Walking In The Light

Let's pray we'll get started.

Father, we just thank you for your word.

What an honor it is to get to share your word around your table with everyone that's joined us for this broadcast.

We have people joining us from all over the world.

We don't take that for granted.

And, lord, we just thank you for the anointing that where there's no distance in the spirit, the anointing can go over these airwaves, go through these internet connections, through these fiber optic cables and, father, we reach all over.

Your anointing can reach all over this world and, lord, we don't take that for granted.

So, father, we just thank you for utterance for Selena and I as we speak.

It's not just tickling ears, it's not just entertaining people, lord, with entertaining stories, but no, it's, it's changing their life, it's feeding them and allowing them to mature up under your word, up under the vision that you've provided here at Glorious Way Church.

And so, father, we walk hand in hand, arm in arm with these people.

Together, we serve you with all of our hearts In Jesus' name, amen, amen.

So I just wanted to get started preaching a message entitled Walking in the Light.

Walking in the light, the truth of God's Word.

You know, putting those two things together.

We have light when we choose to walk by God's precepts.

Amen.

Let's get started in Proverbs, chapter 4.

Proverbs 4 · chapter mention

We'll be reading out of the New King James version and in verse 18 it says the path of the just is like the shining sun it shines even brighter unto the perfect day.

So in other words, your path that you're walking down because you are the just, say I am the just, I am the just.

And so the path that you walk is getting brighter and brighter as we approach the day of Jesus' return, amen.

But it says in verse 19,.

But the way of the wicked is like darkness.

They do not know what makes them stumble.

They cannot even see.

They keep stumbling over and over and over again because they're walking in the darkness.

They cannot see in the dark.

You know how many of you have gotten up in the middle of the night to go to the restroom?

I'm always stumbling over something new that I did not know.

Sometimes it's my own fault.

It's my own boot that I like.

Why did I take my boots off here?

I?

know better than that In the middle of a remodel project.

So we have different like boxes that we have to move over, and things keep moving, so like it's good to just walk with a little bit of light.

That's all it takes is just a little bit of light and you're not gonna stumble and so, but thank God, we have all the light that we need because we are the light, we're walking in the light.

And I just wanted to correct one little statement.

Thank God, we're not in the middle of the project.

We can see the end.

We just have like a few minor things and boom, we have our bathroom back.

Praise the Lord.

In verse 20 it says my son or daughter, give attention to my words, incline your ear to my sayings.

You know a couple things.

First of all, that word incline means to stretch out, to extend, to spread out or to bend down, to bend low, and so it takes effort to incline your ear to the Lord's sayings, to give attention to His words.

You know that word incline also means to pitch a tent, and so that takes effort.

How many of you realize?

Have you ever gone camping?

It takes effort to pitch a tent.

It means that you're patient, you're gonna wait up and you're gonna camp right there and incline your ears to God's saying.

You know, I think the last time we went tent camping was about 20 years ago I was brave enough or dumb enough, however you want to look at it to take my wife camping up.

We went up to Huntsville State Park and it got down to like 40 degrees at night, and so she was pregnant with Allison about what six months, seven months pregnant and pretty miserable there sleeping in a tent when it's 40 degrees.

And then it started raining, and so what happened the next morning is I fired up the truck and the diesel rattling, all waking up the campground and got her and Ethan and I still had to pack up all the tent and everything in the rain.

And how many of you realize that you gotta do it twice because you gotta pack it up, go home and then get it all out and let it dry in the sun, and what a big pain.

So we were done with tent camping after that experience.

I think I had to get up in the middle of the night, if I recall Go to the restroom.

Go to the restroom yeah.

That's a lot of fun.

A lot of fun, yeah.

But camping is a good experience when it's not 40 degrees and raining and you need to pitch your tent at at the Lord's sayings.

Take a moment to just camp right there and think about what he's saying to you.

It also helps.

You know it's present tense.

You have to believe it right now.

It's you're not.

You're not.

I mean thank God for for revelation knowledge that grows, and revelation knowledge does grow.

But you need to incline your ear to what he's saying today.

It's not.

It doesn't say what you've inclined your ear to yesterday.

It says incline, that's present tense.

And so somebody's knocking.

We'll come to the door right now and let you in.

If you ever want to join our television audience, our TV studio audience, just give our office a call.

It's real easy and we let you in.

We normally have the door unlocked and ready and waiting and willing for you to walk in anyways, but we're talking about inclining.

