Good morning, Springhouse! Well, it's
Speaker:a great day to be in the house this morning, and
Speaker:I am, I am glad to see you all. Before we get— I say before
Speaker:we get cranking, we're already cranking. I'm just continuing the crank. Okay, here we go.
Speaker:But this afternoon, immediately following this gathering, we're having a
Speaker:luncheon in the fellowship hall. Celebrate Recovery, we're going to be launching in
Speaker:August, and so if you are. If you
Speaker:are interested in learning about that ministry, we invite you to come to be a
Speaker:part of that. Even if you didn't sign up, you can come over and learn.
Speaker:We have plenty of food today for you as
Speaker:well. And then Easter is coming! Are you guys excited
Speaker:about that? Easter's coming, and we
Speaker:are going to have church on Easter Sunday. It's going to be good!
Speaker:9 and 11 o'clock, and you know, wrapped
Speaker:around the Easter season, some of you know, one of
Speaker:the core testimonies that we find in this The house, of how
Speaker:people arrived here and they stay, is I got here and
Speaker:I did not expect the level of authenticity
Speaker:and community that was available here at
Speaker:this house. And so, what we do, you know, anybody know anybody that are
Speaker:those Easter churchgoers and then that Christmas churchgoer, and that's about
Speaker:all they do, you know? And so, around the Easter
Speaker:time, what we've done historically is we've offered an
Speaker:opportunity for you to invite people back to church after
Speaker:Easter, Easter by bringing something special to the stage. So we've had the Skit Guys
Speaker:here, we've had Jonathan Evans here, we've had other
Speaker:people here, and so this year we are going to have a guy by the
Speaker:name of Mike Goodwin, Bow Tie Comedy, and he's going to be
Speaker:here. He will be ministering through comedy and laughter, and he
Speaker:ties it in the end with a strong message. And so this is
Speaker:an opportunity for you to ask your friends and those people who
Speaker:you bring on Easter Sunday if they would come back. Now, why do we want
Speaker:to do that? We want to do that so that when we're in those hallways
Speaker:and when we're in here that we have opportunity to build relationally
Speaker:with them so that they might come back and be a part of something that
Speaker:they're not necessarily a part of regularly. And if they do continue
Speaker:to come back, we'd like them to come the following week to our
Speaker:Newcomers Luncheon to learn about SpringHouse, to learn about our church.
Speaker:If they have questions about who we are, our pastoral team will be
Speaker:there and our leadership. And so that is— all of that
Speaker:is strategic in that window of Easter for us to
Speaker:offer an opportunity for people to plug in and get to know us
Speaker:and be a part of our family here at Springhouse. And some of you have
Speaker:the testimony of, "I came at Easter and I continued to
Speaker:come." And so praise God that you are continuing to journey with us.
Speaker:So today we are going to continue— well, there's him
Speaker:again. Today we're going to continue our series Abide. So we did have
Speaker:the Abide Conference that closed last week, but we are still in this series Abide
Speaker:for a few— we're in the series of Abide all year, but this section
Speaker:on Abide is— we have a few more weeks leading up to Easter. And so
Speaker:today we're going to talk about hearing the voice of the shepherd.
Speaker:So if you'll stand with me, we're going to read out of The Message version
Speaker:of the Bible. That is John
10 00:03:20
1-5 and 27. And
10 00:03:24
if you would read as if you're trying to get somebody saved this morning,
10 00:03:28
okay? Let's read real, with some real gusto. Here we go. Let me
10 00:03:32
set this before you as plainly as I
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can. If a person climbs over or through the
10 00:03:40
fence, of a sheep pen instead of going through the
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gate, you know he's up to no good. A
10 00:03:47
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.
10 00:03:58
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
10 00:04:06
they follow because they are familiar with his
10 00:04:10
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
10 00:04:26
words. You don't believe because you're not my
10 00:04:29
sheep. The Father who put them under my care is
10 00:04:33
so much greater than the destroyer and
10 00:04:37
thief. No one could ever get them away from Him.
10 00:04:40
I and the Father are one heart and mind. Father, I
10 00:04:44
thank you for your Word. I thank you that we can trust it. I pray,
10 00:04:48
Lord, that you would speak today through it. God, let my words fall to the
10 00:04:51
ground. Let those words that would be
10 00:04:55
eternal be eternal and do its work, in Jesus' name. And everybody
10 00:04:59
said, amen. Amen. My
10 00:05:03
friend Dustin Howell and I took a trip to Ireland
10 00:05:06
together. It was a really fun trip. This was several years ago.
