Thanks for checking out the Anchor Faith Message podcast
from St. Augustine, FL.
Now enjoy this message SO. We're going to just do a little
snippet tonight. Of that.
And so I'm going to play a little game though first, OK.
My children's meant for those who don't know me.
I'm Pastor Vanessa. I am over children's ministry
here at Anchor Faith Church and it's an honor to get to do that.
Also direct the preschool as well Monday through Friday.
So I'm going to put my plug in now because Pastor told me I
could. We need people.
Not just any old people. We need people that, as Pastor
Marcy said, we if if the Lord has called us to have a private
school and have a preschool, then he has hands that he's
prepared in the body. And the scripture says that he
places the members of the body where he sees fit, He sees fit,
not where we want to go. You know, I could do a million
other things. You know, I have a another whole
career path that I started out in.
But you know, nothing is is more fulfilling than knowing you're
walking right in the path that God has you in.
So if there's somebody out in here that the Lord is laying on
your heart to and nudging at you to go and get an application,
then go do that and follow up with that and and put that in.
And both both entities have positions that they're hiring
and even through the year there's sometimes changes and
things that'll take place where we need more.
Our school is only going to increase and and grow more and
the same thing with the with the private school and the
preschool. We need those positions.
So you can certainly come and talk to me after service or any
of the services but you can get application at guest relations
but but come but come come be a part of of what God's doing and
you know I get fired up about kids so I'll, I'm going to say
one more thing. I love Washington.
And Washington's great. Elementary and high school's
middle school's great. But if we don't invest in the
smallest beings, we don't invest in the infants and toddlers that
are in the in the highest absorption rate of their brains
and and really nurturing and caring for them and valuing them
when they're that little. A lot of times in society you're
not valued until you are middle school or you know, or upper
elementary or middle. Or even high school or college
age. But the littlest beings are the
ones who need the most care and the most teaching.
And from from the moment they walk in the preschool to the
moment they leave, every single one of those moments are
teachable moments. And so it is.
It is a privilege. It's work, It's hard work.
But anything to do in God's ministries work.
Because it's it's a labor, it's a service.
So that's my plug. Come see me if you'd like.
We have an awesome team and we'd love for you to join it.
If it's if it's God's fit for you to do so.
But I'm going to play a little game, OK?
Recently we did this. Pastor Tim and I were we've been
teaching them the Nautilus kids and the our summer campers.
This year, it's been Nautilus Doors, the summer of choices.
And so we know that the Lord said in the scripture I set
before you, life in death. But what are we supposed to
choose life? He gives us the answer, right?
But there's different topics with that we've been going
through with them. And this past week, we talked
about how. We ultimately gets, we get the
choice to choose Jesus. You know Zach, he is on the road
that day recognized that there was a man that's different,
that's come into the city and he was of small stature.
We know he climbed up in the tree so he could see and hear
Jesus, the one who had words of life and truth.
And so he gets up here into this tree, and it changes his very
life. And Jesus commands him to come
down and says I'm coming to your house today.
Well, his house changed that day.
He made the choice to choose life that day.
And so we've been talking about identity.
And The thing is identity. Our identity should be in
Christ. And the moment that Zaki has
chose to be in Christ, he became a new creation.
So we were playing this game the other day where we were trying
to to guess either celebrities or or.
Bible figures and the kids had a great time with that.
And so I thought, I'm going to let you guys do it.
OK. So here's, here's your clues.
All right. All right.
This is called who or what am I? This person's I, they are
global. They became a or who or or what
came operational in 1978. It is highly accurate.
Its initial cost to build was $12 billion.
It cost $750 million per year for it to operate.
No, it requires a power source to operate.
It's precise at determining location.
You got it. It's G PS:.
You need a few more clues. Now let's do the next one.
Who or what am I? I extend beyond the universe.
I've been in existence since the beginning.
God's son Jesus left Earth so I could be here.
I'm gonna keep going though. I know the beginning.
From the end. I am one whole but part of
three. I comfort, I lead.
I'm always present. I'm always operational.
I'm always ready. I'm always working.
I am the power. I guide, and we could go on and
on and on. So as Pastor Marcy's been in.
The series of the Holy Spirit. Tonight we're going to talk
about the Holy Spirit and His God's navigational system.
The GNS, I'm going to call it. Because we have the the G PS:
that was founded in 1978 and we all are recipients of that even
at this very moment. The lighting, the Internet, the
phones that we use, we use GPS services on a daily basis as
everyday humans, right? Unless we're, unless you're on
the grid. If you're on the grid, off the
OR off the grid, I should say, then you might not.
But we all have been partaking of this particular device which
has its great qualities. I mean, when you travel, isn't
it a good thing to know where you are going, right?
So tonight we're going to talk a little bit about what God's
navigation or system in God's navigating system, say G&S with
me. All right, So we're going to get
into scripture. So GPS, we know stands for
Global Positioning Services, right?
And it's global. But as guys I mentioned with
reading out those characteristics, God is beyond
global. He transcends the universe.
In our key text tonight, it's going to be in John 1613.
And this is in the English Standard version.
And it says when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you
into all truth. For he will not speak on his own
authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak and he will
declare to you the things that are to come.
The Holy Spirit is the greatest navigator in our life.
He will guide us into everything that we need to know in our
life. This is a Greek word and pop up
River Mirandy might get on to me if I pronounce this wrong, but
ha diego's the Greek word that means a leader or a guide.
That's what this word guide means in John 1613.
If you break down the Greek, it means leader or guide.
So. When the Lord, when we get born
again and we are tapped into His Kingdom, He automatically gives
us the ability to have this navigation system on the inside.
That will not steer us wrong. That will only its only purpose
is to guide us into what, in what all truth it in it will.
