I'm excited to be back up here again, because what I'm going to be preaching on, we basically just practice in the service. And so a little sneak peek of that. What we're going to be talking about tonight is how do we steward prophetic words that the Lord is speaking to us. So this is very timely for what just happened because as Josh went up and started talking about kind of pulling back the curtain and saying, here's what's going on in our mind.
If you were like, that doesn't make sense to me, or I've never done that in my own life, the purpose of this message is start to get some practical instructions of how to hear the voice of the Lord and actually steward those prophetic words in our own life. If you've been here the last three weeks, you know that we've been in a series called Good Soil. Three weeks ago, Pastor Josh gave an amazing message on Matthew 13 in the parable of the sower. If you remember what he talked about there, when Jesus gave the parable, he said that there are four conditions of the human heart, that the word of God comes into each and every one of our lives, and depending on the soil, there's either no fruit that comes from it.
Or if we have good soil, there's fruit that can be a 30, 60 or 100-fold harvest. And so he gave us practical ways of how do we make sure that we have good soil and that when the Lord speaks, it will produce what the Lord is wanting to do in our life. Two weeks ago, what did we have? Vision Sunday.
And there's a lot of things that were spoken over on Vision Sunday, but one of the things that I want to hone in on is the word of the Lord for our community. If you remember, Pastor Josh and Pastor Katie said kind of at the last moment the Lord highlighted Ephesians 2, 22 to them, that we are supposed to be built up together. And this is an important word for our community because even in the natural right now, we're in a renovation process of the new building that we purchased. But the Lord spoke to Pastor Josh and Pastor Katie of saying that there's a spiritual reality of that that he wants to do in our midst, that he wants to build us up spiritually, but not just individually because in that verse it says, together, that there's a unity that the Lord is wanting to do in our midst, building up spiritually.
And we'll talk a little bit more about this later, but I just want to exhort all of us as those who are at every day to take that word seriously. Even if you're like, the Lord is speaking something else in my midst. That's amazing. But can we all just start to steward that word together, getting together with other people spiritually because the Word has been spoken and the Lord wants to bring fruit about that in our community.
And then last week, Pastor Ben came up and talked about how do we make gardens wherever we go. He talked out of Genesis 2 and Genesis 3 that when God made Adam and Eve, he gave them a job description. And the job description was, I want you to tend my garden, the garden of Eden. But then brought up, he said, notice how the Lord didn't say just stay in there in the garden.
He said, I want you to go out to the rest of the world that isn't a garden, and I've actually given you power and authority to go out there and make the rest of the world a garden so that it resembles the garden of Eden. We've done them and gave very clear examples of how do we do that in our life, that whether we're at home, whether we're at work, whether we're just doing errands with our family friends, how do we wherever we go make spiritual gardens so that the Lord can move and that people can start to be encountered. And I want us to keep those messages at the forefront because I think they're vital to having fruit in our personal time with the Lord as well as de-mystifying and breaking down how can we actually be fruitful people for the Lord and going out to other people. And I think that the Lord gives such a clear message to Pastor Ben on, it's about making it a garden.
And so tonight, like I said, we're going to continue the Good Soil series and we're going to talk about how do we have good soil to steward the prophetic words that the Lord is speaking to each of us individually so that those words come into our lives and that they actually start to bear fruit. Now we're all here in different places in our walk with the Lord and even in things regarding the prophetic. So as we were cooperating with the Lord and what He was speaking up here, there might be some people that are like, I didn't even know the Lord is still wanting to speak to us today or is the Lord even wanting to speak to me? I understand that He has thoughts for the Somali population.
Does He have thoughts for me as well? There are other people who are like, I know the Lord is speaking and I know He's even speaking to me, but I actually don't know what to do with those words. And so the Lord is speaking and you're like, thank you Lord, but I actually don't know what to do to actually produce any fruit. And then there are even other people who are like, no, I actually feel really good about hearing and doing the things that the Lord has spoken.
And what I want this message to be is I want it to be a practical message of deem mystifying the Lord speaking to us and then what are practical steps to take those things that we're hearing? How do we steward it so that what the Lord is speaking, we start to produce fruit. So tonight we're going to take a look at three things. One is, does the Lord still want to speak to you?
The second is, what He does, we have what is our objective. And then third, I'm going to take a look at four different ways that I think are the primary ways the Lord prophetically speaks to us. And I'm going to give practical examples of what I've seen in my own life every day of when the Lord speaks of how was it stewarded so that the word of the Lord can actually come to pass. So I'm going to open this up in prayer and then we're going to dive on in.
Lord, I thank You that we got to taste during worship of You speaking and hearing the heart that You have for the Somali neighbors in our neighborhood. And Lord, I thank You that Your thoughts towards us are infinite. And Lord, as we dive into this, we thank You that truth is going to reign supreme. We thank You Lord that lies, that the enemy is trying to keep people in bondage and are going to break off.
I thank You Lord that even people who believe the lie that they don't actually have spiritual ears to hear what You're saying, that You're going to show that You've equipped them and that You actually do have ears and that You are speaking. And so Lord, would Your Word run and would it seeds even be planted now? Lord, that will come to fruition to bear fruit, not even just for our community, but all those we engage with. We just pray all this in Jesus' name.
Amen. I first want to talk about does the Lord want to speak to us still? After I got baptized in the Holy Spirit, it happened one week before I went to college and my whole spiritual life got turned upside down, had an encounter with the Lord, started seeing all signs and wonders. But there was one gift to the Holy Spirit that I had a very, very hard time with and it was all things with the prophetic and hearing the voice of the Lord.
