You know, um feel free to take your seat.
You know, uh uh in Matthew uh 17, the three, the three close knit disciples to Jesus.
Matthew are, are James and John and, and Peter, they were, they were with Jesus and they had this encounter with Jesus where Jesus was transfigured before them.
He revealed some of his glory, like took a little bit of his jacket off so that his glory shone through and they saw it and in that holy moment of being in the presence of God, just like we have been in the presence of God.
God, the father bursts through the heavens.
He speaks in that moment when their eyes were open and they were stunned in disbelief as they saw the very glory of Jesus Christ revealed right before their eyes.
God, the Father speaks and of all the things he could have chosen to say in this holy moment before Peter James and John, he says, this is my beloved son, listen to him.
He didn’t say talk to him, he didn’t say inquire of him. He didn’t even say serve him.
He said, listen to him. And I just wonder tonight in this holy moment as he has kind of took a little, little bit of his jacket off and we’ve beheld his glory and the presence of God is here.
You know, there are those times where, you know, God’s presence is there, there are those, those other times like we have tonight where you can feel the presence of God.
I’m talking about where the hair on the back of your neck stands up.
Anybody else know what I’m talking about where your physical body responds to the presence of God in the house and of all the things that we could do in all the ways that we could most honor God in a moment like that.
It’s to listen to Him, to open up our ears and hear what the spirit wants to say to the church.
And so I believe that in this holy moment tonight that if we’ll all lean in, he’ll speak to us tonight through his word.
In fact, I want to talk to you tonight about that very real discipline in the Christian faith.
And that is opening our spiritual ears to hear the voice of God, that it’s one of the privileges y’all that we have in our relationship with Him.
No other so called God. Little G is alive.
Anybody that worships any other so called God, they can go to a museum and visit his body, they can go and see a statue up on a hill.
But I’m so glad that when I was able to visit Israel and I walked to the place where they believed his body was laid, there was a sign on the door that says he is not here.
He is not here.
I can’t tell you how glad I was that there was nothing for me to see that our God is alive and he lives so that we can hear his voice so that we can have relationship with Him.
So that when he speaks, we as believers can hear the voice of God.
And I want you to leave tonight knowing that not only does he care about all of the details of your life, the things you’re trying to make decisions on right now.
You’re wondering what’s God’s will for your life?
I think the reason why he’s come to us in such fullness this evening, why he’s revealed a bit of His glory to us is so that more than anything you will be able to begin to hear and discern the voice of God in your regular everyday life so that somebody is gonna walk out of here knowing what God’s will is for their life.
Lord Jesus, thank you so much for your word.
Thank you that you have allowed us the privilege as your Children to hear your voice.
Lord, would you now through this very simple practical message, would you teach us how to hear? You?
Teach us how to discern your leading in our lives, Lord, we like Peter James and John want to see his glory and then we want to respond in obedience to your command, to listen to him in Jesus name.
All God’s people said amen. I have an older sister, Crystal is my older sister and she was the first grandchild on either side of, of the family for my grandparents.
She was the first grand baby. And so you know how it is grandparents with the first grand baby.
And so I remember when I was growing up that my grandmother on my father’s side would gather up this big old box of stuff that she would get together to send for Crystal to Crystal for Christmas.
And so this big old box of stuff would come.
It had Crystal’s name on, it was tied with a big old bow.
And I remember being a little girl and standing off to the side while Crystal would unwrap this box of stuff and she’d open it up and there’d be all these beautiful little things, uh that had been specially hand picked for her.
Uh You know, none of this stuff that, that, you know, skinny jeans or little tennis shoes.
Uh uh We’re talking about the big hoop skirts that little girl used little girls used to wear with the lace at the bottom or the patent leather shoes, white and black.
Anybody know what I’m talking about? The little socks with lace are on the bottom of the socks.
That’s the stuff that was in this box for crystal.
And I, and I know what my grandmother’s intention was, her intention was that she was gonna send all these clothes in the bigger size and that all the subsequent 12 Children could wear them as well.
And so I’d even dig in with crystal and I’d pull out all the stuff from the box and we’d, and a over all of the gifts that had been specifically chosen in her size and with her name on it.
And I celebrated those gifts. I didn’t mind hand me downs because I knew at some point she was gonna grow out of all that stuff and it would all be mine.
But I don’t know what happened, but I must have just been a little bit older on one occasion because I very clearly remember that big old box coming with Crystal’s name on it, all that stuff inside that had been specifically chosen in her size and with her specifically in mind, and I must have just been a little bit more mature on that year because I stood back and I remember I didn’t feel good about it anymore.
I remember not being particularly happy because even though I knew that I was gonna get the hand me downs and the second hand clothes, all of a sudden for some reason I had matured enough that, that what I wanted was a box to come specifically for me.
I, I wanted a box with my name on it.
I wanted stuff inside that had been specifically chosen with me in mine.
There ought to come a time in our relationship with Jesus Christ where hand me down revelation about God spoon fed to us from somebody else is no longer enough where we celebrate the fact that God has given us leaders and teachers and speakers that help us to rightly discern the word of God.
But there ought to be an unsettled in your spirit where at some point you say, you know what I appreciate God’s general word.
But what I want is a box to come with my name on it.
I want a specific word straight from God for me. I wanna know what job he wants me to take.
