Good morning everybody. Come on one more time. Give Jesus some praise in this place. Yes, somebody shout, yes, yes. Aren't you thankful for God?

Yes.

Have you taken the time today just to say thank you? Oftentimes we look for these incredible things that have to happen in our lives before we stop and give God praise. But just the fact that your breathing is reasoned enough to give God your best praise, not your leftovers, but your best praise. Can anybody give him your best praise right now? Come on, just take about 10 seconds and give God your best praise in this place. Well, well we've got a lot to celebrate. Before we go any further, we do want to stop and celebrate then 94 people that were water baptized last week. Come on. Isn't that amazing? I'm always amazed. So far this year we've baptized over 300 people and you think about that there are 300 plus people that went public with their faith getting uncomfortable, getting in front of a bunch of people getting down in some water. That's warm though, and we've got chlorine in it, so God thank you Lord. But 300 plus people went public with their faith that is reason enough to celebrate, right? And so I just want to say how thankful I am and how proud I am of everyone that has made the decision to go public with your faith. And don't you worry if you didn't get water baptized this round. We've got some more dates coming up for next year since we're right around the corner from the new year. Can you believe it?

What's going on? Seems like time is flying, you know what I'm saying? But this week is Thanksgiving, so everyone's probably done your workout and your diet's getting ready for Thursday. I know I have. I've been running a little extra because I know God's going to come through on Thursday. Alright, this is our second week of our series that we're calling Faith. And last week we talked about now faith and we really talked about what faith is and how it works. But today we're going to slow it down a little bit and we're going to talk a little more specifically about a topic that a lot of people ignore when you talk about faith. So if you have your Bibles, grab it. We're going to Genesis chapter three, the book of Genesis chapter three. Thank you to all those who were here or that showed up yesterday to pass out boxes. We had hundreds of boxes that were passed out to those that are in need. And I want to thank all of you who volunteered, who gave boxes, who showed up to pass out the boxes. Come on, give yourselves a big hand for that.

That's called being the hands and feet of Jesus. Amen. Alright, Genesis chapter three, verse number one. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. And he said that a woman dead, God actually say You shall not eat of any tree in the garden. And a woman said that a serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden. Neither shall you touch it lest you die. But the serpent said to the woman, you'll not surely die for God knows that when you eat of it, you eyes will be open and you'll be like God knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate.

Then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed big leaves together and made themselves loin claws. And they heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, where are you? And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden. And I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself and he said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, the woman whom you gave to me, she gave me through the tree and I ate. Then the Lord God said to the woman, what is this that you have done? And the woman said, the serpent dece me and I ate. They're playing the blame game all the way at the beginning of creation. This ain't nothing new, but today I really want to zero in on verse number

Nine, really verse number. Yeah, verse number nine. But the Lord God called to the man and said, where are you? And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. And he said, who told you that? So my topic for the day is, who told you that? Buckle up buttercup cup

Because we're getting in this word. Thank you Lord God for your word. Thank you Lord God that you have allowed us to be in your presence. I pray that in the next few moments as we dig into your word, that you would give us ears to hear, a heart to receive and a mind to understand what you would say to us. Help us to walk out of here different than the way we walked in. We give you a name, all the praise and the glory and the honor because you're worthy of it. We get out of the way and we make room for the spirit to have its way in Jesus' name. And everybody say Amen. Look at your neighbor and say, neighbor, neighbor who told you that? Told Look at your other neighbor. Say neighbor. Neighbor. Who told you that? Some of y'all said it was an attitude. Who told you that?

Who told you that? So I've told this story before of how Janice and I met really at the very beginning of 2011 and one of the particulars in the story is that we met, we didn't really exchange any information and a couple weeks later I was flying out of state to go preach for a friend of mine and before that happened I was going to be there for three weeks. I went back to see Janice and that's where we changed exchange information. And so that kind of became the beginning of building our relationship. Well, if you roll the clock forward into that year, we started dating and later on in that year we were going to church together and there was this young lady who had moved to our church that happened to have gone to the church that I preached at back when Janice and I first met and I didn't think anything of it. I thought, okay, people move all the time, that's great. And I hadn't met her before. And so one Sunday after service, Janice and I are walking in the lobby and this young lady walks up and so I introduce Janice to her. Hi, this is Janice, she's my girlfriend

