SPEAKER_00: We're going to continue our series this morning on hearing God.
SPEAKER_00: How many of y'all have something in your life that you need to hear God on?
SPEAKER_00: You're like, I got an area I need to know.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you always hear those people say, you know, one day when I get to heaven, I got a lot of questions for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I'm not waiting until I get to heaven, somebody.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I got a lot of questions right now.
SPEAKER_00: And so I love this series because I love the idea that God is good, that he's faithful, and that he's not too big to be involved in his creation.
SPEAKER_00: That he didn't just take the world, spin it, put it in motion, and say, good luck, I'll see you on the other side.
SPEAKER_00: But in fact, he never left.
SPEAKER_00: He sent his son Jesus Christ into the world.
SPEAKER_00: And when Jesus was risen from the dead, he sent the power of his Holy Spirit to live inside of us so that we could have communication and connection with God.
SPEAKER_00: So here's what I want you to know as we jump into today's message.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter how long you've been at church, it doesn't matter how much you know or how much you've read or haven't read or how much you've studied.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what you have to know that God wants to speak to you.
SPEAKER_00: That God wants to speak to you.
SPEAKER_00: And there is a way that you can posture your life.
SPEAKER_00: There is a way that you can posture your life where you begin to hear his voice more clearly.
SPEAKER_00: So I've titled today's message.
SPEAKER_00: I've titled God today's message, Hearing God Clearly.
SPEAKER_00: Hearing God Clearly.
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Jazz.
SPEAKER_00: Clearly it worked out for some better than others.
SPEAKER_00: And uh how many, anybody in a band, you know?
SPEAKER_00: Why do we make these weird names?
SPEAKER_00: Our band's name was Clear as Mud.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's why we only went on tour once to our grandma's churches, you know, like just like uh, you know, when you are making a decision in life, or you are asking God for something in life, you don't want it to be as clear as mud.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes the challenge, and I hear this often, is that people are making big decisions in their life or wondering whether to go left or right or what to do, is that oftentimes the more they dive into it, sometimes the response is, I feel like it's really muddy right now.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it feels like a lack of clarity.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to speak to that today because I think there's a way that we can posture ourselves that cleans up the mud, that makes us able to hear with uh just a little bit more certainty and confidence uh that God is speaking to us.
SPEAKER_00: And really what it boils down to is that sometimes the the signal is a little muddy, that sometimes our receiver, the way we're receiving it, is a little muddy.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want to help you today clear the way for stronger communication with God.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm just gonna be honest with you, I don't want to preach today's message.
SPEAKER_00: Can I say that?
SPEAKER_00: Um messages I write behind a desk on my books.
SPEAKER_00: Studying, reading, writing, typing stuff up, scratching stuff out, just like you used to write papers.
SPEAKER_00: Some of y'all are like, I didn't write papers.
SPEAKER_00: Like, you crammed papers last minute, you know.
SPEAKER_00: Um I wrote this week's message, but sometimes the Lord wants to write the message not behind a desk, but in the floor of my closet.
SPEAKER_00: And this was one of those messages, and it looks a little different today.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not here to entertain you, I'm not here to impress you, I'm not here to give you knowledge you've never even thought of before.
SPEAKER_00: For the intellectual types out there today, that's not what today is about.
SPEAKER_00: Because here's what I feel like the Lord was doing in me on my closet floor.
SPEAKER_00: I felt like he was impressing upon me that we can say all we want to say this morning, but if we don't do what it is that we're saying, it doesn't matter what we're saying.
SPEAKER_00: We can say all that we want to say this morning, but that doesn't matter if we don't do what it is that he is saying this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And what that means is this you could come to church this morning and walk out those doors and nothing be different if you don't do anything differently than what you've always done.
SPEAKER_00: Hearing God clearly in your life is going to require you to do some things differently than you've done before.
SPEAKER_00: And in order to do that, I want to illustrate today through the story of a guy in the Bible named David, and I want to set this up by giving you a life example of myself.
SPEAKER_00: When I was about eight years old, I entered into a life of crime.
SPEAKER_00: Um the neighborhood boys and I would always build tree forts in the woods behind our house, and when we had raided our dad's basement for all the tools and supplies that we could possibly muster up, we had no resources left.
SPEAKER_00: We still wanted to build, and so one of the guys got a bright idea that about a half mile up the road they were building about a hundred homes in our neighborhood.
SPEAKER_00: We didn't need to go buy supplies if there already were supplies and nobody was watching.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember the first time the guys in my circle that I hung out with, the guys uh that I ran with, they were all older than me, so I just want you to know bad influences, bad influences.
SPEAKER_00: Um the first time they said, let's go take some supplies from those houses.
SPEAKER_00: If you've ever had this, you know what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00: My gut said no.