I wanna know which person he wants me to marry.
I wanna know what part of the city He wants me to live on.
I want God’s specific word and revelation for me and the privilege that you and I have is to not be handicapped as believers to where we can only hear God’s word when somebody else is spoon feeding it to us.
But where are we because of the Holy Spirit that lives individually on the inside of each and every one of us where our spiritual ears are open and tuned in to hearing the voice of God?
Do you understand that the people that you and I admire in the face, the folks that I so love to listen to teach or I read their books or I listen to them on the radio or they, they feed me because of their own relationship with the Lord.
We, we’ve got this bad y’all that some kind of way.
We’ve begun to put them up on this pedestal and we feel like they’ve got a relationship with God that we, we’re not privy to anybody ever felt like that.
Other than me, that we just feel like they’ve got this special hotline connection with God where they’re able to get revelation that we’re not able to have access to.
But, but do you understand that the same holy spirit that lives in them is the exact same holy spirit that lives on the inside of you?
And I God doesn’t play favorites, my friend.
In fact, you are his favorite and you have the privilege.
I have the privilege to hear the voice of God.
There is no better passage in scripture that reminds us about this privilege that we have to individually specifically hear the voice of God than in John chapter 10 in John chapter 10.
I’m gonna read to you the first five verses of John chapter 10.
And then I’m going to jump down to verse 27 I’m going to camp out in verse 27 because I just want to share with you four little simple principles about hearing the voice of God because I think if we can inscribe these on our heart, y’all, we’re gonna leave out of here knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Never doubting again that we can hear God’s leading in our lives.
John chapter 10 verse one through five says this truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep but climbs up some other way.
He is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.
To him, the doorkeeper opens and the sheep hear his voice and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
Verse four, when he puts forth all of his own sheep, he goes before them and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.
Verse five, a stranger, they simply will not follow, but they will flee from him because they do not know the voice of a stranger.
And then verse 27, listen to this. My sheep hear my voice.
I know them and they follow me, listen to that one again because it’s one line, but it’s packed with a whole bunch of good stuff we’re gonna dig into for a little while tonight.
He says my sheep, what they do is hear my voice. I know them.
I know my sheep and they follow me.
Now, you and I oftentimes when we read passages of scripture like this we can miss out on some of the juicy details that are unwrapped on the specifics of what Jesus might have been talking about.
Because oftentimes Jesus would use terminology and context that we’re not familiar with.
He’d talk in terms of soil or grapes or wheat or sheep and we have no context for that.
And so if you and I can just step back a little bit culturally, if we can just figure out what this context of the sheep and the shepherds were looked like back in Jesus’s Day, then it’s going to give us insight into exactly what our relationship looks like with Jesus Christ.
Even right now as we discern his leading in our lives, there are four things that I’m going to point out to you in this passage, the fact that we are his sheep, that we can hear his voice, that he knows us and that we can follow him.
There are four things, a relationship, a result of that relationship, a reason and a response to that relationship, the re the relationship.
He says my sheep are the ones who hear my voice in the Middle Eastern sheep fold.
In jesus’ day, shepherding looked a little bit different like it might to than it might today.
Let’s say there were 10 shepherds, each of them could have upwards of 100 sheep in their fold and they would tend their flock all throughout the day.
And then when evening came, all 10 of these shepherds would take all of their flocks to one fold to stay for the night.
The sheep fold was a broad vast area of land and it had um a stone wall that went all the way around to enclose the fold.
There was one entrance to the sheep fold, one opening to the sheep fold and it did not have a gate, there was no door, it was just an opening.
So all 10 of these shepherds with 100 apiece would take all of these sheep and would herd them into the sheepfold.
And then of the 10 shepherds, nine of them would go back into the city to stay for the night.
One of them would stay behind and he would become what was called the porter for the sheepfold.
In other words, he would be the door of the sheepfold.
He would literally lay his body across the opening of the sheep fold and be the protector for the 1000 sheep that were on the inside.
He was the gate, he was the door.
He would lay his body across the door all across the gate all night long.
So as to protect them from, from harm.
And in the morning, the nine shepherds, they would return to claim their sheep.
When they returned the porter that had stayed behind for the night, he would see the shepherd coming from the distance and he would recognize this shepherd as one of the true shepherd of one of these flocks on the inside.
And only when he recognized the shepherd as a true shepherd of one of these flocks, he would remove his body from the opening of the sheep fold and let that shepherd pass in and then listen, that shepherd would stand in the sheep fold and call his sheep of the 1000 sheep that were in the sheep boat.
Only 100 belonged to him. He would call his sheep and his sheep knew his voice.
What mattered was not whether or not they were black sheep or white sheep.
It didn’t matter whether they were tall sheep or short sheep.
It didn’t matter if they were cheap sheep or highly priced sheep.
It didn’t matter if they congregated with a little bit of sheep or congregated with a lot of sheep.
All that mattered was who they belonged to.
I want to ask you a question tonight, right on the onset of the message.
And then I’m going to ask you again at the end, do you belong to the shepherd?
If you want to hear the voice of God, you’ve got to be in a relationship with Him and you do know there is only one way to have a relationship with God and that is through Jesus Christ.
And when you and I place faith in Jesus Christ, we belong to Him.