And the next day I received this email from this young lady and I'm going to read you the actual email that was sent to me. Dear Brother Rivers, some of y'all know what I'm talking about, you know what I mean? I worked hard to earn that brother in front of my, you start off with Timmy and then you go to Tim and then his brother Tim and then Reverend Tim and then brother Reverend Tim and them Brother Rivers. You know you arrived Brother Rivers Sunday you made mention that the young lady with your mother was your girlfriend and that threw me off completely. If this is a move you just made, I humbly ask, did you seek God again so that you can make the right selection in whom you choose to date and spend your life with? I ask God to show you why he led me here and based on small signs. I was sure he told you I believe he wanted me to be a help to you in your ministry, but you never spoke to me to confirm whether or not you knew this. I'm not even making this up. This is

As of now. All I know is God promised me some things and I still expect to win end. I started with faith and I will finish with faith because my expected end is dependent upon it. God knows my heart's desire is to be full of faith and to be working with power to be a blessing to his kingdom. I still believe I'm expected to win and that there will be a great anointing on my life that when I sing and pray, the Holy Spirit will move and I feel you have a real burden for the loss and I do as well. So please consider what you have read in this email. Don't settle for anything other than what God has promised you and will for your life because there is a purpose. You are consuming faith and I still expect to consume it with you. This is an actual letter I received now just like you, I was thrown completely off. Obviously she missed it. I was thrown so off that I called my friend whose church she used to go to and I said, yo bro, we got a problem. I said, sister, so-and-so goes to your church. He then moved over here and this is what she said

And he started laughing. I said, Ronell bro, this is the real problem. He said, well, she came to me and my dad who was the pastor of the church and she told us that she felt like the Lord spoke to her and told her to move to Texas. He said, but what she didn't say is that it was for you. And so I can't get into all the details about all the drama that unfolded from there, but we hear the story and here's the funny thing, all of us laugh at it, but how many people know someone just like that? They may be sitting in here right now, but how many of us know somebody that talks all the time and puts God's names on it? Well, the Lord told me the Holy Spirit impressed upon me based on the prophetic word that I got. Am I lying? Does anybody know that person? Maybe you are that person and here's the problem, they're so convinced that they've heard from God that they will place their faith in what they think they hear even if the source is not God. Now remember, faith is acting like God tells the truth. The problem is when you think you heard from God and you didn't.

There is an innate desire within all of us to exercise faith that there is something within you that wants to believe in the impossible. There is something within you that wants to place your confidence, your faith, and something that you hope for. The problem arises though when you cannot discern if God is speaking or something else is speaking. Some of you are at jobs right now that God never told you to be at. Can I get in the grits today? Can I cook a little bit? Some of y'all are in relationships that God never told to get into, but because that individual checked all the boxes you had, you said it must be so I wanted somebody tall, dark and handsome and he was tall, dark and handsome, but everything else in his life was not. Some of you are driving cars that the Lord never told you to purchase. You live in homes that God never told you to buy, you didn't have

The money.

Many of us in this place, I would say probably all of us at some point have made some grave mistakes because we placed our faith in words that did not come from the Lord. In fact, when you think about it too often we will ascribe things to the Lord so we can either go after it without accountability or use God as an scapegoat if it doesn't work out. I'm going to say it again. Too often we ascribe things to the Lord so that we can either go after it without accountability or use God as a scapegoat if it doesn't work out. How many times has somebody said to you, the Lord told me to do that and when it doesn't work out they're like, I don't know. I know for a fact God told me Reality is God doesn't lie. So if God told you to do something and you do it and it doesn't work out, you need to go back to the drawing board and try to figure out, did I actually hear from God who told me that the reason why so many people's faith is wounded and the reason why some of our faith is weakened is because we've been listening to the wrong voices and placing our faith and people's voices were there rather than the voice of God.

