How To Hear The Spirit Part 2 | Pastor Shane Idleman

Pastor Shane Idleman: So what about if you truly don't know him? You’ve even been coming to church, but you're convicted of sin and you know you're not in right standing with God. And you're fearful of the judgment. One thing that praise God, you're not fearful of the judgment, are you as a believer? If you're in his word, I'm not fearful because you're not going to stand before judgment. The Great White Throne Judgment is for those who don't know Jesus. As we often say, we're ready to meet him. I don't know about the process of getting there. That concerns me a little, but meeting him, will you hear, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant?"
Guest (Male): Thank you for joining us here at Westside Christian Fellowship, located in Leona Valley, California, one hour north of Los Angeles. Today on Regaining Lost Ground, we hear the third and final part of this illuminating message titled, How to Hear the Spirit Part 2. Jeremiah 33:3 says, "Call to me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things which you do not know." Join Pastor Shane as he continues to teach us how we may be more obedient to the Lord by learning how we may hear the Spirit of God living in us here on Regaining Lost Ground. You can hear the whole message at Pastor Shane's YouTube and Rumble channels. Make sure to subscribe today. For more information, visit us online at westsidechristianfellowship.org. We also encourage you to hear more truth from Pastor Shane with the Idleman Unplugged weekly podcast. And now from Westside Christian Fellowship in Leona Valley, California, here's Pastor Shane Idleman.
Pastor Shane Idleman: He knows you better than you know yourself. He’s not playing hide and seek. He’s not trying to make life difficult, and he wants you to know as much as you need to know. Lord, I need help in this. I need confirmation on this. Would you show me? Would you open or close the door? He’s not going to say, "I'm going to make you suffer for a while." He might make you wait to make you do this: Lord, I need to hear from you. I need to hear from you. And that waiting time is not wasted time. Here's a bonus. People will use dreams and visions or "the Lord spoke to me" to manipulate you. All those guys I just mentioned a few minutes ago did that. Some of them are still doing that. Be very careful. Have your spiritual eyes open. Seek the Lord. He will show you. Number six in hearing the voice of God: be honest about who or what is truly influencing you. Many people are not truly honest about what's influencing them. They make a decision, but you're just being led astray by money and the world. No, God wants to use me. He wants to build my ministry. No, you're being influenced by numbers, status, recognition, or people. At least be honest with God and say, "God, I don't know what's influencing me, but I want you to influence me." The only reason I mention this is so many people think that they're being led of God's Spirit, but actually the wrong thing is influencing them. Number seven: be slow to speak and actually slower to move. When it's led of the Spirit, you're often not reacting. You're responding in wisdom. Okay, Lord, is this you? I'm not going to react. You want to fix things, get it taken care of, and react. Often being led of the Spirit, you have to flush out the wrong impulses. You have to get rid of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride. It takes time to flush out all that stuff. Number eight: remain teachable and humble. That is the best way for God to lead you. Parents, let's get real. How easy is it to grab your little two-year-old and say, "Okay, come on. There we go. No problem," versus them throwing a fit? They anchor to that floor and they are not getting up. Fighting, kicking, and screaming or, "Lord, where do you want to lead me?" Check out this verse: "The humble he teaches his way." That tells me he resists the proud, but he teaches and leads those who are humble. If you want to be led of the Spirit, God will lead you if you can truly say, "Lord, I truly want to know what you want me to do in this area." I can guarantee he will lead. It might not be that day. Do you ever pray and you’re ready for the answer later today? Number nine: seek godly counsel, but understand that God may lead you differently. The Bible says there is safety in the multitude of counsel. Many people go to one person, and that one person might not see things like you do. The more counsel you can get from Christian people, the more safety there is. But sometimes God will lead you differently when it's not a moral issue. He will open and close doors if he wants to when you are sincerely seeking him. Here's one of the things I've been praying about. I actually hate talking about it. I was scheduled to fly out today to be on Dr. Daniel Pompa's podcast tomorrow, but I canceled a couple weeks ago. Anxiety, I don't like talking about it. Most of you know what I'm going through. When I took the trip to Mexico, which I still recommend to people, it's called integrative oncology. They use the best of both worlds. I was five hours away from beginning chemotherapy. Cyclophosphamide, made in the 1940s from mustard gas. Also, I know too much, so that doesn't help. But in low dosage, what it does is it reveals the regulatory T-cells. Often cancer can hide inside the regulatory T-cells. Regulatory means they're regulating the immune system. That low dose exposes it, and your immunity can get those cancer cells. I just didn't have peace the whole time I’m going. Lord, if you want to close this door, close this door. And that's actually what happened. I was having vitamin C therapy and electrolytes where they put electrolytes in your IV for an hour and a half, and my body just freaked out. It convulsed. It was bad. I was probably close to heading to the hospital. To this date, they still don't know what caused that. That's not normal. I stayed, and it was Tuesday. They did ozone therapy where they put in a lot of oxygen, which is really good because cancer hates oxygen. Normally it's fine, and my body did the same thing. This is beyond out of control. They’ve got oxygen on my face. Doctors are in there. They’ve got my shirt open, putting an EKG machine on, trying to regulate my heart rate and injecting stuff to slow it down. The doctors have no clue what's going on. Finally, when I calmed down, I put on worship. They wanted to inject stuff to get my fever down. I said, "No, let me just worship for an hour and a half." I know what's happening. God is closing this door. Of course, they tried to talk me into staying. I said, "Ma'am, this door is closed. My wife's picking me up tomorrow and we're going to Coronado for a few days. That's the plan." Even people got mad at me for leaving. But God closed that door. He deals with people differently. A pastor friend of mine has the same thing I have. He's on his third trip down there and he loves it. It's working great for him, but God works differently. Ever