We are part of the family of God and we have the privilege to be able to hear and respond to the voice of God.
There are so many people that are telling us now in our day and age and in our culture, that there are a myriad of different ways to have relationship with God and to hear the voice of God.
But there is only one way and it is through the man, Jesus Christ.
Are you one of his sheep?
You can be in the sheep fold and not be one of his.
There were 900 others that were also in the four walls of the fold.
But there was only a handful of them that actually had relationship with the shepherd.
Placing faith in Jesus Christ is more than just attending church and being in the four walls.
It’s more than just participating in ministry activities. It’s more than just being a good person.
All of those things are honorable, but relationship only comes by placing faith in Jesus Christ.
And when you do, you are now his and you have the privilege to hear the voice of God, my family and I have our own secret language.
You and your family do too.
I remember when I was growing up in church, I maybe, you know, I sang in the choir at the children’s choir at my church and I would sit up in the choir and after we did our little song, then we had to sit up there for the whole rest of the service.
You know, and we’re sitting behind the preacher and the announced and all the other stuff that was taking place and we’d start, you know, chewing gum and passing notes and poking each other and playing around up there in the, in the choir loft.
And I remember that my mom, she sat a second row, middle section the entire time I was growing up and she didn’t have to say anything to me.
I would just look down at her and she would give me the mama eye.
Anybody have a mama like mine.
There was a whole story that unraveled with just one eye because we have our own little secret language.
You have that too with your spouse, your kids, you can maybe look at them from afar and there’s a whole story that unfolds just with one word or with one facial expression.
Maybe you and your girlfriend or you and your friend, y’all, y’all are hanging out somewhere and y’all have this little inside joke that happened because of some incident that occurred while y’all were together.
And so now when you rehash that other people can be around you and you guys can be laughing and joking and you could even try to explain it to the people who are nearby about how the reason why it was so funny and engaging and they’ll sit there and go.
I know I don’t get it because they’re not a part of the family.
There’s a secret language.
There is an ability to hear the voice of God that comes when you’re a part of the family of God.
In fact, Ephesians chapter two verse 19 in the amplified Bible says this therefore, you are no longer exiles, outsiders, migrants, aliens excluded from the rights of citizens.
But you now share citizenship with the saints, God’s own people consecrated and set apart for Himself.
You belong to God’s own household. You are part of the family of God.
When you place faith in Jesus Christ, you now have access to every single one of the rights and privileges that come with being a part of his family.
It’s a good deal to be a part of the family of God.
You can hear the voice of God.
Romans chapter one verse 20 tells us that general revelation is available for every human being on the face of the earth, saved or unsaved.
Uh It says that the invisible attributes of God are declared through the visible creation just by looking at the stars, the moon, the sun, the mountains, the horizon, the oceans, the beauty of all that has been created.
You have got to know there’s gotta be a God somewhere just because the the visible creations speaks of the glory of our invisible God, right?
But if you’re anything like me, you want more than general revelation, you appreciate general revelation.
But what you want are some details you want to know God’s will for your life, you want him to give you direction.
First Corinthians 2 14 says that folks who are not spiritual.
In other words, folks who are not Christians, they can’t understand the truth from God spirit because they’re not in relationship.
It says that that all that stuff will sound like complete foolishness to them.
Hearing God’s voice is impossible for someone who has not yet been born of the spirit into the family of God.
But when you’re in relationship with him, my sheep, you can hear his voice.
Uh, when I was growing up, we didn’t have, uh, we, we couldn’t watch a lot of television.
When I was growing up, we could watch only one hour of television a week, excluding the weekends during the week, the school week, we could only watch one hour of television.
It was probably the same hour of television, I’m assuming over here in New Zealand that you might have been watching television as well because, uh, in, in, uh, in the States on Thursdays from 7 to 8 P ma co, the Cosby Show came on and then a different world.
Do you remember a different world at that? Yep.
So those two programs came, that was the only hour we could watch television.
In fact, we didn’t even have access to a lot of television in our home.
We had a couple of televisions, but we didn’t have cable, we didn’t have satellite.
We didn’t have all the stations um even available to us in our house.
So I remember when I moved out and I was on my own and I was getting ready to get married.
So I moved into my, my very first real real apartment and the very first thing that I did was call the cable man.
Get over here as fast as you can and hook up whatever wires, whatever you need to do to get me some channels up in here.
And I’ll never forget that.
Also glorious day when the cable man showed up and he went into my bedroom, he moved my arm wire out from, from um from against the wall.
He went behind the television and hooked up all the wires, the cords, whatever he attached to give me access to all the stations that were available.
Then he everything back in place came back from around uh the the place where he was in the corner of my room gave me a remote control and said, press the guide button.
I pressed the menu, the guide button and I watched all these channel options that were now available to me.
I was stunned. All of those channels had always been available to me.
They were there, the frequency for those stations were all there.
I just didn’t have the right hook up to pick up on them.
Same thing is true in your relationship with the Lord. God is always speaking my friend.
The fact that you can’t hear him doesn’t mean he’s not speaking.
It means it means you don’t have the right book up.
You’re not tapped into divine frequency so that your spirit can pick up on hearing the voice of God.
You have spiritual, you have physical senses. I have physical senses.
We can smell and we can see and we can hear, we can taste, we can have physical senses with which we respond to and connect with the physical world.