Now here's the thing, because faith is a necessary component to your walk with God. It's no wonder that there are many voices that compete for your faith because whatever has your faith has your attention. I'm going to say it again. Whatever has your faith has your attention, whatever voice you listen to most dominates your life. And because we know that faith is an important component of our walk with God, it is very important for us to be able to distinguish the difference between the voices that are coming at us, competing for our faith, and for many of us, we haven't even stopped to think, is this God or is this me? If the Bible says that without faith it is impossible to please God, then we also have to think that the enemy is privy to that information as well. If the Bible says that it is impossible to please God without faith, then Satan knows that as well. And so Satan will do his best to try to distract you from the actual voice of God. When you look throughout the scriptures, you will find that many of what we would consider the characters of the heroes of the Bible, the Hall of Faith in Hebrews chapter 11, when you look at all of them, you will quickly realize that every one of them that are mentioned had to deal with a multitude of voices competing for their faith. And it's important for us to answer the question who told you that? Because if you don't answer this question, then you could very well just be picking the thing that feeds your flesh the most

And oftentimes what God asks you to do will not line up with what your fleshly desire is.

Oh God,

I told you we're going to slow it down a little bit. So I want to talk to you about four voices. There are many voices, but I think you can narrow it down categorically to four different voices that every individual will come in contact with. Every individual will somehow be dealing with four different types of voices, and the first I want to talk about is called the outside voice. And you can call this if you're taking notes, you can call this the world or you could call this environmental voices and I want to read this passage here in Romans chapter 12 verse two. This is Paul writing and he says, do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

That word world here in this passage is a phrase called the evil age, and it is a particular stage of history understood according to its values, beliefs, and morals in distinction to god's. Lemme say it again. The world is a particular stage of history understood according to its values, beliefs and morals. In distinction to God's faith is believing that God tells the truth, correct? Yes. So if that is true about God, then it also is true about anything else. Faith in blank is believing that whatever or whoever you're placing your faith in is telling the truth. Does that make sense? If you have faith in something, you are anticipating that something is going to reward you for you placing confidence in it. For instance, you have faith when you go walk into your job, then on Friday that check better hit right? How many going to go tomorrow and work for free? No. You have faith even though you hadn't received your paycheck yet you have faith based on the reliability of your job and the fact that they have receipts. You have faith in your job that when you go to work there for the next 40 hours this week, you are going to get paid. Am I right?

We treat God the same way. The reason why we put our faith and our confidence in God is because we know that God has a track record of coming through, right? But if you don't know God intimately and you haven't seen his receipts, you are willing to place your faith in anything that you hope will come through for you. And one of the main voices in your life are outside voices, and this could be family.

Oh Lord,

How many have made serious faith moves based on the voice of your family. You shouldn't have bought that car but they had you so hyped at the dealership that you deserve this and the payments are only 1500 a month and you making 2,500 a month, you can live off a thousand. You just got to cut back on some things and next thing you know, you're signing on the dotted line because you place your faith in outside voices. How many people are in relationships? Because mama said he's a good man, got a good job, respectable, and now you're miserable because you listen to outside voices. Your environment will either strengthen your faith or weaken it. The outside voices will either strengthen your faith in God or detract it. This is why it's very important who you surround yourself with. Some people are not necessarily evil, but they're not good for your faith. Some people, you can't point at something and be like, this is why I can't hang out with you. You're an addict. No, some people are just too humanistic

And they detract from your attention of faith in God. This is why the writer says be not conformed to this world but be transformed. What does it mean to be conformed? The image, the word picture here to be conformed is that of a mold that you pour something into. The environment is the mold. You are the thing that's being poured into it, and so if you're not careful, you will pour yourself into an environment that you conform to. This is why if you hang around somebody long enough, you will start becoming like them. Don't get it twisted When people say stuff like, well, Jesus hang out with sinners all the time. Please don't take the three scriptures out of context.