We're going to go on there so many things, but it will give us
exactly what we need so that we don't.
Go in the wrong direction. In life we can know exactly how
we need to go about things where we need to go, when we need to
go, how we need to go. And it life doesn't have to
become a grand mystery for us. In fact the moment that we get
born again the the scripture tells us that we're things are
illuminated for us. So now that when we're born
again and we have this the Holy Ghost that comes on the inside.
Holy Spirit, Holy Ghost, as Pastor Marcy was telling us.
The other day we have it in us all the time.
And as she said, we don't. This is not a kooky thing.
It's not a a crazy thing. It's it's the Holy Spirit in us
that we're so aware where wherever we go, the Holy
Spirit's guiding us and we're and we're waiting and listening
to hear what the Holy Ghost has to say in every situation.
We're going to go now to 2nd Corinthians 1313.
And this is Paul. He is, I'm talking to the
Corinthian church, and there's a I'm going to read quite a bit
here. We're going to start in verse
one. And then there's some key things
I'm going to point out that he points out to the Corinthian
church, and this is for us to it says that verse.
Actually, I'm going to start verse 13.
This is the third time I'm coming to visit to you.
And as the Scriptures say, the facts of every case must be
established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.
I have already warned those who have been sinning when I was
there on my second visit. Now again I'm warning all and
all others, just as I did before.
The next time I will not spare them.
I will give you all the proof that you want that Christ speaks
through me. Christ is not weak when He deals
with you. He is powerful among you.
Although He was crucified of weakness, he now lives by the
power of God. We too are weak, just as Christ
was. But when we deal with you, we
will be alive with him, and we will have God's power.
What power do we have on the inside?
The Holy Spirit, examine yourself to see if your faith is
genuine. Test yourself.
Surely you will know that Jesus Christ is among you if you have
not. If you not, have not failed the
test of genuine faith as you test yourselves.
I hope you will recognize that we have not failed the test.
Let's go on. We pray to God that you will not
do what is wrong by refusing the correction.
So here this is. You know the Holy Ghost was with
Jesus to give and guide him. The Paul is reminding them that
you that I'm bringing you correction because this is what
Jesus taught us to do. This is the way of life and the
way of truth and you have power on the inside to do this.
So he goes on, and he says, for we cannot oppose the truth, but
all must always stand for the truth.
We are glad to see us seem weak. To help show you actually
strong. We pray that you become mature.
OK, hold on to that. Become mature says I'm writing
this to you before I come, hoping that I won't need to deal
severely with you when I come. For I want to use the authority
the Lord has given me to strengthen you, not to tear you
down. So he's just being kind of kind
here and saying, listen, get your get your act together.
Get yourselves in the right position.
You kind of wandered off from the way that God had things
established. From you.
And then he gives him a final greeting and he says, listen,
I'm going to close my letter with these last words.
Be joyful, grow to maturity, encourage each other, live in
harmony and peace. Then the God of love and peace
will be with you. And then he goes on.
The last thing he says is may the grace of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be
with you all. So he's reminding them change
your ways. Do what God said.
Ultimately we're we're looking for some maturity here and he
leaves them that that the Holy Spirit may be with you all that
it may be so. Is it possible that the people
were not operating in the Holy Spirit that they had received
already? Not only the Holy Spirit they
received because they called upon him, but the Holy Spirit
also that they got on the day of Pentecost.
When the Holy Spirit came, it wasn't just on in them, but came
upon them and that power that they were dude with, they were
able to operate into. Okay, we're going to go now.
Go ahead and turn to Romans 8. We're going to get in there.
This is another one of our key texts that we're going to be in
tonight. But see that God's navigating
system was always put in place in in our lives to help us grow
to maturity. It was designed to be not only
in us, but with us all the time. So that we would have that power
of God on the inside, and no matter where we go and what we
do, we walk with power. GPS again has to have its own
power source. It's taking, we have it to be
able to give out. That's the difference.
OK, Romans 8. The whole chapter goes into what
our life is when it's in the spirit of God.
So this is living in the spirit of God, he says in verse Chapter
8, verse one, he says, For there is now no condemnation for those
who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of
life has set you free in Christ from the law of sin of death.
For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not
do, by sending his own Son and the likeness of sin of flesh.
He goes on in verse five. Or he says, or verse four.
It says, in order that the righteous requirement of the law
might be fulfilled in us who walk according to the flesh, not
according to the flesh, but according to what the Spirit.
For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the
things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit
set their minds on the thing of things of the Spirit.
He always gets us back in this mindset that we can't rely upon
what our flesh wants to do, where our flesh wants to go.
Because when somebody turns on navigation, if I turn navigation
on my phone, I'm going to put in an address and I'm going to, I'm
going to follow what it says, right?
How many of you ever used it? In a location that you may be
familiar with, but you just didn't want to miss that one Rd.
Technically, I'm probably talking to everybody's talking
about Jacksonville, probably because like, when I go there, I
know where everything's at. But then sometimes they've moved
something and I'm like, I don't want to go on that wrong Rd.
Especially when you go to St. John's Town Center.
Like, you know what I'm saying? I know where everything's at,
but you want to make sure you you don't miss that one turn.
So how many of you, though, have ever done that?
And then you've had the GPS on and then you've completely just
tuned it out or it's telling you to go somewhere And, you know,
sometimes it'll give you like the one route.
And I'll tell you, it's this many minutes, this this an hour
and this many minutes. But they're like, no, no,
there's definitely a quicker route.
So you go down the, you go down the little settings and you find
out, OK, yes, I'm going to pick that one And this one has tolls
or this one doesn't have tolls and it'll tell you.