Do you know you have spiritual senses as well that you have spiritual eyes and spiritual ears?
In fact, in the scriptures, when it says he that hath an ear, let hear what the spirit says to the church, not referring to physical ears.
It’s your spiritual ears. It’s the hook up that you get the connection that you get when you place faith in Jesus Christ.
Once you do that, Ephesians chapter one verse 13 and 14 says, the Holy Spirit takes up residence on the inside of you and the Holy Spirit is the hook up.
The Holy Spirit is what allows you to tap in to divine frequency and hear the voice of God.
It’s all in relationship. He says my sheep, there’s the relationship, hear my voice, there’s the result of the relationship.
He says, once you’re in relationship with me, you should begin to anticipate the result of our relationship.
He says the default position of anybody who’s placed faith in Jesus Christ who has made a decision to be in the family of God who has then received the Holy Spirit of God as a gift, sealing gift of their faith.
He says, for anybody, that’s one of my sheep, you ought to begin to expect the results of your relationship.
It’s automatic. It’s the default position of your relationship with God. What his sheep do is hear his voice.
It’s what they do. A w Tozer is one of my favorites uh to read and to, to uh just kind of uh ponder some of his thoughts.
And he said, uh the one who does not expect that God will speak will discount every single time God does speak.
They’ll say it was just their opinion or it was just a coincidence or it was just their own idea every single time God speaks, unless you have an anticipation, an eagerness, an expectation that you can hear the voice of God.
Every single time God shows up in your life, you’re going to discount it or ignore it or neglect it as something else other than the voice of God.
John 1027 teaches us that the result of our relationship is that we ought to know, we can hear the voice of God.
Deuteronomy 30. He said the word of God is not so hard, not so um difficult to attain that.
You’ve got to send somebody else over the sea to find it for you or under the earth to find it for you.
He says the word of God. It’s in your own heart. It’s right there.
God’s voice for the sheep is able to be heard.
The result of your relationship is that you can hear the voice of God.
When you become a believer in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit is in you.
The Holy Spirit is not a ghost or a wind or a fire or a dove.
He’s often symbolized by those things, but that ain’t who he is.
The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity.
Not third because he’s least in value just third because he’s the last to be revealed to us in the pages of scripture.
But all of the fullness, all of the glory, all of the greatness, all of the grandeur, all of the power of God.
The Father is in the person of the Holy Spirit.
And if you’re a believer in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit lives in you, that means all of the power, all of the greatness, all of the grandeur, all of the authority of God, the Father is on the inside of you.
The Holy Spirit takes up residence inside your human spirit and all things become new at the core of you.
Your spirit is brand spanking new, but there’s still a problem.
Your spirit is in your body, in your flesh.
Have you ever experienced the battle between your flesh and your spirit?
Romans chapter seven, Paul said the things that I wanna do, right? I just won’t do right.
I’m trying to do. Right. I wanna do. Right. But my hands won’t cooperate with me.
My feet won’t cooperate with me.
Uh My eyes, my, my ears, my body just seems to be warring against the spirit of God within me.
Anybody know that battle. Other than me, the Holy Spirit takes up residence.
We got a brother back there that knows the battle.
And if the truth be told, don’t we all we sense this warring on the inside of us when we know the right thing to do.
We joyfully like Paul says, concur with the law of God on the inner man.
But there’s a different law that seems to be at work in the members of our body.
Here’s the work of the Holy Spirit. Here’s the good news y’all about the Holy Spirit of God.
He takes up residence on the inside of your spirit and then he begins the sanctification process.
Second Thessalonians chapter 1 13 says it’s his job. Oh, this takes such a load off your shoulders.
Listen, it’s his job to conform you into the image of Christ Jesus. Let me tell you what this means.
It means that he starts tinkering with your soul.
He starts messing with you, your soul, your mind, your will, your emotions, your conscience, it’s what you want, what you think, how you feel he gets down down there on the inside of you and he doesn’t just regenerate your spirit.
He doesn’t just make you born again.
What he starts to do is write, rest his mind on your dead, rest his hand on your dead and mind your dead and feelings your dead and conscious.
He shakes them away from their spiritual slumber. And he says, come join me in honoring God.
So he causes you to want stuff you never used to want.
He causes you to think in a way.
You never used to think you used to have ambitions to do that.
But now all of a sudden for some reason, you have ambitions to do this.
You never thought you would like this. But now you do, you never thought you would want this.
But now you do, you never thought that you would be with those girlfriends and feel uncomfortable because of the jokes that they’re telling the conversations they’re having.
You never thought that you would sit in a movie like that. You used to enjoy these kind of movies.
But all of a sudden that movie is bothering you because the Holy Spirit is on the inside of you messing with your soul.
The Holy Spirit will speak to you and then He will turn your conscience, turn your mind, your will and emotions until it begins to line up with the voice, the will of God for your life.
So do you know why you don’t have to worry about God’s will?
Because sometimes honestly, let’s be honest, we’re, we’re afraid for God to actually tell us what he wants us to do.
Because when we said, Lord, I want to do whatever you want me to do in my life, Lord, I want to go wherever you want me to go.
We didn’t mean Lord send me to the backwoods of Nairobi, Africa. That that’s not what we meant.
We don’t want to go to Siberia and be a missionary. We don’t like cold weather.
