Tuning In To God – October 26, 2025
Psalm 37:1-7, John 15:1-10
October 26, 2025
Do you remember the days, when you “tuned in” stations on your radio? Modern radios will search for your stations automatically, and when they find them you can make them a “pre-set” station. And now you can “Pre-set” dozens of them! But maybe you remember car radios when they had five buttons on the front. That was the extent of your “pre-set” stations. Oh, and of course it was just an AM radio!
Well, if you remember, you “tuned in” a station by turning the knob that moved the needle across the dial. And between the stations, there was static! But as you got closer to the station, you’d start to hear it a little bit. And then you had to “fine tune the station – to get it clear. (And get rid of the static!)
I once had a short-wave radio! Anybody ever have one of them? You could listen to places farther away! Maybe you had a Ham radio, and you could talk to people far away! Any ham-ers out there? With those radios you weren’t really listening to a certain station – unless you knew the frequency. You just turned the dial, and you listened till you found something!
Nowadays, you don’t even have to know the station’s frequency! The radio will find it for you, and it’s instantly “fine-tuned!” Or better yet, you just tell your “smart speaker” to “play WIP sports radio.” And she does!
Well, I hope I’ve given you a nice “stroll” down memory lane! And I reminded you of all that because I’ve titled this sermon “Tuning in to God.” And I’d like to suggest to you today that “tuning in to God” is more like the old style radio than the new. It doesn’t happen automatically, and sometimes it’s not an easy search. Sometimes there’s a lot of static between channels!
I’m always inspired by Kari when she preaches, and I’m sure you are, too! And as you may know, I’ve learned to wait to hear what she has to say before I decide what I’m going to say next!
So this is a follow-up to what she said last week about “persistent prayer.” If you don’t remember that, go back and listen again. (You can use the link on our website. It’s under “On-line Worship.”) She reminded us that day that prayer is a matter of connection with God, not just communication. It’s a matter of our relationship with God, rather than just a means of asking for things we want.
I wholeheartedly agree with that! And you’ve heard me say that kind of thing a number of times before. But that’s too easy for us to forget, isn’t it? We forget the connection, and then we end up praying only when we have a need, or when we’re in some kind of personal crisis.
So I would say again. Prayer is about our connection with God. It’s about being “in tune” with God. And that’s not easy! It takes a lifetime of work, just like the relationships we have with each other or with distant relatives. (Or not-so-distant ones!) And there’s a lot of static around us! As you’ve heard me say before, the world and its influences and its many voices inundate us every day of our lives. To hear the voice of God is hard in all that cacophony of voices.
Sometimes it’s like the SETI people. SETI stands for the “Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence.” They’re the people who listen to the universe with huge radio telescopes, trying to hear – in all the great jumble of radio waves in our galaxy – anything from another intelligent civilization.
Of course I’m convinced any aliens out there aren’t trying to talk to us humans. I think any aliens looking at this planet would wonder who’s in charge. They’d look down and think, “The two-legged creatures are serving the four-legged creatures hand and foot. So the four-legged creatures must be the ones in charge!” So the aliens out there are trying to communicate with the cats! (You’ve seen them staring out of the window! You know they’re talking with aliens!)
Anyway… In all that I’ve been saying, I think you’ll agree that sometimes it’s hard trying to hear the voice of God, trying to be in tune with his spirit, in the great cacophony of voices and messages out there.
But it’s more than that. Tuning in to God, is also about being in tune with his will. It’s a matter of being in tune with God beyond our own needs and our own issues. And it’s a matter of discerning God’s will for us, which is not easy, because our own will is often so strong! And that takes a lot of prayer. When someone asks me how to discern God’s will in their life, that’s the first place I start. Prayer! The more you’re in-tune with God, the more in-tune you’ll be with the will of God!
There’s a good musical example of that in music. When a note on a piano is played, that one note, that one string, can cause another string to vibrate – if it’s in tune with that first string. If you play a C, for example, it will cause all the C’s above it to vibrate slightly as well. In acoustics, that’s called a “sympathetic vibration.” That’s what gives a piano it’s unique sound. (And makes it so hard to duplicate electronically!)
Well, when we’re in tune with God, we will be moved by God. When we “Take delight in the Lord,” as the psalmist said, “He will give us the desires of our hearts.” (Psalm 37:4) That’s because our hearts will be in tune with him. And when we are more in tune with him, our will begins to resemble his. We’ll be in a sort of “sympathetic vibration” with God. And that is what “Ask anything in my name” really means.
Jesus said that in the upper room with his disciples. He told them about “abiding in him.” “When my words abide in you,” he said, “then ask whatever you will, and it will be done for you.” “That’s because what you ask for will ‘resonate’ with my words!” And then you’ll be more in tune with God’s will. So your prayer won’t be so much about asking for things – though there’s nothing wrong with that. But it will be more along the lines of “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.”
You pray that every week! I’ve heard you! But that’s not easy, is it? Our will is very strong! It’s not easy for us to bow to someone else’s will. It’s not easy to seek God’s will and let that change ours!
Even Jesus felt that! I love that the Gospels show us that human side of him. It’s comforting to know that he struggled with the same things we struggle with! In the garden of Gethsemane, we find Jesus praying – in agony, “Father, if it be your will, let this cup of suffering pass from me!” That was his prayer. That’s what the human part of him wanted! But his conclusion was, “Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.” (Matthew 26:39) Jesus was in tune with God!
So, the old radios didn’t find the station for us. We had to turn the dial. We had to listen through the noise, and fine-tune the signal. In much the same way, we tune our hearts, a little bit at a time – by each prayer and each choice, day by day – until our will vibrates in sympathy with God’s will. And as we do that, we find that prayer is not so much about striving for God’s attention, it’s about abiding in him. It’s not so much about getting God to hear us, it’s more about learning to hear him.
And when that happens, when we do that, our prayers change, our desires change, and our hearts change. We begin to want what God wants. We begin to love what God loves. And we begin to ask for what God is already longing to do in our lives.
Prayer
Eternal God, in a world full of noise, help us to hear your voice. Tune our hearts to yours, clear away the static, and teach us to abide in you. As we listen to your voice, we ask that you shape our desires, guide our steps, and let your Spirit lead us. Give us the strength to say, “Speak, Lord, for your servants are listening.” And we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.