I'm excited this morning. I'm going to lay a bit, a little
bit of a foundation before we read our first scripture, but
the topic that we're going to discuss today is the Compass
within. The compass within.
We're going to talk about how to be led by the Spirit.
Now, some of you may have been here for a long time.
You're like, yeah, I get it. I know how to be led by the
Spirit. I got it.
We'll see. That's fine.
Some of you may be new, and I know that sometimes we can come
in church and say things that are very church phrases, right?
I remember my friend Casey, when he first came to the Lord years
ago, he was looking for some direction in his life.
And he's like, every time I ask somebody, you know, what should
I do, everybody would say just be LED, brother.
He's like, what does that mean? I don't understand.
We're like, well, you need to be led by the Spirit.
He's like, how, how am I led by the Spirit?
I don't get it. And what that is is that there's
a phenomenal thing that we have in the resource of the word of
God, but also there's this phenomenal thing called pastors
and teachers that can instruct and disciple.
God didn't call us just to say, hey, come into the Kingdom,
figure it out on your own. That's why when we show up and
we gather together in this place, it's a time for us to be
built up, not only just feel better about life, but be
equipped to do better in life. So whenever we come to the
church body, I know that this is something that Anchor Faith
Church has taught as a core truth and principle from the
beginning. Today we got 1.
You know, I've got only two hours to instruct you.
We'll see. But Apostle Earl actually
ministered a whole series on this five years ago.
And if you go to YouTube, you can actually search this and
find it's called I will follow. So it's a very in depth study,
line upon line preaching slash teaching like our apostle
brilliantly does. But after today, I'm going to
give you a foundation and some foundational truths about this
and hopefully you'll walk away with some practical application.
But in the midst of that, if you want to go a little bit deeper
and you're like, I need to know we have resources here in your
local church. Go to our YouTube page, go to
the podcast, search this thing and find it.
And you can get built up because God didn't intend you to just be
led by what's around you or be moved by anything that's around
you. He intended that you'd be led by
what's within you. So I want to, you know, start
out by just giving you an outline of what God's original
intent was. See, in the very beginning when
we read the first page of the Bible, we read that first
chapter 1 and 2 of Genesis. It's God's original plans for
mankind. It's why you're here.
It says that God in Genesis 126, I'm just going to quote some of
these real fast for you because you already know most of these
if you're a part of Anchor Faith Church.
But God desired that man would rule over the planet.
He said I'm going to give him rulership or dominion over
planet earth. That's why we're here.
But the way that he gave this to Adam is that he gave Adam
instruction. So in God's perfect plan, God
gave Adam a word, gave him an assignment and Adam just had to
hear and do what God said. So when we talk about being led
by the spirit, there's this simplicity and purity that comes
with just hearing and doing what God says.
And, and a lot of times we can over complicate our lives.
And when people ask the question, because this is a
popular question, people come in and be like, Hey, how do I get
led by the spirit? How do I know I'm being led by
the spirit? How do I, what is the what,
what, what shows me that I've heard from God and that I'm
doing the right thing. And, and again, as full grown
adults, we've experienced a lot of things.
But no matter what the rest of this that is said today, there's
just a simplicity that being led by the Spirit is hearing God and
doing what he said, hearing God doing what he said.
So Adam heard God knew what to do, was confident in that, and
then decided to disobey. Life got complicated when he
decided to disobey. Life always gets complicated
when you disobey. You know this message is not
just for a grown adults in this sanctuary you understand no
matter what age you are, you can hear from God and do what He
says. It's what we call a foundational
core truth of the Bible. So whenever Adam was born to
live by revelation of hearing God and obeying and hearing God
and obeying, he was living by revelation of God.
But whenever he ate the fruit, Adam not only fell from his
dominion, but he fell from revelation down to information.
So now no longer was he led by the revelation of what God said.
He now had to be led by the information of what the earth
told him around him. So every person born after Adam
is now born into the faulty state of humanity by being
directed and being led by information when that's not
God's ultimate purpose. That's not the goal.
His goal was that you could hear His voice and then do what He
says. You're going to hear me say this
multiple times today and then it would behoove you to go back and
listen to it again and listen to me say it again.
Because when the all the other voices of life start talking and
all the other circumstances start having and all you get
bombarded with information from life around you, you need to
just remember what is God saying and what do I just simply do?
Life's not complicated if you follow the king, but it's
complicated if you throw the king in amongst all the other
things that you are being told to follow.
It's a very simple message. As we read this first verse this
morning, I want to go to Romans chapter 8, verse 16.
Let's all stand to our feet at anchor Faith Church.
You know, after the Kingdom Rise weekend that we had, Apostle
Marcy reminded us of the importance in the Word of God,
how whenever the Word of God was read, the people stood to honor
the word. And I love how Apostle Earl
continues to remind us that it's that we have this image in our
minds that we are standing in the throne room of heaven.
And as we stand to receive, it's me reading these words is the
same power carries the same authority as God himself
speaking it directly to your face.
So as we all stand, I want to read this key text for today and
being led by the Spirit. It's in Romans 814.
It says for all who are being led by the Spirit of God.
These are the sons and daughters of God.
You all may have a seat for all who are being led by the Spirit
of God. These are the sons of God.
These are the daughters of God. Would you want to consider
yourself, I'm a child of God? In fact, for 20 years, almost
every message we end with Apostle Earl gets up and says,
let's do a confession at the end and he says I am a child of God.
But there's a proof that proves whether or not you are that.
Everybody may say it, but there's evidence if you truly
are a child of God, and that is if you are being led by the
Spirit of God. Being led by the Spirit is not
just an option available to a believer, it's an expectation
and a requirement in this Kingdom life.
So for you to say, be honest with yourself and say I don't
really know how to be led by the Spirit.
I don't know really know, am I being led by the Spirit?
It would be important for you to pause all that you're doing and
say, what do I need to do to understand this so that I can
hear from God what he wants from me, and then do what God wants,
Hear from God and then do what he says whenever you know,
Washington Classical Christian School, our private school that
we have here, I have the honor and the ability to go in and
teach Chapel from time to time. And the last time that we had a
Chapel service, the lower school kids all came in.
They're all sitting down together, you know, Criss cross
applesauce, Yes, applesauce. And as they're sitting there,
the Lord prompted me to tell them the story about Samuel in
the Bible. Samuel was just a young boy.