And I got to college and thankfully got connected with a group of people that operated and hearing the voice of the Lord, but it was very challenging for me because I would sit with them and they would hear the Lord and get confirmed and speak to other people. There would be a lot of amazing things that would start to happen. And I would sit there and I'd be like, I don't know if the Lord is even wanting to speak to me. Am I just like missing the bow down everything?
And I bet that there's probably people in here that when we look around at other people, we compare ourselves to. And then you start to feel shame or condemnation of being like, wow, they just like really hear from the Lord really well and I'm a lesser Christian. And I just want to break that off of that's not true at all. Because here's one of the things that ended up happening is I got introduced to some people at Northwestern, Pastor Josh and Pastor Katie.
Amazing people. And they said that they would actually mentor me and they took me under their wing and spent countless hours in all areas of my life pouring into it. But one of the things that they did with me is teach me how to hear the Lord. And so the things that they had learned and they had been laboring in, they freely gave to me.
This is also just a call out to people in our community. We're blessed with a lot of people that have a lot of different skill sets and things that they've developed in the Lord. Our job is not to hold it for ourselves. It's actually to train and equip all the people in here.
So if you're seeing people around here and you're like, hey, I'm struggling with operating this, go find someone and ask them, can you teach me about it? And if you have the capacity to do that, I just want to call our body to start entering into that because that's where fruit is going to start to come. So I started to get all these truths spoken to me. And there's a verse that came up that I think encapsulates all the things that the Lord started to shift in me, that started to change my perspective of the Lord speaking to me, that I started to get my spiritual frequency tuned in with the Lord.
And it's Psalm 139 verses 17 and 18. And it says, how precious are your thoughts to me, O God? How great is the sum of them? If I should number them, they'd be more numerous than the sand.
And when I wake, you're still with me. The truths of this verse were things that started to break off lies that I was believing that kept me from hearing what the Lord was speaking. The first of them is this, how precious are your thoughts to me? I was at a season in life where I didn't think the Lord had precious thoughts for me.
I thought that the primary things he was wanting to speak to me about was how I had failed him, how I didn't live up to his expectations, things that he was constantly wanting to correct in me. And so as I was listening for the Lord, my ears were tuned into condemnation. And I sat there and I was like, yeah, if they're not getting anything, I think this just doesn't feel good at all. But David spanned to the heart of the Lord.
And he said the thoughts that he has for us are precious. And so even again, I think that there are people in here that there's thoughts that you're believing about yourself that are actually anti-gospel, that the enemy is trying to keep you on bondage in. And I just want to even say now that the Lord has precious thoughts over you. He has precious thoughts over you.
And it's time for us to start to plug into the heart of the Lord. The next thing where it talks about is how many thoughts he has for us. It says that the thoughts that he has for us are more numerous than the sand. I don't know how many grains of sand there are.
The trillions upon trillions upon trillions, probably just in Minnesota alone. And he says that his thoughts towards us are even more than that. Which means that he has infinite amount of thoughts about your life, about you, about the situations that you're in, the things that you're processing, and their precious thoughts. You see, when I was starting to learn to hear the voice of the Lord, I believed a lie that the Lord wasn't speaking and that he didn't actually have all that many thoughts.
And my job was to go in and basically beat down the door of the Father and say, hey, speak to me. In reality, he's always speaking. He has infinite thoughts. He has infinite things that he wants to say to you.
And when I started to understand that, I started to realize that as a son, I can sit and actually receive from the Father rather than going up and trying to twist his arm and being like, speak to me. Then the last thing it says in there where it says, and when I awake, I'm still with you. What in the world is this talking about? If we take it from a spiritual perspective and I'll apply it back to my life, that there are seasons that we've all been in where we've just been spiritually sleeping.
When the Lord encountered me and I got baptized in the Holy Spirit, my life got turned around, it was after the darkest season of my entire life. I've shared my story up here, so I won't go over all of it. But the gist of the story is that my senior year of high school, I had a freak football accident that there were a lot of complications and I ended up in hospice given less than two weeks to live. There's a crazy healing from the Lord, but even after that, I went into a very, very dark time with the Lord.
I didn't want to speak to him. I didn't read the Bible. I didn't pray. I didn't really want to do anything because of all the pain, all the things that I saw.
And I started to go spiritually asleep. But even when I was asleep, the Lord still had infinite precious thoughts about me. I was still his. And I was believing the lie of the enemy because I just got done wasting nine months of my life with the Lord of just sitting and sorrow.
And he encountered me because he's good and started to speak truth. And so now my ears started to get tuned into the Lord of okay, you're actually always speaking. You have precious thoughts because I'm in Jesus. You're waking me up to the reality of who I am and you're actually calling me to higher plays.
And these changes started to make me be like, okay, I can actually start to hear the Lord. The other thing that happened and this is where in talking with other people, one of the things that also shifted is how does the Lord actually speak to me and speak to us? Because if you were to ask me before I got baptized in the Holy Spirit, I would have thought of when Jesus got baptized. What happens?
Jesus gets baptized, heaven opens up, the Father comes down and says, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. And it was an audible voice that people actually heard. So not only was my thoughts about the Lord just off, but I was expecting it to be an audible voice from the Lord that I was supposed to hear. And the Lord for sure can do that.
But what I've started to learn as I've grown and matured in my walk with the Lord and in the prophetic is that that's a rarity and there are four other ways that are the primary ways that he speaks to us prophetically to try to get our attention for things. And those are through the word, through dreams, through other people prophesying over us and what I call oddities of just like kind of unusual things that continue to happen over and over. And we'll dive into those more in depth. But when I started to understand and get my theology correct around the Lord's thoughts towards us and that he speaks in different ways than what I was thinking, I started to then notice that God is actually always speaking.