You know your options. So you pick that one and then
you pick that one and then you start driving and that's in Siri
or whatever device you have and whatever name it is, it's
telling you to go a direction, but you're like, no, no, no, I'm
not going to go that street. And so you then you keep
turning. It tells you turn to to the
right, you're turning to the left.
You're not no longer following its directions.
It the a device that was meant for you to listen to its
directions to follow. Follow to get you to the right
destination. You're choosing to not follow
what it's telling you to do, and we can so easily do that with
the Holy Spirit that's living in us every day.
It never sleeps. He never sleeps.
The Holy Spirit we know is a He He never sleeps.
When we're sleeping. The Holy Spirit will be doing
work in you sometimes. May wake you up with a dream.
May may wake you right up with. With with something that that's
on your heart. But we've got the Holy Spirit no
matter where we go and we can, we can tune it out because we
maybe have some other things that we're too busy with, You
know, maybe we're, you know, listening to other things or.
Getting too involved with our work.
But see, if we get ourselves so in tune with the Holy Ghost, we
can still do those things. And we can be aware that he's
with us while we're doing those things, because he again is part
of the Kingdom of God. It's the center of all that we
do. It's the it's the first thing
that we look to do. And so if if we learn to keep
our our GNS, our God's navigating system ready,
empowered on all the time, it will help us in the long run.
It will help us with our walk with God.
So let's continue on in Romans it says again verse six.
It says for to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set
the mind on the spirit of life and peace.
For the mind that is set on the flesh as hostile towards God and
does not submit to God's laws, indeed it cannot.
Those who are in the flesh cannot please God first.
Nine. You, however, are not in the
flesh, but in the Spirit. And in fact the Spirit of God
dwells, where in you anyone who does not have the Spirit of
Christ does not belong to him. But if if Christ is in you,
although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit of
life is because of righteousness.
If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in
you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead also will live in
you and your mortal, mortal bodies through His Spirit, which
what dwells in us, it lives in us.
Another version of that is, it abides, right?
When we leave tonight, we're going to go to wherever we
reside or abide in, and we're going to go get in our homes,
and more than likely it'll be time to go to bed, right?
Well, He lives in us. He abides us.
He is in us with us. Can't emphasize how much we have
to get. Understand that he's he's in us,
right? We're in Christ and he is in us
to risk. Go on, he says in verse 12.
So then, brothers, we are debtors not to the flesh to live
according to the flesh. For if you live according to the
flesh, what will happen? You will.
Die, but if by the Spirit you will put death, the deeds of the
body, you will live. For this is a key scripture of
this for verse 14. For all who were led by the
Spirit of God, or who sons of God who are sons of God, we are
in the shrew. Where's the sons of God?
And so guess what we are then led by?
There's that guiding again. There's that.
There's the the navigation system that the Lord gave us, so
that we'll know where to go, we'll know how to get there.
And then He goes on. And of course he talks about us
not receiving the spirit of slavery, but the spirit of
adoption. And we cry ABBA, Father, right?
And then the Spirit bears witness that we are, that we are
children of God. Like I said, the spirit of God.
We could talk about it and talk about it for a year and still
not exhaust all that is with the Spirit, right.
And so we're just stirring it up.
We're stirring some things up. You may already know, but it's
just bringing it back to your remembrance.
All the meat of the word, some some Nuggets that we've been
getting from Pastor Marcy this last five weeks.
We want to stir those things up and make sure that they're at
the forefront of our life so that we're applying them.
So what, like we talked about earlier in First Corinthians,
that we put these into practice so that we'll be in what,
maturity. Maturity.
And he's coming. If you did listen to Pastor
Marcy, she talked about the glorious church he's looking
for. And a glorious church is mature.
It's it's putting into practice what God said in his word, and
that's us. We get to do that.
So let's go on or skip down into verse 26 and says likewise, the
Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not want know what to
pray as we ought to, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us
with groanings too deep for words.
And he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the
Spirit is, because the Spirit intercedes for the Saints.
According to the Wilson, not not only do we have the helper
that's guiding us, but if we get into any situation ever, he's
given us the ability to be able to pray out in his language, and
we'll be praying out the perfect will for that situation.
I mean that that's amazing to pin the to, to have a creator
that knows exactly how he designed all of us, how he
designed things in the original intent for them to be.
But then to give us what we need to be able to get to where we're
supposed to be on our journey. I mean, that's a good God.
It's a good God that we have, that we serve, that doesn't want
us to have any deficit. You know, a GPS system has to
continually have upgrades, right?
You know, it's probably been about 12 to 15 years somehow.
This is before smartphones, You know, smartphones of course were
in in the works and and all the GPS started in 78, which was 45
years ago. We know that it was behind the
scenes being built even long before that.
It takes many, many years for the, for all of those things,
NASA and all the different scientists to come up with these
things. So those have been in works for
years. But before smartphones I had, I
believe the brand was like a Garmin and it was like a
navigation. I don't even know how we got it,
but we had it in the car. We took a couple of Rd. trips
and the kids were younger and we used it a few times.
But then all of a sudden it stopped working and it stopped
working because we had to pay for an upgrade.
It no longer you you couldn't. It wasn't like our phones where
we plug them in and we get the the next iOS or whatever the
update is. Back then you had to pay even
more for your upgrades and we're like weigh in.
Is this even worth it for us? You know, at that point I was
fine with just using a paper map, Kind of fun to do that
right? Just going on an adventure.
So it wasn't worth it. In fact, it just stayed in the
glove compartment box for a few years and I think we finally
just threw it away because it wasn't worth anything to us
anymore. It would not pull up that it was
so outdated because it didn't stay with the current Rd.
systems and all the upgrades and everything.
