Spirit-Led | James Buntrock

This teaching focuses on what it means to live Spirit-led, explaining that God guides believers through the Holy Spirit by communicating with their spirit rather than their emotions or intellect. Through scripture and personal examples, it shows how the Holy Spirit leads through inner peace, gentle nudges, and warnings that help believers make wise decisions and avoid trouble, while encouraging a life grounded in God’s Word, trusting His direction, and following His leading with the confidence that He ultimately guides His people toward victory and provides a way through life’s challenges.

Transcript

Welcome, Theme: Spirit-Led

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I've got a message for you tonight. Thank you to our praise and worship team. We'll have a time of uh uh ministry. Y'all can be seated. We'll have a time of ministry a little bit later. And we're gonna give the Holy Spirit a chance to do what he wants to do at any point during this service. He is welcome to interrupt, to change course, and to do anything at all that he desires. But uh I have witnessed that he is faithful to perform his word with signs following. And so we're gonna deliver his word tonight. And I'm excited to see what he's gonna do to follow up with that, to follow up on the heels of the word of God. And so we're just gonna jump in and get started tonight. Um, pastor's at home tonight, and he's he's all good. Um, this was a little bit of a surprise for me, but uh not too big a surprise, and I'm just grateful for the Holy Ghost who helps each and every one of us. And uh, you know, anytime any one of us gets up here and stands in this place and delivers anything out of God's word, it is a supernatural thing. I want you to know that right up front. It is a supernatural thing, and I can testify for me personally, this is a supernatural thing because I am not naturally this way. And so I step up here tonight, I step into the anointing, I lean back on the Holy Ghost, and his word is true, and the Holy Ghost is his is our very present help, and he's here tonight, and uh and there's an anointing for you tonight, and so y'all just listen to this word, follow along. If I rattle off too many scriptures and you can't keep up, then you might have to come back to it and listen a second round later. Um, but just let the word work and let it be a comfort to you tonight. So I've got a message tonight titled Spirit-led. And so we're gonna talk about what it means to be spirit-led, and there's some practical things in here about how to be spirit-led. And Pastor's ministering uh this morning, and he's started a uh a series of messages. Uh and this morning he was talking about that image that um, you know, he gave an example of the of a pelican, how a pelican has a uh an image built into its little brain that it knows what its prey is, and as soon as the eyes pick up that image, it knows precisely what to go for. And it has no trouble discovering or going after what the image in its brain is. It's a mullet and it knows to go after that every time. And it doesn't go after bigger things, it doesn't go after a shark, it doesn't go after your your pet dog walking down the beach. It knows exactly what food looks like and it can go after that. And so there's an image on the inside, and and so I think this fits in the lines of that uh that flow and that message that Pastor brought this morning, being spirit-led. And so I'm gonna start in Romans chapter 8, verse 14. And we're gonna read a couple of uh verses out of here. So Romans 8, 14 says, For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. And you can say the reverse of that. If you are a child or a son of God, if you've been adopted into his kingdom, if you wear the family name, then you have a right to be spirit-led. The flip works too. It's true whether you read it frontways or backways. It's true. For you did not m uh receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, Abba Father. The Spirit Himself, that is the Holy Spirit, bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. And if children of God, then heirs. Heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together. And so uh he bears witness. He bears witness with our spirit, it says. It doesn't say that he bears witness with our brain or with our emotion or with our bodies. He bears witness with our spirit, it says. And so, you know, right up front, we got to recognize that God is a spirit, and we are a spirit. And Pastor said this this morning. We are a spirit. We live in this body, we have an emotion, a mind, a will, and intellect. But our spirit is who we are, that is who we are, and our spirit has been reborn. Thank God we've been reborn into his kingdom. But God does not relate to our body or our brains, he relates directly to our spirit through the Holy Spirit, who dwells on the inside of us. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit, so he's not going to talk to anything else. He's gonna communicate what he knows to the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit's gonna communicate to our spirit, and ultimately and eventually, maybe someday, our brain can catch up with what our spirit knows if we're paying attention. But we are spirit people and we can operate as a spirit. So where is the spirit leading us? Well, in 2 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 14, it says, Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ. He's leading us in triumph. That's where he wants us to go. Thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ. For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved, and among those who are perishing, something else. Um we're a diffuser of the presence of God wherever we go. He's diffusing the fragrance of his knowledge in every place wherever we go. And so, you know, what you that word triumph right there, think about what that means. Um in the uh in the context of this, a triumph was a thing. It was what the Romans did when they celebrated a military victory. It was a parade. And it wasn't just any parade, it was the ultimate celebration of victory. It was a parade where the uh the losers, if I can borrow a phrase from Trump, the losers were paraded through the streets, stripped down in chains, no weapons, and they were paraded and heckled and made fun of all through the streets. And the victor, the ones who did the the who had the victory were leading that and celebrating, being celebrated all the way through. And so that is an imagery right there that Christ is using, Jesus is using, um, or Paul is using, but it's a it's an imagery about Christ or Jesus leading us into triumph. He is always leading us in that ultimate celebration. So notice he doesn't lead us into the battle. He doesn't lead us into the war, into the trouble, into the thing that we are contending with. He is leading us beyond that into the triumph. So if you aim at the war, if you aim at the conflict, if you aim at that, that tends to be where you hang out longer. And so if I had to give an example of this, um, you know, you you you you've seen these these uh martial arts demonstrations, maybe you have, I don't know, where you've got a board that they're supposed to kick or punch through. Carol, I think you did you punch through it on the first try? She did it on the first try. Now, have you ever seen somebody who tries to punch through a board or karate chop through the board and they aimed at the board and they came down with everything they had and they aimed at the board and it just stopped. And that's a painful thing. But if you're aiming at the other side, you go right through the board and come out on the other side. And so that's an image right there of where Jesus is leading us. He's leading us onto the other side of this trouble, this conflict, this battle, this storm, and he's leading us into the celebration already. And so we've got to aim at the celebration. Uh, another place that references where he's leading us, turn over to Psalm 23 and let's just read through that one. If you know it, you can quote it, but I'm just gonna go through this slowly. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. And that want right there is to decrease, lack, or fail. So if you read it with those words in there, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, I shall not lack, I shall not decrease, I shall not fail. Why? Because he's my shepherd. He makes me to lie down in green pastures, and he leads me beside the still waters, and he restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. These are all places where he is leading us. The Spirit leads us these kinds of places. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no eater. Well, how did I get into the valley of the shadow of death? I stopped following his leading. I wandered off on my own. I had a pretty good idea about something, and I went that way instead. And it didn't work out so well. So I found myself in the valley of the shadow of death. But you don't have to fear. Why? Because for you are with me. And there's a rod and a staff, and one's for comfort, and the other one is a correction. Thank God He corrects this, He corrects those whom He loves. He loves His children, and so He He provides correction there, and He provides comfort for us. So both of those things are available to us when we get it wrong. Verse 5: You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil, and my cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. So there is a place that He's leading us, and you've got to know that He's leading us in a good place. And He's got better ideas about these kinds of things. If you look in Isaiah 55, verse 8, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are my ways your ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than uh than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your your thoughts. And so he's got to keep, you know, his word will keep us in our place. We don't ever have an idea better than God. Now I'm an engineer, and I'll admit to you right now that I have a hard time making um decisions without a spreadsheet and a set of plans, a drawing, a plan. I like to overanalyze these things and find things wrong with the plan. And then I like to make corrections to the plan and adjustments to it until it looks like something that I like and that I think is going to be best. And so I keep expecting for God to show me his plan so that I can make those adjustments and corrections and straighten out some things and fill in some potholes along the way before I get into the plan. But he doesn't show me that plan. You know what he shows me? The next step. That is so annoying. It says your word, your the word is a light under our lamp under our feet and a light to our path. And so you you picture walking down a pathway, down a trail, a dark trail where you can't see everything. And so his word is like the flashlight where you can only see just as far as that beam of light shines. I can only see enough to go the next step. But I can't see my destination. Down at the end of that trail, around the bend, up over the hill, and on the other side, I can't see where that is. As much as I want to, he doesn't do that. And so I just have to lean back and trust that he's got a good plan. In fact, Jeremiah 29, 11 says so. For I know the thoughts that I think towards you, says the Lord. Thoughts of peace, not evil, to give you a future and a hope. So we know these things. It's on every bumper sticker, it's on your little refrigerator magnet, and you read that. And still, somehow it's it it's it's kind of hard to trust not knowing stuff. I don't have any good news for you. We're gonna have to trust not knowing. That's the definition of faith. Faith is the substance of things not seen. You don't get to see that, but the faith is the substance. So you if you believe God, if you believe his word, if you have faith, if you want to muster up the faith, you just have to trust that God has a good plan for you. And if we go back to Psalm 23, you've got to recognize where he's leading you. And if you find yourself in something that doesn't fit that first description in the first uh three verses there, then you've got to also understand that if I'm in a bad spot, a tight spot, a rough situation, it's probably because I walked there. But there's still a way out. So we've got to keep things in the right place, in the right position, and just understand that God is faithful and he has a good plan. You want to uh walk in that plan, walk where he's leading, you gotta put him first. So if you're keeping notes, that's another good point to write down. Put God first. Matthew 6 33 says, to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And then all the other things that it listed prior to that will be added to you. He knows all the things that you have need of. He made you, he built you, he put you in this world. He knows exactly what's needed and what's not. And so if you want to have all the things that you need, put them first. And that, you know, we just honor God. Seek first the kingdom of God, his righteousness, all the other things will be taken care of. Another way to put that is if you're busy taking care of God's business, he will take care of your business. If you're busy doing kingdom work outside of the home, he'll be back at your home taking care of your home. Those benefits are available, but we've got to we've got to keep him number one. We've got to put him first. We've got to fear God and not people. Uh Proverbs 3, verse 5 says, Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not into your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him, and he'll direct your paths. Getting back to that path, that course, and uh, and where are we going and how do we get there? So we trust in the Lord with all our heart, lean not into our own understanding. In all our ways of doing things, we acknowledge him, we give him room to edit the way we're doing something, to make the adjustment, and then our path will be directed and our course will make good sense on the other side. You'll end up in the proper destination and not the uh the accidental one. Uh another point on here. Number three. Um, it helps if we understand God's will for our life, and then don't do dumb things. So if you look in Ephesians chapter 5, verse 15, this is a warning here. It says, See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Have you looked outside? Have you recognized that we've got some evil stuff happening in the world, in our nation, in our state, right here in this town? There's evil all around. And so we've got to walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise. Verse 17 is a little more specific. It says, Therefore, do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Okay, it's telling you to understand. Easy, easy to say. Some other things, do not be drunk with wine, where is it in excess or dispensation, but be filled with the spirit. That he that Greek word there for be is a continual be. It's like saying, be being, be continually filled. So don't be drunk with wine. The effectively the opposite of this right here is