He always has a thought about something. He's always trying to come in and then all of a sudden what seemed like an impossibility of where I sat for hours and hours and hours in groups of people, never feeling like I've ever heard anything from the Lord. Well, now my spiritual antenna got tuned in and I was like, oh Lord, you actually do have a lot of thoughts. And so I want us to just start adjusting that in all of our lives because that's what's going to start to allow us to hear to then be able to steward the things that the Lord is speaking to us.
Next I want to go into, okay, so the Lord is speaking, how do we steward what he's saying? And I want to go into this first before diving into the examples of how the Lord talks. The reason being is when we go through those four different things, I want to tie back to the things listed out in the scripture of how we steward them so they'll come together. So if you have your Bibles with me, turn to 1 Timothy 4, and we're going to start in verse 14.
1 Timothy 4 starting in verse 14. Paul's writing to Timothy and he says, do not neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you by prophecy with the laying on of hands of the eldership. Meditate on these things, give yourself entirely to them that all your progress may be evident to all. So Paul lays out here saying that Timothy, there's a tax on your leadership in the church, both from within and from the enemy.
And he calls him to remember the prophetic words that were given to him that actually brought him into that place of leadership. And he says, to not neglect that which he was called to. I think sometimes we get a calling from the Lord and we just neglect it because things get hard. And one of the reasons why prophetic words come to us is to actually encourage us to walk in our calling in the Lord because there are things that do get tough in life.
When a prophetic word comes, it doesn't mean that there's an ease to it because the enemy will attack it. But what prophetic words do is they tie us back to the heart of the Lord that even when the enemy or other people in our life are speaking lies about us, we can go back to the written word as well as the prophetic words and say, there's actually a higher word that I'm going to trust the Lord in what he's building up. And so Paul is saying, go back to those prophetic words because it's going to actually encourage you to get through this. Then starting in verse 15, meditate on these things.
We're going to come back to this because there's a couple of other places in scripture that tie in with this exact principle of what do we do when a prophetic word is given to us. Paul is saying that it was given to you, you started to step into it, you're being attacked. You can actually become fruitful. You have to start to meditate on it, which means to deeply think about.
Again, I want to address something. There's wrong meditation that is trying to come into the church. The world meditates by emptying our mind and not thinking about anything and just letting whatever thought starts to come in. That's demonic.
That's not what we're called to do. Biblical meditation is where we actually fill our mind with the truth of the word and the Lord's thoughts and our thoughts start to become his thoughts. So that is what meditation is, biblically speaking. Turn with me to Revelation 1, 3.
John here continues the thought that Paul did in 1 Timothy of how we steward prophetic words and he goes a little bit more in depth into what does it mean to meditate on a prophetic word, Revelation 1, 3. Revelation 1, 3. Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things which are written in it for the time is near. So notice, first of all, that John, partnering with the prophetic words, says that there's a blessing if he starts to do this.
He's tying it back to the language of producing fruit in our life. Notice how you produce fruit. Here's where blessings come from. And he says, blessed are those who read and those who hear the words of this prophecy.
Now in this context, he's talking about the book of Revelation because Revelation is the revealing of Jesus. But how many of you know that prophecy is the testimony of Jesus? So the exact same way that Paul tells us to, or sorry, John tells us to steward the book of Revelation. He gives us a blueprint for how he steward prophetic words as a whole, just like how he steward the prophetic book of the book of Revelation.
He says, blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy. So when you get a prophetic word, you can check off those who hear prophecy. It's not, you heard it, the word came to you. But what does he say, first, blessed are those who read it.
This is something that we need to do a better job as a community of writing down the prophetic words that are spoken to us. Because you can't read something if it isn't written down. This is where the enemy loves to come in and snag away our prophetic words because we don't write them down, that our memory starts to get foggy around it. We start to change details or we forget about it altogether.
So he's saying, if you're wanting a blessing, if you want to have good soil from the prophetic word, first hear it, they will talk about that in a second, but then write it down. That's how then you're able to actually meditate on it. Then it says, and those who keep the things which are written in it for the time is near. It's interesting to note the Greek word there for keep, teria, is actually a word that says to guard, to watch over.
And essentially the prophetic word that's given was called to build a wall around it so that it can't be stolen. Well, how can a prophetic word get stolen? If the Lord spoke it, how can it get stolen? This is exactly what Pastor Josh talked about in Mark 13.
This is what Jesus said in the parable of the sower, that sometimes the word of the Lord comes and it gets scattered by the wayside and the wicked one comes and snatches them away. And what does it say in Matthew 13, 19? When Jesus explains to us how do prophetic words get snatched away? He says, and anyone who hears the words of the kingdom and doesn't understand them, the wicked one will come away and snatch it.
Now there's even misunderstanding in this verse that I think causes a lot of confusion because we read the English version of understanding and we think that the call for us is actually to have a deep mental knowledge of what the Lord is wanting to speak. And if you look at the Greek word there, I believe it's called, you can double check that later. It actually doesn't mean have mental understanding. The primary meaning of it is a coming together.
And so what is Jesus talking about here? Of when a prophetic word comes to you, our primary goal of stewarding it is to actually come into agreement with what is being spoken and then the two become one and we actually then start to have fertile soil in our hearts for the Lord to start to grow up the fruit. How do we know that it's not mental understanding? How many of you know everything about the word of God?
How many of you in the book of Revelation read and go, I know everything that's in there? If we take it to being that you have to understand it for the enemy, not to come snatch it away, none of us would ever have any fruit in the Lord of anything that he's speaking. But that's not what he's calling us to. He's calling us to actually come into agreement with the prophetic word, with the word of God, and actually have the two become one.
I think the greatest example that we see in scripture of this is when Gabriel appears to marry in Luke 1 and prophesies and says that you're going to have a baby. And again, from a natural perspective, it's like she goes, wait a second. I've never known a man how in the world can this happen? And Gabriel says to her, the Holy Spirit's going to come upon you and you'll bear a child.