That it's right now.

And you know the biggest thing that sticks out to me before I go any further, I kind of I kind of stole this idea from Kenneth Hagen, and he has a lot of really good ideas to steal from, and and it really is amazing that that Pastor Hagen has done a great job and his staff of allowing.

You know, kenneth E Hagen has been in heaven since 2003 or 2004,.

Whatever year it was, but he's still writing books.

No, they, they repackage his material as an author and he's still, you know, from heaven.

It's kind of a joke but really like that's how much revelation knowledge he had that they're able to still compile his messages and and get those out.

But you know, I was listening to a message that he was preaching and he was making the point that, you know, people say all the time and I'm guilty of saying that, you know, because under the constitution, we are free to believe.

As an American, we're free to believe however we want to believe.

You know Well, you're, you're free to have your beliefs and you can believe that if you want to, but I'm free to believe what I believe and that's really biblically speaking.

That's not true, is it?

Because we're free to believe the Bible, we're free to believe God's Word, we're free to incline our ear to God saying but we're not free to just believe whatever it is we want to believe.

Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and no man comes to the Father except through Jesus.

God has a way, god has a plan, god has a vision, god has a purpose for your life and you better be following it.

It's up to you to get with the Lord and receive that vision from him, receive that destiny in in your spirit, spirit to spirit, your plan, the plan that he has for your life, to be revealed to you, spirit to spirit.

And.

And no, we can't just believe anything that we want to believe, you know.

And so, whether, whether it's healing, whether it's speaking in tongues, what all these things that we believe, doctrinally speaking at Glorious Way Church, they're all right out of the Bible.

Well, you take that scripture and you're.

No, we're just preaching right out of the Bible.

In fact, not tonight, but my dad likes to preach out of the King James Bible.

And so lots of people, you know they don't believe in other translations and and.

But I get a lot out of other translations, specifically the Message Bible, specifically the the Passion Translation I think you're going to read out of that later on.

So we're looking forward to that.

But we're we're hanging on and we've inclined our ears to the sayings of our Lord, amen.

And so it says in verse 21,.

Do not let them depart from your eyes, keep them in the midst of your heart.

You know so, in the midst of.

I just thought that just means among or in the middle, and it does.

But there's another meaning that it really means, and that is to take or separate out.

And so, really, you've taken everybody else's words, everybody else's worldly advice, and even you know some of the things that we learn here in the natural, and you've separated that out of and away from and you've placed in to the middle of your heart God's words, god's sayings.

You've given attention to His word, amen.

And so that we've done that on purpose, so not only to listen but also to look.

So that includes both our ear gates and our eye gates.

So it's really important what we see and what we hear, what we allow to come into our vision, into our focus, and also what we hear, is very important to guard our hearts, guard what we see and what we hear.

And it's not just talking about with our five senses, with our natural eyes and our natural ears, but with our spirit.

We need to see through the eyes of faith, with our spiritual eyes, amen.

And we need to listen with our spiritual ears to hear what the Lord is saying and so it says sure should be so.

Verse 21,.

What David was just reading in the Passion translation says fill your thoughts with my words until they penetrate deep into your spirit.

So our thought life should be filled with the word of God, not what we think about it or our opinion, but our thoughts should be filled with the word of God.

That's right.

It's not just about man's opinion, it's not just about your squirrely thoughts.

You're renewing your mind with the word of God and allowing your thoughts to be transformed into his way of thinking, but into his sayings.

It says, and so I like to do that.

Just, you know, when you were reading the Gospels and it's really easy to see all that Jesus said in the Gospels because it's written in red, right.

And so you say, well, that's Jesus speaking.

No, jesus said, jesus said himself that he only says what the Father has told him to say and revealed to him to say.

So Jesus' words are God's words, and so we don't need to be confused about that.

We're inclining our ears to what Jesus said, and so Jesus was always measuring his disciples and other people's faith, wouldn't he?

And so that's just a great example for us to measure our own faith and to know what we believe and why we believe it, amen.

And so in verse 22, it says, for they are life to those who find them talking about God's precepts, and health to their flesh.

And so health to your flesh, medicine to your flesh.

And so if you were to go to the doctor and the doctor would prescribe to you medication to get over whatever it is that you, you know were getting over.

You would go fill that prescription and you would follow the directions from the pharmacist on exactly what the dosage examples are, and you would.

You would receive, you know, take that medicine, and so so many people you know.