SPEAKER_00: Something on the inside of me.
SPEAKER_00: The preacher wasn't standing there.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't have a memorized Bible verse.
SPEAKER_00: My mom and dad at nine years old were not out there in the woods with us.
SPEAKER_00: There was something on the inside of me.
SPEAKER_00: How many of y'all know?
SPEAKER_00: There was something built in on the inside that said, that's wrong, don't do it.
SPEAKER_00: So I just want to let you know that I said no.
SPEAKER_00: And I stayed, oh mamas, you're proud right now, right?
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
SPEAKER_00: You're praying for your nine-year-old boy that he would do the right thing even when no one else is watching.
SPEAKER_00: I just said that was the first time.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't say that was the second time.
SPEAKER_00: Because the second time we ran out of supplies, they came back and said, Let's do it again.
SPEAKER_00: And the inside of me, my conscience says, This is wrong, but I had watched from experience that they did it and didn't get caught.
SPEAKER_00: And if they did it and didn't get caught, then maybe just maybe it's not that big of a deal.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'll never forget the second time we ran out of supplies, they said, let's go, let's go for more.
SPEAKER_00: They said, We need more hands.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Count me in, but I'm not going with you, crazies.
SPEAKER_00: And so I hopped on my bike, and instead of walking with them down the road where everybody could see, I hopped on my bike and I rode down the field all alone where nobody could see and and nobody could watch, and I went and I committed my first thievery.
SPEAKER_00: Thievery?
SPEAKER_00: Thief thief act?
SPEAKER_00: Something.
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
SPEAKER_00: I stole.
SPEAKER_00: The third time we ran out of supplies.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you know I didn't hide it?
SPEAKER_00: How many of you know I didn't ride my bike up the field from behind the houses?
SPEAKER_00: How many of you know I was walking like a gangster all the way down the street with hammers in my hand and nails flowing out of my pocket, carrying as many two by fours out of that house as I possibly could when the white F-250 came rolling down the road?
SPEAKER_00: I.e.
SPEAKER_00: the builder.
SPEAKER_00: Stopped us, made us go talk to every one of our parents, and threatened to call the police.
SPEAKER_00: And how many of you know I'm so thankful that I am now retired from a life of crime?
SPEAKER_00: He scared it right out of me.
SPEAKER_00: He brought me right back to what I already knew, but never fully lived what I knew to be true.
SPEAKER_00: I want to paint today's message for you in this way.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not making light of sin and I'm not making light of things that you may be dealing with in your life, but I want you to know that sometimes that's how it goes.
SPEAKER_00: That sometimes when we listen to the wrong voices long enough, we ebb away at our conscience.
SPEAKER_00: We misinform our conscience.
SPEAKER_00: We don't allow our conscience to be led in the right direction.
SPEAKER_00: And what maybe at first we would say no to, one day we become okay with as long as it's secret or hidden, and then eventually we no longer feel its effects unless we get caught.
SPEAKER_00: And the challenge with this can be is oftentimes what we find, and I hear it in Christian circles, is oftentimes people will say, Well, I don't really need to hear God speak to me today because I have my conscience.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to address that a little bit today because I agree and I disagree.
SPEAKER_00: That's as politically correct as I can be, right?
SPEAKER_00: I agree and I disagree.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to talk to you today about your conscience.
SPEAKER_00: Your conscience is that inner function that God has wired inside of you that alerts you, and it will bring a guilty conscience, you may have heard the phrase said.
SPEAKER_00: It's something on the inside of you that's internally wired that says the difference between right and wrong.
SPEAKER_00: But how many of you know your conscience can be misled?
SPEAKER_00: Your conscience can be misinformed.
SPEAKER_00: You you can allow it to become callous over time.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want to talk to you today about redeeming your conscience.
SPEAKER_00: I want to talk to you today about having a clean a cleansed conscience.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because it postures you to hear God more clearly.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to talk about your conscience, but I also want to talk about an inner witness.
SPEAKER_00: Two phrases I'm gonna use today.
SPEAKER_00: An inner witness in scripture in Romans chapter 8, uh, he says, My spirit testifies or bears witness with the spirit of God that says I'm a child of God.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, God's spirit is speaking to your spirit.
SPEAKER_00: You don't just have to depend on your conscience to make it through this thing called life, praise God, because sometimes our conscience gets it wrong.
SPEAKER_00: You can actually listen to the voice of God.
SPEAKER_00: And often when we talk about hearing God, people's first objection is, well, I can't hear God.
SPEAKER_00: And often often what um they mean by that is they can't hear him with their ears.
SPEAKER_00: And often we think of hearing, we we think, okay, well, I'm used to listening, and the place that I listen is with my ears.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to encourage you today that actually the Lord's not looking to speak to your ears today, he's looking to speak to your spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I speak English and only English.
