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Hearing the Voice of the Shepherd
15th March 2026 • Springhouse Church Sermons • Springhouse Church
00:00:00 00:46:51

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How can we learn to recognize and respond to God’s voice in the midst of life’s noise? Pastor Kevin shares his experiences with fear and uncertainty, providing ways to connect with God and others through scripture, the Holy Spirit, peace, and community.

Walk away knowing you are not alone and with practical tools to grow, find hope, and walk in purpose... no matter what mountain stands in your way.

Scriptures Referenced

Psalm 23:1-6, 37:23, 119:105; Proverbs 3:5-6, 11:14; Matthew 17:20; John 1:1, 10:1-5, 10:27, 16:13; Colossians 3:15

Key Insights

  1. The voices you follow shape your life.
  2. Closeness to God makes His voice familiar, even when life gets noisy or overwhelming.
  3. Authentic community forms by sharing your real struggles and seeking help from wise people.
  4. Choosing humility and honest accountability helps you hear and respond to God’s guidance.

Lent Devotionals (in the app)


https://springhouse.captivate.fm/episode/hearing-the-voice-of-the-shepherd

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Gathering Times

  1. Sundays, 9:00 AM
  2. Sundays, 11:00 AM
  3. Thursdays, 6:00 PM

Contact Info

Springhouse Church
14119 Old Nashville Highway
Smyrna TN 37167

615-459-3421

CCLI License 2070006

Transcripts

Speaker:

Good morning, Springhouse! Well, it's

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a great day to be in the house this morning, and

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I am, I am glad to see you all. Before we get— I say before

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we get cranking, we're already cranking. I'm just continuing the crank. Okay, here we go.

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But this afternoon, immediately following this gathering, we're having a

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luncheon in the fellowship hall. Celebrate Recovery, we're going to be launching in

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August, and so if you are. If you

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are interested in learning about that ministry, we invite you to come to be a

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part of that. Even if you didn't sign up, you can come over and learn.

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We have plenty of food today for you as

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well. And then Easter is coming! Are you guys excited

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about that? Easter's coming, and we

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are going to have church on Easter Sunday. It's going to be good!

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9 and 11 o'clock, and you know, wrapped

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around the Easter season, some of you know, one of

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the core testimonies that we find in this The house, of how

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people arrived here and they stay, is I got here and

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I did not expect the level of authenticity

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and community that was available here at

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this house. And so, what we do, you know, anybody know anybody that are

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those Easter churchgoers and then that Christmas churchgoer, and that's about

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all they do, you know? And so, around the Easter

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time, what we've done historically is we've offered an

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opportunity for you to invite people back to church after

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Easter, Easter by bringing something special to the stage. So we've had the Skit Guys

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here, we've had Jonathan Evans here, we've had other

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people here, and so this year we are going to have a guy by the

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name of Mike Goodwin, Bow Tie Comedy, and he's going to be

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here. He will be ministering through comedy and laughter, and he

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ties it in the end with a strong message. And so this is

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an opportunity for you to ask your friends and those people who

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you bring on Easter Sunday if they would come back. Now, why do we want

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to do that? We want to do that so that when we're in those hallways

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and when we're in here that we have opportunity to build relationally

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with them so that they might come back and be a part of something that

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they're not necessarily a part of regularly. And if they do continue

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to come back, we'd like them to come the following week to our

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Newcomers Luncheon to learn about SpringHouse, to learn about our church.

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If they have questions about who we are, our pastoral team will be

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there and our leadership. And so that is— all of that

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is strategic in that window of Easter for us to

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offer an opportunity for people to plug in and get to know us

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and be a part of our family here at Springhouse. And some of you have

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the testimony of, "I came at Easter and I continued to

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come." And so praise God that you are continuing to journey with us.

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So today we are going to continue— well, there's him

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again. Today we're going to continue our series Abide. So we did have

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the Abide Conference that closed last week, but we are still in this series Abide

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for a few— we're in the series of Abide all year, but this section

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on Abide is— we have a few more weeks leading up to Easter. And so

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today we're going to talk about hearing the voice of the shepherd.

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So if you'll stand with me, we're going to read out of The Message version

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of the Bible. That is John

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1-5 and 27. And

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if you would read as if you're trying to get somebody saved this morning,

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okay? Let's read real, with some real gusto. Here we go. Let me

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set this before you as plainly as I

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can. If a person climbs over or through the

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fence, of a sheep pen instead of going through the

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gate, you know he's up to no good. A

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sheep rustler. The shepherd walks right up to

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the gate, the gatekeeper opens the gate to

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him, and the sheep recognizes his voice.

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He calls his own sheep by name and leads them

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out. When he gets them all out, he leads them and

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they follow because they are familiar with his

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voice. They won't follow a stranger's voice, but will

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scatter because they aren't used to the sound of

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it. Everything I have done has been authorized by

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my Father, actions that speak louder than

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words. You don't believe because you're not my

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sheep. The Father who put them under my care is

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so much greater than the destroyer and

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thief. No one could ever get them away from Him.