God's has laid it out really clear what we're to believe, what we're to think, how we are to operate, how we are to behave, how we are.

It's about to talk about guarding our heart with all diligence.

It's super clear.

And yet and this is something that you have to do every day, every single day, you have to guard your heart.

Every single day, you have to incline your ear to God's sayings and yet some people ignore it because you know they listen more to their natural doctor and the pharmacist on that natural prescription.

When God's given you the prescription exactly what you need to get out of debt, he's given you exactly the information and the revelation that you need to be healed and to stay healed and remain healed and to prosper in all areas and to have everything that you set your hand to, to be blessed and to and to all, for all the dreams and desires that he's placed on the inside of your heart to grant those desires.

And so it's all right here in God's word.

All we need to do is take time to incline our ears, amen.

And so, in verse 23, it says to keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it springs the issues of life.

Put away from you a deceitful mouth and put perverse lips far from you.

And so, man, you know, not just perverse, not just dirty jokes, not just curse words, cuss words.

But you know, we need to talk different.

We, our confession needs to be different.

It needs to be completely obvious that there's a difference between us and someone walking in the world.

And so that is so important to not have a deceitful mouth.

There's so much disinformation being spoken in our news right now and out of people's mouth.

So many people moved and operated, operating in fear and the spirit of fear, and so our mouth needs to always be filled with faith, hope, love, god's love, agape, love operating in our life, our love walk, being, you know, turned all the way up to 10, amplifying the love of God, amen.

And so I think I'm gonna let Selena read the rest of these verses in the Passion, right.

Yeah.

In the Passion translation, starting with verse 25, says set your gaze on the path before you with fixed purpose, looking straight ahead.

Ignore life's distractions, watch where you're going, stick to the path of truth, and the road will be safe and smooth before you.

Verse 27,.

Don't allow yourself to be sidetracked even for a moment or take the detour that leads to darkness.

Isn't that so good?

That's so good.

Last Sunday night in youth I talked on we started a new theme Bold as a Lion and so I taught on David.

You know we see the highlights of David's life.

We know the stories.

You know David and Goliath and you know Joseph.

He went from the pit to the palace, but if you read their backstory they went through tough things in their life circumstances.

Yeah, and so David, you know he was young, and so his brothers.

You know, like you're gonna go fight Goliath, you're young, you're only 17,.

And even King Saul tried to put an armor you know armor on David, and it says in the verse, it says in the Bible like you know, I can't walk with that, I can't put that on.

He wasn't used to that.

You know, all he needed was five smooth stones.

And so King Saul was trying to put something on him that he wasn't used to, that didn't belong on him, and so just like it just didn't fit.

It didn't fit.

And so that's like the world.

It tries to put things on us and this is how you should think about that.

And well, my belief system's not debatable.

It's not enough for debate.

That's right, you know.

And so the world would try to put fear on you.

Well, you know, everybody else is doing it, everybody else is taking the shot.

Why don't you do it?

Well, no, because I don't have peace about it, you know.

So the world would try to put worry on you.

You know what's gonna happen.

And the Bible says don't worry, you know, don't think about tomorrow.

Today, focus on today.

And so, yeah, that's, don't allow ourselves, we can't allow ourselves, to be sidetracked even for a moment.

And it says or take the detour that leads to darkness.

So we have to stick to the path of truth, which is light.

We have to walk in the light.

Right, we have to.

Yes, I'm gonna back up just 26 and read that in the New King James it says ponder the path of your feet and let all your ways be established.

And the word let means to allow.

You have to allow all your ways to be established and step one in allowing those ways to be established I lost my train of thought, but in Jesus' name it'll connect here.

To allow all your ways to be established is to focus on what God has for you, and he's already established your ways.

All you have to do is walk with Him on His path.

And it says do not turn to the right or to the left.

Yours says don't allow yourself to be sidetracked.

But then it's like a command in the New King James it says to remove your foot from evil.

Remove your foot from evil.

And I just feel like there's somebody out there that's listening to me, that you know exactly that I'm talking to you.

And when I said that word remove your foot from evil you're doing it.

You reacted and you're responding by the spirit and you're turning around.

You know there's only so many signs of the bridge is out five miles.

The bridge is out three miles that you can ignore before, hey you get, the bridge really is out, and so sin has consequences.

And so I just encourage you tonight to don't allow yourself to be sidetracked, don't allow yourself to miss that exit.

Remove your foot from evil.

This is a chance.