SPEAKER_00: And often I'm waiting for God to speak to me in English, but here's what I want you to know.
SPEAKER_00: If God is a spiritual being, then how's he gonna speak to me?
SPEAKER_00: In a spiritual way.
SPEAKER_00: His spirit is gonna speak to my spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So today, what I want to do, and I'm not trying to be complicated, I'm gonna digress from this, but I just want to paint this up front.
SPEAKER_00: You have a conscience and you have a spirit.
SPEAKER_00: You have an inner witness.
SPEAKER_00: Listening to the voice of God is more than just going with your gut, and it's more than just trusting in your conscience.
SPEAKER_00: However, God wants to use all of those things to bear witness with your spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want to share this story with you today of a guy in the Bible named David, who I think we can grasp this understanding, this concept really clearly from this morning.
SPEAKER_00: David, if you know him, he's a guy who was a shepherd in the Bible, and God came and sent a prophet named Samuel, who anointed him as the next king of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: The only problem is there already was a king.
SPEAKER_00: And God sends Samuel to anoint David a prophet, and he didn't head straight to the palace, he stayed in the field.
SPEAKER_00: But many of you know the rest of the story.
SPEAKER_00: And the next piece of the story is David goes and he slays Goliath.
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, David's name becomes a household name.
SPEAKER_00: He becomes a national hero.
SPEAKER_00: David, they say, David has slayed his ten thousands, while Saul, who was the sitting king, only slayed a thousands.
SPEAKER_00: And so David is being elevated, and people are looking at David, and how many of you know that made King Saul the happiest man alive?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, Saul throws a spear at David, and Saul's now chasing David and hunting David down to take David's life.
SPEAKER_00: And we pick up today's story where David is hiding out in a cave in the darkness.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't glamorous, this isn't the palace, this isn't what he always dreamed, this is not how he thought it would go.
SPEAKER_00: How many of y'all ever had something you thought was gonna go one way and it went a different way?
SPEAKER_00: And it's in the middle of that cave and in the middle of the darkness where David needs to hear from God.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I want to encourage you today, how you handle your conscience today determines and positions you for what happens in the darkness of the cave tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: And what I love about David is he was sensitive to the things of God.
SPEAKER_00: He was not perfect, but his heart was leaned in.
SPEAKER_00: And because his heart was leaned in, I believe we read this story, and had we have read it any differently, had David have acted any differently in this moment, we may have been reading a different story.
SPEAKER_00: And in Samuel chapter 16, here's the story, or Samuel chapter 24.
SPEAKER_00: Now David and his men were sitting in the innermost parts of the cave, and the men of David said to him, All right, Saul is chasing David for his life, and Saul comes in, the Bible says, to use the restroom, and when he comes in to use the restroom in the cave, David and his men are hiding out.
SPEAKER_00: Talk about a vulnerable position in life.
SPEAKER_00: And the men of David said to him, Here is the day of which the Lord said to you, Behold, I will give your enemy into your hand, and you shall do to him as it shall seem good to you.
SPEAKER_00: Then David arose and stealthily cut off the corner of Saul's robe, and afterward David's heart struck him, because he had cut off a corner of Saul's robe.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, David saying, What I just did was wrong.
SPEAKER_00: His heart, something inside of his heart leapt, his gut punched him.
SPEAKER_00: Something is wrong about this.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what he said.
SPEAKER_00: He said to his men, The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my Lord, the Lord's anointed, to put my hand out against him, seeing that King Saul is the Lord's anointed.
SPEAKER_00: So David persuaded all the men in the cave with him with these words, and did not permit them.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, he did not allow, he took authority in that moment, and he did not permit them to attack Saul.
SPEAKER_00: And Saul rose up and he left the cave and he went on his way.
SPEAKER_00: He has no idea what just happened.
SPEAKER_00: And in verse 10, behold, this day your eyes have seen how the Lord gave you today, David is declaring this to Saul, into my hand in the cave.
SPEAKER_00: And some people told me to kill you, but I spared you.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, David is saying, I didn't listen to the wrong voices.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody around me was saying to do it.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody around me was saying I was entitled to it.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody around me said, This is what God wants for you.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, But I did not do it, I did not put out my hand against the Lord, for he is the Lord's anointed.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 11, see, my father, see the corner of your robe in my hand.
SPEAKER_00: For by the fact that I cut off the corner of your robe and did not kill you, you may know, and you may see that there is no wrong or treason in my hands.
SPEAKER_00: I have not sinned against you, I've kept a clear conscience.
SPEAKER_00: Though you hunt my life to take it.
SPEAKER_00: May the Lord judge between you and me, may the Lord avenge me against you, but my hand shall not be against you.
SPEAKER_00: Verse sixteen, and Saul lifted up his voice and wept.