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I and the Father are one heart and mind. Father, I

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thank you for your Word. I thank you that we can trust it. I pray,

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Lord, that you would speak today through it. God, let my words fall to the

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ground. Let those words that would be

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eternal be eternal and do its work, in Jesus' name. And everybody

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said, amen. Amen. My

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friend Dustin Howell and I took a trip to Ireland

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together. It was a really fun trip. This was several years ago.

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In fact, I think it was before— the year before I got married. So this

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is pre-Shari, and we went, and one of the things that— one of

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the notable things that I took away from Ireland was there

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are sheep in Ireland, and the sheep are

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everywhere. If you've seen stray cats or dogs running around

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anywhere here in Smyrna, Murfreesboro, Nashville,

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sheep are everywhere in Ireland.. They are

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just walking the streets, and you know, they won't get out of

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your way necessarily. They're just there.

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And sheep, you know, many of you know this, but sheep historically are

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just known to be dumb.

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And so are we. And that's

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why Scripture calls us sheep,

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because like sheep they cannot cannot defend themselves, they cannot find

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their way home, they cannot protect themselves from predators, and

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as much as we think that we on our own strength can do those things,

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we can't. So probably more important than us being called sheep is

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that scripture repeatedly calls God

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our shepherd. We need

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a shepherd. When it comes to sheep, something real interesting

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will happen. Flocks will merge together and you'll see a variety

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of different sheep in a, in a pen or in an area. And what

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will happen is a shepherd will come and

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call out for the sheep. And what's interesting is the

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sheep that belongs to that shepherd will make a move or an

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adjustment to go toward the sheep the minute it hears the

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shepherd's voice. And so as dumb as sheep are, the one thing they've got going

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for them is that they know the shepherd's

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voice. They know the voice of their leader. Can the

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same be said about you? Do you

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know the voice of

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the shepherd? Do you know the voice of the shepherd? Jesus

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said, "The gatekeeper opens the gate to him, and the sheep recognize

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his voice." I want us to start here with this point: The voice

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of the shepherd protects you from the one who seeks to destroy

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your life. The voice of the shepherd protects you from the one who

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seeks to destroy your life. In other words,

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the security of the sheep is not the fence. The security of the sheep

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is the voice. It's a voice. Do you know the

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voice of God? This is not a popular teaching in a lot

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of Christian circles, but I have to tell you, I'd be remiss as your pastor

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not to equip you and inform you that you have a

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real, breathing, live enemy. Enemy that is

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after you. This enemy wants to steal, he wants to kill, he

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wants to destroy you. Now, here's the great thing about

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our great glorious God. If you belong to the kingdom, the enemy can't

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touch you. He has no power. Greater is he who is in you than

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he who is in the world. And so he has no power over you,

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but we sometimes gloss over this understanding that, guys,

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we are at war. Now, I know that in our cushy seats with

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our latte and with everything, you know, seeming we've got

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everything at our fingertips. It might not seem that way, but there

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is literally an active war going on right now for

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your soul. There's an active war going on for— now here's the great glorious thing

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about the war that we're in. We know who has the victory at the end

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of the day, and the one who has the victory is also the

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same one who's inside you, who gives you greater power

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than any enemy that can come against you. But there

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are these things called battles along the way. Has

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anybody ever succumbed to a battle and lost? My

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hand's up. Lost the battle because I got wayward, or

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I lost my way, or as we're going in the vein of

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today's topic, I lost sight, or I lost earshot

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of the shepherd's voice. And so the

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security of the sheep is not the fence, it's the voice. Jesus says

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that the sheep will recognize the shepherd's voice and they

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run from strangers. My experience is that we don't

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run from strangers, we tend to run to strangers. And might I

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go a step further? We run to strangers and we will build our whole life

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based on what a stranger says about us. Now sometimes, here's the

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thing, sometimes those strangers manifest themselves on TV programs that we watch

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at 4 o'clock because they don't really

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know us. And so we can grab— there's no conflict in people who don't know

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us who are speaking into our lives, so we'll just grab one little thing that

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they say and build a whole theology on it, or build a whole foundation of

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our lives. The voice of the shepherd protects us

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from danger. The voices in the world are all around us, and they're trying

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to lead us somewhere. They're trying to lead you. They're trying to lead you toward

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life. They're trying to lead you toward destruction, some

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of them. But a shepherd's voice will always protect you.

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The ability to hear the shepherd's voice comes from proximity, and

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that's why abiding trains your ear to hear

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His voice. Jesus says, "Remain in me, and I will remain in you."