And so we just wind up not using it anymore, right?
We can't do that with the Holy Ghost.
We put ourselves in danger. If we do that with God's
navigation system, we put ourselves in danger of the
Corinthian church and then it here to the in Romans where he's
saying we're not no longer living by the Spirit.
If we don't live by the Spirit, there's only two choices, life
or death. So if we choose to walk down the
path of death and we we, we stop listening to the signal that's
saying, hey, don't go there, hey, watch.
Watch your mouth, watch your attitude.
Put some fruit on that. Why are you worrying?
Cast down that thought. This is how good the Holy Ghost
is that he will talk to us all day long.
He will remind us of the scripture we're going to get to
that He will remind us again. He's the one who's going to
guide us into all truth. And what is the truth?
The truth is the word of God. Truth is the word of God, and
the truth is available to us all the time.
And in fact, the truth is going to bear witness or the Holy
Ghost is going to bear witness, that when we're reading the
Scripture, it is truth. When someone is behind the
pulpit and they're ministering, when you hear something, the
Holy Spirit is going to bear witness.
And you're going to be able to hear that.
And you're going to be able to decipher because the Holy Ghost
is on the inside. And you're going to be able to
say no, that something's not right there.
And you'll be able to go to the scripture and say no, they took
that out of context. Or no, that something's not jive
in here. That's not scripture.
That's not true because you have the ability to understand that
with with God's navigation system, the way we upgrade,
because what the difference between a GPS and a GNS is, the
GPS has to constantly have be powered and it has to be
upgraded with whatever the new system and the Holy Ghost has
been here from the very beginning and he's the same
yesterday, today and forever. What is changing is us.
What's changing on is us on the inside and it's understanding
what the word of God is in our life and it's challenging us to
say Nope, you need to do this differently in order for you to
grow and mature. Maturity is going to mean that
next year we should look differently than we look this
year because we go from faith to faith and glory to glory.
And we can't be somewhere next year if we don't apply the truth
and the faith that God's given us right here today and have
that and work on that maturity that he wants us to, to a
display, to the world. So it's us that really has to
stay plugged in and connected to the word of God in order to get
the upgrades. We get upgrades every week.
We get good word here. We cannot, we cannot disdain it
or devalue it. We can't when our pastors are up
here, don't devalue when the word of God comes from them.
And I we're talking right now, you guys are the, you guys are
the ones who hear regular tenders Vision partners, right
On a Sunday morning. The core of us should be drawing
upon the anointing and showing the example that we're we're
living by the spirit. We're drawing on the anointing
in the spirit so that we can see change happen in our city and we
understand that we've got such a great value.
And the word and the meat of the word, it is not happening.
We're here all the time. So sometimes it it takes us
either leaving or hearing somebody else, maybe that's
going to church and they start talking about their life and
God. And then you're like, well,
that's not how things are for me.
And that's not the kind of thing my pastor is talking about or
that's not the kind of the way my pastor lives.
They're the real deal. And sometimes the word that's
going to come is going to be harsh and it's going to be, you
know, in our face. And it's not going to be
something that we want to hear. It's always going to be the
flowery story. But there's always a hope and a
faith and a victory no matter what messages is preached.
Because that's our God. Our God always wants to see us
on the other side, the best side.
He wants us on the choice of life versus death, right.
And so we've got to be tapped into his positioning, His
positioning, his navigation system is the best.
Amen. All right, let's go over to
Ezekiel 3627. Because, you know, God had a
plan from the very beginning. We know, Adam, you know, kind of
skewed that plan and things had to be reworked a little bit for
us to now live the life we live in the Kingdom.
But in the Ezekiel he promised that he was.
He said I and I will put my spirit in you so that you will
follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations.
This key of the spirit would be put in this so that we could
follow, so that we would follow. Hey, I need you to do this.
I need you to move in this position.
I need you to. I need you to do this with your
kids. I need you to do this with your
finances. I'm thinking it's time right now
that you minister to your coworker.
You say this to them, or maybe the Lord says, you know what?
I need you to cut something off. I need you not to talk to that
person anymore because they're only bringing death in your life
and they refuse to have anything to do with God.
And now you're in an unequal friendship with somebody.
Maybe it's that maybe the Holy Ghost is protecting you.
It could be as serious as that to as simple as you are.
You're about to leave the house and you've got something.
You're about to leave it behind. The Holy Ghost says, go back in
the house. You got, you got to go, you got
to go Grab that. That's how good God is that He
wants to. He wants to eliminate some of
the hardships that we might have that are just like stupid stuff,
like like leaving our lunch behind or forgetting our keys.
But all of those things involve our everyday life and our time,
right? Our time is treasured.
It's ticking quickly, right? And so God cares about the
littlest details of our life, even to let us know that right,
Telling us we need to go in a different direction physically.
I've, I've said this testimony before my life.
The Lord has spared me more than one occasion of my life where
he's, He's, I could have not been here.
But the Holy Ghost arrested my thought at that moment and said
don't do this or do this. And that's huge.
We don't ever want to dismiss what he says because again, he's
all about bringing what truth and life to us.
Amen. He has promised that Spirit
would be and it would be placed inside us.
John 1416 and 17 says this. And I will ask the Father, and
he will give you another helper, to be with you forever, even the
Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot see or cannot receive,
because it neither sees him nor knows him.
You know him for what he dwells with you and will be in you.
The Holy Spirit was promised for us to come alongside us.
And the Greek word is paraclete, you know, and I think of a
parakeet when I hear that Greek word, paraclete, parakeet.
What does a a parrot do? They typically, when you think
about the tropics and going to the Caribbean, you think about a
parrot being on a what on your shoulder and being right there
and what a parrots do. They talk and they mimic
constantly. They mimic what they've heard.
