Thank you for listening to this message from LifeHouse Church.
Good morning, good morning.
Turn to somebody beside you, get my high five, tell them, good to see you.
Tell them it's good to see you.
Good to see you, good to see you.
Hey, listen, before we start with the message, I wanted to take a moment and apologize to
the LifeHouse family for my poor communication last Sunday with cancelling services.
As most of you know, we had a storm last Saturday night and into Sunday and they were expecting
the roads to be fully plowed and clear.
And as the storm was unfolding, we kind of had several additional problems arise.
Dixie and I came down with the stomach flu.
We were both horribly sick, which, you know, there's lots of that going around.
And then we had a failure with the snow blower here at the church for the sidewalks.
And, but in the course of all that, I had the staff send out several communications and that was all on me.
And it caused some confusion.
So I want to apologize for that.
We did get together on Monday with the staff meeting and said, hey, we don't want this to happen again.
So we set down some very clear protocols in the future.
If there is a snow emergency of some kind, which just really was and it did get cleared.
But if there is some kind of weather emergency, we'll let everybody know by noon on Saturday,
we'll send out a very clear, concise, all right, informational kind of communication.
So everybody knows what's happening.
So if you would please forgive me for the poor communication.
We do that.
Thank you.
You're in church.
You kind of got it.
But if you would thank you for that.
And I appreciate your patience with us on that.
Well, hey, we're back though.
We're here.
And yes, and it's a good, hey, thank you.
Yes.
And it's good to be in God's house.
And we just came off a week of fasting, a time of setting aside a time getting with God,
hopefully a time where you were curing with the master speaking to you and a week of devotions
we had out and prayer time and all those kind of things.
And tonight we've got a revive worship night.
If you've never been to one, if you can, please come.
Yes, I like it.
It's a great time.
It's completely different than Sunday mornings.
It's just an atmosphere of worship and honestly testimony.
We want to talk about what Jesus has done, right?
It doesn't matter what I did.
It just matters what Jesus did.
And that's tonight.
So we're excited about that taking place.
And then we're going to continue on with loud and clear for the next few weeks.
And I believe that the greatest thing we can do going into 2024 is to hear God, to hear his voice.
Amen.
I think it'll set the stage for your year.
It'll set the stage for your future, where you're going.
And I think it's incredibly important.
Amen.
If you believe that, turn to somebody and tell them, I want to hear God this year.
I want to tell God, I want to hear him.
I want to hear him this year.
Amen.
God testifies sometimes.
Well, listen, some of you may or may not be aware of, I grew up in a small town in Western PA.
And if you've been coming here for a while, you've probably heard me talk about it.
And where I grew up, it was coal and steel country.
So there were deep mines and my dad worked at Bethlehem Steel.
He worked in the steel mills.
And in our particular little town, because of the coal mines and of the steel mills,
when we talked about things, we talked about it in a little bit of different vernacular.
And most of my dad, friends, their dad worked at the steel mills or the coal mines.
So when somebody asked you where you live, it wasn't like here.
Like when somebody asked you where you live here, you're like, oh, I live on Oak Road or Hickory Road or Hickory Estates or Oka Estates.
So we're out in some bourbon development of some kind.
But where I came from, you lived by what mine number you lived by.
So they'd be like, oh, I'm from 37.
Oh, where do you live? I'm from 23.
And most people are like, what? 23 what?
But there was this vernacular that took place because of where we lived.
And in any small community, and sometimes even in a big community, there's this common conversation.
Stout words, words that are used, references that are the same.
And there can be common words, there can be common foods, there can be common traditions.
How many of you know the food sometimes is common to an area?
We ate God Cake and Hulushki.
Most people don't even know what that is, right?
That's a different thing. Go to Western PA, you'll find out, right?
And along with those common words and common traditions, sometimes they had common problems.
And one of the problems that was very common in our area with the adult males is that there was hearing loss.
And the reason was that they worked in the mills and they worked in the mines around heavy, loud equipment and didn't use a lot of ear protection.
So sooner or later in your family, you were having a conversation with the parent and it went something like this.
Hey, Dad, I think you need a hearing aid.
And he'd go, huh?