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So as we abide in him, we are learning

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the voice of our Creator. As we remain in him— let me

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tell you, all of you guys could be talking to me at one time, and

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Shari could be sitting here in the front row, and if Shari says something, I'm

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going to be able to pick out her voice more than anybody else in

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the room because I live with her. I'm in proximity to

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her. I know I know what Shari's voice

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sounds like. The closer you are to your King, the

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more you recognize what His voice sounds like. The closer

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you are to your God, the more you recognize what's His voice

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and what's the world's voice. I heard the pastor tell this story one time. He

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was talking about this blind girl, and she was up on the third floor of

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an apartment complex. That's where they lived. Now, she wasn't rendered

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unable to do things. She was make her way around, but she

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was legally blind. And so, the father went to the grocery

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store, and the apartment complex that day caught

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on fire. She was stuck in the apartment that caught

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on fire, and so she goes out to the balcony, and the police had come,

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the firemen had come, and they put out that big trampoline type

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thing that they jump into, you know, to be safe.

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And so, she gets out there on the balcony, and everybody is yelling

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at her, "Jump!" Jump! Jump! Let's go! Come down! Come

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down! They had no relationship with her, they didn't know that she was

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blind, but there she was in this burning fire not responding to all of their

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cries. Well, the father got the call at the grocery store that the apartment was

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on fire, laid his buggy down, got in his car, got to

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the place, jumped out of the car, and

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said, "Jump!" She took off and jumped and saved

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her life. Why did she jump for her father, but didn't jump when everybody

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else was saying, "Jump"? Because she knew

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his voice. There is protection in the voice that you

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know. There's protection in the

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shepherd's voice. Hearing His voice is not accidental, it

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is trained. It is trained. Again, Jesus says, "Abide in Me,

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and I abide in you." When you abide long enough, His voice

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stops sounding unfamiliar. The sheep that hear the

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shepherd the clearest are the sheep that stay the closest,

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because closeness creates familiarity. And

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so we want to recognize and distinguish His voice, because sometimes

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the loudest voices we hear are our

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own. I succumb sometimes to the voices inside my head that are bathed

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in fear, bathed in preferences, in

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ambitions, or opinions, or emotions., and then we are so

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quick to attach a spiritual label on that.

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Might I suggest this morning that not every voice inside your head

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is the shepherd? Not every voice that's

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inside your head is the shepherd. We live in

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one of the loudest— no, we don't live in one of the loudest, we live

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in the loudest culture

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of all history. Let that sink in for just a moment. We

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live in the loudest culture in all

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of mankind in history today.

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Phones are going off like crazy, the news is shouting at

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us, people's opinions all around us. Everywhere we turn somebody's trying

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to tell you what to believe, what to think, what to

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fear, what to chase, what success

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looks like. And external noise is not the whole

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problem, it's just part of the problem. The other problem is

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that sometimes the world tries to

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imitate the shepherd's voice. One of the most dangerous

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phrases that you and I can say— listen to this, believers— one of

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the most dangerous phrases you and I can say is this,

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"God told me." And we throw that phrase around like seed hitting the

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ground for birds. "God told me." Because

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"God told me," you're talking about

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the Star Breather, Sovereign God, Creator of the universe,

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and when we say, "God told me something," there's not anything

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else to say about the conversation. If God told

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you to do something, if He literally, if He said to you, "Do this,"

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it doesn't matter what I think, doesn't matter what I say, doesn't matter what anybody

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else says, That's something you better do. If God said it, if the God of

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the universe said it, you better walk in obedience. And so, so

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often I hear somebody say, "God told me," and I turn around, I don't see

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them doing what they say God told them, and what it really was was, "I

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really wanted to do this, so I labeled it as God told me

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to do it." And when we do that,

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it is destructive. Destructive in our lives,

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and destructive to others. Because if God didn't say

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it and we claim that He did, we are putting His

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name on something that originated with

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us. And that's

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problematic. That's problematic. Discernment matters because

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not every voice inside your head is

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the shepherd. John 1, Jesus, as

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John 1 opens it says, "I am the the Word. He says, "In the

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beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was

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with God." And so what we learn in that is that the

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written Word and the living Word are never going to

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come in disagreement to one another. A

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surefire way of knowing whether you've heard the Shepherd's voice

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is to test it against the Word of

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God. This is truth. There is

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foundation here that we can rely on and that

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we can trust. Now sometimes people will take, you know, "I

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like page number 826 of scripture, so I'm going to take this little portion here,

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I'm going to base my entire life on it." And we run with

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that, forgetting that there is an entirety of scripture here that we're supposed to

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live and abide by. And so this is why it's very important

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for us to be familiar with the Word of God. We need to know what

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the Word of God says so that whenever we're testing what God is

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saying to us, we know what we're testing it against, that

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we actually understand the Word of God and that it is true, that we

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actually know what His Word says. So that if somebody says, "God told me to

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do this," and it doesn't line up with scripture, you know that was

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not from the Shepherd. That was not from the Good Shepherd.