SPEAKER_00: He said to David, You are more righteous than I, for you have repaid me good, whereas I have repaid you evil, and you have declared this day how you have dwelt dealt with me, and that you did not kill me when the Lord put you into my hands.
SPEAKER_00: For if a man finds his enemy, will he let him go away safe?
SPEAKER_00: Like who does that?
SPEAKER_00: So may the Lord reward you with good for what you have done to me this day.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to this line.
SPEAKER_00: And now, behold, I know that you shall surely be king, and that the kingdom of Israel shall be established in your hand.
SPEAKER_00: What a story.
SPEAKER_00: David is hiding out in the cave, hiding from his enemy, and his enemy walks in and is right in front of him.
SPEAKER_00: And in that moment, everybody around David is saying, David, this is your moment.
SPEAKER_00: This is must be what God meant when he told you as a young shepherd boy that one day you would be the king.
SPEAKER_00: This must be the part, David, where you kill Saul and you take your rightful place.
SPEAKER_00: And all the wrong voices are speaking into David's life.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever been in the cave and had all the wrong voices speaking to you?
SPEAKER_00: You deserve this.
SPEAKER_00: It's time.
SPEAKER_00: This is your moment.
SPEAKER_00: And David is in the cave and he's having to have this barrage of thoughts.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, but sometimes it's in the dark places of our life that our thoughts get the loudest, and sometimes it's not the thoughts of other people, sometimes it's our own.
SPEAKER_00: And in this moment, David is wrestling the thoughts of other people who are violating their conscience, who are going against what is wrong.
SPEAKER_00: David is having to wrestle with his own thoughts and deal with his own conscience in this moment.
SPEAKER_00: And there's something that rises up inside of David.
SPEAKER_00: It says that his heart struck him.
SPEAKER_00: Now, how many, we got any King James people out there?
SPEAKER_00: Y'all been, you know, your granny's Bible, right?
SPEAKER_00: Just King James only Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, the King James Version says it this way: that David's heart smote him.
SPEAKER_00: Say that word, smote.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't that just make you feel good?
SPEAKER_00: I want to smote somebody, you know, like I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Like in other words, here's what the translation of that really gets down to.
SPEAKER_00: David's heart punched him.
SPEAKER_00: David's heart punched his conscience.
SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, this ain't right.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, it doesn't matter what everybody else is saying.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter what everybody else wants to do.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I love about what David's conscience did to him in this moment.
SPEAKER_00: David's conscience kept him positioned to do what God had planned for him to do all along.
SPEAKER_00: But how many of you know it didn't come without a fight?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about the fight of a sword.
SPEAKER_00: Because instead of pulling the sword, he put the sword away.
SPEAKER_00: And he allowed the sword of the spirit, he allowed his faith to fight a battle for him.
SPEAKER_00: And I love the story because here's what I think.
SPEAKER_00: I think oftentimes we are in the same battle David's in.
SPEAKER_00: We have all these voices speaking to us, all these influences, all these noises.
SPEAKER_00: And like David, we have to make a decision.
SPEAKER_00: Are we going to keep our conscience clear to the place that when it's ready to punch us, we're ready to listen?
SPEAKER_00: It's this idea, I want you to know this.
SPEAKER_00: Your conscience is not infallible.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, uh, your conscience isn't always attuned to the right things.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe somebody trained your conscience the wrong direction.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe there's been times in your life where you've listened to voices for far too long and now you're numb to your conscience.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's not infallible, but guess what?
SPEAKER_00: It can be redeemed.
SPEAKER_00: It can be positioned to say, God, I want the things that you want for me.
SPEAKER_00: God, I want to do the things that you want me to do.
SPEAKER_00: God, I'm going to listen to your voice over the voices in this world.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to prioritize your word in my life.
SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what David did.
SPEAKER_00: Because when everybody around him said, Hey, David, this is your moment, take it.
SPEAKER_00: David made this decision.
SPEAKER_00: David made the decision.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I'm not going to allow you to twist the word of God in my life because God never told him.
SPEAKER_00: Do you notice that?
SPEAKER_00: Everybody around him is saying, This is what God said.
SPEAKER_00: How many know sometimes even Christians will encourage you to do things that God never said to do?
SPEAKER_00: That's dangerous.
SPEAKER_00: That's hard.
SPEAKER_00: And your spirit and your conscience need to be prepared to receive God's word and not their word.
SPEAKER_00: And in this moment, here's what David knows.
SPEAKER_00: David knows, no, actually, the Lord forbid that I would ever touch the Lord's anointed.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, David says, I'm not putting my hands on Saul the king.
SPEAKER_00: But David, you're supposed to be the king.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, when God says it's time for me to be the king, I'll be the king.
