Hearing God, Week 6

Dr. Tim Rivers | October 6, 2024

Listen

Transcription

What's up everybody? Are you glad to be here? Yes. Can you give God some praise in this place? Can you give God some praise in this place? Third time's the charm. Can you give God praise in this place? Come on somebody. Let me tell you something. It doesn't matter what kind of week you had. God is still good. You could have a terrible week. God is still good. You could have a great week. God is still good. This is why you cannot get caught up and getting you emotions manipulated by your circumstance. You got to get steady on the rock that is higher than I, oh my Lord, y'all going to make me sing.

I'm not going to, but they used to say, what do you think about Jesus? I can't. I can't. Y'all try and make me get out of character. You throw it back. I'm so glad that you're here. If you are a guest with us, we want to say welcome to Embassy City Church. We pray that you receive everything that you need from the Lord today. For those that are joining us online, thank you so much for being with us from all around the world. You're tuning in. Can we just give all those online a big hand, our brothers and sisters in Christ?

Anybody believe in the power of prayer? Has anybody ever had your circumstance changed because of prayer? Has anybody ever seen God hear you and answer, at least I got two or three witnesses in here, but I believe in the power of prayer. I believe that if my circumstance isn't what I would like for it to be, I can ask God to change it. And if he wants to, he will change it. But if not, I'm still going to pray. Amen. Speaking of prayer, tonight at 6:00 PM we have prayer night. Lemme tell you how we operate here at Embassy City Church. We believe that nothing that we do should be done without prayer, but is our opportunity commune with God. And so whether you're a veteran prayer warrior or you're new or you don't know how to pray, this is the perfect environment to come into to have corporate time of prayer.

It's organized. It goes from six to 7:00 PM We're going to spend time and worship and in prayer, and since we're in the series hearing, God, this is a perfect time to come, pray and hear God and somebody say amen. And it's also the perfect way to start off your week. You know you're going to be fighting devils tomorrow, whether it's in traffic or at your job. You know you're going to be fighting something tomorrow. So once you get filled up with the Holy Spirit tonight, before you can get ready for work tomorrow and somebody say amen, grab your bibles. We're going to Colossians chapter three, the book of Colossians chapter three. While you're turning there something to celebrate. We have as of I believe this Sunday passed out, almost 300 Bibles paper Bibles. Come on now. Did anybody bring their paper? Bible? You got your paper Bible with you?

Just stick it up in the air. I know that there's some folks that you brought the Bible that we gave out, and I'm going to give you a cheat code today because we're in Colossians chapter three. But in your paper Bible, it is page number 9 25. Boom. I'm telling you there's benefits to this Colossians chapter three, verse number 15. This is what the Bible says. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing songs in hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God and whatever, say it somebody say whatever, whatever. And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything somebody say everything, everything. Now this changes the game because for most of us, we don't do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus. But the writer here says, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. And everybody say amen. Amen. Look at your neighbor, said neighbor, neighbor, I hope, I hope you've come. You've come to hear from God, to hear God look at your other neighbor. That one didn't look too short. Look at your other one.

Say neighbor. Say Neighbor, I hope, I hope you've come to hear from God, to hear from God. And if you came to hear from God, give God some praise in this place. We've come to hear from God. Y'all thought I was about to sing, didn't you? Heaven, we Father, we thank you so much for your goodness and your mercy. Thank you for allowing us to be in your house, to dig into your word, to learn from you. The people who are gathered in this room that are watching online, they are not just here by happenstance or accident, but they're here because they want to hear from you. I pray that you would give us open ears, open heart, open mind to receive from you and let the word be like, see that falls on good ground and let it bear fruit in our lives. We give you a name, the praise, the glory and the honor because you're worthy of it in Jesus' name.