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So how do we discern God's voice? Let's look at 4 ways

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that we can discern God's voice, okay? The first one we've

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talked about already. It's the Word of God. Psalm 119 says

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this, "Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light

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light unto my path. And so we take the

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Word and we test whatever it is that we feel like we're getting

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in terms of discernment,

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direction, whatever the idea is, whatever motion we're

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trying to set into the course of action, we test

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it by God's Word. Now, when something happens in

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my life, some dramatic event, something at

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work, some financial crisis, something emotional, whatever,

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the first question that I think is good to ask is this, how did I

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How did I get here? How did

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this happen? How did I arrive here? How did I arrive to this dilemma? How

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did I get here? The second question,

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after you've discerned, how did I get here? The second question is, what

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does God's word say about this? Now, here's what

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we have the propensity to do. How did I get here? Okay,

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I got that answer. What does God's word say about

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it for them? What does God's Word say about it for their situation and the

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part that they played? What's the truth that they need to

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hear that they're not hearing? But see, what we

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need to do is we need to turn that around. We need to

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understand that it's, "How did I get here? And God, what is Your Word

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saying to me about this dilemma? What is Your Word saying

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to me about how I'm supposed to respond? What is Your Word saying?

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What does Your truth say about my thought process about what's going

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on? What is your Word saying about my opinion about what's

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going on? And everything surrenders and bows down to the

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truth of God's Word.

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Church, say, "Amen." Your circumstances,

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your problems, your drama, your emotions, they

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are not your rock or your foundation. The truth of

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God's Word is your foundation. It is where your peace comes

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from. Holy Spirit is the second thing. First thing is the Word.

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The second, we've been given the gift of the Holy Spirit. John 16 says, "When

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the Spirit of Truth comes, He

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will do," what? He'll do what? Okay, I need

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a guide. I need a guide. So I've got truth, which is the path. Now

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I need a guide to the truth. So I look at the Holy Spirit kind

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of like a flashlight. It's like, okay, here's the

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direction you're going, and He's going to illuminate reality right in

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front of you. He's going to be able to separate truth from lies. He's

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going to be able to point you in the direction. He's going to allow you

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to walk with Him. And here's the thing, most of the time what

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we are looking for, what the Lord is looking for, is that you are

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taking a step with Him. That you're taking a step

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with Him. That you're taking a step, and as you walk faithfully with Him,

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He will order your steps. We're going to talk about that in just a few

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seconds, okay? But it's like a flashlight. He looks

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at He lets us look at our situation, our

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experience, whatever is in front of us through the mature spiritual

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lens, through a biblical lens, and then we can

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begin to move. The third thing, if we have the Word and the Holy Spirit,

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the third thing we look

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for is peace. Is peace. I do

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not find many situations in scripture where the person who

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was in charge moved or did anything when they were not

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at peace. Peace. God comes down, has a conversation with them, they get straight

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with the Lord, they're looking at the Lord, and there's peace. And a lot of

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times, listen to this, friends, a lot of times what the Lord does is

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He strips them of everything that they brought to the table, and then

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He gives them peace to move. But, but God, you don't understand what

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they did. You don't understand what they said. You don't understand how this is affecting

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everything. God says, lay that all down.

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Look at me. I have a friend who, I have a friend who has been

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married for a very long time, and she

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has every biblical ground to leave her marriage. She has every biblical ground

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to leave her marriage. She wants to leave her marriage. She wanted to

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leave her marriage. And she came across the crossroad, and the Lord said, "I want

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you to stay. I want you to stay."

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And she did. These are the types of things that happen in the

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kingdom of God. These are the types of things that you need a shepherd who

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gives you the strength when you're weak to

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continue to endure. Just because you have the right to do something doesn't mean it's

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what God tells you to do. Colossians says,

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"Let the—" I highlighted the wrong word here. "Let the peace

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of Christ rule in your heart." Let the peace

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of Christ rule. Guys, when your peace begins to get off kilter, it's time

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to be still and get close to the Creator. When your peace is

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not— when your peace is out of whack, that is not the time to be

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making big decisions. That's not the time to be— that's not really the time to

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be talking to people. It's not the time to be texting or posting

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on Facebook or posting on Facebook or posting

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on Facebook, right? When you don't have peace, when you don't have

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peace, let me— okay, any football watchers here? Okay, when you watch

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a football game, okay, and you see a play that has happened and

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the ball's gone out of bounds or something has taken place and the ref

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blows the whistle, you know, if you're an avid football watcher and you know the

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game, you know what's about to happen. You know the call that they're about to

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show you on the screen, and then they show you the call and then they

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move on and you move on with them. Okay? Peace is

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like that referee. Peace is like illuminating what you already know by

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truth in the direction of the Holy Spirit. Peace gets in there and says, "You're

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going in the right way. You're going in the right direction." You

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can trust in this peace, okay? So you have the Word, you have the Holy

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Spirit, you have peace, and the last thing, and guys, we poo-poo

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this away like

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crazy, godly counsel. And the reason that we poo-poo away godly

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counsel is because here's what godly counsel really means to a

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lot of us. Godly counsel It also means, "I've come to inform you about what

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I've already

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decided to do." I can't tell you how many times I get calls every

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week, I have meetings with people, and, "Pastor, I've just come to let

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you know this is what I've decided to do. This is a big decision in

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my life. This is what I've decided to do. This is the choice I've made."

