Discipleship in Being Led by Holy Spirit
Sunday, October 23, 2022 – RECAP/Study Points
Pastor Dewayne: Pastor Mike has been talking, and he’s been saying all of the time that he’s not just teaching lessons; he’s building lives. The embracing of this lesson is designed to shift your lives and your world into an area where…you will defy all impossibilities. I will sum it up to say this; you will have an unstoppable life. Your lifestyle will become unstoppable. The only one who can stop you from doing what God has called you to do is YOU.
Pause, stick a pin right there. Shout that Baltimore, shout that Brandywine, “I am the only one, who can stop, my unstoppable lifestyle.”
Pastor Dewayne: You were talking about a song this morning, and you can tell us about that song. The one that everybody has a certain song. Tell us about that song.
Spirit led me where my trust is without borders. I love that song! I envision being out on the waters where there are no shores to my trust. I so love that song. Ok, so you can sing it. I can have revelation with it because those who can sing it may not know it like I know it. And you can see the fruit from their lives. So, when it’s time to go, you’re not ready because you don’t trust like you should trust. DeeDee and I said there are three things that will establish an individual’s trust.
Dr. DeeDee: Trusting God
- Know Him – Philippians 3:10
- Have Confidence, Trusting Him – I John 5:14
- Unfeigned Acquaintance with His Voice – Genesis 3:8
Please scan to view this week’s 10 am service again!
You cannot trust something you do not know. Now, let me just bring a call right into your lap. By the way, I am calling every sanctuary at every campus officially “The Stretch Zone.” So, every time you walk in to one of these sanctuaries, be prepared to be stretched. Will you receive that? Somebody shout, “stretch me!” Here we go!
Now listen, you walked in here and sat all of whatever the scale says in that chair without checking it. Not one of you lifted that chair over, checked the legs, you just put all of your weight in that chair. Am I right about it? Why can’t we put the weight of our lives in God’s hands the way we just put the weight of our life in that chair? You’ve had some experiences with these chairs where these chairs have not failed you. And yet you’ve never had an experience with God where He’s failed you. Or if you assumed that He’s failed you, you don’t know Him. Because the bible says before one jot or tittle of His Word fails, heaven and earth would have to pass away by virtue of this earth still spinning on its axis. God has never failed.
Matthew 5:18 (NKJV) For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.
But we get into situations, and we’re like “Oh God, I don’t know what’s going to happen.” You’re conveying at that time that your trust has borders. And it’s contingent upon what you can see, what you’ve heard, what you say, what you feel, and what you smell.
Dr. DeeDee: Absolutely, I love that because we trust things that we have experienced. And most of the time, we read through the scriptures, and it always talks about you have to do something with trust. It says to put your trust in the Lord. Trust in the Lord with all of your heart; lean not to your own understanding.
You said and were talking about how God hasn’t failed us, and I 100% agree, but some people are under the persuasion that God has because they haven’t seen things happen the way they thought things would happen. And unfortunately, we give God the blame for stuff not happening in our lives the way it should because we don’t understand or know His Word. And not until you become one with this Word will you really understand it was not God that you did not receive what you were believing for.
Pastor Dewayne: That’s why it’s so important because, like Dr. DeeDee said, to know Him, then she broke it down when she came back to say, “to know Him is to know His Word.” A lot of people say they know God, but how do you really know a God you’ve never seen before? He’s in the unseen arena. How do you practically break that down? Well, you know Him because you know His Word. God and His Word they are one.
And you can listen to your leaders, you can look at your life, and you can tell if they want you to know God. The way you can tell is Solomon looked at his son. He said, “my son attend to the Word; incline your ears to my saying.” See, Solomon was giving his son what he received to let him know, “I really want you to know even when I’m not around.” Some people have a God that they know when somebody is around them. But we’re trying to connect you with the God when that person is not around, and you’re by yourself, that you know that you know. That’s why Jesus said, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4).
Dr. DeeDee:
1. Know Him – Philippians 3:10, NKJV – “That I may know Him and the power of his resurrection.” This is more than a causal acquaintance. When they’re talking in the scripture about “to know Him,” it talks about how different people in the scripture, the husbands, knew their wife. This is talking about to be intimate, to become one with it.