I think you maybe need some hearing aids.
What? Did you say hearing aids?
I don't need any hearing aids, right?
You would have a conversation along those lines that went and a lot of people, even Christians,
they kind of think that there's this spiritual common problem in the body of Christ,
that it really is hard to hear God, that it's difficult.
Sometimes, or most of the time, we can't hear God.
We can't hear Him in a clear way.
We don't really know.
And without some specialized, right, spiritual hearing aids, we're probably not going to hear God all that well.
And you're just kind of out of luck, right?
Stinks to be you.
God's not speaking to you.
Not today.
All right?
Somehow you missed it.
You're on the outs.
You know, something.
And other than the Bible, right?
We feel like we can't hear from God.
And other than the Bible, we're just not going to hear God until we die one day and meet Him face to face.
And they're really kind of that mindset.
And honestly, it's one of the top 10 questions I get asked as a minister.
Can I hear God?
Right?
How do I hear from God?
Do I have to be a pastor, evangelist, pastor, a teacher, an apostle to hear from God?
What's that look like?
Do I got to earn it somehow?
Right?
Do I got to take three classes?
What's that look like?
And the fact is, is if you're a believer, if you're a follower of Jesus Christ, if you are redeemed, if you've confessed, repented, surrendered to Jesus, you're following Him.
If you're saved, God wants to speak to you.
And He wants to speak to you personally.
He really does.
But here's the thing.
I can talk about God.
I can talk scripture.
I can try to attempt to preach the house down, you know, about being loud and clear.
And I'll give that my best shot.
But if I hope to build your faith in this, it's about you experiencing hearing from God.
Right?
We want you to participate in some principles from scripture that will position you to hear from God.
If you hear from God personally, here's what happens, your faith skyrockets.
It really does.
Probably a great message might inspire you for a little bit, but I don't know if your faith will definitely skyrocket from it.
But if you hear from God personally, your faith will skyrocket.
Nothing builds faith quicker, deeper than experiencing God personally.
Nothing is more convincing than actually hearing the voice of God in your own spirit and in your own heart and in your own life.
I love it when somebody comes up to me and they start telling me about how they've heard from God.
Right?
And, you know, they'll start talking about it.
And as I listen, I realize, okay, this lines up with scripture, what they're saying.
This is like legit.
And they get super excited about it.
They almost don't even know how to put it in words, right?
Because how do you describe God?
I mean, how many of God's great communicator?
Yeah, he uses more than words.
And they almost can't communicate.
And I watch as their faith goes from here to here, especially like first time they hear from God personally.
And it's just this thing where it leaps.
And nobody needs to convince him, you don't got to spend three hours in a theological discussion of some kind.
They've heard from God himself.
And they know.
Amen?
So my purpose is to take the next few weeks and show you that you don't need some specialized, spiritual kind of hearing aid to hear God a lot and clear.
You just got to position ourselves.
We just got to position ourselves.
It would just need to get in the right posture, the right position.
So if you got your Bibles this morning and your no pads ready, turn to John chapter 10 verse 25, John 10 25.
And I'm going to pray while you're turning there.
Lord, we thank you for this day.
God, for your blessing.
God, for your peace and your presence.
God, I ask, Lord, that this word would come into our hearts and God that it would move on us and it would speak to us and God that we would glean and draw from it.
And God that it would position us.
Lord, to hear from you this morning, to hear from you tomorrow, to hear from you the next week and then the next year.
And God, we give you glory and praise in Jesus' name.
Everybody said together?
Amen.
John 10 25 and it says this, Jesus answered them, I told you and you do not believe.
The works that I do in my father's name, they bear witness of me.
But you do not believe because you are not of my sheep.
As I said to you, my sheep hear my voice.
Now I'm going to stop right there and I want you to read that with me.
My sheep hear my voice.
You want to say it with me?
My sheep hear my voice.
Let's say it one more time.
My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me.
And I give them eternal life and they shall never perish.
Neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand.
My father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand.
I and my father are one.
How do we position ourselves to hear God's voice according to what Jesus told us in these few scriptures?
How do we keep from having spiritual hearing loss?
How do we ensure that we always hear from Him?
