Speaker 1: What are you waiting on in your life? Let me
Speaker 1: ask you another question. Are you talking to the Holy
Speaker 1: Spirit while you're waiting or are you just out there waiting?
Speaker 1: I highly recommend you talk to the Holy Spirit while
Speaker 1: you're waiting, and he'll help you understand where to go,
Speaker 1: what to know, what to say, how long to wait.
Speaker 1: You know, if you had been invited to go to
Speaker 1: a brand new city. Let's say you won some game
Speaker 1: show and you go to some exotic city somewhere that
Speaker 1: you've never been to. You've pretty much got four options
Speaker 1: on how you're going to know what that city is.
Speaker 1: You could just walk around with no direction, no input,
Speaker 1: and you say, let's just walk around and see what
Speaker 1: the city is all about. And if you just get
Speaker 1: off the bus or get off the plane and you
Speaker 1: walk around that city, you'll see some interesting things, but
Speaker 1: you're going to miss most of the city because you
Speaker 1: don't know really what's there. And if you just walk
Speaker 1: around and kind of, you know, drift through the city,
Speaker 1: you don't get the best of what it's all about. Now,
Speaker 1: your second option is to get a map, and you
Speaker 1: can get a map of Paris, or a map of London,
Speaker 1: or a map of Tokyo, and you open it up,
Speaker 1: and now you got a little bit more direction, and
Speaker 1: you can use that map to walk around. Now that'll
Speaker 1: let's go there, let's go see that. And that's actually
Speaker 1: better than just drifting through the city. But it's not
Speaker 1: the best You could then number three, get a guidebook.
Speaker 1: And then a guidebook it tells you, here's the cool
Speaker 1: stuff to see in the city, here's the best places
Speaker 1: to eat, here's the attractions you don't want to miss,
Speaker 1: here's the stuff that's most fun, here's the stuff that's
Speaker 1: most fulfilling.
Speaker 2: Here's where you.
Speaker 1: Get the best bargains. And having a guidebook now really
Speaker 1: opens up the city far better than a map, far
Speaker 1: better than just walking around. But the best of all
Speaker 1: is to hire a personal guide, somebody who's been there
Speaker 1: or lived there all their lives. They know all the
Speaker 1: best spots. They know how to avoid the tourist traps.
Speaker 1: They know how to get to the real Paris, the
Speaker 1: real London, the real Tokyo. They know how to point
Speaker 1: out stuff that nobody else knows about. They'll often know
Speaker 1: the history, they'll know the background, they know the full experience.
Speaker 1: They know the best place to take the picture. Having
Speaker 1: a personal guide is the best of all. Last year
Speaker 1: Can I went and rented a car to simply drive
Speaker 1: around Ireland. Now we could have just done that on
Speaker 1: our own, but at one point we got a guide
Speaker 1: to help us see some stuff that we would have missed,
Speaker 1: and we saw all kinds of really cool things, learned
Speaker 1: all kinds of really cool insights, and had a lot
Speaker 1: of fun experiences that we would have totally missed. We
Speaker 1: would have picked the wrong restaurants, we would have seen
Speaker 1: the wrong things, we would have missed the stuff that
Speaker 1: the locals know about that the tourists don't know about,
Speaker 1: because we simply got advice. We got a personal guide.
Speaker 1: Now the same is true for your life. You can
Speaker 1: just drift through life. You can get a map, you
Speaker 1: can get a guidebook, or you can get a personal
Speaker 1: guide through your life. And depending on which of those
Speaker 1: things you choose will determine how effective, how meaningful, how significant,
Speaker 1: and how fulfilling your life is. You can just drift
Speaker 1: through life, and most people do. They don't have a map,
Speaker 1: they don't have a guidebook, and they certainly don't have
Speaker 1: a guide. I highly recommend you avoid that kind of
Speaker 1: lifestyle that's just existing and you go through life not
Speaker 1: knowing what really to see, what really to do, what's important,
Speaker 1: what's not important. Now, the world will give you plenty
Speaker 1: of maps. You can go up to Hollywood and you
Speaker 1: can get a map to the homes of the celebrities
Speaker 1: and you get you know, go look them up yourself.
Speaker 1: But God has given us both a guide book that's
Speaker 1: this the Bible, and He has given us a guide
Speaker 1: and that guide is called the Holy Spirit. Now, in
Speaker 1: this series, which we started a week ago, we called
Speaker 1: it Choosing your Future, and I said we're going to
Speaker 1: look at five different choices in life. And the first week,
Speaker 1: if you missed it, you want to go back and
Speaker 1: hear that message on choosing the right values for your life,
Speaker 1: because if you don't choose the right values, you got
Speaker 1: the wrong foundation.
Speaker 2: You're going to waste your life, totally waste your life.
Speaker 1: And the world's value system is the exact opposite of
Speaker 1: what God says you ought to value in life. And
Speaker 1: so if you listen to the world, you're going to
Speaker 1: miss out on what your life is really all about.
Speaker 1: Choosing the right values. Weekend, I want us to look
Speaker 1: at choosing the right guide for your life. Now there
Speaker 1: are plenty of guides out there. You can choose, you know,
Speaker 1: some talk show host on TV. You can choose some
Speaker 1: radio commentator, you can choose a friend.
Speaker 2: There are lots of people who will.
Speaker 1: Be glad to guide you through life, not necessarily in
Speaker 1: the right direction, but there are plenty of guides out there.
Speaker 1: But God has provided both a guidebook, the Bible, and
Speaker 1: a personal guide who will help interpret the guidebook, called
Speaker 1: the Holy Spirit. I don't know if you've ever thought
Speaker 1: about this, but why did Jesus go back to heaven
Speaker 1: after he came to Earth? Why didn't he just stay here?
Speaker 1: Why didn't he just stay on Earth so we would
Speaker 1: have a physical, visible model, And we go, Oh, that's
Speaker 1: how God wants us to live. That's the way to
Speaker 1: handle that kind of situation. That's how to handle that stress.
Speaker 1: That's just look at Jesus. He's living in Minneapolis right now.
Speaker 1: Let's go ask him. And why did not Jesus stay
Speaker 1: on Earth after he rose back from the dead he
Speaker 1: went back to have it?
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 1: Well, he said, it's actually better for me to leave better.
Speaker 1: How could anything be better than having Jesus guiding us
Speaker 1: personally through life?
Speaker 2: He said, because when I leave.
Speaker 1: I'm going to send the helper, the helper, the counselor,
Speaker 1: the advocate the Bible calls the Holy Spirit many things.
Speaker 1: He said, I'm going to send my spirit back to earth,
Speaker 1: the Holy Spirit. It's just the spirit of Jesus, the
Speaker 1: Spirit of God. And he says, this is actually going
Speaker 1: to be better than me personally being here. How in
Speaker 1: the world is the Holy Spirit better than Jesus? And
Speaker 1: how is it going to help you make the right
Speaker 1: decisions in life? And how's spirit want to be your
Speaker 1: guide counselor guidance counselor and not just have a guide book,
Speaker 1: but actually have a personal counselor or a personal helper
Speaker 1: through life. Why did Jesus go back to heaven because
Speaker 1: he said, I want to send the Holy Spirit. Now,
Speaker 1: look at this verse up here on the screen. Jesus
Speaker 1: said this in John sixteen. He said, it's actually best
Speaker 1: for you that I go away. In other words, that
Speaker 1: I go back to heaven, because if I.
Speaker 2: Don't, the Helper won't come to you.
Speaker 1: But if I do, if I go back to Heaven,
Speaker 1: I go away, he will come because I will send
Speaker 1: him to you. And when he the Spirit of truth.
Speaker 1: Now I want you to remember this. The Holy Spirit
Speaker 1: is called the Spirit of truth. When the Spirit of
Speaker 1: Truth comes, he will guide you. There's the guidance. He's
Speaker 1: the guide for your life. He will guide you, he
Speaker 1: will lead you, he will direct you, he will show you.
Speaker 1: He will guide you into all truth. I've given you,
Speaker 1: he says, the truth. But I'm going to give you
Speaker 1: the guidance counselor who's going to guide you into all truth.
Speaker 1: He's going to explain this to you, and he will
Speaker 1: tell you what is yet to come in your life.
Speaker 1: That is a guide, and he is called the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: How is having the Holy Spirit better than Jesus? Because
Speaker 1: when Jesus was here, he was limited to one location.
Speaker 1: When he was physically in a body, he could only
Speaker 1: be in Jerusalem. He couldn't be in Jerusalem and you know,
Speaker 1: Hong Kong the same time. He couldn't be in Buenos
Speaker 1: Aires and Berlin and Manila all at the same time.
Speaker 1: But now his Holy Spirit can be everywhere. He can
Speaker 1: be with all of us, and he can help all
Speaker 1: of us, and he can be in all of us.
Speaker 1: This is a big deal. This is why Jesus said
Speaker 1: it's better for me to leave, because I could only
Speaker 1: be in one place in one time. I'm in the
Speaker 1: physical body. I'm going to go back to heaven. I'm
Speaker 1: going to come back in my spirit, and my Spirit
Speaker 1: is going to be in you. Christ is going to
Speaker 1: be in you. The Father will be in you, the
Speaker 1: Holy Spirit will be in you. God is not three gods.
Speaker 1: He's one God. So if you've got Jesus in your heart,
Speaker 1: you've got the Holy Spirit in your heart, You've got
Speaker 1: the Father in your heart.
Speaker 2: God is God.
Speaker 1: He's just one God, but he has three different personages.