His mother dedicated him to the Lord and took him to the temple.
And he's just five years old. And if you look through the life
of Samuel, Samuel followed God all the way to the end.
But as a little small child, he was laying in bed and he hears
Samuel. He's like, the priest is calling
me. So he runs in and says, Eli,
Eli, did you call me? And Eli rolls over like most of
us parents do. We're like, what?
Where are you in here? He's like, no, go back to bed,
get out. And this happens multiple times
until finally Eli realizes, OK, if he's hearing somebody call
him, it must be the Lord. So he comes in and says, Eli,
did you call me? And he says, no, next time you
hear, just say speak, Lord, your servant is listening.
Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.
So at a young age, as a just a child, Samuel heard the voice of
God and then was able to sit up and say, speak Lord, your
servant is listening. And God began to reveal plans
for his life. God began to talk to him.
But what I want to take out of this is that was the old
covenant where whether he heard it audibly or on the inside, I
don't know. But I know that we have
something even greater than Samuel had.
God doesn't have to speak to us through visions, through dreams,
through prophecies. He doesn't have to do that
because we have something called the Spirit of God dwelling
inside of us. But I was able to ask the kids,
and this is a powerful, just practical testimony because you
realize when we overcomplicate things as adults, sometimes kids
just get it because they're saying, I just want to hear and
do what's being told of me by the Lord.
And I asked the kids, I was like, can you raise your hand?
Has anybody ever heard from God before?
Now I'd recognize the risk. It's like we anything could be
said. I didn't hand them the mic.
That would be crazy. But I said, when?
When did you hear from God? And the first kid that was about
nine years old said, and I didn't know what to expect.
They could say anything crazy that they wanted.
Whatever we're about to find out.
But this first kid says God told me in inside that I needed to
apologize for being mean to my friend.
In that moment I thought, my God, you actually heard from
God. You did.
You heard from God That was God speaking to you.
You know how I knew that? Because I know the Word and I
know that the Spirit always says what the Word is saying, that
God the Father has spoken to Jesus.
And Jesus said, I say nothing of my own initiative, but only what
the Father reveals to me and shows me and says to me.
And then he says, I'm going to send you another just like me,
and he's going to remind you of my words.
Who? What are Jesus's words?
They're the Father's words. So all of the Trinity is in
unity around one thing, the word.
So you know how I can tell you're being led by the Spirit?
Or if you're not being led by the Spirit, now you may say,
don't judge me. Hey, hey, hey, we always judging
you. Just judge me for judging you.
We're always judging and weighing and measuring what is
being said according to a standard.
That standard, if you have a good one, is called the Word of
God. That standard, if you have a bad
one, is called experience or emotion or how it makes you
feel. But I've never heard a person
who's truly led by the Spirit not say but question it.
Is it right? See, if you're hearing from the
Holy Ghost, then other people who are sensitive to the Spirit
will also be able to confirm, Is this the Word or is this your
flesh? So I knew in that moment, in the
simplicity of childlike faith, he said, you need to apologize
to a person you know. Grown adults would be like, Nah,
thank God, I know what they did. They don't deserve an apology.
And all of a sudden we get frustrated because we're not
just simply doing what God said. We're overcomplicating our lives
by saying reasoning why what's being asked of us is too much.
There's a simplicity. So the question that we'd have
to ask ourselves is how do I hear God?
It's not going to be with an audible voice.
I'm telling you, in all my life and pursuing the, the, the King
and, and, and loving God and being in ministry, I've never
heard just the audible voice of God just boomingly speak to me
in that way. In fact, there's a prophet in
the Old Testament that was trying to seek God and hear God.
And all of a sudden there was this fire that came and, and he
was waiting and listening and he didn't hear anything in the
fire. And then this storm came and in
the Thunder and in the, these deep rumblings in the sky, he
didn't hear God. And all of a sudden, after this
wind blew, it was this strong, powerful wind and he didn't hear
anything. But then it says in the still
small voice, God spoke. And I've found with being led by
the Spirit, He's the Spirit of truth.
And truth never needs to scream at you.
Truth doesn't ever have to try to get louder than anything
else. Truth only has to just be
present. Truth carries so much authority
and weight behind it that if it's just said it does it's
work. So whenever we're looking for
God to try to scream something at our physical ears, it's not
going to happen. In fact, if you show up at a
church service or at or at some kind of special services that we
have and there's, there's prophets of God or something,
you're like, I've not heard God, you know, in all these years,
but hopefully that person speaks a word of God for me.
You may be getting it backwards. We don't have to have just a
prophet tell us about the truth and lead us and guide us in our
direction. What we need is to do what sons
and daughters do, and that is be led by what?
Be led by the Spirit who confirms the word.
And there's nothing wrong with it.
Somebody begins to speak a word over you and, and, and somebody
that's moving in the prophetic begins to say something.
Don't just receive it, measure it against.
Is this what God has said to me in my heart already?
You're like, well, it's not not valuing it.
No. I want to value every gift
that's given. I want to receive a prophet in
the name of a prophet. I want to receive a pastor in
the name of a pastor. But in the end, I'm going to go
back to what the Holy Ghost himself does and say, what does
the word say about this? Does it align with the word?
Is this something that's been moved already in my spirit?
Because a word spoken over you shouldn't be a shock.
It should confirm what the Holy Ghost has already been leading.
So how do we hear from God here? That in Romans chapter 8 verse
16. So just two scriptures, 2 verses
later, Romans 816. Listen to this carefully.
It says for the Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that
we are children of God. He testifies with what our
spirit that we are children of God.
Look at it again, he testified. The Spirit himself testifies
with our spirit. This is a supernatural
transaction. It would we would, we would do
you a major disservice to try to teach you that intellectually
how you can understand all that God's trying to do.
No, there is something deposited in you at the new birth called
the Spirit of God that enables you to live beyond just what
natural people can do. Being led by the spirit is
supernatural at its core, and that supernatural effect changes
and affects the natural that's around you, but it comes from
within. So the spirit is not going to
speak to your brain. That's not his job.
He testifies with your spirit. So if you're listening with your
physical ears, you're going to miss what's being said to your
spirit. This is how he speaks when
you're like, I want to hear from God.
