First Things First: When God Speaks

[00:00:00] Speaker A: You're listening to the Message podcast of High Ridge Church, Longview, where our vision is to help you know God, find freedom, discover purpose, and ultimately make a difference. We are so glad that you're here and we pray that this message impacts your life as you apply the spiritual truths from God's word in practical ways. [00:00:18] Speaker B: Let's listen in. Happy New Year, everybody, and good morning. It is so good to be in the house of the Lord this morning. I am thankful that you're here. I'm glad that you're watching online for all of our friends watching around the world. Come on, give him a big, warm round of applause if you would, church fan. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Good morning. Happy New Year to all of you. We have people watching from Lake Hawkins, people watching from England. Hey, Philip, Good to see you. Our friends, always the berries, watching from Cameroon. We love you guys and appreciate you so much. From Commerce, Texas, Abilene, Texas Mineral, well, even all the way in White Oak. Just get to church. Just drive. We got another service coming up at 12 o'clock. We want to see you. No. We're so glad that you could be a part of us. Even if you're watching online, forget to like and to subscribe to share. It's always an important thing when you get a chance to do that. So thank you so much for that. I want to grab your attention and turn our hearts towards the word of God. Genesis chapter one. What better place to start the year than in the beginning? Come on, somebody. In the beginning. As I was praying for you, the Lord kind of led me to the beginning of His Word and to some specific things we're going to talk about today. And as we turn our hearts to Genesis chapter one, I wanted to say thank you for being a generous church. Because of your generosity, we were able to take last week off. Now, I love you, but I did not miss you for one week. I was so thankful to have the week off. We had a couple of mornings, we woke up with no alarm clock. Come on, somebody. That's a beautiful thing. That's a beautiful thing. When you're resting, you need to just get away from the alarm clock a little bit and just wake up. Be like it is 11:45. What in the world? I must have needed that. I'm so thankful for just a time of rest and the time to just, hey, just. Just be with my family, to call it an end and so we can start this next season in the presence of the Lord and giving you the best of what I got. This is season Nine for me, by the way. Nine years here in East Tex. I wasn't born here, wasn't raised here. I got here as fast as I could. But I'm so glad to be a part of what God is doing right here in Longview, Texas. And let me just say it's. It's been the greatest honor of my life to be the pastor of this church. And I love each of you dearly. I'm so thankful that God's hand of blessing and favor is here and such, such a huge, big deal for us to be a part of this and for you to welcome my family. Thank you so much for that. Nine amazing years, have you. Can you believe that it's been nine years? I still love you in spite of all that we've walked through. Even you. No. Genesis Chapter one. I want to start a new series today called First Things First. First Things First. And so as I was praying for you, I was drawn to some specific words, actually five words in Genesis chapter one that I thought were really critical for us as believers and critical for us to hear what the Lord is saying in this next season. And it all starts in Genesis chapter one. So as I was reading there, some things just began to jump off the page. And I want to make sure that I'm faithful to what the Lord was asking me to convey to you today. So in Genesis 1, we're going to read through the next five verses. It says, in the beginning, somebody say those words with me. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty. Darkness was over the surface of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, let there be light. And there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. And God called the light day. And the darkness he called night. And there was evening and there was morning. The very first day. The beginning of all creation, the beginning of all things. God spoke it into existence. And God speaks still today. As we prepare to enter a season of praying and fasting and hearing from the Lord, it's important to set our minds on the simple fact God speaks. God speaks. And because God speaks, we know that it is our duty, it is our mission to hear what he's saying and to be obedient to whatever it is that he might speak into our lives. My heart and my prayer for you is that you'd be able to hear what he's saying, and more than that, that you would be obedient to what he tells you to do. God speaks. God speaks. And so as I was praying for you, those words were jumping off the page. The words in the beginning and the words God speaks in the beginning. God speaks. As a matter of fact, if you can just get that, that might be worth the price of admission today. In the beginning. God speaks. God still speaks in beginnings, by the way, at the beginning of every new season, God speaks. In the beginning of a new year. God speaks. At the beginning of every single day. God speaks. I found that for me personally, I hear God best in the morning because life and my day gets noisy. There's a lot of things competing for my attention. And God speaks in the beginning. We're going to say it this way. In the beginning of anything, we ask the Lord to speak. It's important for us as a church to recognize that at the beginning of this next season that unless we get a word from the Lord, we don't know what to do. The last thing that you want is for this place to be led by me. I don't always do the smartest thing. Don't applaud