Living Like Prophets

The Prophetic Word

2 Chronicles 7:14–22 “… if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place. For now I have chosen and consecrated this house that my name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time. And as for you, if you will walk before me as David your father walked, doing according to all that I have commanded you and keeping my statutes and my rules, then I will establish your royal throne, as I covenanted with David your father, saying, ‘You shall not lack a man to rule Israel.’ “But if you turn aside and forsake my statutes and my commandments that I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will pluck you up from my land that I have given you, and this house that I have consecrated for my name, I will cast out of my sight, and I will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples. And at this house, which was exalted, everyone passing by will be astonished and say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house?’ Then they will say, ‘Because they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore he has brought all this disaster on them.’ ””

Matthew 13:53–58 “And when Jesus had finished these parables, he went away from there, and coming to his hometown he taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished, and said, “Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household.” And he did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief.”

The Big Picture: Scripture is the story God is telling us about…

Who He is

Who we were created to be

Our failure to live that way

Jesus’ coming to earth to restore us back to the Father

The Prophets: Pulling Back the Curtain

A full 1/4 of the Bible is made up of the writings of the prophets...that’s not counting all the other prophetic messengers and messages throughout other books of the Bible.

I spent a lot of my life around church traditions that emphasized the place of the prophet…that was good in as much as we often diminish what Paul identified as the gifts that have been given to the church: Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Shepherd, & Teachers… But what we ended up with was prophets who were primarily interested in itching the ears of the church with what we called a “word from God” and a church who became more and more detached and desensitized to what was happening RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW.

We ended up chasing blessings and fighting off so-called devils, instead of living in the land of provision.

We became numb and blind to the ways the powers had clouded our judgement and closed our ears to the truth of Scripture.

2 Timothy 4:1–5 “I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”

Clearing off your windshield:

Anybody in here is always right on time with your car maintenance? Never go over 5K miles for oil change (newer vehicles they say every 3500 miles). …Well good for you!!

I tend to want to get every once out of what I bought…like wiper blades!! …sometimes I wait so long to replace that wiper blades that all that blade is doing is smearing water and dirt across my windshield…actually making things worse!

Living in the world today is often like trying to see what’s really going on with dry, crusty, dirty spiritual wiper blades.

The prophetic spirit of Jesus comes in the church like brand new Rain-X wiper blades!

<Ya’ll go home and check your wiper blades tonight!!>

Are you convinced God’s Promise is true?

Q: How does the prophetic spirit of Jesus clear our vision? A: By seeing reality through the lens of God’s promise.

Principle: Much of the fascination with prophecies about the future is the result of a failure to truly believe what God has already promised is in fact true, good, and certain.

We let anxiousness, fear, and really ignorance drive us from one “ear tickling prophet” to the next!

How many know that your attention is worth a lot of money…and people will pay for it by saying whatever gets it.

Here’s the truth…Jesus is the only word we need…what happened to Jesus is where its all going (resurrection), you don’t have to wonder about that!

“Any Christianity that is not wholly about God’s promised future and nothing but God’s promised future, has nothing to do with Christ.” -Karl Barth

The Spirit of the Prophet is like a Compass that uses God’s Promises as TRUE NORTH.

The prophetic message in Scripture will always remind us if we are going in the right direction or not.

Here’s my concern: So much of the “noise” going into the ears of the church today (even from internet preachers) actually works against our spiritual orientation.

We are listening to the WRONG VOICES!

Even the people we claim to be online or media prophets are often times just filling the media waves with more noise!

One of my favorite quotes from N.T. Wright is this: “If It’s Real, It’s Local.”

When I was in Royal Rangers (Ranger of the Year!!), I went on my first survival trip…two night, three days of camp fires, outdoors skills, survival skills…on the final day our troop was given a pack of military rations, coordinates, and a compass! If we didn’t know how to work that compass we were NOT going to make it to our destination…or at the very least we would have found ourselves wandering in the woods for hours!

Here’e the point: You can do no better for hearing the prophetic call of the Spirit than being rooted in a faithful local church body who are faithfully reading the scriptures together.

When you live like God’s promises are true…

The blinders are removed from your spiritual eyes.

You start to see the ways the powers have been pulling the wool over our eyes.

You live with a sense of hope rather than nagging desperation.

Your spiritual senses are fined tuned to feel, hear, and see the hurting in the world today.

So much of the church has been numb to the pain of our neighbors.

Too much of what passes as Christianity today is selfish, self-centered, and disconnected from the reality of our neighbors hardships. (Which is to say its not like Jesus)

The church carries an edge that leads the world to repentance.

We lead because repentance begins in the house of God.

1 Peter 4:17 “For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?”