Well, you're going to have to become proficient at hearing
what he's saying on the inside. Now I realize there's some
mystery, you know, mystery, mystery, mystery.
What? There's some mystery to this
because the supernatural things, not a natural man can't
understand the word of God, how the spirit operates.
It's only by being born anew in the Spirit of God, having your
old man pass away, all things becoming brand new inside of
you, that new spirit man is able to hear and do what God says.
Outside of God. You can't hear God and then do
what he says except for one thing, which is come give your
life to me. Submit to my Lordship.
That's all he's saying to the unbeliever.
Come, submit to my lordship. Come, come, be made new.
Come, let your life be made whole.
He's just drawing. It says the spirit is drawing.
The same spirit that leads us is the same spirit that drew you to
him in the first place. In fact, let me, let me, let me
get you as excited as I am about this.
The same spirit that breathed on man to write out the Holy
Scriptures is the exact same spirit that comes to dwell
inside of you and lead you and guide you.
The same one. That's why it's impossible for
me to look at people when we have discussions about the Bible
and say I agree to disagree. It's OK, we all disagree.
No, I have the Spirit of God living in me.
I'm proficient at hearing what he says, balancing it with the
word and making sure is this what the word says and then
knowing what did you mean? See, we try to make excuses for
ourselves when we're like, oh, I don't know how to be LED.
I guess I'll just do my own thing.
No, no, no, there's an expectation that sons and
daughters of God will be led by what?
It's important to note that in this verse it says he testifies
with your spirit. He does not testify with your
bank account. When he speaks, he doesn't
confirm how much money you have or don't have.
When he speaks to you, he does not testify to your comfort.
See a lot of times people are like, oh man, if I'm
uncomfortable it must not be God.
One of the main benefits of being led by the Spirit that I
love so much about God is, is that it's not so much that I
hear His audible voice and then just obey a simple task.
It's that on the inside, once I know I'm immovable, it's that He
gives me this confidence that no matter what's going on around
me, I have this overwhelming confidence.
I've heard and I know I'm in the right place at the right time
doing what God told me and that's what I'm looking for
more. And you saying, oh, I was led by
the spirit, a confidence to know where you're at right now and
then what you're supposed to do with this time.
That's more important than it just says, oh, where do I go
next? Some people are missing being
led by the spirit in the season now because they're looking for
the next season and asking them to give them direction how to
get there. See, don't we know that the word
of God is a lamp unto your feet, and a light unto your path?
The Holy Spirit confirms the word, which means he's not going
to override being the lamp into your feet and the light into
your path. Some people are so focused on
what is my ultimate calling? What is the thing I was born to
do later in the future? And God's like, just focus.
Just shake somebody's hand when they walk in the door.
You're a greeter. Nothing worse than a daydreaming
greeter that doesn't know that they're supposed to be greeting
and they're just walking around in the lobby and they're not
paying attention and people are walking past them.
They're like, oh God, what is next?
What's next? God and God's saying focus,
focus, be the best you are in the season that you are in right
now. If he's given you as a, if the
word of God is here to guide your path, he's just going to
show you the next step. So you need to know this about
being led by the Spirit until you obey the step.
He said he's not obligated to lead you anywhere else.
He's not obligated. You know, there was a time in
some of my family's life, God had moved on them and said, you
need to move to Florida. And in the midst of that, they
were like, OK, well, let's figure it out and let's see
what, what you know, how is this going to work?
And you know what, where are we? How are we going to sell things?
And how are we going to have finance?
And what are we going to do with, you know, once we get
there and what kind of job are we going to have?
And they're asking all these questions and some time went by
and they're like, oh, it just seems like, you know, things
aren't really working like we thought they were.
And I was like, what did God say to you last?
Well, he said, move to Florida. Have you done that?
It's more complicated than that. Is it, is it more complicated or
do we make things complicated when we try to figure out all of
the rest of the things? You know, sometimes with, with
just even raising my children and their childlike faith.
There's, you know, we'll have the the oven turned on.
It's been on 400° Danny's bacon, some awesome sourdough bread.
And we'll open that oven door. And all of us adults know that
oven door is hot. And when the children walk in
the kitchen, we don't begin to explain to them Fahrenheit
versus Celsius and the the effects that it makes on your
skin if you get too close or touch or what.
We don't explain all that. Sometimes we just go, hey, don't
come in the kitchen right now. And that's enough of a word to
keep them whole, healthy, protected in the season they're
in. I don't have to explain the
depths of how it works. I can just say, hey, don't do
that right now. And sometimes the Holy Ghost is
doing that with you. You're getting ready to go to a
place that you're excited about. You want to go here, you've been
planning this. And the Holy Ghost just says,
hey, don't go there right now. Why, why, why, why, why, why?
You become the annoying child. It's OK to ask the question why.
But you know what? At some point, are you asking a
question or are you questioning? There's a difference.
There's a difference between asking a question and then
questioning, 'cause I found being led by the Spirit happens
in small things always. First, you want to know God,
where are you calling me to live and take my family?
I need to know. And he's like, go down this
morning, lift your hands during worship.
You're like, no, OK, you know, I'm beyond that.
Lord, I've been with you a while, but I can remember being
a teenager. Listen to this.
Growing up in Oklahoma, I was born and raised in church.
You know, I'm pretty sure like the day after I was born, my mom
had me sitting in the church service with her.
But when, whenever I begin to question things or ask questions
as a, as a teenager and as a, as a young teen, I was like, you
know, what is this thing? Is this thing real?
You know, I, I had my parents faith, I knew the Bible.
I was raised in church, but God had to make it real for me.
And my God, if you're speaking, then you need to speak to me.
And then somebody taught me a lesson just like I'm teaching
today. But I remember being a very
impressionable 14 year old and it just so happened my youth
pastor was Apostle Earl and we were having a worship service.
Everybody's down front, everybody's worship.
And I was standing in my seat because I had a hundred
thoughts. If I go down there, what are
people going to say? If I lift my hands, you know, I
haven't really lift my hands before, they're going to be
like, oh, is he faking it or oh, is he doing this?
And I just, there's a lot of things going on in my mind and I
just stopped there. And as I got quiet myself, I
thought, God is saying, do this and this isn't some big life
altering, dramatic emotional moment for people to see him be
like, look at Josh, look what he's doing.
