Hearing From God-Key to Moving In the Spirit

This is North Way tape number 429. This message, entitled Hearing from the Key to Moving in the Spirit, was delivered by Pastor Jay Passavant of North Way Christian community on September 22, 1985. I'll tell you what. You know, maybe I can share just a little secret with you. Now we have no idea what we're doing up here. I don't mean that, really. Listen to me. I don't mean that flippantly. What I'm saying to you is, I don't know. When I look out and I see. Of course, there's always some whose eyes, I can tell, are just sort of being the stalwart defenders of what's pure and trying to judge if we're being pure up here or not, or showy. We concede that we need those. But I want you to know that the only thing that makes worship and praise and coming into the presence of the Lord happen around here is that we ask God all the time to bring it to pass. Sometimes we're just as delighted as Peach that God does what he said he's going to do. I know the Lord has been ministering today, and lots of times you may not even sense anything until you leave here. You walk out that door and you realize the world that you're going back into needs what you have right here. Is that right? They need the love of God, and that's what it is that's in this place. Today. We just thank God that he takes human vessels, clay vessels. I mean, we have our spats during the week, and we wonder up here sometimes. And the leadership of the church, you know, lord, how in the world are you going to bless what we're doing? And yet he's faithful because we're asking him to. And we continue before him. I just praise the Lord for his faithfulness. That's all I can say. It's his faithfulness. Is that true in your life? Hallelujah. Imagine what it will be like when we know what we're doing. Have you Turn to Galatians 3. Turn over to Galatians 1. We'll get warmed up here. I see time is moving along, so I'm going to have to also, I think, though, it's important for the context of the message today to give you the background verses of the book of Galatians. And then we'll move into the specific focus of the morning. Paul, an apostle, not from men, nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead, and all the brethren who Are with me to the churches of Galatia. That's plural Notice. Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to Whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Sermon. Right in there. Right there. I'm astonished that you're so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel. Not that there is another gospel, but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preach to you, let him be accursed, as we have said before. So now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed. Now let's turn over to chapter three, verse one. O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? Let me ask you only this. Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh? Did you experience so many things in vain? If it really is in vain? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Would you just pray right now and ask the Lord to give us hearing with faith today? Lord, we pray that as we have these next moments, precious few as they are. Lord, before your word together, that you would grant us ears to hear with faith what the spirit of the Lord is saying. Amen. Have you ever been part of something that started out really well and then bombed? Shake your head. Good thing I saw no one moving. I figured, perfect people. There's a buck. The government is very good at getting things like that under their belt, aren't they? Did you hear that story I was on the news about two weeks ago about this mobile anti aircraft defense system that they started seven or eight years ago and they were touting this thing as being the battlefield deliverer of the foot soldier. A weapon that was mounted on a tank bed and used the latest radar technology and some kind of a high powered weapon that could just shoot aircraft out of the skies before it ever even got in range to zero in. They were saying this thing was going to make it possible to win encounters on the battlefield and just wipe aircraft out. Well, they put all these pieces together and the thing didn't work. It just didn't work. And they got on there and they had the Secretary of Defense explaining why. Well, it was really necessary to try this. And it only cost you, the taxpayer, $3 billion to see that this thing wasn't going to work. What a great experiment, right? All these pieces, they said they worked by themselves. The tank bed worked and the radar worked and the gun worked, but when you put them all together, it didn't work. Boy, does that sound like a church. You know, get all these pieces individually were just wonderful, come together, and we just. But God, the Bible says, knits us together and that makes all the difference. Well, Paul had the experience of starting something that began to crumble. And we just read about it here in the book of Galatians. Now, I don't have time to give. I'd love to give you a little historical profile of this situation, but let me just say that Paul was a church planter. Paul went into regions where there weren't churches and