And everybody say amen. Amen. My title for today is Hearing God through the conscience, hearing God through the Conscience. Now, if you've been with us for the last, this is our sixth week. If you've been with us for the last six weeks, you've probably noticed that we've been covering a lot of ways that we can hear from God. Now, the reason why we chose to do a series called Hearing God is not because we didn't have anything else to talk about but we chose. We were led to concentrate on hearing God as a series because as a Christian it is absolutely essential for you to learn how to hear from God. Why else would you be a Christian unless you believe that God is still talking. And there are times in your life where you can't call nobody, where you don't have access to the internet, where you need God to come through for you, where you're in a tight situation or somebody just ask you a question where you need to be able to recognize when God is speaking to you. Now let's look at John chapter 10, verse number one, John chapter 10, verse number one or page number 8 42.

Truly, truly I say to you, he who does not enter the sheep fold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is the thief and a robber, but he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. And to him the gatekeeper opens the sheep hear his voice and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. And when he has brought out all his own, he goes before them and the sheep follow him. Why do they follow him? For they know his voice and the stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him. I think that's very interesting because here Jesus is saying not only do sheep not also recognize a stranger's voice, but they run away.

That's a whole sermon right there because it's not just important for you to recognize false teaching, it's important for you to run away from it. It's not enough just to recognize false prophets. It is incumbent upon you as a Christian to run away from it. Why do they run away from it for they do not know the voice of strangers. Isn't it interesting? Have you ever any parents in the house, you have small children, any parent in the house that has small children when you've taken your child to the park or some kind of gathering a birthday party where there are a lot of children, it gets loud because kids get together and they're screaming and they're squealing and they're hitting one another and they're fussing and fighting and they're having a good time. And as a parent, you become accustomed to noise, you start hearing noise and it doesn't really affect you.

You start drowning out other people's kids' voices because they don't mean nothing to you. I'm sorry, but there comes a point that when you're at a gathering at a park or whatever, when your kid starts screaming or your kid is asking for help, isn't it amazing how there could be a hundred kids in the room yelling and screaming, but there's nothing like your child's voice cutting through all of the noise, all of the voices and going right to your ears and you jump up. Something's wrong. Why is because their voice is familiar to you, their voice is your own. You have a familiarity, you have a relationship with that voice. Every Christian should get to the point and their walk with God, that with all the voices and all the noise that is in existence in the world, when God speaks, God's voice should be able to cut through all the noise and hit your ears.

Because believe me, there are a lot of voices out here. There are a lot of people trying to get in your ear, trying to get at you, trying to get in your mind. And we have to as Christians be able to discern what is the voice of God and what is false prophecy, false teaching or somebody else's voice. Here's the thing, hearing from God is not just reserved for preachers or clergy or people who walk with the Lord or apostles of prophets. Hearing from God is available as a gift to every single believer. So this is what we talked about. I want to catch some of you up. I want to kind of do a recap because it's important to lead to where we're at today and we're going to talk about today. But we talked about how do you know if something is the will of God?

And first of all, we identify that the primary way that God speaks to us is through the Bible. We know this is true because the Bible is accessible to everybody. So if you're struggling to hear from God, just read your Bible. And when you read the Bible, second Timothy chapter three 16, it says, all scripture is breathed out by God. So the Bible is the fundamental most guaranteed way that you can hear God. You don't have to go find somebody that's going to pray with at the altar for four hours for you to hear a word. You can simply read the word of God. But what I love about God is he didn't just give us a book and say, Hey, try to figure it out. But secondarily, we talked about the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is given to every single believer. And what the Holy Spirit does in our lives is he number one, teaches us new things.

He teaches us all things, but he also will bring to remembrance all the things that Jesus has said. And thirdly, he guides us into all truth. And we talked about this a little bit last week. We have Lagos and Rama, the two primary definitions for the word word in the scriptures and the Holy Spirit within you is what brings illumination. He ignites, he reveals what the word is saying to you personally. So when you read the word of God and you're submitted to the Holy Spirit, as you read, the Holy Spirit will make the words on these pages come alive in your situation. But then last week we talked about the importance of submitting what you're hearing from God to Godly counsel. And it's very important for all of us to have godly counselors in our lives, someone that will start with the word of God, somebody that loves you enough to tell you the truth, somebody who sees good in your future and somebody who isn't going to charge you for it, right?