Wow. Nobody clapped.
Nobody was like, great job. Nobody knew the war happening
inside me between how I felt, what I think I'd be perceived
as, and what did God say? And I remember going down there
and then just lifting my hands and the freedom that came from
that small gesture. You know, what I didn't have to
do is ask a bunch of theological questions about it.
What is the, what is the representation of actually
roofing your hands? And I, I didn't even know any of
that at the time. All I knew was God said on the
inside, go down and lift your hands.
And I heard God and I did what he said.
And that put me on a path of hearing and doing that is makes
it to where I can be led by the Spirit in every decision I make.
I didn't have to have a prayer time with him to determine what
I knew on the inside. And I think that's what some
people try to override or try to overcomplicate is, you know,
whenever God's prompting you to do something, you know what's
inside of you. You also know majority of the
time as a believer especially, you know that it's God and you
know it's backed up by the Word. I find that when people begin to
lose sight or become dull in their hearing and doing with
being led by the Spirit is really in the realm of
forgiveness. Because the more that you hear
and obey, you sharpen this ability and you sharpen the
ability to hear his voice and understand what He's saying.
Know how to flow and move with God every time you hear and
obey, but every time you hear and override, it dulls you.
So when somebody says I just feel like I can't hear God's
voice, my question is never why did God stop talking to you?
That's never the question. I know God's speaking.
So in the end, some you you've done something to override or
miss what he said. There's this powerful story by a
man named Rick Renner. Growing up in Tulsa, we, you
know, had spent some time with his family as children and he
ended up becoming a missionary to Moscow, Russia.
It really Latvia in the beginning, but has had a
ministry work over in the country of Russia for decades
now. It's phenomenal.
But I was listening to a message one time that he was accounting
a, a time in his ministry whenever somebody had attacked
him verbally in in front of a whole thousands of people and
discredited his ministry wrongfully.
So he let bitterness stir in his heart and he and he would tell
you this if he was standing here, let bitterness stir in his
heart towards this individual and then ended up standing up in
his congregation of thousands of people and saying negative words
about this other minister. The moment he did it, he said on
the inside, I shouldn't have done that.
He said that he would go to pray and there was weeks and weeks
where he was trying to spend time with God in prayer and God
wasn't saying nothing but one thing.
You need to ask that man to forgive you.
He didn't even know if the guy hurt him, but he said you need
to ask him to forgive you. You're going to get down on your
knees in front of that man and ask him to forgive you.
And every time he went to prayer, that's what God will
say. Have you got down on your knees
with that man and asked him to forgive you yet?
So you know what he did as a righteous, mighty man of God?
He shows up in the man's office, sets a meeting with him, talks
to him. Enough small talk has gone by
that there's only one thing left to do.
Was the was the other person wrong for saying these words
about him? Yeah.
Was he wrong for saying the things about him?
Yeah. But we didn't cancel out each
other by being led by the flesh and led by the information.
No, the spirit spoke and said, go get on your knees.
So he said in that moment, he said, there's one more thing I
need to to do. And he said he got down on one
knee And the spirit said, Nope, he's like, so he got on both
knees, said I need to ask your forgiveness.
But you understand the humility that has to come from you simply
hearing and doing that again, as people who've experienced life
and gone through trials and gone through things and, and, and had
a a lot of lot of things go on in our in our past.
It's easy for us to say that's a ridiculous thing to do.
I'll just ask him to forgive me and move on.
When this what did the Holy Spirit say?
What did he say? It's not good enough to do it
part way before the Spirit of God lived within and was leading
from within. I remember a time in the Old
Testament with a a man named Saul.
He was a king. You know what happened with
Saul? God told him, go in and kill
everything. In this one battle, what you've
always done is you've gone and you've made a sacrifice.
You've taken some of the good, you've brought it back.
But in this one, I want you to kill everything.
I want you to take it, wipe it all out and don't keep anything
for yourself. So Saul goes in, sees how good
the stuff is, says you know what, I'm going to keep some of
this. Then God has to send the prophet
to him and says, I thought I told you.
You know what Saul told him? Well, I did what God said.
I did what he said. Then the prophet says, then why
can I hear the sheep? How are dead sheep making noise?
He says, But I sacrifice to God. I did what I've always done.
And in that moment, God stripped the Kingdom and the anointing
from him just for not wiping out what God said.
He did almost everything he was led to do by the Word of God.
See, the simplest thing for him to do would have been to hear
what God said and then what? And then do it do it in its
simplest form. Being led by the Spirit is not
this big complicated thing that we have to go and have signs and
fleeces. There's another guy in the Bible
named Gideon, Gideon's he's, he's sitting here, he's afraid.
He's and he's, he's down in the wine press.
He's doing his thing. And all of a sudden an Angel of
the Lord shows up and says, Hey, get up, mighty man of valor.
And he's like, who are you talking to?
I am mortified at what's happening around me.
I am not mighty. I am terrified and scared and I
want nothing to do with this. So he asked God confirm it then.
So God, he's like, I'm going to lay out this fleece and what a
lot of believers are trying to do in the new covenant with just
the Spirit inside of them are trying to figure out fleeces and
say, give me a sign. So he's like, listen, if, if
there's a, I'm going to put a bowl of water by the fleece and
then I'm going when I wake up, if the, if the fleece is wet,
but the ground's dry, I know you did it.
And then it happens because he's in the Old Testament, he's in
the old covenant. The Spirit doesn't live within
him. So God confirmed it for him.
God's always ready to confirm his word for you.
If God gives you a word, he's going to give you the proof.
He's, there's going to be evidence.
If you say, here he goes, the Spirit's leading me here, there
will be proof every time, whether or not what you're
saying is right or whether or not you're missing it, there's
proof. Then he says, well, that's not
good enough. I need another.
OK, OK, you got the fleece. All wet.
Takes forever to dry. I need a miracle.
You need to dry it really fast. It's like saying, Lord, I want
the whole load of laundry to be wet when I wake up in the
morning and then realizing, oh, no, it's not done.
I need it. I need you to dry it.
So he drives out the fleece by a miracle.
So he's putting out this fleece, looking for God to confirm
something. When in this new covenant we
have, we don't need fleeces. You know why?
