Spring Life - Part 3

    Dave Ramsey has a phrase that I have come to like. When he uses it he refers to personal finical management issues, but I think it applies in a much greater degree to all areas of our life. He says this: If you are willing to live like no one else, then you can live like no one else. We all want to live extraordinary lives, live full of meaning and significance. I don’t know any people who say they want to live boring and wasted lives. Yet, most people would not say they are really living they way they want to live.

    Let’s make this a little more practical. I have pointed out from the Bible that God has promised to give any Christ-follower, who wants it, access to the same power that He used to create the universe.  It’s available to anyone who is willing to receive it and align his or her life around it. That’s pretty amazing promise!

    And you might be thinking, as I have, that sounds too easy to really be true and you would be right. If it was easy, then everyone would be living that way. Please let that sink it.

    The fact is that God’s promises are not automatically applied; in other words, you have to choose to do something, you have to respond to God’s offer, you have to choose to follow God’s leading – you have to choose to live like most people are unwilling to live.

     The Apostle James pointed this out when he wrote that we are not to be just hears of the Word, we must be doers – or in other words we must be willing to live like no one else, so that we can live like no one else.

  My hope this morning is to extend what we have learned so far and give you a practical way of tapping into that power. How do you do that?

    Ok, here we go…the way to tap into God’s power is through prayer. Now my guess is that I just lost half of you. I mean the images that just flooded your mind are religious images of ritual and boredom. Please let me change that image for you this morning, because prayer is an amazing and powerful gift from our loving God. If you don’t understand prayer in that way, hold on and let God blow your mind this morning.

     One day Jesus became hungry and He saw a fig tree. So He approached it as a snack pack. When he went up to that tree he found that it did not have any fruit, which it should have had.

     What happened next blew the minds of the disciples – twice. Jesus cursed that tree and the Bible says that the next day the disciples walked by that same tree and instead of being green it had withered and died. The disciples were shocked at what they saw and so they asked Christ what had happened. Jesus’ explanation must have blown their mind again, as it has mine this week. Look at Matthew 21:21-22:

Then Jesus told them, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith and don’t doubt, you can do things like this and much more. You can even say to this mountain, ‘May you be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and it will happen. You can pray for anything, and if you have faith, you will receive it." (Matthew 21:21-22, NLT)

   There is a huge promise here. I have been wrestling with this passage all week. Let me point out a couple of things. First the idea about moving a mountain is not about moving a mountain. It’s no different from us using the phrase in MN. The reference is made toward moving impossible things, or seeing road blocks removed.

     So the promise here is that God will remove roadblocks through prayer. Secondly, what is the premise to the promise here? “Have faith” and “don’t doubt”.

    Now there is an important distinction to make here. The condition for answered prayer is faith.  This is not faith-in-faith. In other words this is not you asking for whatever you want and if you believe enough you will get it. This is not about having enough faith. That is not a Biblical concept. Faith in the Bible is all about the object of our faith. So this is faith in God and specifically here God’s revelation. Revelation is simply truths that God has revealed to us. Revelation is something that we could not know by means of our own reasons. God has to reveal it to us. So if you know what God wants and is about to do, you can be assured (faith) that He is going to do it even though it appears impossible. It is the belief, the understanding that God is going to act.  Biblical faith is not like Aladdin’s lamp where if you just believe enough the God genie will appear and grant you your request. That is faith-in-faith and is not a Biblical concept. When the bible talks about faith, it’s talking about a relationship a person has with God, to know Him, to know what matters to Him and to know what He is doing. That kind of faith can only function through prayer and it is the key that unlocks bolted doors.

      Now then the 10-thousand dollar question is how, how do you get that kind of faith when you are in a situation that just seems to big and overwhelming? God tells us in Romans 10:17:

But not everyone welcomes the Good News, for Isaiah the prophet said, “Lord, who has believed our message?” So faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ.  (Romans 10:16-17, NLT)

   The word “welcomes” is the Greek is the word “hypēkousan” and is a compound verb that means “to hear with a positive response”. So Paul points out that there are some people who hear the message, but don’t respond positively, “not everyone hypekousan or responds positively”. Ok, hold on cause the Scripture is about to blow our minds again. You ready?

