The Heartbeat Of God

I've got a word straight from the Holy Spirit entitled the heartbeat of God, and it's important because it's the heartbeat of God, and so how many of you realize that we are God's heartbeat?

His heart beats for us, it beats for a relationship with us.

He wants us to spend time with him in his word, he wants to get to know us, and so, as we get started, let's just, wherever you are, if you'll just touch your Bible or hold up your Bible, maybe not if you're riding down the road, but let's make a confession together.

And I'm so glad that John Osteen started us into this tradition and that my dad kind of changed it, where we make a different one every broadcast.

So here we go, let's say this together to say Heavenly Father, I'm grateful for Wednesday night.

I open up my heart to you, holy Spirit, have your way, show me areas where I need to change and illuminate your word, to light up my path and to also chisel out any stoniness in my heart, where I can follow you with exact clarity into the next thing that you have for me.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Brother Joseph is watching tonight.

Miss Flora, thank y'all for joining us, amen.

Well, I just wanted to invite you to open your word the word with me here this evening to 1 Corinthians, chapter 2.

1 Corinthians 2 · chapter mention

We're going to haul off and read the whole chapter and spend a good portion of the evening tonight in this chapter together.

And I'm reading out of the NLT and I'm reading out of my really old 1992 NLT, pre-gwc, and I like this version.

So it might not exactly match up to the version that you see on your screen and I'm kind of old school and in about three weeks I've had this Bible, like I said, for forever.

But about three weeks ago or so I switched back as my daily reader and I'm just kind of stuck.

Normally I go back and forth between the New King James and the NLT and I'm just kind of stuck in the NLT.

I've been reading it every day and things have been just illuminating a little bit differently.

And this passage of scripture just hit a little bit different and boom, the Holy Spirit gave me a message.

So I was paying attention.

It says dear brothers and sisters, this is the apostle Paul writing to the Corinthian church.

When I first came to you, I didn't use lofty words and brilliant ideas to tell you God's message, for I decided to concentrate only on Jesus Christ and his death on the cross.

I came to you in weakness, timid and trembling, just basically in humility, and my message and my preaching were very plain, not boring, but simple.

You know, the gospel of Jesus Christ is so simple it takes a biblical theologian to confuse it.

And I'm telling you, there's the plain word of God, the gospel of Jesus Christ, that changes our lives right and it changes others' lives through us.

I did not use wise and persuasive speech, but the Holy Spirit was powerful among you.

I did this so that you might trust the power of God rather than human wisdom.

I did this so that you might trust the power of God rather than human wisdom.

So that's kind of going to be my first point tonight about God's heartbeat.

He reveals his heart through the power of his spirit, and so every time it's talking about God's spirit, the Holy Spirit in this chapter you're going to see a big, you're going to see a capital S, so we're talking about the Holy Spirit.

So he reveals his word to us from his Holy Spirit to our spirit, spirit to spirit, and so he reveals his heart through the power of the Holy Spirit.

And so if you want to be familiar with God's power, you must receive the power of the Holy Spirit on the inside of us, and that evidence comes through speaking in other tongues.

And so that's not the only evidence, but that's the main evidence.

If you don't believe in speaking in other tongues, then you're not receiving the full manifestation of being filled with the Spirit.

And so I'm just going to take a pause break on this verse 5.

I want to read it in the New King James, you don't have to put it up, lee, it's just this one verse that your faith, verse five, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of man but in the power of god.

We don't trust or put our trust in or our faith in man, but we put our faith in the power of God.

And so in my study Bible, in my New King James, there's a kingdom dynamic section, and I just want to read the last sentence because it's pretty.

It's pretty long, but the last sense of the kingdom dynamic says to expect manifestations of the Holy Spirit, not for show or sensation, but as a means for God to validate the glory of the gospel.

And so he validates the glory, his manifested presence, through the power of his spirit, and he does that through each one of us.

You know you're not exempt from exhibiting his power and the power of the Holy Spirit, amen.

And so let's pick it up in verse six.

Yet when I am among mature Christians, I do speak with words of wisdom, but not the kind of wisdom that belongs to this world and not the kind that appeals to the rulers of this world, who are being brought to nothing.