since once I started everything in the last five months, I've been doing much better. I don't feel it much anymore. I have tons of energy. I don't know what that means. It just means day by day, trusting the Lord. God was using something different in my life because whatever the end of the story is, he gets all the glory. I can't say Mexico worked, chemotherapy worked, this worked, or that worked. I'm just trusting the Lord. Talk about a closed door. Five hours away. Drip, drip, drip. And then you’ve got to take pills home for months, and it says, "Don't touch them and keep out of the way of kids." My lymph nodes are way down. God also doesn't want you to be naive. Another where I used godly counsel was USC. I was scheduled for neck surgery back in March. When I went to Mexico, the head doctor there said, "I actually wouldn't do that. I can do it, but I wouldn't do that because they're going to cut your whole neck open, remove lymph nodes, and then they'll go in your mouth." You have to sign something that says they can take out whatever they feel necessary: part of your tongue or your mouth. For you being a speaker and quality of life, he says, "I wouldn't." To me, I felt that peace already. God is using the counselors and he's opening doors and closing them. He knows my heart has never been more pure to know his will and to seek his will, and he'll lead in those certain ways. He leads people differently. There's people here this morning that have used chemotherapy and radiation and surgery, and God uses that. How he guides is really up to the individual. I don't like to talk about it. I like to just move forward, but I think it's important for you to understand how God will close a door if you're sincere and you're sincerely seeking him. Most people have a certain lens they look through. Shane, you need to get healed. You need to do this. And they're right. There's nothing wrong with that. But what is God doing? Number ten: faith and his sovereign control. This is where the rubber meets the road. As Christians, we control things and we make decisions, and if we're not careful, we can begin to try to control God. Being led of the Spirit, at some point you get to this, hopefully every day: Lord, I'm trusting in your sovereign control. It's critical because you'll have a certain idea of how things should be done. When they're not done that way, or when life gives you bad news, you'll have a nervous breakdown. Sovereignty is trusting God. It holds the line even when the course seems uncertain. God often isn't very clear, so we walk in faith and we seek him. If we knew with certainty, then it's not faith and we would be less inclined to seek him. Sometimes it's like, maybe. As long as it's not bad, that's a no-brainer. But sometimes that's why it's called faith. Lord, I don't know if we should start this church. Step out. Lord, I don't know if we should do this. Step out. If most of us were honest, we were never 100% sure if we should marry the person we married. Should I take this job? Faith. What about if the mountain Jesus said pray and this mountain will be moved into the sea, what if the mountain isn't meant to be moved but meant to be climbed? You will never learn faith in comfortable surroundings. God gives us his promises in a quiet hour, seals our covenants with great and gracious words, and then steps back and waits to see how much we believe. He then allows the tempter to come and the ensuing test seems to contradict all that he has spoken. This is when faith wins its crown. We think faith is easy. Actually, it's hard. Genuine faith. God says, "Here's my promises. Here's my word. Now I'm going to step back." What about if you're not healed? What about if the tempter comes in and you're overcome with anxiety and fear? What are you going to do about that? Also, faith doesn't always step out. Sometimes it stays put. James 1:5 says if any one of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. Does anybody lack wisdom today? Look, is that a promise or what? If you lack wisdom in a certain area, ask God. Now it does go on to say when he gives it to you, don't be like a double-minded man, compromising, contemplating, and justifying. Once he gives you that wisdom, you’ve got to step out on it or you'll become an unstable man. A closing conviction from John 16:8. When the Holy Spirit comes, he will convict the world in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment. The Holy Spirit will convict a person of their sin and their righteousness, that they're not in right standing with God, and there is a judgment to come. As we're talking about being led of the Spirit, if God is convicting you this morning to get that relationship right with him, do not avoid it. That conviction is a wonderful gift. People wouldn't come to God without that conviction and the drawing of the Spirit. Nobody comes to the Son except by the Father drawing him. There's a conviction. You need to make that decision. Whether you're a prodigal, what about if you truly don't know him? You’ve even been coming to church, but you're convicted of sin and you know you're not in right standing with God. And you're fearful of the judgment. Praise God, as a believer, you're ready to meet him. Meeting him, will you hear, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant?" There's only two options: "Well done, thou good and faithful servant" or "Depart from me, I never knew you." That's heavy. Can you imagine somebody living their whole life thinking they're okay? I go to church, I own a Bible, I live in America. God bless the USA. He'll say, "But we ate and drank in your presence. You sat with us. We heard you teach. We did all these things." And he'll say, "Depart from me, I never knew you, you who practice lawlessness." Of course, he knows who they are, but there's no relationship there via repentance. So make that decision today if you haven't. And for the Christian, the best way to be led of the Spirit is to be filled. The best way to hear is to be filled. The best way to know his will is to be filled with his Spirit. How are you filled? You're as filled as much as you want to be. Me too. I don't think I'm at 100%. Nobody is. But the more you empty yourself of self, of your self-will, of what you want, stop running from God, stop ignoring his voice and get back to that full surrender, that's when the filling comes. It's beautiful. It's so much more easier to be led of the Spirit when you're filled with his Spirit. Amen.
Guest (Male): You've been listening to Regaining Lost Ground with Pastor Shane Idleman. You can find more information at westsidechristianfellowship.org. That's westsidechristianfellowship.org. And for all the latest on what God is doing with his ministry here, please be sure to follow us on most social media platforms. Westside Christian Fellowship is located 60 miles north of Los Angeles in Leona Valley, California. Thank you again for listening to today's message of Regaining Lost Ground, where we are reminded daily, times change, truth does not.