Speaker 1: And so he says, I'm going to come back and
Speaker 1: I'm going to put my spirit inside you. And that
Speaker 1: spirit is called the Holy Spirit. By the way, do
Speaker 1: you know there's me, the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: I mean some people say holy Ghost, other people say
Speaker 1: holy It's like two different things. No, it's a mistranslation.
Speaker 1: In sixteen eleven, the first public English translation was approved.
Speaker 1: It's called the King James Version of the Bible. It's
Speaker 1: the oldest of the English translations. And in the King
Speaker 1: James Version of the Bible, there were two different committees
Speaker 1: of about fifty people or so each and the word
Speaker 1: each working on the translation of the Bible into English,
Speaker 1: and half of the committees used the word spirit and
Speaker 1: half of the committee the other half used the word
Speaker 1: ghost because in those days, ghosts didn't mean what it
Speaker 1: means today spooky. Four hundred years ago, ghosts didn't mean ghost.
Speaker 2: Four hundred years ago, ghosts just meant spirit.
Speaker 1: The word in Greek in the Bible for the Holy
Speaker 1: Spirit is the word numa p n e u m
Speaker 1: a numa. It's from what It literally just means air.
Speaker 1: It means breath. It means spirit. When you have a
Speaker 1: pneumatic drill, that is a air pump drill. When you
Speaker 1: have a pneumatic tire, it is an air filled tire.
Speaker 1: It's not a solid tire. So numa simply means breath, air, spirit.
Speaker 1: Half the guys and the translation, and that's why when
Speaker 1: you read the Bible, sometimes in the King James it
Speaker 1: says holy Ghost and sometimes it says Holy Spirit. And
Speaker 1: now you know which translation team is translating that particular verse.
Speaker 1: So there's no like ooh, Casper, the friendly Holy Spirit. Okay,
Speaker 1: the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit. And I highly
Speaker 1: recommend you stop using the word ghost because ghost means
Speaker 1: something scary today.
Speaker 2: It's not what it meant four hundred years ago.
Speaker 1: Get it good?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 1: So the Holy Spirit and Holy ghosts of the same thing. Now,
Speaker 1: Jesus says this, look on your outline. John chapter fourteen,
Speaker 1: verse sixteen. Jesus said, the Father will give you another helper.
Speaker 1: He's talking about the Holy Spirit, who will be with
Speaker 1: you forever. That helper is the Spirit of Truth. Now
Speaker 1: the world cannot accept him because it doesn't see him.
Speaker 2: You don't see the Holy Spirit or know him.
Speaker 1: But you talking about the believers, you know him because
Speaker 1: he lives with you and he will be in you.
Speaker 1: So he is our helper. He's the Holy Spirit. He
Speaker 1: is the Spirit of Truth. He will be with us
Speaker 1: and he will be in us. And this is the
Speaker 1: guide I highly recommend you choose for your life. You say, okay, great,
Speaker 1: got it, Rick, got it?
Speaker 2: How do I do this?
Speaker 1: I'm glad you asked, because that's what I want to
Speaker 1: look at in part two, and that is how does
Speaker 1: the Holy Spirit want to guide my life?
Speaker 2: I'm going to give you five or six ways.
Speaker 1: What does he actually do and how do I let
Speaker 1: him guide my life? And what are the benefits of it? Okay,
Speaker 1: everybody ready for this? All right, let's get started. This
Speaker 1: is one of the most important things you learn in
Speaker 1: life is how to be led by the Holy Spirit,
Speaker 1: because the Bible says in Romans chapter eight, only those
Speaker 1: who are led by the Holy Spirit are the children
Speaker 1: of God. Oh so if I'm not led by the
Speaker 1: Holy Spirit, I'm not in God's family. I'm not a
Speaker 1: child of God. I'm not going to Heaven. I'm not
Speaker 1: on the in crowd. The mark that you are a believer,
Speaker 1: that you're a child of God, you're a daughter of God,
Speaker 1: your son of God, is that the Holy Spirit guides you.
Speaker 2: And leads you.
Speaker 1: Now, when you first start off in the Christian life,
Speaker 1: you're not very good at this. You don't really know
Speaker 1: how to let the Holy Spirit lead you. But you
Speaker 1: get better at it, and you're going to learn to
Speaker 1: understand his voice. Just like the person if you're married,
Speaker 1: you've been married.
Speaker 2: To some time, and they pick up the phone and talk.
Speaker 1: They don't have to say, Hi, this is your wife.
Speaker 1: You know her voice. You've heard it enough. Hi, this
Speaker 1: is your husband. You know his voice. When you first
Speaker 1: start walking to Christ, you don't know the voice of
Speaker 1: the Holy Spirit. It's hard to go Is this God
Speaker 1: talking to me or is this just me talking to myself?
Speaker 1: Did I just you know, eat a bad pizza, or
Speaker 1: did I just have some idea that came off of
Speaker 1: some movie I just saw. As you grow in the Lord,
Speaker 1: you get bet he go, that's God. That's God. Talk
Speaker 1: to me and he puts these impressions in.
Speaker 2: Your mind and he leads you.
Speaker 1: So let's start off by let me give you five
Speaker 1: or six ways the Holy Spirit wants to guide you.
Speaker 1: He wants to be your guide through life. When you
Speaker 1: understand these, you're going to go, I'm in. I want this.
Speaker 1: I want the Holy Spirit guide me because everything he's
Speaker 1: been sent to do is everything you want in your life.
Speaker 1: Every single thing he says, I'm here to help you.
Speaker 1: So how does the Holy Spirit help me? And how
Speaker 1: can he help me on Monday morning? How can he
Speaker 1: help me on Tuesday night? How can he help me
Speaker 1: when I'm you know, out playing some sport or in
Speaker 1: some business deal. Well, let me give you five or
Speaker 1: six ways. Number One, if I listen to the Holy Spirit,
Speaker 1: I let him be my guide.
Speaker 2: He will help me. Number one know what I need
Speaker 2: to know.
Speaker 1: That's the first thing the Holy Spirit is sent to
Speaker 1: do to help you know what you need to know.
Speaker 1: There are things you need to know in life that
Speaker 1: if you don't know, you're going to fail.
Speaker 2: It's essential information.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of stuff you don't need to know
Speaker 1: in life, and that's all on television. But stuff you
Speaker 1: do need to know in life. The Holy Spirit will
Speaker 1: teach you. He will guide you, and he'll help me
Speaker 1: know what I need to know. That means the truth,
Speaker 1: the info, the insights, the things that I need. Now
Speaker 1: here's the cool thing about the Holy Spirit. If you'll
Speaker 1: learn to let the Holy Spirit lead your life, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to teach you how to do this on
Speaker 1: a daily basis. If you'll do this, he not only
Speaker 1: helps you know what you need to know, he helps
Speaker 1: you know what you need to know in that moment,
Speaker 1: the very moment I need it.
Speaker 2: Now we're talking.
Speaker 1: It's not like I'm gonna teach you all this stuff
Speaker 1: and I hope someday you use it. The Holy Spirit
Speaker 1: brings to mind in your mind what you need to
Speaker 1: know when you need to know it, at the very
Speaker 1: moment you need it. So it's not just what. There's
Speaker 1: the win and He's going to give it to you
Speaker 1: the very moment you needed. For instance, have you ever
Speaker 1: read a Bible verse, maybe at the beginning of day
Speaker 1: and later that was the exact Bible verse you needed
Speaker 1: that day. Yeah, well, that was the Holy Spirit. You
Speaker 1: didn't even know it, but it was the Holy Spirit
Speaker 1: calling your attention to a certain thing a verse. You
Speaker 1: didn't even know you needed it, But he said, I
Speaker 1: know what you're gonna need at ten o'clock. I know
Speaker 1: what you're gonna need at two pm in the afternoon.
Speaker 1: And he helps you in advance. He gives you what
Speaker 1: you need to know when you need to know it.
Speaker 1: And sometimes he gives you right before it happens, and
Speaker 1: sometimes it'll give it to you the day before. But
Speaker 1: he knows already what's going to happen in your life,
Speaker 1: and so he gives you what you need to know
Speaker 1: when you need to know it. Sometimes you'll read a
Speaker 1: book and later on in that week, you just go,
Speaker 1: that is exactly what I needed. I just read that.
Speaker 1: I just read it yesterday. That was the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: He was being your guide. Sometimes it's a song and
Speaker 1: a song comes on the radio and you hear that song,
Speaker 1: you go, that is exactly the song that I need
Speaker 1: right now.
Speaker 2: I'm discouraged. I'm frustrated, I'm.
Speaker 1: Mad, I'm angry, I'm sexually frustrated, whatever. And that's exactly
Speaker 1: what I needed to hear. That was the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: He gives you what you need to know at that moment.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you read an article and like at a Christian
Speaker 1: magazine or something, and you know, a few hours or
Speaker 1: a few days later, you're talking with a friend and
Speaker 1: you go, you know, I just read an article, and
Speaker 1: you share with you that was the Holy Spirit. He
Speaker 1: was giving you what you needed to know when you
Speaker 1: needed to know it.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Sometimes God does this for you for your benefit, but
Speaker 1: sometimes the Holy Spirit gives you what you need to know.
Speaker 2: For somebody else's benefit. Let me give you an example.
Speaker 1: Tuesday night, I went home and Andy, Andy Lewis Kay's brothers,
Speaker 1: my brother in law was at our House's at our
Speaker 1: house for dinner, and we're sitting around talking and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, Andy, just out of the blue, brings
Speaker 1: up the subject of who was the very first Christian
Speaker 1: rock artist, the very first contemporary Christian artist of the
Speaker 1: modern era. And his name was Larry Norman. Some of
Speaker 1: you remember Larry Norman. His first album came out in
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties he put out about thirty different albums.