     If we want to build faith, there are two things we must do. First, we must hear or read God’s promises found in the Bible. Secondly, we have to positively respond to them, or in other words we have to live them out in order to discover the power.

     The only way you can build faith, is to live as if you trust that God is as good as He says He is, and, therefore, you line up your life with what He says we should do, think or feel. When we do that, we will then discover the power. That is the faith principle.

     Many times we get this backwards. We wait to get the power before we act on God’s premises; and if you do that, you will be waiting a long, long time. The order here is important. First, we trust God and change, then God provides.

    God rarely provides before we trust Him. This is why I challenge you all the time to decide, to settle the issue of God’s goodness. God is as good as He says He is and until you settle that issue, you will never be able to move forward in your relationship with God.  Do you believe, really believe that God is as good as He says He is?

    The Bible is filled with clear teachings about any situation you and I face in life. In it you will discover the attitudes, the thoughts and the actions that God says we can choose to believe (“hypekousan”) and when you welcome them in with a positive response you will discover that God’s promise are full of life and power.

    So the more Bible knowledge you have, the more potential faith you can have.  The less you know about the Bible, the less faith potential.  The key to answered prayer is focusing on the promises of God and meeting the premises, the conditions for those promises.

      There are over 7,000 promises in the Bible.  They're like gifts waiting to be received.  If you want to have a dynamic life, you must base your requests upon one of God’s promises found in the Bible and then you make sure that you are meeting the conditions. It really does work like that; sort of.... that’s not a copout.

    I heard about a man who was a diabetic and he read Jesus’ words found in John 14:14, "If you ask anything in My name, I will do it."  (John 14:14).  So he thought, "God, I'm going to ask that You cure me of diabetes," and he threw away his insulin and three days later he died. What happened? Why didn't it work? - Very important question.

    There are two kinds of promises in the Bible. There are general promises that include everyone and there are specific promises that only apply to specific people. In other words: You cannot automatically claim a promise that's been given to somebody else in the Bible unless the Holy Spirit gives it to you specifically.

    God speaks to people in two different ways. God speaks…

      1.  Universally -- to everybody. And God speaks…

      2.  Personally -- to individual people, with a specific message for a specific situations at a

                                specific time.

    The New Testament was originally written in Greek.  In the Greek there were two terms used for the term "word".  "Logos" and "Rhema".  Whenever you hear the phrase, "the word of God", sometimes it's the logos of God and sometimes it's the rhema of God.  The logos is the word of God to everybody for all time. This refers to what God has said to all people, that is, the collection of God's sayings about Himself, His relationship with His creation and His Church. The Logos of God is true for all time and in all places. That's most of the Bible -- everything from Genesis to Revelation, the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, and the Twenty-Third Psalm, ect.  It is God's Word to everybody and it is also the foundation for the second type of Word of God which is the rhema. 

    The rhema is the Word of God to you personally, a specific word to a specific person in a specific period of time, for that time only.

     Do you remember Sarah - Abraham's wife?  One day God came to Sarah and said, "Sarah, you're going to have a baby".  There's nothing unusual about that except she was ninety years old and her husband Abraham was ninety-nine years old and on top of that, up to this point in their lives, they have not been able to have children.  God gave them a rhema – “Sarah next year you are going to have a baby.” That's incredible, isn’t it? That would be a mountain moving experience!  It was a specific word to her.  God didn't say to the whole nation of Israel, “Every woman, when she reaches ninety, is going to have a baby." It was a specific, time oriented word of God to Sarah and not to anybody else.  Just to her. And all the ladies say, Thank God!

   So God speaks truth that is applied to everyone at all times and God speaks to people individually that only applies to that person for that time. So what? Ok, here is the practical importance of this. Not only can we all personally claim all “Logos” promises from God, but also God loves to give Christ-followers rhemas. What is important to keep in mind is that you cannot claim a specific promise unless God’s gives you a rhema.