10 00:05:10
In fact, I think it was before— the year before I got married. So this
10 00:05:13
is pre-Shari, and we went, and one of the things that— one of
10 00:05:17
the notable things that I took away from Ireland was there
10 00:05:21
are sheep in Ireland, and the sheep are
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everywhere. If you've seen stray cats or dogs running around
10 00:05:28
anywhere here in Smyrna, Murfreesboro, Nashville,
10 00:05:32
sheep are everywhere in Ireland.. They are
10 00:05:36
just walking the streets, and you know, they won't get out of
10 00:05:39
your way necessarily. They're just there.
10 00:05:43
And sheep, you know, many of you know this, but sheep historically are
10 00:05:47
just known to be dumb.
10 00:05:50
And so are we. And that's
10 00:05:54
why Scripture calls us sheep,
10 00:05:58
because like sheep they cannot cannot defend themselves, they cannot find
10 00:06:02
their way home, they cannot protect themselves from predators, and
10 00:06:05
as much as we think that we on our own strength can do those things,
10 00:06:10
we can't. So probably more important than us being called sheep is
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that scripture repeatedly calls God
10 00:06:18
our shepherd. We need
10 00:06:23
a shepherd. When it comes to sheep, something real interesting
10 00:06:27
will happen. Flocks will merge together and you'll see a variety
10 00:06:31
of different sheep in a, in a pen or in an area. And what
10 00:06:34
will happen is a shepherd will come and
10 00:06:38
call out for the sheep. And what's interesting is the
10 00:06:42
sheep that belongs to that shepherd will make a move or an
10 00:06:46
adjustment to go toward the sheep the minute it hears the
10 00:06:50
shepherd's voice. And so as dumb as sheep are, the one thing they've got going
10 00:06:53
for them is that they know the shepherd's
10 00:06:57
voice. They know the voice of their leader. Can the
10 00:07:00
same be said about you? Do you
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know the voice of
10 00:07:08
the shepherd? Do you know the voice of the shepherd? Jesus
10 00:07:12
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
10 00:07:20
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
10 00:07:28
seeks to destroy your life. In other words,
10 00:07:32
the security of the sheep is not the fence. The security of the sheep
10 00:07:35
is the voice. It's a voice. Do you know the
10 00:07:39
voice of God? This is not a popular teaching in a lot
10 00:07:43
of Christian circles, but I have to tell you, I'd be remiss as your pastor
10 00:07:47
not to equip you and inform you that you have a
10 00:07:50
real, breathing, live enemy. Enemy that is
10 00:07:54
after you. This enemy wants to steal, he wants to kill, he
10 00:07:58
wants to destroy you. Now, here's the great thing about
10 00:08:02
our great glorious God. If you belong to the kingdom, the enemy can't
10 00:08:06
touch you. He has no power. Greater is he who is in you than
10 00:08:10
he who is in the world. And so he has no power over you,
10 00:08:14
but we sometimes gloss over this understanding that, guys,
10 00:08:18
we are at war. Now, I know that in our cushy seats with
10 00:08:21
our latte and with everything, you know, seeming we've got
10 00:08:25
everything at our fingertips. It might not seem that way, but there
10 00:08:29
is literally an active war going on right now for
10 00:08:32
your soul. There's an active war going on for— now here's the great glorious thing
10 00:08:36
about the war that we're in. We know who has the victory at the end
10 00:08:39
of the day, and the one who has the victory is also the
10 00:08:42
same one who's inside you, who gives you greater power
10 00:08:46
than any enemy that can come against you. But there
10 00:08:50
are these things called battles along the way. Has
10 00:08:53
anybody ever succumbed to a battle and lost? My
10 00:08:57
hand's up. Lost the battle because I got wayward, or
10 00:09:01
I lost my way, or as we're going in the vein of
10 00:09:05
today's topic, I lost sight, or I lost earshot
10 00:09:08
of the shepherd's voice. And so the
10 00:09:12
security of the sheep is not the fence, it's the voice. Jesus says
10 00:09:15
that the sheep will recognize the shepherd's voice and they
10 00:09:20
run from strangers. My experience is that we don't
10 00:09:24
run from strangers, we tend to run to strangers. And might I
10 00:09:27
go a step further? We run to strangers and we will build our whole life
10 00:09:31
based on what a stranger says about us. Now sometimes, here's the
10 00:09:35
thing, sometimes those strangers manifest themselves on TV programs that we watch
10 00:09:39
at 4 o'clock because they don't really
10 00:09:43
know us. And so we can grab— there's no conflict in people who don't know
10 00:09:46
us who are speaking into our lives, so we'll just grab one little thing that
10 00:09:49
they say and build a whole theology on it, or build a whole foundation of
10 00:09:54
our lives. The voice of the shepherd protects us
10 00:09:57
from danger. The voices in the world are all around us, and they're trying
10 00:10:01
to lead us somewhere. They're trying to lead you. They're trying to lead you toward
10 00:10:05
life. They're trying to lead you toward destruction, some
10 00:10:09
of them. But a shepherd's voice will always protect you.