Speaker 1: His most famous song was called I We'd All Been Ready.
Speaker 1: There was a song that came out and he was
Speaker 1: very big in the sixties and the seventies. Larry was
Speaker 1: the original Christian rocker. There was nobody before him. He
Speaker 1: broke ground. Nobody had ever heard of Christian contemporary music.
Speaker 1: Everybody was still singing hymns in those days. There none
Speaker 1: of the kind of music we use in churches today.
Speaker 1: Larry took a lot of flak for taking modern contemporary
Speaker 1: music and putting Christian words to it, and he was
Speaker 1: really a pioneer in that. And his first three albums
Speaker 1: that came out in sixty eight, sixty nine, and seventy
Speaker 1: one were really classic and they were so good. People
Speaker 1: like Capitol Records, who had the signing for the Beatles,
Speaker 1: wanted to sign Larry Norman because he was that good.
Speaker 1: He was respected by secular as well as as Christian
Speaker 1: and Andy and I just got in. I hadn't talked
Speaker 1: about Larry Norman in at least thirty five years, okay,
Speaker 1: I hadn't even thought about the guy. And as we
Speaker 1: were talking about that, and he goes let's listen to music.
Speaker 1: And something inside me, holy Spirit said sit down and listen.
Speaker 1: And I had this little nudge that said just sit
Speaker 1: down and listen.
Speaker 2: And for the.
Speaker 1: Next couple hours, Andy and I listened to those original
Speaker 1: two or three albums and just talked about the implications
Speaker 1: of those songs. I had plenty of other stuff I
Speaker 1: needed to do, tons of other stuff you need to do.
Speaker 1: It was enjoyable, but I really needed to be doing something.
Speaker 1: The next day, I was flying to Nashville to speak
Speaker 1: to the National Religious Broadcasters, and then I had to
Speaker 1: come back for Rick Mitchause fly back here for his surgery,
Speaker 1: and then I had to fly back to North Carolina
Speaker 1: for Billy Graham's funeral.
Speaker 2: And it was very, very busy week for me.
Speaker 1: God just gave me this little nudge sit down and listen,
Speaker 1: and we listened and we talked. We listened and we
Speaker 1: talked about Ran Norman. Hadn't talked about him in thirty
Speaker 1: five years. The next day I flew to Nashville to
Speaker 1: the National Religious Broadcasters. I spoke, there was an opening
Speaker 1: keynote speaker. After I was through, I was pretty tired.
Speaker 1: I was going to go straight to bed. I was
Speaker 1: walked out of the big grand ballroom, walked out and
Speaker 1: a woman came up to me, and she looked like
Speaker 1: she was in need, And I said, can I help you?
Speaker 1: And I looked down at her name and saw her
Speaker 1: name and a caller my name. She said, how do
Speaker 1: you know my name? I said, well, I just read
Speaker 1: your name, dag. I'm spooky, it's right there on your name.
Speaker 1: How do you know my name? She goes, I'm Larry
Speaker 1: Norman's wife. Now, he died probably a decade ago, and
Speaker 1: she was in deep need. You think that was an
Speaker 1: accident the night before. No, God had prepared me to
Speaker 1: help her, to help her? Why because I listened to
Speaker 1: the nudges.
Speaker 2: Of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes I don't always seem right.
Speaker 1: Shoot, I got a million things to do, sit down
Speaker 1: and listen to this music, and I did. Now you
Speaker 1: call that a coincidence, You have to have a pretty
Speaker 1: big faith if to believe in the astronomical odds of
Speaker 1: that happening. Me talking about her husband, me flying to Nashville,
Speaker 1: me being there, her being out there, her walking up
Speaker 1: right at the right time, and me saying can I
Speaker 1: help you. God knew what he's doing. I could give
Speaker 1: you tens of thousands of examples of that in my
Speaker 1: life because I listened to the Holy Spirit. I listened
Speaker 1: to his nudges. And by the way, he doesn't always
Speaker 1: speak in In fact, he never speaks in these and thous.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not like thou sit down and listeneth
Speaker 1: to thy songeth Now, it's more like Rick, sit down
Speaker 1: and shut up?
Speaker 2: Got it, Lord? Got it?
Speaker 1: Okay? So I could give you thousands of examples of that.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: The Bible says in John sixteen thirteen, when the spirit
Speaker 1: of truth comes, that's the only spirit. He will lead
Speaker 1: you into all truth. He's going to give you the
Speaker 1: truth you need. And you need the truth because if
Speaker 1: you build your life on lies, you've got a faulty foundation.
Speaker 1: It's gonna stumble, it's gonna break, it's gonna fall over,
Speaker 1: it's going to crack up. Now, when the Holy Spirit
Speaker 1: tells you what you need to know, when he gives
Speaker 1: you the truth that you need at that particular moment,
Speaker 1: there's a word for it. It's called revelation. Revelation is
Speaker 1: when God tells you something you need to know. This book,
Speaker 1: of course, the Bible, is God's complete revelation to humankind.
Speaker 1: But God also reveals things to you. How does he
Speaker 1: do it? To the Holy Spirit, And He'll give you
Speaker 1: these little nudges, and he'll give you these little insights,
Speaker 1: and they'll be thoughts, and you go. I would have
Speaker 1: never thought of that. It's a revelation. The Bible says
Speaker 1: in Luke two twenty six about Simon. It had been
Speaker 1: revealed to Simeon by the Holy Spirit, and Simeon had
Speaker 1: been told he said, you're not going to die until
Speaker 1: you see the Messiah. He would have never known that.
Speaker 1: The Holy Spirit had to tell him that. And God
Speaker 1: will reveal things to you. It's never going to contradict
Speaker 1: this book. In fact, if he does condredict the book.
Speaker 2: It's not from God.
Speaker 1: God's word and God's will never contradict each other. So
Speaker 1: God tells you to do something that's the opposite in
Speaker 1: his book, you're wrong. That was not the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: That was the evil Spirit giving you that thought. But
Speaker 1: the first thing the Holy Spirit does is he helps
Speaker 1: me know what I need to know when I need
Speaker 1: to know.
Speaker 2: Number two, if I listen to.
Speaker 1: The Holy Spirit, he will help me get to where
Speaker 1: I need to go. He will help me get where
Speaker 1: not only know what I need to know, but go
Speaker 1: where I need to go. He'll help me get where
Speaker 1: I need to go. There are some places you need
Speaker 1: to get in life, and there's no way.
Speaker 2: You're going to get there by yourself.
Speaker 1: God has put a dream in your heart, a desire
Speaker 1: in your heart, a vision in your heart, and you
Speaker 1: have a dream of where you're going to be someday.
Speaker 1: There's no way you're going to get there on your own.
Speaker 1: But if you'll let the Holy Spirit guide you, he
Speaker 1: will guide you into places that you never ever imagined
Speaker 1: you'd be. And I could give you a lot of
Speaker 1: examples of that in my life. He will help me
Speaker 1: know what I need to know, help me get where
Speaker 1: I need to go. He's going to open doors of
Speaker 1: opportunity for you. At Chris at Easter, we're going to
Speaker 1: start a new series on the doors of destiny, the
Speaker 1: doors of opportunity in your life.
Speaker 2: Spend some time on that.
Speaker 1: And God says, I've set before you an open door,
Speaker 1: and it's an open door that nobody can close. And
Speaker 1: God opens the door for you, nobody can close it.
Speaker 1: And so what you want to do is let the
Speaker 1: Holy Spirit guide your career. You want the Holy Spirit
Speaker 1: guide your relationships. You want to let the Holy Spirit
Speaker 1: guide who you marry. If you're not letting him guide
Speaker 1: you and things like that, then you're gonna make a
Speaker 1: lot of errors. You're gonna let make a lot of mistakes.
Speaker 1: The Bible tells us in Luke two twenty seven, the
Speaker 1: Spirit led Simeon, this is the guy we just talked
Speaker 1: about to go to the temple. And when he got there,
Speaker 1: you know what, he saw Joseph and marrying the baby Jesus.
Speaker 1: And Simeon was the man given the highest privilege of
Speaker 1: dedicating the baby Jesus to God in the Temple of Jerusalem.
Speaker 1: If Simeon had not been sensitive to the Holy Spirit,
Speaker 1: he's probably sitting at home in his bark a lounger,
Speaker 1: you know, doing a crossword puzzle, and all of a
Speaker 1: sudden he gets an impression and the Holy Spirit says,
Speaker 1: go to the temple, and so he gets up and
Speaker 1: go because he knows the voice of God, and he
Speaker 1: goes to the temple when he gets a lo and behold
Speaker 1: there's Barry Joseph, the baby Jesus. He gets the privilege
Speaker 1: of dedicating the baby Christ. He would have missed it
Speaker 1: and you will miss things in your life if you
Speaker 1: don't learn how to listen to the Holy Spirit. The
Speaker 1: Bible is full of examples of the Holy Spirit will
Speaker 1: do and what I call nudges. Where he nudges you,
Speaker 1: he puts an idea, go do that. He'll tell you
Speaker 1: stuff to know, but he'll also tell you where to
Speaker 1: go if you'll listen to him. In Acts, chapter eight
Speaker 1: twenty nine, it says, then the Spirit told Philip, go
Speaker 1: catch a ride with that chariot.
Speaker 2: Now let me tell you the background.