that. I definitely don't always say the right thing. Don't applaud that either. I understand my weaknesses and my limitations. I get that. You don't want to hear something from me. You need to hear from the Lord. God's word changes things. God speaks. So it's important that as a church, we hear from the Lord. And then we set our schedule, and then we set our budget, and then we look at the ways that God is saying, I want this to happen. Put my finances here. They're his finances. This is his church. He gets to have the driver's seat. There used to be a bumper sticker back in the day, in the 80s when I grew up. They said, jesus is my co pilot. That's the dumbest bumper sticker ever. Let him be the pilot. Let him drive. Now, I'm not always a fan of Jesus. Take the wheel. Cause you still need to drive. But let him lead. Let him lead. So in Genesis, chapter one, the Lord begins to show us some things that he is speaking at the beginning. And it helps us to come to a very simple truth. And that is a word from God at the beginning of the year keeps it from being just another year. The last thing I want for you is to turn the page on your life and say, this is my season. It's going to be a fantastic year to set your expectations on something wonderful. And it becomes just another year. Just another year. You look Back at it and, well, another year of the same old, same old. Another year, the same old me. I thought it was new year, new me. It turns out the same year, same me, just different date. A word from God ensures that it's not just another year, but it's a year where my life begins to move forward. Because I've heard from God and I'm gonna be obedient to what he tells me to do. That's my heart and my prayer for you. It's our heart and our prayer as a church that we would hear from God and be obedient to what the Lord tells each of us that we're supposed to be doing. And collectively, as a group, what are we doing as a church? What is next for us? There are powerful things that happen when God speaks. Now, there are, of course, some blockages to what the Lord might want to do in each of our lives. And some of those are our own flesh, our own will, our own wants and desires, our own fears and our anxieties. There are some things that keep us from ever being obedient to what God is telling us to do. You have a decision to make. Will I listen? Will I obey? Will I honor the Lord? Will I value his voice? Or do I want it to make. I don't want it to be a year of. I just get what I want. What's most important to you? That you get what you want or that you fulfill the purpose of God for your life? There's a decision that you have to make, and only you can make that decision. But God is speaking. Make no mistake. So what happens when God speaks? I want to give you three things that I think are important that we pull from Genesis chapter one, things that we can apply to our lives. As we're looking at this next season at 2025, at this next season of our lives, what is it? What's so important that we are to. To glean from God's word and when he speaks? Here's the first thing I want to share with us. Number one is God's word brings things to order, to order. Notice in the very beginning, says God spoke and things begin to come into order. It says, before this, it was. It was chaos, it was formless, it was empty, it was dark. Your original version might say it was a void. Remember that word, void? We used to say that a lot. It was. It was void. Back back in the days of coupons. We used to have a lot of coupons growing up. And everything that we. That we got was a Coupon. Hopefully it was, it was valid, but once somebody had used a coupon, it was then voided. It says that was kind of the, the, the, the feeling of what we're looking at in creation. It was void before God spoke. And God spoke things into order. As I'm looking at Genesis chapter one, I can't help but just, but see beyond just the creation story. I kind of see my life. There's a period of my life that is BC before Christ and a period after the Lord began to speak and call me from darkness into light. Each of us hopefully has a place where we look back at our life. That was a moment that was the canon event in my life where God spoke. Where there was darkness on one side and there was light on the other side because God spoke and God sent his son. I received him as a sacrifice for my own sin. And there was a period of my life before Christ and then after Christ. So when I look at Genesis chapter one, it says the earth was formless and void. I look at it and I see my life. No purpose, no meaning. It's a life, but it's lived in darkness. It's lived in chaos, lived without order, frustrating and empty. And God spoke. So when I'm reading Genesis chapter one, I can't help but see myself and recognize parts of my life. A life without the Lord and a life with Him. When God speaks, he calls things to order. Now, back in the 80s, there used to be a really cool time where we would twist off the top of any soda. Now you might call them soda, you might call it pop. Depending on where you're from. We call everything Coke. Everything was Coke, whether it was Coke or not. Dr. Pepper, Sprite, whatever, it's all Coke. And we would twist out the top and you would look under the cap and if you were really, really pure of heart, it would say you have won a free 20 ounce Dr. Pepper or a free 20 ounce Diet Coke, whatever that may be. Those are the really cool times. Sometimes we buy three or four just to hopefully get one that was free. Now I had no problem going back into a store and handing them that bottle cap to get a free drink. It was not a big deal for me at all. I enjoyed that. But I had a big problem when I was sent into a store with a coupon for some reason that the cheap thing was really embarrassing. But the free thing I really enjoyed. I have no idea