Follow My Voice

Speaking of grateful, guys, this is a momentous day. Do you

realize that 3 of the pillars in my own life,

Pastor Ronnie Meek, Pastor Bruce Coble, and Pastor Wayne Berry,

are all in the house today?

I don't know how that happened, but God does. I'm

so grateful. I'm so grateful for their voices in my life,

for their voices in this house and their influence, those pillars.

We are in a series talking about discerning the voice of the

Lord. And one of the ways that the Lord has spoken to me

over the years has been through these 3 pastors for sure.

But also one of the pivotal voices in my life that the Lord

has used in moments of confusion or moments of just

trying to hear him, because sometimes you need a human voice in a

human situation, but you need that voice to be carrying the Spirit

and the truth and the wisdom of the Lord. When I began to work with

Pastor Ronnie, I remember so clearly,

I was very formal and I would always call him Pastor

Ronnie. And he would be like, you know what, Barbie, it's

okay for you to call me Ronnie. And I'm like, you don't

understand, I need a pastor. We all need a pastor. He was, he

is, and he remains my pastor, Pastor Ronnie Meek.

That's okay. I'll

call

Pastor Barbie sis

because she's the sister I never had. And I think

she sometimes thinks of me as the brother she never had.

You know, brothers and sisters always get along.

That's right. Yeah.

Before I go into the teaching, I just— I want to say this. I have

to say this. Friday night, Michelle and I went to see

Hunchback of Notre Dame here.

And those of you who've ever been to a play with me,

or certainly in a play with me understand that I

have this propensity to just kind of pick out everything

that is wrong in a production and go, well, that was good,

but, you know, they could have done this and they could have done that.

And

I wasn't really excited about coming because Victor Hugo doesn't really

have a lot of laughs. And he doesn't exactly

leave you with warm feelings. Fuzzy feelings.

But after it was over, all I could say

was magnificent.

And truly, it is a magnificent

production. And, you know, you might wipe away a tear or two, but

also you just kind of leave feeling like, wow, I just saw

something. So just, just letting you know that there's 4 more

performances. this afternoon and then Friday and Saturday

night and next Sunday afternoon. So

let's get on to the spiritual stuff, shall we?

Actually, that's pretty spiritual.

Back in 1978, Wayne Berry and

Randy Thompson and I were doing a— actually, it's

probably '79. We're doing a concert

at Koinonia Bookstore up in Nashville. And Wayne made

an announcement that just kind of went through the room like

a, like a shock. And

people were like, oh. And the announcement was, he said,

Bob Dylan got saved. And, you know, you have to be a certain

age and you have to be a certain, a certain cultural

position even in that age to understand why,

how that impacted that room. But it impacted it

big time. And one of the things that you think when you think about some

celebrity, someone who's well-known getting saved is kind

of like, yeah, really? You know, there's this

incredulity that sort of is in the back of your mind.

But it turns out that, yeah, I mean, he

definitely got saved. And his testimony was that in

late '78, Jesus Christ came and

he had an encounter with him and he physically touched him.

And he said, he touched me and I fell to the

ground. And then he picked me back up

and he started writing songs, started writing

songs about that. And one of the songs we

sing here occasionally, I was hoping we were going to be able to do it

today, but it kind of Things just didn't work out.

It says, I was blinded by the devil, born already ruined,

stone cold dead when I walked out of the womb.

By his grace, I have been touched.

By his word, I have been healed. By his mercy, been

delivered. By his Spirit, I've been sealed. And now

I'm saved. By the blood of

the Lamb. Saved by

the blood of the Lamb. And I'm so glad.

I'm so glad. I'm so glad.

I'm so glad. I want to thank you, Lord.

Thank you, Lord. I just want to thank you, Lord.

Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. I mean, if you've heard that song, you

know that you cannot hear it without Just this

burst of joy exploding inside of you.

And I suspect that most people here would

also say, I've been saved by the blood of the

Lamb. What does that mean?

Michelle and I drive down through Alabama fairly frequently.

We've got some family that lives down there. And there's a

roadside sign that maybe some of you have

seen it. There's a guy with a pitchfork and

horns, and the sign says, go to church or the devil will

get you. And every time I see that

sign, I have this— I have a

conflicting thing that comes over

me because I appreciate the sincerity

of the sign. I appreciate the

economy and simplicity with which the message is

expressed. On the other hand, I also go,

go to church, the devil might still get you. Come on.

In fact, well, I'm not going to say it because

not here, but you go, never mind.