established congregations. That was his call. That was the apostolic call in his life, which he tells us is from God. No man said he was an apostle. God did. That has something to do with authority. Well, he went into Galatia and apparently, according to Galatians, one established several congregations. Right. But chapter one tells us that someone came along and began to pervert the pure Gospel and began to get these people thinking things that Paul hadn't told them and got them confused to the point where, if we would have read on further, he was concerned that they were on their way to losing the foundation of faith in Jesus Christ. What these people were basically telling them was that Jesus is good and we just thank God for this whole prophet that came out. But you still need to do all the Old Testament things, still need to keep the law together and practice the rituals. And most of all, you need to be circumcised just to show that you're part of the old covenant. Paul said, let them be cursed. Anathema is the Greek word. If anyone preaches any gospel, but the liberty that I've told you about in Jesus, let them be accursed. So Paul is greatly concerned and he writes the whole church and tells them about that. Beloved, I want to say to you this day that I believe that for some of us, and perhaps for we as a church corporately, the same possibility exists that having started in the spirit, we would resort to moving in the flesh. Having begun in the power of God, we would resort to. To trucking along, as it were. In our own power. How many of you know that there's a lot of stumbling blocks in this pathway called the narrow way? There's a lot of ways to get tripped up. How many of you know that each morning you go to bed and lay your head down that patio, thank God that if you're still walking in faithfulness, it was because he's held on to you. Is that right? I can tell you story after story, person after person. I think of one man who I love very much, still do love him very much, was a vital part of a relationship with me in ministry. Spent hours and hours together in ministry and in homes and all the rest. Very gifted guy. About five years ago, he just succumbed to the pressure of the carnal mindset of his own sexual preference and succumbed to that and entered into a homosexual lifestyle. And there was a man that God was using, anointed of God, gifted of God, man that I love, still love to this day and believe God that one day he's going to rescue him, pull him out of that, and it can happen to any of us. We can get along the way and be moving in the Spirit and find ourselves resorting to flesh, resorting to the ways of human strength to walk this walk. And I want to tell you that Paul, when he saw this happening in the Galatian Church, was very concerned. I want to share with you today on the positive side of this, how you can continue in the flow of God's spirit. We just sang Holy Spirit, fill me with your love and power. How many of you know that just because you were once filled with the Holy Spirit some years ago doesn't mean you're walking in it right now. And I believe that for our church, the possibility exists that with all the framework and the structure that God's given us, and I believe it's of God. With the home group meetings and now the extended times of teaching on Sunday and Wednesday and all the rest, it's still very possible to, having started in the Spirit, to walk in the flesh. How many were part in your tradition of a mindset that said if you went, you were okay. Let me see your hand. As long as you were there, you were okay. See, that. That is carnal thinking. That's human thinking at its very finest. That just because you're there, you're okay? Beloved, I believe that all that God's given us in terms of structures for home groups, I believe we've heard from God, but I want you to know that you could show up at a home group week by week. Say the words and lift your hands and do all the rest and be in dead works just as sure as you're sitting there and have nothing of the life of God. And I'm going to talk today of how to maintain a walk with God that's flowing in the power of the Holy Spirit and not resting on human strength. I believe that's what God wants us to look at. You know, it's been three and one half years since we've preached a Sunday morning about the Holy Spirit. I was embarrassed. I had to repent before the Lord about it. I might have had one message in there on Pentecost or something. But the Holy Spirit is what the church is all about. Is that right? I love it when I read an article about Elmer Towns, who's a Baptist, very intellectual guy and a Baptist preacher, and then became head of a major work of church growth and so on. And he was studying the churches in the world that had grown. And the Baptists are really pretty. Some of them, and maybe you're Baptist here today, are real cautious. I'll use that word when it comes to the Holy Spirit. In fact, sometimes they're just downright. That's it. We're not going any farther past this line. Well, Elmer Towns was studying the fastest growing, most spiritual and powerful churches in the world. And the first place he had to go was over to Korea, to the what's now called the