This is how God begins to establish us hearing from God. But one thing we have to understand is that if we don't try to seek out hearing God in the most fundamental way, it will be very hard to hear God in other ways because here's how God works. The way God works is when you become a Christian, you come into the body of Christ as a baby. Wow. Wha isn't it interesting that babies don't have teeth? How many people would be freaked out if you saw a newborn with a full set of teeth? You would know that's off, right? Because as a baby you are not conditioned yet to be able to digest meat. So you begin with milk and then maybe some squished up little peas and carrots and then your food becomes more solid until you get to the point to where you eat meat.

Being a Christian is the same way. When you first come to the fold, you begin with just your Bible. If you want to hear from God, don't start thinking, you know what, Hey, I just got saved yesterday. God, I need you to meet me on the mountain. And then I come down glowing like Moses, it probably ain't going to happen. You have to be faithful with the scriptures and as you develop your ear for hearing God through the scriptures, then God will continue to grow your understanding here, hearing from God takes practice, hearing from God takes practice. But here's what I'll say. God speaks to us more than we realize.

God is always speaking to us. He's speaking to you right now. If you're awake, he's speaking to you right now. He's speaking through the word of God. He's speaking to us all the time. The hard part about this entire series is not learning how to hear from God. That's easy. You can hear from God through the Word. If you have the Holy Spirit, he's speaking to you, you can get godly counsel. That's actually very easy. The challenge is not learning how to hear from God. You know what the greatest challenge is about hearing from God, doing what? He said, Hey, might I submit to you that most of us have been hearing God, but most of us are stuck because we're not doing what He said. Oh Lord, let's talk about another avenue to hear God dreams, visions, prophecies. But here's the thing, God oftentimes most of the times will tell you something and until you do it, he ain't saying nothing else.

And for a lot of us, God has said, do this. And we're like, I don't like that. I need another word. I'm going to find me different counselors. I need the Holy Spirit to show up in different, I'm going to find a different scripture and we try to juke hearing God because we don't like what he's saying. Here's the truth. If you don't do what he's saying, he ain't saying no more. I need another rma that one. Don't line up with my life, God, I need you to give me a different passage. I need you to put different people in my life. And how many of us, if we're going to be honest, didn't like what somebody said and we're like, we need to find somebody else. People do this with church all the time. That preacher you all have about my business. Let me find somebody else.

Here's the truth. James chapter one, verse 22, page nine 50. But be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves. That's strong language for if anyone is a hero of the word and not a doer. He is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror for he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. Have you ever worn something? You look in the mirror and you're like, man, that looks fire. And then you go out and you forgot what you put on and people are like, oh, I love what your shirt says. And you forgot, oh, I have this shirt that somebody gave me that says, I believe in therapy and Jesus, which by the way, awesome shirt, thank you for giving it to me. Every time I wear it, I forget that I wear it until I walk in a grocery store and someone says, oh, I love your shirt. Then I got to look down and remember what it says. And I'm like, yeah, I do actually believe that. Hear James is saying that if you just hear the word and you don't do it, it's like someone forgetting what God said, but the one who looks into the perfect law of the law of liberty and perseveres being no hearer who forgets, but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. What does that mean? You ain't blessed just because you heard from God. You're only blessed when you do what you heard. So some of us are waiting for blessings and God's like I'm waiting for you to do

Because oftentimes when God speak to us, he will give us a word and then watch what we do with it. He will say, this is what I want you to do. Oh, look, God, I don't like that. I need a follow up word. Y'all remember Abraham talk about it. Can we get into word? Hey Abraham, I'm going to bless you. I'm going to bless your seed. Do you shall all the ends of the earth be blessed? You and Sarah? Okay. Abraham was like, this ain't going to work man. My wife is up in age. Let me find someone younger and God's like, that's not what I said. So he goes, finds Hagar does his little thing and he's like, alright, God, you're going to bless it. God said, daddy, what? I said, you went and tried to manufacture another word. Isn't that what a lot of us do? The Lord tells us to do something and we're like, nah, what's that clip on TikTok again? I need to find a different word. And here's the thing, you're not blessed because you heard you are blessed when you do what you've heard.