saying, be being filled with the Holy Spirit. Don't be drunk with wine, but be being filled with the Spirit. And then it kind of talks about how to do that, speaking one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord, and giving thanks always in all things. To God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God, giving thanks in all for all always in all things or for all things. So we don't thank God for the trouble that comes. We don't thank God. How many of y'all woke up today and just said, God, I'd just really like to thank you for the devil? Okay, that's that falls under don't do dumb things, right? All right. So we don't thank God for the evil of the world, for the devil, for the wrong things that happen. It just means that in the middle of whatever circumstance you're in, we there is plenty to be grateful for. And we ought to always be, continually be, our thanksgiving ought to always be on our lips, expressing our love to our Heavenly Father. Why? Because wherever we are, there He is. And if you walked off someplace, there's a rescue route for you. And so there's just our continual giving thanks always in all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Number four, another point for you. And uh this one is is a profound one. Um, Pastor never says this one. Um, read the word. You want to understand what God's will for your life is, you want to be spirit-led. He gave us his word. This word, before it was ever written, it was spoken. And not just once, but over and over from generation to generation. You think about how many generations from Adam until we started to write some stuff down, how many times was that word spoken? And yet the Holy Spirit preserved his word all through that time that it was spoken, and then ultimately it was written down. And it's written down so that we can have it, so that we can put eyes on it today, so that we can speak his word. And his word in our mouth is just as effective as his word in his mouth. How can I say that? Because he said his word never returns void, it always accomplishes the thing wherein to it is sent. So, where are you sending his word? You want to understand his will and be led by the Spirit? You can be led by the word of the Spirit, which comes from this written word right here. 2 Timothy 2.15. I went to a little private school in Corpus Christi, Brighton Park Baptist School. It's no longer in existence. But our principal and Bible teacher was Brother Bill Middleton, and I forever remember his voice making us memorize this scripture. 2 Timothy 2.15. Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman who needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. If the word of truth can be rightly divided, it can be wrongly divided. So it matters where you go to church, it matters what you're listening to, this word can be twisted any which way. The devil tried to twist the words of Jesus when Jesus was driven out, and Jesus knew the word, and he knew it was being twisted. And so he answered the devil and said, Stop it, get out of here. So you gotta know the word so you can know when it's being twisted, and you gotta rightly divide the word so you know how to apply it in your life and not take a little piece of a scripture out of context and then try to claim something that doesn't actually belong to you. Because then you'll find yourself in the valley of the shadow of death, begging for mercy again. Another way to be spirit-led, um, come to church as often as you can. Why? Because there's a word that's being poured out of this place. I believe that everybody should have a pastor. I believe that there's a pastor for everybody somewhere. And God will never pour out things over here and then assign you to a church over there. Wherever He's assigned you to be, stay there, dwell there, put roots down. Find a way to be useful. Show up. Because every time you show up, there is something for you. And sometimes when you don't show up, there was still something for you, but you missed it. So come to church every time you can every often as you can. And I don't want to be militant about it, and and you know, life happens, and and sometimes, you know, you're gonna miss from time to time. Um, but just be faithful and come as often as you can. The psalmist said it wasn't until I came into the sanctuary of God that I understood. He was troubled with some things, he was all tied in knots, and he walks in the sanctuary and suddenly he knew some things. There's a knowing that's available to you when you come into this place. The presence of God is in this place. I can't tell it it happens a lot. I can be over here in the middle of praise and worship and get a download from the Holy Spirit on something unrelated to the songs we were singing, the praises we were giving. Pastor can be ministering something from up here, and I'm listening intently to what he's saying, and at the same time, I can get a download of something else that I was contemplating, something I was seeking, something I had a question on, whatever. Claire and I closed a real estate deal on the front row uh up here during praise and worship in the middle, in the middle of that. And it was God's blessing on our life. It was his provision. And that happened because we put him first. We we doubled up on an offering because we just wanted to lavish something on our Heavenly Father, and we made a choice to do something, and he immediately came through. I mean, so there's just time and time again that we people come in here, and I bet you have testimonies and you can think about these things. How you came in here and God was faithful, and suddenly you had an answer about something that you you needed. So come as often as you can. Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together, as a manner of sum is. And we ought to be frequenting this place more and more as we see that day approaching. You want to be spirit-led, you got to be spirit-filled. So there is a distinct difference. I'm not going to pick on other denominations, but I, you know, I won't pick on them, but let me talk about the Baptists. They know and love this word. That denomination of people know this word better than a lot of other denominations, better than a lot of spirit-filled people. They can teach this word inside and out. Now I'll say that they didn't get some things right. They neglected the being spirit-filled side of things. Some of them think healing has passed away, and they kind of explain some of those things away because it doesn't fit in the doctrine, but they know this word. But there's something different about being spirit-filled. That is being filled with the Holy Spirit. I don't know how people live in today's time without being filled with the Holy Spirit. Jesus began his ministry when he was filled with the Holy Spirit. And that may be a little bit of a controversial statement, but let's look over in Luke chapter 4. This is the first place that I've seen it in the New Testament. It says then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. So Jesus, right here, was the first one who was filled with the Holy Spirit and led by the Holy Spirit all at the same time. And this was after he was baptized. So he was baptized in the water. And you know the story. The voice from heaven came down and said, This is my son in whom I'm well pleased. And here he is, being filled with the Spirit, going off into the wilderness, being led by the Spirit. So being filled with the Spirit means you can be led by the Spirit. In John 16, a few pages over to the right. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Matthew, John 16, verse 5. Jesus is talking to his disciples. He said, But now I go away to him who sent me. And none of you asks me, where are you going? Verse 6, but because I have said these things to you, you sorrow, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell you, it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the helper, the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, will not come to you, but if I depart, I will send him to you. And when he has come, he will convict the world of sin and right of righteousness and judgment of sin, because they do not believe me of righteousness, because I go to my Father and you see me no more of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them. However, when he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth. He will speak uh he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak, and he will tell you things to come. Talking about the Holy Spirit. And so he said, I still have many things to say to you, but you're not ready to hear it. How many times did Jesus get away and find a quiet place to pray outside of the hearing of his disciples? It happened a lot. There's a lot of instances of that. And so if Jesus was spirit-filled, and the evidence of being spirit-filled is speaking in other tongues, I gotta believe that Jesus was filled with the Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues. And he wasn't, you know, it wasn't any different. He didn't talk about those things because they weren't ready to hear those things. They didn't really understand the Holy Spirit. They were grieved because they thought they were going to be with Jesus the whole time, and now he's leaving, he's gonna send the comforter, the helper, the helper. And then when acts happened, then a mighty rushing wind came in and filled them all with the Holy Spirit. And then they understood. So, you know, Jesus was filled with the Spirit, he was spirit-led, and I believe he spoke in tongues. And I'm not gonna build a whole doctrine around it, but that's just what I got out of that scripture right there. So uh in 1 Corinthians uh 14 2. It says, for he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men, but to God, for no one understands him. However, in the spirit he speaks mysteries. So I'll just caution you about speaking in tongues. Speaking in tongues is not for other people around you. You're not to it it's not that they can't hear you speak in tongues. It's that that doesn't do them any good. Because they don't understand. And it bypasses your brain, so your brain doesn't really understand either. So what this is, is this is code between your spirit and God. It is a it is a private secret communication between your spirit and the spirit of God. And you should do that because it builds up your spirit, and you should do that frequently and often. But it's not something to show off and and uh uh to use as a demonstration for people who won't receive it. You can shut somebody down and turn them off and make them run away pretty quick by shouting at them in tongues. It's weird. Don't do it, don't be weird. But pray in tongues often because it builds your spirit up, it strengthens your spirit, and it's a communication, a direct communication between your spirit and this and the spirit of God, and then you can know some stuff. And eventually, again, your brain will get to know those things. So let's talk about some practical applications of being spirit-led. You've got some different types of things here that that I'll outline for you. Um the ways that the Holy Spirit will communicate with you. So there's the gentle nudge of something, the little thought that comes in, and you think, maybe I should do that, and then the thought's gone, and you're left with at a point. Do I really need to do that or not? That happens to me a lot. It could be simple things around your house. I'm walking out the door. Let me go back and check that room, and I have no reason to check that room. And something's left on that shouldn't be left on. The door is unlocked, the stove's still on, whatever it is. It's a gentle nudging that is so easy to just dismiss and ignore and go the other way. Don't dismiss the gentle nudgings. What if it takes you a few extra steps and it was unnecessary and and it really wasn't needed that you can see? Big deal. Just don't dismiss the gentle nudgings. They pay off big when you get them right, when you follow those things. What if you have a gentle nudging and you think about somebody? And you don't really know. Well then just take a moment and pray in tongues. Maybe he'll give you a line to pray on, maybe a scripture will come to mind. Maybe you'll end up going into deep prayer prayer and even travail over somebody, and it just started with a gentle nudge, and you have no idea what that did for somebody. So, example of this, personal example out of my life. Um I was living in Erie, Pennsylvania, and and working long hours there. Um and it got to the weekend, so it's Friday, and I was gonna go visit my sister uh who was in Cleveland, Ohio. So on a Friday, I set out kind of late in the evening uh to Cleveland. I don't remember how long the drive was, but I do remember that I was very tired. And uh and somewhere on that trip, so I've had this happen a couple of times uh with my sister, but on that trip, I woke up driving in the median. It had been raining, and it's wet grass. And I've got tall grass slapping the front of my truck, and I'm going 70 miles an hour in the median, in the wet. And I just suddenly woke up, and I don't, and they had these little stanchion uh reflectors periodically along the edge of the highway. I don't know how I made it in between those. But I had to very carefully time my entrance back onto the onto the highway, slow down and get back on the highway. And you can bet I was very awake after that for the rest of that trip. On the other side, my sister had a gentle nudge to pray for me. And when I got there, she asked if everything was alright. And so then we kind of compared notes. She prayed for me about the time that all that was happening. So I'm just saying, don't pass up the gentle nudgings. Sometimes there's something that we like, we we call an internal check. It's a feeling of uneasiness or restraint. It's really a discomfort that you can't explain. Something's not right. Um this is really the break pedal, the red light in your spirit when you lose your peace over something. Um it's not it's not really a fear thing. It's just a there can be a parallel or feeling of anxiety that goes with this, but it's not it's not the same kind of anxiety that comes from lack of faith and living in fear. Um, everything naturally can look just fine and normal, but the closer you get to whatever decision this is, um, the worse you feel about it. That's an that's an internal check. There's something, and that's a more urgent scenario. Don't dismiss those either. Um, internal peace. You've got a big decision in front of you, and something that should be just terribly difficult and challenging and anxious to make this decision somehow is just easy and it's peaceful, and uh it just feels right. Um an example in my my life on that one on internal piece. I'll give you an internal check and then I'll give you the internal piece. So these are personal examples, maybe you got your own. So um I when I was in college, and I think it was close to graduation time, uh, some friends and I, maybe it was after graduation, I don't remember now, but some friends and I planned a ski trip uh to Colorado. And we