And so you know so, when we speak, we're not preaching man's wisdom, or the wisdom of this world, or the wisdom that even the rulers of the world, the leader, the governmental leaders of this world can understand.

They're not able to understand it.

And so I'm a little bit confused on people, christians nowadays, that go to seed on the scripture of praying for those that have authority over you.

You know, I think some of these Christians today, if they were back in Jesus's day, you, you know, I think some of these Christians today, if they were back in Jesus's day, would pray for Herod and just, oh God, we lift up Herod, we thank you that everything that he'll accomplish, all of that he wants to accomplish no, he wanted to kill Jesus.

That was, you know, 180 degrees opposite of God's will and God's way and God's plan.

And so the same thing is happening in our nation right now with our governmental leaders, and so we don't necessarily pray for them, we pray against their plans.

They're trying to bring down the United States and take away the power, the world power that we are.

The number one power of the world is the United States, and the light that shines furthest shines brightest at home, and so we're believing for our nation.

We know we're holding onto the revelation that God is not through with America and that our governmental system is turning around, and so we're to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, and that includes our government officials, and so we're preaching the gospel to our government, amen.

And so we've done that through my God Votes.

And so it started in Texas, having prayer at the Texas State Capitol, and I'm preaching to the choir.

So all you guys are well aware of everything that we're doing.

But that moved into Oklahoma and now Louisiana, and we just look at the influence at the level of Glorious Way Church and the influence that we've been able to achieve through two new states, and we're praying for clarity on what new states to add in the coming year.

You know Texas will be back online and the other two states, oklahoma and Louisiana, will be in full swing.

So by this time next year we will be in multiple states at the same time.

We already are, but just even more, and so we're praying for clarity on that.

But when we preach and those that preach for us and using the name my God Votes the relationships that we're building they're not preaching.

They're preaching the wisdom that comes straight from the Holy Spirit.

Right and verse 7,.

No, the wisdom we speak of is the secret wisdom of God, which was hidden listen to this which was hidden in former times, though he made it for our benefit, before the world began.

So even before the world began, even before you ever existed in your mother's womb, God had secrets planned for you secret wisdom, a secret way of doing things, a whole different way of thinking, a whole different way of acting and a plan with exact clarity.

And we don't have to guess about what that plan is.

We get to know what his will is, and so the wisdom and we get to speak of that wisdom, we get to our platform is from a place of that wisdom.

It's not a place of ignorance or it's not a place of guessing, but we're 100% confident in God, who gives us all the wisdom, all of his wisdom, that we require.

Amen.

And so, uh, and if you lack wisdom, you can ask right, uh, proverbs tells us that.

So, uh, where was I at?

I was in verse seven.

Uh, so he's he was.

It's been hidden.

Uh, but now, uh, it's it all before the world began.

But the rulers of this world, versus, have not understood it.

If they had, they would have never crucified our glorious Lord.

This is what the scripture means when they say no eye has seen, no ear has heard and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.

And so people read that and they think, oh, my gosh, I can't think.

Oh, god's ways are higher than our ways and his thoughts are higher than our thoughts.

And oh, we'll just never know.

We'll never know what no eye has seen, no ear has heard or no mind has imagined what God has prepared.

I'll never know what God's prepared for me.

No, they stop reading.

But if we keep reading, in verse 10, it says but.

And then in here in the New King James, it says but God.

And so if we were at Lakewood with Pastor John Osteen back in the day.

He would say you know, say but God five times.

But God but God Anyways.

But we know these things because God has revealed them to us.

Say that's me by his spirit, by his Holy Spirit.

And his spirit searches out everything, not 10% of the things, not maybe some of the things, but everything, and shows us, even God's deep secrets.

So you can know, just say that out loud right now.

Say I can know God's deep secrets and that exceeds just about you, right?

And so you could say, hey, god shows me deep secrets about me.

He does, and that would be true.

But it doesn't stop with just you.

You can know deep secrets about your family.

You can know deep secrets about your family.

You can know deep secrets about what's going on in your life, at your office.

You can know deep secrets about all things political things, worldly things, things that are going on all around us.

He has deep secrets that he wants to reveal to you again through his Holy Spirit, right On the inside of us.

We carry, we're carriers of the Holy Spirit.