And that's what we want to talk about because doer is a person who does some activity. Oh, I know that's deep. A doer is someone who does. Now here's the thing. Most of us want to do the will of God, but we get stuck and usually for good reason because most of us, let me just speak for myself. When it comes to the Lord speaking to me and me making a decision to do or not to do, generally what goes through my head is I don't want to rush God, neither do I want to delay God. And when you're stuck between rushing and delaying God, you end up stuck on a word and not doing so I want to help you to identify how you can make a decision. The thing, the way most of us make decision is we make it through a fleshy or humanistic filter. For instance, most people make decisions on what may feel good. Most of us, that feels right. Here's the problem. If you just go based on your feeling and your feelings aren't submitted to God, you'll end up picking sin.

Most of the times if we're led simply by our feelings, what feels good in the moment, it will lead you to sin. And some people will get up here and say, sin is terrible. It doesn't feel good. And what the Bible says, the Bible says that sin is pleasurable for a moment. It don't last very long, but in the moment when you are participating in sin, it can feel great. The problem is what happens afterwards. Another way that we make decisions is we think we'll lose something. And this is based on fear. How many people have made decisions based on fear? Something that you're going to lose? Well, I don't want to get out of this relationship because then I'll be single. So you fear being single versus staying in a relationship that God doesn't have blessings on.

Now if you're married and some of y'all were like, oh, the man of God spoke, this is a word of prophecy, hold up, hold up. If you're married, you need to go to counseling. You need to get in this word, right? Work it out to the best of your ability as long as both of y'all submitted to Christ. But if you're dating somebody, it's a pretty quick decision. A lot of us make decisions based on what we think we need and this will lead you to compromise. I think I need this. Well have you sought the Lord about it? What has Godly counsel said about it is the Holy Spirit confirming it. This is line up with the word of God. Some of us, what we try to get quickly, we make decisions based on drive, and this is actually probably the number one thing that's causing a lot of people, especially in the US to make decisions that don't align with God is we want things that we want it.

Now, how many besides me are like, you know what? Amazon Prime next day, that's too late. I need a two day, I want an 11 to five. You ain't even going to use it today. You just want it today. I just did that with a product I ordered. I said, I need it like tomorrow morning knowing good and well, I'm not going to use it for another week. But the thing is, we approach the things of God oftentimes like this. God, we want a word and we want it now and I want to do it right now. Here's the thing, what are you sacrificing by trying to do it too quickly or by being driven by your drive? Okay, you got the house, you got the car, you got the money, you got the promotion, but your family can't stand you.

But when you're led by the spirit, I'm not saying all that stuff is wrong, but you got to be led by the spirit when you're making your decisions. Now here's the good part. God doesn't just give us a word and then just leaves us hanging, but God uses something that every person already has internally and that's called the conscience. The conscience can also be called the inner witness. Now here's what the inner witness is. The inner witness is the internal sense of right and wrong that God gives every human being. Now, if you want to hear a little more in depth teaching on the conscience, I've taught about this in a sermon called Gray Matter during our Church Gone Wild series, which was in July. If you want to go look at that, I taught a little more in depth about the conscience, but the conscience is something that God has given us.

And when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit will use your conscience, your inner witness to discern whether you should do or not do. God uses your internal compass, the conscience to tell you when to go and when to hold. And here's how he does it, peace. Colossians chapter three verse 15, and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful. Now, there are three words that I want to highlight real quickly. The three words in this passage, number one is the word peace. Now the word peace is the image that comes from the Old Testament, which is shalom and peace. The word peace literally means freedom from worry. So here the writer of Colossians is saying, let the freedom from worry of Christ rule that word rule means to take control or to have control in your hearts.

