on that. You know, and so I'll see you later."
And then when we come up to you, "Hey, did you pray about the decision you made?" "Yeah, I prayed about it." "How long did you pray for?" "Oh, I prayed like two minutes." But you prayed on a decision you already made? That's like telling God what to do when we should be coming to God and say, "God, I don't know what to do."
Let me give you a tip. This is how I pray: "Hey, I got this opportunity. I need you to close the door if you don't want me to walk through it." I call it praying in the negative. "Hey God, I've been praying about this opportunity, and I told you to close the door, and it's like day 30, and I still haven't heard from you, and that door is still open. So, should I walk through it or not? Hey God, it's day 31. Yesterday, I told you that the door is still open. You haven't closed the door, so you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to entertain this a little bit, but I'm going to pray that I'm walking in the right door. I need you to close it. I'm going to ask you again: can you close it if you don't want me to walk through this door? Can you please close the door? PS, I love you."
I don't hear from God, so you know what I do? I seek God. I seek His opinion, and I ask my wife. I say, "Hey, I need godly opinion." "Well, does it pay more?" "Like, yeah." "Then you take the job." I'm just kidding; she never said that. She's going to be mad at me. She's not in here, so I'm making fun of her. I'm just kidding.
You start to seek counsel, and then you say this 'cause they're not going to know what to do either. If you don't know what to do for your life, not everybody knows what to do for your life. You know what's great? When people can pray with you, you seek counsel, and they say, "Oh yeah, that's a tough decision. Let's pray, man. Maybe we hear from God. Let's hear if He closes the door."
And then God closes the door. All of a sudden, you know what you do? You're like, "God, why did you do that? Why did you close the door? You didn't say anything; you just closed the door." And He's like, "Well, I asked. You told me not to let you walk through that door." "Yeah, but it was more money. I could have done this; I could have sent the kids to school. I could have done it." Just trust in me.
And it's really God seeing your faith. He's seeing it acted out, but it's not a place to insert your opinion. And those of you that are giving counsel, those of you that are the friends that are loving, that are going to pray for those that need it because they're going through, it's not a place to put your opinion before God's.
See, church, we got to stop trying to hear the voice of God and focus on His action. We got to stop chasing God's voice and start witnessing His works. And the way you could do that is by reading His works as well, understanding His character, understanding everything about Him because it's right there. Quit straining yourself to hear God's voice. Turn that knob up a little bit so that when He does whisper, when He is silent, and you could hear Him even breathe and walking with you, you have to make time for that.
You can't just expect it to happen; you have to do it. Just like David pivoted, he says, "I can't sleep at night. I weep. I can't stop doing this. I need you, God. I need you right now. I said you did it for our forefathers; you did it for this; you did it for that. I'm going to lean on; I'm going to trust in you. I'm going to trust in you just like they did. I'm going to continue to trust in you and just hope and just hope, hold on to that, that God is going to move through the circumstance for you."
That's all we can do. See, a lot of times we think that His silence is His absence, and it's not. His silence is not His absence. See, God is aware. He's aware of what you're going through, and I think sometimes we forget that God does not know what we're going through. He knows exactly what we're going through. He knows the pain. And you know what He says? He says, "I don't expect you to know all the answers, but what I do expect you to do is if you are lamenting, if you're having a hard time, if you need to hear my voice, then you come to me. You come to me."
I can't tell you how many times I've said, "I pray with people." Like, "Hey, have you prayed about it?" "Oh no, I just called you." Like, "So, let's start with step one, and let's pray. Let's pray about these things first. Then we could discuss what we think God is trying to do with our lives."
And I remember this story of Jesus and the woman that bled for 12 years. It's a fascinating story; it's one of my favorites, even though I'm not a woman. But I can only imagine. I started to think about recently. I started to think about the life that she must have lived for those 12 years. She bled for 12 years. I would imagine that she prayed during that time.
And I started asking myself, "What were her prayers like for 12 years? What would those prayers be like?" She bled for 12 years. Not only that, this is embarrassing. I'd imagine it would be—this isn't an issue that you would go telling everybody about. So, she bottles it up; she acts like everything's okay. She toughens up; she puts her shoulders back every day, and she walks like there's no issue. She does her job; she's there for other people. She prays, asking for a miracle.
The Bible says that she went to several physicians, and nobody could help her. Nobody could relieve her of her issue. She's tried everything, and she hears that Jesus is going around doing miracles in Galilee. And suddenly, she realizes, "I need—I've been praying for 12 years, but I'm going to continue on. I need to see if Jesus is real, and I believe He is, and I'm going to go out there, and I'm going to seek Him, and I'm going to find Him."
And in the story, let's read it together. Let's read God's Word in Luke 8:43. It says, "And there was a woman who had a discharge of blood for 12 years, though she spent all her living, all her money on physicians. She could not be healed by anyone. She came up behind Him and touched the fringe of His garment, and immediately her discharge of blood ceased."
It stopped. And Jesus said, "Who was it that touched me?" When all denied it, Peter said, "Master, the crowds are surrounding you and are pressing on you." But Jesus said, "Someone touched me, for I perceived that power had gone out from me."
And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling and falling down before Him, declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched Him and how she had been immediately healed. And He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace."
I love this story because we have this woman that struggled so much for so long, and all she did was be persistent in knowing that she would receive a healing. Probably persistent knowing in prayer, persistent knowing that Jesus is the Son of God. Not only did she try to touch Him; all she had to do was touch His garment.
