Hearing From God

So tonight let's get into the Word of God.

I've got some something to teach you tonight.

Let's lift our Bibles up, wave them around, make Jesus glad in the devil mad.

Let's say this together, say, heavenly Father, I'm so glad for Wednesday night live stream and I've tuned in with a hungry heart, with a teachable spirit, and I don't know everything, even if I hear some things that I've heard before, I'm gonna hear them with fresh ears.

I'm gonna hear with a fresh anointing, because I know it means more to me tonight than it did at any other time.

It's jailer made for me in Jesus' name, and that's right.

That's what the Word of God will do.

It's tailor made for you all the time.

Let's turn in our Bibles to two places First Joshua, chapter one, and also Romans, chapter eight, and Joshua one.

God is speaking to Joshua and we read verses one through six Sunday morning.

But verse eight, this book of the law, in other words the Bible, only thing that Joshua had was the first five books that Moses wrote.

That's all he had of the Bible, but it's true of this Word that we have tonight.

This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate.

You shall meditate therein day and night, that you may observe, to do according to all that is written therein, for then you shall make your way prosperous and then you shall have good success.

And then, in Romans eight, verse 14, a verse that we've shared many, many times For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

And I like to turn it around, because if that is true, and it is true, then we could say for as many as are sons of God, then they are led by the Spirit of God.

So tonight I wanted to share a message entitled Hearing from God.

You know I teach on this subject many different ways Tonight's a little different way, as I mentioned Sunday morning.

Sometimes we climb the mountain one direction, get to the top.

Sometimes we'll come back on the backside of the mountain and come up a little different way.

So I wanted to share some things with you.

This time of the year is kind of special to me.

I guess I opened up that whole idea of thinking when I was preaching on Sunday about putting your foot down, and we preached out of Joshua ever, that where the soul of your foot shall tread.

That have I given you and I was reminded of what God told me when my father in the faith, pastor John Osteen, went to heaven.

God encouraged me with many of these verses here, and so it kind of reminded me of how I had to hear from God at different points of my life.

And you know, god's will is not hidden from you, it's hidden for you, and we have to relate to the Father through the Word and the Spirit.

You know, I find still that most people really don't ever spend long enough time really in God's presence to find out what God wants.

They make an emotional decision many times, they're faced with a deadline many times and they just they kind of halt and they go back and forth and finally they just kind of close their eyes and pull the trigger and hope for the best.

Well, you know, god's got a better way.

God's got a better way to always know what his will is, and so believers have a right you have a Bible right to know what God's will is in any situation.

You know, and we've said this many times but I say it again tonight the Word of God, this logos, is God's general will.

This is what tells husbands how to treat wives, wives how to treat husbands, how to treat their children, how children should treat their parents, so forth and so on.

I mean, what type of person to marry?

You know, on and on there's the general will of God, but then if you want the specific will of God, that comes from the Holy Spirit, it comes from the spirit inspired Word, or what we call the Ramah of God.

And either way, when we have that, that's the specific will, and shipwreck can occur when shortcuts are taken.

You know, I've seen people just make emotional decisions.

I've snapped decisions when they should have held.

You know, let's hold on, let's count to ten and let's make sure that we make a spirit led decision.

Let's hear from God on major decisions.

I'm not speaking about micromanaging your life.

You know you can go too far with anything.

I mean, I like what my pastor used to say.

You know, if you've got peace, we'll just keep following peace.

If God hadn't said anything to you, we'll just keep doing what you're doing.

Don't, don't frustrate the grace of God by always.

I've seen people just get all in a I'll preach, something like this, and they'll start wondering well, I wonder if, if, if I've missed God and that's why I'm going through this trouble.

Well, no, trouble happens to everyone, whether you've missed God or not.

So it's not necessarily a time to start trying to micromanage your pathway.

But on the flip side, when you're changing careers or when you're you've got changing jobs or you've got a decision to make whether you know to, to move from one place to another, a marriage or anything you know out of the ordinary Well, you know, it's good to know this word that we're going to share with you tonight and in fact it's just pretty well the pattern that I took to hear from God about whether to start this church.

So it's kind of a special to me, if nothing else, and it's my testimony kind of wrapped in there, and I trust it'll bless you.

So we could call this the guide for success in hearing from God.

How about that?

Because God wants you to be successful.

He does not want you hung out to dry.

He does not want you suffering, you know, to teach you some kind of lesson.

No, he wants you to be blessed.

He wants you, he paid for your blessing, you are blessed, amen.

And he wants you to be successful.

So we've got these verses that we read and let's just start off.