And what is her response to that? Let it be as you have said. She doesn't actually understand how the Holy Spirit's going to come upon her. But she comes into agreement with the word of saying, you know what?
I actually maybe don't mentally understand, Lord, how you're going to do this. But my job is to come into agreement with it, receive the prophetic word, and say, I'm going to actually give myself to this. And the Lord then birthed in her literally a savior. And that's a prophetic picture of what we're supposed to do.
When the Lord speaks words to us, we need to come into agreement with it because then there's a birthing process that starts to happen and fruit starts to come as a result of it. Come back to First Timothy for. Meditate down these things. So when a word of the Lord comes, we're called to hear it and write it down, keep it guarded so that the enemy can't come in.
Paul here when he says meditate on it, and give yourself entirely to them. What he's telling us to do is not put the prophetic words in a library shelf in the back of our house and never actually think about it. And I think that that's something that we oftentimes do. We get a prophetic word from someone, or the Lord speaks to us in a dream, and we just kind of go, okay, thanks, that's cool.
And we put it up on a shelf, and then we go, why in the world did this never come to pass? And Timothy is saying, no, you actually have to steward it by keeping it in front of you, speaking on it, having conversations with the Lord about it, giving yourself entirely to it. So when the Lord is calling us into different seasons of our life to dive into different things, he doesn't want us to do it just like partly. Give ourselves to it, why?
Because he's the one that knows what needs to happen in our lives to have us grow up into all things that he's wanting to do for us, and through us because ultimately why the Lord speaks to us as we see here is to bless other people. Because he says that your progress may be evident to all. That's an interesting thing that Paul says there. He says, remember the prophetic word that was given to you?
Write on it. Give yourself fully to it. And Timothy is already to degree walking in it. So why is he telling him to bring back to it again?
Because the enemy loves to come and lie about our identities. He says, keep it at the forefront. But that the prophetic word that was spoken about you is supposed to be evident to all, so they may see progress. There's a couple of interesting things here that I want to hit on.
There's a teaching that is very prevalent in the charismatic movement, and especially when it comes to the prophetic, is that we're supposed to keep all of these things like hidden to ourselves between us and the Lord. Now I don't want to go into the ditch of there, I think of for sure things that the Lord speaks to you that he calls us to carry by ourselves with the Lord. But we oftentimes apply that to everything in our life. And the Lord wants us to actually grow with other people, share our prophetic seasons, the things that the Lord is speaking to us about so that they can encourage us that the growth that the prophetic word has been spoken over us, that they may be able to not only see it, but the Lord grows those things in us for other people.
Timothy wasn't growing in his calm leadership to be like, wow, I'm a great leader. He was doing it to serve the body of Christ. Because the role of coming into leadership is to train and equip other people. And we need people in our corner to speak truth into us because there's times just like Timothy that the enemy loves to come in or even other people and start punching at you, and they need to come in and start strengthening you.
Because how many of you has the Lord spoken something to you? You've never shared it. And then the enemy comes and starts chirping in your ear. And all of a sudden you're just like, well, man, that was kind of cool.
And we'll go away. Where if you would have taken even 10 minutes to sit down with someone else that's outside of that and say, I feel like the Lord is speaking this to me. But here are all the things that the enemy is hitting me with. They'd be like, yeah, that's a lie.
You've dissect all of it. And you'd walk away and be like, oh, wow, I now feel freedom to actually move in and grow up into the prophetic word spoken to us. Sit and meditate on the things that the Lord has spoken over. Don't lose hope over it.
He's planted seeds. Hold on to it. He'll be faithful to grow it up. And next I want to talk about the four primary ways that I think the Lord prophetically speaks to us.
And I want to look at some passages in Scripture, but also give some practical examples of words that have been either spoken to me or to our church, what we've done to steward them. And I want to say that the pattern that we lay out of what we did is the exact right way. But it's more to just be an example of the Lord is speaking to everyone here. And if you're like, I don't know what to do with it, we just laid out some practical things.
But if you want to get even more practical with real words that are given, these are meant to just stir you up to go back to the Holy Spirit and partner with him in it. Turn with me to Daniel 9. First thing I want to talk about is the primary way that I believe the Lord speaks to us prophetically. And it's through the word.
Daniel 9, and we're going to start in verse 2. In the first year of his reign, Daniel understood by the books the number of the years specified by the word of the Lord through Jeremiah the prophet that he would accomplish 70 years in desolations of Jerusalem. Then I set my face toward the Lord to make requests by prayer and supplications with fasting, sackcloth and ashes. What's being talked about in Daniel here?
Daniel was reading what we call the book of Jeremiah. And he was reading it and the Lord highlighted a portion there as he was reading of saying, hey, this is about to come to pass. I need you to actually start diving into this. I think this is the primary way that the Lord speaks to us as well.
We're reading in scripture the Lord highlights and impresses upon us a truth that he's wanting us to walk into. That verse had already been there when Jeremiah wrote it, but it was at this time that the Lord highlighted it because it was important for the season that Israel was about to go into. And what was Daniel's response to that? Look at what he says in verse 3.
How did Daniel steward that? He read the book, felt the Lord come and impress upon that there's something in that passage in Jeremiah. It says that he then set my face toward the Lord God to make requests by prayer supplications fasting, sackcloth and ashes. Daniel gave himself diving into the heart of the Lord behind that.
When it says that he understood by the books the numbers of the years specified that again does not mean that he understood everything that the Lord was going to do. If that was the case, why would Gabriel later on in Daniel 9 show up to him and say I've actually been sent here to explain stuff to you and give you actually more insight and understanding into the season that's going to go on. But just like we talked about Matthew 13, the understanding was, okay, the Lord highlighted this to me. I'm going to come into agreement with it and I'm going to steward it by meditating, turning my eyes to the Lord, letting the Lord start to speak and give his understanding to us because what's the role of the Holy Spirit?