That’s not where we want to go.
So we’re afraid that if we literally say, Lord, whatever you want, it will go against our desires and and very often it will because we still live in the flesh.
We’re still in a, a sin sick world.
Our flesh will always need to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.
We won’t be perfect until we see him face to face.
But we can rest upon the fact that the Holy Spirit is in us.
And right now, even in this moment, my friend, he is working on your soul, conforming your desires to match up with what God wants for you.
Psalm 34 14. He says, you just delight yourself in me and I’m gonna give you the desires of your heart.
That does not mean he’s gonna give you what you want.
It means he’s going to actually give you his desires so that by the time you get around to praying for what you want.
You’re just actually praying back to God, the desires he put in your heart in the first place.
So he can’t help but answer because he’s given you his own desires.
This is the work of the Holy Spirit to conform you into his image, conform you into his image, a part of your soul.
And I’m just spending a few moments here. Y’all don’t mind, do you? OK.
A part of your soul is your conscience. Every human being has a conscience.
Your soul is your mind, will, emotions and your conscience, whether you’re saved or unsaved, you have a conscience.
You remember this is what your mama told you when you were a little girl or a teenager or a young man.
If you go somewhere, my mom used to say to me if you go somewhere and you end up with your friends and you just don’t feel good about where you are.
You don’t have to know why you don’t feel good about it.
You don’t have to see anything wrong with it.
If something in you just says this ain’t good, call me, I’ll come pick you up.
That’s what she used to tell me what she was saying to me is you’ve got a conscience.
Trust your conscience. Here’s the deal though.
Y’all, the conscience is not the voice of God because your conscience has been determined.
The settings of your conscience have been determined by the way you were raised by what you were taught by the influences you had in your life.
Your conscience could tell you something is right.
When the Bible actually says it’s wrong, your conscience could tell you something is wrong.
When the Bible says you have the freedom to do it.
So your conscience is not the voice of God, but this is what happens when the Holy Spirit steps on the inside of you.
He use, he says to your conscience, come over here and work with me and helping her to know the voice of God because that human already knows what that gut level conscience feels like.
You know what your conscience feels like, right?
When you’ve got that feeling on the inside of you that goes, oh, this ain’t good or yeah, I should do this.
It’s just that inner feeling. You already knows what, know what that feels like.
It’s like the microphone that’s on the inside of you.
The Holy Spirit grabs the microphone of your conscience and says, all right.
Now, let me tell you what God’s will is for your life.
So now your conscience begins to steer you in the direction of God’s will for your life.
John chapter 16 verse 13, it says when he, the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth now because your conscience and my conscience is constantly being sanctified.
It’s not perfect. Thank the Lord that we have His word because his word are the Bo, it’s the boundaries into which God’s word, specific word to us will fall.
He’ll never say anything to you or me. That contradicts the book.
We’ll always know whether or not we’re hearing God because it will fall within the boundaries of God’s word to us.
Do you know what we often wish? At least I do.
Sometimes I read about the Old Testament.
You know, they had a cloud in the middle of the day of fire by night, they had donkeys, speaking and stuff, dreams and visions and profits all over the place.
And sometimes, you know, that’s what I want. Lord.
If you want me to move to that side of town, what I need is for a dove to descend from the heavens at noon tomorrow and rest on my shoulder.
And if it rests on my left shoulder, then I know you want me to move here.
But if it rests on my right shoulder, then I know you want me to go over there, Lord, I am waiting on a side.
Can I get one witness in the house?
What we think is that the folks in the Old Testament had it better than us because they had these physical visible signs for God’s direction.
And while God surely most surely gives clear visible direction even in our day and age, the mercy of confirmation is what I call it when he will turn your circumstances or perform a miracle or do something visible to confirm his word to you.
We oftentimes desire what the folks in the Old Testament have.
But listen, the people in the Old Testament wish they had what we have.
The only reason they needed the signs and wonders was because they did not have the closed canon of scripture and the indwelling Holy Spirit.
That’s why you find the psalmist praying. Please don’t take your spirit from me.
Because in the Old Testament, the spirit was only given to individuals for a specific task.
And if they sinned or when that task was over, the spirit of God left them.
I got good news for you today.
My friend that once you receive the Holy Spirit of God, there is nothing that anybody else can do or that you can do for the spirit of God to be removed from your life.
That’s good news, which means that in our day and age, we have the best possible way to hear the voice of God.
We don’t have some second rate option.
We’ve got the best way, the, the spirit of God and the word of God to lead us and guide us.
And so we got a relationship, his sheep.
And the result of that relationship is that we ought to sit on the edge of our seat in anticipation of the fact that we can hear the voice of God.
There’s a relationship, there’s a result. And then there is a reason for all of us.
He says my sheep hear my voice. And here’s the reason I know them.
Now, I called up a friend of mine who works with sheep and cattle because I, you know, I don’t know if you can tell by looking at me or not, but I’m not really a sheep and cattle kind of girl.
So I called up this guy because he works with sheep and cattle.
And I, you know, I, I wanted to ask his perspective on some of these details.
And I asked him about this business of knowing the sheep. That verse says, I, the shepherd know the sheep.
So I wanted to ask him about this.
Very interesting because he said to me, Priscilla, I’ve got a lot of sheep.