found a package deal, a really good deal. I wasn't making a lot of money, I was, you know, barely getting by. Uh and I had scraped together uh whatever it was, I think it was about$600 to have this. It was an airline flight and several days and skiing and all this stuff. That was a long time ago when$600 would buy something. Um, and so we had this trip planned, and it was a group of us. And the closer I got to that date, the worse I felt. And I didn't know why. There was nothing that was wrong with this. There was, I I couldn't see anything wrong with this, but the closer I got until it was finally the night before, I was we're we're getting on a plane the next morning, and I felt so anxious, so tied in knots on the inside, I just knew something wasn't right. I wrote a note on the outside of the door, and I left where I was where I was living, and I went and got a cheap hotel room, pulled the shades closed, unplugged the alarm clock, turned off my phone, and went to sleep. And I woke up the next day, missed my flight, and I felt great. I don't know what I missed. And it doesn't matter because it was a warning from the Holy Ghost. I have no doubt. I don't know what would have happened. I don't know. Well, all I know is I missed something I should never be a part of. I missed the valley of the shadow of death. And I knew on my side I had to cut off any opportunity for me to be talked out of staying. Because I could have easily been talked out of staying. I could have easily overrode that internal check, and I'm never gonna be able to describe to this group of friends why it is I can't go. All I could say was something came up and and I had to say no to the trip. So that was a that was an internal check, an internal piece. Uh when I I used to work in marine construction, I was a project manager. The last project that I had was about$46 million. It was a huge success. I was going from project to project to project and getting bigger and bigger, six-figure salary. Uh my last bonus was about$35,000. I had nowhere to go but up. It was just a great place to work, and great things were happening. And I was at the top of the game, and pastor asked me to come to work for the church. And I can't do that. I don't want to do that. I hate preaching, I hate public public speaking. I didn't want to have, I still had these things hanging on me because my dad was a preacher. I didn't want to have anything to do with that. And it was purely an administrative and a project management description because they're building a church and want to develop some land and got this property and need some help and management. And I gave my boss notice and he didn't talk to me for three days. And then he took me to lunch, bought me a steak lunch, and said, You're leaving for church and family, and those are two things I can't compete with, and you're making a great decision. Of course, if you ever decide to come back, there's always a place for you. But he said, But you probably won't. And he was kind of sad about it. And I remember driving out with Claire in the parking lot, having turned in everything except a cell phone and a couple of files that I took home with me, because they still had questions on things, and I was going to still transition whatever questions they had. And it was such a peaceful, easy feeling driving out of that parking lot for the last time. I can't explain it. It was just right. The closer I got to that day, the better it felt. And so, God, you know, he'll lead you with an internal check, a gentle prompting prompting, and he'll also lead you with peace in the right direction. He'll also implant his desires on the inside of you. If you'll let him. That comes out of Psalm 374. I can flip over there real quick and just uh read it to you. Psalm 37, I'll start in verse 3. It says, Trust in the Lord and do good, dwell in the land, feed on his faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, and he'll give you the desires of your heart. The more you trust in the Lord, do good, dwell in the land, and feed on his faithfulness, the more that you delight yourself in the Lord, the more the things that he wants from you will be implanted on the inside of you, and you'll have his desires on the inside of your heart. It's not that you get all of the things that you wanted, it's that somehow your wants and desires line up with what he wants. The more you delight in him and dwell in the land and feed on his faithfulness. And so he'll implant his desires on the inside of you, and he'll lead you with those things. Suddenly all the things that you used to care about just don't really matter anymore. And suddenly you're caring about the things that he has for you, and then you're walking in the plan of God for your life. So he'll lead you with desires. And that's uh that's along the lines of what pastor's been ministering on this morning. Desires, having a dream, having an image. Let his image be implanted on the inside of your spirit so that you know what you're going after, so that when you see it, you know it's yours and you can have it. Take on his desires. Let's talk about some warnings. God has an early warning system. Um Hebrew has just a brief uh account of this. Hebrews 11 7. Noah being divinely warned of things not yet to come, built the ark. He was divinely warned of things not yet seen, that is, rain. They hadn't yet seen rain. That was a new thing for them. God watered the earth with a mist up until that day. And Noah's saying, okay, you're gonna send water from heaven, it's gonna pour down such that the water level is gonna rise, and we're gonna need a boat. And so Noah's out in the middle of a dry place building a boat, and people thought he was nuts, but he was divinely warned of things not seen, and he built the boat, and it worked out pretty good for him and all the passengers. So we're talking about now, we're talking about uh Holy Ghost warnings. Um, the wise men who came to Jesus when he was uh a toddler. The wise men were warned by God in a dream not to return to Herod. Now remember, Herod says, Oh, when you find this king, please come back and tell me where he is, so that I may come and worship him too. And they were on the trail to go find the king, and they were divinely warned, don't go back to Herod, don't tell him where Jesus is. Uh also the angel warned Joseph in a dream to take his family and flee to Egypt. And then after that, Herod killed all the all the baby boys, two years and under. And so there was a divine warning right there. We've had a divine warning, and this goes back to 2005, but uh Oral Roberts, I don't know if any of you, I mean, some of y'all who have been here a long time have are familiar with this uh uh wake-up call. It was a it was really a spectacular vision that Oral Roberts received while walking through the hallway of his own home. Uh and our pastor and and some of us here, and Claire and I got to go visit in Dr. Oral Roberts' home, um, where he had long since retired. And he had had this incredible warning, and pastor got to interview him about it, and there's a uh a DVD, I think it's still available at the Media Center, uh, that goes in detail that interview. Um, but in that wake-up call, uh, Oral Roberts said, My people are not ready for the second coming. And he said that there is a wasting of power in the church. And then he talked about blood and fire and vapor and smoke, and so that it was just this intense warning for Oral Roberts. And different ones interviewed him along the way, and the interviewers would spend more time talking to him than letting him talk. And