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And I'm thinking, "Okay, I don't know why we're having this conversation

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right now. I appreciate the information, but were you asking me to pray for you?

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Did you want me—" Because what we want is we want people to surround us

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to affirm us in the the things we want to do. We want, we want

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somebody to come say, yeah, that's good. I'm good with that. You know, I had

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a call just the other night. Somebody was just kind of sharing their heart

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with me or whatever. And I mean, they got through everything they want to do.

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And my first two words were,

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absolutely not. Absolutely not. That I do not agree with. I do not think that

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at all. That's the direction that you're supposed to go. This person was emotional. It

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was a, it was a good call. Listen, godly

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counsel is super is super important. God confirms His voice

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through wise believers around us.

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We have behavior issues at the school sometimes, and we've got a— I've

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got my authority, her name is Debbie Landers over in East Tennessee, and sometimes I

:

have to call her and I have to say, "Hey, listen, we've got this particular

:

situation. What do you think about this?" And she'll give me some counsel.

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We'll talk as an administrative team. I'll call Vonda or Rachel and say, "Hey, we've

:

got this issue. What are your thoughts about this? Before we take action,

:

what are the thoughts?" Because because there is wisdom in

:

getting other perspectives. There's wisdom in

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getting other counsel. And so, when we're looking for counsel, you

:

want to look for people who have a track record of a

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grace gift in whatever it is that you're trying to get counsel for. So, for

:

instance, if I need the Lord to give

:

me some calculated information, I need to grab some counsel on

:

administrative functions, I'm probably going to go see I go see Mark Laughlin because he

:

has a consistent track record of being calculated and being able

:

to have this administrative grace gift, and so he

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can impart some information into my

:

life. James. James and I have been friends for a long time. He's a guy,

:

you know what he sows into situations? Peace.

:

He's a peacemaker. If there's a situation going on, he always comes in and he

:

will speak peace to a situation. Wisdom. There's times when I

:

need concrete wisdom, whenever I got a situation going, I need to get some wisdom

:

on which direction to go, and I'll go see Ronnie. I'll go see I'll tell

:

you, there's been so many lunches I sit down and Ronnie will just put a

:

nugget of wisdom on the table and it will blow my mind because he's got

:

a grace and wisdom. There is, there

:

is wisdom in having a multitude of counselors. This is what the

:

scripture says, "Where there is no counsel, the people fall, but in the

:

multitude of counselors there's

:

safety." There's safety. And so, Amongst all those

:

things, the Word, the Holy Spirit, peace, and godly

:

counsel, where do we get off kilter? Well, I think the biggest culprit

:

in all of that

:

is distraction. Distraction is the

:

enemy of discernment. This is

:

my puppy Emmett. Come

:

here. Hey, buddy. Now Emmett came right to

:

me. Emmett knows my voice. Let me tell you something,

:

Emmett knows my voice, but every now and then

:

when

:

he goes outside, I can be screaming at the top of my lungs

:

with my voice, and, and he is more concerned about the squirrel going

:

up the tree, the field before him, the birds that

:

are flocking around, and this guy can run!

:

This guy can run! And I have ran after

:

him with no avail. And so when he's getting away, do you

:

think I'm screaming for Emmett to come back to me because I don't want him

:

to play with the squirrels, or I don't want him to play with the birds,

:

or I don't want him to have fun in

:

the field? I'm, I'm, I'm calling him because he doesn't see the

:

Mack truck that's on the road that's about to end his life.

:

And if he will listen to my voice, he will come back

:

to the place of safety. Are you picking up what I'm putting

:

down? And so what happens is, is we got this little contraption

:

on his, his neck here that is controlled

:

by this little device. And if he doesn't listen to my voice,

:

I push this little red button and boy, he makes a

:

beeline right to me. Okay, here's what I want

:

you to understand. The God of the universe loves you so much

:

that He will push the red button to get you to come running back to

:

Him. He will allow you to go through

:

some difficult, hard circumstances to allow Him

:

to become the focus.

:

I love this boy. Don't make

:

me push the button! Abiding creates

:

space to hear God clearly. So here's the deal, guys.