And I kind of go, but I would suspect that most of us,

if you were asked, or most people in our In our

culture, American church culture, if you were to ask them,

well, what does that mean, I've been saved? Well, I'm not going to hell.

I've— I'm not going to burn. He has saved

me from the pit full of emptiness and wrath and the fire that burns

in it. Praise God. And that's not wrong.

But that's also not why Jesus came.

That's not why Jesus died for us. It's an asterisk.

By why Jesus died for us. It is collateral

to why Jesus died for us. For God so loved the world

that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes on Him should not

perish but have eternal

life. Oh,

eternal life. Yeah, what does that mean?

Because there's a tendency to think, Well, that just means you

never, you know, that you just go on living and living. Look,

I'm not the oldest one in here because I know at least 2 people who

are older than me who are in this room. Yes.

But I'm 76 and I can see

100 out there. I mean, you know, well,

that's 24 years away. Yeah, 24 years doesn't seem like all that much

to me anymore. Well, I can see 100 out there,

but I don't know if I want to go there because

I've got a great life. But as blessed as my life is,

I live in a fallen world that stinks.

And I don't know if I want 24 more years of this.

Seriously. Eternal life

is defined by Jesus this way. In

John 17, verse 3, now this is

John 17:3

eternal life. It's about as clear as you can get. This is

eternal life, to know You,

the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom

You have sent. And so Jesus came and

died on the cross as a sacrifice for us so that we can know

God. Yeah.

Kind of say, some people might say, well, if God wants

us to know him all that bad, why don't he just invite me over? Well,

the problem is, you see, we're sinful and he is holy. And I don't

mean, you know, we don't even— we have every now and

then we'll touch a little splinter of holiness in this world,

but we have no idea what it is to stand

in the presence of a holy

God. The only thing I can think of that might be

equivalent to it is kind of standing in the

epicenter of a 40-megaton nuclear explosion.

Totally destroys. We're totally unprepared for that. But Jesus

came so that we could— our sins could be covered

and we could stand in the presence of a holy God and know Him.

Amen. know Him. And one of the

greatest privileges of being saved,

in fact, possibly the greatest privilege of being saved,

isn't that we're not going to hell. It's that we

have a Good Shepherd and we can hear His voice

and we can follow Him. See, to know someone, you have to hear them. You

have to, you have to hear what they're saying. And

so I know you've gotten settled in and comfortable, but would you stand with me

and let's read a quick verse of Scripture

that Jesus said about the Good

Shepherd? When He has

brought out all His own, He goes on

ahead of them, and His sheep follow Him

because they know His voice. But they will never

follow a stranger. In fact, they will run away

from him because they do not recognize a

stranger's voice. Father, I thank You for Your

Word. We invite the Holy Spirit. We invite the presence of the Holy

Spirit here. May everything that I say

that is the voice of a stranger be fallen away, but

may everything that I say that is from You Pierce our

hearts. In Jesus' name, amen.

You may be seated.

I used to hear the question all the time, how can I hear God?

How can I know God is speaking to me? What—

how do you do that?

And I'm going to kind of— I'm going to go there. I'm going to tell

you that. But What I want to start with is I don't hear that

question that much anymore. Right. I really don't.

And I— largely I believe people either don't think it's

possible to actually hear from God or it's not necessary

to actually hear from God or it's not worth the

trouble or something. But I'm here to tell you that hearing the voice of

God is something valuable. It is

extremely valuable. The psalmist over

in Psalm 19 talking about hearing God's

Word says, they're more precious than gold and much purer

gold. They're sweeter than honey, than honey from the

honeycomb. By them Your servant is warned, and keeping

them there is great reward. And so having a

Word from God Is more

precious than gold, than having a

hunk of gold in your hand. It's more precious than— it's

sweeter than honey from the honeycomb. And in keeping them, there's great

reward. And when we say great reward, I

don't— we have no clue, no idea how

great the rewards are for hearing and having a

Word, a Word from God. Amen. I've never

heard the audible voice of God, but I have heard Him.

And I guess you could say I discerned His voice.

And I want to tell you a story. Many of you know

that in the mid-'80s, our family moved to Zimbabwe

for 3 years. I taught in a Bible school over there. And

some of you know the story I'm getting ready to relate.

That's just too bad.

But those of you who don't know the story,

I'll tell you about how we ended up going. See, I

had met this man named Ezekiel Goody. I believe it was in

'73 at a conference.