Well, we have the Holy Spirit that's mimicking what the Holy
Spirit's heard by God. It's mimicking the Word because
they're all one, right? The Word.
We've got God, the Father, got the Son, got the Holy Ghost, and
all of it is incorporated, and it's all in the Word.
It's all been there from the beginning.
And so we've got the the Holy Spirit right there like a parrot
with us. So not only in us, but right
there with us constantly telling us what the Scripture says,
reminding us of the truth, letting us know, right.
Letting us know what God's word says.
So think about that. When you think about a parrot,
Proverbs 11/14 says where there is no guidance, the people fall.
But in an abundance of counselors, there's victory.
This was in our Bible reading this weekend.
When I read, I was like, that's that goes right along with what
I'm talking about Wednesday. So I wrote that down where there
is no guidance. What's our guide?
What's giving us the ultimate guidance?
Is the Holy Spirit there God's navigation system for us so that
we won't fall. Is there opportunity for us to
fall? Certainly.
But do we have to? No, we have.
We don't have to miss it. We we can live.
The world wants you to think that you know you're you're a
Sinner and you're always going to be that way and you're never
going to be able to do right. And we're, you know, nobody's
perfect. But if we're in the Kingdom,
there's a perfection of us that we are now.
We're not, we've not attained that the way we're going to be
when we are finally with him. But if we're maturing them,
maturing is perfecting. So there's some things that are
going to start to take place in our life.
If we're listening to the spirit and we're living by the spirit,
we're going to look different. We're going to talk different.
And if we continue to listen to that parrot, you know, you
always think about the the old cartoon where there's the devil
and the Angel. Yeah, the devil does talk.
He doesn't sit right here, you know, where he talks.
He talks right to your mind. But then you got the Holy Ghost
on the inside that wants to rise up and remind you don't take
that from him. Don't listen to what he's
saying. He's a liar and he's a thief,
and he wants to, he wants first and foremost to steal your time,
that you're meditating and thinking about whatever that is.
And it could be a past failure. It could be a hard circumstance
that you're right in the midst. Maybe it's something medical.
Maybe it's something that that's happened to you.
Maybe it's something you're not looking forward to.
So the devil wants to always rehearse that.
But the Holy Ghost is saying no, don't listen to that tap into
what the word says about it. Only stick to that.
We know at the very beginning of the year it was the year to what
decree to rain but to But in order to rain was to what
declare to speak. Well, we've got the best person
coaching us all the time, guiding us on the inside, saying
you got this, you got this. You can, you can, you can get up
this morning. I've got you.
I'll be with you all day. I'm going to remind you of the
truth. You got this.
Don't listen to him. And that's when the Holy Ghost
will remind you of the truth. And then you got to speak it out
and you have to tell the devil. You have to speak it out vocally
and say no, you are a liar. I don't think so.
And you got to speak out what the word says.
You know, we tell the kids all the time where where it's like
bubbles and you blow bubbles are so much fun, right?
Blow bubbles. And you kept you catch it.
You capture it, right? You capture it and you make sure
it lines up with the word of God.
You know how many of you ever tried to blow really, really big
bubble, either either a chewing gum or bubble gum bubble or a
bubble that you try to grab it and try to hold it where it
won't pop? Right.
Imagine that We've got bubbles and we're blowing them.
They're all over the building. We're trying to grab one of them
and we're going to hold it. That's what we do with our
thoughts. We're supposed to do with our
thoughts. That's what scripture says we
we're supposed to grab them and hold it.
Is this what God's word says about me?
Is this what God's word says about the situation?
And the Holy Ghost all along is reminding you, is is telling
you, is saying, Yep, Yep, that's it.
Or no, that's not it. And if it's not it, then squash
goes that bubble burst. You know, pop that bubble.
It's done. It's done.
Let's only focus on what God's word says.
Amen. That navigation system will not
steer us wrong. It will not put us in the wrong
position. It will not When you're trying
to go to Tampa. It will not land you in Atlanta.
It will get you exactly where you're supposed to be.
You know you won't. You won't be like home alone.
And you got on the wrong plane because you were trying to mess
with your Bachmann. The holy still remind you, hey,
wake up, you're about to go in the wrong direction to be all by
yourself. And you don't need to go over
there by yourself. You need to stay where truth and
where life is. You don't need to get off
course. You need to stay here.
Because if you get off alone, guess what?
It's scary when you're by yourself.
Who would want to be? But we were by ourselves before
God. We thought we had.
We thought we had a group of people.
We thought you had friends. You.
Yeah, you thought that somebody
had your back. You maybe leaned upon a
substance or two, or leaned upon a relationship or two to fill
you, but then realize all of that was empty.
At the end of the night, you're by yourself and you're empty.
You have nothing. But then, but then.
But God, rich in his mercy, right?
Because he loved us so much, He sent Jesus so that we wouldn't
have to be empty. We wouldn't have to lay there at
bed at night and be completely empty.
We could have him and we have that.
That's what we have in this room, right?
We're the church. We have that.
We don't go home empty when we leave tonight.
We not. We've been stirred up.
We're full. We get up to the tomorrow, we're
full. We've got a city where there's
thousands of people that need to know those Nuggets that are on
the bottom of that soup bowl. So we're stirring it up so that
we can go out there and not only do we were able to show them
that example and spread that light, we got hope we can give
them. But that's because we're tapped
in to God's navigation and we're doing His work and we're we're
navigating things not on our own, but with Him and through
Him. Amen.
So the similarities to the GPS and the God's navigation or GNS,
is that we or you, we get to decide where we're going.
Ultimately, he is such a past, Pastor Marcy said.