SPEAKER_00: There's a big difference.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to see the power of what happened here.
SPEAKER_00: Because David listened to his heart.
SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, you don't see the word conscience.
SPEAKER_00: He's using the word heart here.
SPEAKER_00: You'd only see the word conscience used in the New Testament, but it's actually translated from almost the exact same word.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what he's saying here.
SPEAKER_00: David is saying, in this moment, he says, The Lord forbid that I would do that.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, he held on to God's word, and his conscience and his spirit were prepared and ready to come in alignment with what God had already said.
SPEAKER_00: So here's what I'm saying: the way you hear God is through his word.
SPEAKER_00: The way you hear God is through the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: The way you hear God is through trusted voices.
SPEAKER_00: But one of the ways that you hear God is through your conscience and your inner witness, the Bible calls it, aligning together to hear what God would tell you.
SPEAKER_00: And what if it would keep you from killing the king when you were never supposed to kill the king?
SPEAKER_00: What if it would save you from jumping off the cliff when you were never supposed to jump off the cliff?
SPEAKER_00: What if it would save you from the job that you were never supposed to take because the Lord didn't want you to take it?
SPEAKER_00: And listen, in this moment, David is having to do the exact same things that we do.
SPEAKER_00: And what I love is that his heart was sensitive enough to the things of God to hear when the Lord was punching his gut.
SPEAKER_00: Get together and say, I'm gonna punch you a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: So today's message, just so you know, is one of those, I'm gonna punch you a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: It's not because I don't like you, it's because I love you.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the Lord would say.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to paint it to you this way.
SPEAKER_00: What I love about David is David was not perfect.
SPEAKER_00: David did not get everything right.
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to know this today because sometimes it's easy to look at characters in the Bible and think, well, they're in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: They had it all figured out.
SPEAKER_00: No, they're in the Bible because they didn't have it all figured out.
SPEAKER_00: And when they learned to trust God, and when they learned to listen to their inner voice, and when they learned to align their spirit with the Spirit of God, here's what begins to happen.
SPEAKER_00: We see their lives unfold and what God can do with a bunch of people who don't get it.
SPEAKER_00: And when I think about this, I uh what I love about David, he wasn't always perfect, but the aim of his life, the direction of his life was pointed in the right direction.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's what I'm here to tell you today.
SPEAKER_00: Your conscience, you didn't always get it right growing up.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're just like me, and maybe there's some things that came along and you weren't okay with it at first, but somewhere along the way you lost sight and you don't know what happened, but you ended up way down here when you started over there, and you're wondering how to get back over there.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I'm here to tell you change the aim and the direction of your life.
SPEAKER_00: This is not a joke.
SPEAKER_00: Four pastors got together to go quail hunting.
SPEAKER_00: True story.
SPEAKER_00: I was one of them.
SPEAKER_00: The guide stood in the middle and two on each side, and the guide said, I have one rule today, and that is this the guns stay between 10 and 2.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care where the bird goes.
SPEAKER_00: Because we're walking in a line, we're sweeping this field and we're walking down the line.
SPEAKER_00: The guns stay between 10 and 2 because if it's not at 10 and 2, if it's at 3 o'clock, it at me, not the bird.
SPEAKER_00: And all day long I was with this rookie hunter standing right next to me, walking in the field, and I'm walking and I'm walking, and every time that bird would fly over our heads, I'll tell you what he did.
SPEAKER_00: And I looked over at him about midway through the day and I said, Look, I know you're a preacher and stuff, but I don't care.
SPEAKER_00: I said, I'm gonna preach to you.
SPEAKER_00: Don't do it again.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, over and over, he kept saying, I'm so sorry, I didn't intend to do that.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I don't care what you intended to do, I care about where you're aiming the barrel of that gun.
SPEAKER_00: And what this message is, is this it's not about our intentions, it's about our aim.
SPEAKER_00: And just because I'm aimed in the right direction didn't mean I hit the bird every time.
SPEAKER_00: But at least I'm aimed in the right direction.
SPEAKER_00: At least we're staying in safe territory.
SPEAKER_00: At least we're protecting ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want to give you two aims this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And the first aim is this make it your aim to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Make it your aim in life.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna make it a priority.
SPEAKER_00: I want to listen to God's voice more than I want to listen to the other voices.
SPEAKER_00: That is a commitment you have to make.
SPEAKER_00: That is reflective of David's spirit.
SPEAKER_00: David knew, I'm not gonna get it right all the time, but if God's going, I'm going.
SPEAKER_00: If God's speaking, I'm listening.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what I want us to grasp because the challenge is there are too many voices telling us what to do.
SPEAKER_00: There are too many voices telling us what to do.
SPEAKER_00: Don't believe me?
SPEAKER_00: Reach in your back pocket.