And I was just really drawn. I went,

I'm supposed to go work with this guy. We're supposed to. We're supposed to

go there. But it wasn't the

Lord's timing. He actually ended up sending

my friend Bruce Coble at the time. And so Bruce, I

got— I didn't make the cast, okay? I got cut at the

audition. But he took Bruce and Jill and they went

over. I think it was January of '84 was when they

went over. And Bruce became the director of the

Bible school over there and taught classes and

stuff. So fortunately, about 9 or 10 months

later, our church sent one of the elders, Wade

Hutchison, who's also an elder here, and myself

to go visit the Cobles. And so we went to visit the

Cobles. And make a long story short, while we were

there, the Lord just kept confirming things to my

heart. And I knew we're supposed to go.

Well, we get back. And we missed some connections

on flights and stuff. And so we arrive, but our

luggage doesn't arrive with us. And I get home and I

tell Margaret, tell my wife, I said, we're going to

Zimbabwe. We're going to move over there. I know

you've always wanted to go to mission field. We're

going there. It's going to be so great.

And, you know, and I could see as I was telling her

this, Fear that just sort of

began to fill her face because she knew that look in

my eye. And I have been known to be,

I don't know, impetuous at times to just kind

of do stuff. I mean, Michelle will tell you now, if she says, oh, I

would like— well, she's learned to not say that because I'm going to get the

ladder and go do it. And she's going to say, get off that ladder.

But so, you know, that was what was happening.

Well, the next morning I get up and I go out to run. I'm in

my mid-30s and I'm running. And that was my prayer time as well. And

as I'm running and praying, this prayer just kind of

comes up out of me. It says, God, if you really want us to go,

if this is really you, then that luggage that didn't make it,

bring it to our house today. And as soon as that prayer

went out of my mouth, I went, oh,

why did I say that? I just

felt sick. And I got home and I told

Margaret what I prayed, and she just went, oh,

why did you pray that? She just

kind of felt sick as well. Well, I'd not

done that much traveling, So I didn't know what would happen with the

luggage. And quite frankly, nobody we knew knew what would

happen with the luggage, what would happen when it got here. And

somebody said, well, they'll put it— they'll send it to you on a taxi.

They don't send it to you on a taxi, but that was what we were

told. Well, they'll send it to you UPS. And that

kind of made sense. They didn't mention Amazon.

Amazon didn't exist in those days.

But the day goes on and on, and there's no taxi,

and there's no UPS. And in fact,

by late afternoon, I'm just devastated.

And I'm driving around the neighborhood looking for UPS trucks.

And there aren't any. And

our church was going to— was doing the

concessions at a I believe it was a horse show at the Ellington

Agricultural Center that night. And we were all going to go.

But I get home and Margaret says, well, Arwin

has misbehaved. In her defense, she was too.

Arwin has misbehaved. And so we're not going. You and Isaac go.

And I remember on the drive to the horse

show, Isaac sitting beside me. I

think he was 5 at the time. I just remember

going, God,

if that luggage doesn't come,

I don't know how to hear from you. I don't

know your voice. I don't know what it sounds like.

What am I going to do? Well,

we stayed at the horse show for about an hour and came back home. And

when we got back home, I knew something had happened. And

this is what had happened. Not long after we had

left, Margaret had gone,

if this luggage doesn't come, I don't know what we're going to do.

I'll call the airport. So she picks up the phone to call the

airport and the Holy Ghost goes,

No. She hung it back up. About 5 minutes later,

it rings. It's the airport.

Your luggage is here. Oh, that's great! Yeah. She

hangs it up and then she remembers, I asked for it to be

brought to our house. What am I going to do?

I'll call Wade Hutcherson. So she goes to the phone, picks

up the phone to call Wade, and the Holy Spirit says, no.

And she says, huh? What? I'm dialing a number.

Yeah. She dials a number and she gets a busy signal.

That is a thing that used to happen.

And she gets this busy signal and the Holy Spirit goes,

Uh-uh, uh-uh. And she goes, all right. She hangs up.

A couple of minutes later, the phone rings and it's

Wade. Have you heard about the— have you heard anything about the

luggage? Yeah, the airport just called. It's there. I'm on my way.

That's where things were when I got home.

And about 10 minutes later,

Wade is at the door And he picks up the

luggage, brings it in the house, sets it in the living room

floor. And we're, we're in the— we're just

going crazy. We're in the kitchen going, we're going to move to Africa.