Because we have the word. We have the Holy Spirit of God
inside of us speaking and bearing witness with our spirit.
I think sometimes people want the Holy Spirit, you know, to to
be like a, a shock collar on a dog.
You know what I mean? Like they don't want a gentle
leading because that's what being led by the spirit is not
being driven by the spirit. Being led by the spirit is not
being controlled by the Spirit God, the spirit, even the devil
can't control you. That would be overriding your
free will. Whatever you do, you choose and
allow. But people want the Holy Ghost
like, oh man, if I'm going to be lied by the Spirit, he needs to
be louder. He needs to, you know, I got a
lot going on. And it's like they put on a
shock collar and all of a sudden the Holy Spirit's like they go
to do something they shouldn't do.
And he goes, I remember we had this dog named Scamp growing up
and my parents, you know, had this invisible fence put in and
it had these little flags around and Scamp didn't know what's
going on. He just knows we put this heavy
collar on him and if he gets close to it, he goes.
And he, you know what, even with that, he never learned Scamp was
stupid. He'd walk every day.
We're like, don't, we don't want him to go past that point.
He'd walk Lango and walk right past it.
And you think that if the Holy Ghost did that for you, you
would always comply. The Holy Ghost is speaking on
the inside of you again. He's the spirit of truth.
He doesn't have to try to be louder.
He just has to be present in the conversation.
There's this, this guide that we follow in this, you know, we can
say this, that peace is often the compass that the Spirit uses
to guide us. You'll hear, you know, in our,
in our, you know, regular church language, we'll say things like,
you got to be led by the Spirit, follow peace.
Make sure that you follow peace. But today it's important for us
to define and understand what peace looks like because
unfortunately, there have been times when somebody has
abandoned what God has called them to do.
And what they say is, well, I need to protect my peace.
When last I checked, the peace of God protects you.
So if you're having to protect your peace, it must be a
fabricated peace. See, fabricated peace has to be
protected. It has to be guarded because
it's very fragile. It's fragile because it's based
on your emotions, it's based on your circumstance, it's based on
how you feel. It's based on your anxiety.
But the peace of God, see that one is powerful.
Nothing that God gives us is inferior.
Nothing God gives us is substandard.
Everything God has given to you, He gives to empower, equip and
make you greater than you are. So if God gives you peace, that
peace must carry you and cause you to withstand things the rest
of the world can't. So let's look at Colossians
chapter 3 verse 15. Colossians 315 says let the
peace of Christ rule in your hearts.
Now peace of Christ, let it rule in your hearts to which indeed
you were called into one body and be thankful.
Let the peace of Christ, not the peace of your circumstance, not
the peace of your relaxing evening with a book.
Don't let the peace of a nice rainstorm on a tin roof.
No, the peace of Christ is what should rule your heart.
The same peace that Christ carried with him when he was in
the garden sweating drops of blood before he went to go do
something very physically, completely, and you know,
horrible that he had to pursue and go through, but something
carried him through that called peace.
Which tells me peace is not the absence of conflict or the
absence of chaos. See, we try to say, oh, the
Spirit wouldn't lead me into something that makes me
uncomfortable. The Spirit wouldn't lead me into
conflict when history tells a different tale.
No, if peace is not the absence of conflict, what that means is
that the peace of God must be a steadfastness in the midst of
conflict. Peace is a confidence in
conflict. See, that's why we have to rely
on the Spirit. That's why we have to be led by
the Spirit. That's why we have to learn to
know God's voice. Because when you say, oh, I've
got my anxiety coming up, that must mean you have no idea how
peace works. You got to get it.
You got to get you some. You got to get in the Bible and
find out, how do I get this peace?
How am I led by the Spirit? That's what I found the great
one of the greatest things. I've already said it, but one of
the greatest things about being led by the Spirit is the
overwhelming confidence that I know what I'm doing is right,
even if everybody disagrees with me in the world, even if
circumstances are telling me it's different.
What did God say? That's what I believe.
And I'm going to do it as a pastor.
I, I visit people in hospitals from time to time and, you know,
the situations can vary, whether or not somebody has, you know,
just an injured pinky or if somebody has a, you know, a
terminal illness that may have happened.
But one thing I've found is that going into these situations,
there's nothing that can be said or done in this hospital that
God's not greater than someone's.
Like, what if I get a negative report?
So what I realized that if me visiting you ended in your
death, there's provision in the word that you could be raised
up. So whatever they say is not
shaking me and shouldn't shake you.
If your piece is rooted in positive reports only, then
it'll be shaken if somebody comes in and says, oh, looks
like you have this, this problem.
When somebody, when a doctor diagnosis something in your
life, there's no problem with doctors.
Let them diagnose because they give you a name of what you
have. And then you realize the name
above all names happens to be what?
And we have to let the peace of Jesus or the peace of God rule
our hearts. There's nothing that can be said
to me to rattle me. The peace of Christ can rule in
your heart. Let's look at Philippians 47.
Philippians 47 says in the peace of God.
The peace of who? Not your peace, not your peace
that needs to be protected, not your special little pet peace
that you need to keep in a little box with you.
No, the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension,
which means there's times in your life that you'll need what
it says. In the rest, it will guard your
hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
There's times when you may not understand everything that's
happening to you. You may not have all of the
information around you, but what you have is within you.
I've got peace knowing that God is with me and I'm being led by
what He says because I just need to hear and then do what He
tells me. Just hear and do.
If there's a secret algorithm to being led by the Spirit, that's
what it is. Hear God, do what he said and
don't be pressured or rushed to, to to to, you know, rush that
decision. Circumstances will try to
pressure you. Now, I'm not saying drag around
and don't do anything either. And just I'm waiting on the
Lord. No, no, no, you need to get a
word from the Lord. Whenever I ask of him, he
answers. This isn't the old covenant.
This isn't with Daniel. Like there was an Angel and he's
fighting somebody up in the heavenlies and trying to come
down and deliver me a message. It's an instant message.
Not like AOL, no. Maybe that's too old.
Charlie has no idea what that is.
It's not that kind of instant message.
But if I ask God, he can answer me on the inside right away.
I can know what God expects of me or wants of me in any given
situation. I remember there was a time when
our youngest was having a challenge and we took her to the
hospital late at night and the doctor that was on call, he was
like, listen, I want to, we're going to have to do a spinal.