Verse 11,.

No one can know what anyone else is really thinking except that person alone, and no one can know God's thoughts except God's own spirit.

People again, they stop reading there.

Well, we can't know his thoughts, but that's a big and in verse 12, right, verse 12, and God has actually given us his spirit, not the world's spirit.

Thank God, we don't have the world's spirit, we have his spirit, so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us.

Hallelujah, you can know what he's given us.

And verse 13,.

When we tell you this, we do not use words of human wisdom, but instead we speak words given to us by the spirit, using the spirit's word to explain spiritual truths.

So, thank God, it's not my own wisdom, but I lean on the wisdom of the Holy Spirit and I'm able to speak deep secrets, and it's not just me, you are.

You're able to spend time with the Lord and have him reveal to you deep secrets, and then you're able to speak with certainty those secrets out when the time comes.

Amen, I'm telling you, there is such a lack of knowledge in all directions in our society and we are speakers of spiritual truth, and that spiritual truth is able to be explained according to verse 13.

Those spiritual truths are able to be explained through the power of the Holy Spirit, and so if we want to know God's heartbeat, going back to number one of the Holy Spirit.

And so if we want to know God's heartbeat, going back to number one, he reveals his heart through the power of the Holy Spirit.

He reveals that wisdom and those spiritual truths through the power of the Holy Spirit and we know his spirit.

We carry that spirit on the inside.

Therefore, we know the deep secrets of God.

Amen.

But verse 14, people who aren't Christians can't understand these truths from God's spirit.

It all sounds not half of them, not some of them, it all sounds foolish to them, because only those who have the spirit can understand what the spirit means.

So when you go talk into these truths, you know there's a different.

I'll go back real quick.

So we're in verse 14, but but way back when we first started this chapter, he talked about the gospel being plain and simple.

Right, it uses the word plain, it just really means simple.

Way back here in verse four, talking about the gospel.

And so the gospel is able to be understood.

And once somebody receives Jesus in their heart, they accept gospel as truth.

Then they can begin to grow up in spiritually and then they can understand the Holy Spirit and the deep secrets of the Lord and they can understand God's will for their life and they don't have to guess.

But there's a process of maturing in the Lord and growing up.

And so when you're sharing the word of God with somebody, if they're not a believer, keep it simple, keep it on the things that Jesus accomplished and and uh, the simple truths of the gospel.

Amen, uh.

But.

But that should uh, signs and wonders should, um, should go right along with that.

Amen, that's what Jesus said.

He's anointed to heal the brokenhearted, and so on and so forth.

Verse 15, he who I'm sorry, we who have the spirit, understand these things, but others can't understand it at all.

How could they?

And then here's one of those scriptures that gets quoted a lot, for it says who can know what the Lord is thinking, who can give him counsel?

But we can understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ, so we can know what the Lord is thinking.

You can think the thoughts of God just by having your mind renewed by his word Amen.

And so there's a process that happens.

It's not overnight, it's not an instant thing necessarily, although it can happen quicker, but our mind is renewed by the word of God, and the more you read.

You know.

I was talking to Pastor Joseph here recently and he was using the analogy of going fishing.

We're all fishers of men, so we're fishing right.

And so when you catch a fish, you got to clean them, you got to gut them and you got to get them ready.

And so gutting them gets rid of all of the poop, it gets rid of all of the baggage that they're carrying around.

And then you clean them up, you teach them who they are in Christ, you teach them that they've been redeemed and that they've been justified, just as if they've never sinned right.

And then they're clean, then they're useful, and then the analogy really for me, switches to being a sheep.

And a sheep grows wool right and they feed in this pasture and they're part of the sheep fold and under their pastor, the shepherd, and occasionally I get to watch after you know, my father's sheep, like David did, and sometimes I get to kill lions and wolves and bears and protect the sheep.

And this Sunday, pastor will be right back in the pulpit and I'll be a sheep again and I'll be feeding in this pasture, learning just like you, and where my wool can become thick and I'm able to be sheared and I'm able to sustain life with life-giving warmth right Through being a productive sheep.

And so that's what it's all about.

It's all about discipleship around here.

It's all about raising up believers who are strong in what they know and who they know and who they are in Christ, amen.