Speaker 1: Philip's walking down a dusty road one day, mind in
Speaker 1: his own business, singing songs, having fun, walking down a
Speaker 1: dusty road, and all of a sudden, a guy comes
Speaker 1: buying a chariot, which means the guy obviously was a
Speaker 1: man of wealth or power or influence. He's probably an official.
Speaker 1: He sees this black guy go buy in a chariot.
Speaker 1: We later find out that he is an Ethiopian leader,
Speaker 1: major leader in Ethiopia.
Speaker 2: And as that chariot goes by.
Speaker 1: And Philip sees this black guy go buy in a chariot,
Speaker 1: the Holy Spirit says to him, I don't want you
Speaker 1: to just know what you need to know. I want
Speaker 1: you to go where I want you to go. He says,
Speaker 1: go catch your ride to that chair. Hitchhike, go go
Speaker 1: catch your ride with that chariot. So he runs up
Speaker 1: to the chariot and he sees the guy's got a
Speaker 1: book in his hand, and I said, what you're reading?
Speaker 1: And then I goes, well, it's the Book of Isaiah,
Speaker 1: but I don't understand it. Now Philip knows why he's there. Well,
Speaker 1: I know it. I understand it. And he said, tell
Speaker 1: me what you're reading. And he's reading the passage in
Speaker 1: Isaiah about how the Messiah is going to come one day.
Speaker 1: And Phillips goes, by the way the guys come and
Speaker 1: he was just crucified, and a few days ago he
Speaker 1: was resurrected, and he's alive and he's walking around Jerusalem
Speaker 1: now for forty days and it's a very cool thing.
Speaker 1: The guy says, tell me more. And God had that
Speaker 1: Ethiopian reader coming by in a chariot and said, and
Speaker 1: he gives a nudge to Philip, said go catch a
Speaker 1: ride with him. He explains to him in Christ. He
Speaker 1: gets up in the chariot. They keep traveling together. As
Speaker 1: he's kind of talking with the guy and he says, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I guess what do.
Speaker 2: I need to do next?
Speaker 1: And Philip goes, you need to be baptized as a
Speaker 1: symbol that you've you know, you've said I'm all in,
Speaker 1: I've accepted Christ as my savior. And they're driving along
Speaker 1: and he sees a creek bed and the Ethiopian leader goes, well,
Speaker 1: there's some water. What's to keep me from being baptized
Speaker 1: right now? And Philip goes nothing, So they stopped the chariot.
Speaker 1: You read the whole story, go down to the creek,
Speaker 1: Philip baptizes, this guy, gets up, The guy takes off
Speaker 1: in his direction, heads back home. Philip goes back the
Speaker 1: other direction. That man took Christianity to Africa, and that's
Speaker 1: why the oldest Christian churches in.
Speaker 2: Africa are actually in Ethiopia.
Speaker 1: Why is that? How did Christianity expand to Africa? Because
Speaker 1: somebody listened to a nudge of the Holy Spirit. Somebody said,
Speaker 1: go catch your ride with that chariot. That was Holy Spirit,
Speaker 1: and so he did. If I had time, I could
Speaker 1: give you hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of examples of
Speaker 1: this happening in the history of this church. At saddleback.
Speaker 1: We call it catching a wave. Now, surfers know that
Speaker 1: waves have to be caught. And surfing looks easy, but
Speaker 1: it's actually pretty hard. Requires balance, but most of all,
Speaker 1: it requires patience because you get on your board and
Speaker 1: you paddle out past the waves, and you get out
Speaker 1: there out the back, and you just stop and you
Speaker 1: wait for the right wave. And every surfer knows that
Speaker 1: not every wave is worth surfing. Some of are short waves,
Speaker 1: some are duds, some of them are incomplete waves, some
Speaker 1: are broken waves. And so you go out there and
Speaker 1: you just wait and you wait and you wait until
Speaker 1: God brings the right wave along, and then you start
Speaker 1: paddling as fast as you can. Jump your knees jump
Speaker 1: up and you ride it in. And the whole goal
Speaker 1: is to ride that wave without losing your balance and
Speaker 1: then getting off the wave before it wipes out. That's
Speaker 1: how God wants you to live your life. Now, every
Speaker 1: surfer knows surfers don't make waves. Only God makes waves.
Speaker 1: Only God can make a wave. Surfer's job is just
Speaker 1: to surf the waves of God.
Speaker 2: Great.
Speaker 1: You know what I see? I see so many business
Speaker 1: guys out there trying to make a wave. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to make a wave. I'm trying to make a wave
Speaker 1: so my business will grow. I'm going to try to
Speaker 1: make a way. You can't make a wave. But I
Speaker 1: tell you what, if you'll listen to the Holy Spirit
Speaker 1: and he tells you what wave to catch, God will
Speaker 1: do more in one year than you can do in
Speaker 1: ten years on your own in your business. It's whether
Speaker 1: you're listening to the Holy Spirit or to listen to yourself.
Speaker 1: Most people are out there trying to make a wave.
Speaker 1: I want to get married, I want to do you
Speaker 1: know whatever, and you try, you can't make a wave. Sorry,
Speaker 1: this growth, the growth was side of that church. Was
Speaker 1: not my business and it was not the business of
Speaker 1: anybody else. Is because God is creating a wave and
Speaker 1: we had enough people in this church. You're smart enough
Speaker 1: to go that's the way God's going. Let's hop on
Speaker 1: that one. And we're always looking at where's the next wave,
Speaker 1: and we catch that. We've caught many many waves over
Speaker 1: the last four decades. We don't try to create them.
Speaker 1: Only God creates waves. I'll say it again, get it good,
Speaker 1: all right twice. Haven't done that in a decade so now.
Speaker 1: But the point is you got to be listening because
Speaker 1: he'll show you what you need to know, but it'll
Speaker 1: also show you where you.
Speaker 2: Need to go.
Speaker 1: By the way, Sometimes you'll find yourself in a situation
Speaker 1: and somebody asks you a question that you don't know
Speaker 1: the answer to, and you're going I have the slightest
Speaker 1: idea what to say right now. Or you're in a conflict,
Speaker 1: or you're at a graveside, or you're in a situation
Speaker 1: that's upsetting somebody and you don't know what to say.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm talking about. Ever been in those situations.
Speaker 1: I haven't the slightest idea what to say in this
Speaker 1: situation right I'm on the phone. They just asked how
Speaker 1: in the world am I supposed to respond. That's when
Speaker 1: you need the Holy Spirit. Number Three. If I listen
Speaker 1: to the Holy Spirit, he will help me say the
Speaker 1: right things. He helps me know what I need to know,
Speaker 1: He helps me go where I need to go, and
Speaker 1: he helps me say what I need to say at.
Speaker 2: The right time and in the right way.
Speaker 1: That is extremely important when you're having a conflict with
Speaker 1: your spouse that you listen to the Holy Spirit, because
Speaker 1: if you listen to yourself, you're going to say something
Speaker 1: really dumb and make the problem worse. I am exhibit
Speaker 1: a of this. I could tell you many, many dumb
Speaker 1: things I've said in an argument with K. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, when I listened and I say, Holy Spirit,
Speaker 1: you need to tell me what to say, I'm the
Speaker 1: slightest idea, what say what this moment just had, Then
Speaker 1: God will teach you what you need to say. Mark
Speaker 1: Chapter twelve, verse thirty six. The Holy Spirit led David
Speaker 1: to say, Now, not only does he tell you what
Speaker 1: to know, tell you where to go, but he tells
Speaker 1: you what to say. If you'll listen, that's what a
Speaker 1: guy does. And if you'll listen, you'll you'll stop saying
Speaker 1: so many stupid things if you just listen more to
Speaker 1: the Holy Spirit, and you won't get yourself in so
Speaker 1: much trouble. Now, the Holy Spirit has used you many
Speaker 1: if you're a Christian, he's used you many, many times
Speaker 1: without you even know it. And he puts an idea
Speaker 1: in your mind and you say it and it affected
Speaker 1: somebody in a way, and you didn't even know that
Speaker 1: they needed to hear that. You were sitting in your
Speaker 1: small group and you said something offhand, and you don't
Speaker 1: even honestly don't even remember it. But it was like
Speaker 1: the light turned on for somebody else in that small group,
Speaker 1: and it was like God spoke directly to them and
Speaker 1: shot an arrow at their heart. God used you to
Speaker 1: say what they needed to hear, and you didn't even
Speaker 1: know it. You just got an idea, so you said it.
Speaker 1: You didn't realize it was from the Holy Spirit. How
Speaker 1: many times have you come to church and then you
Speaker 1: walked out and you said, Shoot, I felt like Rick
Speaker 1: was talking directly to me. I was. I was.
Speaker 2: He said, I feel like you're reading my mail.
Speaker 1: I don't need to. I have the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2: And and I pray every time.
Speaker 1: God. I don't even know what you want me to say,
Speaker 1: but you put in what I need to say because
Speaker 1: you know who's going to be there. That's why I'm effective.
Speaker 1: I'm not brilliant. I just depend on the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: God tell me to say what I need to say
Speaker 1: and how to say it. Because you know who you're branding.
Speaker 1: So if you know who you're bringing the church next
Speaker 1: weekend and you know what you want to say them,
Speaker 1: it's okay with me. You can just do it through
Speaker 1: me or Tom or but or anybody else as long
Speaker 1: as the word gets out. Holy Spirit has used you
Speaker 1: many times now. Sometimes the Holy Spirit will tell you
Speaker 1: in advance what you need to say. That's just good preparation.
Speaker 1: I don't wait till I walk out here on stage
Speaker 1: and goes, what are we going to talk about this weekend?