One of them is that when the Holy Spirit comes he'll guide us into all truth and he'll teach us all things. Our job is to have it come together, Holy Spirit's job is to teach us. How I've seen this manifest the most in my life was back in 2011. I was in a Bible study and we were at Northwestern College in the prayer room there.
And there's some guys in our church, Angela Ferboni, Scott Vanderworth, me and a couple of other guys that don't go here. We were going after the Lord and we said, where should we read? And we opened up to Romans and started reading there and we got to the places which is all throughout Romans of grace versus the law, Old Testament versus New Testament. And all of us as we were reading, we just felt like the Lord impressed upon us that there was something very important about grace and the New Covenant.
All I can say is that we sat there and we're like, there's a weightiness to this, just like Daniel, but there's something going on here in the Book of Jeremiah. What is it? So we started to turn our attention to the Lord and we started dialoguing with ourselves of what do you guys know about grace in the New Covenant? Basically, all we could come up with that night was that there was an old and a new covenant and that there's a page that says that it goes to a new covenant.
And then we googled, googled and help all that much either. So then we started praying in tongues and we prayed in tongues for four hours that night of just asking the Lord, turning our eyes to him, of saying, we feel that there's a weightiness around this. Can you help bring clarity and guidance to it? We didn't get anything that night.
We all walked away of that there's a massive appetite to know what grace in the New Covenant was but had no understanding of it all. What we knew the Lord had called us and what it started or sent us off into is a multi-year journey of our group deep diving into all things grace, the New Covenant, where we read everything in the Bible about it. We read books, listen to podcasts, listen to teachings on it for multiple years. That's how we stewarded and meditated on what we felt the Lord impressing upon us.
What was the fruit of that? How many of you have been to the Gospel class? You can trace a direct line from the Gospel class back to that night and it wasn't that what the Lord was talking to us is something not in the Word because everything that gets out of the classes in the Word, our eyes were just spiritually blinded to it and the Lord wanted to awaken that up into us because he knew that seven to twelve years later that there was going to be a church every day that he wanted Scott to preach that message to bring freedom to our lives and it started off by that and then by Scott's stewarding deep diving into that, getting the knowledge, continually having it in front of him, continually bringing it to the Lord so that he could speak to us and we've seen so much fruit in our community as a result of that. What are other ways in the Word that the Lord highlights?
How many of you, as we've read even like bigger jumps of scripture if you've ever done, like going through the Bible one year or whatever it is and it's like every time I get to this certain topic there's just something that jumps inside of me in my spirit or my eyes always get brought back to that whether it's praying, whether it's giving, whatever the topic is. We oftentimes overlook that of just being like oh that's maybe something that I'm just inclined to going into. What if it's the Lord actually impressing upon you, he wants you to start diving into that topic and even if we don't know the reason behind it, he knows the reason behind it and our job is to come into agreement with that and start putting that at the forefront, start diving into it. I know we have time to do that.
How do I know? Because I have a lot of conversations and a lot of people know a lot of stuff about a lot of different topics in the world of podcasts that we listen to, TV shows, whatever it is and not all of those are bad but if we want to start actually stewarding the things the Lord wants us to do, it's time that our appetite shifts to devouring what the Lord wants us to devour and he puts it in front of us. Another way the Lord through the word speaks to us is you're spending time with the Lord and you're on a certain subject and then you go to church and the church talks about that exact thing. He off and then goes, oh that's kind of funny but what if the Lord for you is highlighting and putting his thumb on that and be like, no, no, no, I didn't want to have that connection to be like, oh that's cool that you did that but I want to highlight it for you so you go back into the word around that topic and start to develop that in your life.
Next thing I want to talk about is dreams. Acts 2, 17 and 18, it talks about after those days I'll pour out my spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your doubters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams and your young men shall see visions and on my men's servants and my maids servants I'll pour out my spirit and they shall prophesy. One of the great things about the New Covenant is that with the Holy Spirit getting poured out on all of us is that the prophetic comes to the forefront.
The Lord loves to speak to us, he's always speaking to us including a third of our life when we're asleep. A lot of people ask me because I'm known for dreaming a lot, I typically have one to three dreams a night and people ask why is that? It isn't because of any special calling that I have. I just came to agreement with a truth in the scripture.
I used to, every night before going to bed, you know, do the praying, the blood over my pillow that there be dreams and counters and again I don't want to diminish that but the Lord started to highlight something that is in this passage right here. One of the things that is a spiritual inheritance of mine as a son of God is that I actually get to receive dreams. So just like if you have a child or if you know an infant, when they come to you for food they don't come up and start like banging on you, like, hey give me my food. There's like an expectation because you're a good father that you're going to feed them.
When I go to sleep at night I don't have to beg the father to give me dreams. I know that part of my spiritual food is that he's going to give me dreams at night because he says pray without ceasing and prayers a two way conversation which means that he's always talking to us including the eight hours that we're sleeping at night and if you're not sleeping a lot we're going to pray for that as well too. The Lord wants to bring restoration to sleep right now so that actual rest starts to come back to people's bodies. I want to highlight a couple of ways the Lord might be trying to give, get your attention through dreams.