This is, this is it. Yes. Now,

that's not usually the way God speaks to me.

But, and he doesn't always confirm

himself that clearly. But He

knew that we needed that because He knew

what lay ahead. Over the next, I guess, 7 or 8

months before we left, Arwen got

spinal meningitis and spent 10 days in the hospital.

And the first 5, she didn't know she was in the world.

And we were told that we needed to raise

$1,700 a month to be able to live over there. And then we got a

call right before we left going, we might want to make that $1,900

Thanks, Bruce.

And we had raised 13. Amen. And you

don't get all that you raised. But you know

what? There was never a moment, there was

never a moment that there was any anxiety,

that there was any fear, that there was any

doubt, because it is more precious than gold

to know that you are standing in exactly the

place that God wants you to be because you have

received a word. from Him. It is an incredible

thing to have that experience. We also heard

Him regarding coming to Smyrna, and I'm not

going to tell you about that, but we needed

some— we needed a word for that. And basically

knowing that we had a word is what kept me in the

ministry. for 33 years here and 39 years all

along. Because, you know, and once you know

you've got a Word from God, what are you going

to say? No, I don't want to do that.

Well, you can say that, but

it's never going to work out. Amen. A Word from God is

a wonderful thing. And I don't regret any of it because

the grace of knowing That you're in His will

regardless of what things look like, regardless of what's going on around you, is

priceless. Absolutely priceless.

Well, so, okay, how do we— all right, you've

sold me, or at least I hope I have. Maybe the Holy Spirit has.

I want to hear a word from God. A word from God is a very

valuable thing to have, an important thing to have. So how do you go about

doing this? Well, first of all, let me quickly cover 3 ways that you do

not go about Doing this.

Because there are ways we're tempted to do— how to not discern God's voice.

Follow your heart.

And you know, that's advice that we hear all the time. Man, follow your heart.

Go after your dreams. You know, you'll be—

you won't be happy until you do this. There's a problem with that.

Your heart's a liar and he's stupid. Amen.

Jeremiah. Jeremiah. Jeremiah says, the heart is deceitful above all

things and beyond cure. Who

can understand it?

Well, doesn't He give us the desires of our heart? Well, the psalmist does say

that, but that's predicated on us taking delight in the Lord.

And then He gives us new desires. I don't walk like I

used to. I don't talk like I used to. Those

things that I used to want Are not the things that I have a

taste for anymore. It's been

changed. Instead of wanting to

go where the money is or go where the ease is, we

want to go where He is.

So that's one way to not discern the

voice of God. Another way to not discern the voice of God is to trust

your instincts. How many of you have good

instincts? Am I the only? No, there's—

yeah, okay. Yeah. Yeah, come on. Good sense of direction?

Oh yeah. Y'all came by it honestly.

These are my grandsons. They got their hands up. Came by it

honestly. Good sense of direction. I have a good sense of direction. That

doesn't mean that I haven't ended up in some really strange

places where I wasn't supposed to be.

Because— well, Proverbs says it this way, there's a way

that seems right to a man, but its end is the

way of death. And so, you know, you're in—

you can feel it in your gut and go, yeah.

But in the end, that's the way of death.

And then one other one to not discern the voice of

God is human reasoning.

Got this figured out. This makes sense.

Do you know there is so much in the way

God does things that doesn't make sense

that that's really the norm rather than it making

sense? Paul says this, he

says, to the world it's foolishness. God's

wisdom is foolishness to the world. So when you're trying

to figure out, well, you know, what should I

do here? What it's all about? You're very unlikely to stumble

across the voice of God. Isaiah says it this way, my

thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways,

declares the Lord. So when I'm using my thoughts to figure out the right ways,

I don't really stand a chance doing it that way. The

main reason why the religious leaders of the day did not

recognize Jesus was because they thought they had

figured out God's thoughts. Yes. They thought they,

they had figured out His ways and they understood His

ways. And so

They weren't able to hear Him speak when He was right in front of them.

Okay, well, let's look at some people who did hear God's voice and

whip right through this. Moses, probably the first one that comes to mind

at the burning bush. A

couple of things to point out, pull from that story. First of all, he was

at work. He wasn't at church. He wasn't in

the synagogue. He wasn't sitting in the deer

stand among the beautiful nature of

God, you know, as you're getting ready to kill one of them.

We got a bunch of deer hunters here, and they all love me, and I'm

retired anyway.

So— He was at work. He was

doing his job. And

He wasn't at worship. I don't

think he had worship music playing in the background.