:

Let's just be real. There are times in our lives where we have a mountain

:

in front of us. The mountain can be a work situation,

:

could be a financial problem, it

:

could be a relational fallout. It can

:

be some type of contentious thing that's going on. It can be,

:

and it feels like a mountain. It's weighty. Anybody

:

ever had a mountain? Yeah, it's weighty. It's, it's,

:

it's real. It's there. You wake up thinking about it. You go to work thinking

:

about it. You drive around thinking about it. You emote about

:

it. You, it comes up in your conversations because it is right there in

:

front of your face. There this mountain, and it is huge.

:

And if you're a believer and you're really close to the Lord, what you're doing

:

is you're seeing this mountain and you're crying out to the Lord, and what you're

:

saying to the Lord is, "Get this mountain out of my way! Tell me what

:

to do here! I've got to make a decision here about this mountain!" And

:

what you talk about more and more and more is about the mountain, far more

:

than what you talk about Him. And what happens

:

is the mountain becomes so, so illuminated and

:

huge in our lives, and here's the deal, It's

:

so tiny to the Creator of the universe.

:

It's so small in comparison to everything else. What

:

is ruining your day is tiny to the Star Breather.

:

Are you with me? And so the Star Breather

:

says, "Take that mountain and surrender it to me so

:

it becomes this big." Now, here's the thing. The mountain's not gone away.

:

It's just become a molehill now. And so here it is,

:

and you've got this mountain in your peripheral,, but you've

:

got Jesus in front of you and He's so much bigger than

:

this, and all of a sudden you start to see

:

things at a different perspective. You start to come in line with the truth.

:

You start to get yourself in line with His precepts and, and what the Lord

:

says, and all of a sudden your response

:

to this mountain shifts, and it changes, and it

:

evolves to line up with the Shepherd

:

Whose voice you're listening to. And so this mountain

:

becomes small. The Word tells us this is what this really means in real time.

:

We don't like— listen, if nothing's going on, we don't care about this verse, but

:

let there be a mountain in front of us. This is the truth

:

of God's Word. Trust in the Lord

:

with some of that problem. Trust in the Lord with a few things.

:

Trust in the Lord with everything else but the mountain. Mountain.

:

No, trust in the Lord with all your heart,

:

and do what? Lean not on your understanding. But

:

God, you don't understand what

:

they, what it, what— No!

:

Lean not on your understanding. Now, I don't know how to get here

:

when I'm facing a mountain, because everything in my understanding wants

:

to pull out the the Lord wants

:

to throw my opinions, my attitude,

:

my emotions, everything within me wants to use what I think I know

:

is

:

right to fix the problem. But things that the Lord is really trying to do

:

in us and heal us from are the reasons why mountains get erected in

:

the first place. I'm doing Celebrate Recovery right now, and one

:

of the things that I'm learning about myself is the biggest struggle that

:

I have in my life, one of the biggest struggles, got a lot of them,

:

is the fear of rejection. And so what happens is, is when I feel

:

like I'm coming up against some rejection, a mountain will

:

be erected in my path. And so all of a sudden, what will happen in

:

my life is I'll begin to make unhealthy

:

decisions, and unhealthy choices, and unhealthy conversations fueled

:

by me wanting to fix the rejection issue. But here's what

:

the Savior says. He says, He says, "Don't you know that I've accepted you, Kevin

:

O'Day? Don't you know that the rejection of your past should not fuel or be

:

a foundation with which you are making decisions on today?" You understand

:

what I'm saying? And as I surrender that to Him,

:

then my mountain becomes a molehill, and I look at it and say, "Wait a

:

minute, God, you are so much greater than this little thing over here." And

:

all of a sudden I'm walking in peace, and I'm walking in grace, and all

:

of a sudden— I don't know what your thing is. Everybody's got I

:

don't know if yours is

:

rejection, but everybody's got stuff. I call them

:

mountain erectors. A mountain comes up. You know that verse over,

:

I think it's in Matthew 17, where Jesus is talking about if

:

you have faith like a mustard seed, right? He says you

:

can tell this mountain to move. Now, He could

:

have been talking about a literal mountain.

:

But the context of that scripture is that the disciples

:

could not cast out the demons, and they come to Him and He says, "You

:

have such little faith. If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can take

:

this mountain and cast it into the sea." I believe it works

:

metaphorically too. I believe it works that you can take that mountain,

:

whatever it is that you're facing today, whatever that

:

mountain is that consumes your thoughts, consumes everything going

:

on, that your text messages are about, and your phone calls about, and your mind

:

is wrestling, you can't sleep at night, whatever that mountain is, Jesus says,

:

"I believe with mustard seed faith you can take that mountain and say,

:

'Get out of my way! Get out of my way!'" Let's look at

:

some examples in scripture, okay? First of all, the shepherd always leads like a shepherd.

:

Let's see how that happens here. Here we go.

:

Moses at the Red Sea. Moses at the Red Sea.