I've got one, two, three, four, five.

I may not get to all five of them tonight, but I'm going to share as much as I can.

The first idea is that we need for success in hearing from God is we need saturation.

Saturation, the state of maximum fullness of God's Word.

Where do I get that?

Where does that?

Where does it say that?

Well, in verse eight, joshua 1,8,.

It says this book of the law, in other words, the Bible, shall not depart.

It will not depart out of your mouth.

In other words, you have got the Word of God on your lips all the time.

See, you're saturated, you're saturated, and so as you get saturated in the Word, it takes time and dedication.

And so if you stay in the Word, when it comes time for you to hear from God about a certain thing, you're already mostly there.

You're not going to have to go back and cram for the final.

That's where people you know, when you're kind of dried out to begin with and you're in the middle of doldrums, spiritual doldrums and all of a sudden you've got to make a decision and you hadn't read your Bible in six months, well, you know, it's pretty hard position to be in.

You're going to have to do some work to get saturated.

So my testimony is I was on a trip with Brother Osteen and it was a summer of 1994 and my business was bad shape.

I wasn't paying the bills and I had to go to work for another builder to get cash flow to pay my salary.

He paid my company and my company paid me.

So I wasn't working directly for him.

But you know, I told Brother Osteen on the on the trip that I'm sick and tired of lack and when I get back to Houston I'm going to find out what's wrong.

I know the Word always works and I've gone through this so much.

I'm going to I must have missed God.

I'm going to find out what happened.

And so I began to make a commitment to make a special effort to spend extra time reading my Bible when I got home.

And you know, 2nd Timothy 316, that all Scripture is given for reproof and correction.

And correction doesn't mean spanking, it doesn't mean chewing out.

Correction just means turning you, turning you in the correct direction.

I mean, don't you do that when you're driving down the road.

Nobody can just go there with their their hands frozen on the steering wheel.

What do you have to do?

Well, you have to just make little minor corrections as you drive down the road, because your tires and front end aren't perfect.

So you just got to make little corrections and then when you go around a corner, you got to make a bigger correction.

Well, that's all that the Word of God is to is to help you move in the right direction that God has for you, and so I made that commitment that I would do that.

Saturation and so and then the second one is mentioned here in Joshua is meditation.

Meditation means to mutter, to ponder, to project in the mind the word that applies to your situation, not just any word.

Get the word that applies to your situation and meditate on it.

Find out what the word says about your situation, meditate on that word.

And he told Joshua day and night, day and night, psalm, verse first.

Psalm one, verse two, says day and night.

You know day and night.

And so that see, we can see saturation and meditation kind of almost the same word.

Just there's just a shade of difference between them.

And that's true.

In other words, it all starts with the word.

It does not start with us trying to think, think, think, think.

It starts with praying much in other tongues and making sure that our Bible is open and we're reading the Bible, searching and with our hearts open to hearing what God has to say.

You know, romans 10, 19,.

The Bible says faith coming by hearing and hearing by the word of God Romans 10 19,.

Let's get it in front of our eyes.

I've quoted all the time If you will confess verse nine, if you'll confess with the mouth of Lord Jesus, believe in your heart that God raised him for the dead, you shall be safer.

With the heart, men believes under righteousness of the heart, with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation.

So your confession, your word, the word is coming out of your mouth, that word that you're, that you're meditating on, and faith is is built up.

Praise God, for the scripture says.

For the scripture says whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.

See.

So what are you doing when you're meditating?

Well, you're building your faith, you're, you're tenderizing your heart.

So, day and night.

I mean, you know I just started when I got back home from that trip.

It was hard as far as my, as my finances were and my work situation was, and I just had to make extra time.

So I just get up that much earlier every day and meditate and saturate.

And one day I was reading the story of the prodigal son, and it was just in my normal reading there in Luke, chapter 15.

Luke 15 · chapter mention

And you know the story, the prodigal son, the one that fed to his father, give me the portion of goods that falleth unto me.

And it just came off the page and I realized, you know, I need, I need that, I need, I need the portion of goods that that falls under me.

I need, I need that, I need, I need, I've sown all this seed, I need my inheritance, I need my return on all the seed that I've sown.

And, as it as it was, we had a special prayer meeting one particular night and I was called up on the platform to pray part of that that night.

And I got to pray that very thing from the platform at at Lakewood church.

I got to pray that very prayer out there, you know, and where I'd serve God, you know, and sown my seed.

So saturation, meditation, see, I mean that's just, that's just not a casual well, I just believe God is showing me to do this.