SPEAKER_00: It's right here all day long.
SPEAKER_00: I think more voices coming to you than ever before.
SPEAKER_00: The other day I was sitting on my back porch and I was looking up at the clouds and I was like, wow, the clouds move.
SPEAKER_00: I'm serious.
SPEAKER_00: I thought, when was the last time I just sat here and watched clouds move?
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's been a while.
SPEAKER_00: 2008, the iPhone came out, you know?
SPEAKER_00: It's like you think I'm being silly, but I'm being serious.
SPEAKER_00: There's so many voices in our life we have to make a commitment.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to prioritize.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to make it my aim to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit more than I listen to the wrong voices in my life.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because look at what David had right in front of him.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody around him said, This is your moment.
SPEAKER_00: This is what God said would happen.
SPEAKER_00: Now's your time.
SPEAKER_00: Well, can I tell you?
SPEAKER_00: They were twisting the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: God never said, David, you're gonna kill a king.
SPEAKER_00: God said, David, you will be a king.
SPEAKER_00: And there is a big difference in there.
SPEAKER_00: Because had David have killed Saul, I'm telling you the story would have looked a lot different.
SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you, God has a word for you.
SPEAKER_00: You don't just want a good word, you want God's word.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a difference.
SPEAKER_00: And so sometimes I think we have to be really careful in this area.
SPEAKER_00: I want to give you some scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, the wrong voices told David to follow his heart.
SPEAKER_00: The wrong voices whispered to David and said, This is your chance, David.
SPEAKER_00: Be careful of listening to voices that sound like God but aren't.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because David's friends' consciences were misleading him.
SPEAKER_00: They were instructing him to go away.
SPEAKER_00: He was not intended to go.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to what some of Scripture says.
SPEAKER_00: This is why we have to be cautiously optimistic about our conscience.
SPEAKER_00: This is why we have to be cautious.
SPEAKER_00: Because Judges chapter 21, verse 25 says this.
SPEAKER_00: In those days, everyone was doing what was right in his own eyes.
SPEAKER_00: My truth is my truth, your truth is your truth, is what this implies.
SPEAKER_00: This is not a good verse in the Bible, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: This is not saying do this.
SPEAKER_00: This is what they were blaming the moral chaos of the day on.
SPEAKER_00: This is what they were saying.
SPEAKER_00: This is what happened.
SPEAKER_00: When everybody follows their own truth, listening to their own voices, the problem is your heart can lead you astray.
SPEAKER_00: And listen, I know I sound like I'm at the other people in your life, but let's just for a minute turn the tables on us.
SPEAKER_00: Let's point the aim on us.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the worst voice in my life is not the voices of other people.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the worst voice in my life is my own.
SPEAKER_00: If you've ever been there, especially in a dark cave, you know this to be true.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you'll start thinking thoughts that are not helpful to you.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you'll start feeling feelings that are not put there by God.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you will have these moments where you're going down a path.
SPEAKER_00: And listen, you have to be careful of this.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to what Proverbs says.
SPEAKER_00: He who trusts in his own heart is a fool.
SPEAKER_00: There's nowhere in the Bible that just says, trust your heart, it'll be okay.
SPEAKER_00: There's nowhere in the Bible that says, if you just follow your heart, it's the will of God.
SPEAKER_00: People are always asking, how do I know what God's will is for my life?
SPEAKER_00: Well, like 9.99999 times out of ten, my heart isn't lined in the right direction.
SPEAKER_00: And I have to do some surgery.
SPEAKER_00: I have to go in and do some correction.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah 17, 9, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.
SPEAKER_00: Who can know it?
SPEAKER_00: Y'all encouraged today?
SPEAKER_00: Somebody say, I'm encouraged.
SPEAKER_00: What?
SPEAKER_00: This is why it's important.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just, I'm not at you today.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just painting the picture about why it's important that you make it a priority to listen to God's voice.
SPEAKER_00: That's why you make it a priority.
SPEAKER_00: Because here's what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible teaches that your conscience can be these things, that your conscience can be weak.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I really needed that one today.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible teaches that your conscience can be defiled.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible teaches that your conscience can be seared.
SPEAKER_00: To be seared is to be skin branded by a hot iron, and the skin is no longer sensitive.
SPEAKER_00: It's all numb.
SPEAKER_00: So if the Bible's telling us these things, then it's really important that we allow the Lord to redeem our conscience.
SPEAKER_00: That we get to a place where we say, Lord, I am listening for your voice, and I am instructing my conscience to get in alignment with your word over my word.
SPEAKER_00: With your heart over my heart.
SPEAKER_00: With your ways over my ways.
SPEAKER_00: It uh reminds me a little bit, um, you know, the makers of a smoke alarm are just, you know, must be related to Lucifer.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just telling you.