:

The people were saying, "God, Moses, God, do you not see this

:

army behind us?" If you go back and read that the messenger.

:

God does not address the army. "Look at this army back here!"

:

You know what He does? He says, "Trust in my—" You know, in fact, Moses

:

is crying out to Him, and you know what God says to Moses? "Why are

:

you crying out to me? You have everything inside you

:

that you need to move forward." And I'm telling

:

you today, you have everything inside you,

:

you need to move forward. We make the issue the

:

army. He's get the pathway forward. What's next? Feeding of the

:

5,000. The disciples come to Jesus and say, "Hey, we don't have

:

enough. This is an impossible situation. We don't have enough food for all

:

these people." You know what Jesus' response was? "Oh no, what

:

are we going to do?" No. Jesus looks

:

right at them and says, "Kirk, you feed them."

:

Isn't that what He says? "Susie, you feed

:

them. Scotty, you feed them." "With what,

:

Lord?" "You have little faith. Don't you know that the Creator

:

of the universe is literally talking to you in front of

:

you? Have you not seen anything?" Gosh, we

:

make it so much about things that it's not really about. Okay,

:

Peter walking on the water. News flash,

:

the problem wasn't the water. Jesus didn't go,

:

"Now, water, get it together!" The problem was, "You took your

:

focus off of me, Peter. That's

:

why you can't walk anymore." And lastly, "Lord, won't

:

you tell my sister to

:

get up and help me?" "Arthas, you are

:

worried about so many things. The best thing right now is," what? "Come

:

on, what?

:

To spend time with me." Guys, that mountain,

:

that mountain can be deceptive. It can mess you up. It

:

can cause you to make decisions in

:

your life that are wrong. Dangerous.

:

Here's the thing, the shepherd's voice

:

always will lead toward

:

life, and Restoration and righteousness. Am I listening to the Shepherd's voice? Is it leading

:

you to places of life? Is His voice leading you to

:

places where you're being restored? Relationships

:

being restored? Is it leading you to places

:

of righteousness? Of right standing? Meaning

:

you can't continue to sin. He's leading you out of sin. He's

:

leading you out of destruction. Restoration. That's where His voice leads you. He woos you

:

to life. He woos you to restoration.

:

He woos you to righteousness.

:

Anybody ever been to Buc-ee's? I don't struggle with anxiety. That's just not a

:

struggle that I've had to contend with. Closest I ever came was the

:

first time I went to Buc-ee's.

:

I walked into that store and everyone was screaming. Everyone

:

was running. There was no semblance of traffic I

:

walked in there, I hyperventilated for a

:

minute. It was a moment. Guys, here's the

:

honest truth here in 2026. 2026,

:

our lives look like Buc-ee's. I was up here a few months ago talking about

:

that red ball. You know what I'm talking about? Truth of the matter is

:

there's 52 red balls happening every day at all times, everywhere across the way. It's

:

just all the time, is it not? Am I telling the truth? Amen? Isn't that

:

the truth? The distractions are enormous,

:

and it is so vital, believers in this

:

room, that we know the voice of our Savior.

:

That we know the voice of the Creator of the universe.

:

The one who knows your name. That when He says, "Be

:

still," we know that's the voice that's telling me, "Be still." When

:

He says, "Go," that's the voice that's telling me, telling me to

:

go. When He says, "Stop," that's the voice

:

telling me to stop. Do you

:

know the voice of your

:

Creator? Have you measured His voice against the Word,

:

the Holy Spirit, the peace, and godly counsel? Are

:

you contending with a mountain this morning? Or have you contended

:

with a mountain that you haven't settled

:

up He has peace to offer you. There was a guy in

:

the Old Testament who I think had a real good handle on this whole

:

shepherd thing. His name was

:

David, and he wrote this,

:

"The Lord is my shepherd. I

:

lack nothing." Everybody say, "Nothing." When you trust

:

the shepherd, you lack nothing. Listen, the prerequisite of lacking nothing

:

is not what your bank

:

account says. "The Lord is

:

my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me

:

to lie down in green pastures." We do

:

not like that word "makes." He suggests that you might take up a

:

spot on the green pasture here. Maybe this might

:

be a good idea if you just took up some— No, it

:

says He makes. That's what the Word of God says. He makes us to

:

lie down in green pastures. You know what that communicates

:

to Kevin? He says, "Lay down the worry that you're caring

:

about this mountain, and come lay with

:

Me in this pasture. Because the more you worry about this mountain in front

:

of you, the more it consumes you, the less you believe that I

:

am bigger than that that thing, whatever

:

it is. But he continues. He says, I— he says

:

this, he leads me beside

:

rushing waters that are fierce. No, who knows their

:

scripture this morning? He

:

leads me beside quiet waters. And you know what he does in that? You're

:

laying down beside the quiet waters. Robert, what does it say?

:

It says he He refreshes my soul.