how that works out in my mind, but growing up as poor as we were and having to use coupons, that was A super embarrassing thing for us as kids to kind of have to get past the thought of using some Cube now today. I like cheap. I'm a fan of it. I need that money. I got plans for them dollars. Come on, somebody. Doesn't bother me a bit, but back in the day, oh, but yet if you got a free soda, that was a big deal. And I remember pulling off those caps and twisting them, turning them over like, yes, I won. I'm a winner. And you felt like you were a winner. But more often than not, when you would twist that cap and look underneath, it would say, please try again. Remember that. Please try again. I don't even want this Coke anymore. Just give it back to somebody else. Give it to the needy. I don't want this. Please try again. It's not a winner, but my heart and my prayer for you is that this next year, 2025, would not want to not be one of those years where you would say, it's one of those please try again kind of years. Please try again. Not a winner, just another year. I believe that what's coming up next for us in this next season, there's going to be some good days, there's going to be some bad days. There's gonna be seasons where you're like, wow, this is great. This is awesome. This is good. There's gonna be seasons where you're like, I have no idea what's about to happen next. There's gonna be chaos. There's gonna be parts of the year where you're like, okay, is that supposed to happen? But God's word is still how we can navigate chaos. It's important for us to understand where we get our navigational tools. The Bible says, don't lean on your own understanding. So here's the question. When our seasons of chaos come, and they will come, they will most assuredly come. They're coming. Where will you turn? How do you navigate chaos? What do you lean on when the world gets turned upside down? What's your go to for direction? What's your go to for a sure place to put your feet? Now, what we found out in the year 2020 was, was we mostly just turned to our social media feed. That's where we find absolute truth and clarity. And we end up making it run on toilet paper for some reason. I don't know how that came to be, but for some reason, we turned to mankind existed for thousands of years before toilet paper came to exist. We're gonna be fine, I hope. But where do you turn when Chaos hits. Where do you go? Do you turn to your social media feed? You turn to your friends? One thing that I don't think many of us turn to anymore is the news. Like, that's so retro, the news. Most people right about four years ago said, eh, that's enough for me. I've had enough. And it's a new day, it's a new age. Because people realize, I can't trust that I don't believe that this is true. And our world began to shift and begin to change because in times of chaos, we recognize that what we would normally turn to wasn't cutting it. We began to seek out new sources of what do we look at when chaos comes? What do we search out? What are we, what are we looking for? How do we find some sort of stability in unstable times? It's not the news. We started looking for it in our social media feed and found out it ain't there either. What are you going to turn to when chaos comes into your life? Are you going to turn to your feelings, your emotions? Is that where you're going to find stability? Like, do you know me? This is not a good idea. But God's Word is still, please hear me, it's still where we go to help us navigate chaos if we have not fallen in love with God's Word. If you're not reading God's Word, let me just tell you. January, the beginning of January, is a great time to start afresh and anew in God's Word. This is now, I think, almost 30 years. I've read through God's Word every single year. I like to read it for myself and not just to teach you something that's a completely separate, different thing. I believe God's Word has something to say to me and then there's something that God's Word wants to say to you. And often those are not the same thing. But over a period of about 30 years now, I've read through God's Word every single year. And sometimes it's in, it's in paper form and sometimes I get bored with the old Bible and have to get a new Bible. Let's change it up a little bit. And so last year, by the way, I did the Bible Recap on the Bible app. If you've never done that, that's a great place to start. By the way, I would highly recommend doing that. You can read through the entire Bible in a year. You've got a theologian that walks you through a devotional every day. If you've never Done that. Please do that. You're gonna need to have God's Word be the anchor for this next season. This year I'm doing the one year Bible. I've done that before and I decided to change it up. Sometimes I do King James and I'm like, what am I doing with old King James? I have to put my old English hat back on. And next thing you know, I'm g'day, mate in scri. Some of this stuff is like, what am I doing? New King James. Niv. I've read through so many different versions of the Bible and I like to like to mix it up. So I'm reading through the NLT this year. I'm just as something different. And so that's, that's been kind of neat to look at scripture in a brand new way. But I have to keep it fresh in my life because I have, I need this. I have to have this. And my friend, if you're calling yourself a believer, at some point you gotta read His Word. You have to read this letter. Everything you need is right here. There is nothing that you're going to find in this entire world that comes as a shock to God. There is no situation where God is sitting up in heaven on his throne going what he knows. And His Word is how we navigate chaos. His Word, The Bible says it's a lamp to our feet, it's a light to our path. So what do we do is