10 00:10:13
The ability to hear the shepherd's voice comes from proximity, and
10 00:10:16
that's why abiding trains your ear to hear
10 00:10:20
His voice. Jesus says, "Remain in me, and I will remain in you."
10 00:10:24
So as we abide in him, we are learning
10 00:10:27
the voice of our Creator. As we remain in him— let me
10 00:10:31
tell you, all of you guys could be talking to me at one time, and
10 00:10:35
Shari could be sitting here in the front row, and if Shari says something, I'm
10 00:10:38
going to be able to pick out her voice more than anybody else in
10 00:10:42
the room because I live with her. I'm in proximity to
10 00:10:45
her. I know I know what Shari's voice
10 00:10:49
sounds like. The closer you are to your King, the
10 00:10:52
more you recognize what His voice sounds like. The closer
10 00:10:56
you are to your God, the more you recognize what's His voice
10 00:11:01
and what's the world's voice. I heard the pastor tell this story one time. He
10 00:11:04
was talking about this blind girl, and she was up on the third floor of
10 00:11:08
an apartment complex. That's where they lived. Now, she wasn't rendered
10 00:11:11
unable to do things. She was make her way around, but she
10 00:11:15
was legally blind. And so, the father went to the grocery
10 00:11:19
store, and the apartment complex that day caught
10 00:11:23
on fire. She was stuck in the apartment that caught
10 00:11:27
on fire, and so she goes out to the balcony, and the police had come,
10 00:11:30
the firemen had come, and they put out that big trampoline type
10 00:11:34
thing that they jump into, you know, to be safe.
10 00:11:38
And so, she gets out there on the balcony, and everybody is yelling
10 00:11:42
at her, "Jump!" Jump! Jump! Let's go! Come down! Come
10 00:11:45
down! They had no relationship with her, they didn't know that she was
10 00:11:49
blind, but there she was in this burning fire not responding to all of their
10 00:11:53
cries. Well, the father got the call at the grocery store that the apartment was
10 00:11:57
on fire, laid his buggy down, got in his car, got to
10 00:12:01
the place, jumped out of the car, and
10 00:12:05
said, "Jump!" She took off and jumped and saved
10 00:12:09
her life. Why did she jump for her father, but didn't jump when everybody
10 00:12:12
else was saying, "Jump"? Because she knew
10 00:12:16
his voice. There is protection in the voice that you
10 00:12:20
know. There's protection in the
10 00:12:23
shepherd's voice. Hearing His voice is not accidental, it
10 00:12:28
is trained. It is trained. Again, Jesus says, "Abide in Me,
10 00:12:31
and I abide in you." When you abide long enough, His voice
10 00:12:35
stops sounding unfamiliar. The sheep that hear the
10 00:12:39
shepherd the clearest are the sheep that stay the closest,
10 00:12:42
because closeness creates familiarity. And
10 00:12:46
so we want to recognize and distinguish His voice, because sometimes
10 00:12:50
the loudest voices we hear are our
10 00:12:53
own. I succumb sometimes to the voices inside my head that are bathed
10 00:12:58
in fear, bathed in preferences, in
10 00:13:01
ambitions, or opinions, or emotions., and then we are so
10 00:13:05
quick to attach a spiritual label on that.
10 00:13:08
Might I suggest this morning that not every voice inside your head
10 00:13:14
is the shepherd? Not every voice that's
10 00:13:18
inside your head is the shepherd. We live in
10 00:13:22
one of the loudest— no, we don't live in one of the loudest, we live
10 00:13:26
in the loudest culture
10 00:13:30
of all history. Let that sink in for just a moment. We
10 00:13:33
live in the loudest culture in all
10 00:13:37
of mankind in history today.