so that warning that came out really kind of faded off and waned, and that's what what pastor, our pastor, was just so driven. There's more in there, and somebody's got to pull this out of him, and we can't let this slip. God gave us a warning, and I want to find out what that is. And so he talks about what that wasting of power is, and about how the church is in debt and how this whole credit system has has got the church out of position, so that when God needs us to do something, we got to say, Well, God, I can't afford to do that. And so there's a wasting of power. So um, so anyway, that's that's I believe it's available in the media center. And I think we still have that video on our website, if I'm not mistaken. I believe that's still out there. It'd be worth going back and and and listening to that because it's it's applicable today. Um I listened to a message uh from Copeland about the the reasons that God gives warnings, and this was related to that that uh delivery from Orl Roberts. Uh the reasons God gives warnings are to prepare for the situation, to avoid the situation, to stop or change the situation, or to alter the intensity of the outcome of the situation. So these warnings can be so that you can get prepared or you can avoid it altogether, or perhaps you can stop or change it, or you might not be able to stop and change it in its entirety, but maybe you can alter the intensity of something that's impending, something that's on its way to come. But in any of those situations, in any of those troubles, those warnings, those Holy Spirit warnings that He gives you, you don't have to be part of the collateral damage. There may be some impending doom coming, and and God's given you a warning, and I can't change it, I can't alter it, this thing's coming. But in the middle of that, we don't have to be part of all of the havoc and all of the hell that every that's that's happening all the way around. We can dwell in a secret place of the Most High and under the shadow of the Almighty. We all this thing can be happening, and yet we can still be under the covering and the protection and the umbrella of God. When you walk close with him, when you're walking in his plan, when he's ordering your steps, when the Holy Spirit is warning you and you're paying attention. So a scriptural example of this would be when Paul in Acts chapter 27, Paul was warned. Um I'll just read some of this. I got it marked here. Acts chapter 27, verse 10, it says, Uh, Men, I perceive that this voyage will end in disaster and much loss, not only of the cargo of the ship, but also in our lives. Nevertheless, the centurion, who was his guard, so Paul's a prisoner on board this boat, was more persuaded by the helmsman and the owner of the ship than by the things spoken by Paul. And because the harbor was not suitable to winter in, the majority advised to set sail from there also, and if by any means they could reach Phoenix, a harbor of Crete, opening towards the southwest and northwest, and winter there. And then it says that a soft wind blew softly and supposed. Supposing they had obtained their desire, putting to sea, they sailed close by Crete. But not long after that, a tempestuous headwind arose called Iraklodon. So when the ship was caught and could not head into the wind, we let her drive. And running under the shelter of the island called Clauda, we secured a skiff with difficulty. So they were they had a skiff behind and they pulled that on board. And when they had taken it on board, they used cables to undergird the ship. So I've sailed on a big wooden tall ship. I'm familiar with some of these things. One that says that they secured the underbelly of the ship. You've got planks on the ship that run from long ways from the front part of the ship, the bow to the stern. They're kind of running in that direction. And these planks are sealed together by a tight fit, and they would cram uh expansive material in there so that when the material got wet, it would expand and create a seal. And they would cover the boat with tar or pitch on the outside, and that's an even better seal. But when they're going through these rough conditions, the ship is changing shape and flexing and moving, and the planks are opening up and closing, and water's coming in, and they're losing their seal. And so to undergird the ship, they wrap cables around the underside of the ship to hold this thing together and they tighten those things up. So I just want you to picture the extremity of this situation and the desperateness to keep the ship from falling apart. And so they undergird the belly with these cables. Uh, and fearing lest they should run aground on uh on the sands, they struck sail and were so driven by the wind. So they they pulled all the sail down, now it's just masts up in the air and the wind and the sea driving the ship. And because they were exceedingly tossed, the next day they lightened the ship, they took cargo on board, anything that they didn't need, and they threw it overboard. Uh on the third day, when they threw the ship's tackle overboard with their own hands, now it's like rigging and gear and things that they need to function uh with the ship. Um, they got rid of that stuff too. Uh now when neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and and the tempest the tempest beat on us, all hope was lost that we would be saved, and we finally gave up. But after long abstinence from food, and so that was a forced fast. I guess they had run out of food, but anyway, a fast nonetheless, Paul stood in the midst of them and said, Men, you should have listened to me. I told you so, you knuckleheads. Men, you should have listened to me and not have sailed to Crete and incurred this disaster loss. And now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. For there stood by me this night an angel of God to whom I belong and whom I serve, saying, Do not be afraid, Paul. You must be brought before Caesar, and indeed God has granted you and all those who sail with you. Look at God's perspective. Paul spoke the warning. He was outside of his physical control to avoid the thing, so he couldn't change this thing. He's in the middle of this awful thing, this awful scenario. But God saw all those others as sailing with Paul. And so now Paul's back on the uh uh at the pulpit and he's telling them what's so. And uh, and so the the ultimate part of this story uh is that they were able to run aground and and uh and and save the men on board the ship, and not a single life was lost. And then there was a revival after that. But that's part of God's early warning system. So God was warning of something that was in impending danger in our own life. An example out of our own life, our daughter Thea, she is on her way home from school. She's 18 years old, she's driving home, and she had a warning from the Holy Ghost. And it was a thought, it was a feeling, it was a concern. And she the way she described it was I had this question in my head, what if I get into an accident? And she was nervous about it. And so she's driving along down the road and she prayed, asked God for protection, and she she prayed what she knew to pray, and the feeling didn't go away. There was still this impending doom out in front of her. And uh, and so that she did the next thing that she needed to do: dwell in the secret place of the Most High and under the shadow of the Almighty. How do you do that? You get in the presence of God. How do you do that? She started singing praise and worship. She turned on her praise and worship in her car and sang along and