I'm not gonna say it's your last chance, but you have a chance right now, tonight, to decide to do the right thing and remove your foot from evil.

You know some people, you know when we miss an exit and we all do from time to time.

Hey, we've all been guilty of walking in the flesh or saying the wrong thing, or maybe having our confession be drug off in the wrong direction.

But I'm telling you, I keep getting distracted.

I'm sorry, there's like a million things going on.

I'm gonna flip my phone over.

How about I do that?

And so you know, we all, from time to time we allow ourselves, but we blame the devil, when really you need to just walk over to the mirror and look at yourself in the mirror and you're looking at the problem, right, and so that's good, jay.

That word, allow you know it really is.

Just let you know.

Either you let those thoughts come into your head or you don't.

You know it's a choice Either you let the word of God penetrate your heart or you don't.

Absolutely Right.

So either you let people's opinions get to you or you don't.

So it's simple.

I think sometimes we just complicate things.

You know, like you were saying, we blame the devil.

No, it's you.

It's God gave us a free will.

It's up to us Whether we allow the people's opinions and distract life's distractions to get to us or we don't.

And so the good news is we have a choice right, and we can choose the word of God.

There's two choices in life Either we choose the word of God or our way.

You know, doing things our own way, we know where that leads.

We mess up.

If we're in the natural and we just, you know, our mind left to wander and do whatever it wants to do will lead to destruction, it won't lead to light and where God's plan for what he has for our lives, which is the best plan, right, Amen, Amen.

So, talking about walking in the light, I just wanted to go from there over to Ephesians, chapter five, starting in verse eight, and read it out of the amplified classic version, and because of time we're gonna skip around.

And verse eight it says for once you were in darkness, but now everybody say now, now you are light in the Lord, walk as children of the light, lead the lives of those native born in the light, because you have been born again.

We are born in the light, for the fruit, or the effect or the product of the light, or the spirit consists in every form of kindly, goodness, uprightness of heart and trueness of life.

I'm telling you there's a lot of people not experiencing trueness of life right now, all around all of us.

And so when we walk in the light, there's a trueness of light that we walk in, that there's a level of truth that they're hungry for, that they're attracted to, and I'm telling you you're missing it.

Anytime you choose to walk in the flesh, anytime you choose to walk in darkness, you are the product of light.

You have the effect or the fruit of walking in the light abounding in your life, on your behalf, but it doesn't stop with you, it's transferred to those around you by this proof amen.

Uprightness of heart.

Let's talk about that for a second.

We were talking about that earlier today.

Just what does uprightness of heart mean to you?

Obviously, that means you have a strong heart.

That means that you're not bowed down to sin, you're not bowed down to unforgiveness, you're not bowed down to bitterness, that you've allowed your heart to remain pure.

Amen.

That you're allowing yourself to proceed uprightly and dividing the word of God, amen.

And walking in God's truth.

And says in verse 10, and try to learn in your experience what is pleasing to the Lord and let your lives be constant proof of what is most acceptable to him.

You know we can.

When we spend time with the Lord, we can know how to please the Lord.

You know we've been married for 24 years.

Let's see, hold on.

It's isn't today our anniversary 20, I mean, it's not the anniversary, but seven months 24 and seven months 24 years and seven months.

We're getting there, getting there to 25 years.

But you know, I know what it takes to please Selena and yet I'm still looking for new ways, after all these years, to make sure my wife is pleased, to make sure my wife is happy, to make sure there's new, there's fresh things every day that I can do to please her.

And it's the same.

You're in a relationship with the Lord and you're, and it's a serious thing and we know what pleases the Lord.

Faith pleases the Lord, our praise and our worship please the Lord, amen.

And so we know how to experience.

Through our experiences, through our faith, through challenges.

We know what pleases the Lord, amen.

And we can learn those.

And you know it's so difficult sometimes for others who don't learn from their mistakes.

They're just living day by day, by day, and just in one year and out the other.

They're just trying to get to tomorrow and not really learning from their experiences.

But we're learning exactly what pleases God, amen.

And so I'm gonna read verse 11, then we're gonna skip down, take no part in and have no fellowship with the fruitless deeds and the enterprises of darkness, but instead let your lives be so, in contrast to, or expose and reprove and convict them.

So have nothing to do, don't even fellowship with the fruitless deeds of darkness.

So darkness has no fruit.

And we just talked about what the fruit is of light.

In verse nine it talked about the fruit of light being a kindly goodness, uprightness of heart and trueness of light.