We, the Holy Spirit, he is a gentleman.
He will not force us. And, you know, a GPS, I've
recently put in a address and I know kind of knew about where it
was. But sometimes when I tell it to
go somewhere and I know I don't need to go all the way out of my
house and turn right and go all the way around to 3:12 to get to
homes. I don't know why it always tells
me to do that, but it does. And so for about 5 or 6 minutes,
I have to listen to it tell me turn around, go turn right, turn
around. You know, the next you turn, you
know, it's it keeps telling me. So then I tune it out.
I tune it out because I I know. I know where I'm going and I
know what I'm doing. We can't do that with God's
navigation, though we can. We can choose to do that, but we
shouldn't choose to do that. We should be attune and
listening. And if he says you need to go
right, then guess where we need to go?
We need to go right. And now what happens if we do
choose to turn to the left? And we then realized, oops, I
probably should have listened at that time.
You know what? God is so good and so gracious
that he's going to give us the best reroute, that at any moment
we got a new rerouting. He's he's going to reroute us.
And he's always going to reroute us back to truth.
He's always going to reroute us back to where we need to be so
that we won't miss out. We won't miss another step.
We don't have to miss any more steps.
He's that good to us. Amen.
So are you listening, Church? Are you listening to God's
navigation system? Right?
Or are you one of those people you ever see the signs like in
Hobby Lobby and all it says? Not all who wander or lost.
Yes, they are. They are law now.
I'm all for a spontaneous adventure.
Think it's great for all those who are single and can do that?
Please travel. It's great if obviously be led.
Don't just go somewhere just because.
But the Lord all you know you're in a great position because when
mission trips come, guess what the Heart Lord leads you to go.
You can get on that plane easy, right?
But for those who are married and those who are maybe in
different things, though, it's just as easy for us.
The Lord says we can do it. Then he'll bring the resource,
He'll bring the supply we need. He'll he'll help us to arrange
things so the single people don't have it.
All right, we can. We can all tap in.
That's, again, if we're being led.
So let's not be Wanderers, because you know there's that
old thought process is that men don't like to ask for
directions. I don't believe that.
I think there's price of men in here that do ask for directions.
Raise your hand if you do. OK, so see you guys like to know
directions, but if you've ever been somewhere and you have
gotten lost because I'm going to tell you GPS is not always
right. God's navigation is, though tell
you a funny story. Last year I got, I got
privileged to go to the one of Pastors Rayma conferences and it
was actually in Saint Thomas. And so we were there with Pastor
Estrada at their church, their beautiful place.
And one night we decided that we were done with the services and
we kind of had some extra time. And so believe it was Josh and
Chase and I and Pastor Craig Hagen and Pastor Roddy and his
wife and their son. So we had like a lot of energy
in that Jeep and so it was a lot of fun though and so I've got my
GPS on in the back seat and Pastor Craig sitting in the
front and he's got his GPS on and it's saying two different
things and I'm looking at it and so we're we're on the way to go
find this beach at night did not that we really could go swimming
or anything we just wanted to kind of the islands very, very
small. So it was very quick to get
around or whatever. And this is saying to keep going
straight and not mind saying go right.
And so I'm in the back trying to be a backseat driver and said
hey, it's saying go right. They're not listening to me at
all. None of them are.
And of course me and Danielle and Pastor Roddy, we're all
cutting up in the back anyway, so we're back and forth.
I kept looking at the G PS:, said it took us all the way to
the end. This is listening to Pastor
Craig's Took us all the way to the end of a Cliff and we
couldn't go any further. So here we are like this in the
car and we're having to like backup.
It was hilarious but yet terrifying at the same time.
We're like we were laughing or like, you know, we followed his
GPS which steered us completely wrong.
So there's case of point GPS. Natural GPS does not always work
so but God's but God's always, always works.
He will never leave us or forsake us, and he won't ever
leave us face down in a Cliff. The devil will though.
The devil wants us to be face down in a Cliff because he wants
to go us to go off that Cliff. Because he his main schemes 3
things to still kill and destroy and anything he can do and those
three things he will do it. So we don't have to abide by his
3 rules and what he would do in his systems.
But we can follow God's navigating system and we can
follow Galatians 516 which says, so I say walk by the spirit and
you will not gratify the desires of flesh.
Walk by the spirit and so for walking.
So that's a descriptor of something that's moving, it's
doing, right. If we're following God's
navigation system, then we're doing we're we're on a path and
we're moving forward. So there is always more than one
type of navigation system out there, right?
How many of you use Siri on a regular basis?
Anybody. Couple of people do.
OK, how many of you actually have navigation in your cars?
OK, back then when I had 1215 years ago and I had that little
garment thing, it was a little teeny tiny box, little TV screen
like thing. And now most cars come with its
own backup camera, it's own navigation.
That's pretty standard. And some regular cars, right.
So can you can use that. But there's all kinds of other
navigating apps. I won't name names, but there's
one that tells you exactly where the police are.
Cute little, the cute little carrot.
You know cartoons see all stuff wants to say it the little
cartoons And so sometimes on a trip my husband puts that one on
he's that's his favorite but but but if you're it it'll go for a
long time and then it'll say danger reported ahead like it's
like it's like blasted in your face like danger reported ahead.
So then it's like, I've been, it's been so quiet in the car
sometimes and all of a sudden that goes off and you're just
like, oh, OK, you know, alert alerts you.
Well, God's navigation system does that.
It alerts us, but not in a way that scares us or puts us where
we're going to be afraid because that's the opposite of his
nature. It's going to be, it's going to
empower us to do what's right and to be aware, hey, there's
something coming. Maybe you need to to be in
prayer about it, something recently.