Jesus was about his father's business. He wasn't being poured into an environment to conform to it, but he was there to transform them the environment. That's why every time Jesus would walk off, they'd be like, man, I got to go sell everything because he influence his environment. But be very careful if your faith is weakened. You got to make sure that your environment is not detracting your faith. Let's go back to this story in Genesis chapter three. This is the Garden. We know that God in Genesis chapter one and Genesis chapter two tells Adam and Eve be fruitful, multiply and replenish the earth. Subdued have dominion. God gives them everything in the garden for their sustenance and to sustain them, right? He gives them the trees to eat from. He gives them vegetation. They're living in perfect harmony. They're living in what we would call paradise, right? Adam and Eve are living in paradise, but sometimes when we read this passage, we can get so caught up in the fact that they were in a perfect place and paradise that we gloss over the fact that the devil was present in a perfect environment. We can look at this story

And forget the fact that in a perfect world with perfect harmony and perfect diets and perfect animals and perfect communion and no shame and no awareness of shame and nakedness, we can think that because the environment was perfect that everything was going to be perfect, but even in perfect environments, the devil is present and too many of us will make decisions based on vibes and auras and vibrations. And what happens if you get caught up in your environment, you will let your guard down and you'll start entertaining voices because you confuse the environment with being protected from evil. Maybe Eve didn't think that anything evil could happen because her environment was perfect. Have you ever thought about that? Have you ever thought about the fact that Eve had never experienced sin? She knew nothing about what sin was. She had never felt the sting of shame, she had never felt guilt. She had never felt like she was exposed and naked. Could it be that she confused the perfection of her environment with the ability to do whatever she wanted to do and it still would be perfect? Your environment can cause you to miss out on the voice of God.

Ask Abraham, God comes to Abraham, says Abraham, I'm going to do all this stuff for you, but I need you to leave where you're at. Why? Why God? Because I can't tell you what I want to do in your life in this environment. Yes sir. Because there are too many outside voices. Your environment will make you miss out on God. So you got to check what's your environment speaking to you? Is it pointing you toward God or is it pulling you away? What are your friends pushing you toward? The voice of God or their voice? Trust me, dog. I know what's best now fa. Here's the second voice.

It's the inner voice. So the first one we want to talk about is the outside, the outside voice, and the second one is the inner voice. And this you could categorize as the flesh or it's really just you. It's your inner thoughts, it's your humanity, it's your flesh. Let's read Romans chapter eight, verse five. For those who live according to the flesh, set their on things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit set their minds on things of the spirit for to set the mind on the flesh iss death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace for the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God,

For it does not submit to God's law. Indeed it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Paul makes it very plain, and this is right. Paul writes this right after he gives us the example of himself wrestling within himself to do the will of God. He said, there is a law within my members that when I would do good, evil is present with me. When I would do good, I can't do it. Why? Because I'm constantly warring. My mind is warring against the will of the spirit. Can I tell you that your flesh, your mind is constantly at war with the mind of the spirit, your own human fleshly. Unregenerated mind tends to go toward selfish desires. So when the mind of the spirit is telling you, Hey, give up your life, your mind says, no way. And here's the problem. We live in a culture that emphasizes the flesh over the spirit. Self-love El. Try to sugarcoat it with stuff like self-care. If you don't love yourself, how can you love others? Earth? The scripture gives a redundant statement. No man has ever yet hated his own body but loves it and cherishes it, right? I can prove to you that you love your flesh. If I took an ax

And threw it right in the middle of this crowd, I promise you duck. Why? Because you love your flesh, right? It's a natural inclination to want to do more for you.

Now, it's okay to admit to God that you are having a difficulty with what he's asking you to do. In fact, it's good for you to admit that your flesh has some doubts. Remember we talked about this last week, the man who's talking to Jesus and Jesus said anything's possible to him that believes, he says, I believe, but help my unbelief. What this man was demonstrating is that you can fully believe in the ability of God while at the same time wrestling through doubt in yourself. There are many times when God says He's going to do something in my life where I don't doubt his ability. Why? Because he has receipts. I've seen him do it before. If he's done it for others, I believe he could do it for me. All those little quips that we use. But oftentimes we will wrestle with, am I the one though I'm not doubting that you're able, but I'm wrestling with doubt that you're going to do it for me. And so that's where there is a war between your will and the will of the Spirit, your voice and the voice of the spirit. We know it's okay to ask God for confirmation of what he told you to do. I can prove it. Abraham.