SPEAKER_00: Because they made it where it will only chirp and beep to alert you that the battery needs replaced at 3 a.m., somebody.
SPEAKER_00: You don't testify, amen?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Like never, ever in my life have I been sitting in my living room at 2 o'clock in the afternoon and the battery go out on a smoke detector.
SPEAKER_00: Only at 3 a.m.
SPEAKER_00: And so I do what every great dad does.
SPEAKER_00: I get up, my kids are awake, people are freaking out, I go and I rip the thing off the ceiling, and I get a drawer and I shove it in there and I close it.
SPEAKER_00: And about three months later, when my wife decides we should, you know, clean out the junk drawer, I'll open it up and I'll be like, oh, I really should put that thing back on the ceiling.
SPEAKER_00: And it takes me all of about like 0.5 seconds to pull the battery out, put a new one in, and put it back up.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I think we treat our conscience the same way.
SPEAKER_00: You see, the chirping is annoying.
SPEAKER_00: And so rather than dealing with the root of the problem, I do whatever I can to silence it.
SPEAKER_00: And in the world we live in, I believe that's why we see the evil in our days, the darkness in our days that we see.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we see the moral chaos in our world that we see is because instead of dealing with the chirping, we shove it in the drawer and pretend like it doesn't exist.
SPEAKER_00: When all it takes is a battery change.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what I want you to know the Lord says, when you stop suppressing the truth, when you come to him, he can redeem what has been lost and he can make it right again.
SPEAKER_00: The things in you that grew numb, he can file it away.
SPEAKER_00: Do not judge me for this, but my wife said for Valentine's Day she did not want flowers.
SPEAKER_00: I believed her.
SPEAKER_00: And she said, take me to get a pedicure instead.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, by take you, meaning you want me to pay for it.
SPEAKER_00: And she goes, No, I want you to go get one with me.
SPEAKER_00: So I sat in a pedicure across the street with my hat over my eyes so nobody would see me.
SPEAKER_00: And uh they got to this part where they start filing away the callus on the bottom of your feet.
SPEAKER_00: And when she came out with the cheese grater, I didn't know if she was being rude or there are parts of our life that need filed down.
SPEAKER_00: Because we've grown numb and callous to things we used to not be okay with that now we are comfortable with, that the Lord says, what if, what if this callus is what's making it hard for you to hear from me?
SPEAKER_00: What if you tolerating this sin is what's muddying the water between my communication?
SPEAKER_00: It's not that God is not speaking, it's that maybe sometimes the water that's receiving is not clear.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to the voice of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: The second one is this make it your aim to keep a clear conscience before the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Make it your aim to keep a clear conscience before the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: That means at any point when something inside of your, I'm gonna use all the words, your gut, your inner witness, your heart, your mind, your conscience is out of alignment with the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: You do whatever it takes to make it right before the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I want to paint this picture.
SPEAKER_00: Jazz is gonna come up and we're gonna do an exercise of prayer here in just a minute.
SPEAKER_00: But here's what I here's what I want you to know.
SPEAKER_00: This is all about making it right before the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason this is important, I want to change your paradigm.
SPEAKER_00: The reason this is important is not because God has a list of ten commandments for you to do and you should just do them because he says so.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, listen.
SPEAKER_00: The reason this is important is because the Lord knows that when you obey him and when you keep your conscience clear, here's what you do.
SPEAKER_00: You position yourself to be in his presence.
SPEAKER_00: You position yourself to be closer to him, you position yourself to hear from him.
SPEAKER_00: This is not about being good enough so that you can get to heaven one day.
SPEAKER_00: The blood of Jesus already paid for your life.
SPEAKER_00: And when you say yes to Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you're going to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: But can I tell you, God cares just as much about your life today as he does your life out there one day.
SPEAKER_00: And so what that means is the Lord is saying, and when the muddy water is around you and you're not letting me cleanse you is the problem.
SPEAKER_00: There's a communication barrier.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord says, if you will keep a clear conscience before me, I wonder, I wonder the things that God would say to you.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder the paths that He would instruct for you.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder how you might all of a sudden know that you should turn left instead of right.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder if all of a sudden you would have wisdom come on how to work on your marriage.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder if all of a sudden you would have direction about your purpose in life when you keep a clear conscience.
SPEAKER_00: Here's why this is important.
SPEAKER_00: I want to read this scripture, uh, Hebrews chapter 10, verse 19.
SPEAKER_00: It says this, therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that He has opened for us through the curtain that is through his flesh.
SPEAKER_00: And since we have a great high priest, Jesus, over the house of God, let's what it says, let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed pure with water.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what Jesus wants to do for you.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to cleanse your conscience, and he wants to cleanse your conscience in such a way that now you can hear God in a clearer way.