I'm not going to get in details, but the Lord woke me up on a
dream. This is probably about three
months ago and I didn't understand what it meant.
But then it was about a month or two later a situation happened
and the Lord showed me. I woke you up with that picture
that you seen so that you could pray, and I prayed.
I got up and prayed and I didn't have any idea what it was about.
It didn't make sense to me, but I knew the Holy Ghost woke me up
to pray about it. That doesn't happen all the
time. But I'm like, if the Lord woke
me up and showed me this, then that must be something I really
need to pay attention to. And so I did.
And so I believe because I obeyed, that that kind of helped
prepare my heart for this situation that occurred.
And so God cares that we're prepared for what is ahead if
there is danger or blessing. You know, I remember years ago
the Lord using me to administer to someone and and speak
something in their life. And I remember thinking, I don't
want to go tell that person that, like, you know, they don't
know who I am. And I hadn't, you know, hadn't
quite grown and matured and in my confidence at that time.
And so when I went to them, I was like, OK, God, I wrestled
with telling them I was like the Lord laid on my heart to say
something to them, to encourage them and was a specific
situation. And I didn't know.
Years later, the Lord showed me why I was to tell them that, and
showed me and revealed it later. So sometimes we might know know
all the pieces of something, but all the Lord asked us to do is
to obey. And if we obey His word first
and foremost, we're going to be walking in His truth.
And we've got the Holy Ghost to help us do that.
Amen. So one of the things in us
maturing is that He helps us to change our mindset.
You know, we've read that we have the mind of Christ, right?
And this next script we're going to go to is First Corinthians
216 through 16. We're going to read all that.
And this is how we get wisdom from the Spirit, from God's
navigation system since the first six.
We do not, however, speak a message of wisdom among mature
among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or the rulers
of this age who are coming to nothing.
No, we declare God's wisdom a mystery that has been hidden and
that God destined for our glory before time.
None of the rulers of this age understand it, for if it had, if
they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory.
However it is written what no eye has seen, what no ear has
heard, and what no human mind has conceived.
The things God has prepared for those who love him.
And these are the things that God has revealed by his spirit.
He's got some amazing things he wants to show us.
You know he can't. It's not like with a regular GPS
where you get a download and it has all the all the bells and
whistles and you know everything about it.
You can read the you can go digitally and find out all the
ins and outs of something, though it would scare us if we
knew everything. Now this is a process in our
walk with the Lord, but he has some amazing things that from
beginning of time before that he predestined for us to know and
for us to tap into. But we that's only shown and
revealed by the Spirit. Let's go on.
It says the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of
God. For who knows a person's
thoughts except their own spirit within them.
In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the
Spirit of God. What we have received is not the
Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God so that
we may understand what God has freely given us.
This is what is what we speak, not in words taught by human
wisdom, but words taught by what?
The Spirit explaining spiritual realities with Spirit taught
words. The person without the Spirit
does not accept the things that come from God, from the Spirit
of God, but considers them foolishness.
Pastor Marcy's been saying this it's foolishness to the world
because they don't have the insight yet.
They don't have the illumination right, but go on we said because
it's just spiritual discernment. But verse 50 says the person
with the Spirit makes judgments about all things.
But such a person is not subject to merely human judgments.
But then this our final verse, our key verse, not final verse,
but our key verse. Here in this passage, who has
known the mind of the Lord as to instruct him?
But we have the mind of Christ, and we're able to understand
what God's placed in His word because we have the ability by
God's navigation system to understand what's in His mind.
Not only does he know what it's in our hearts or what we know as
our spirit man, but we can have the ability to have His mind and
His wisdom, and we get that revelation by the Holy Spirit in
our everyday life. Amen.
So we want to know what the Spirit speaking, right?
Some people say, you know, let me let almost speak my mind.
I must speak my mind. I must speak my truth.
Let's make sure it's not us. Let's make sure it's really the
Holy Spirit living on the inside of us.
And if we speak the mind of Christ, then we're only going to
speak what the Word says. Amen.
John 1616 and amplify says this. But when he the Spirit of truth,
the truth giving Spirit comes, he will what guide you into all
truth, the whole full truth. For he will not speak his own
message on his own authority, but he will tell whatever he
hears from the Father, and he will give the message that he's
been given to him. And he will announce and declare
to you the things that are to come that will happen in the
future so we can know some things along the journey as He
guides us. Amen.
He wants us to change our mindset because this is the
thing about us being a mature church is that the Word comes to
bring revelation. And we can understand it because
it we have illumination by the Holy Ghost that bears witness
with God's Word. But how we know we've matured is
that next time we're faced with whatever it is.
God said, hey, I need you to work on that.
Hey, I need you to tweak that next time when we're faced with
that, if we do, or our reaction is different the next time, it
is what God's told us to do. That's maturity.
When we shrink back to the way we used to do it, we we kind of
reroute ourselves and God said go right and we're like, Nah,
I'm going to go left. I'm going to turn this way.
I'm going to do whatever I want to do, kind of round the corner.
All the problems start because we should have went that way.
When we do things the way we've always done them, it's like a
person who's wandering like a person who is not paying
attention to the directions anymore and they've went this
way and then they're like, man, it feels like I just, we just
went down that street, we've already passed out.
We've already passed that house a couple times.
That's what it's like as the in the life of a believer, if we
keep doing the same things we've always done, and we don't break
the habit in the cycle by saying I refuse to keep doing the same
mundane every day, I'm going to choose to do what God's word
says for me to do. I'm going to choose the life and
the Holy Ghost direction on the inside.
That I'm going to follow the navigation system so that I'm
not steered wrong. That I'm not circling around the
same house, not ever getting to the destination that God wants
me to get to and see the power is in us, and then not only does
the power in us, but God gives us the opportunity.