we fall in love with God's Word by anchoring ourselves in it every single day. If you've never read God's Word every single day, I want to encourage you, man, start 2025 by building a relationship with God through His Word. Every single morning, God is speaking and he wants to speak to you. So we say it this way. We anchor our day in God's Word so we can silence competing voices. Our world gets noisy, there's a lot of opinions, there's a lot of people that get really loud. There's a lot of competing voices and noise in our world. And 2025 will be no different. As we're looking into the future, you're gonna need to fall in love with God's Word so you can silence competing voices and hear what is true. God's Word is our source of truth. So when God speaks, he calls things to order. And we anchor our day. We order our day by spending time with the Lord in His Word. So if you've never read through the Bible in a year and you're thinking when it's gonna be Like a New Year's resolution. I'll start it for a couple days and then by about January 9th. And treating it gym. Just trying to avoid them, trying to cancel out because I failed miserably. Like, don't do that. Keep going. Here's the good part about God's word. Just start again. Keep going. Let me just give you a nickel's worth of free advice. If you come to a place where you don't understand, if you come to a place where you're like, I don't get that at all. Turn a page, it's okay, we come back to that later. But don't stop just because you got to something that you didn't understand. If you're reading through God's word, you're going to find that brought about Leviticus, the moment where God cuts out things like bacon. You're gonna be like, I don't know, that sounds like some Muslim stuff. I can't be. I can't be a part of that. There's no way God could want that to be taken from me. No, no, no. Let me just remind you, there's some things that you might not understand, but if you've never done that before, let this be the year where you spend time in God's word. You're gonna need it. Please hear me. So when God speaks, he brings things to order. We see that in Genesis chapter one, above all creation, God speaks it into order. And God does the same thing with my life and with your life that we let it never be said of us, that we live lives that are out of order. God's Word speaks things to order. I want that in my life. I want that for you. Here's the second key that we see from Genesis chapter one is that God's Word speaks light into darkness. The very first thing that God does, He says, let there be light. And there was light. God's word speaks light and separates the light from the darkness. You know, when I was first studying the Word, I'm like, okay, so God created the sun, but that's not what it says. As a matter of fact, God doesn't create the sun until day four. So God doesn't need the sun to have light. How cool is that? But God speaks, and the light begins to separate from the darkness. And by the way, God still separates light from darkness with his Word, with the authority of God's word. What was dark, what was formless, what was confusing, what was void? God speaks and there's light. I can see Psalm 119, your word is a lamp unto my feet. It's a light to my path. Why would God's Word need to be a lamp or a light if there was never any darkness? His Word is how we navigate darkness. 2025 will have seasons of darkness. You're going to need to be able to not only know His Word and read His Word, but to hear His Word. We're talking today about not just reading God's Word, but hearing His Word as well. Now, what I found in general is that a lot of believers, especially in evangelical churches, and what we tend to fall in love with is God's spoken word, and we tend to neglect his written word. But let me make sure that there is great value in reading His Word. For some reason, as a society, we've kind of fallen out of love with reading. But you need to understand that God's spoken word is never going to be really clear to you until you've had his written word. This is how we distinguish between my thoughts, what I think might be good, and what God says. And once you fall in love with his written word, the spoken word, the things he's saying are going to sound a lot like this. Scripture will jump off the page and begin to speak directly into your world. So in 2006, it was a crazy time in my life. As I'm looking back at different seasons, I'm thinking about back about New Year's and New Year's resolutions and all the different seasons I've had to come through. 2006 was probably the worst year of my adult life. A hard, hard season for me. For those of you that know my story, this is the season. I was walking through a divorce. And what I thought was not only the end of my marriage, but the end of my family and possibly the end of my ministry. And it was a very dark season. I needed a lot of people to rally around me and to keep me encouraged and to keep strong and have hope in the middle of a dark season. And those of you that ever had to walk through being betrayed and being lied to, being cheated on and being messed around with, that's a difficult place for anybody, and I had to do it publicly. Standing in front of people, leading people into God's presence, when I don't feel like I can even go there myself, that's a tough place for me. So many of us have had to walk through dark seasons. And I won't say that mine was any worse than yours, yours is worse than mine, but it's valid. I had mine. You've had yours. Difficult seasons, difficult times. If you've had to experience loss, if you know what it feels like to be betrayed or lied to and to be cheated on and messed around and feel like you're cast away, those are difficult moments for anybody. And I had to do it very publicly. We had people that left our church because my marriage