Yeouido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, Korea, Pastor Cho's church. He walked in for the interview to have Pastor Cho tell him why this church had grown to 400,000 members. And the interview started like this. Pastor Cho said, unless you will write in your article that the reason why this church has grown is because of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the moving in the fullness of the Holy Spirit, I will not give you the interview. You can imagine this Baptist guy, just, what a condition for the interview. But praise the Lord, his heart was softened. And he faithfully recorded that and moved on to give a wonderful report of how the spirit of the Lord is what makes the church grow. It isn't human energy church. I want you to know that if it was human energy that brought these people here in this place, you'd be looking at a lot of tired, tired people. Tired in the spirit. And I don't feel tired in the spirit. I feel expectant in God. I believe God's working and I believe that he is doing what he alone can do. And that's what it's supposed to be in your life. I asked the Lord, lord, what do we need to talk about in these coming weeks in the fall? I mean, there's so much that needs addressed. We need to talk about evangelism. We need to talk about the prayer ministry. We need to talk about the power to heal. So many people are coming to us asking to be set free in counsel and so on. We need to talk about the power to love in home groups and other ministries. Lord, I don't know where to go. And the Lord said, seemed to say to my heart, son, there's no way you can react to all those needs. He said, don't react, but act in the Holy Spirit. And that's what I'm doing this morning. We're going to act together to breathe in the Holy Spirit and trust him to permeate into all those other areas, into the power for evangelism, the power for healing, the power to love. You know, how many of you have a car that's getting kind of old and every once in a while something else goes wrong with it? You know, that syndrome. Now it's the starter, and then it's the carburetor, and now it's the alternator. Have you ever had a vision one day of walking down there and lifting the hood up and there's this gleaming new 400 cubic inch engine? Well, that's what God wants to do. He said, you know, yeah, you need a carburetor and you need all, but you need the power flow. And I want to give you a fresh breath of his life. Forgive this term, I know it's secularized, but you need the energizer. Do you know that that word literally is in the Greek New Testament in reference to the Holy Spirit? First Corinthians 12:11. It's the Holy Spirit that inspires us in the gifts that energize us in the Word. Look at Colossians 1 while you're there in Galatians, flip over just a few Pages to Colossians 1. I just want you to see this. Paul says 1:28. Him we proclaim warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present in every man mature in Christ. That's what our ministry is about, presenting every man mature in Christ for this I toil, striving with all the, say it energy. Or what's the other one, all of his power, which he mightily inspires within me. The Holy Spirit is the energy. The energea is the Greek word that God's given to fulfill this ministry. I just Want to ask a question here? How many of us today would say, you know, I hear you talking about this power. I hear you describing a life that's flowing, And yet I feel really labored, Jay. I feel like that everything that I do is a hassle. When I go to bed at night, I'm tired, I'm discouraged. I just don't feel like I'm flowing in God. I'm not seeing miracles. And if you're honest with yourself, you'd say, no one would really look at my life and see joy either. What I see is a burden. What I see is a trial and a struggle. I wonder how many people right now would just say that that's how I feel. I mean, if I'm honest. And you're not going to condemn me, Jay. That's how I feel. It's a struggle. It's a hassle. I feel tired out. And my word to you is the word that Paul said to the Galatian church, who has bewitched you. Having started in the Spirit, are you going to go on in the flesh? It's not to be this way. Ephesians just pours out the truth that God has supplied a power source. He says now to him, who by the power the energia at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think to him be glory in the church. You see, there's a power at work. There is to be one within us. Now let me share with you obstacles to flowing in that power. Okay, I have an overhead for this Is our overhead, folks. Ready? I want to jot these down home group leaders. By the way, I have the questions that I promised you in my office. Afterwards, if you want them. Here are some ways in which we lose the power flow of God's spirit. Now, if you've never entered into that power flow, don't leave here today without being ministered to. But here's how we can get sapped away. Here's how we could lose the energizing. Let's look at Galatians 3, and we're just going to follow that text right down there together. Number one, he says, foolish Galatians. That's a strong word, foolishness. Let me give you the Bible dictionary definition