The word hearts is the inner man, the conscience, the volition inner is the soul part of you. So literally what the writer is saying here is let the freedom from worry that only comes from Christ, control your decision making. So when it comes time for you to make a decision, you've gone to the Lord, you've sought it out, and you know what? It lines up with scripture. The Holy Spirit is giving you a sense of rma about it. You've submitted it to God, the counsel. Now you have to make a decision. What you are waiting for as a Christian is do I have peace about this decision? If you don't have peace hold, and this doesn't mean that what God is asking you to do is going to be easy, but how many have ever had to make a hard decision but you had peace about it?

Here's how you know if it's from the Lord or it's not. If you got to make a hard decision and you have peace about it, it's the peace that surpasses all understanding, right? The peace of God that surpasses all understanding is guiding and guarding you from the word of God in the word of God. Let's look at Romans chapter eight, verse 16. The spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. When we are truly submitted and aligned with the spirit of God, he will lead our conscience, our inner witness in the right direction. Now, let's talk about some ways that God speaks in the inner witness or inner conscience. One way that he does is through impressions or a nudge. Now, I know most of us, we want God to speak from a thunder in the thunder and we want God to just crack open the heavens and shine a light down and say, do this by tomorrow at three, right?

Don't most of us want to just hear the audible voice of God? And generally it's because we've heard somebody say, I heard the audible voice of God and we're like, man, that hasn't happened to me yet. Right? Here's the thing, God can simply give you an impression, a nudge it don't take all that to hear from God. Here's the perfect example, Elijah. He's just gone through killing the prophets of Baal and when he prays the heavens open up, fire comes down, consumes the sacrifice, all that happens. Then he kills the prophets of Baal and he is on the next level, right? God has heard him, God answers. And then he goes back to town and there's Jezebel and she's like, how dare you kill my prophets. I'm coming after you. And here this man of God who just killed by hand, hundreds of prophets of be gets scurred and he runs away and he hides himself and God appears to him and says, yo, meet me up at the Mount.

So he goes to the Mount of God and he goes into a cave and the scripture says that while he is there, an earthquake comes and the wind blows and lightning is flashing and the wind is blowing so hard that the rocks are cracking. And the scripture says the thunder came, but he wasn't in the thunder. The earthquake came, but he wasn't in the earthquake. The fire came but he wasn't in the fire. And isn't that usually how we expect God to show up like God, I need you to crack with thunder and lightning and tell me this is what I need to do. The scripture says, God didn't come through any of those avenues, Elijah said, and then a still voice.

And did you know that word small voice actually means silent voice? How can you hear God silently? Because most of us are in such a frantic noised environment that we're expecting God to just come through the earthquake and God is whispering. So the way you can really hear God is to get quiet and listen. So how does God speak to us through a whisper in the inner witness? And what God does is he will give you an impression or he'll give you a thought. Has anybody ever had a thought about a business or an idea that you didn't come up by yourself and you knew like, no, this wasn't me. God can give you a thought. God can give you a picture, he can give you an image. He can show you something, somebody like, yeah, I saw my knight riding on a white horse.

I saw him. He was tall, dark, and handsome. That may or may not be from God. Keep your options open is what I'm saying. But there are people that I know that have literally built a house based on an image that they received from the Lord. There are also ways that he can speak through a moving image. It's almost like I would call this a vision, right? The difference between a dream and a vision is a vision. You're awake and God will show you kind of something that plays almost like a highlight reel. This has happened to me before where I had a, I would say a moving picture, a vision of a friend of mine in a precarious situation. And I called him and I said, Hey man, I don't know, but I feel like I just want to share this with you. I just want to submit this to you.