What is the Jesus analogy in this verse that helps us to see and hear God clearly?
It's simple.
He's our shepherd and we follow Him as His sheep.
Super simple, right?
Let me know that's so appropriate on Farm Week.
All right.
Harrisburg P.A. is having farm, right?
Farm Show is taking place right now.
He's our shepherd and we follow Him as His sheep.
And I want you to get this word picture because we are sheep.
Look at your neighbor right now.
Go ahead and look at him.
I want you to picture them as a sheep.
All right.
Point to him if you have to and go, bye.
All right.
Point to him.
Go ahead.
All right.
I thought I would get you.
I thought about getting you to get your cell phone out.
Get one of those.
You know how you can get those filters on your phone, right?
Get a sheep filter and put it on there so you can see yourself.
I don't know if they have one.
I didn't look it up, right?
But you know, you're a sheep and we should be sheep that are following Jesus.
He's our shepherd and we got to see ourselves in this light.
And let me read just a little more on this idea.
John 10.1 says this, most assuredly I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold
by the door but climbs up some other way, the same as a thief and a robber.
But he who enters the door is the shepherd of the sheep.
To him the doorkeeper opens and the sheep hear his what?
Voice.
And he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them, the sheep follow him for they
know his voice.
Yet they will by no means follow a stranger but will flee from him for they do not know
the voice of strangers.
What is the condition?
What is the position to hear God?
All right.
That's what it is.
It's sheep.
I need to closely follow Jesus in a sheep-like manner.
All right.
The position and the condition to hear God is to follow Jesus in a sheep-like manner.
Not just follow him, not just get in line behind him, right.
Not just bozy along with Jesus.
You know, I don't know if they put that on t-shirts anywhere, right.
But to follow Jesus in a sheep-like manner.
And there's a couple things you've got to understand about a sheep-like manner of following
Jesus and this idea and this picture of this.
First is this, that hearing and following closely go together.
Now I know this is kind of obvious.
Sometimes I've got to point out the obvious to myself, right.
But hearing and following closely go closely together.
If you're going to follow and follow closely, hearing goes along with that.
They're connected.
They're dependent upon one another.
If I want to hear the shepherd, I have to be close enough to hear from him, right.
It's not a theoretical thing.
It's not a metaphorical thing.
It's a practical thing.
It's something, it's a tangible thing that I have to do.
It's tangibly sticking close to the shepherd.
It's a perpetual movement, a perpetual action of coming in behind the shepherd.
And don't minimize this or underestimate this or gloss over this idea.
Because we miss God's voice if we do.
If we don't get this.
And if we practice it, it looks something like this.
Now I asked Pastor Andrew to help me this morning.
I'm going to play a little game that kids play all the time.
It's called Follow the Leader.
He's a youth pastor and he knows all about this, right.
So if you follow the leader, alright now I want, I'm the leader today.
Alright, I want you to follow, okay.
So if I'm leading, he's following, right.
He's even doing what I'm doing.
Alright, okay, he's following.
And as long as he's following closely to me, how many of you can hear me?
Now I know I got a mic on, right.
And you all can hear me.
But he can hear me.
And as long as he's close by me, you know, we can hear one another.
He can hear what I'm saying.
And what happens is, right, as a matter of fact, he can't even ignore me if he stays close enough to me.
As much as he wants to.
Even if you all begin to make a bunch of noise and I could get you to do,
I was going to try to get you to do that, but I thought, if that doesn't work, it's just going to be awkward.
So, but if I got you all to make a bunch of noise and he was close enough, he could still hear me talk.
He can still hear me in the noise, right.
But what happens, what happens if we get 10 paces apart from one another and I don't have a microphone on?
It gets harder to hear, right.
What if it's 20 feet apart?
What if he's at the back of the church at 60, 70 feet?
What if it's 50 yards, 100 yards, a mile away?
Are you going to hear me?
No.
Thank you.
He's not going to hear me.
If God seems distant to us, quiet to us, muffled to us, we might want to check our following distance.
We might want to see how close we are.
I got this thing in my car.
It's called adaptive cruise.
I love it.
It's the coolest thing ever.
They're going to throw a picture up of this, but it's adaptive cruise.