was in trouble. How dare you stand up there when you can't even get your own family straight. I know what that feels like to not. Not be able to even defend myself, but to point people back to God's Word. I had a couple of things that really helped to navigate me through that, that season of my life. And one of those was extremely spiritual. One of those had nothing to do with spiritual things at all, but was just a nice break. Let me tell you, 2006 was special for me. Not only because the Lord was speaking through His Word and bringing me hope in the middle of a dark season, but because we had the most incredible playoff run the Dallas Mavericks have ever seen. And I needed that. Let me just tell you, I needed that run. And every other day in that playoff series when Dirk Nowitzki and Jet Terry would show their magic, I was captivated because I got to step out of my reality for just a little bit and watch people play some unbelievable basketball. And why it was so important to me, because I lived through the days where the Dallas Mavericks were a joke in the NBA. Anybody remember those in the 80s where it's just like Mavericks, are they still around? But watching them not just exist, but to dominate LeBron and Kobe, Dwyane Wade, the Trailblazers, and just sweep after sweep, I was captivated by what happened in those places. I needed that. I remember going to my parents house and sitting there and thinking, I just need a break. And I don't think I could have. I think God let them keep winning just for me because I couldn't take any more losses at that time. And they just didn't lose. They couldn't lose. And every other day I got a chance to step out of my life, take a little bit of a break and watch the Mavericks be led by the hand of God, which I needed. You know, the Lord began to speak to me some unbelievable things and kept reminding me during that season, through the power of His Word, it would jump off the page and into my life and remind me that even if I've been rejected, that he still loves me even if I've been betrayed. He would never betray me. His Word promised me. And I remember reading that scripture as if it were coming alive for the very first time. And it speaks to me with words like I will never leave you or forsake you. And I know that Jesus is saying this to his disciples, but in those moments, he was saying it to me. It was a promise that he wasn't gonna leave me. In a season of my life where I felt incredibly alone, God's Word brought me comfort and brought me light. In a season of chaos and disorder, when everything seems to be falling apart, God's Word comes to life. It jumps off the page directly into my mess. I wanna remind you that the same is true for each of you today. Whether 2025 has started out on a high note or whether you're looking ahead with some anxiety and trepidation, you're not sure what's gonna happen. Let me just remind you of this one simple truth. That every. Every time that we open up God's Word. God's Word has a unique and fantastic way of jumping off the page directly into my mess. It steps into my darkness and gives me light and hope, gives me correction when I need it. I'm not perfect. You're not perfect either. I need correction. And God's Word, the Bible says it's like a sword divides between the. The soul and the spirit, between my thoughts and the intentions of my heart. God's Word is the great divider of that. You see, every life has dark seasons. But without direction from the Lord, we run the risk of it staying that way. I don't want you to get stuck. God's Word helps us to not get stuck. So, Pastor Tim, you're saying all these things like we're about to have a dark, dark year. No, no, no. Your light comes from God's Word. And while everybody else is walking around in darkness, for those of us that know God's Word, we'll find great hope. We'll find direction, and that season won't have to last a single minute longer than it has to. We don't get stuck in dark season. We don't get stuck in depression. We don't get stuck in those times where we don't feel like we can even step forward. I know this not because I'm reading it in God's Word. That's one thing. I'm knowing it because I've lived it and seen God's Word play out for me in real time. God's Word speaks things to order. And God's Word speaks light to darkness. Here's the third and final thing. I'll leave you with Number three, God's word sees what can be and speaks it into existence. I love that because God looks ahead in time and looks and says, let there be and there was God. God sees that when he speaks, what he sees in his mind's eye becomes reality. And the same is true for each of us today. We recognize that when God speaks, He sees what we can be, where we need to be going. He has a future and a plan for you. I love that song that we were singing today, Pastor Gracie. You guys did an amazing job in worship, but singing about the plans of God, they're good plans. He has good plans for me. God's word is true. God speaks it into existence. Now, one of the things that has kind of crept into Christianity that I want to make sure that we caution ourselves on is Christians are now in this place where we manifest things. I'm going to say something and I'm just going to keep saying it, and God's going to bring it to pass. Okay, let's pause on that for just a second, because in that scenario, who's God? You. Come on. Let me remind you, you're not God. And if God's word doesn't say it, you can't do it. And I've heard people say crazy things all the time. Pastor, that woman's husband is going to be my husband. Easy there. Easy. That ain't God. That's you. That's you. Speaking back to manifesting, I'm gonna say. Now let me also say this. If, if, if there is a choice between speaking positive things and speaking negative things, speak positive, speak life, speak hope, absolutely speak