God says, Abraham, this is what I'm going to do for you. Abraham says, how will I know that this will be? God says, don't you worry. He puts a deep sleep on Abraham and God then makes a covenant with himself signing both sides of the agreement. And when Abraham wakes up, God says to him, I've made a covenant with myself and this is proof to you that I will do what I said I will do. Why? Because I never go back on my word. Can we ask about, we can ask Gideon. Gideon is like, I hear you, but do you mind me putting this fleece out? And God's like, no problem. Do you mind if I do it again? God's like, no problem. We can talk about Moses. How do I know that you're going to come through me? God says, grab your staff. He grabs the staff, turns it to a snake. He said, that's how I'm going to prove to you what I will do. So when you get a word from God, it's okay to ask for confirmation. In fact, you probably should. God doesn't mind that What God does mind is when you doubt his ability.

Oh, it's impossible for God to do that. No, it's impossible for me to do that. That's where my doubt is, but it is possible for God to do that. Where we get in trouble is when we allow our inner voice to override the voice of God. This is what happened with Abraham. Abraham gets a word from God and when it's not happening in the time period that he would like his inner thoughts start to rationalize,

Well,

What if I make it happen? God told me he was going to do it this way, but I've got some abilities, so lemme go ahead and hook up with Hagar after all my wife suggested it. And then guess what? Hagar is with child. And God says, that's not what I told you. Here's the problem. Often when you follow your own voice, it produces things that look similar, but they don't have the blessings of God on them.

Amen.

Oftentimes, when you follow your own voice, after you hear the voice of God, you can produce something that looks similar, but it doesn't have the blessing of God on it. And how many of us have produced things out of our own accord and it looks like God's in it until it made some opposition? And then the house that you built on sand crumbles Eve had to deal with the same thing, right? God tells 'em, be fruitful, multiply, replenish every subdue it have dominion. Hear all the fruits. Satan comes, yo, did God actually say that? And then Eve, the Bible says, she tells the serpent, God said, you shall not eat of it. Neither shall you touch it. We have no record in the Bible that God said that you shouldn't touch it. But what ends up happening is when we want something bad enough, we will tweak God's word so that it fits our paradigm and we will miss out on the will of God when we place our faith in our own ability. How many of us have done that? Look, I'm in the company of angels. All of us at some point overrode the voice of God and followed our own path and we know that does not lead to good things. How do you know something is from you and not from God?

The main benefactor is you. How do you know it's your voice and not the voice of God when you're the only one that benefits from it? Am I in this word? Alright, here's another voice, the enemy's voice. You can call him the devil. Let's look at Genesis chapter three verse one, Genesis chapter three, verse one. Now, the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made and he said, the woman, did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree and the garden, the voice of the enemy always questions the voice of God and motivates you to serve yourself. How do you know that you're not hearing from the Lord? Because the enemy will always question what God says. Now, here's one thing that I want you to realize. Satan always talks after God.

That's good.

Satan does not have the ability to promise you anything, but what he does have the ability to do is to tweak what God has promised you so that you'll come over to his side. The only power that Satan has is the power to manipulate the word of God. So he has from the very beginning with Eve, he doesn't say, Hey, Eve, if you eve this tree, you are going to do this and that. He waits till after God has said, be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth. Don't touch the fruit that's in the military. And then Satan comes and goes, did God actually say that? What is he doing? He's playing on her flesh. All that is in the world, the lust of flesh, lusty, eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world. Satan plays on the lust of the flesh, the lusty eyes and the pride of life and the power that he uses is the power of manipulation against the word of God. We can look throughout the Bible and see every time that the enemy speaks, it's after God has already spoken. He did it with Eve. He even did it with Jesus. Jesus comes up out of the water, heaven opens up. The Father says, behold my beloved son, who I am well pleased, hear you him. We see the presence of the Holy Spirit, the Father and the Son. Jesus walks from that moment and the Bible says, he's led by the spirit and to the wilderness, to fasten, to pray, and while he's doing that, that's when Satan appears to him and this is his strategy.