What I can do is I can set my cruise control and it monitors the car in front of me.
What's cool about that is I can set it on three different settings.
It's represented by three bars.
Each of those three bars represents a distance.
So, I can put the cruise control on and the car in front of me, if it's on three bars, it's pretty far away, right.
If it's on two bars, my car will come up closer and just ride that distance.
If it's one bar, I can get right up on top of them.
Guess what one I use?
I use one.
All right?
I like to know what's going on in front of me.
I like to see what's happening in front of me.
I don't know why.
Call it curiosity, but I'm almost never on three.
I'm always on one.
And I don't know.
Maybe I want to hear if they yell something out the window, right?
You know, I want to hear what they're playing on the radio if we stop at a red light.
I don't know.
You know, and how many of you know if you're up that close, you can see if they're off scrolling on their phone or social media, right.
You get to the red light and they sit there, or the green light, and you sit there for two minutes, you can hit the horn.
I'm on.
You have social media.
But I'm on one.
If it's sheep, if we want to hear him, we got to get close.
Check your following distance.
You got to know how close you are.
Are you a one-bar follower?
Two bars?
Or three bars?
Are you way back there?
Just, I'm following Jesus.
But I'm way back here.
And I'm not hearing a thing.
Amen?
It's true.
I have found this to be personally true in my own life.
If I get busy, if I get ignoring God, if I step away, if I'm 50 yards behind, I'm 100 yards behind, I'm a mile away from Him, I suffer hearing loss big time with Jesus.
It happened to Israel, and Scripture, Israel would wander away from God in the Old Testament, and they would forget to listen for the Lord, and they would go their own way.
And ultimately, what would take place when they would get away from God is the enemy would begin to come in.
The enemy would begin to come in and terrorize them.
And if they stayed close to God, and they stayed close to His Word, God was always right in front of Him, fighting their battle for Him.
But they would lose it.
They would completely lose it.
It happened, what if we want to hear God?
What's your following distance?
One, two, or three bars.
Amen?
What's another important factor of Jesus' Word picture of the sheep and the shepherd analogy that causes me to hear him loud and clear, right?
We must be sheep-like in the follow of Jesus.
We have to be sheep-like in the follow of Jesus.
Now, what's that mean, right?
About two weeks ago, two or three weeks ago, I talked with somebody who worked with sheep, and I got into a conversation with them.
They were a farmer, and they had worked with cows and different critters that are raised on a farm, and sheep were one of them.
And I was talking to her, and she was telling me about sheep.
And in conversation, she looked at me, she said, she's the stupidest animal I've ever worked with.
I was like, okay, right?
And she said, they're just stupid.
And I started seeing these verses in a whole new light, you know?
They're just stupid.
And I had heard that once before, but I wasn't sure I believed it, and she confirmed it, right?
She said, they're just stupid. This new revelation began to come as I was looking at these verses.
And you might say, well, Pastor, are you saying I'm stupid, or I should stupidly follow Jesus?
No, I'm not saying that at all.
But I did realize something in this conversation.
And something came to light in this conversation as I was looking at it.
If I measure the competence and the intellect of the sheep, and I compare that to the competence and the intellect of the shepherd, the sheep's stupid.
Come on. If I match my intellect and my competence and my ability to God's, right, to Jesus' ability and His competence and His intellect,
I kind of rank Him stupid.
I don't know about you. You can put yourself wherever you want.
But I see myself kind of in a stupid category.
For a person, listen, I know you're like, well, I don't want to call myself stupid.
I don't either. That's not what I'm saying.
You get where I'm going.
Following Jesus in a sheep-like manner means I got to crush my pride.
It really does.
Following Jesus in a sheep-like manner means I got to make sure that I know my place in this relationship.
That He's the leader, and that I am the follower, right?
That self-reliance goes out the window.
That I fall in line behind the master, right?
And He doesn't fall in line behind me.
I could think in my ideas better than His idea.
I realize that His ways are above my ways, far above my ways, way above my ways.
Amen?
Amen.
Amen. It's true.
Have you ever got around somebody who was leading and they had no idea what they were doing?
Anybody ever do that before?
Right?