What is it called? My wife just mouthed something
to me. I have no clue what you just
said, but they had to take a needle and stick it in her
spinal cord and draw out some fluid to do a test.
And they're like, well, there's a percentage chance that this
would, you know, that, that this could, you know, hurt her and
paralyze her if we don't do it right.
And we have to, you have all this information, but you need
to do it now, right now. Well, you know what?
I'm not to be rushed into this. And I said, there's something I
have to do first. You're going to let me step out
here with my wife and we're going to ask the we're going to
ask God, we're going to ask our king what he wants us to do.
Because if he says yes, then I've heard and I need to do
that. If he says no, then I've heard
and I need to do that. But my whole confidence in this
moment rests on one thing. What is God going to say?
I don't care what the doctor, what the statistics, what the
percentages, what the, what the, the diagnosis is.
I don't care about any of that. I care about one thing because
I'm led by the Spirit. You know what that thing is?
What is God going to say? What does he want me to do now?
This doctor looked at me angry and said no, it has to happen
now. And I said, you'll wait until I
hear from God. I'm going to step out.
You won't do anything until I do because I have that right,
obviously in the United States as well.
So I stepped out. Go with my wife.
We prayed. You know what, we had a peace
about it. We let peace be a compass that
guided us. God didn't say get the needle,
stick it in her spine. He didn't say all that.
He just said, go ahead. And I knew that on the inside,
and so did my wife. The spirit bore witness with our
spirits on the inside, both of us.
And we were in agreement. We said, OK, So we came back and
he's like, yeah, I knew it. And then, you know, I asked this
question that maybe escalated it, But I was like, are you
about to get off your shift? Come on.
He said yes. I was like, I'm not rushed by
your time frame. He said, I'm sorry, he didn't
have to say that because I was right.
It didn't matter. I heard from God.
I didn't need to hear that confirmation.
The Spirit confirmed with me what we were doing.
But that's whenever somebody goes to at a crossroads and
they're about to make a life decision and they're like, what
should I do? What should I do?
I think a lot of times people are asking too many people.
The question that you need to ask of one person.
It's the person of the Holy Spirit.
What should I do? There's sometimes when people
are like, I'm just going to take a take a leap of faith.
I'm just going to step out and take a leap of faith.
And they're picturing Indiana Jones whenever he's standing out
there in the, the big Canyon and, and he's just.
But what I found with faith, what I found with faith is that
faith never steps out over nothing.
It a leap of faith is never a leap out into the unknown.
It's always a leap out into the unseen that you know, see faith,
a leap of faith steps out firmly knowing I'm landing on the word
of God. So if you're like, I don't know
what God said, then don't do anything.
Don't do anything. I haven't heard anything from
God yet. Then why are you moving?
Why are you taking steps to go a direction that you haven't
heard? That's insane.
In the Kingdom of God. You need to hear what God says
and then move forward with that confidence.
You know what? It always, it doesn't always
make sense to the world, but you know who it'll make sense to
other Kingdom people when God, when the Holy Spirit is leading
you and guiding you in a certain direction, it won't make sense
to ChatGPT. It won't make sense to Google.
Here's a good here's a good, you know, test for, for ChatGPT.
Hey, Chat, I'm offered a job that pays me twice as much as
I'm making. Is this a wise decision?
What do you think the answer's gonna be?
You know what? That may not be the case in the
Kingdom. Hey Google, if I move to this
other city, is this a better place for me to live and raise
my children than where I'm at? What's the demographic?
What's the crime rate? What's the information about the
decision I'm wanting to make? When you weren't created to live
based on just information, you were created to be led by the
Spirit. The 1st place of question for
any life decision should be Father God.
What do you want from me? Because God could call you to
take a pay cut in an assignment, in a place that he wants you to
have influence, but that doesn't make sense to the world.
That doesn't make sense to your family.
Sometimes it doesn't make as much sense to you.
But you know what? It's like the kitchen.
Hey, don't go in there right now.
Hey, don't move away yet. Just wait.
Why God? Why, why, why, why?
Just wait. What is the last thing God said?
Did he say wait on that choice? Why are you doing something
else? Just wait.
Did God say stay rooted here, stay planted where you are for a
season? I found this to be the case.
You know, there's there's some proofs of being led by the
spirit. One of these proofs is how does
your presentation of God is leading me somewhere reflect on
God. I know that we have a, a, a
discipleship course here called 318 that we do for men.
It's powerful. Coming coming up on Father's Day
weekend here in a couple weeks. We're going to have a big sign
up for it. I'm telling you, if you're a
male of 18 or older, you need this.
I'm not telling you this 'cause I think I should recommend it to
you. I'm telling you, 'cause I went
through it myself. It made me, it helped carve me
and make me who I am today. You need it.
But what it is, this is a three-year course, every Monday
throughout the school year. Three years.
We've been doing this for how many years?
11 years we've been doing this. And you know what, time and time
again I've seen people come in and say, I heard from God.
He wants me to sign up for this three-year course.
And then a year in, they're like, I'm being led by the
Spirit to go do something else. I'm not going to return.
You're making God look wacky. You're making God look like he
ain't the alpha and Omega. The beginning knowing the
beginning from the end you're acting like God don't know
what's what he's calling you to do.
Oh, I God's calling me just to no.
When you came in, you said God call me.
What happened was you got upset or offended by something.
Then you made a life choice in the midst of an offense it's in.
What's impossible is to be led by the Spirit in an offense.
If somebody upset you and then the Spirit immediately says I'm
leading you in another direction, you're wrong.
If you got corrected by somebody, whether it's a fellow
brother or sister in Christ, or by some of the people that God's
entrusted to oversee and give an account for your soul, if you
get corrected and all of a sudden you come out of that
correction and go, God is leading me to go to another
place, you're wrong. He doesn't lead you by
correcting you or offending you. He bears witness with your
spirit of what you should be doing.
So now everybody that says the Spirit is calling me to do this
is telling you the truth. And anybody says the Spirit told
me, don't question it, they're wrong.
They're wrong because anything that God has called me to do, I
have proven with my life and my choices, whatever He's called me
to do, whatever I've heard and then done will stand the test of
somebody saying I think you're wrong.