Speaker 1: Anybody read a good novel lately? You know, book review? No,
Speaker 1: I am all weak praying. I've had four flights this week,
Speaker 1: and on each of those airline flights, I'm sitting there
Speaker 1: with my eyes closed in the Lord Holy Spirit, What
Speaker 1: do you want to say to your people this weekend?
Speaker 1: And I'm reading scripture and I'm praying, and I'm just
Speaker 1: letting him tell me. God, you know who's going to
Speaker 1: be there, So why would you give me something to
Speaker 1: say that makes no relationship to where they are? He wouldn't.
Speaker 1: So if he's going to bring you to church this weekend,
Speaker 1: then he's going to tell me what he wants to
Speaker 1: say to you, and you can. You don't have to
Speaker 1: wait till last second. He gives it to you in
Speaker 1: a dance. You prepare and you prepare for it. But
Speaker 1: sometimes Holy Spirit just tells you right in the moment.
Speaker 2: And that's a fun thing too.
Speaker 1: You know, I do a lot of interviews, and I
Speaker 1: was at the Billy Graham funeral. I probably did twenty interviews.
Speaker 1: Every major network, every major magazine or newspaper, just one
Speaker 1: right after another. It seemed like every time I turn around,
Speaker 1: somebody is sticking a microphone in front of me. Well,
Speaker 1: when you're doing an interview, you don't know what they're
Speaker 1: going to ask. You don't say, tell me the questions
Speaker 1: in advance, and I'll tell you if I want to
Speaker 1: do the interview. And oftentimes they want to trip you up,
Speaker 1: and they want to, you know, cause you to say
Speaker 1: something stupid or get involved in some controversy. Stuff like that.
Speaker 1: And people say, you know, Rick, when I watch you
Speaker 1: doing interviews, you don't ever seem very nervous.
Speaker 2: I'm not. He said, Well, you don't know the questions.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 1: Well, they could try to trip you up. They do,
Speaker 1: But you're not nervous. No, why because I have an
Speaker 1: advantage they don't have. I have the Holy Spirit. They
Speaker 1: don't have the Holy Spirit, but I do. And the
Speaker 1: whole time they're asking that offensive question, I'm going, Okay, Lord,
Speaker 1: how are you gonna handle this one? Can't wait to
Speaker 1: see what you're gonna say, because I'm not saying anything
Speaker 1: till you give it to me. So this is gonna
Speaker 1: be fun. And I love just laying it out on
Speaker 1: the edge. And you put yourself in a corner where
Speaker 1: you're bound to fail once God bails you out, and
Speaker 1: they ask some of the most outrageous questions, and you're going,
Speaker 1: let's see what you have to say about this Lord,
Speaker 1: And then I wait, and the Holy Spirit will then
Speaker 1: give you the impression he will not only tell you
Speaker 1: to know what you need to know and go where
Speaker 1: you need to go, but.
Speaker 2: Say what you need to say.
Speaker 1: And so you need to do this with your boss,
Speaker 1: with your neighbor, in a witnessing situation, you don't know
Speaker 1: what say, just don't panic, throw up an instant prayer
Speaker 1: and go, Holy Spirit, what do you want to say?
Speaker 1: Holy Spirit? What do you want to say? Right now?
Speaker 1: And then just wait. If you'll do this, It's like
Speaker 1: a muscle. The more you do it, the stronger it gets.
Speaker 1: The better you understand the Holy Spirit, the quicker you
Speaker 1: get the answers you'll falter it start. That's okay, I did,
Speaker 1: but I've been walking with the Lord for over fifty years.
Speaker 1: I know the voice of God when I'm a doubt
Speaker 1: when I know the voice of God because I've heard him.
Speaker 1: He's my best friend. I've walked with him so long,
Speaker 1: I've spent so many hours alone with him. I know him.
Speaker 1: And the longer you spend time in this book with God,
Speaker 1: you know what he's going to say, and he's going
Speaker 1: to bring it to your mind. Matthew ten Verse nineteen twenty.
Speaker 1: Do not worry what to say or how to say it.
Speaker 1: You've got to make a presentation, you've got to go
Speaker 1: for a job interview, you've got to make a proposal.
Speaker 1: Do not worry about what to say or how to
Speaker 1: say it. At the that time, you will be given
Speaker 1: what to say, for it will not be you speaking,
Speaker 1: but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. This
Speaker 1: is why the Holy Spirit is here to know what
Speaker 1: we need to know, to go where we need to
Speaker 1: go to say.
Speaker 2: Help us know to what to say what we need
Speaker 2: to say.
Speaker 1: Number four, If I listen to the Holy Spirit, he
Speaker 1: will help me. This is a big one. Wait for
Speaker 1: God's perfect timing. He will help me. Wait for God's
Speaker 1: perfect timing. Friends, I didn't realize him importance of this
Speaker 1: in my younger days that I have discovered that timing
Speaker 1: is everything.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: All over America, the same baseball pitchers throw the exact
Speaker 1: same sized ball, and they all stand on the same
Speaker 1: sized mound, regulation mound, and they stand the exact same
Speaker 1: number feet away from the batter. But the difference between
Speaker 1: a Hall of Famer and amateur is timing. It's the
Speaker 1: timing on how they throw that ball. And in knowing
Speaker 1: the right timing, a sermon can be a success or
Speaker 1: a dud. A speech can be a successor dud. A
Speaker 1: project can be a successor dud. It's all about timing.
Speaker 1: You can do the right thing at the wrong time
Speaker 1: and it doesn't work. Maybe you've got God gave you
Speaker 1: an idea to start a new business, and you thought, well,
Speaker 1: I got the idea, should just start start it. No,
Speaker 1: there are always three parts to a vision. You need
Speaker 1: to write this down. It's not no the notes. Write
Speaker 1: this down. Three parts to a vision. When God gives
Speaker 1: you a vision for your business, or your marriage or
Speaker 1: anything else. Number one, First, he tells you what he's
Speaker 1: going to do. That all a vision always comes in
Speaker 1: three parts. He tells you what He's going to do
Speaker 1: Now what happens is once we know what God says, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do this in your life, then we
Speaker 1: go out. We started as if we can just.
Speaker 2: Do it any way.
Speaker 1: We want to do it any old time, want to No, no, no,
Speaker 1: we started. We started probably too soon and in the
Speaker 1: wrong way, and then we fall flat on our face
Speaker 1: and we come back crying to God and go, God,
Speaker 1: did I miss you? Did I miss your will? I
Speaker 1: thought you told me to start this business. I thought
Speaker 1: you told me to start this career. I thought you
Speaker 1: told me, And God said, well I did, you just
Speaker 1: didn't wait for Part two and part three of the vision.
Speaker 1: Part two is the how and how God does. What
Speaker 1: he does in your life will usually be the exact
Speaker 1: opposite of the way you'd like to do it. In fact,
Speaker 1: you can you normally take the normal way you would
Speaker 1: do something and do the opposite, and you're probably being
Speaker 1: God's will by God says, by ways or not your ways.
Speaker 1: I didn't say do it like I said I was
Speaker 1: going to bless your business. I didn't say I was
Speaker 1: going to bless it any way you wanted to do it,
Speaker 1: You got to wait for the how, and then you
Speaker 1: got to wait for the third part of the vision,
Speaker 1: which is the win, and that's the timing, and that's
Speaker 1: the most important at all. God often will give you
Speaker 1: a peak to your future. We'll look at this in
Speaker 1: the Doors series, a peak to your future, and he says,
Speaker 1: this is where I'm taking it. You're not there yet.
Speaker 1: I've got to get you ready. I've got to build
Speaker 1: your spiritual maturity. I've got to get you stronger in
Speaker 1: the Lord, because the success that I'm going to give
Speaker 1: you with this.
Speaker 2: You're not ready to handle.
Speaker 1: Timing is everything, and so one of the things Holy
Speaker 1: Spirit what does is he gives you the right timing. Now,
Speaker 1: there's no way you can know the right timing for everything,
Speaker 1: but there is a way for God to know the
Speaker 1: right timing for everything. And the Bible tells us in Ecclesiastes,
Speaker 1: there's the right time and the right way to do everything.
Speaker 1: And so if you're going to wait on God's timing,
Speaker 1: you know what it means.
Speaker 2: It means this.
Speaker 1: You don't freak out over delays. When you freak out
Speaker 1: over delay, I had this vision, but it isn't happening
Speaker 1: as fast as I wanted to happen. It means you're
Speaker 1: not trusting God's timing. We waited thirteen years to get
Speaker 1: our first piece of property for the Lake Forest Campus.
Speaker 1: Thirteen years of delays, and the church kept growing from
Speaker 1: two people to two hundred, to two thousand, to four thousand,
Speaker 1: to eight thousand to ten thousand. We were having over
Speaker 1: ten thousand and at tenance before we got property for
Speaker 1: the first building. Now we're waiting on property for all
Speaker 1: of our other campuses, and God will give us the
Speaker 1: property in due time, in the right way. But we
Speaker 1: don't get worried about delays because God's timing is perfect.
Speaker 1: If we had jumped ahead of God's timing, for instance,
Speaker 1: at the Lake Forest Campus, we would have settled for
Speaker 1: so much less. When God wanted to give us one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty acres, that was way beyond my idea.
Speaker 1: My big when I started church, my big dream is
Speaker 1: have fifty acres, which was crazy because no church California
Speaker 1: had fifty acres. God said, well, a good idea, Rick,
Speaker 1: but it's just a little small. I'm going to give
Speaker 1: you one hundred and twenty And if we hadn't waited,
Speaker 1: we would have missed. If you don't wait, God always
Speaker 1: gives his best to those who leave the choice to him.