    Remember the story of Peter walking on the water?  Peter's out in a boat with all the disciples.  It's at night.  Jesus comes walking across the water and Peter says, "Lord, call me and I'll come!" So Jesus gives Peter a “rhema”, a specific word for one man in a specific situation.  He says, "Peter, come on!"  So Peter gets out of the boat and starts walking across the water.  Notice that no one else was anxious to get out of the boat that night besides Peter.  Why? Because it wasn't a word to everyone.

     I can just see one of the other disciples having a thought, “Hey, if Peter can do it so can I” and without asking Jesus, they jump out of the boat. If that happened, what do you think would be the result? They would sink like a brick. Why?

     Because miracles are not ultimately about the miraculous – they are about the relationship. When God does something amazing it’s not about providing for you earthly needs, it’s all about following the lead of Christ in your life; - not about what we can do, it’s about what God does and the result is about bringing more glory to God. Glory means to make God bigger, not make yourself bigger.

     So Jesus gave a word to Peter in a specific time that flowed out his personal relationship with Christ so that God would be glorified.

    Now I think if the other disciples would have asked Jesus if they could walk on the water – He probably would have given them a rhema too – but I don’t think they had the faith for it. 

       The point is that Peter’s call to walk on water wasn't a universal word.  If you doubt that then you can conduct an experiment sometime. The next time you are in a boat on a lake. Just believe that God can make you walk on water and take a big step and see what happens.

    It’s not like the next day, Peter got up and say, "Let's go fishing, but hey guys we don't need a boat anymore.  I’m just going to walk on the water and catch fish." No, it was a one-time thing and Peter knew it because of his relationship with Christ.

    We can get into trouble when we try to force a specific promise to someone and try to make it work as a personal promise for us without the Holy Spirit telling us to do it. 

    For instance, I talk to people who read a verse in the Bible on healing.  They'll say, "God healed them, therefore God must heal me."  So they pray and claim that’s its true for them, but even in spite of their faith in faith, nothing happens.  Then they get mad and say, "God!  Why didn't You heal me?  It's in the Bible. So You have to do it, right?"  Wrong! 

    They didn't have a personal word from God for this particular thing.  It was a general word. We know that God heals, but He has not promised to heal everyone on this side of eternity.

    Satan tried to tempt Jesus with this kind of thinking.  Jesus was out in the desert and Satan came along and said, "Hey Jesus, why don't You jump off the pinnacle of the temple because the Bible says, “God will take care of You." Satan wasn’t asking Jesus to act on faith, faith in His relationship with the Father. No, He wanted Jesus to act on presumption.  It was a general promise.  "God will take care of you."  Jesus rebuked Satan and said, “No, it’s not right to put God to a test”.

     It’s like, after reading god’s promise to protect you, you go home, and test it out by drinking some arsenic. “Hey, God will take care of me!” Friends, God hasn't promised to take care of you if you drink arsenic!  That was a general promise. His promises have conditions and the biggest condition is faith; it is based on a faith relationship with Him, you only do what He leads you to do. The point is that you have to learn to listen to His voice everyday and follow it moment-by-moment in your life. It’s not a formula, it’s a relationship.

    Ok, in order to understand how prayer works, you must understand that God speaks in these two ways.  He speaks generally, to everybody, the Word of God to everyone – logos; and He speaks personally, to individuals about a personal things that is time specific and that's a rhema.

So how does God speak to me personally?

    The principle I'm trying to share with you today is such a powerful process it will change your life if you live within it. It is the key to seeing miracles in life; it‘s the key to understanding God's will; it’s the key to receiving wisdom for difficult decisions, and it’s the key to having faith in a seemingly hopeless situation.

     How does God speak to us personally?  The Bible says it's the Holy Spirit's duty to take the Bible and make it apply to us personally, make it come alive. 

"But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative—that is, the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you." (John 14:26, NLT)

    The job description of the Holy Spirit is to teach us and to remind us.  Look at John 16:13:

"When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future." (John 16:13, NLT)

    So in these two verses, Jesus says the Holy Spirit does three things in your life:  He teaches us, reminds us, and guides us.  It is the Holy Spirit's job description to make the Scriptures apply to our lives personally and in a dynamic ways.  In other words, He takes the logos of God and turns it into a rhema of God.  He changes it.  It's called illumination.  It's His job.