of foolish. One who lacks common sense perception of the reality of things material and spiritual. One who lacks common sense perception of the reality of things material and spiritual. I just want to say to you that the first thing that causes you to lose that power flow of God's love is Foolishness. It's being out of touch with things spiritual and material and the priority they should have in their life. The quickest way I know to lose the power of God is to get your priorities out of whack. So many people struggle with their schedule. You know what? That's the first problem. It isn't your schedule. Who's the Lord of your life? It better not be U.S. steel, beloved, or Alcoa or Boron or anyone else. The Lord Jesus helps order your life. And I talk to so many people, say, well if you just knew what I had to do every morning just to pay the bills. Well, if you're going to tie God's hands and say, well that's just the way it has to be God, then I'm going to submit to you. You'll never flow in the power of God in your life. It will always be a struggle. I love that commercial that was on maybe a year ago or more and I can't remember the company thinking about it where the fellow comes down in the morning and it's 5:30. They show the clock and in sort of the, you know, the darkness, the refrigerator door opens and he gets out a glass of milk and he gets on the phone and he says, how'd we open today in London? And then it comes on and the impression is if you put your money with our investment company, our guys get up at 5:30 to find out how we did in London. They're up there before anyone else getting things for you so you can build your kingdom. There's a powerful message in that, you see, because how many people are motivated by just getting out ahead of someone else? If you want to be somewhere at 5:30, don't let it be on the phone about London. Get before the Lord. Give him some time in the morning. Let that priority of his life be that which orders your day. You know that definition in the Bible dictionary said the imprudent ordering of life with regard to salvation. Once you've come into salvation, it's imprudent to order your life any other way but God first. And if your day is just packed full with business calls or children or whatever it is, and you're not giving time to the Lord, just count on the fact that you're going to start moving in the flesh. It is an axiom. You say, well I don't like hearing this fundamental stuff all the time. Well beloved, it's because it's so simple. God said, just do it this way and it will work. Now the second thing he says who has bewitched you. Now, that word appears only here in the whole New Testament, and it means to be tricked with words. Is there anyone here that's ever been talked out of your dependence on the Holy Spirit? Anyone here that's ever been tricked by someone else's perception of how you're to live in the Holy Spirit? There's a lot of ideas about what's right concerning dependence and upon the Holy Spirit. And it's very easy. I think of someone who was participating in tgif, our Friday night ministry, young adults, and they were just learning how to obey the Lord and hear his word and move ahead. And they started spending some time with another person, a brother in Christ who did not believe that the Holy Spirit moved in power and spoke to people today and in fact began to talk him out of believing that. And this person got really confused. And I remember finally we just had to say, well, you have to make a choice. What voice are you going to listen to? And I wonder today if some of us have that same struggle. There can be an eroding of our conviction that it is God and you get bewitched and confused and that will zap the energy of the Holy Spirit. The third thing that can happen is, look at this. Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Probably the most prevalent stumbling block in losing the flow of the Holy Spirit is to get caught up in keeping the works of the law. What do I mean by the works of the law? I mean, it's anything that you do in order to somehow get God's blessing. Well, I'm going to go to prayer because I feel I ought to, and I want to get God's blessing. And that's the only way that I know to do. You see, the Bible gives us a clue and says that without faith it is. Say it impossible. Say it again. It's impossible to please God. So whenever you go to any meeting, whenever you're. Anytime with other believers, allow God to pour faith into you. Because without faith, don't go to home group. Without faith, don't bother coming to the prayer meeting. Without faith, don't sit and read your Bible, because it's just. There's so much clutter. But with faith, beloved, with faith. Hearing with faith is the secret to keeping that flow vital. I'm telling you, singing choruses and raising our hands and taking communion and all that stuff can be just so much dead works. And God forbid that we'd ever be a church at all the motions. The charismatic works of the law, but didn't have faith and the power of his spirit. Amen. There's a lot of people for whom the works of the law are just simply the methodologies. I love it when any book is published that says eight steps or six ways to it sells. You know what I'm saying? If you just can publish it in some way that tells the people, here's the formula to getting where you want to be. We love that in America. 