10 00:13:41
Phones are going off like crazy, the news is shouting at
10 00:13:45
us, people's opinions all around us. Everywhere we turn somebody's trying
10 00:13:48
to tell you what to believe, what to think, what to
10 00:13:52
fear, what to chase, what success
10 00:13:55
looks like. And external noise is not the whole
10 00:13:59
problem, it's just part of the problem. The other problem is
10 00:14:03
that sometimes the world tries to
10 00:14:07
imitate the shepherd's voice. One of the most dangerous
10 00:14:10
phrases that you and I can say— listen to this, believers— one of
10 00:14:14
the most dangerous phrases you and I can say is this,
10 00:14:21
"God told me." And we throw that phrase around like seed hitting the
10 00:14:26
ground for birds. "God told me." Because
10 00:14:30
"God told me," you're talking about
10 00:14:33
the Star Breather, Sovereign God, Creator of the universe,
10 00:14:37
and when we say, "God told me something," there's not anything
10 00:14:41
else to say about the conversation. If God told
10 00:14:44
you to do something, if He literally, if He said to you, "Do this,"
10 00:14:48
it doesn't matter what I think, doesn't matter what I say, doesn't matter what anybody
10 00:14:52
else says, That's something you better do. If God said it, if the God of
10 00:14:55
the universe said it, you better walk in obedience. And so, so
10 00:14:59
often I hear somebody say, "God told me," and I turn around, I don't see
10 00:15:02
them doing what they say God told them, and what it really was was, "I
10 00:15:05
really wanted to do this, so I labeled it as God told me
10 00:15:10
to do it." And when we do that,
10 00:15:14
it is destructive. Destructive in our lives,
10 00:15:17
and destructive to others. Because if God didn't say
10 00:15:21
it and we claim that He did, we are putting His
10 00:15:24
name on something that originated with
10 00:15:28
us. And that's
10 00:15:31
problematic. That's problematic. Discernment matters because
10 00:15:35
not every voice inside your head is
10 00:15:39
the shepherd. John 1, Jesus, as
10 00:15:42
John 1 opens it says, "I am the the Word. He says, "In the
10 00:15:46
beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was
10 00:15:50
with God." And so what we learn in that is that the
10 00:15:54
written Word and the living Word are never going to
10 00:15:57
come in disagreement to one another. A
10 00:16:01
surefire way of knowing whether you've heard the Shepherd's voice
10 00:16:04
is to test it against the Word of
10 00:16:08
God. This is truth. There is
10 00:16:12
foundation here that we can rely on and that
10 00:16:16
we can trust. Now sometimes people will take, you know, "I
10 00:16:20
like page number 826 of scripture, so I'm going to take this little portion here,
10 00:16:24
I'm going to base my entire life on it." And we run with
10 00:16:27
that, forgetting that there is an entirety of scripture here that we're supposed to
10 00:16:31
live and abide by. And so this is why it's very important
10 00:16:35
for us to be familiar with the Word of God. We need to know what
10 00:16:38
the Word of God says so that whenever we're testing what God is
10 00:16:42
saying to us, we know what we're testing it against, that
10 00:16:45
we actually understand the Word of God and that it is true, that we
10 00:16:49
actually know what His Word says. So that if somebody says, "God told me to
10 00:16:52
do this," and it doesn't line up with scripture, you know that was
10 00:16:56
not from the Shepherd. That was not from the Good Shepherd.
10 00:16:59
So how do we discern God's voice? Let's look at 4 ways
10 00:17:03
that we can discern God's voice, okay? The first one we've
10 00:17:07
talked about already. It's the Word of God. Psalm 119 says
10 00:17:11
this, "Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light
10 00:17:14
light unto my path. And so we take the
10 00:17:18
Word and we test whatever it is that we feel like we're getting
10 00:17:21
in terms of discernment,
10 00:17:25
direction, whatever the idea is, whatever motion we're
10 00:17:29
trying to set into the course of action, we test
10 00:17:32
it by God's Word. Now, when something happens in
10 00:17:36
my life, some dramatic event, something at
10 00:17:39
work, some financial crisis, something emotional, whatever,
10 00:17:43
the first question that I think is good to ask is this, how did I
10 00:17:46
How did I get here? How did
10 00:17:49
this happen? How did I arrive here? How did I arrive to this dilemma? How
10 00:17:53
did I get here? The second question,
10 00:17:57
after you've discerned, how did I get here? The second question is, what
10 00:18:00
does God's word say about this? Now, here's what
10 00:18:04
we have the propensity to do. How did I get here? Okay,
10 00:18:07
I got that answer. What does God's word say about
10 00:18:14
it for them? What does God's Word say about it for their situation and the
10 00:18:18
part that they played? What's the truth that they need to
10 00:18:21
hear that they're not hearing? But see, what we
10 00:18:25
need to do is we need to turn that around. We need to
10 00:18:29
understand that it's, "How did I get here? And God, what is Your Word
10 00:18:33
saying to me about this dilemma? What is Your Word saying
10 00:18:37
to me about how I'm supposed to respond? What is Your Word saying?