Speaker 1: That's true in a husband or a wife, in a career,
Speaker 1: God always gives his best to those who leave the
Speaker 1: choice to him. God, you, at the right time and
Speaker 1: the right way, bring the right business, the right job,
Speaker 1: the right piece of land, the right partner, and on
Speaker 1: and on and when the Holy Spirit is guiding you.
Speaker 1: This doesn't delays, don't bother you. You just wait confidently
Speaker 1: you're not discouraged. Galatians five to five. We are led
Speaker 1: by the Spirit to wait. Sometimes the spirit says go,
Speaker 1: but sometimes spirit says wait. We're led by the spirit
Speaker 1: to wait. How in the confident hope of righteousness through faith?
Speaker 1: Let me ask you, what are you waiting on? What
Speaker 1: are you waiting on in your life? Let me ask
Speaker 1: you another question. Are you talking to the Holy Spirit
Speaker 1: while you're waiting? Why are you just out there waiting?
Speaker 1: I highly recommend you talk to the Holy Spirit while
Speaker 1: you're waiting, and he'll help you understand where to go,
Speaker 1: what to know, what to say, how long to wait?
Speaker 1: Number five, If I listen to the Holy Spirit. If
Speaker 1: I listen to Holy Spirit, he will help me. This
Speaker 1: is a big one. Resist things I can't normally resist.
Speaker 1: I like this, and if I listen to the Holy Spirit,
Speaker 1: if I let him be my life guide, he will
Speaker 1: help me resist things I can't normally res this. So
Speaker 1: I'm talking about temptations, compulsions, desires, addictions Galatians five, seventeen eighteen.
Speaker 1: The desires of self indulgence are always in opposition to
Speaker 1: the spirit. In other words, what I naturally like to do,
Speaker 1: that's the opposite of what the Holy Spirit wants me
Speaker 1: to do. And the desires of the Spirit are in
Speaker 1: opposition to your self indulgence, which keep prevented, keep you
Speaker 1: prevented from doing the things you want to do. But
Speaker 1: when you are led by the Spirit, you are not
Speaker 1: in bondage to the law. Once you say in here,
Speaker 1: the Holy Spirit's power is stronger than will power the
Speaker 1: stuff that you say. I really wish I didn't say that.
Speaker 1: I really wish I didn't act that way. Why do
Speaker 1: I get so insecure? Why do I get so angry?
Speaker 1: Why do I get so shy? Why do I get
Speaker 1: so impatient? Why do I get so lustful? Why do
Speaker 1: I wish I didn't do that? Well, the Holy Spirit's
Speaker 1: power is stronger than the self indulgent power of your
Speaker 1: natural self. By the way, this is one advantage that
Speaker 1: Celebrate Recovery has over every other recovery program. We have
Speaker 1: the Holy Spirit, and now we have the Holy Spirit's power.
Speaker 1: It's not just will power that's helping me stay sober
Speaker 1: or or not a codependent, or all any of the
Speaker 1: other habits and hurts and hang ups that we deal with.
Speaker 1: The verse before that, Verse relations five sixteen says it
Speaker 1: this on screen. If you're guided by the Spirit, you
Speaker 1: won't fulfill Notice, you won't fulfill the selfish desires of
Speaker 1: your sinful nature. Now I want to leave that up
Speaker 1: there for a minute. Notice it does not say if
Speaker 1: you're guided by the Spirit you won't have selfish desires.
Speaker 1: You're going to have them. It doesn't say you won't
Speaker 1: have them. It says you don't fulfill them. This is
Speaker 1: very important. Whatever your area of weakness is, whether it's
Speaker 1: sex or anger, or drugs, our money, whatever your downfall is,
Speaker 1: you're going to struggle it with it the rest of
Speaker 1: your life. It doesn't say that when you follow the
Speaker 1: Spirit you no longer have no temptation. No. In fact,
Speaker 1: the more you grow as a Christian, the more Satan
Speaker 1: tries to tempt you not less more because he's trying
Speaker 1: to take you down. Satan hates you. God loves you
Speaker 1: as a wonderful plan for your life. Satan hates you
Speaker 1: as a terrible plan for your life. Why does Satan
Speaker 1: even care about you? He wants to hurt God. And
Speaker 1: the quickest way to hurt somebody's hurt his children. And
Speaker 1: so you'll never have an air in your life where
Speaker 1: you're temptation free. It just says, if you walk in
Speaker 1: the spirit, if you're guide to be the spirit you
Speaker 1: don't fulfill, you may still have that natural attraction the
Speaker 1: rest of your life. But an attraction is not an action.
Speaker 1: An attraction is not a sin. An action is if
Speaker 1: you walk in the spirit, you don't fulfill the lust
Speaker 1: of the flesh. I might have a natural attraction to
Speaker 1: want to have sex with other women who aren't my wife,
Speaker 1: but an attraction is not an action, and an action.
Speaker 2: Is the sin. You know, I'm not gonna do that.
Speaker 1: Why Because the Holy Spirit gives me the power to
Speaker 1: say no. Because there's some other things that are more
Speaker 1: important to me, far far more important to me. So
Speaker 1: I'll be able to resist the things I can't normally resist.
Speaker 1: Let me give you one more. If I listen to
Speaker 1: the Holy Spirit, he will help me. It's a big one,
Speaker 1: avoid dangers and mistakes. This is why it's so important
Speaker 1: to be led by the Holy Spirit. If I listen
Speaker 1: to the Holy Spirit, he will help me avoid dangers
Speaker 1: and mistake. Part of the Holy Spirit's job is to
Speaker 1: protect you, to shield you. The Bible use of the
Speaker 1: word shield, the word shelter, the word defend, to keep
Speaker 1: you from disaster, my protector, my rock, my defender. It
Speaker 1: is the Holy spirit job to protect you from dangers
Speaker 1: and mistakes. And one of the ways he does this
Speaker 1: is by warning you and cautioning you. And the Holy
Speaker 1: Spirit just doesn't whisper sweet, nothing's in your You're good,
Speaker 1: You're great, You're fantastic. You know, I believe in you. Yes,
Speaker 1: the Holy Spirit encourages you, But sometimes don't you dare
Speaker 1: do that. Sometimes he warns you, sometimes he corrects you.
Speaker 1: Sometimes he speaks in your mind a word of protection,
Speaker 1: saying if you go down that road, it is disaster, buddy.
Speaker 1: You're headed into a dead end real quick. So if
Speaker 1: you want to avoid mistakes and dangers in life, you
Speaker 1: just have to listen to the Holy Spirit. The less
Speaker 1: I listen to him, the more mistakes I'm going to make.
Speaker 1: The less I listen to him, the more problems I'm
Speaker 1: going to have, the more dead ends I'm going to face. Now,
Speaker 1: I want you to write this down on your outline.
Speaker 1: I am most likely to hear the Holy Spirit when
Speaker 1: I'm relaxed. Write this down. I am most likely to
Speaker 1: hear the Holy Spirit when I'm relaxed. It's almost impossible
Speaker 1: to hear the Holy Spirit when you're tense, when you
Speaker 1: are nervous, when you are upset, when you're angry, and
Speaker 1: especially when you're fearful. He said, how do I know
Speaker 1: if what I'm hearing right now is my fear or
Speaker 1: God's spirit?
Speaker 2: Okay, read my lips on this, and.
Speaker 1: If there's an element and fear in it, it is
Speaker 1: not from the Holy Spirit. The Bible says God has
Speaker 1: not given us a spirit of fear, but power and
Speaker 1: love and a sound mind. Anytime you feel fear, that's
Speaker 1: not God talking. The Holy Spirit can warn you about something,
Speaker 1: don't do that, but it's not going to be a
Speaker 1: fear based thing. Fear based is never of the Holy Spirit,
Speaker 1: never of the Holy Spirit. So he will warn you
Speaker 1: and letting the Holy Spirit lead, you'll spare you from
Speaker 1: a lot of unnecessary pain.
Speaker 2: Acts twenty one to four.
Speaker 1: The Holy Spirit warned Paul not to go to Jerusalem.
Speaker 1: Why because there was a conspiracy there to murder him.
Speaker 1: He didn't know about it, and Holy Spirit and told
Speaker 1: him and said don't go there. And he said, okay,
Speaker 1: I don't have to know why, but I'm not going
Speaker 1: to go, And so he didn't. All right, quickly, how
Speaker 1: does the Holy Spirit guide? And then I'm going to
Speaker 1: give you just quick.
Speaker 2: Steps and this is fast.
Speaker 1: How does the Holy Spirit guide? Oh?
Speaker 2: Ye have little faith? Forget it. I'm going home.
Speaker 1: Figure it out yourself, all right? All right, you wimpy,
Speaker 1: wimpy wimpy pee Paul. Have I told you lately that
Speaker 1: I love you? Do I preach to you long? Yes?
Speaker 1: Do you still come? Yes?
Speaker 2: It's the whole counsel of God.
Speaker 1: Now, it's like the farmer said to other farmer, buddy,
Speaker 1: it's good to feed your flock, but you don't have
Speaker 1: to give them the whole bail. Hey, yes I do.
Speaker 2: How does the Holy Spirit guide?
Speaker 1: Well, I could give you a big long list of
Speaker 1: ten ways, but because you're so weak, I'm going.
Speaker 2: To give you just three.
Speaker 1: All right, write these down. Don't write the ones I'm
Speaker 1: mentioning right now, look up here. God can lead you
Speaker 1: through wise counsel. He can lead you through visions. He
Speaker 1: can lead you through dreams. He can lead you through circumstances.