But the, the art, the technique of knowing the sheep has been lost over time because it used to be in jesus’ Day.
He told me that that, that they would literally sit and spend hours upon hours, days, upon days, weeks, upon weeks, months and years just getting to know the sheep and allowing the sheep to get to know them.
He says that’s a lost art today because we don’t, we don’t have time for that.
We don’t make time for it. Now, we’ve got helicopters to herd our sheep.
We’ve got sheep dogs, we’ve got electric fences.
We don’t need to have intimate relationship anymore in order to get our sheep to do what we need them to do it’s been a lost art over time.
It’s interesting to me that it’s been a lost art over time because aren’t you glad that the changes in time, the advances in technology hasn’t changed our shepherd’s desire to get to know us?
Yeah. Right. I want you to hear me. He knows you.
In other words, you don’t have to be a seminary graduate to hear the voice of God.
You don’t have to be a preacher to hear the voice of God.
You don’t have to be the worship leader to hear the voice of God.
You don’t have to be biblically astute to hear the voice of God.
Of course, all of those things are honorable, but my friend, he knows you.
He knows whether you’re just a fledgling believer or whether you’ve been walking with the Lord for a long time.
He knows how much scripture you’re actually familiar with and, and, and uh what growth level, maturity level you’re on in your relationship with the Lord.
He knows if you’re hard headed like me and he needs to say a few things several times in order for you to get that.
It’s him speaking. He knows you because you’re one of his sheep.
And do you know that this, this friend of mine told me that, that the shepherds in jesus’ Day knew the sheep so well.
I mean, if there were 100 of them, he knew them individually so well and they knew him so personally that he could change the tone of his call just a little bit and call one sheep out of the flock.
That’s intimacy. The change in times has not changed our shepherd’s desire to get to know us.
But if we’re not careful, the change in times is going to change our desire to get to know him.
The advances in modern technology. Praise the Lord for them.
But the busier we are the further away we get from spending time getting to know the voice of the Lord.
Getting to know who he is a philosopher by the name of Sam Pasco said something that I want to read to you guys.
He said Christianity started out in Palestine. That’s the land of the Bible as a fellowship, a relationship.
Then it moved to Greece and became a philosophy a way you think, then it moved to Rome and became an institution, a place you go, then it moved to Europe and became a culture, a way of life.
Then it moved to the rest of the world and became an enterprise, a business.
Now it’s just what we do.
What if we took this back to what it was meant to be a relationship.
He died on the cross of Calvary, shed his blood, not to just give you a ticket to eternity.
If he would have just wanted us to be in heaven with him, then that our relationship would have stopped there and, and listen, that would have been enough for us to celebrate the rest of our lives.
Goodness gracious. The fact that he gave us a ticket to eternity would have been enough for us to worship him all of our days.
But if that might have been enough for us, it wasn’t enough for him.
He said, oh no, I want to be with them every single day of their lives.
So I am going to give them me in the person of the Holy Spirit so that I can walk with them and talk with them and have intimate fellowship with them.
Do you think? Do you really think that he loved you enough to die for you?
But then, then love you enough to talk to you.
How can we say we have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ when there’s no communication, how personal can it actually be?
He died on the cross because he loved you and wanted to have a relationship with, with you.
He knows you. The question is, do you know him?
Do you know uh I, well, I’ve got a brother, his name is Anthony.
His, his name is Anthony Junior because my father’s name is Anthony Senior.
Folks call them both Tony sometimes Tony Evans Senior and Tony Evans Junior. My brother looks like my daddy.
He walks like my daddy. He talks like my daddy. He looks like a little version of my daddy.
I have seen my brother use this to his advantage on many occasions because I remember when we were in our teenage years, somebody would call the house for my dad.
And because he sounded so much like my dad, he answered the phone and say hello.
And the person thought they were talking to Tony Evans senior.
And so he would just sit there and listen and respond and get all the juicy details until the very end and then say, well, hang on, let me go get my daddy for you.
All of us really are in ministry.
And so we all are on airplanes a lot.
And in Dallas, our our hub airline is American Airlines in Dallas.
And so we have a lot of, particularly my father has a lot of miles that he’s accumulated on American Airlines.
So he’s got like executive platinum status.
There are a lot of perks that comes with, come with that kind of status on American Airlines.
So Anthony Junior walked up to the counter one day and showed his license. I mean, it said Anthony Evans.
So they pulled up my father’s file, upgraded my brother to first class and treated him like royalty.
So he’s fooled a lot of people.
But I will tell you one person, they cannot fool.
I have spent my life getting to know the two Anthony.
So when either one of them calls me in the first two seconds of the phone conversation, I know exactly which Anthony I’m talking to.
And the reason why I know, even though they sound so similar, the reason why I know is because I’ve spent my life getting to know what their voice sounds like.
You need to know that there is an enemy of your soul. This ain’t a playground y’all.
This is a battlefield. There is an enemy that is trying to do everything he can to deceive you and to cause you to not know what God’s will is for your life.
And the Bible says in second Corinthians 11 14, that he disguises himself like an angel of light.
He doesn’t come to you with a red jumpsuit on and a pitchfork and say, hey, it’s me.
He disguises himself so that he looks and sounds as close as he can and his will for you sounds and looks as close as it can possibly be to God’s will for you.