117 Ways to Build your Sunday school. Right. It sells. And there's all kinds of things. I mean, just we want a formula for the spirit of God. Do this and this will happen. And beloved, that isn't God's work. That's a work. Those books can help you to get things, but that's not what energizes. It's by hearing with faith. Let me give you another thing that's an obstacle. It's previous experiences. Did you experience verse 4 so many things in vain? There's two kinds of experiences that I find hold people up. The first one is painful experiences. John Wimber, who's done so much in the body of Christ in these days to bring healing into the church, who spoke here a year and a half ago, tells the story of the first woman that he prayed for after he was filled with the Holy Spirit. She was quite sick and asked for him to come and pray. So though he really hadn't had much experience in healing, he said, well, I guess this is the way it's going to be now. And he went out and prayed for this woman. Three weeks later, she died. John walked out of that situation and said, I'll never pray for another person's healing again. I wonder if there's some people today who've had a painful experience where someone maybe has burned you in their abuse or their overzealousness concerning the Holy Spirit. Or maybe you asked God for his Holy Spirit to move in power in your life and nothing, quote, happened. And you've been locked there for five years. Well, today the Lord wants to move you out of that pain, painfulness, into the reality that he wants to flow. He wants to get you past your failure and on to a point of flowing in life. There's a second kind of painful experience that I see, and that's the people who had something good happen five years ago, and they're still living in that. And if you ask them, what's God doing in your life today? Well, I don't know. But five years ago, at a camp meeting with Sister so and so or brother this. We had a great time, folks. I don't mean this uncanny. But if your freshest testimony is CFO eight years ago or Jimmy Swaggart five years ago, then you're missing out because God's doing something right here, right now, today. He's moving by His Spirit. So don't let those experiences of the past hold you back. The final obstacle is this, and I see it sort of as a conglomeration of all of the above. It's poor theology. How many of us have been programmed basically by our thought, life and our theological, our biblical understanding to not expect God to do anything by His Spirit once saved, always saved, once born again, have everything even once filled, always filled. I find it amazing that the very people who tell you to ingest this word and study it to show yourself approved the Logos of God tell you that there's no rhema today, that there's no word proceeding from God right now. And I want to submit to you, beloved, God is speaking today. His Word is coming forth today. And I want to ask you a question. Are you hearing it? Look what he says in verse five. Does he who supplies that word gives liberally the Spirit to you and works miracles? Now those two things are going hand in hand. You see them giving the Spirit and working miracles. How many of you like that to characterize your life? Does God do that? He says, by works of the law, keeping the rituals and the customs and all the motions, or by hearing with faith? I want to just conclude today by asking you, what does it mean to hear? What are you hearing from God today? Now, the word to hear doesn't just mean the physical listening and perceiving with the organ of your ear and eardrum, but it means to understand the message. Reporter teaching. That's what the word akou means in the Greek. And beloved, I want to share with you today that this is a crucial issue. It's interesting that he didn't say, does God supply the Spirit and work miracles by praise? He doesn't say, does God supply the Spirit and work miracles by the confession of your lips? He said, does God supply the Spirit and work miracles by hearing with faith? I want to suggest to you hearing is a very, very important dynamic in our walk with the Lord. 500 references to hearing in the Greek New Testament. Who was it that said, he who has ears to hear, let him hear? Who? It was Jesus. Who was it that said, take heed what you hear, for the measure you receive will be the measure that you're given Jesus, who was it that said to the seven churches at Philadelphia in the book of Revelation, including the church to Philadelphia and all the other ones, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. You know what that says to me? That there are some who are standing as disciples of the Lord Jesus, and he is speaking, but they're not hearing. And those seven churches represent, as you know, beloved, they represent the church of today that's gone off on its own way. And Jesus said, they're not hearing, they're not listening. Have you ever had the experience of talking to someone that wasn't listening? I say, this morning, right in the bathroom, come on, honey, I gotta get