    There is nothing magical about what I'm talking about; it flows out of relationship as a follower of Christ. If you have been walking with Christ for a while I am sure it has happened to you.

    Have you ever been in a church service where someone is speaking and all of a sudden you feel like he's speaking directly to you?  You feel like there's nobody else is in the room.  You wonder, "How does that guy know my life?  How does he know I have this problem?  How does he know that's exactly what I needed at the time?" 

   I hear this from time to time after church, "How did you know that was exactly what I needed?"  My fallen nature wants to say, "It's just because of my superior knowledge of human behavior and great pastoral skills." 

     But I can't claim credit for it.  The fact is, I simply get up do my very best to deliver the logos to you and then the Holy Spirit takes that and says "Bingo!  That's what it means to your life."  God takes a general word of truth, what I say to everybody and makes it specifically apply to you.  He gave you a rhema.  The Holy Spirit illuminated it. 

    Have you ever been worrying about a major decision or a problem and struggling with an issue and all of a sudden you remember something that was said in a message three months ago.  It fits perfectly and it applies.  God gave you a rhema.  He spoke to you personally. That's the way God works in our lives.  The Holy Spirit takes the general word of God and makes it come alive. If it was anything else, it would be a formula and not a relationship.

    Ok, if you are with me so far there is something that is very important to understand when it comes to the rhema of God in your life. Listen carefully friends because I am about to save you a boat load of problems. You must always, always, always test a rhema.

     Why? Because we are all fallen people, with fallen minds and hearts, and it’s very easy to get this wrong.

    Every once in a while I meet someone who really thinks that this fallen things does not apply to them. They are so sure of their ability to hear God’s voice that they think that they never have to test what they’ve heard. So for you really self-delusional people, let me give you a logos. Look at 1 John 4:1:

Dear friends, do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You must test them to see if the spirit they have comes from God. For there are many false prophets in the world.

                                                                                       (1 John 4:1, NLT)

    The principle is pretty simple; test every impression because we can be fooled into thinking that it’s God’s voice when in fact it is not. So how do you do that? Let me quickly give you six ways to test an impression. I am going to go fairly quick here.

1. THE BIBLE TEST

    God will never contradict what He has already said in the bible.  So if you think that God has given you an impression about something and it doesn't square with the Bible, you can be absolutely sure that it's not from God. 

    I heard of a guy who said, "I believe it's God's will for me to have an affair, because God wants me to be happy."  This guy was married and had four kids.  Would God the Holy Spirit give His OK to that? Of course not. We can guarantee ourselves that it’s not God speaking because He never contradicts His word. It's a violation of a Scriptural principle. You know when it's God because it always squares up with the Bible.

2. THE WWJD TEST (What Would Jesus Do?)

Look at Philippians 2:5:

You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.  (Philippians 2:5, NLT)

     Jesus is the standard by which we measure everything we do.  God says very clearly in the Bible that His goal for your life is to make you like Jesus.  Not to be a god but to be godly; to have character, to have love, joy, peace, patience, all the qualities that Jesus had -- in your life.  He would never tell you to do anything that contradicts or would hinder you from reaching that goal. 

    A practical application of what Christ likeness is can be found in James 3:14:

But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying. (James 3:14, NLT)

    In other words, you know that impression doesn't come from God if it causes bitterness, envy, selfish ambition or you are tempted to lie or boast about it. These are filters that you can test the idea.  God's wisdom will not produce selfish ambition.  If you get an idea of how to promote yourself in a better way or how to achieve instant fame, instant wealth, instant comfort it's not from God.  God doesn't give you ideas for self promotion, self serving, and selfish ambition.  On the other hand, if the thought is pure then it's from God.  If you get an impure thought that one obviously isn't from God.            

   Ask this question:  Would Jesus do this?  First, does it square up with the Bible?  Second, does it make me more like Christ? Would Jesus do this?