You know what, church? She didn't even have to touch Him. She didn't touch Him. The Bible says she touched the fringe of the garment that He was wearing, and all of a sudden, her persistence is what got her healed. Her faith is what got her healed.
It was just that—the reaction. You know what I think of it as? The faith was so strong; the belief was so strong as she reached out. She was already being healed. She didn't need to touch Him; she just needed to be around His presence. She just needed to be there. She just needed to see Him and then show God, "I know that's Him. I know that's You."
Even though you're focused on everybody else and the people around you and the crowd around you and Jairus' daughter, if you know the story, that's where He was headed. "I know you're focused on that miracle, but my faith is right here."
It wasn't Jesus said, "I healed you; your faith has made you well." Faith is a powerful thing. It's the currency of Heaven. It's the currency of Heaven. People say, "Oh, I need a bigger bank account." No, you need a bigger Bible with bigger words so you could read it, and it screams at you in all capitals. That's a business opportunity. Thank you, Jesus.
My faithfulness has made—I was kidding. A Bible in all caps? Wouldn't that be neat? We got to make this happen. I'm going to call the DEA.
Let's get back to faith, man. Faith is so important to have in these situations, and that's what silence is. It leads you to faith. There's the silence of God; it's going to lead you to trust. And this brings me to another point: when God is silent, trust is going to speak. Just like it happened with King David, trust is going to speak.
And so, I think it's important that we understand that silence is going to require you to trust, right? We've all been there. "Well, God, you know, Pastor, it's hard to trust God when I don't hear from Him." I get it; I know it. It's hard. But, you know, fortunately, in the Bible, we see this is what God does: He remains silent, and then miracles take place later on.
And so, when God is silent, trust is going to speak. At least it should speak. It should be loud; it should be incredibly loud in your life that you trust God, and you say it. You know, if you go around telling everybody, "Yeah, I trust God." "You trust God?" "Yeah, I trust God."
"Yeah, I trust Him." "Okay, now let me see how you act when you're battle-tested. Let me see how you act. You really, really trust God?" I can't tell you how many times people tell me they trust God, and then the moment they get offended in church by somebody else that we don't know, they leave the church. Like, "Oh, you really trust God, huh? First offense, you're out of here."
You know, it's difficult. But you know, there's a moment in Scripture—one of the most powerful moments in Scripture—are Jesus in His trials. And I say it plural, right? Trials. See, He had six trials. There were three trials that Jesus went to. The first three were trials from a religious standpoint. There were Jewish trials—Herod, Caiaphas. He had to have a trial with them because He was Jewish, and it was expected from the Roman law that the Jews would take care of themselves and monitor themselves.
So, once it escalated through, it went into civil trial, which is the Roman trials 'cause Rome was in power. And so, we see this back and forth. Nobody wanted to make the decision on Jesus. And it's powerful because this is what it says 600 years before Jesus goes to trial. This is what it says about Jesus in the Old Testament in Isaiah 53:7, in the prophetic book of Isaiah, 600 years before Christ.
It says this: "He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth. Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like sheep that before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth." 600 years, the Bible says that this person, Jesus, is going to stand before trial, and He's not going to open His mouth.
He's going to be silent. Now, when Jesus is in front of Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin in His trial, they begin to accuse Him of different things that He did that offended the Jewish people—committing blasphemy was one of them, saying that He's the Son of God. Jesus remained silent.
This is what it says in Matthew 26:62. It says, "And the high priest stood up and said, 'Have you no answer to me? What is it that these men testify against you?'" It says, "But Jesus remained silent." And the high priest said to Him, "I adjure you by the living God: tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God."
Jesus did say, "You have said so." Glosses over it. And He says, "But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven." Then they send Him to Herod—another trial. This is what happened with Herod in Luke 23:8.
"When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad, for he had long desired to see Him because he had heard about Him. He was hoping to see some sign done by Him. So, he questioned Him at some length, but He made no answer. The chief priests and the scribes stood by, accusing Him, and Herod with his soldiers treated Him with contempt and mocked Him. Then, arraying Him in splendid clothing, he sent Him back to Pilate." Jesus didn't talk.
John 19:9, He's in front of Pilate. This is it—the final judgment, the final trial. Look what question He remains silent on. John 19:9: "He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, 'Where are you from?'" But Jesus gave him no answer. So, Pilate said to Him, "You're not going to speak to me? Do you not know that I have the authority to release you and authority to crucify you?"
Jesus answered him, "You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given to you from above. Therefore, he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin." So, you're saying, "Well, Pastor Rob, He spoke." Yeah, but He spoke in certain moments.
And as I begin to study the trials of Jesus, God began to speak to me. This is what we can learn from Jesus: Jesus understood the mission, so He remained silent. Jesus is communicating His faith in that silence. Jesus knew He was under the will of the Father, so He remained silent. Jesus knew it was time for pain, but also a time for faith. He remained silent—faith in the Father, faith in His promise, and faith in His will.
Here's the questions I'm going to break it down for you that He remained silent on: when Herod accused Him and questioned Him about His actions, He remained silent. When Caiaphas asked, "Are you the Son of God?" He remains silent. With Pilate, "Where are you from?" He remains silent. What does that tell you?
Jesus was simply saying, "You could ask all the questions you want about me, but I'm not here for your opinion."
on Mar 10, 2025