One of them is you have the same dream like back to back. Do you remember in Genesis 41 when Pharaoh had two dreams and he's like what is the meaning of this and Joseph came up and he said the reason you had two dreams was to show that the word that's coming from it is truly from God and that it's going to come to pass quickly. A lot of times when we have dreams that are like back to back that are the same I think a lot of times we just don't know what to do with it and then we never interact with the Lord and we just let again fall by the wayside but we look to the Bible and it's like okay Lord you gave these two dreams to me to wake me up to that there's something that you're wanting to do and you're wanting to do it quickly and then we start to tune our ears in and start asking the Lord questions about what is it that you're wanting to speak to me. How can I be faithful to partner with what you're wanting to do because even Pharaoh in the interpretation of the dream yes that drought was going to come but it sent them into preparation season so there's an acting upon the word so there's something that the Lord is wanting to call us into.
How about another one of reoccurring dreams over a long period of time and I want to distinguish between having the same one kind of back to back versus having the same type of dream over a long period of time. I had this happen to me a couple of years ago and it was because I was a poor steward of what the Lord was wanting me to do in my life. I had five to six dreams over the period of about a year and a half that were all the same and it was me and my back seat of my car driving on 35W and driving with my feet from the back on the steering wheel. It was such a real dream that even to this day as I'm driving on 35W I will sit and be like Lord did I at some point drive my car from my back seat and then it's like no it was actually just a handful of dreams.
What is interesting is like why in the world would the Lord give that to me over and over and I started to communicate with the Lord and he was like well it's because there's something in your life that I'm wanting you to go into the car but you're actually not taking like a driver's seat in it. You're sitting in the back not stewarding what I'm wanting you to drive in. It's amazing after I did that and started to shift that thing in my life. I've never had that dream ever since.
But again a lot of us and I know this because I talked to a lot of people here have dreams just like that and we just throw them away as being like that's just weird. And it's like no the Lord's trying to get our attention. The Lord's trying to get our attention to partner with him to steward those dreams and what he's wanting to speak to us at that point. Next I want to talk about prophetic words from other people that they give to us.
So 1 Corinthians 14, 3. It talks about that everyone in the body can hear from the Lord and prophesy over other people. And what prophetic words are is again tapping into the heart of the Lord for someone else and it says that it has to, it says that in verse 3 that all prophetic words fall into three different categories. Adefine which means to build up, exhorting which means to like push you into something and comforting which is what it says is to bring comfort to an area of your life.
I want to first say this that if you're either giving prophetic words that don't fall into one of those three categories we need to cut it out. That is the biblical grounds for prophesying over someone. It edifies, encourages or comforts them. And also want to give permission, not even just from us up here but the Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 520 it says don't despise prophecies but cling to what is good.
If there have been people who have spoken words over you that don't come in alignment with those three things chuck them out. It doesn't matter who it was that spoke over you. We know in part and we prophesy in part the Lord is speaking to you and if something doesn't line up with that chuck it out and get the heart of the Lord behind it. But I want to talk briefly about how we interact depending on what each one of those are.
So again an edifying word which means to build up. This is a word that will come to you. Oftentimes it will look like someone comes and encourages you in something that you're probably already doing. And it's like oh I'm actually doing that in my life whether it's the thing I'm diving into the Lord with, whether it's something going on in life.
And again I think a lot of times when that happens we get that prophetic word to us and we just go wow that's kind of cool. Thank you Lord. I don't want to downplay that it is cool but that's not the main purpose of it. It's meant to build you up.
There's an interesting passage in Ezra 6 that talks about as they were building Jerusalem it says that they were actually profitable by the prophesying of Zachariah and Hei Gei. That it was their prophetic words that actually caused a quickening that caused a strengthening to the physical building of Jerusalem. So when someone comes and gives a prophetic word that's meant to build you up it's the same thing that the word of the Lord comes in to strengthen you, to build up what the Lord is doing you quicker, to strengthen it, as well as to push through boundaries that the enemy is bringing behind you and that's the power of a prophetic word which is again why we shouldn't just be like that's cool and put it to the side but steward it to bring about the fruit that the Lord is wanting to do in our life. The next one is comforting where prophetic words will come to comfort you and this is where there are things going on in your life that are maybe hard, things emotionally, things around a whole bunch of different things and the Lord cares about those as well.
I think a lot of times we think that the Lord doesn't care about those and so we put them to the side and we try to be like you know what I'm going to just keep reading my Bible. It's like no he has a heart for those things he wants to partner with you in those things he wants to bring healing to you in those things and so oftentimes it will come through other people that are speaking healing to you and there's an aspect of that prophetic word that does bring the healing but it's also meant to be a launching pad for us to dive deeper into the heart of the Lord and come into agreement with the Lord's heart and then there's the exhorting calling us into where I've seen this most in my life is a prophetic word that Scott gave me as we were standing up here. He came up to me and he said the Lord is speaking to me of saying that things that are risky for other people aren't going to be risky for you in things of the prophetic. This again isn't some special truth that is for me.
It's a truth of scripture that we're all called to prophesy but I needed in my life a word from the Lord to get up and actually start walking out and sharing words and things that I was hearing and even to this day even though one of my roles every day is stewarding prophetic words for our community if you were to get into my mind as I stand up there and if I ever come up and share something you know for certain that there's about 15 minutes of me standing right here and just pondering should I actually go up and share this with anyone or not. Every time even to this day but every time I'll think about that prophetic word and it actually encourages me and it excorts me to step into one of my roles in the church to go share it and when the enemy tries to come up and lie to me about it it's like no I'm going to actually I know my identity in the word and I have this prophetic word that I've kept in front of me that I then push through that and I start to see fruit from my prophetic words that start to come as a result of that. The last thing that I want to talk about in the four primary ways the Lord speaks prophetically to us is what I call oddities which is odd things that happen in life. I think there's two main areas around this one is numbers that continue to show up over and over and there's other things with clocks which are also numbers but specifically looking at time on there.