If you are the son of God, turn these stones into bread. If you really are the son of God, throw yourself from this mountain. If you are the Son, we know that he comes right after the confirmation and affirmation of the Father to the Son of who Jesus is. Once the enemy can get you the question, what God has said, you will rationalize your disobedience. Once the enemy can get you to question what God has said, you will rationalize your disobedience. Here's what the Bible says in Genesis chapter three. After Satan says, Hey, yo, you want to eat this? It says that. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was desired to make one wise, she took of his fruit and ate, she began to rationalize, why wouldn't I eat this fruit? Why wouldn't I go there? The reply against the voice of the enemy is to go back to the word of God, the way Satan defeated. I mean, the way Jesus defeated Satan is by saying it is written. What does that mean? It's already been declared.

The next time the enemy comes whispering in your ear, just remind him it's already been declared. Fool. I'm not placing my faith, my confidence in the voice of the enemy when it's already been declared by God, what would happen? Okay, here's the fourth voice is the Holy Spirit's voice. This is the Lord. John chapter 10, verse number 27, Jesus speaking, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. God mainly speaks to us through his written word, through impressions in the spirit,

Prophetic words by others, and then for some it may be a dream or a vision, but these are the main ways that God speaks to us. Now, I want to help you identify. I want to give you a filter of how you can determine if the Lord is speaking to you. So if you have notes, I want you to write this down. Number one, here's how you check to see if God's speaking to you. Number one is does it align with his word? Does it align with his character? I'm sorry, we'll get to his word in a second. Does it align with his character? Number one, God will not violate his own character. God will not tell you to do something that violates who he is. In other words, lemme put it just plain. God will not tell you to do something unholy if he is a holy God. God will not tell you to leave your husband for no reason and run away with some other woman's husband. That ain't God. Why? Because that's unholy. It violates his character. God is not the author of confusion. If what you're hearing is confusing, I'm not saying impossible, I'm saying confusing if it's causing confusion, if it's pulling you away from the unity in the spirit, number one, the way you find out if God is speaking to you is does it align with his character? Can I look at the Bible and what God says about himself and does this word that I hear line up with him with who he is? Because if it doesn't, I'm going to put it over here. Here's the second wave. It aligns with his word,

The word of God. This is why it's very important for us to read the word of God. Why? Because two Timothy chapter three, verse 16 tells us that all scripture is breathed out by God is inspired by God. That means this scripture, the canon of scripture that we have, we believe according to the word of God, that it is the breathed out. It is the delivered word of God. Lemme tell you something. If you're looking for a word, just open this Bible. Sometimes you may be looking for confirmation and affirmation, you asking everybody else, but you haven't gone here yet. This is why you have to have a relationship with the actual physical word of God. Why? Because oftentimes, most oftentimes God will speak to you first through his work. Have you ever had your kid walk up to you and say, I'm hungry, and you go, Hey, have you checked the kitchen? Because before I take you to Chick-fil-A, you better check this cabinet. How often do we come to God and say, God, I need a word, and God's like open it. You know how many times I've literally been like God speak?

Has anybody else done that? Come on. Now. Sometimes you just need a word. You be, oh, that ain't that money on me. How did I end up in Revelation? My God. Lemme get to Jeremiah 11,

But read does what God is what you're hearing, the voice that you're hearing, does that align with his character? Does it align with his word? Here's the third way that you can find out. The spirit itself will bear witness when you are saved. Acts chapter two, verse 38, repent. Be baptized when you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Right? When you are saved, you receive the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit the Bible says, will lead you into all truth. The Holy Spirit is the teacher. He's a comforter. He's a teacher as well. He will lead you into all truth. Meaning that when you hear the voice, the Holy Spirit within you will agree, will witness to what you hear. If there is a pause, you got to pause, right? If your spirit, if the spirit of God within you is not in agreement with what you hear,

Stop.

Why? Because according to the Bible, it's not meat or drink, it's righteousness, peace, joy in the Holy Spirit. One of my main checks for if I'm hearing the voice of God is peace. I may not understand it. I may not have the strategy for it. I may not can explain it yet, but this word that I hear, it lines up with the character of God. It lines up with the word of God and I have peace that surpasses all understanding. Yo, why are you leaving the United States? You and your wife, y'all only been married four months and you move into a different country off of a word that God wants you to go. I don't know where the money's coming from. I don't even know what we're going to do when we get there, but we feel peace and it doesn't violate the character of God and it doesn't violate his word, but here's the fourth one. Others will validate. You know why church is so important now? People try to do away with church nowadays. You know why church is so important? Forsake not the assembling of yourself together. The word assembly is literally the assembling in a corporate way, in a corporate sense.