So there's lots of fruit that, a good fruit of walking in the light.

But, man, you're gonna walk in the darkness.

It's just fruitless, it's worthless.

And we have to be consistent with that.

You know, it's one thing to say that, hey, I'm gonna walk in the light and we do good for a day, but then the next day, you know, something trips us up.

And so if you had an issue, you know, with something last year, the year before, and it's still tripping you up this year, well you have to check, like what's going on?

Like the same stuff that bothered me back there is still bothering me today.

Like I should be growing.

Right, that's our goal, we should be growing, we should be maturing.

So the same thing as stuff like just like Jay was saying, the darkness stuff trips us up.

So we shouldn't be dealing with the same stuff Tripping us up.

We should be growing, we should be maturing, we should be able to see fruit in our lives.

Right, because that's what it's all about.

The seeing fruit and bearing fruit as well, and bearing fruit and we have to be honest with ourselves.

Might hurt a little bit but we have to be honest with ourselves and say, hey, where am I missing it?

And then change to see that and then do something, because then you're just and this is another message but then you're just deceiving yourself.

You're deceived If you're not walking in the light, if you're not doing the word.

You're deceived.

But you choose that right, and so it's up to us.

We make a choice and to bear.

God wants us to bear much fruit.

Amen, let's pick it up in 15.

Look carefully, then, how you walk.

Live purposefully and worthily and accurately, not as the unwise or witless, but as wise, intelligent people.

That is us, amen.

So we're careful how we walk.

We're walking in the light.

In verse 16, we're making the most of every opportunity, buying up every opportunity, because the days are evil.

Therefore, do not be vague or thoughtless or foolish, but understanding and firmly grasping what the will of the Lord is.

I like that, in contrast.

So at the end of verse 17, verses verse 10, you know, try, try to learn from your experience what pleases the Lord.

And then, hey, by verse 17, you're walking in so much light.

You fully understand and firmly grasp what the will of the Lord is.

You know, we don't have to be confused on what the will of the Lord is.

We know exactly what pleases God, and it's not by being vague, not by being thoughtless and sure, not by being foolish.

Amen.

So we're smart, we're witty and we're full of the Holy Ghost, amen.

Following and walking in the light, following His will, following His plan.

In wrapping it up, selina's gonna read how to 1 John 1.

In the amplified 1 John 1.5 says and this is the message, the message of promise which we have heard from Him and now are reporting to you God is light and there is no darkness in Him at all.

No, not in any way.

So if we say we are partakers together and enjoy fellowship with Him when we live and move and are walking about in darkness, we are both speaking falsely and do not live and practice the truth which the Gospel presents.

But if we really are living and walking in the light, as he Himself is in the light, we have true, unbroken fellowship with one another.

And the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses, removes us from all sin and guilt, keeps us cleansed from sin and all its forms and manifestations.

So God is in light.

You know God is light, and so we should.

There is no darkness in Him, so we should be walking in the light, and so we should check every area of our life and make sure there's no deception in that area.

That really stuck out to me right here in the Amplified, because it says, basically, you're gonna prove, you know, but if we really are living and walking in the light, hey, you're gonna have this fruit in your life of, you're gonna have true and unbroken fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus cleanses you from all sin and the guilt of saints, the stain, the guilt of sin.

You know, jesus really did.

The blood of Jesus redeems us from all guilt and from all shame.

There's no reason to walk in any more shame and any more guilt.

Amen, we've been forgiven, we've been redeemed and that's the light that we're walking in every day.

Amen, amen.

You have anything else to wrap up with?

Oh, okay, I thought that saw some stuff.

Well, I was just gonna keep on.

Verse eight it says if we say we have no sin, refusing to admit, refusing to admit that we are sinners, we dilute and lead ourselves astray in the truth which the gospel presents is not in us, does not dwell in our hearts.

So yeah, again, just admitting, looking in the mirror.

Because if we say, if we fall in short and we mess up, we trip up and we don't admit it, we are walking in darkness.

That's really where sin is.

Just really.

We're separated fellowship from God, and so we have to be quick to hey, God, I repent, forgive me.

I see that area in my life that I need to work on and he forgives us, he cleanses us from all sin.

Amen.

Amen.

So we've inclined our ear to his sayings, we give attention to his words and we're walking in the light, and the light of his truth and the power of his truth, and it's evident to those around us amen, that's the kind of life we live.

I hope this word encourage you tonight.