So what we need is God to help us discern, not just between good and evil.
We need him to help us discern between good and almost good.
And the way we do that is by leaning into the voice of God, by getting to know the way he speaks by getting to know the way he handled situations just like the one we’re in right now.
What did he say back then to other people? What’s his personality?
We get that in the scriptures because you know how you have that friend when she calls you or he calls you, the very fact that it is 6:30 AM, lets you know that it has got to be this particular friend because the only one that would have the nerve to call you at this ungodly hour has gotta be that friend.
And when you answer the phone, they don’t have to go into a big explanation of who they are and where y’all met and, uh, how long you’ve been in a friendship together?
You know them so well that just the way they’re breathing on the phone lets you know that it’s them because you’ve spent so much time getting to know them, the more, you know God, the more clearly you can hear God.
I am. And I said this this morning in Sunday worship services. I am completely stunned completely beyond myself.
And beside myself that the God of the universe wants to get to know me, that he cares enough about me to know my personality and where I am in my life and the journey that I’m on and the doubts that I may be having, the difficulties that I’m experiencing.
And yet he still chooses to call me, his friend and to have relationship with me.
I’m stunned by the fact that He knows me.
Do you get the fact that he is high and lifted up?
But, but, but he chooses to be in relationship with us.
He is the first and the last, the beginning and the end.
He’s the keeper of creation and the creator of all.
He’s the architect of the universe and the manager of all time.
He always was always, is always, will be unmoved, unchanged, undefeated and never undone.
He was bruised but brought healing. He was pierce but he’s pain. He was persecuted but brought freedom.
He was dead and brings life. He has risen to bring power and he reigns to bring peace.
The world can’t understand him. Armies can’t defeat him. Leaders can’t discount him and no one can explain him away.
He is like he is longevity and he is the Lord.
He is goodness and kindness and faithfulness and he is God. He is holy and righteous and powerful and pure.
His ways are right. His will are changing. His word is true and his mind is on us.
I can’t believe that a God that great would have his mind on little old me and you.
There’s a relationship, my sheep. There’s a result to hear my voice.
There’s a reason he says because I know you. And there is a, there is a response.
The response is they follow me, they followed me.
There’s only one appropriate response. When you hear the voice of God, listen, delayed, obedience is disobedience.
There’s kind of not neutral ground.
Once you hear the voice of God, you’re either gonna move forward in obedience or you’re not.
But any response other than obedience is an inappropriate response to the voice of God, he does not speak to be heard, he speaks to be obeyed.
And the reason why he speaks is because he is like the control tower.
When an airplane takes off, the pilot does not just trust in their own visibility to guide the plane.
They have constant connection with the control tower because the control tower has the capacity to see way beyond what it is that the pilot in their limited scope and limited perspective is able to see.
So they stay in contact with the control tower because the control tower is able to keep them from disasters that they don’t even know are possible because of their narrow viewpoint.
When God speaks to you. It’s because he’s the control tower. He sees stuff your narrow viewpoint.
My narrow viewpoint cannot see and when you respond in obedience, even though it doesn’t make sense.
At the time, when you respond in obedience, you have no idea the disasters that you’ve circumvented because you just, you just said, yes, Lord and respond in obedience to God in jesus’ day when the shepherd um called his sheep, the sheep didn’t debate with the shepherd.
They didn’t negotiate with the shepherd. They didn’t ignore the shepherd.
They just went where he led them. Why? Because they believed that he was a good shepherd.
They believed that whatever pasture he was taking them to was better off than the one they were in.
Even if the one they were in, still had some green grass that they could gnaw on.
There was still some fresh pools of water there that they could refresh their thirst on.
It still looked to them like this pastor was just fine.
But if the shepherd said, let’s go, they believed that where he must be taking them was better off than where they were.
So it didn’t make sense, but the sheep would just follow because they believed they had a good shepherd.
John chapter 10 says He is your good shepherd.
The book of Hebrews takes it a step further than that and says, he ain’t just good.
He is your great shepherd that if you can’t trust anybody else, you need to trust the leading of God in your life no matter how big the decision is or what you sense.
God is telling you to do or how small and insignificant you think it might be when God speaks our response is to be obedient to what it is that God is telling us to do my sheep, hear my voice.
I know them and they follow me y’all. Um Remember the late great Michael Jackson.
I’m sure y’all don’t try to act holy. Y’all know Michael Jackson.
I was watching a documentary there have been so many done on Michael Jackson.
I was watching this documentary and the director of the Billy Jean video. Y’all remember Billy Jean.
The director of the video was being interviewed about his uh direction and production of the Billy Jean video.
He, they asked him, what was it like to work with Michael and to talk about different scenes and different experiences shooting that video?
And he said something really interesting.
He said there’s a particular scene in the Billy Jean video where Michael Jackson is walking up and down and dancing up and down this pathway and every place that Michael would step would light up on the path.
You remember that the square would light up every time he stepped on it.
He said this was a real interesting portion of the video to shoot because I had to pull the Michael Jackson aside and say, listen, Mike, we know you are a great dancer.
We know you can dance all over this little pathway.
In fact, we know you could dance all over this entire studio. You are amazing. We’ve got it.
But you need to know that if you want this video to work, right?
I have already gone before you and pre lit certain squares.