He had sheep bleating— bleating—

bleating in the background is

what he had. And it was hot,

hot enough to set a bush on fire, you know, and it might have been

a little boring. You know, sheep are lovely

little creatures, but I bet they're boring.

Yes. They don't— they're not very good conversationalists.

But he was paying attention. He was paying

attention and he was open to the possibility that God

might say something to him. He'd been

doing this job for 40 years and God hadn't said anything to him. But he

was open to the possibility that God might might want to say something

to him. And he did. And

God will speak in the most ordinary circumstances, but we, we have to be looking.

We have to be open to the possibility. You know, I was saying, I feel

like I don't hear that question that much anymore because some people may think

that doesn't happen. That can't happen. Well, if you

think that doesn't happen and that can't happen, then it's probably not going to

happen. Amen. But if you're paying attention and

you're open to the possibility— the

disciples heard Him say, follow me, and they

were at work. They were cleaning their nets when they heard that.

And you may think, oh yeah, if Jesus comes by and says, follow me,

I'm going. Yeah, but that was not— they didn't know who— they didn't

really know who He was. They just— it resonated with them. I mean, it was—

this is a— Unknown itinerant

preacher from Shelbyville, you know, who comes by and says

something. Can anything good come out of Shelbyville?

How many of you are from Shelbyville?

And oh, and we actually have one who admits it. 2 that admit

it. So— oh no, you weren't admitting

anything. You were just drinking. Okay.

Yes! Yes, I see that hand. But something

resonated inside of them. Elijah

heard God speak. He had just called

fire down out of heaven. He had killed

the 450 prophets of Baal. He had broken

the drought that was in the land. He

prayed and the rains came and

everything. But then the queen hears

about all this and goes, well, I'm

going to kill him. And he just falls

off the cliff spiritually. I mean, he is

rock bottom. Lord, I want to die. Take me home right now.

But he was— so it's fair to say he was in a bad place spiritually.

But he decided, I'm going to Horeb. Horeb.

That's— God speaks to people there. So he actually

made an effort. I want to— I've got to go talk to

him because of what's going on in my

life. And sometimes that's how God— sometimes that's how

God comes to us. And

how he's going to speak, though, we really don't know. I mean, he

had called fire down out of heaven and there was a big fire, but God

wasn't in the fire. There was a

great wind that came through

Horeb, through the area. And on the Day of Pentecost when God

came, He came with a rushing mighty wind. And this rushing

mighty wind— God wasn't in that wind.

God didn't have anything to say to him in the wind.

Then he heard a still small voice. A still small voice. And that was

God. Most of the time in my life,

the signs, if you will, by which God has

confirmed himself have been

signs that if I told you about them, you would go,

huh? But they meant something to me. They were

very personal. They were for me.

And I knew he was speaking. Amen. to me.

He can speak to us in our most despondent moments

and in ways that we do not expect. Paul,

Saint Paul, Saul wasn't

expecting to hear from Jesus at all,

but on the Damascus Road, he had a Damascus Road

experience. And he was struck to the ground. It was

kind of like this Bob Dylan thing. It was kind of like, he touched me

and I just fell out. And then he raised me back up

and I was changed. And I think that's what

most of us have in mind when we think about

God speaking to us.

We think if God is going to speak to us, it's going to

be Bam! Right there.

Steven Curtis Chapman wrote a song many years ago

called Waiting for Lightning. Standing on the edge of the truth, looking

back at the view of what you used to believe, and from where you are,

you can see you are far away from home.

But you're waiting for lightning, a sign that it's

time for a change. You're listening for thunder

while He quietly whispers your name.

And that's the way He's often going to speak to us. Now, if you get

the lightning and you get the thunder, then you better get

ready because

there'll be an extreme awakening that'll come along

with it and probably a very radical assignment. Amen.

So you may not want to have lightning and thunder,

but you still want to work.

And He'll speak it to you. One more.

Jonah. We don't know how he heard.

We don't know how God spoke to him. We just know that God did speak

to him, and he decided not to follow.

And that's possible too. It's a dangerous thing.

Just because we have heard doesn't mean we're going to

follow. That's our responsibility. Hearing

His voice carries a weight of responsibility

with it. It's a wonderful thing. It's sweeter than honey.

It's more valuable than gold. There's

great reward in it. Amen.

But it's heavy.