those things. If there's a choice, speak towards the positive. Stay there. It's a good place to live. But there is power in my words. Yes, there is. But ultimate power lies in His Word. His Word, not mine. It's His Word. So when my words begin to agree with God's Word, then you got something. But if you don't understand God's written word, you're not hearing His Word, then your words will just agree with you. Good luck. And then you'll spend the rest of the year saying, but I manifested, I said these things that God never did it. You're not God. He's God. Let our words begin to match what he's saying, not just what we want. Do you see the difference there? I want to make sure that you see there's power in my words, but ultimate power lies in His Word. Next week, we're going to start praying and fasting. And if you've never. If you've never participated in the discipline of fasting, I want to encourage you, man, this is a great, great season in the life of our church. We believe that when God speaks, that we're going to order everything else with, from our year around what God is saying. And so if you've never fasted, I want to encourage you, starting next Sunday night, we're going to start fasting together. We're going to fast Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. It's a fantastic way for you to get started in fasting on each of those days. By the way, we're going to have a service at night, Monday night, Tuesday night, and Wednesday night. So that starts, by the way, not this coming up week, next week. And so I want to give you a chance to kind of prepare yourself and prepare your body to fast. Now, for those of us that were rookies in it, we did this. This is a really, really crazy thing that we used to do is we would just start fasts on the exact second and just stop eating. Don't do that. I wanted to remind. I want to caution you, as I get older, I have to recognize a couple of things. Like, my body can't just turn food off. I can't do that. I have a love relationship with it. Come on. But if I give myself a chance to prepare for a fast, I'm gonna do much better. And by the way, at the end of day one, if you just turn it off and just decide to stop eating at the end of day one, you're gonna hear nothing but your stomach growling. That's what you're hearing. And then everything that comes out of your mouth, like, God is angry at me. No, you're just angry because you haven't been eating. So let me just tell you, prepare yourself between now and then, start pulling yourself off of things like caffeine and sugar. Like, can I do that? Yes, you can do it. Start withdrawing from those things. Start pulling back from processed foods. Eat some salads, eat some things that are a little bit simpler. You're gonna find that your body starts thanking you for that as you begin to get ready to shut those things off. And by the way, if you're at a place where you're like, okay, I can't just turn off food because I'm taking medication. Like, don't just stop taking your medication. Don't do that. Please don't do that. Because then I gotta come over and cast the demons out of you. Don't do that. Talk to your doctor and make sure that what you're actually fasting from is okay for you to do. Some people just can't do that. So don't feel guilty if you can't participate in a certain way. This is gonna be your time to hear from the Lord. So what I'm gonna ask you to do in the next few minutes is to listen to the Lord and begin to prepare to be obedient to whatever he says next week. For some of you, that might be food. For some, it's a time to take a step back from social media, to turn off the news, to turn off your social media feed. For some of you, it's time to turn away from some books and just spend time listening to God's word or spend time in worshiping. But it should be some holy season for you because we're going to value his voice. And that's important that you hear that. Value his voice. So when God speaks, value what he says. We find this in Genesis 1, that God spoke and all that is came into being. And God still speaks. God still speaks, not only in his written word, but God speaks through multiple channels. And he wants to speak to you. Here's what we need to see is in the New Testament, in John, chapter 10, Jesus looks at his disciples and he says this. My sheep, hear my voice. So if you call yourself a son or a daughter of Christ, if you've accepted Christ as your Savior, if you've asked Jesus Christ to come into your heart to forgive you of your sin, to live on the throne of your life, you are his sheep. His sheep. Hear his voice. There's only a couple of things that can keep you from hearing the voice of the Lord. Number one is you're not a sheep. You need to have a relationship with Jesus. Let's get that taken care of today. Or you're busy listening to yourself. You're busy listening to your wants, your desires, your cares, your concerns, your anxieties. And those voices are competing voices. We gotta silence those things. And fasting is a great way to do that. By the way, my sheep hear my voice. Jesus says, I know them. He knows you. I know my sheep. I know which ones are mine. I have an intimate relationship with Him. That word in the original language speaks to having an intimate relationship with. With his sheep. And he says this, and they follow me. Here's the great disconnect that I've seen with those that want to hear from the Lord is they'll have to decide whether or not they're going to do what he says. There's A big disconnect. Well, Lord, I want you to speak to me, and then I'm going to decide do I like that or do I not like that? I've learned to just give God my preemptive yes, the Lord, I trust that you are a good God. I trust that you can do more with my future than what I can. You can do more with my finances than what I can. You can do more with my