This is kind of what I saw, and it was a warning and it just so happened to be right in line with their life. God can speak to you through a prophetic word. Now you have to be careful with these because there's a lot of people right now walking around calling themselves prophets and prophetess and they ain't prophesying the prophet lion. And you got to know the difference. Here's how does it line up with the word of God? Do they walk with God? Is it manipulative or is it edifying? This has happened to us before we came to Embassy City, Tim had the conversation in April. In January of 2022, there was a lady in our church at High Ridge didn't know anything about our situation. There was no talk about transitioning or going to a different church. And this lady sent a letter. It was actually a Facebook message, and in the Facebook message it said, Hey, high reach has been a springboard for you, but now it's time to move to the next and God is about to open a door for you to walk into your true ministry. Now, I didn't tell my pastor that because I'm still trying to get have a job,

But what I did is I tucked it away, alright, God, what does this actually mean? Little did she know or we know that a couple of months later we would have this conversation about coming here so God can use somebody and God can give somebody a word for you either in this season or this season ahead. If somebody gives you a word and it doesn't align with where you are, just write it down. And if it's a true word, it will work. If not, it will not work. Some of y'all have been holding to a prophecy for 30 years. Keep on holding on. God can also talk to you through dreams. God can talk you through dreams. God can also talk you through a check, through a caution. Hey, don't do that. Don't go there. I remember this one particular time we were teenagers, and you know how it is when you first get your driver's licenses and you drive crazy?

Well, we were getting ready to leave, to go out to eat to Bennigan's. That was our hangout. Come on now Bennigans, bring it back. We were getting ready to go to Bennigan's and all the young people were getting out and we were all 16, 17. We had just gotten our new cars and a friend of mine had a prelude and his brother was riding with him, and I just had this check and I asked his brother, Hey, won't you ride with me? So his brother came, he rode with me and we were on our way to Bennigan's. All the guys had already left. We were a little later and we were on our way to Bennigan's. And when we got across this hill, we seen this car flipped, turned this way on the highway up against the embankment, and when we rolled up, we noticed that it was this guy's brother when we got out of the car. And of course we got over to the side, we got in the car and ran up to make sure he was okay. He was fine. But what had happened was when he was driving, he ran into the back of a flatbed truck. The flatbed crushed the passenger side door in all the way to the center console. If his brother would've been in the car, he would have not survived. But because the Lord in his was kind, he put a caution in me to invite him to ride with me and saved his life.

That's how God works. So you have got to be cognizant of how God speaks. So what does the Bible say about our conscience? I want to run through these because these are a couple ways that God deals with our conscience. One is our conscience can be stricken, means that God can use the conscience to strike you or to render a guilty verdict. This is what happens when you are first introduced to the gospel. There is something like in the culture right now with the concentration being on mental health, a lot of times we look at the negatives of guilt, but there is a positive side to guilt because God uses guilt to draw you to him. When you become aware that you're a sinner and need of a savior, that's called guilt. What God does with guilt, he uses guilt to draw you to repentance, right?

The enemy will use guilt to keep you from the throne of God, right? But there is a good sense in which God uses guilt to drive you to repentance, drive you to him. God also will use your conscience. He also says this, that you can have a weak or defiled conscience. Now, this is generally done by human effort. When we defile our conscience, God wants to bring you away from the defilement of your conscience, right? There's also the seared conscience. Desensitized meaning that you override your conscience enough, it becomes desensitized. This is a very dangerous place to be because if the Lord is truly using your conscience and telling you don't do that, and you logically think, well there's nothing wrong with it, and you override your conscience, you can override your conscience so much to where you don't know right from wrong. And our world right now is desensitized in their conscience.

They're participating in things that scripture obviously says this wrong, but because they've overridden their conscience out of logic, now they can't tell the difference between right and wrong. So you have to be very careful as a Christian not to override even if it's okay logically, if your conscience doesn't allow you to do it, don't do it because there may be something that God is trying to do in your life through your conscience that may not affect somebody else. Remember we talked about this in Corinthians, there's also the corrupted conscience. Scripture talks about this. The corrupted conscience is through unbelief. This is when God is saying, Hey, we're like, nah, I don't think so. He's like, no, seriously, no, no, no, no, no. And you can all of a sudden convince your conscience that it's not hearing from God and you actually are. And then second is, or the goal is to have a clear conscience. Oftentimes the reason why difficult for us to hear God is because our conscience is so full of stuff.