I've had over the years many times,

a number of times when people have come and said to me, God

told me. And I said, okay, that's the end of the

conversation. Now the only question is, are you going to do

it? Yeah. If you

believe God has said something to you,

then everything else

is irrelevant. That's the only question on

the table. Am I going to do it? Well, how do

His sheep learn to hear His voice?

The same way you do with anyone. You just have to hear it again and

again and again and again. and you begin to recognize it.

You begin to know this is who this person

is. Samuel didn't

know God's voice when God first spoke to him. Samuel, I

mean, God came directly and said, Samuel, and he went, oh, that must be

Eli. Yeah. Until eventually it says

he did not yet recognize the voice of God. But he

got— he grew to where he did recognize the voice

of God because he heard it over and over again.

Reading the Bible is the proper place to start.

There's no question about that. And if you want

to say, well, where do I read? Well, read the

Psalms. If you want to learn how to pray, read the

Psalms. If you want to learn how to worship, read

the Psalms. If you want to learn how to complain, read the

Psalms. It's all in there. And it'll

teach you a godly way of doing it and what it sounds like

to talk with God and converse with God.

I want to go somewhere.

Yeah. Come on, sir. It's not just—

yeah, let me go here.

It's not just the sound of His voice.

I mean, you know, if you're talking about a person,

there's a distinctiveness to virtually everyone's voice.

But with God, it's not just the sound of His voice because, like I say,

it could be in the fire, it could be in the wind, it could be

in the whisper, it could be in the lightning, it could be in the thunder.

Yeah. So it's not so much

the sound, and it's

not just the information. Because yeah, one of the

reasons to read the Word is if something comes to you and it clearly

contradicts what's in the Word, then you know that's not the

voice of God. But it's not just the sound. It's not just the information.

There's a feel to His voice. There is

a quality to His voice. There's a

texture that resonates in your

spirit when you hear it.

And you say, well, how do you get to the place where you

recognize that? How do you get to the place, you know, where you do

know His voice? Well, you just start by

doing what you know. That's right. You

start by doing what you know He said. See, there's 2

components here. There's Him speaking and us obeying.

And you start— well, what has He said?

Don't do anything complicated. Take the

theological issues and put them over here and

take the debates and put them over here.

Start by what you know.

And there is no debate about this. A new

command I give you: Love one another as I have

loved you, so you must love one another. Start there.

Start there.

And the more you do it— because let's just face it, there are—

we don't like everybody. No.

Oh, I love them, but I don't like them.

Well, that's true, but it may also be that

you don't love them.

Don't understand them.

Aren't willing to push through. You know, well, you know, they sit on that side

and I sit on this side because they sit on that side.

Or they don't agree with me or whatever. Start by what you

know. I mean, it is a radical, life-changing

experience to encounter someone

that you don't like, you don't love, you'd

just really rather have them out of your life. And

God commands you, love them. You kind of go, well, all right, I'm going to

give it a shot. And you've— something

happens. You get face to face.

You get real. And the next thing you know,

you begin to find out what love is. You really do.

Start there. Start there. God

doesn't care so much about how much

Scripture you know or how much theology you know as He does about how

you treat people. Amen. He

doesn't care about what your heritage is or your race or

your ethnicity or which— in which country you hold

citizenship. He cares about how you treat people.

He doesn't care where you stand on the issues

or what positions you may occupy before men.

He cares about how you treat people.

Yeah. Because, well, He said it over in Matthew,

whatever you did for one of the least of these, my brothers and sisters,

you've done for me. And whatever

you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do

for me. And it's about knowing Him.

It's about getting to know Him. And the

quality, the feel of His voice. Worship team, you

guys can come on out.

If you'll do what you know to do, just

do what you know, as simple as it may seem,

you'll learn to hear His voice. You'll learn to recognize His voice.

He'll say more. Jesus said, whoever is faithful

in a little, Can be trusted with much.

And so when he finds you faithful to hear what you know

to do, then he'll start giving you some— start

opening some mysteries. He'll start giving some direction.

He'll begin to open up more because you can be

trusted with it.

If you do not do what you know to do,

You will follow the voice of a stranger.

Would those who are going to pray with people come forward this morning? This hasn't

obviously been a, uh,

come down here and

get saved type of sermon or anything like that, uh,

but this is— we live in the kind of world where

Almost everybody who came in here came in here with some need. And if the

Holy Spirit is prompting you to come for prayer, these

brothers and sisters would love to pray with you and

help you hear God's voice. We're going to worship for a few

minutes, give you the opportunity to do that. Would you stand, please?