children than what I can. You can do more with my legacy than I can. You can do more with everything that I have than what I can. I trust that you are a good God and you have good plans for me. I don't have to understand it. My part to follow you. Your part, Lord, is to speak. You see the difference? I want to encourage you over the next week to begin to prepare your heart to say yes to whatever God tells you to do. And what you're going to find is as you begin to fast and as you begin to pray, God's going to begin to speak to you. Now, it might sound completely different than what you're used to. It might sound like you. It might sound like your dad, it might sound like your mom. It might sound like just your inner monologue. You might not know how it sounds. God can speak in a variety of different ways. But I want to encourage you, when you think God might be speaking, start writing that down. Write down what he says. Because what you're going to find is when it's God speaking, he's going to start confirming it, and you're going to hear that same phrase, those same words, over and over and over and over again. You're going to be, whoa, whoa, whoa. And at that point, you can't deny that the Lord is speaking. He's saying it over and over. He's confirming what he's already said. So spend time in God's word. Prepare yourself to fast, to hear from him, to value his voice so that when you hear him, you can say, God, I hear you. I'm going to follow you in. Second Peter, it tells us this, that prophets from long ago, they spoke as the Holy Spirit carried them along. So not only are we going to have God's written word that we dive into, we got some devotionals that'll be coming to you on social media Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of next week. We've prepared some stuff to help you kind of focus your thoughts and minds on what the Lord might be saying. But we're also going to have some prophetic voices. Many of you might get a What we call a word in due season, where you come here on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday night, we're going to have prophetic voices that'll say, hey, I've got something that the Lord has for me to tell you. And if you're fasting, if you're praying, what they tell you won't be revelatory. You'll have already heard it 12 times that day. And God will tell you things that nobody could have known because he still speaks. He still speaks to his sheep. And so I want you to value his voice by preparing to hear from him. We're going to talk more about this as we get into next week and kind of prepare you to fast and to hear the Lord. But I believe it's the most critical season of our church's life, is the beginning. In the beginning, where we hear from the Lord and we set all of our schedule, all of our hopes and desires, all of our wants around what God said and not what I want. I believe that's the best, by the way, that's the best hope for your family. That's the best hope for the rest of your year. This keeps us from just not wasting another year, not hoping that there's going to be a good season for me. No, no, no. This is how we know that the end of 2025, we can look back and say, lord, I did everything you told me to do from the beginning to the end. That's a successful year. That's what I hope for you. That you would align your life, your business, your family, the discipline of your children, your own personal disciplines with whatever God says. I'm praying that this would be true for you. May 2025 be the year where your walk with God becomes stronger than you ever thought it could be. That's my hope and my prayer for you. It'd be the strongest year that you've ever had with the Lord. Can you receive that, everybody? Is that okay? As we finish up today, I want to give you a chance to maybe respond to what God has already begun, to speak into your heart. I think if I've done my job correctly, that God wants to speak to you. So would you go ahead and put away your phones and your Bibles, put those on the seat next to you. Nobody's gonna die in the next 30 seconds. Give God that. Everybody you know and love is already here. What are you talking about? We're already here. Let's have as few distractions as possible, if you wouldn't mind. Would you bow your head and close your eyes? And what I like to do is I just like to say, holy Spirit, what are you saying to me? Holy Spirit, what are you saying to me? Let's just take a moment and listen. You know, a sense from the Holy Spirit today as we're praying, that the Lord is speaking to a couple of you in this place, and with heads bowed and eyes closed. The Lord is saying that there's a habit that you've been wanting to walk away from, and you've already found yourself failing this year. You thought that you would turn over a new leaf in this year and you'd be able to just walk away from that, and you've already kind of failed in that area. The Lord is saying, I see you. And he's saying, let me help you. With heads bowed and eyes closed. Where are you? Can you just lift up your hand? That's a word for you. Where are you at? Yes, I see you. Okay, good, good, good, good. Many of you are on the exact same row. Wow, look at God. That's awesome. For others, the Holy Spirit speaking about a health issue, I sense that for somebody watching online today, you're really worried about there's a health thing that's going on, and the Lord's asking, can I have that? Can you let me worry about that? I think the Lord would just say, breathe and trust that I got it. Let me help you. I believe the Lord is wanting to help somebody in a health crisis right now. There's several of you that are here in this service. I sense it really strongly. But especially for someone watching online, there's a lot of anxiety right now about your health. The Lord is speaking to you. He's confirming that he's already been