changed the atmosphere in that car. Now she's in a different place. And so she continues to drive, and the feeling really didn't go away. And this is kind of where she missed it because she felt pressure to do something that violated the warning. And so she's driving along and she's got to she gets into a turn lane and she's gonna make a left-hand turn, and there's two lanes of traffic coming this way. So she's in the turn lane, and the two lanes of traffic coming this way, the first lane closest to her is completely stopped and backed up because there's a long traffic light over here. So all these cars are stopped and stacked up, and she can't really break through the lane, and she can't see the second lane of anybody coming. And then a nice lady opened up a little gap for her, didn't pull ahead, and just waved her through so she could turn left into our neighborhood. And she missed the opportunity to miss the accident. That was the Holy Ghost warning, and she felt pressure. She said she felt pressure later. I felt pressure like I had to go because there was this other person pressuring me to go. And she turned through the first line of traffic and across the second lane, and she saw the truck coming at 50 miles an hour. And the truck impacted her little kiosole and launched it and folded her car in half, and uh and she was found unconscious at the scene several minutes later. When the fire chief found her, there was duct tape on her head. Some good Tombalian put duct tape on her head because they saw the uh where she was bleeding from. And uh, she was combative and vomiting and showing all kinds of signs of traumatic brain injury. And that's when Claire and I got the call. And we were about a mile from home. And we got a call. We're on our way home, sitting in traffic. Now the traffic stacked up because there's this terrible accident right in front of our neighborhood, and so it was taking us longer to get there. And we get a call from the the fire chief who was tending to her, and he said, uh, the helicopter's here, and we're loading her in the helicopter, life light, and we're gonna send her uh down to the hospital. And uh and he kind of let us know that she had the signs and symptoms of traumatic brain injury. And so Claire and I felt fear and all of the thoughts of the most terrible thing of losing our daughter and everything that we've poured into her, and what you know, the most awful scenario, those thoughts come in. But you can't speak those thoughts, and so we didn't speak those thoughts. What we did was we forced ourselves to speak the word of God about that situation, and it's not easy to choke back the tears and say, she will live and not die, and declare the works of the Lord. And then moments later, we get a call from uh uh of Thea's friend and her mom who were driving by and saw the scene and recognized that Thea was in the accident. So Claire is now coaching this Baptist lady on how to pray. Do not fear, only believe, and only speak the word of God. And so she went on those instructions and she did not fear, and she only believed, and she spoke the word of God, this other lady who's praying. And I'm driving 100 miles an hour, literally, down 290, and we're watching the helicopter fly overhead, knowing my daughter's in that helicopter, and we get down to the hospital. Finally get up into the room, and there she is laying on the bed with a neck brace on and some dried crusty blood on her face and and cheek, and she says, I'm fine, mom. And they gave her a tetanus shot and they tested her for everything that they could test her for. And five hours later, we walked out with a tetanus shot and a band-aid and our daughter whole. And she came home and she wanted to go to school the next day. She felt fine. I'm like, Thea, you you can't do that. So we're sitting on her, trying not, you know, like what about a concussion? What about, and and we're trying to, and she was fine. What about the the traumatic stress of being in that kind of an accident, the sound that you relive, the images that you relive, the smells, the airbags, all the stuff that people tend to relive in that kind of a scenario. She didn't relive any of that. God protected her mind in the middle of that. And here's how it happened. So we're piecing together the story afterwards. She said, I don't, I remember seeing the truck and it was coming at me, but I just pushed the gas pedal and I went through our gate and I was on the other side of our gate, and I was just fine. So she was thoroughly confused when she woke up in a destroyed car with somebody she didn't know messing with her. So all of the stress and the trauma of the incident wasn't in her brain. She went through and got on the other side and she was fine. God protected her. He protected her body, he protected her mind. She didn't have any other issues or any other symptoms and no other injuries. And thank God she didn't take one of our other ones home that day from school because the door split into two pieces and was a knife edge that came in the car and pressed up against the center console. There was only space for one person in that car, and that was our daughter. And she's fine. And so, all this to say, there was a Holy Ghost warning, and she did what she knew to do, and she missed it by a little bit, and God's mercy covered her anyway. And so, while we're learning to hear from the Holy Spirit, while we're learning to hear from God, you're going to miss it from time to time. And I want you to know even if you miss it, he's still right there. He'll still keep you covered. You do the best you know to do. We're growing, we're going from faith to faith and glory to glory. We're learning his word, we're learning how to apply this word, we're learning how to hear from the Spirit, we're learning how to be spirit-led. And he'll still cover you because he's our Abba Father. And he loves you. You have an unfair advantage available to you. And so I'm just encouraging you with these practical things to not miss these little the nudge, the uneasiness about something, the peace in the right direction. He will never give your peace to do something in the wrong direction. When you have life decisions to make and it's a big thing in life, you know, it may not tell you what address to live at, what kind of car to buy, what big things in life, I encourage you to take whatever big decision you have and just break it into small choices and small steps. And you pray and you pause at every one of those steps and you check your peace. And you check your peace with every one of those steps. And if ever you lose your peace about it, you can still go the other way. You can make an adjustment one way or the other, or you can turn around and go the other way and get out of it altogether. If you break it into small steps, husbands and wives break it into small steps and come in agreement together. If one of you has a has a concern about it, an urgency, a check in your spirit, or peace in the direction, you got to communicate this. God's not going to communicate the entirety of the answer to one spouse and not also the other one. Why? Because they're one. And he's viewing a husband and wife as being one. One may get it first and then the other, but you're both going to get it. You're both going to be able to walk in agreement on that. And you will never miss the Holy Ghost if you follow if you follow peace. Another point here in following the Spirit or being spirit-led is to lay aside weights and sin. Hebrews 12, 1. Therefore, since we know, or we also are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and