3. THE COUNSEL TEST

   When you become a follower of Christ, you not only get a new relationship to God, you get a new relationship to other people.  It's called the church, the family of God.  You become a member of the family.

   God never meant for you to make a major decision in life on your own.  He wants you to get help and advice from wise mature Christians, other believers who are grounded in the faith and have a little more Bible under their belt than maybe you have. Many palces the bible instructs us to get wise counsel. It is foolish when you get an impression, to not submit it to godly people who you trust. In fact if you are sacred to tell people and submit it trusted godly people that is a huge warning signal. I am not saying that others always get it right, but there is wisdom in abundance of counselors and it is foolish to ignore them.

So the third question you need to ask is, “Does my church family confirm it?”

     If God has genuinely spoken to you, you've got an idea, an impression; He's going to confirm it through other believers. The biggest reason people mess up their lives is they try to live their life without any accountability to anybody else, without any support, without any confirmation, any council, or guidance. We need to be open to the checks, the counsel, the correction of mature believers, pastors, Christian leaders, other people in the church who have been believers longer than we have.  We ought to check it out.

4. THE MY DESIGN TEST

    Very quickly, here; before you were born God made you for a purpose.  You're not here by accident.  You're here for a reason.  That reason is a purpose and God designed you specifically for that purpose.  So your design reveals your purpose. God has given each Christ-follower certain gifts and abilities and that also means that there are gifts and abilities that we don’t have. So God is not going to call you to do something that is totally out of your giftedness. If I ever get an impression and think that God is calling me to sing on the worship team I know that is not from God, and if I followed that impression so would you. I am not gifted to sing. So the fourth question you want to ask is this impression consistent with how God designed me?

5. THE RESPONSIBILITY TEST

   When you get an impression another test is the responsibility test. Simply put if it's not your responsibility why in the world would God talk to you about it?  This one get violated when we get upset at what someone else is doing something we don’t like. This happened to Peter. In John 21, Jesus is talking to Peter and He tells him how he's going to die.  He explains that he's going to have to suffer for being a Christian.  Peter, very inquisitively, turns around and points to John the Apostle and says, "What about that guy?  How's he going to die?"  Jesus says "It's none of your business!  Don't worry about it" 

  You only have to worry about what's going on in your life and within your circle of influence. I don't have to worry about God's will for your life.  I can't figure out my own motives most of the time, much less figure out yours.  When you listen for God to speak to you, you need to listen for God to speak to you, not your son or your wife or your neighbor.  You need to say, "What is God's will for me?"so you can ask is this impression within my circle of responsibility? If yes then ask: Do I have the relational equity to speak to the other person?

6. THE GRACE TEST

    This is helpful on several different levels. But the issue is pretty simple. Conviction is from God, condemnation is from the devil. Conviction points the way to change; condemnation just makes you feel bad.  When God convicts you of sin it is always specific and motivation for positive change.  He says, ‘That attitude, behavior, or something in your life needs to change.” God is always specific.

    On the other hand, condemnation which comes from the devil, is very vague and very general and basically says, "You're bad. You're no good.  You're worthless.  You stink.  God could never use you.  Forget ever trying to be a Christian."  He's very general and negative. 

    So if you have this very general sense of guilt that's condemnation you can know that it is not from God.  When God speaks to you about something it revolves around something that needs to change in your life, it’s specific and liberating.  So the sixth question you can ask an impression: is this impression convicting or is it condemning?

Ok, let me close with a verse. Look at Proverbs 3:5-6:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take. (Proverbs 3:5-6, NLT)

    God the Holy Spirit wants to give you a rehma. It should be a normal experience in every Christ-follower’s life. We have a part to plan in this. First we have to pay attention to what God is doing and saying to us. Then we must test all impressions and when it passes the test, we act on it. We do not lean on our own understanding, but lean on what God is doing through your life. God really does want you to move mountains, to do what seems impossible through your life. To do that it flows out our your relationship with Him, you must listen to what He wants to do, test it to make sure it is God’s voice and then act.