You are not going to have a perfect conscience, but you can have a clear conscience. So let me tell you how you keep your conscience clear. This is very practical. Guard your gates, guard your gates. Some people live with gates wide open letting everything in. Well, what are your gates? One is your eyes. What are you looking at? What are you watching? Didn't the writer, didn't David say, I will set no wicked thing before my eyes? There's a reason why your eye is attached to your brain because what goes in through your eyes goes right through the brain. You have to guard against what you're watching, what kind of shows you watch, what kind of people you watching.

This is practical, but here's the thing. If you watch and the devil thinks he's slick, he ain't that slick. He right now is making an effort to desensitize our conscience through what we're seeing. Things that five, 10 years ago we would look at turn away. He has through his little ephs, normalized that it ain't even checking us. We can see some stuff and be like, man, don't entertain things with your eyes that are going to mess with your conscience, which is the inner witness that God uses for you to make good decisions. So here's what ends up happening. If you start filtering stuff through your eyes that you're not supposed to be watching, when God tells you to move, whatever you've led in through your eyes and it's corrupted, your thoughts will make blurry. When it is time to do and not to do, here's another gate.

Your ears. What are you listening to? Who are you listening to? Right? There's a reason why your ears are connected to your brain. Did you know when you hear sound, you interpret what you hear through your brain. So it does matter what goes in. It does matter who you're listening to. There are some people you don't need to listen to and they could be great people, but they're not great for you. Everybody is talking nowadays, right? Everybody. Everybody got a show, a YouTube channel, an Instagram, a TikTok, everybody is talking. You got to be careful who you're listening to. Here's what we generally do. If we hear something that maybe is moving us in the direction of the Lord and it's uncomfortable, we will try to find a voice that more aligns with what we'd like to do. So I promise you, you will find the podcast, you'll find the movie, you'll find the person that aligns with you. I promise you, you can do it, but you have to be careful what you are listening to, what kind of music you're listening to, who the artist is, what does their life look like? Maybe I should be turning this way. And if you're like, you're thinking that's probably the Lord right now, convicting your conscience. Ooh, guard your hearts. Remember when the scripture talks about the heart, it's talking about your soul, your mind will and emotions. Your mind will emotion. Your heart is what controls your appetites and desires. You desire what you feast on.

I will you desire what you feast on. Here's the thing, if you feast on candy, you desire candy. If you feast on here, I go with these wings again, if you feast on wings, you'll desire wings. And how many know that's a hard one to break? Garlic, Parmesan, lemon pepper, dried Cajun, come on, extra crispy fries, extra seasoning. This is the wrong time to be talking about lunch. I lost half of the room. But you desire what you feast on. So if you feast on worldliness, that is what you're going to desire, right? And here's the thing, it is difficult to change your appetite tight if you've been feasting on stuff that ain't good for you.

Didn't Jesus say if your eye offends you, pluck it out. Now, does everybody need to go pluck their eyes out? No. But Jesus is saying, he's asking the question, how serious are you about protecting your eyes? Because here's a perfect example. If you're struggling with what you're looking at on your phone, why don't you get a flip phone? Well, I can't. I've got my chase app and my, if it keeps leading you to sin, wouldn't you rather have a flip phone and your soul be clear and your conscience be clear than to have your chase act and memorize the numbers?

How serious are you about having a clear conscience? You got to guard the gates that are letting this stuff in. Here's the thing, if you're just watching anything, you're just listening to anything. You're not guarding your appetite. You can hear God and not do what he's saying because all the other noises are convoluting your decision making process. But you got to have a clear conscience. So how can you have a clear conscience confess when you make mistakes? Can't we just talk about visions and dreams and prophecies and word of knowledge? And how do you clear your conscience? Confess when you make a mistake. This is hard, right?