See, when God called me to move to Florida, I was only, you
know, 16 years old. When God planted that in my
heart, which means whenever we started Anchor Faith Church, I
was 17 years old, I wasn't here. Why?
Because I was not a legal adult, but whenever I turned 18, God
still had it on my heart and I knew, I knew on the inside.
Nobody told me. Nobody laid hands on me, nobody
prophesied. I just knew inside.
God said, I'm calling you to ministry and you're going to
move to Florida. You know what else he said?
Nothing. That's all I got.
I didn't have any life experience of paying bills and
all these other things to help cloud and, and, and conflagulate
my decisions and what I was going to do.
All I had was God said, I'm calling you to ministry, move to
Florida. So anytime my parents were
talking about what are you going to do when we graduate?
What's the plan? What do we have?
God call me ministry. I'm going to move to Florida.
Well, how are you going to do it?
I don't know. All I know is this is all I've
heard. So in the midst of that, there
were major trials and things that took place that would try
to get me from it. I had counsel from from, you
know, I say counsel, true counsel comes when somebody
points you to the word. Let me let me say I had advice
from people that were even youth leaders when I was growing up.
They tell me, listen, you're going to miss God if you if you
go there. One person said, listen, until
you go to college, you're not going to amount to anything.
So you might as not, you know, might as well not waste your
time just moving somewhere. You need to wait.
But you know what, I heard you're called the ministry move
to Florida. It's not complicated, but a lot
of other things were trying to complicate it for me.
A month before I move, my mom suffers a brain aneurysm.
I know she's not sitting here by my dad right now.
She's alive. If you haven't been here before
the Holy Ghost move, it was a supernatural encounter.
God healed and God took care of her.
She's not blind, she's not paralyzed.
She's functioning. She's teaching your children
right now. But you understand, for my
hearing, my purpose, for listening to God, and all of a
sudden this happens a month before I'm supposed to move.
I had to ask God, what do you want?
Because if this is delayed because the enemy's trying to
come against us with something, I'll wait.
What do you want? And I had to hear from God.
You know what God said? God said I've called you to
ministry, moved to Florida, and you know what?
He didn't tell me anything else until I did that.
Then once I did that, I got another step.
You're going to serve in the ministry and you're going to do
whatever is asked of you. And I still do that.
He hasn't told me different yet. Whatever's asked, I'll do it of
the ministry, whatever progresses the vision, whatever
goes on. But why?
Because that's what I heard from God.
Have there been small other things that I've heard?
Yes, but that was a big life altering moment that I had to
just practice what I did when I was a teenager whenever God said
just go down and lift your hands.
The simplicity of that obedience helped me be attuned to what is
God saying in this big decision. We want to be people that are
the King's, people that say I don't want to do anything of my
own self, but I want to do what God is telling me.
Look at this as we begin to kind of wind things down.
Maybe, I don't know, I'm pretty wound up still, but John chapter
10, verse 27 says this. And I think this is going to
help a lot of people because sometimes you're like, how do I
know I can hear God's voice? I feel like God's not speaking
to me. What is what is what if, what if
God isn't speaking to me? But this verse here tells us my
sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me.
No, we're going to leave this verse up here for a minute
because there's a lot said in that one sentence.
This is the words of Jesus. He says my sheep hear.
He did not say my sheep can hear.
He did not say my sheep might hear.
This is a definitive statement. My sheep hear my voice, and I
know them. But here you go.
And what defines whether they're his sheep?
Because you know what? If you're in a pasture and
there's a fence and you got your sheep and somebody else's sheep
and you call out, everybody hears it.
Your neighbour's sheep will hear what you're saying, but what
defines that? They're yours.
My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me.
So what this tells me is we don't have a lack of hearing.
You always hear when you pray and you ask God, He always tells
you the answer every time, quicker than you give Him credit
for every time. If we go back to verse 5 of this
same chapter, John 10/5, it says a stranger they simply will not
follow, which means to be one of his flock, one of his household,
one of his sheep. We hear his voice and then do
what he says, not what a stranger says.
Well, a lot of times we confuse ourselves and being led by the
Spirit when we listen to voices that the king hasn't authorized.
It's not because he's not loud enough, it's not because he's
not speaking, but it's because we're allowing other things to
crowd his voice and listening to other things.
First Corinthians chapter 14, verse 33, you're like, I'm
confused. Well, God is not a God of
confusion, That's right, but a God of what peace as in all the
churches of the Saints, What did I, what did we say is the thing
that is the compass of the Spirit, peace following peace,
the peace of God. God does not give you confusion.
He gives you peace. So if what you're doing you're
confused by and you're moving through confusion, you're not
moving with God. Now, if you're moving through
unknown, but with the confidence of the Spirit, that's God.
If you're moving through confusion and you don't know,
that's not God. Do we get this?
See, this is the the litmus test of am I hearing God?
Are you confident that what you're doing is what he's
assigned you for right now? I don't know how it'll turn out.
That's not that's that's not for you.
What's the step for some people that are like, man, I want my
life to be whole. I want this thing.
And all of a sudden Pastor Angie gets up and says, listen, we've
got this, this class coming up called Heal the Choice.
And it's about abortion. And you know what the Holy
Spirit might say, Yep, do that. And then you go the next six
months to figure out how can I hear God?
What am I gonna do? Why am I so anxious?
Why do I have anxiety? Why don't I have peace?
Why do I still have regrets and, and past hurts and, and things
that aren't? And really, what's the last
thing he said? Amen.
He doesn't have to say do this and here's all that will result
from it. And here's the victory, and
here's what it looks like in the end, and here's how you'll be a
whole. All he can say sometimes is just
do it. You need to do that.
And then from that simple obedience can come a lifetime of
healing, of moving past regrets, moving past failures, being
redeemed in such a way that you're like, I'm not burdened by
anything anymore. So often there's one thing in
your life that you're holding on to that God wants you to get rid
of and let go of. Yet he leads you through small
choices to get there. Everybody thinks if Jesus showed
up right now in this room and looked at me and said you will
do this, that they would obey. But you've got something even
better than the actual physical face of Jesus.
I think we've over humanized the Word of God.
He came, He lived, He died, and we needed that work and we
needed that. But whenever you tell somebody
you need Jesus, you need what He really was.
John 11 in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God
and the Word was God and then the Word became flesh.