You know why that's important? Because when you are around other believers, they help you discern if you're hearing from God. Have you ever noticed that? Some people don't want to tell others what they heard. They just kind of tell you what they heard. They don't submit what they heard. Can I give you a piece of advice that when you feel like you're hearing from the Lord, submit that you know what the word submit means? It means to push under. In other words, the word picture here is when you walk up to somebody's office and the door's closed and you have a letter to deliver to them, you sub submit. So when you submit something, you are literally saying, Hey, I'm not coming like this and telling you what God told me, but I want to submit this word to you and I need you to pray over it, and I need you to discern with me if I'm really hearing from the Lord. If you're afraid to submit it, good chances is not from the Lord, because why wouldn't you submit something that's actually from the Lord? If God said it, he will do it. Well, they probably won't agree

That maybe the Lord protecting you and submit it to people that are spiritually appraised. You know what that means? That means that they have a track record. They have receipts of hearing from the Lord as well, not your home girls

Who don't have any receipts. I don't know. I don't get right vibes about that. Bring it to those who are spiritually appraised in the body of Christ. Any decisions that we make here at the church, if the Lord, if I feel like the Lord is speaking to me, I submit it to our elders. Why? Because we're not going to move forward in decisions just off of words that I hear that's unsubmitted to those who are also spiritually appraised in the body of Christ, and if anyone of our elders say, I don't know, guess what? Check. I'm pausing. Here's the fifth and final one. How do you know that you're hearing from God? Fifth and final one. It requires God's help.

Amen.

How do you know that? That you hear from the Lord? It requires the Lord God be like that. It requires the Lord. Anything that requires faith requires the Lord. If you can do it on your own, do it. You don't. I'm just trying to hear from the Lord to see if I need to apply for a job. Yay. I sanity, right? There are people that could do stuff on their own. They're still waiting for a word. You don't need a word from the Lord to go get AJOB. If you ain't got a job

And you are well able to go get a job now, the Lord may be leading you to give a job that you're unqualified for that. The only way you get it is God's help. You don't get the glory. Alright, now we talking. Alright. Does it line up with his character check? Does it line up with his word check? Do I have peace about it? Check When I submit it to those that are spiritual praise, what do they say? Go for it. Check. Does it require God's help? Check. Now I can have faith because now I've heard the voice of God. Does that help anybody? Yes.

This is how you know it's God. It's beyond your ability to do on your own. Yes, there are some things that obviously God will use you in it. Noah building an art. God used his ability, but there's no way this man would come up with the idea himself. In fact, the door was so big he couldn't even close it. He needed God's help to close it. Moses couldn't lead the children of Israel out of Egypt by himself. It required God's help. Abraham couldn't have a child without God's help. David couldn't killed Goliath. Without God's help. Daniel wouldn't survive in the lions. Then without God's help, the three Hebrew boys wouldn't have made it through the fire. Without God's help, Peter couldn't have preached the first message that inaugurated the church. Without God's help, all those who were martyred would not have been able to be martyred. Without God's help, Paul could not have turned all of Asia. Preach the gospel in the space of two years without God's help. Do you want to know if you're hearing from the Lord, why am I talking about this? Because if we're talking about faith,

I want to teach you through the word of God what voice to put your faith in. Don't get caught up in these other voices. They will lead you astray. Listen to the voice of God and watch 'em work. Amen. Heavenly Father, we are so grateful and so thankful for you allowing us to be here in your house. I pray, Lord, that we would be attuned to the voice of the spirit, that we would listen to your voice. I pray God, that we would take what we talked about today and apply it in a real way in our lives, that we would be able to discern your voice out of all the other voices that are speaking to us. I know you have great plans, great purpose. You have great things that you want us to do, and I pray, Lord God, that we would be obedient to you and that we will fulfill the work that you have for us. We give you name, all the praise, all the glory, all the honor because you're worthy of it and Jesus' name and somebody shout. Amen. God bless you.