And so we can understand what the Lord is thinking and who can give him counsel.

But we can understand these things, for we, so we have the mind of Christ that we're able to give counsel, amen.

And so, number two it goes really back to verse five, to just put your trust in the power of the Holy Spirit, put your trust in God, put your trust in the power of the Holy Spirit, put your trust in God, put your trust in the Spirit.

And then, and not in the wisdom of man and not in men at all, our trust is in the Lord who made heaven and earth.

Amen.

He's our maker, and we serve him with all of our heart.

And then, number three I just want to go back to this last verse.

Last Sunday morning, james was in the pulpit and he was preaching a message entitled the Cost of Doing Nothing, and so that was a really good message.

I heard some of the beginning, and then I went into children's church and I led praise and worship and then I came back and I heard the last, I don't know 15 or so minutes, and it was so good.

And he turned over to the book of Jude and he began to talk, to read the.

I'm just going to go ahead and read it in the New Living Translation Jude, verse three and four.

And so, jude, I just think it's significant that you know.

Paul warned, you know, okay, let's start with Jesus.

Matthew 24 warned his disciples and us to not be deceived.

And then Paul warned us over and over and over again not to be deceived.

He warns Timothy specifically not to be deceived and he even named some names of some false prophets and some bad people and so on and so forth.

Then Peter gets to preach two books of the Bible and in those two books he talks about the last days and false prophets and the dangers of false teaching and he tells us not to be deceived.

But here we have the book of Jude.

Jude is Jesus's brother and he only has one chapter in the Bible.

It's right before the book of Revelation.

And Jude he kind of admits hey, you know verse three.

I have been eagerly planning to write to you about the salvation we all share, but hey, instead I got to write to you about something else.

That's more urgent.

That's even more urgent.

And I must write about something else, urging you to defend the truth of the good news.

Defend the truth of the good news.

God gave us this unchanging truth once for all time to his holy people, verse four.

I say this because some godless people have wormed their way into among you, saying that God's forgiveness allows us to live a more lives, and the fate of such people was determined long ago, for they have turned against our only master and Lord, jesus, jesus Christ.

And so there's some woke churches out there and there's just some dead churches out there.

And I just think it's significant that Jude only having one chapter, only getting one chapter in and he has to talk about this as well.

And so, you know, last week Brother Jerry Savelle went to be with the Lord and we're gonna miss him.

He was one of our generals in the faith and I know, sunday before that, my dad, or the Sunday before this last one, you know, talked about Brother Jerry and how much he meant to us and how much I just think back to Champions for Christ Youth Conference I believe it was 2017, 2018, somewhere in there was one of his first messages back, and definitely, you know, after he had a stroke.

And so he had a debilitating stroke that really was life-changing, and just he couldn't remember who his wife was, his kids were, he couldn't remember his name, he couldn't speak, he couldn't move, he couldn't walk, and God miraculously healed him over a very short amount of time and so they were able to send him home.

He still couldn't talk and one of his arms was all messed up and he was kind of limping around.

But he made it into his garage and he began to start all those classic cars and all those classic motorcycles and he started every single one of them and then went back around and shut them all off and as he was walking out, he was instantly healed and he began to talk to his granddaughter.

It was just an amazing, amazing miracle, and so you know he told that story there at Champions for Christ that year.

We got to hear it, but his title was just about not quitting Quitting is not an option.

There you go.

Quitting is not an option.

There you go.

Quitting is not an option.

And so that just got on the inside of me and I prepared a three-minute clip out of his last message.

And his last message that Brother Jerry preached on this earth really was life-changing, but it's the same thing.

He devoted a significant portion of his last message warning us about not being deceived, and so I've got Lee tonight to roll that footage.

Please roll that clip.

From me.

I'll do my part, okay.

So once again, stay in faith.

Why is that so important's not a suggestion, it is a command to just shall live by faith.

Not only that, the Bible says this is the victory to overcome the world, even our faith.

And as you know, the world we are living in today.

It's not the same world we were living in just five years ago.

It's not getting any better.

In fact, it's headed the same world we were living in just five years ago.

It's not getting any better.

In fact, it's headed for worse times.

But that doesn't mean they have to affect us if we stay in faith.