Speaker 1: He can lead you through miracles. We'll go over that
Speaker 1: some other time, but let me give you the most
Speaker 1: common ways that the Holy Spirit guides. Ninety nine percent
Speaker 1: of the time, it's one of these three ways. Number one,
Speaker 1: by revealing the meaning of what he said. By revealing
Speaker 1: the meaning of what he said, I'm talking about the Bible.
Speaker 1: If he's the Spirit of truth, he's certainly going to
Speaker 1: use the Bible, because the Bible is the truth. So
Speaker 1: if you want to know God's will, get into God's word.
Speaker 1: God's will is found in God's word. Stop looking for
Speaker 1: a vision, start looking for a verse, stop looking for
Speaker 1: a sign, start looking for a scripture. The Spirit of
Speaker 1: Truth will lead you in truth, and so he's going
Speaker 1: to take you to the Word. But here's the problem.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you get to the Word and it doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1: Anybody ever had that problem? Or sometimes you read a story,
Speaker 1: go nice story, What in the world's have to do
Speaker 1: with me that you ever had that question. Of course
Speaker 1: you have. Of course that's why you need the Holy Spirit,
Speaker 1: because we not only have the guide book, we have
Speaker 1: the author and his personal commentary in our ear. It's
Speaker 1: the only book that you can read that when you're
Speaker 1: reading the book, you can go, now, what did you
Speaker 1: mean when you're saying this, and the author's right there
Speaker 1: to go, well, here's what I mean. So you get
Speaker 1: not only the guide book, you get the guide Sometimes.
Speaker 2: We don't understand the verse.
Speaker 1: Look at this first Grindians to eleven fourteen. The man
Speaker 1: without the Spirit does not accept the things that come
Speaker 1: from the Spirit of God for their foolishness to him,
Speaker 1: and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
Speaker 1: First place, if I'm not a believer, if I don't
Speaker 1: have the Holy Spirit, there's no way I'm going to
Speaker 1: understand the Bible. I cannot understand the Bible without the
Speaker 1: Holy Spirit. To understand the truth, I need the Spirit
Speaker 1: of truth. So God knew this, and he assigns the
Speaker 1: Holy Spirit to be our interre. And in John fifteen
Speaker 1: twenty six, the helper will come the Holy Spirit, the
Speaker 1: spirit who reveals the truth.
Speaker 2: And that's why I said with this.
Speaker 1: Book, you get both the book and live commentary from
Speaker 1: the author, because the Holy Spirit wrote the Bible. So
Speaker 1: the first way is I need to know what you
Speaker 1: want me to do.
Speaker 2: Lord.
Speaker 1: I read the Bible and he reveals to me the
Speaker 1: meaning of passages. This is what it means in my
Speaker 1: life right now. That's called an application. This is what
Speaker 1: it means in my life. I know what happened a
Speaker 1: long ago. What does this mean to me right now?
Speaker 1: The Holy Spirit gives you the application. He applies it,
Speaker 1: He illuminates it, he reveals it, and he applies it
Speaker 1: to your life. Second way that the Holy Spirit guides first,
Speaker 1: as I get in the book and he helps me
Speaker 1: understand it. Number two by reminding me of what he said.
Speaker 1: He not only reveals what he said, reveals the meaning
Speaker 1: of what he said in the Bible. He now reminds
Speaker 1: me of what he said. One of the Holy Spirit's
Speaker 1: job is to remind you of truth that you've already learned.
Speaker 1: It is his job to be your mental reminder to
Speaker 1: bring it to remembrance. John fourteen twenty six. The helper
Speaker 1: will teach you everything, and notice this circle. It will
Speaker 1: cause you to remember all that I told you. This
Speaker 1: helper is the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2: So what is he saying.
Speaker 1: If I've heard a sermon and I've taken down notes,
Speaker 1: and I've read a Bible and I've taken down notes,
Speaker 1: and I've been in a Bible study and I've been
Speaker 1: in a small group and I've taken down notes, then
Speaker 1: I've put some stuff in my mind. But I don't
Speaker 1: remember everything I've read, heard and taught and learned and discussed.
Speaker 2: I don't do that.
Speaker 1: But the Holy Spirit knows what's already been put in
Speaker 1: my mind, and he can bring it to remembrance when
Speaker 1: I need it. Isn't there verse in the Bible? It
Speaker 1: says and he brings that to mind. Now follow me
Speaker 1: on the logic on that, the more the word you
Speaker 1: put in your mind, the more he can bring the remembrance.
Speaker 2: That makes sense.
Speaker 1: Right, So the more Bible I get in my brain,
Speaker 1: the more he can a bigger library he's got. If
Speaker 1: I only got a little bit of Bible, he didn't
Speaker 1: have a whole lot.
Speaker 2: To pull out.
Speaker 1: The Holy Spirit cannot remind you of stuff you've never
Speaker 1: heard in the first place. This is why you need
Speaker 1: to read the Bible. Every day. This is why you
Speaker 1: need to listen to God's word. You need to read
Speaker 1: God's word every day. You need to fill your mind
Speaker 1: with God's word. The more you put in your mind,
Speaker 1: the more He can remind you. But he can't remind
Speaker 1: you of stuff you haven't ever heard. So you got
Speaker 1: to get into the word of God. By the way,
Speaker 1: have you ever thought about this, Since you know, the
Speaker 1: disciples didn't walk around with binders, they didn't have notepaper,
Speaker 1: How in the world did they remember all these stories
Speaker 1: and the example of the stories that Jesus and the
Speaker 1: things that Jesus said, and they wrote down the sermon
Speaker 1: on the mount. If I asked you write down last
Speaker 1: week's sermon, could you remember it? I don't even remember it.
Speaker 1: Come on, So unless you write notes, you don't remember.
Speaker 1: How in the world. So how to the world we
Speaker 1: get the Bible? Well, look up here on the screen.
Speaker 1: The Bible says this. You need to know two Peter
Speaker 1: one twenty that nothing in scripture was just thought up
Speaker 1: by the prophets themselves. It was the Holy Spirit who
Speaker 1: directed and reminded them of these true words from God.
Speaker 1: SOA's only spirit who years later, says Peter write this
Speaker 1: stuff down, and John write this stuff down, and Matthew
Speaker 1: write this stuff down, and Mark write this stuff down.
Speaker 1: There was only spirit who brought it to mind. They
Speaker 1: would have not remembered all this stuff that's in the
Speaker 1: New Testament. But the Holy Spirit reminds us of what
Speaker 1: he said. Okay, so he helps us understand what he said.
Speaker 1: He reminds us what he said, and the number three
Speaker 1: He guided by giving us nudges and confirmations. Nudges and confirmations.
Speaker 1: Now these are mental impressions. It's often called an internal witness.
Speaker 1: The Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit. It's just
Speaker 1: a sense that you know internally. Nobody's told you this,
Speaker 1: but you know that. You know that, you know that,
Speaker 1: you know that, you know because the Holy Spirit has
Speaker 1: said this is the truth, and you know it and
Speaker 1: it's hard to recognize it first. But the longer you
Speaker 1: walk with God, the better you can hear God's voice
Speaker 1: if you're in the word Romans eight sixteen, I Love
Speaker 1: the Message. Paraphrase says, God's Spirit touches our spirit, our spirits,
Speaker 1: and confirms what we really are. God will often use
Speaker 1: a nudge to confirm something you know. God will often
Speaker 1: use an impression to confirm, sometimes to warn, but a
Speaker 1: lot of time to confirm. Last week, Rick and Laura
Speaker 1: Machau had not decided on where they were going to
Speaker 1: have their surgery. They had gone to a hospital. One
Speaker 1: hospital and the hospital said your surgery. Your cancer is inoperable.
Speaker 1: It's inoperable. And I said, Rick, you think we're going
Speaker 1: to give up with that?
Speaker 2: Really?
Speaker 1: I mean, if you got a million dollar racehorse, you
Speaker 1: don't take them to the local vet. You go wherever
Speaker 1: a million dollar racehorses get worked on. And so my
Speaker 1: wife Kay began to do a lot of research and
Speaker 1: talk to doctors who were knowledgeable in the area of
Speaker 1: cancer that Rick Macho had in his brain. They found
Speaker 1: a hospital that said we not only can, we will
Speaker 1: do your surgery. Rick had a multiple different ones. He
Speaker 1: didn't know which one to choose. I mean, I had
Speaker 1: four or five hospitals to choose from. And early this
Speaker 1: week he had called and he said, Rick, will you
Speaker 1: and Ka pray with me and Laura on which one
Speaker 1: we should take? And I said, well, what have you
Speaker 1: heard so far? And he said, well, we went to
Speaker 1: this one and I really really felt good about it.
Speaker 1: He said, every person I met. I just felt the
Speaker 1: internal peace about it. Every doctor I talked to, even
Speaker 1: the check in nurse and he goes. Everybody there just
Speaker 1: it just felt so right. And I said, Rick, I'll
Speaker 1: be happy to pray with you, but you don't need
Speaker 1: my prayer. You already got your answer. The Holy Spirit
Speaker 1: has given you your answer. You don't need to pray
Speaker 1: about it. You've already had five or six little nudges,
Speaker 1: so you don't really And so I said, well, pray
Speaker 1: it with him. I prayed with him, but you don't
Speaker 1: really need to pray about it because you've already been
Speaker 1: nudged six times by the Holy Spirit. And he went
Speaker 1: there and Wednesday the surgery was successful. Yeah, and they
Speaker 1: got about ninety plus percent of the tumor and now
Speaker 1: they're looking at the microscopic parts that they could get
Speaker 1: by radiation chemo and working on a plan on that.