SPEAKER_00: That you can walk with him and talk with him, that you can be in relationship with him, that you would count Jesus your best friend in life.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, for all the times in your life when voices have led you astray, to know that your best friend's voice could be the voice of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't that change some things?
SPEAKER_00: My daughter, when she was a baby, I couldn't find her.
SPEAKER_00: I heard her in the house somewhere.
SPEAKER_00: I just couldn't figure out where she was.
SPEAKER_00: And so I was running all over the house and looking here and there, and I stumbled into our closet and she was in there laughing, just belly gut laughing like a baby can.
SPEAKER_00: It was the cutest thing ever.
SPEAKER_00: But what she was doing was not so cute.
SPEAKER_00: What she was doing is she had turned over the laundry hamper and had taken a pair of dirty underwear and pulled them over her head.
SPEAKER_00: And she's sitting there with dirty underwear on her head, and she thinks it's hilarious.
SPEAKER_00: And she thinks it's funny.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to tell you, her laugh was cute, but I want to tell you, as her dad, I'm looking at her like, baby girl, you have no idea what you're doing.
SPEAKER_00: You have no idea.
SPEAKER_00: And I tell you that story because I just I wonder how many times the Lord would say this.
SPEAKER_00: Why do you think it's so funny?
SPEAKER_00: Why do you think it's okay?
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord would come over like I did to her and say, let's take that off.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't fit on you.
SPEAKER_00: Let's take it off.
SPEAKER_00: You don't really want to wear that.
SPEAKER_00: And what can happen is when we allow our conscience to be seared, we will wear things we were never designed to wear.
SPEAKER_00: We will do things we were never designed to do.
SPEAKER_00: The thoughts in your mind that you wrestle with, the Lord says, maybe some of those wouldn't be there if we would just cleanse this up a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not about you being better, it's about him being allowed to do his work in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to what happened.
SPEAKER_00: David never touched Saul.
SPEAKER_00: And Saul the king, who had killed thousands, the king, had been to battle and been to war.
SPEAKER_00: He's now weeping like a baby in front of David.
SPEAKER_00: And David didn't take the kingship by his own hands, and now Saul is sitting there and saying to David, one day you're gonna have my spot.
SPEAKER_00: That's what God can do.
SPEAKER_00: God can do the same thing and reveal the same message through a clean and pure heart in such a way that the outcome and the result is everything that he wanted it to be.
SPEAKER_00: And I just wonder for you today, if you came before the Lord and asked him to cleanse your conscience, I wonder what the result might be on the other side.
SPEAKER_00: The areas of your life where you're striving to get there on your own, the Lord says, No, you don't need to strive because I'm gonna do it for you.
SPEAKER_00: I just need you to wait.
SPEAKER_00: The areas of your life where you're looking for answer and wisdom, and you've been looking up on Google for years and years and years, and you've never found the answer, and all of a sudden, overnight, when your conscience is cleansed before the Lord, you're close and you've drawn near and he delivers to you the very thing you've been looking for for a very long time.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, listen, I'm not God.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what the world of possibilities for your life is, but I do know that when we posture ourselves before him, he could do something we could never do on our own.
SPEAKER_00: David didn't have to kill Saul.
SPEAKER_00: Because God was watching over David and was going to perform all the things that he said he would perform for his life, and he did.
SPEAKER_00: When I was a teenager, I did something I shouldn't have done, and I knew.
SPEAKER_00: I knew that I needed to tell my dad.
SPEAKER_00: But how many know I did not want to tell my dad?
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that the funny thing?
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that the interesting?
SPEAKER_00: The irony is that the one place we should be able to go to is the one place on the inside of us that says, stay away.
SPEAKER_00: I remember going to my dad, I told him, and I'll never forget his response.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I love you and I forgive you.
SPEAKER_00: And I was waiting for the and.
SPEAKER_00: You ever wait for the and you know.
SPEAKER_00: And the end never came.
SPEAKER_00: I love you and I forgive you.
SPEAKER_00: And that settled it.
SPEAKER_00: He never talked about it again.
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't grounded for the rest of my life.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what I think.
SPEAKER_00: It showed me that day what a real good father looks like.
SPEAKER_00: One who loves, and one who cares.
SPEAKER_00: And the thing about your stained, dirty conscience is sometimes you think you can't go to the one place you were made to go to.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what the Lord would say.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord would say, through the blood of Jesus Christ on the cross, he already paid the consequence for whatever it is that you feel like you can't take to him.
SPEAKER_00: And what if the one thing he's been waiting on is for you to take your conscience, your inner man, your inner woman to him, and say, Lord, would you make me new?
SPEAKER_00: Would you cleanse me?
SPEAKER_00: Would you bow your heads and close your eyes?
SPEAKER_00: I want to pray for you this morning.