Who is that? You need the Word, you need to
hear? What is God saying to me?
And it will always go back to the written word and confirm
itself in that way. The Holy Spirit's not whispering
to you something that's prohibited in Scripture.
Holy Spirit told me to do this, Did he?
Because I can prove it. Let's go see if the Holy Spirit
is saying it. Oh, that's how dare you.
I heard. I know what I heard.
I know what you heard too. And what I'm trying to verify is
who said it. Because in the garden, when we
go back to Adam, he, when he fell from revelation down to
information, guess what happened?
He comes in there and goes, We're naked.
You know what? God asked him.
Whose voice showed up in your dominion and caused you to see
yourself differently than what I said?
Adam's problem wasn't. He didn't know what God wanted.
His problem was he obeyed a different voice that spoke to
him. You are no different than Adam.
You've been made in the righteousness of God.
You've been given back dominion in the Kingdom.
If you are born again, you've been given back the Holy Spirit
that can speak to you and guide you and lead you.
But you are no different in the fact that you have a free will.
And you can choose to obey the Spirit or you can choose to obey
what you want. You don't need a louder God.
You need to just quiet your soul.
Now I know that that sounds mysterious.
Let me tell you what that's not that's not you sitting Criss
cross applesauce. Yeah, you know, we got to throw
it in there. That's not you sitting down.
That's that's New Agey meditation, weird stuff.
When the Bible says meditate the word, it means think about it a
lot. It doesn't mean you have to sit
down in a silent room with no noise.
You know what I've found a lot of times I hear God so, so
deeply in the midst of chaos that it would be silly for me to
think everything has to be silent.
When we say you need to get quiet with God and listen to
Him, what we mean is not make sure the kids shut their mouths.
Make sure your wife goes into a different place.
Most of the time what we mean is stop asking everyone else to
quiet. Your mind is really just
eliminate all the voices that aren't Him.
If you deal with a situation, if you're going into a trial on a
problem, the first thing you go to is Google, or the first thing
you go to is Web MD, or the first thing that you go to is
your family, or the first thing you go to is culture.
Then you know what? You're going to get confused
because we are not led by family.
The spirit himself testifies with your family.
No, your whole family may not understand because he's not
testifying with them, but you know who he is testifying with.
Your church family, everyone else who's led by the Spirit.
It becomes obvious when you're led by the Spirit.
Time told the tale. Did I hear from God to move to
Florida 20 years ago? My life has proven I heard any
naysayers that would say, oh, that's not God.
They've been proven wrong through the faithfulness of me
following and God proving himself.
It's always provable and evident when you've heard from the
Spirit. So just cuz somebody says the
Spirit's leading me somewhere doesn't mean that's true.
What matters is does it align with the word?
Has God-given you this choice out of prayer and out of divine
counsel with someone saying What does the Word say?
'Cause the Bible says, and I get this, I, I know that we're
saying, you know, he testifies with our spirit, not just our
family. And there's this verse, right,
that says in a multitude of counselors, there's safety.
In a multitude of counselors, there's safety.
You are in a safe place. If you're in a multitude of
counselors, it does not say in a multitude of opinions, there's
safety. Or if in a multitude of
alternatives, there's safety counsel.
True counsel doesn't come from a degree on the wall behind you.
True counsel comes when somebody says, let's look to the truth of
the Word of God. What does it say about this?
I don't want to serve anymore. The Spirit's telling me to sit
out and do nothing. Well, what does the Word say?
God's telling me I'm going to take a season.
I'm just not going to go to church at all.
The Spirit's leading me, I'm not going to go to church at all
anymore, but it the Word says, do not forsake the assembling of
yourselves together. The Holy Spirit told me, no, we
didn't. How dare you question?
The Holy Spirit says what the Word says.
I know his voice, I know what he says.
He didn't tell you that. Well then what am I to do?
The simplest thing. The simplest thing.
You hear what God says and then just do that thing.
The Holy Spirit is here to bear witness with your spirit.
Without the Word of God as our guide, here's a few things that
can happen. Let me have you write these
down. If the Word of God isn't your
guide, if the Holy Spirit, if you're trying to just hear the
Spirit without being a person of the Word, you're going to fall
short because the Word and the Spirit are inseparable.
They go together. If you're like, I've heard from
the Spirit, but you're a person that's not a person of the Word,
then I would question because without the Word, your feelings
will become authority in your life.
Without the Word, your desires will be mistaken for
discernment. I'm discerning the Lord wants me
to do this. No, that sounds really selfish
actually. Well, I'm doing it for my
family. My job is not to do things for
my family. My job is to make sure that me
and the king are operating in obedience and hearing and doing
in a covenant relationship. And then God comes in as part of
that family and guides my family.
Matthew 633 says if I pursue the Kingdom and his righteousness,
all the things everybody else is looking for show up, which means
my job is not to provide for my family.
If a man doesn't work, he doesn't eat.
That's a principle which means I'm going to work myself hard
doing Kingdom things, and then God is obligated to supply for
my family. So when somebody says, well, I
have to do this for my family, where's God?
The last thing that happens if we don't have the word, but
we're trying to be led by the Spirit without the Word, then we
end up having our emotions become revelation to us.
That in a moment when you feel something, all of a sudden this
is God illuminating to you through your feelings.
The Spirit does not testify with your feelings.
You may not feel a single thing when God leads you nothing for
too long. Pentecostals, I think, put the
Holy Spirit in a job title. This was never meant for Him,
which is the head of God's goosebump department.
If you don't feel goosebumps, then the Holy Spirit didn't move
in that worship service. That is not the case.
Did the Word show up? You may have noticed in one of
the songs this morning that if you've ever heard that song on
the radio, you're just trying to sing along and you're like,
that's not the lyrics. Why?
Because here at Anchor Faith Church, we care about the word
that's being proclaimed, whether it's in the pulpit or whether
it's in a microphone with the music.
So I know the minute we begin to sing the word of God, God shows
up in this place. The moment somebody opens the
Word and says let's stand and honor the Word, God showed up
whether you felt it or not. What I want to leave you with
today is this. The being led by the Spirit is
hearing and knowing God's voice within, and it produces an
overwhelming confidence that you are actually where God has
called you to be, in the right place at the right time.
And the simplicity of being LED is hear what He says and do what
He says.