Remember Jesus' disciples asked him and it's recorded in Matthew, chapter 24, tell us the signs of the end.

Matthew 24 · chapter mention

And one of the first things he said to them was this don't let anybody deceive you.

So that tells me that as we get closer and closer to the appearing of the Lord, deception will be running rampant in the earth, and it's our responsibility to not allow anybody to deceive us.

Now you might think well, he's talking about the ungodly.

No, there's just as many deceivers standing behind pulpits as are ungodly, amen.

So you need to know the words so that you can rightly divide, you know, I mean there's there's some preachers I'm just not going to listen to.

I've worked too hard to get my faith at the level it is and I'm not going to let some unbelieving preacher destroy it in one hour, amen.

So he said see to it that no man deceives you.

And then the second most important thing he said was and he described all the trouble, the earthquakes, the was.

And he described all the trouble the earthquakes, the famine, the pestilence, all the things.

And of course we're experiencing that now.

We may not be at the very end of the end, but we certainly are in it, amen.

And he even said when you see all these things, the end is not yet, but I'm preparing you.

And one of the things he said was next see all these things, the end is not yet, but I'm preparing you.

And one of the things he said was next, the most important thing after don't be deceived, see that you be not troubled.

See that you be not troubled.

I wrote in my Bible, the first time I read, that it's possible for me to live in a troubled world without trouble, amen.

It's possible for you to live with trouble all around and you not be affected by it.

See that you may not trouble.

That's why it's important to stay in faith, because if you, if you let go of your faith, then you're you're, you're going to invite all that chaos into your spirit and the next thing you know you'll be talking it and you know as well as I do there are, there is power in your words and you're going to bring upon what you don't want in your life Moving right along.

So don't be deceived and see that you're being out of trouble.

That's why you need to stay in faith.

Then, number two, remain focused on the promises of God.

God has promises that cover every detail of our lives, every minute detail of our lives.

Amen.

So it's possible for us to live in a troubled world and not be troubled ourselves, amen.

So Jesus talking in Matthew 24, verse four don't let anyone mislead you.

That's a little bit watered down maybe in the NLT, but don't let anyone mislead you.

Obviously he's talking about don't refuse to be deceived, right.

And so we must be willing to defend our faith and know why we believe what we believe and know exactly what we believe right and be confident in that.

And we do that by growing up spiritually in the word, sitting under sound doctrine, good teaching.

I'm always amazed at how many people they want to turn on any preacher that's preaching on YouTube and fill up on that.

And it's like we got really good teaching and preaching right here from this church.

And then I see people get a little bit squirrely and then a little bit more often, a little bit, and it's like, and all of a sudden the gap grows and grows and grows until they end up believing something completely different.

It just we were in a church not long ago and it's kind of a long story, but at first I noticed, like the pastor's wife, she didn't pray in the name of Jesus and I thought, okay, well, I won't be critical.

Maybe she just forgot and then.

But it stuck out to me like a sore thumb and I realized no prayer prayed that day, nobody prayed in the name of Jesus, and then there wasn't any any.

The preacher the pastor preached a message on hope and never talked about faith.

Except there's faith, hope and love, and the greatest of these is love, and that's the only time he mentioned faith was just quoting a scripture, and so I'm so grateful and I say that with humility that we believe what we believe and we teach what we teach.

I don't take it for granted, and I hope you don't either, but I'm telling you it makes a difference in our lives.

It makes a difference on whether we fulfill everything that God's called us to do and all that God's called us to accomplish, amen.

And so, like it said in the NLT back in Jude, we must be able to defend our faith.

And I'm telling you, nothing's going to shake us, nothing's going to steal our faith, nothing's going to talk us out of believing God for great things, and he has so many wonderful, deep secrets to reveal to us as a church corporately, but to you and to me individually, as we spend time in God's word and are transformed.

Our mind and our thinking is transformed.

Amen, like Romans 12, talks about Romans 12 too, and so I'm telling you, we're going up to the next level in him, amen.

And we're going to be right along with his heartbeat, exactly, you know, in tune with him.

We're not going to jump out ahead of him.

Our hearts aren't beating faster than him.

We're in exact rhythm with his spirit, amen.