every sin which easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Lay aside the weights and the sin. So sin will separate you and interrupt your communication with God. It'll interrupt the communication of what your spirit knows and the Holy Spirit knows, and your spirit will never agree with anything that violates God's word. Let me put it that way. Your spirit is, your reborn spirit is completely in tune with the Holy Spirit. What it interrupts when sin comes in, because sin, your spirit can't do that. It is a born-again thing. Your body and your mind and your soul absolutely can, will, and does. And so when we do get on the side of sin, it interrupts the communication, and then we miss the knowings of the Holy Spirit. We miss the promptings, the nudgings, the gentle things. We miss those things, and we can just go right past it and end up in that valley of the shadow of death. And the good news is, is he's right there with you, and the answer to that is to repent, turn around, and go the other way. And as soon as you repent and turn around, you run into the Holy Spirit, he will grab you by the hand and take you out of that mess like that. That's what's available to you. So that's the sin side of things. But then there's the weight side of things. There are things in your life that are just not profitable. That could be jobs or hobbies or relationships or things that you do. There are things that weigh you down, and you're not designed to carry a bunch of weights. And thankfully so. He said, My yoke is easy, my burden is light. So if you're if your yoke and your burden is heavy and and pressing you into the ground, you're carrying the wrong yoke and the wrong burden. His is light and easy. The one you're carrying is dark and heavy. It says that we can cast our cares on Jesus because he cares for us. He cares in our place. In fact, he cares so much about us and for us that he'll pick up all of the weights and the trouble that we have, and he will take that off of us so that we can say, I don't care. I'm carefree. I couldn't care less. So whatever anxious thing comes up in your face with, you can say, I don't care. And people around you are like, but you should care, but I don't. It's a weight. I don't care. It doesn't mean anything. I'm carefree. I couldn't care less. Look deep into my eyes. Do you see any ounce of care whatsoever? And so we ought to be carefree, trusting and following the leading of the Holy Ghost. When we carry all those weights, you're just adding unnecessary trouble. You're picking up things that don't belong to you. And we do pick up things in this life, and from time to time you have to lay down things in your life and put them down. And that's an act of faith. Psalm 78, I'm not going to go read all this, but in Psalm 78, it talks about how Israel limited the Holy, the Holy One of Israel. They limited God because they didn't follow the plan that He had for them. They didn't obey the instructions that He had for them. And they spent a whole generation in the wilderness griping and complaining, fearing and lamenting. And they limited what God could do for them, what God was justified in doing for them. God can do anything, but he won't do anything that violates his own word. The Holy Spirit would never help you do anything that violates his word. So you know, we've got to be careful what we're praying for and asking for help for, because if we're asking for help without knowing what God's will is in that scenario, we're asking God to do something a particular way, and you wonder why it's not happening, because what we prayed for is we pray, we ask amiss, not discerning God's word properly, and we ask outside of that, and the Holy Ghost isn't going to cooperate with that. He will never help you do anything that violates his word. Um, and and he will always do things that is where he's justified and right in doing it. And so the the Israelites limited the Holy One of Israel that way. And this final thing that I'll talk about is we're getting 8 o'clock here, so let me wrap this up. This is something that just crawls all over me. I hope it crawls all over you too. I hope it bothers you so that you have to speak out so that you have to say something about it whenever you hear it in public places. And we hear this all the time. God will never put more on you than you can handle. God must be trying to teach me a lesson. I'm a slow learner, so that's why he has to keep putting this trouble on me. That's why, that's why the car wreck happened. He was trying to teach me something. That's why cancer came. He was trying to teach so and so something. God in his infinite knowledge and wisdom, his ways are higher, so that must be why the sickness is. I don't understand why the sickness is there, but he does, and I just trust him. That is so dumb. What that scripture says in 1 Corinthians 10 13, no temptation has taken you. If you read it in Amplified, no temptation or test or trial has overtaken you, but such as is common to man. So if it's common to man, only those things that are common to man happen to men. So if we live in a fallen world in an evil place, we know that all this trouble is out there. We live in this place. We are prone to encounter trouble from time to time. If you just know that going into it, and God didn't zap you, didn't punish you, didn't try to teach you a lesson with any of this stuff, where is he leading you? He's leading you into triumph. He's leading you on the other side. Are we going to have to punch through some trouble? Absolutely. But we don't aim at the trouble, we aim on the other side. We're punching through to the victory side, to the celebration side, to the triumph side. So no temptation, test, or trial is taken you but such as is common to man, but God is faithful. He will not allow you to be tempted, test, or tried beyond what you are able. In other words, if the limits of the trouble is exceeding your capacity to punch through it, he will intervene on your behalf automatically. Think about that. If the amount of trouble exceeds your capacity to punch through it, there's automatic intervention. He will automatically provide you the next thing. But with the temptation, talking about God will also make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it, that you can get out of it, that you can get on the other side of it, that you can climb over, that you can dig under it, that you can go around it, that you can punch through it. There is a way of escape for any trouble that you encounter in this fallen, troublesome world. God did not send the trouble, he sent the escape route. Don't let anyone ever tell you that God sent trouble. He did not send trouble. What he did send is his only son. And the escape route. So let's keep things in the right compartment. God is good, devil is bad. James chapter 1, verse 13 warns us about this. He says, Let no one say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God. God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he himself tempt anyone. That's the answer to this false doctrine that is so prevalent in the world. He cannot be tempted, and he will not himself also tempt you. He provides the escape route. A wise man builds his house on the rock, and the same same storm that washed away the house that was built on the sand could not wash away the house that was built on the rock. And so build your house, build your life on this rock. And the storms will come and they will blow, but they will not wash away your house. Amen. He's leading you to triumph. Let's be spirit led people. Amen.