Speaker 1: He's working on recovery. He has his arm isn't working
Speaker 1: real well and his right leg isn't working real well,
Speaker 1: but they said that could be just temporarily. And the
Speaker 1: doctor they've seen a lot. The doctor was elated with
Speaker 1: the surgery, felt it went way beyond and I'm going Okay,
Speaker 1: thank you God, Thank you for your prayers answered. Thank
Speaker 1: you for all of that. And so now we just
Speaker 1: got to pray for full recovery because we could have
Speaker 1: lost him on the table, and he had been told
Speaker 1: already it was inoperable, but clearly it wasn't. And so
Speaker 1: we listened to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. All right,
Speaker 1: he gives us those nudge. By the way, let me
Speaker 1: just say this that I know I'm running behind, but
Speaker 1: act feeling the pressure right now. Here's a really important thing.
Speaker 1: Every time you get an impression to do good, act
Speaker 1: on it. Don't go I'll do it later. Why because
Speaker 1: every time you do it, you strengthen the muscle that
Speaker 1: here's the Holy Spirit. Every time you go, I got it.
Speaker 1: How many times if you've been told say something nice
Speaker 1: to that person, do something for that person, send that note,
Speaker 1: call that person, offer a meal, give some advice, offer
Speaker 1: some prayer, all these goods, and you know, I just
Speaker 1: don't have time right now. When you do, you weaken
Speaker 1: the muscle that here's the Holy Spirit. Every time you
Speaker 1: get a nudge to do something, to do good, do it,
Speaker 1: do it because you're strengthening the muscle that actually makes
Speaker 1: you tuned, so so the Holy Spirit knows when I
Speaker 1: tell him do this, they're going to do it. That
Speaker 1: makes sense, So never delay, never awe. You know, say,
Speaker 1: if somebody you know, you see somebody over there look
Speaker 1: like have a hard time, and you feel like I
Speaker 1: should go out and say can I pray for you?
Speaker 2: Well, then do it.
Speaker 1: Walk out and say can I pray for you? If
Speaker 1: they say no, fine, but you obeyed the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: And if you obey the Holy Spirit, when you get
Speaker 1: those nudges, it will get stronger and stronger and stronger
Speaker 1: in your life and you're better. You can hear his
Speaker 1: voice when I wish I could go into this. When
Speaker 1: I hear the Holy Spirit, it's often illumination of scripture.
Speaker 1: It's often an interpretation of an event. I'll be sitting
Speaker 1: in a meeting and I'm going, Holy Spirit, what's going
Speaker 1: on here? And he tells me and I can see
Speaker 1: what the real issue is. And sometimes it's an impression of.
Speaker 2: People and.
Speaker 1: This is their problem and it just comes supernaturally and
Speaker 1: it gets better over time. All right, real quick, how
Speaker 1: do I let the Holy Spirit lead me? And I'll
Speaker 1: just give you the points. I won't even go into
Speaker 1: the number one. Here's the steps you need to start
Speaker 1: doing every day to let the Holy Spirit be your guide.
Speaker 1: Number one, Pause and be quiet. You can't hear the
Speaker 1: Holy Spirit very well on the run. Psal I'm thirty
Speaker 1: seven to seven. Be still and know that I Am God.
Speaker 1: Sit down and shut up. Okay, pause and be quiet.
Speaker 1: If you're frustrated and you can't get alone, go into
Speaker 1: the bathroom. Sit in a stall. It's the only place
Speaker 1: you can get alone. In your office, be still and
Speaker 1: be quiet. Psal I'm thirty seven and seven Isaiah thirty,
Speaker 1: verse fifty in quietness and confidence will be your string.
Speaker 1: So you got to just pause and be quiet, all right.
Speaker 1: Number two, Humbly ask the Holy Spirit to guide you.
Speaker 1: You have not because you ask not. You've got to ask,
Speaker 1: but you've got to ask with a humble spirit. It's
Speaker 1: your attitude that the Holy Spirit is looking for Psalm
Speaker 1: twenty five to nine. God guides the humble in what
Speaker 1: is right, and he teaches them his way. The more
Speaker 1: humble you are, the more you're gonna hear the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: God guides the humble, not the proud, not the arrogant,
Speaker 1: not those who think they've got it all figured out.
Speaker 2: God.
Speaker 1: God, I'm humbly asking you, Psalm twenty seven, verse eleven.
Speaker 1: Teach me Lord, what you want me to do. Lead
Speaker 1: me down the right path. God, I gotta have it.
Speaker 2: I can't do this.
Speaker 1: I've got to know what the next step is.
Speaker 2: I can't move.
Speaker 1: Give me a give me a direction. God, I'm humbly
Speaker 1: asking you. I've paused, I'm quiet. I'm humbly asking you
Speaker 1: to guide me. Number three, be willing to do what
Speaker 1: he says before he tells you. Now, if you approach
Speaker 1: this with God, I'll do what you tell me to do.
Speaker 2: But you got to.
Speaker 1: Tell me first, and then I'll decide whether I want
Speaker 1: to do it or not. You're gonna hear nothing. You
Speaker 1: must want to be led. You start with desire, with longing.
Speaker 2: With cravy.
Speaker 1: I've got to have God's guidance.
Speaker 2: It's truth.
Speaker 1: There's many people don't want God to lead them. They
Speaker 1: want to be their own boss. They say, God, I'm
Speaker 1: willing to do whatever you say. I'm signing the check.
Speaker 1: You fill in the amount. I'm saying yes before you
Speaker 1: even tell me what it is you want me to do.
Speaker 1: John seven seventeen. Whoever is willing to do what God
Speaker 1: wants and chooses, it will know what I teach.
Speaker 2: If what I teach couds.
Speaker 1: Knowing comes after the choosing God, I choose to do
Speaker 1: your will. Now let me know what it is. Number four,
Speaker 1: Look to God's word. Look to God's word. Your word
Speaker 1: is a lamp to guide me and a light for
Speaker 1: my path. We have the guide, but we also have
Speaker 1: the guide book, and you need both. We have the
Speaker 1: guide and the guidebook. The Bible says, guide my steps
Speaker 1: by your words, so I.
Speaker 2: Will not be overcome by evil. Number five.
Speaker 1: Expect his guidance in faith. Expect his guidance in faith.
Speaker 1: If you're not expecting the Holy Spirit to tell anything,
Speaker 1: well why should he tell you anything. God works. God
Speaker 1: does not listen to your complaints. God listens to your faith.
Speaker 1: God does not listen to your gripes. He listens to
Speaker 1: your faith James Chapter one. If you want to know
Speaker 1: what God really wants you to do, ask him and
Speaker 1: he'll gladly tell you, for He's always ready to give
Speaker 1: a bountiful supply of wisdom to all who ask him.
Speaker 1: But but be sure that you really expect him to
Speaker 1: tell you. If you don't ask in faith. Don't expect
Speaker 1: the Lord to give you any solid answers. We trust
Speaker 1: God's guidance because He's never wrong, but you have to believe.
Speaker 1: And finally, number six, it's important wait for God's response.
Speaker 1: Don't get in a hurry. Don't get in a hurry,
Speaker 1: don't get in a rush. God hadn't told me yet,
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna go ahead and start that business. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go ahead and get say yes to that engagement.
Speaker 1: Wait for God's response. The Bible says God does speak
Speaker 1: sometimes one way and sometimes another, even though people may
Speaker 1: not understand it. And if you wait, the waiting will
Speaker 1: get clear and clearer and clearer.
Speaker 2: Let me pray for you.
Speaker 1: This is the most important thing you can know as
Speaker 1: a Christian, how to be led by the Holy Spirit. Father.
Speaker 1: I pray for our flock. I pray for this family
Speaker 1: of God. I pray for every person at every campus
Speaker 1: who's going to have to make some difficult decisions this
Speaker 1: next week. May we never again make a decision on
Speaker 1: our own, but make it first in consultation with You.
Speaker 1: You've given us a guidebook. You've given us a guide
Speaker 1: Holy Spirit. Help us to learn to hear your voice
Speaker 1: to listen to your nudges. Help us to get into
Speaker 1: God's word. To fill our minds with your word so
Speaker 1: we will remember, and then you can cause us to
Speaker 1: remember what we've stored in our hearts. Lord, For everybody
Speaker 1: who's having a tough time this week, Holy Spirit, give
Speaker 1: them new insight, them to know what they need to know.
Speaker 1: Help them to go where they need to go, Help
Speaker 1: them to say what they need to say. Help direct
Speaker 1: them along the way. Help those who need to wait
Speaker 1: for your perfect timing to not get in a hurry.
Speaker 1: Help those who are struggling with something that just they
Speaker 1: can't seem to resist, to stop relying on willpower and
Speaker 1: rely on spirit power. And I pray you would protect
Speaker 1: this flock. You would protect them from dangers and mistakes.
Speaker 1: And Lord, help us to be smart enough to listen
Speaker 1: to your warning and then not walk foolishly into areas
Speaker 1: you've told us to avoid.
Speaker 2: Lord.
Speaker 1: For anyone who doesn't know you here today, may they
Speaker 1: right now say Jesus, I want to know you. Just
Speaker 1: say that, Jesus, I want to know you, and I
Speaker 1: want you in my life. May they begin this journey
Speaker 1: today for the rest of their life. I pray this
Speaker 1: blessing in your name. Amen, God bless you guys.