How many of you ever got put in a position where you had to lead and you had no idea what you were doing?
Yeah. Right?
And you see that person get each other.
How many know that doesn't end well, typically, right?
If you're following somebody and they got no clue what they're doing, and they got no idea where they're going,
they haven't trained and haven't consulted and they don't do any of those kind of things, right?
And sometimes that's what sheep do.
We get out, you know, and we start trying to fake it until we make it.
Amen?
Anybody know what I'm talking about?
You know, I got this all figured out.
I got what's going on.
I'm just going to keep faking it until I make it kind of thing.
Bad direction to go in.
Man, in a spiritual context, we need to follow Jesus and we need to do it in a sheep-like manner.
We need to know where we are in this relationship.
And without a doubt, no, who's leading and who's following, right?
If I want to hear God loud and clear, no spiritual hearing aids required, right?
Follow Jesus in a sheep-like manner.
Drop the pride, drop the self-reliance, right?
Yeah, the quiet, hidden air against it.
Sometimes we all carry, right?
Our hidden agenda.
Man, I get hidden agendas.
God's pretty good at revealing those, by the way, right?
I don't just determine I'm not going anywhere.
God isn't going.
James 4.10 says this, humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, for He will lift you up.
He lifts us up when we're close, when we're listening.
1 Peter 5.5 says, likewise, you young people submit yourselves to your elders.
Yes, all of you be submissive to one another.
Come on, all the elders should be saying amen.
And be clothed with humility.
For God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
He gives favor, right, to the humble.
Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time,
casting your care upon Him, for He cares for you.
Micah 6.8 says, He has shown you, oh man, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you, but to do justly, to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with your God?
That's clear.
Follow close, and follow sheep-like to hear Him.
He speaks to the humble.
He resists the proud, the word of God says that, right?
I want to leave you with one last thing that we need to hear God well.
Sometimes we need living proof that God wants to speak to us as Jesus' followers.
Sometimes we need living proof, right?
Sometimes we need living, breathing.
I can touch it, it can touch me.
Proof that alleviates doubt in my life.
I need that kind of proof in my life.
Proof that leaves me in faith, right?
And there's this guy in Scripture that his name is Thomas,
and he needed living proof.
How many of you know who doubting Thomas is?
If you don't, you will in a few minutes.
He needed living, breathing proof that Jesus was alive.
Jesus dies on the cross.
He witnesses it, he was there, he saw it, and Jesus raises from the grave,
and he appears to some of his other disciples.
And the man that he was training, but Thomas isn't with them.
When Jesus appears, Thomas isn't there.
And when he gets back, the other disciples say,
Thomas, Jesus is alive.
He showed up.
He's here.
And Thomas says, I doubt it, all right?
I don't believe it.
And it says this in John 20-24.
Now, Thomas called the twin, one of the twelve,
was not with them when Jesus came,
and the other disciples therefore said to him,
we have seen the Lord.
So he said to them, unless I see in his hands the print of the nails
and put my finger into the print of the nails
and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.
He wanted living, breathing proof.
And after eight days, his disciples were again inside,
and Thomas with them.
And Jesus came, and the door was being shut,
and stood in the midst and said, peace to you.
Then he said to Thomas, reach your finger here,
and look at my hands, and reach your hand here,
and put it in my side, and do not be unbelieving,
but believing.
And Thomas answered and said to him, my Lord and my God.
And Jesus said to him, Thomas, because you have seen me,
you have believed.
Blessed are those who have not seen yet believed.
Now, I like Thomas because he's honest, right?
He's honest.
Sometimes we feel like we need living proof.
We need living, breathing proof.
Sometimes, I call Thomas a late adopter.
I don't know if you've ever heard that term before,
but in life, people fall into three categories.
They're either an early adopter,
a mid adopter, or a late adopter.
And what that means is something new comes up.
Some people are like, soon as a new thing comes up,
they're like, yeah, woo, you don't even get it
off the whole way, right?
They're just like, I'm in, right?
It's new, let's do it.
And they're early adopters, right?
Sometimes you present something that's brand new,
and you'll get a mid adopter, and they're like, well,
let me just watch this for a little bit.
