Hear God for Yourself: What Hebrews Says About a Better Way

On the weekend of November 7 and 8, Pastor Doug Lattimore carried Solo Faith Church's Better series deeper into the Book of Hebrews with a question that landed hard in both services: are you still waiting on somebody else to tell you what God said? Across the Saturday Sabbath service and the Sunday service in Concord, the answer from Scripture was plain. Through Jesus, you can hear God for yourself.

It was a short message on Sunday and a longer one on Saturday, but the thread ran through both. God has made a better way, Pastor Doug said, and the only thing standing between most of us and that better way is our own unwillingness to walk in it.

In These Last Days, God Speaks by His Son

Pastor Doug opened in Hebrews 1:1-2, reading it in The Message and then in the King James Version:

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son. (Hebrews 1:1-2, KJV)

Before Christ, he explained, ordinary people reached God through a go-between. A prophet carried the word. Now that Jesus has reconciled us to the Father, the line is direct. He called it an update, and asked the room whether they had installed it. Does God still speak through prophets? Yes. Do you need one to reach Him? No.

That difference matters, he said, because a lot of hurting people go from revival to revival hoping someone will single them out of the crowd. When you already know what God has put in your spirit, a prophetic word should confirm it, and you are free to say, kindly, that a word doesn't fit. Paul warned that some would gather teachers to tell them only what their itching ears wanted to hear (2 Timothy 4:3). A believer who prays for themselves is much harder to manipulate.

How to Hear God for Yourself, the Way Paul Did

For a picture of what this looks like, Pastor Doug pointed to Paul. After his conversion, Paul didn't run straight to Peter, James or John for approval. He went away with God first, and later told the Galatians that what he preached came by revelation from the Lord himself (Galatians 1:11-18).

The practice he described is simple and hard at the same time. Take one passage, even a familiar one like Psalm 23:1, and bring it before God. Say, in effect: I know what the commentary says, and I know what my pastor says, but what do You say about this? Then be quiet and listen. Most of us don't like the silence, he admitted, because we aren't sure whether we're hearing God or ourselves. His counsel was to bring that insecurity to the altar too, and to keep coming back to the passage until understanding comes.

That kind of slow, personal reading is exactly what our Tuesday night Bible study is for, and anyone can take a free Solo Seminary course online to build the habit.

Hebrews 2: No Excuse Not to Be Better

Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip... How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation? (Hebrews 2:1, 3, KJV)

Pastor Doug set this warning in its first-century setting. Many of the Jewish believers who first received Hebrews were thinking about walking away from Christ. Gentiles with rough pasts were coming in, God was cleaning them up in real time, and some longtime believers decided that if this was what Christ was doing, they wanted no part of it. He asked the church to be honest about how often the same thing happens today, when someone new walks in, worships loudly or doesn't look the part, and the church stops being a safe place.

Then he turned the warning inward. God has borne witness with signs, wonders, miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit (Hebrews 2:4). The way has been made. He described Jesus as a bridge built strong enough to carry the weight of our sin and our insecurity. Crossing it takes time, he said, but it doesn't take twenty years. Better starts when you begin to speak it, think it and choose the people and thoughts you let through the door.

He closed Saturday with a line worth keeping: grace is not a pillow to fall back on. Grace is the light that shows you the better direction to walk.

Hebrews 4: A Promise Mixed With Faith

On Sunday, Pastor Doug kept the online congregation's time short and went straight to Hebrews 4:1-3, where the writer says the word preached to Israel "did not profit them, not being mixed with faith." A whole generation was promised a land and never entered it. They didn't fail for lack of a promise. They failed because they refused to change, saw giants and called themselves grasshoppers (Numbers 13:33).

He said God keeps placing us in situations designed to grow us, and we keep slipping back into who we used to be because of old wounds, old triggers and people who knew us when. The way forward, he said, is the willingness to lose the old self, and sometimes old places and relationships, to become who God made us to be. Only God knows what the best version of you looks like, and He keeps it hidden in His Son. His word for the room was a refusal: some things may die in the wilderness, but I'm not dying there.

He compared God's frustration with us to a parent called to the principal's office again. The anger isn't rejection. It comes from knowing the child is better than how they're acting. That same patience and pressure ran through the earlier Favor Underground series on Joseph, and you can browse the sermon library to hear how the Better series began.

Questions to Carry Into This Week

• Where am I still waiting on someone else to tell me what God said?

• Which Scripture can I take into prayer this week and stay with until I understand it?

• What habit, place or relationship keeps pulling me back to the wilderness side of the bridge?

If one of those questions stirs something you'd rather not carry alone, you can send a prayer request and someone from Solo Faith will pray with you.

Solo Faith Church shares this message because many of our Cabarrus County neighbors were taught that God only speaks to a chosen few, and that belief quietly keeps good people stuck. Whether we meet you at the pantry, on a DoorDash delivery or in the online lobby, we want you to know the way to God is already open to you.

Watch the Full Message

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Community Support Note: This recap is part of Solo Faith Church's community journalism initiative, sharing what is taught in Concord with neighbors across Cabarrus County. It was drawn from the computer-generated transcripts of the November 7 and November 8, 2026 services; Pastor Doug's words are summarized and lightly paraphrased for readability, and Scripture is quoted from the King James Version.