And if you want this video to look the way we want it to look, then you’re gonna have to rein in all of your dancing and just step on the squares where I’ve already put the lights.
Otherwise all of your energy, all of your efforts are all going to be wasted because the path will not light up so many times in my life and maybe even in yours we’re expending all of this effort and energy, our gifts, our talents, our abilities, and we feel frustrated and overwhelmed because the path is not lighting up.
Could it be because we’ve not taken time to turn aside to the director and say, would you please show me what you have already pre lipped?
The Bible says he has already gone before you and prepared good work so that you might walk in.
Then when you and I listen to the voice of God, then we have the privilege to know what He’s already pre lit.
And then we can use the gifting of God, the talent of God, the energy that God has given each and every one of us to step on the squares that He’s gone before us to light up.
Then we’ll see the illumination of the favor of God, the illumination of the power of God, the presence of God, the peace of God in our path because we took time to hear the voice of God, my sheep, hear my voice.
I know them and they follow me.
I want you to bow your heads with me because I asked you a very, very important question at the beginning of the message.
And I’m gonna ask it to you again because we can’t hear a message like this and, and not respond to hear the voice of God.
You got to be one of his sheep.
And I just wonder if there might be anybody in the room after we’ve experienced such a profound encounter with the presence of God in our worship.
And now we have heard him speak to us so clearly about the privilege that we have to hear the voice of God.
I just wonder if there might be anybody in the room who has never come into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
You want more than anything to know God’s direction leading in your life.
You want more than anything to hear and know the voice of God in your existence, but you’re not in relationship with Him and you want to fix that right now.
You don’t want to go one more day without being able to have the Holy Spirit so that you can hear God’s voice if you have never placed faith in Jesus Christ, but you want to make that decision today while every head is bowed and eyes are closed, would you just lift your hand and lift your eyes so that my eyes meet yours?
And I know that’s a decision that you need to make.
Is there anybody, is there anybody that your heart is burning right now?
Because you know the Lord is asking you to respond. Anyone need to receive Jesus Christ as Savior tonight.
We’ll wait for you. This is the best decision that you will ever make. Yes, ma’am.
I see you up there. Yes.
Anybody else just wave at me until I see your hand anybody else need to receive Jesus Christ as Savior tonight?
Yes, I see you over there, sir. Yes, I see you. Fantastic.
So many of you want to receive Jesus Christ. I see you in the blue right there. Yes.
Who else needs to receive Jesus Christ to save your night. Just wave at me.
I don’t want to miss your hand.
Oh, just 30 more seconds.
Anybody else you need to receive Jesus Christ as Savior? I see you. Yes, I see you. Fantastic.
Anybody else you wanna make a decision to come into a relationship with Jesus Christ.
You wanna be a part of the family of God.
It’s the most important decision you will ever make. Yes, ma’am. Yes. Fantastic.
Who else needs to come into the family of God? Yes, ma’am. Yes, I see you.
Who else sway at me? 10 More seconds?
Who else needs to receive Jesus Christ as Savior in just a couple of minutes I am or a couple of seconds.
Really? I’m going to ask everybody to stand to their feet.
And when I do those of you that waved at me, those of you that raised your hands.
I want, you don’t even think twice about this.
Don’t spend too much time talking yourself out of it as soon as we all stand to our feet.
Would you just race down here to the, all her?
We’re going to pray with you and for you and we’re going to celebrate the fact that you have come into the family of God.
When I count to three. If everybody would say 123, come down to receive Jesus Christ as savior.
We’re going to pray for you in jesus’ name. Come on down. Come on down.
Come on down. That’s fantastic.
This was a great day to come into the family of God. Come on down.
Thank you Lord. Come on across.
Don’t you be embarrassed?
You come, come on, help me to celebrate those who are coming today.
Amen. Amen. Even if you didn’t raise your hand.
But you know the Holy Spirit is burning on the Holy Spirit is the one that causes you to even want to be in a relationship with God.
If you’re sensing a burning in your heart or an uneasiness and you wish that I would just stop talking and move on with the message.
Then it’s you that needs to come down to receive Jesus Christ to save you. Got 10 more seconds.
Anybody else need to run forward, run forward to become a part of the family of God tonight.
God has never loved anybody as much as he loves you right now.
My friend, every single tear that falls from your eyes. He sees every single one of them.
You need to know that He knows you.
He knew you would be here tonight, that this would be the message he knew today was your day my friend and he is celebrating the fact that today you are placing faith in Him.
And when we pray this prayer, it’s not just about just about praying it with your mouth.
The Bible says you, you, you, you pray with your mouth, you confess with your mouth, but you believe it in your heart.
And when you do, you’re part of the family of God.
In that instance, the Holy Spirit of God takes up residence right on the inside of you and begins the work of conforming you into the image of Christ Jesus.
So I’m gonna pray a prayer. Would you all just join together in faith?
Let’s just all pray, pray this prayer together in a faith filled atmosphere.
You all pray this and believe it in your heart.
Lord Jesus, I am a sinner in need of a savior.
So today I place faith in Jesus Christ as my savior, take up residence in me in the person of the Holy Spirit right now in Jesus name, Lord, I devote these that have come to you and I pray that their lives will be brand spanking new after today.
Lord speak to them so clearly that they will never doubt again that they are part of the family of God in Jesus name.