done. Isn't that frustrating? I mean, you don't. What happens is you begin to withdraw. Well, if they're not gonna listen, I'm not gonna talk. Very few things are more frustrating than that. And Jesus says to his disciples, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. Would you turn to Mark the fourth chapter and look at this with me? I'm going to have to conclude and pick this up maybe next week. Mark the fourth chapter, verse nine, he says, and Jesus said, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. The disciples then in verse 10:11, asked him some questions. And then look over at verse 23. If any man has ears to hear, let him hear. Do you realize how many times Jesus said this? And he said to them, take heed what you hear, for the measure you give will be the measure you get, and still more will be given you, beloved. Would you underline that in your Bible? I want to tell you something. You know what that's saying? That's saying, for the measure that you hear will open the door for God to give you more. You determine what you're hearing from God. You are the own determinant of the revelation that you're going to receive. And I want to submit to you, church. We need to hear from the Lord. You need to hear from the Lord for your own life. Do you know what happens when you go off and do things without listening to God? You get into a lot of trouble, don't you? Now, I asked Carol if I could share this story with you. And I'm going to do it. She said I could. A couple months ago, she called her sister up in New York and said, let's have. Let's have your daughter come down and we'll meet up in Erie, and then we'll bring her down and we'll spend the day together up in Erie and then drive down and she'll Spend a week with us. And that was a great idea. And they said, okay, well, we'll meet you at the end of the turnpike. Okay. No, it was worth 79 and the turnpike intersect or something like that. Okay, that's about where it was too. All right. So started as a great day and all the family drove up there. Unfortunately, I wasn't part of that. And Carol's sister came down from Rochester, New York, and they were driving. And for some reason they didn't take heed as to what they were hearing. And Carol thought that it was going to be. I might have this confused where the turnpike toll booth was on Interstate 80. What is that up there? 90, right. And her sister thought it was where 79 and 90 intersect, which is down the road about 20 miles. So they're up there going back and forth like this, Right? And God bless them. He had all the kids in the car and, you know, it's a sunny day and they were supposed to be at the lake. Well, around about one or two o'. Clock. They were supposed to have met, like at 11 or 11:30, Carol's sister calls and says, well, where's Carol? And I said, well, she's up there. He said, but I haven't seen her. And, you know, for some reason, it just never worked out. And at one point, we found out later, Carol was driving up to the toll booth and saw them pulling away like that and couldn't catch them because you couldn't do the U B. I know, I felt that. But it all worked out. And it just so illustrated to me how important it is to listen and get your direction straight. Because you know what the result is otherwise? Confusion. Right. Frustration and beloved. A lot of the things that we get into are confusing and frustrating and downright. I mean, they just make you mad because they're not of the Lord and you get frustrated. Jesus said, take heed what you hear. What are you hearing today? I'm going to stop right there. What are you hearing from the Lord? Because, you see, it's by hearing with faith that you continue to move in the power of the spirit. Now, next week I'm going to share with you how you can hear from the Lord and then apply faith to it so that you can move in the flow of God so that you're not off the side of the stream paddling away like crazy trying to catch up, but that you're in the flow and being carried along. Ever been whitewater raft? There are six hands going up and they're all under 20. Oh, there we go. Okay. Or canoeing or boating. Is there a difference between just getting off to the side and going like this and getting in there? And all you use your paddle for is just to direct yourself? How many of you want to be off to the side going like this all the time, right? No, I want to be where God's moving because the Holy Spirit will carry us along. Let me ask you, what are you hearing together? Let's hear the word of the Lord and apply faith. Shall we pray together? Lord, I just today thank you for a church that it set itself to hear from God. And Lord, I believe that as we've opened this important dynamic of your word to our own scrutiny now, Lord, that you'd be moving in every heart to speak as to how we might hear what you're saying today and apply faith to it, Lord, that we might move in the power of your spirit. Father, there's a world out there that we seek to reach. We want to touch that world. And we want our lives to be models of your life. And we know it's not by works, it's not by trying, it's not by human strength, but it's by your spirit. We bless your name, Holy Spirit, come and fill us. Hallelujah