Confess your false one to another that you may be healed. Here's the thing, you don't make right decisions wounded, hurt people. Hurt people, right? Heal people. Heal people. That's nice, right? When your conscience is clear, you can make good decisions. Listen, if somebody walks up to me and says, Hey, I saw you doing drugs in the alleyway and he went public with it, listen, that ain't the time for me to come up here and be like, guys, no, I didn't. I wasn't even in the alleyway. Who has alleys anyways? I can tell you with a clear conscience. That's a lie. No further discussion needed. My conscience is clear. I ain't been in no alleyways. I ain't doing no drugs. I'm clear. Some of y'all got nervous. Okay? None. No, no alley. What about the other part? I can say that with a clear conscience. When you have a clear conscience, you can do that, right? Here's the last part. Stay humble and holy. Stay humble and holy.

Most of our decisions that are deviated from what God is telling us has to do with the pride issue. Either us thinking we know better than God or choosing our own way. Well, I don't really care about what these godly counselors are saying. I'm going to do it anyways. I really like her. I really like him. I think this is the right house. This is what I feel. And what ends up happening is you're going to allow your pride to get in the way of what God's telling you. So the way you combat pride is you humble yourself.

How do you humble yourself? You submit yourself to God. Submit mission, sub come under mission. What God has for you to do to submit means to come under what God is telling you. And when you do that, guess that's how you walk in humility. And then you admit when you're wrong. So if God is directing you and you have submitted to him and you've gone through the word of God and it aligns and you feel the prince of Holy Spirit and you've gone to Godly counsel and you feel the peace about it, go for it.

Well, it turns out to be a disaster. Well, there's grace. How many of us have made decisions we thought was the will of God? And it wasn't? You're like, oh, Lord, just admit that you made a mistake. I want to be the type of pastor. If I make a mistake, if I said something out of pocket, if I was off on a scripture, I want to come up and tell you it's okay, right? But also be holy. The message of holiness is not talked about anymore. And the reason being I think is because it's a reaction to how some of us grew up. We were taught that holiness is how you dress and where you went and didn't go, mainly where you didn't go, what you could or couldn't do. But holiness the Bible says, without which no man shall see the Lord be holy. For I am holy. What does it mean to be holy? It means to stand in the light without shame.

That's holiness. True holiness is when you can stand before God without guilt and shame knowing that you're naked and exposed before him. It doesn't mean perfect. It means open and honest, transparent before him. That's the goal. And if you have these things, then you can make the right decision about what God's telling you. This is very practical teaching. This is how God is going to use you to do something great. Some of y'all, y'all been waiting to make the business decision. If you got peace about it in your spirit, it aligns with God's word. You ain't trying to cheat nobody. You feel the peace of God. You've submitted to Godly counsel. Go ahead and go for it.

And if it don't work out, ask the Lord what he was trying to teach you. I got to stop, but I can keep going. When you walk with the Lord, he will guide you. He will direct you his purpose. Listen, God is not wanting to trick you, and sometimes we think God is trying to fool us. No, he will lead you and guide you into all truth. He wants what's best for you. If you can submit to his counsel and allow the peace of God to rule in your hearts, that's how you make the decision based on what he's telling you. And somebody say, amen. Can you stand on your feet all across this place? Now, here's what I know is happening. Some of y'all are like, all right, I know what decision I'm going to make this week. And for some of you, you may feel a conviction like, oh man, my conscience ain't clear.

Well, this is the perfect opportunity. Prayer team, would you please come if there is something that you need to get off your conscience, if there's an area in your life that you feel like needs to come to the light, I encourage you to come pray with somebody right now. If not, that's okay. Pray with somebody else and be available to somebody else and hear from God. Amen. Heaven, we Father, we thank you so much for your goodness and mercy. We thank you that you have allowed us to be in your house, to hear your word, to grasp the concepts that are in your word. I pray, God, that this word would well up within us and that we would bear fruit of it this week. I thank you, Lord for every person that is here that is watching online, and I pray that as they continue to walk with you, that they would hear you more clearly and that they would do what you're asking them to do no matter how difficult it is. I pray that you would give them an overwhelming peace in their inner witness to help them make the decision they need to make. We give you name, all the praise, the glory, the honor because you're worthy of it. And Jesus name we pray, amen. If you need prayer, come on up here. If not, we love you. We'll see you here next week.