10 00:18:40
What does Your truth say about my thought process about what's going
10 00:18:44
on? What is your Word saying about my opinion about what's
10 00:18:48
going on? And everything surrenders and bows down to the
10 00:18:51
truth of God's Word.
10 00:18:55
Church, say, "Amen." Your circumstances,
10 00:18:58
your problems, your drama, your emotions, they
10 00:19:02
are not your rock or your foundation. The truth of
10 00:19:05
God's Word is your foundation. It is where your peace comes
10 00:19:09
from. Holy Spirit is the second thing. First thing is the Word.
10 00:19:13
The second, we've been given the gift of the Holy Spirit. John 16 says, "When
10 00:19:16
the Spirit of Truth comes, He
10 00:19:20
will do," what? He'll do what? Okay, I need
10 00:19:24
a guide. I need a guide. So I've got truth, which is the path. Now
10 00:19:27
I need a guide to the truth. So I look at the Holy Spirit kind
10 00:19:30
of like a flashlight. It's like, okay, here's the
10 00:19:34
direction you're going, and He's going to illuminate reality right in
10 00:19:38
front of you. He's going to be able to separate truth from lies. He's
10 00:19:41
going to be able to point you in the direction. He's going to allow you
10 00:19:45
to walk with Him. And here's the thing, most of the time what
10 00:19:49
we are looking for, what the Lord is looking for, is that you are
10 00:19:52
taking a step with Him. That you're taking a step
10 00:19:56
with Him. That you're taking a step, and as you walk faithfully with Him,
10 00:20:00
He will order your steps. We're going to talk about that in just a few
10 00:20:03
seconds, okay? But it's like a flashlight. He looks
10 00:20:07
at He lets us look at our situation, our
10 00:20:11
experience, whatever is in front of us through the mature spiritual
10 00:20:14
lens, through a biblical lens, and then we can
10 00:20:18
begin to move. The third thing, if we have the Word and the Holy Spirit,
10 00:20:21
the third thing we look
10 00:20:25
for is peace. Is peace. I do
10 00:20:29
not find many situations in scripture where the person who
10 00:20:33
was in charge moved or did anything when they were not
10 00:20:37
at peace. Peace. God comes down, has a conversation with them, they get straight
10 00:20:41
with the Lord, they're looking at the Lord, and there's peace. And a lot of
10 00:20:44
times, listen to this, friends, a lot of times what the Lord does is
10 00:20:47
He strips them of everything that they brought to the table, and then
10 00:20:51
He gives them peace to move. But, but God, you don't understand what
10 00:20:55
they did. You don't understand what they said. You don't understand how this is affecting
10 00:20:58
everything. God says, lay that all down.
10 00:21:02
Look at me. I have a friend who, I have a friend who has been
10 00:21:04
married for a very long time, and she
10 00:21:08
has every biblical ground to leave her marriage. She has every biblical ground
10 00:21:12
to leave her marriage. She wants to leave her marriage. She wanted to
10 00:21:15
leave her marriage. And she came across the crossroad, and the Lord said, "I want
10 00:21:21
you to stay. I want you to stay."