speaking it to you this week, and you've been kind of pushing him to the background because you're worried. Lord is saying, can I help you with that? If you're in that service, if you're in this service today and I'm speaking to you, can you just lift up your hand and say, that was me. You're speaking to me. There's something. Yeah. Okay, good. Holy Spirit, we're listening to you. We're gonna respond to you with a preemptive yes, help us, Lord. Father, we bring our needs and our cares, our concerns, our worries, our anxieties, our hopes, our wishes, our words. Lord, we bring those things, we lay them at your feet, and we ask that this next season would be a season of following after you hearing your voice and being obedient to wherever it is that you're leading we say, yes, Lord, we want this next season to be the strongest season, the strongest relationship we've ever had with you, hearing you, following you step by step. Would you come, Lord, and lead the way? And now, with heads bowed and eyes closed, perhaps you're here today and you're saying, pastor, I. I don't have a relationship with Jesus. I've never, never really had that relationship with the Lord. I need that relationship with Jesus. My friend, you are in the right place. As a matter of fact, if you could see it today, God himself is reaching down his hand, hoping that you'll respond to him reaching it down for you. You may say, I want to respond to the Lord. How do I do that, Pastor? My friend, you do that with a prayer and with heads bowed and eyes closed. If you want a relationship with Jesus, I want to invite you to pray with me right where you are. I'll tell you what to say. I'll help you, just like somebody helped me one time. The prayer goes like this. Pray this with me. Just say, jesus, I believe you're the Son of God. Come on, pray with me. Friend, I believe that you came and died, and I believe that you rose again so that I could have life and forgiveness for all of my sins. I ask you to forgive me. Save me. I'm all in. I give my life to you right now in Jesus name and with heads bowed and eyes closed. My friend, if that was you and you prayed that prayer with me, can you just lift up your hand all across this place? That was me, Pastor. I did. I prayed that prayer. I see. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am, I see you. Yes, ma'am. Good for you. For those of you that just prayed that prayer, I want you to know that this is the greatest decision you could ever make. The best way to start your year is by submitting to the Lord and asking for a relationship with Jesus. I am proud of you. Good for you. There's something I want to give you, and perhaps you're watching online, and that was your decision as well. There's going to be a phone number appearing on a screen behind me. And if you just accepted Christ, if you prayed that prayer, would you do me a favor? Would you text me? I've got a couple of links that I've prepared just for you. They'll help you understand what just happened in your heart and what to do next. So that number's appearing on the screen behind me and online right now. Text the words I pray to that number. We'll send you back the link to a couple of things that will help you. Good for you. I'm proud of you. For everybody else, go ahead and look up at me if you would. Let's stand to our feet together. If you're watching this online and if you're maybe sitting here, if you're. If you're curious about how I can get involved, let me just tell you. Click the share button. It always makes a massive difference when every single week, dozens and dozens of you guys hit the share button and share this message with your social media feed. It is, I believe, an appropriate message that a lot of people need to hear. There are many people without home churches, many people without the body of Christ that they can get plugged into. And so this is their only form of church. And so when you share your social media feed, what's happening right here in Longview, Texas, makes a big difference all the way around the world. And so it'd be a huge blessing to us if you wouldn't mind doing that and sharing this online. I'm also going to invite at this time our elders and their wives forward. And these guys are going to remain standing right here in front of this platform as the service ends today to be available to pray for you about anything that you might need prayer for. If you're walking through a dark season, you need somebody to pray for you. Do not leave this place without getting prayed for. We would love to pray for you. Then for everybody else, I'm going to pray for you. I'm going to bless you as we go. Father, I thank you for my friends. I pray you'd bless them with the most prosperous and amazing, fantastic new year in this new season. Would you bless their families? Would you bless their finances, Lord? Would you bless their homes with peace and favor, Lord? Would you give them direction and vision as they prepare to hear from you, Lord? Would you speak to them clearly so that they could walk step by step with you all year long in Jesus name? And all of us said together, Amen. God bless you as you go. Hope you have an awesome week. [00:43:00] Speaker A: Thank you so much for listening in today. Our prayer is that you are encouraged and strengthened by the message. If you haven't done so yet, be sure to subscribe to this podcast and leave us a review wherever you're listening. If you want to be a part of our online community, connect with us through Facebook or Instagram with the handle hyridgelv or you can check out our [email protected] lastly, if this ministry has impacted your life and you'd like to support its work, visit highridgelv.com give we appreciate your support and we're believing with you today for God's best in your life. Have an incredible week and we will see you next time.