:

Has He refreshed your soul? I want to be in a place of refreshing

:

all the time. Here's a pathway.

:

Come lay down. Come stop. You refreshed, April? Come

:

on, are we refreshed this morning? He

:

guides me along the right paths. This shepherd, not for me,

:

not so that Kevin can get glory. So

:

it's for his name's sake. And it says

:

this, even though, even though, which means I can be walking through

:

the midst of a dark valley, even

:

though I walk through the valley of what? The shadow

:

of death, where things are deceased, where things are falling off, where

:

things seem to die, where relationships are dying

:

all around me, where work situations are dying all around around me, where I

:

thought I had purpose and it's dying around me, although these perceptions

:

are all around me, even though

:

I walk through that valley,

:

he, my shepherd, comforts me. I fear no evil because you are with me. It

:

says his rod and

:

his staff. There's a distinction. One of

:

them is used for discipline. One of them is used

:

for protection. Do you welcome the discipline of

:

the Lord in your life? Because the Word says a good— listen,

:

if I did not discipline my 5 daughters, I would not

:

be a good dad. If God Almighty did not discipline you, he

:

would not be a good Father.

:

But he doesn't just discipline, he protects. He

:

protects the shepherd dog. He does. And then it says

:

this, "You," I love this, "You prepare a table

:

before me in the presence of my enemies." Anybody ever felt like you

:

got a target on your back? No

:

one, just me. Okay, well, in the presence, it's not, "Hey, come around here, we're

:

going to let your enemies do a thing." He literally

:

brings the table to them and says, I don't care nothing about

:

what y'all trying to say, what you're trying to do. We're going to sit

:

here and eat and watch you lose your minds at the peace

:

that we have right now. Your enemies should be losing their minds

:

that you are at such peace. They should be losing their

:

minds that you're at such peace. This doesn't faze me. You know

:

why? Because it's so small compared to the

:

great, glorious God I serve. He sets this table, and

:

then he says, "In the presence of the enemy." And then guess what? He says,

:

"He anoints your head with

:

oil." He gives you purpose. He said, "I'm gonna give you something to do, and

:

I'm gonna give you the power and the strength to do it right there while

:

your enemies are watching, all under the protection

:

of the shepherd." "My cup overflows," because with

:

the Lord, everything's always

:

more. It's always more. Overflows. Surely

:

your goodness and your love will— what? Will follow me. Who needs

:

his goodness and love to follow them all the days of their life?

:

I need his goodness and love following

:

me. But you can't recognize his goodness and love when

:

you're looking at the mountain. And I will dwell in

:

the house

:

of the Lord forever. Forever. This is our

:

shepherd. This is the one who knows your

:

name, cares about you, created you, sees you,

:

knows you, and guess what? Yes, he sees that mountain

:

too, and he says, "Stop thinking about that mountain and

:

start looking at me. Start listening

:

to my voice. Let me take care

:

of that mountain." for you. The best things that have happened in my life

:

have been when I have relinquished control. When I've

:

backed up and said, "God, you do it." The best things

:

that will happen in your life is when you relinquish control and

:

you back up and you say, "God, you do it." Would you

:

stand with me this morning? I would like

:

to be a church known known for

:

people who actually hear the voice of the shepherd. I

:

would like Springhouse— when they talk about Springhouse, they're talking

:

about a group of people who know his word, who know the

:

Holy Spirit, who know what peace looks like,

:

and that participate in godly counsel. That the whole package is there

:

because we are listening to the shepherd. And so that when people out

:

in the world are contending with their very mountains. You

:

don't have people guiding them the wrong way because they're listening to their

:

own voice, ideas, and opinions, but they are listening to the voice of the shepherd

:

by the example of the people around them. If you're going to pray with people,

:

would you come forward this morning? In a group this size, there's got to

:

be people dealing with some mountains. I just, I just feel that. I just believe

:

there's got to be people this morning. You got mountains. It's been consuming your

:

week. You've been thinking about it. There's been relational fallout because of it. Of

:

it. There's been text messages, all these things. It could be financial, it could be

:

a work thing, whatever it is, there's mountains in this room, and I

:

believe today that God wants to address those mountains. Now, one of the ways to

:

get godly counsel is for me to be able to go to Mel Galeoni over

:

here and say, "Mel, I have this issue. Would you agree with me? Because I

:

can't see it. All I see is this mountain, and I need you to speak

:

truth, because I believe that you have truth inside you to speak over me." You

:

can say, "Kevin, the way you're seeing that mountain is Actually not the perspective of

:

what's really happening. Let me tell you what God's saying about this. And they speak

:

into your life, and they begin to get your frame of

:

mind. And it takes humility. It takes such humility. But I

:

believe that the Lord wants to help us overcome some mountains

:

today. So that's you. Today's the day of salvation. It's the day to do

:

business. He's alive and well today. Come, let's worship.

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