Where do we see this in scripture? First of all there's a lot of just weird prophecies in scripture. I mean the Lord spoke to someone through a donkey and it's like we have to have our mind opened up to and even the four things that I'm talking about that's not an exhaustive list but that's what I'd say that are the four main ways. The Lord is always wanting to speak and sometimes he does it in unusual ways.
Do you remember in John 21 after Jesus got raised from the dead he's going out and he sees his disciples fishing and they don't know who he is and he just starts to sit down there and give him advice on how to catch fish and then he sits down and goes hey bring me some of the fish that you just caught. I know that if you've grown up in the church we've all probably sat in sermons around that chapter. So for us it's kind of a normal thing but if you were to think about some random person going to your work sitting down in the middle of your work having a weird conversation with you and then being like hey I actually want to eat off of all the fruit that you're providing and I actually want you to bring it to me. We'd all be like this is just odd and then what does Jesus do?
He has a conversation with Peter where he asks him the same thing three times do you love me if you love me feed my sheep if you love me feed my sheep and he does it three times which again is symbolic I think of the Lord bringing up things in our life multiple times to get our attention. What was it for Peter? Well he denied Jesus three times and the Lord knew that there had to be a weird prophetic way to encounter Peter to make him understand that he wants him to get his attention that I've actually forgiven you for those three denials and I'm going to bring it up multiple times three ways in a weird way because otherwise you probably won't get it. And so the Lord oftentimes speaks through numbers to us.
There's an example last Thursday I had someone text me saying hey would you be able to pray for me? So I called him up and I said sure and he's like I just feel like I'm being attacked and then at the end of it I was like can I pray for you? I prayed and I felt the Lord highlight Luke 4 so I just prayed that over him I felt it applied to his situation. Again that wasn't anything that I was like oh the Lord is coming upon me like it's Luke 4.
It's one of those that I was just being an active listener to what was going on in his life and I felt that that scripture lined up with the truth of what the Lord is wanting to do to break through it. And so after we prayed he stops and goes why did you bring up Luke 4? And I was like there's not really a reason other than I felt it applied to you or to your situation and he goes that's crazy because for the last year that has been the primary scripture that I've been sitting in and the reason I've been sitting in it is because around like a year and a half ago he started seeing the number 4 wherever he went and he proceeded to text me his archive of all the number 4s that he sent to me. It goes it's also interesting because I was at another church I believe it was in Florida and he said a guy came up to me and he goes remember the number 4.
And so he felt the Lord call him to Luke 4 for that and then the Lord confirmed through the word of God through prophetic word of someone praying over him but then it's like what do we do with that? So I asked the Lord okay what is he wanting to speak through the number 4? And I know that in Hebrew 4 means like a pathway or a gate and so I know that there's something that the Lord is wanting to speak around that but I was like okay Lord show me something in scripture that has to do with the number 4 that you're wanting to speak and so the Lord brought up Daniel 7 where it talks about how the 4 winds of heaven stirred up and I just felt the Lord wanting to encourage him that even in the midst of like chaos the Lord is providing a pathway and there's like a divine working that the Lord's going to do just like the Lord stirred up the 4 winds of heaven. He's going to stir up things in his life and I was able to then encourage him around that tie what the Lord is already speaking to him but also give him some context of what to go to the Lord for so the Lord can continue to bring that to fruition.
He texted me back and granted it's only been a couple of days since it happened but there's just even a change of what he's wanting to go after in the Lord and getting in the heart of the Lord and it's like that's what the prophetic in these weird oddities are for is connecting us to the heart of the Lord because he cares about situations that we're in. How about with clocks? How many of you know that some of the biggest prophetic moments that we've had as a church have all been because of seeing numbers on a clock? For about two years Pastor Josh and Pastor Katie on a daily basis when they looked at the clock it was always 1234 and this isn't even a thing of obviously that number appears twice every day in the AM and PM but it's like why for two years on a daily basis as you're just going about your business and you look over it's like oh it's 1234, it's 1234.
They could have easily just put that off to San go oh that's kind of weird but the Lord kept hearing home over and over and over for two years and rather than putting it to the side they thought the Lord on what are you wanting to say behind it and this is where in 2022 what was our theme alignment 1234 then we continue that in 2023 alignment 1234. Then back in October of 2022 we had one of the coolest encounters in our church where the Lord highlighted Luke 1234 that talks about where your treasure is there your heart will be also and it started to move into this corporate time of giving and paying off people's debt that set the foundation for the Lord moving to provide for us financially to get our building to come into alignment with what the Lord is wanting to do to store this season at every day all because of seeing 1234 on a clock for two years that we could have easily just thrown off to the side. We need to start opening our spiritual eyes and ears for all sorts of things but are there things that we're continuing to see over and over and rather than put them to the side start to engage the Lord with it so that we can actually get the fruit to manifest and if you've been at our church for a while you know that there's been so much fruit from that prophetic word even as weird as it was but the Lord is so good just he knows what's needed he knows what he needs to do to wake us up to get us to engage him and it's time that we start engaging him. I want to just wrap up with this before we pray and then I'll turn over to Josh.
The Lord is always speaking to us. I can want to hammer that point home. If you're here and you're like I don't know if he is I just want to say that he is speaking to you. If there are people here that you're like there's things in my life that I don't know the Lord is wanting to speak into he does want to speak into it.
We need to start hearing the voice of the Lord and start stewarding it, listening and obeying. I can want to encourage all of us to start writing down the things that he's speaking to us and keep it at the forefront of our lives engaging the Lord on it so that we don't let it fall to the wayside. There's too many people out there that need encounters with the Lord and the Lord wants to use us to do it but he wants to build us up and strengthen us so that when we interact with other people there's a tenacity where we can push through stuff because we've built up character foundations, truths and these different prophetic seasons that the Lord has had us in that we're able to go out and not get thrown off by any attack of the enemy. I also want to talk about what I said at the beginning of getting into community with other people.