Every time that we come sitting here, every time that we've got
a we've we've got someone ministering the Word is another
opportunity for us to stir, for us to get the download we need,
for us to get the upgrade we need, so that God's navigation
system continues to work in our life, it continues to fuel us to
be able to make those decisions, to follow it.
So we not only do we have that, but we've got our Bible reading
that we do. We stay tapped into the source
of God by reading, staying stirred up in the Scripture,
allowing God's Word to illuminate us, right.
Our prayer life, our prayer time.
You know, praying, praying out things we know in English,
things that we that we know. But then going beyond that,
being filled with the Holy Ghost to say, I need to stir myself
up, I need to pray. And sometimes it's just as
simple as that. It will.
That'll stir us up. That will be what we need to get
us over. And the Holy Ghost will remind
you when you start feeling fleshy and you're, like,
irritated at people and irritated at yourself and, like,
you don't want to do that. And you're like this just, you
know, you'd become like a little child again, but not in a good
way. You're like, oh, this is just
dumb. I don't want to do this.
We're grown-ups. But I know I'm not the only
person that sometimes does it that feels like that.
You know, we deal with preschoolers all the time, and
they don't want to do stuff. And they tell us, no.
Well, I'm sorry you have to line up.
But sometimes we tell ourselves, no, We're like, you know, I'm
not doing it. I'm not doing it.
And then you got to coax yourself.
I'm telling you, if you tap into the Holy Spirit and you start
praying out the Holy Ghost all you need, that's just, that'll
stir the pot. That'll stir the pot for you.
That'll get the beans up. That'll get the chicken up.
That'll get all the Peppers up. It'll get all the good stuff up.
And you like, OK, I can do this. Thank you, Holy Ghost.
I can do this. Not by myself.
I can do this. And then you.
Then you're able to like, stir the word up in you that then you
can speak. And then you feel like super
empowered because there's power in you and we're supposed to tap
into that power. So we want to do that.
And I'm going to close here just a minute.
We don't want to just be what's called a person who is on
autopilot is, if you look up the definition of a NAV, something
that navigates or guides, one of the definition is a pilot.
You know, years ago, remember I was a kid, They used to be the
bumper sticker. God's my copilot kind of thing,
really. He's he's supposed to be our
pilot. He's supposed to be the one
running the whole thing. And he does that with the Holy
Ghost living on the inside of his, telling us where to go,
what to do, what to say, how to live.
When we tap into that, we don't get into autopilot.
Autopilot is like, I work here, so I'm here all the time.
And on Saturday I'm really trying to go to Target and I
pull in here and I'm like, why I'm in the parking lot.
I was trying to go to Target. You know, like you go somewhere.
You were like, truly meaning to go somewhere, but you'd like you
do something so much. And so it's habit forming.
Right. That you just you're on
autopilot or you're driving and you get somewhere and you're
like I don't even remember passing by that or that or that
like you you're like well it's a psychological phenomenon.
It's it's there's psychological term for it and see if I can
pronounce it correctly. Automatic automaticity is what
it's called and it's a phenomenon where a person is
zoned out or they were it's quote UN quote autopilot and
it's the ability to do something without really thinking about it
so automatic. We do it on our everyday natural
lives when we're driving, when we get up, how many of you
ladies know you can do laundry and dishes and all those things
on you just do. I mean, you don't even think
about me, do all kinds of other things.
You just do it. It's just autopilot.
It's phenomenon. We can do it right.
How much more should we be able to tap in to God's navigation
system and that be so automatic in our life?
So we're so disciplined that we go to the Holy Ghost first.
We go to the Holy Ghost first because the Holy Ghost is going
to remind us of God's truth. It's going to bear witness.
What God's truth. So it will not steer us wrong,
that we're so in tune that the Holy Spirit's the automatic in
us that it leads us it automatically.
First response is going to be to the Word.
First response is going to be, well, what?
What would God do, right? What would Jesus do?
Just Jesus would listen, would
have listened to the Holy Ghost, because what did he do?
What was the first thing he did when John the Baptist baptized
him? What he was filled, and the very
first assignment he had of his ministry was to go into the
wilderness. He was tempted in the
wilderness. And who sent him there?
Holy Spirit. And not only did the Holy Spirit
send him there. The Holy Spirit equipped him
with every single answer he needed, and every single answer
was the word. What were the three three things
he said? It is do.
What were they? OK, come on.
Not all his kids are louder than that one.
I make them do that. Ready.
What does he say now? The Holy Ghost sent him to the
wilderness and gave him all the right answers.
The wilderness wasn't a wrong answer.
The wilderness was a right answer.
A lot of times we can think just because we are going through
something hard that there was some wrong answer.
Before that we know that we're going to have tests and trials.
But what did he say about that? Be of good cheer.
So not only did the things might happen in our life that aren't
the most positive and it and it could mean that we have been
tapped in and we have been on the pilot and the pilot do its
navigation on the inside, but we live in a fallen world.
So we know that there's things that may happen that are out of
our control and we can be doing everything right, going to the
right direction, left direction, everything that God is wanting
us to do. And still, things might not go
right, but God gives us the ability to know how to handle
it. We talked earlier about the
wisdom he gives us. So even in a hard or tough
situation, we can have the ability to navigate right
through it smoothly. And it seemed like, wow, how did
I do that? Well, it's because of the power
on the inside that gave you the ability to know what to do, know
what to say, how to react, where to go with it, right?
So let the Holy Spirit be our navigation system, right?
Let him stir, stir you up every day.
Let him guide you, navigate you, so that you can be following
exactly the direction that would God would have you do in your
whole life and everything. Thank you so much for listening
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