Let me see how this is gonna work out a little bit, right?
That's a mid adopter.
And then you get late adopters like, man,
unless you give me living proof, forget it, I'm out.
And Thomas is kind of a late adopter.
He's like, I don't know if I'm buying it, guys.
I trust you all.
I've been walking with you all for three years with Jesus,
but I don't know if I'm buying what you're saying.
I don't know if I'm picking up what you're putting down, right?
I don't know if I'm going with what you're selling.
But Jesus knew that all of us sometimes
would need living proof.
We would need something on a daily basis,
and it couldn't just be head knowledge.
It couldn't be just the reading of the Scripture.
It couldn't even just be a Sunday gathering,
where we come together in a worship service,
and even a revive night.
It had to be more.
He knew that we would need living proof on a constant basis
to hear him, to know that he's there,
and to walk in power in presence of God.
And he said, I'm gonna send the Holy Spirit.
1 Corinthians 3.16 says,
do you not know that you are the temple?
Say the temple.
The temple of God, and that the spirit of God
dwells in you.
If anyone defiles the temple of God,
God will destroy him for the temple of God is holy.
Which temple are you?
When you got saved, a whole bunch of things happened.
A whole bunch of things changed.
One, you got sanctified.
The blood of Jesus Christ,
when you accepted Christ as Lord and Savior,
the blood of Christ washed you clean.
It took away your sin.
It washed away what you could not take away.
The guilt, the shame, all of that was gone.
Not only that, you were justified.
In the halls of heaven, if you're in sin,
you are guilty before God, and the sentence is death.
And when you get saved, the word of God says
that you are justified.
In other words, you are considered innocent
in God's eyes.
You were justified.
You were redeemed.
God bought you back, right?
You bought with a price.
Jesus brought you back.
He bought you with a price.
You were adopted into the family of God,
into the body of Christ.
And in one day into heaven, and one day,
you're gonna have a glorified body.
He's gonna give you a body that is gonna be changed,
it's gonna be perfect. Hallelujah, right?
You ain't gonna get the stomach flu anymore.
It's gonna be awesome, right?
But one of the other things that happened is,
you turned into a temple.
You turned into a place where the Holy Spirit comes
and resides.
He doesn't just live out there.
He's not just this mist or this ideology
or this thing out in the atmosphere somewhere.
He comes and resides within you.
He said, you're gonna have living, breathing, proof.
God will come and dwell within you.
The Numa of God, the breath of God,
will come and reside in you.
The Holy Spirit takes up residence,
and he is not there to be a silent partner.
He's not there to be a silent partner.
John 16, 13 says, however, when he, the spirit of truth,
has come, I use the scripture in the very first message
we did in this series.
He will guide you in all truth,
for he will not speak on his own authority, right?
But whatever he hears, he will speak,
and he will tell you things to come.
He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine
and declare it to you.
All things that the Father has his mind,
therefore I said that he will take a mind
and declare it to you.
This is how divine communication works.
Though this scripture, the Father speaks to the Son,
the Son speaks to the Spirit,
and the Holy Spirit speaks to us.
It's right there in scripture.
It's how it works.
It is living, breathing, proof.
It is holy, eternal proof.
It is completely God dwelling in the temple, which is you.
Amen?
How close are you traveling, right?
How close are you traveling to Jesus?
Do you understand that you're a temple of Holy Spirit?
I'm gonna ask you to stand.
And as you stand here at the Cardinal campus,
I really want you to prepare your heart to hear from God.
If you're saved, I want you to get ready
to hear the Lord speak into your spirit this morning.
If you're not saved, we're gonna give you an opportunity
at the end so that you can know Jesus
and you can hear God.
If you're standing at our East Shore campus, Pastor Eric
and his team, they're coming right now.
They're also gonna pray with you.
They're gonna give you a time.
If you're online listening this morning,
this might be a great time for you to find a comfortable place.
Maybe you need to go to another room.
Maybe you need to pull the car over somewhere
and get in a place where you can respond properly.
Please don't do this while you're driving, right?
Get in a safe place.
But our heart is for you to hear God today.
We want you to hear what God's speaking.
We want you to know what he's saying.
We really do.
Thank you.