When you think about intimacy in the natural, what do you think about? You think about coming together with someone else to become one. And that’s what the scripture is talking about. This means that you have to spend some quality time with it where you gave up yourself for it.
And it cannot be a one-day stand. But it’s the equivalent of a one-night stand. Some of us are having one-night stands with the Word. And it’s no intimacy in that, and no commitment is coming in that. If you’re going to become this Word, you’re going to have to spend more time with it than just right now.
Listen to me; I so love the fact that that couple (from the Pastor Appreciation video) said every morning, they get up, and she thanked me for the notes. I get very few “thank you” from the notes. I’m not talking about thank you because I asked or said thank you. I’m talking about you’re in them. That couple they were married three times to each other. But you know what kept them coming back? All they need to do now is take the Word and stay together.
Dr. DeeDee:
2. Have Confidence; Trusting Him – I John 5:14, NKJV – “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him. That if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.”
And most believers don’t have confidence that their prayers were heard. There were times when I was coming up, my mama or some other mother of the church literally would just haul off and sing…” I will trust in the Lord…until I die”. It came from somewhere. They would look over the periods of time in their lives, and all of a sudden, if my daddy said it was testifying time, one of the old saints would sing, “I will trust in the Lord…”. Can anybody remember, when you think back about how good God has been to you and what He brought you through? And it was nothing but your trust. And He brought you right through it just like He said He would. Why don’t we build confidence in each episode? Why do we lose hope? If He did it before…Oh, Jesus! Hallelujah!
Pastor Dewayne: While we’re sitting in this “Stretch Zone,” everybody has to make sure that you’re grabbing hold of the main thing. Because what Dr. DeeDee said is that these (3) things she’s given are necessary to have trust. And you can tell most don’t because they are trying to get there. And trust is a decision that you will refuse to move off of what you said and what you know. People are trying to work things up. And the reason why they try to work things up is because they don’t have confidence in Him or confidence in the Word.
I remember some years ago; God showed me when I was looking at this confidence; he said look at the word in there. It’s confide. See, a person who has confidence, it’s because you have confided in and have some secret things that other people may not know, but you know because you have confided in the God that you say that you know. You know something that others don’t know. And that’s why you stand when others don’t stand. And you do things that others don’t do because you have been confiding. And that’s why these notes are so important because now you can take the notes, and it’s almost like a cheat sheet. It will cause you to skip past years of trying to learn this, and it will speed you ahead in life. You can start to get intimate with, become one with this lesson, and embrace it because I’m telling you, those that embrace it, those are going to see the power of God operate in and through their life.
Dr. DeeDee: I really want to say something to go along with this. One point. We were having a conversation with someone, and they were talking about how they believe God, wrote out their vision plan, put everything up before them, they confessed the Word, and they saw everything on their vision board come to pass. And they were like, “yes, this is God!”. Then the got to a place where they pulled away from the things of God, started doing everything they wanted to do, fulfilling their vision and all of the stuff they had on their vision board. Then it was time to execute something else, and they wanted the same kind of experience or episode or outcome to happen the next time. He said, “I went through those same motions and principles and did everything I did before, but it didn’t happen for me the second time.” I was saying, “well, you have to become one with it. This is not something that you pick up when you want to believe God for something. I’m going to believe God for a car; let me get in the Word. I’m going to believe God for a house; let me do this. No, this has to become a lifestyle. Like Pastor, Dewayne was talking about. You have to become one with it. I you are no one with the Word, it will be difficult for you to just jump back in the system, if you will, and just begin to believe all over again. Right there for that moment for something. It has to be a constant and consistent lifestyle of being one with this Word.
So that requires your attentiveness. You have to be intentional about your intention. Leaning in every day. God, I want to get to know You. I want to know You better. I want to know You more. And we pray, and we ask God, “I want more of You.” But we don’t even know the God that we have, and we want more of what? And He’s already given you all of Him. When you received Jesus Christ as Lord, He gave you ALL of Him, everything about Him. Now it’s our responsibility to understand His characteristics, His likes, and dislikes. It’s really developing a relationship with someone just like you would in the natural. Get to know them and spend quality time with them. Lean in! This isn’t magic.