Well, he might be, but, like again, we're talking about major issues.

You know, a job changes Major.

You ought to not do it lightly, you know, or seeking you may be.

You're laid off, you know people are getting laid off.

Or you've got a new position.

Well, that's not a light, just haze.

Now's the time for saturation and meditation and get that word working, and and and let God know that you want His perfect will and he will see to it.

Because, why?

Because he promises that you shall be led by the spirit.

As many as their sons of God.

They are led, they will hear.

When I say hear from God, I don't mean hear a voice, I just mean understanding what he desires for you, amen.

Or if you're in a trouble, you've got a temptation test or trial where there's no, no temptation test or trial that's taking you, but such as common demand first Corinthians, 10, 13,.

But God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above what you're able.

But we'll also, with the temptation, make a way of escape.

So hearing from God is knowing what is the way of escape.

How do I get out of this mess?

I, I, my finances are interrupted, I've been laid off.

Maybe you got a severance package, maybe you got a few dollars.

I pray you do, but when that runs off, runs out, most people don't have means to just keep on going indefinitely.

So now is the time to have saturation meditation, and then the next one is incubation.

So again, all three of these are very similar.

Incubation let's look at Mark, chapter four, and I'm talking about hearing from God.

I'm not talking about micromanaging your life and walking in fear that you're out of the will of God.

I've seen that.

I've seen people so lacking in confidence and so lacking in you know, and they just nervous on this.

Don't be that way about it.

Amen, you walk in peace.

Mark four, verse 26,.

Jesus said so is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground and he should sleep and rise night and day in.

The seed should spring and grow up.

He knoweth not how, for the earth bringeth forth fruit of the river sail, first the blade, then the ear and then the full corn in the ear.

But when the fruit is ripe, when it's brought forth, or it's ripe immediately, he, who's?

He, god know, the one who planted the word you.

He put it in the sickle because the harvest has come.

So what am I talking about?

Incubation is the period of time between infection of, between infection and symptoms coming up.

You know you got infected over here and now symptoms come up.

Or it's the gestation period, you know, or it's seed time.

See, that's what Jesus talking about seed time.

Right there there's a period of time between when you plant the seed and it comes up, first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn.

That takes time, and so it means keeping warm in a favorable condition, kind of like hatching, little hatching eggs into chicks.

Ever been to the rodeo?

You know they have these little places where they have the lights on and they've got the eggs that are ready, you know, for the chicks to come out, and then you'll go by and see one coming out and they peck, see his way out of the egg.

You know, it's just amazing to watch it in person.

You know what had to happen.

You had to have favorable conditions for the hatching to to or the germination, either one.

Either way you want to look at it germination of the seed or the chick coming out of the egg, either one.

You've got to have that right temperature, you've got to have the right conditions, and so it's incubation.

It takes time and attention to detail, hallelujah.

You know, years ago I was in Galveston praying and he said you know many.

He just started talking to me, in my spirit.

He said many just tip their hat to me and go along their merry way, and he said many are satiated.

See, I don't even use that word, satiated, but he said many.

He's talking to me.

He said many are satiated with the cares of this world and the pleasures of this world, and much of the care comes from the pursuit of the pleasure.

And so I think about these things saturation, meditation and incubation.

You become satiated.

With the goodness of God, you become satiated.

The word satiated means gorged, it means filled up to overflowing faith.

And so when you just make up your mind, you're going to hear from God and you shut yourself away from all the distractions as much as you can, you take extra time in the Word, extra time in prayer.

I'm telling you you will hear from God, because he said you would.

You're providing the favorable conditions.

And so then the next step.

I think I can go ahead and preach it tonight.

I'm doing well, on time.

So we've got.

What do we have so far?

We have saturation, meditation and incubation.

All three of these are very similar to each other, but you can kind of see a progression.

You can see a progression in.

Finally you have incubation.

Now you're about to have something.

You're about to have the blade stick up.

You're about to have the chick pick its way out of the egg.

Okay, all right.

So the next one here is illumination, illumination.

Let's look at Matthew, chapter seven, verse 11.

If you then being evil, how to know how to give good gifts under your children, how much more shall your heavenly father give good things to them?

That ask and it's not even a good thing to ask him to guide you about something.

And so illumination means to light up, it means to make clear, and it always comes suddenly.

When you turn the light on, it's all at once.

I mean, unless you've got a dimmer switch, where you just barely, in one of my rooms, I've got a dimmer switch on a slider and I can just slide it on gently and the light just comes on.

Real, it goes from zero to full intensity over a period of time, however slowly I slide it, but most time we just flip the switch on and instantly we've got light.