Don't go around doing prophetic stuff by yourself. That just sets up for getting into weird different things. But it's also we need to be in community with other people and tell them what we feel the Lord is calling us into so that we can start to practice our exorting them to go into the things that the Lord is putting in them. They'll bring clarity to the things going on in our life.
It'll help speed up the word so that the fruit can start to come from it more. This also ties back to what I talked about at the beginning. The prophetic word this year for our church is being built together. I don't want that to fall to the wayside.
I think a lot of times we hear that and we go, that's cool that Pastor Josh and Pastor Katie think that. I'll be along for the ride. It's like no, the prophetic word is actually given as an invitation. They're the voices and the prophets of this house.
If we receive their prophetic word and honor them as a prophet, we'll receive a prophetic reward it says. That when we start to partner with that, and again, I want to hit this point home. Even if you're like, I feel like the Lord is having me in a different like season of diving into something, have this get merged in with that. This is a corporate call over our house to get together with other people, not primarily for entertainment.
It's primarily for building spiritual things up. It's time to turn the heat up on that. It's time for us to start taking some steps out. Again, don't be afraid when the Lord speaks to you to start taking some baby steps out there.
What is it saying Hebrews 11, 6, that without faith it's impossible to please God because those who come to him must believe that he is and he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. When we keep and steward the prophetic words, even if we're, let's say we're wrong on what we're trying to go into, where it's like, hey, I felt like the Lord calling me to start up a prayer group and it was actually a Bible study that he wanted. The Lord is still going to bless it because he loves that you're partnering with, he felt you're saying you're seeking after him and that he will reward you for that. The other thing is he can come in and start to bring guidance to getting back on track, but we can't be afraid to step out of the boat like Peter and start walking towards Jesus.
He'll come down and pick us up. We just need to start stewarding what he's saying, partnering with it, and putting it into action and fruit is going to come as a result of that. I'm going to just close this in prayer and then I'm going to turn over to Josh. Lord, I thank you that you are always speaking.
I thank you that even right now, Lord, that you're speaking to people about situations in their life, Lord God. I thank you, Lord, that even for people who feel stuck right now, I just see oil that goes into a car starting to come in. Lord, I thank you that you're starting to turn the wheels of their life, Lord, to hear the things that you're saying and start putting them into action. Lord just chains that the enemy is trying to keep people in bondage to.
We break off right now in the name of Jesus. Lord, those who are in severe condemnation, I thank you, Lord God, that in you, there's now no more condemnation. We speak the truth of the word over them. Lord, I even thank you to people who have conflict with family, that there's even restoration coming to that, Lord God, that where there's hopelessness, you come in and bring hope because you care about what's going on.
You're speaking to us. What do we have in years to hear what you're saying in Obeya? In Jesus' name, Amen. Amen.
Let's all stand. We're going to commission you out in two minutes. All right. We're going to linger for two minutes with the Lord.
Are you guys ready to do it? I want us to close our eyes and ask the Lord, has there been something that you've been trying to speak over me? And I just haven't been getting it. God's been speaking.
What has he been speaking over me in this season that he's trying to get it across to me? Maybe I haven't been realizing that it's been him speaking. Lord, all over the room, would you just highlight those things to your children? Just go with the first thing that came to your mind.
It might be some ahas that are just like, oh, yeah, I guess that has been a theme of something that you've been speaking or you have been having me listen to this topic a lot or this has been getting confirmed in certain ways. And I want us to just make a decision. If that's you and you're going, man, yeah, that's he has been highlighting a specific area in the scriptures or a specific topic or something that he's going to weed out of my life. I want us to just agree with him over that thing.
It's like Mark had talked about Lord, even if we don't understand it fully, all throughout the room, I just want you to whisper with the Lord and just say, I agree with this and I want to give myself to what you're saying. Just in your own words, Lord, you have my yes. I'm going to give myself to studying this. I'm going to give myself to talking about it and learning about it.
There's two prophetic words I want to just release over the room that I think is for some of us. And the first is this. I think there's friend groups that need to get broken free to talk about what God has been speaking and saying. Friend groups in this community that is kind of like taboo and we don't really go there.
We don't really talk about what God is doing in our lives. And the Lord's just wanting to break that off of your friend group. And this is your permission. You have permission to start talking about what God is doing in your life and what he's saying.
Okay? So that's you. Now you have permission. If you're part of the friend group, now you get to break that thing open.
Okay? And then secondly, there's many of us that have received words that have actually not been in line with the testimony of Jesus. And the testimony of Jesus is no shame, guilt and condemnation. But some of us have received prophetic words that are actually shaming and causing guilt and causing you to feel condemned.
And some of us have delivered those words. I don't encourage you to stop doing that. Stop shaming people with the prophetic. Stop guiltying people.
Stop discerning something in the spirit and then calling people sent out. Stop that. Okay? Just there you go.
Okay. Now, but if that's you, those what we're calling those today is those are sour words. Those aren't encouraging, exhorting and comforting. I want to encourage you, you get to break up with those words and spit them out today.
And I want today to be the day that you go, I'm spitting these things out. They've been away on my shoulders. They've been actually a burden. They've actually been impacting my life negatively.
They haven't bore good fruit. I want you to kick it out. I want you to go, well, that wasn't actually according to Jesus' testimony. So I got to get rid of it.
And if you want to receive prayer, there's people up at the front that would love to pray with you and just partner with you to get it out. All right? And just get it off your shoulders. So verbally make a decision.
I'm going to agree with what God is saying. And I'm going to spit out these sour words. Okay? All right.
Jesus, we just thank you that you are a God that loves speaking to us. And Lord, I thank you that your sheep know your voice. We love you and everybody, study men.