10 00:21:26
And she did. These are the types of things that happen in the
10 00:21:31
kingdom of God. These are the types of things that you need a shepherd who
10 00:21:35
gives you the strength when you're weak to
10 00:21:40
continue to endure. Just because you have the right to do something doesn't mean it's
10 00:21:43
what God tells you to do. Colossians says,
10 00:21:47
"Let the—" I highlighted the wrong word here. "Let the peace
10 00:21:51
of Christ rule in your heart." Let the peace
10 00:21:55
of Christ rule. Guys, when your peace begins to get off kilter, it's time
10 00:21:59
to be still and get close to the Creator. When your peace is
10 00:22:02
not— when your peace is out of whack, that is not the time to be
10 00:22:06
making big decisions. That's not the time to be— that's not really the time to
10 00:22:10
be talking to people. It's not the time to be texting or posting
10 00:22:13
on Facebook or posting on Facebook or posting
10 00:22:18
on Facebook, right? When you don't have peace, when you don't have
10 00:22:21
peace, let me— okay, any football watchers here? Okay, when you watch
10 00:22:26
a football game, okay, and you see a play that has happened and
10 00:22:30
the ball's gone out of bounds or something has taken place and the ref
10 00:22:33
blows the whistle, you know, if you're an avid football watcher and you know the
10 00:22:37
game, you know what's about to happen. You know the call that they're about to
10 00:22:40
show you on the screen, and then they show you the call and then they
10 00:22:43
move on and you move on with them. Okay? Peace is
10 00:22:47
like that referee. Peace is like illuminating what you already know by
10 00:22:51
truth in the direction of the Holy Spirit. Peace gets in there and says, "You're
10 00:22:54
going in the right way. You're going in the right direction." You
10 00:22:58
can trust in this peace, okay? So you have the Word, you have the Holy
10 00:23:01
Spirit, you have peace, and the last thing, and guys, we poo-poo
10 00:23:05
this away like
10 00:23:09
crazy, godly counsel. And the reason that we poo-poo away godly
10 00:23:13
counsel is because here's what godly counsel really means to a
10 00:23:16
lot of us. Godly counsel It also means, "I've come to inform you about what
10 00:23:19
I've already
10 00:23:23
decided to do." I can't tell you how many times I get calls every
10 00:23:27
week, I have meetings with people, and, "Pastor, I've just come to let
10 00:23:31
you know this is what I've decided to do. This is a big decision in
10 00:23:34
my life. This is what I've decided to do. This is the choice I've made."
10 00:23:38
And I'm thinking, "Okay, I don't know why we're having this conversation
10 00:23:42
right now. I appreciate the information, but were you asking me to pray for you?
10 00:23:45
Did you want me—" Because what we want is we want people to surround us
10 00:23:48
to affirm us in the the things we want to do. We want, we want
10 00:23:51
somebody to come say, yeah, that's good. I'm good with that. You know, I had
10 00:23:54
a call just the other night. Somebody was just kind of sharing their heart
10 00:23:58
with me or whatever. And I mean, they got through everything they want to do.
10 00:24:01
And my first two words were,
10 00:24:04
absolutely not. Absolutely not. That I do not agree with. I do not think that
10 00:24:07
at all. That's the direction that you're supposed to go. This person was emotional. It
10 00:24:11
was a, it was a good call. Listen, godly
10 00:24:16
counsel is super is super important. God confirms His voice
10 00:24:20
through wise believers around us.
10 00:24:24
We have behavior issues at the school sometimes, and we've got a— I've
10 00:24:28
got my authority, her name is Debbie Landers over in East Tennessee, and sometimes I
10 00:24:31
have to call her and I have to say, "Hey, listen, we've got this particular
10 00:24:35
situation. What do you think about this?" And she'll give me some counsel.
10 00:24:39
We'll talk as an administrative team. I'll call Vonda or Rachel and say, "Hey, we've
10 00:24:43
got this issue. What are your thoughts about this? Before we take action,
10 00:24:46
what are the thoughts?" Because because there is wisdom in
10 00:24:50
getting other perspectives. There's wisdom in
10 00:24:55
getting other counsel. And so, when we're looking for counsel, you
10 00:24:58
want to look for people who have a track record of a
10 00:25:02
grace gift in whatever it is that you're trying to get counsel for. So, for
10 00:25:05
instance, if I need the Lord to give
10 00:25:08
me some calculated information, I need to grab some counsel on
10 00:25:12
administrative functions, I'm probably going to go see I go see Mark Laughlin because he
10 00:25:15
has a consistent track record of being calculated and being able
10 00:25:18
to have this administrative grace gift, and so he
10 00:25:22
can impart some information into my
10 00:25:26
life. James. James and I have been friends for a long time. He's a guy,
10 00:25:29
you know what he sows into situations? Peace.