And so illumination will always come.

And what's illuminated?

Well, your mind is.

Finally it's gonna become aware of what your spirit knows.

Your spirit has a connection to your mind and illumination always comes.

And so, in this situation where I began to pray, lord, give me the portion of goods that falleth unto me.

I just won't.

I hadn't said anything.

I'd felt that it was time to start a church and I had that prayer going, but I hadn't committed to it and I was considering it one way or the other.

And then, early one morning, it was about two months after this whole process started.

Two months, just say it out loud.

Two months.

See, that's not instant.

Well, why did it take two months?

Well, it took two months for the blade and the full corn in the air to come up.

Illumination is the full corn, it's the knowing that's the full corn.

In fact, two months is kind of, you know, quick.

So, early one morning, the Holy Spirit I mean, I was just barely awake, I was rubbing the sleepy out of my eyes and the Holy Spirit spoke down deep in my spirit and he said Son, you're a minister of the sanctuary.

Just like that.

I said Son, you're a minister of the sanctuary.

Well, man, my heart started racing.

I went grabbing my Bible.

I knew it was in Hebrews, I knew that that was a scripture.

I found Hebrews 8-2.

He was talking about Jesus.

He was the minister.

Let's see, let me quote it correctly.

It's been a while since I looked at that verse again.

Here we go, hebrews 8-2, talking about Jesus.

He's a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched to, not man.

So in order for me to receive the guidance I needed, god had to tell me who I was.

He told me, son, you are a minister of the sanctuary.

It's kind of like he said, abraham, your name is not Abraham anymore, but it's Abraham, because a father of many nations have made this.

So God had to tell me who I was, so that I would know what I needed to do.

And I knew that that was illumination.

That was God commanding us to start this work, to start a church.

And so, five o'clock in the morning, I ran in there, woke up glad to see that.

Oh, god spoke to me, you know, and she witnessed with it.

We both knelt down by the bed five o'clock in the morning and we committed ourselves to starting this work, starting this church.

And so that was how I was able to hear from God about a very important situation.

It's not an everyday situation, so once in a lifetime thing.

But there's one more step and we call it verification.

So let's look at all these steps here Saturation, meditation, incubation, illumination, finally, verification.

You know verification is pretty important, especially the more critical the decision, the more important it is for you to have verification, or, I could say, confirmation.

It's not wrong to want confirmation.

I see people make the most serious they're very rare decisions they have to make and they don't seem to ever wait for verification or confirmation before they move on it.

They just say, oh, I got it.

Well, what if you didn't get it?

What if you missed it?

Well, you could be in for a long haul and I can raise my hand on that, because that's what's happened to me before.

So it's good to have verification or confirmation to establish the truth and accuracy of what you are perceiving.

To establish the truth and accuracy of what you are perceiving.

And so after that morning it just seemed like one verse after another opened up to me.

It seemed like every page of the Bible, and I was driving many miles of strip, driving about anywhere from two to 300 miles a day.

During that period of time I spent a lot of time with worship music going in the car and I mean there's almost like a glory cloud in the car with me everywhere I was going and I got ideas, concepts and insights about the church.

I mean, I even began to receive the name of the church.

I began to see how it would be established and how it would go.

And so there was one more thing that had to be covered, and that was that I had to have Brother Osteen full veto power, and so I wanted to share with him.

Not that God told me to start a church.

I never did say that.

I never used the word God told me.

I told him.

I said I'm considering starting a church and I want to ask you about it.

I know that you've had a different idea about it up till now, but I'm considering it.

I won't leave without your full and unreserved blessing.

All you have to do is say no, that's not God and I'll kill it.

But I gave him the reasons why and so forth and so on.

And so he did verify everything, but the timing.

The timing was ahead of time, and so I had to wait a few months.

But I did wait a few months and I got my full and unreserved blessing and I did get my portion of goods that fell to me, which I call it's not goods, it's the anointing.

And so because I waited on this process and I learned from it, that's why this message has been developed.

Let's just go over it again Saturation, meditation, incubation, illumination, verification.

Let's not forget the verification.

God will confirm it to you.

I'm not saying you have to come to me or a man.

I'm just saying let God verify it, let him satisfy you that what you are perceiving is accurate and true.

Praise God, hearing from God.

I hope that blessed you, father.

We just lift our hand and receive the Word tonight.

We thank you, father, that there are many that are listening, that are making serious decisions right now, and I trust that this Word will help them in their quest to find your perfect will for their life.

In Jesus' name, amen, amen, amen.