I almost wanted to stop you back there when you said back into the system, and you said that may not be the right word. It is because the Kingdom of God is a system, it’s government, it’s an algorithm, it’s God’s way, it’s an order. But I would like to say even more into the fellowship of the things of God because there are a lot of people who are in and out of fellowship with the Word. And when something comes up, they have to run back into fellowship, and the confidence is not there. And you don’t even feel good about it.
Dr. DeeDee: We already know that everything in the spiritual arena is really just like things happen in the natural. So if you think about your natural relationships. In the beginning, you make take advantage of the opportunity; you build, you talk to them, you’re there, they’re there for you. You have a confidence in going to them; it’s like if you need something, you’ll go to them and say, “Hey, can you help me with this?” But if it’s been years or some span of time since you have spoken to them, not even a text, a letter, and now you need them. It’s difficult.
It feels funny even going to them because you haven’t spoken to them in so long. How dare I, the audacity to come back now and ask for something? I was about to do that the other day. About a week and a half ago, I was in the process of texting someone asking them for something. And God said don’t you dare ask them for anything. You haven’t even spoken to them in such a long time; you just ask about them, “how are you?”
Pastor Dewayne: With me, I’m looking at this trust and confidence and the things that are necessary for you to have trust. I like to break stuff down to make it simple for me. Faith and trust are like two different things. Faith needs something from the unseen before it starts. Just like trust needs something that it sees. That’s why trust needs a track record. Trust needs to see consistency. That’s why you’ve got to leave here and make a demand on the Word. A lot of people are talking faith, and it’s good. But if you don’t make a demand and see, experience, and encounter the God that you say you serve when there’s going to be some tough times, you’re not going to be able to have a bear, a lion; you won’t have anything for you to stand in front of the Goliath. That’s why we have to make sure. Trust is for the head; faith is for the heart. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding. You need to grab a hold of your mind and keep your mind from pulling over to your own understanding. Make sure that we’re getting hold of the Word, get into these notes, and go with the Word. Focus on the Word. It’s going to get you out of every situation and circumstance that you face in life.
Dr. DeeDee:
3. Unfeigned Acquaintance with His Voice – Genesis 3:8
Genesis 3:8 specifically speaks about the voice of God was walking through the garden, and Adam heard it. My question is, how do you hear His voice walking? He possessed this unfeigned, uninterrupted, untainted acquaintance with His voice. And the reason why we can be thrown off to doubt and unbelief is because sometimes, when we’re making decisions, our acquaintance with His voice is not where is should be.
Dr. DeeDee: Nothing just happens. When you are led by the Spirit of God, you have to believe that God divinely orchestrates every step of your life. My life is led by the Spirit of God. You have to pay attention. If you don’t pay attention to those moments, you’ll start to say, “something said,” or you’ll miss a lot of moments. Or assume you thought of it on your own.
I want you to be so acquainted with those moments when you’re just sitting there, and someone crosses your mind. Don’t put it aside. Don’t see it as coincidental. See it as the Spirit of God. The more you explore that, the more you’re going to know it’s Him. Because the consistencies and the outcomes are going to build confidence. Oh, that was God! That’s where we’ve been missing it and getting ourselves in all kinds of jams, financially, relationally, because we didn’t listen to God.
Pastor Dewayne: You’ve got to make sure that you’re really getting into the Word. Sometimes I’ve seen people compare God with man because man let you down, now you throw God away. But there’s one scripture, and I close with this…” God is not a man that He should lie. Nor the son of man that He should repent. If He said it, will he not make it good? If He spoke it, He will do it?”(Numbers 23:19). Everything God says, God always packs enough power in it to perform everything He said. If you have not seen what God has said, never blame God. Always and investigate; it wasn’t God, let’s stick with God and do the things necessary, and when you begin to trust, you’ll see the salvation of the almighty God.
Scripture references: Philippians 3:10 (NKJV) I John 5:14 (NKJV)
Genesis 3:8 (NKJV)
Matthew 4:4 (NKJV)
Matthew 5:18 (NKJV)
Numbers 23:19 (NKJV)
Declaration:
“I will stop endeavoring to make more money first; I will endeavor to keep more money than I am making.”
Action Item:
Take time to figure out how you can keep more of the money you’re making. Check
your spending.