10 00:25:33
He's a peacemaker. If there's a situation going on, he always comes in and he
10 00:25:36
will speak peace to a situation. Wisdom. There's times when I
10 00:25:40
need concrete wisdom, whenever I got a situation going, I need to get some wisdom
10 00:25:44
on which direction to go, and I'll go see Ronnie. I'll go see I'll tell
10 00:25:45
you, there's been so many lunches I sit down and Ronnie will just put a
10 00:25:49
nugget of wisdom on the table and it will blow my mind because he's got
10 00:25:52
a grace and wisdom. There is, there
10 00:25:55
is wisdom in having a multitude of counselors. This is what the
10 00:25:59
scripture says, "Where there is no counsel, the people fall, but in the
10 00:26:03
multitude of counselors there's
10 00:26:09
safety." There's safety. And so, Amongst all those
10 00:26:13
things, the Word, the Holy Spirit, peace, and godly
10 00:26:17
counsel, where do we get off kilter? Well, I think the biggest culprit
10 00:26:20
in all of that
10 00:26:24
is distraction. Distraction is the
10 00:26:28
enemy of discernment. This is
10 00:26:34
my puppy Emmett. Come
10 00:26:43
here. Hey, buddy. Now Emmett came right to
10 00:26:47
me. Emmett knows my voice. Let me tell you something,
10 00:26:50
Emmett knows my voice, but every now and then
10 00:26:54
when
10 00:26:59
he goes outside, I can be screaming at the top of my lungs
10 00:27:03
with my voice, and, and he is more concerned about the squirrel going
10 00:27:07
up the tree, the field before him, the birds that
10 00:27:11
are flocking around, and this guy can run!
10 00:27:15
This guy can run! And I have ran after
10 00:27:21
him with no avail. And so when he's getting away, do you
10 00:27:24
think I'm screaming for Emmett to come back to me because I don't want him
10 00:27:27
to play with the squirrels, or I don't want him to play with the birds,
10 00:27:30
or I don't want him to have fun in
10 00:27:33
the field? I'm, I'm, I'm calling him because he doesn't see the
10 00:27:37
Mack truck that's on the road that's about to end his life.
10 00:27:40
And if he will listen to my voice, he will come back
10 00:27:44
to the place of safety. Are you picking up what I'm putting
10 00:27:48
down? And so what happens is, is we got this little contraption
10 00:27:51
on his, his neck here that is controlled
10 00:27:56
by this little device. And if he doesn't listen to my voice,
10 00:27:59
I push this little red button and boy, he makes a
10 00:28:04
beeline right to me. Okay, here's what I want
10 00:28:08
you to understand. The God of the universe loves you so much
10 00:28:12
that He will push the red button to get you to come running back to
10 00:28:15
Him. He will allow you to go through
10 00:28:19
some difficult, hard circumstances to allow Him
10 00:28:23
to become the focus.
10 00:28:33
I love this boy. Don't make
10 00:28:37
me push the button! Abiding creates
10 00:28:41
space to hear God clearly. So here's the deal, guys.
10 00:28:45
Let's just be real. There are times in our lives where we have a mountain
10 00:28:49
in front of us. The mountain can be a work situation,
10 00:28:53
could be a financial problem, it
10 00:28:57
could be a relational fallout. It can
10 00:29:00
be some type of contentious thing that's going on. It can be,
10 00:29:04
and it feels like a mountain. It's weighty. Anybody
10 00:29:08
ever had a mountain? Yeah, it's weighty. It's, it's,
10 00:29:12
it's real. It's there. You wake up thinking about it. You go to work thinking
10 00:29:15
about it. You drive around thinking about it. You emote about
10 00:29:19
it. You, it comes up in your conversations because it is right there in
10 00:29:23
front of your face. There this mountain, and it is huge.
10 00:29:26
And if you're a believer and you're really close to the Lord, what you're doing
10 00:29:29
is you're seeing this mountain and you're crying out to the Lord, and what you're
10 00:29:32
saying to the Lord is, "Get this mountain out of my way! Tell me what
10 00:29:35
to do here! I've got to make a decision here about this mountain!" And
10 00:29:39
what you talk about more and more and more is about the mountain, far more
10 00:29:43
than what you talk about Him. And what happens
10 00:29:46
is the mountain becomes so, so illuminated and
10 00:29:50
huge in our lives, and here's the deal, It's
10 00:29:54
so tiny to the Creator of the universe.
10 00:29:57
It's so small in comparison to everything else. What
10 00:30:01
is ruining your day is tiny to the Star Breather.
10 00:30:05
Are you with me? And so the Star Breather
10 00:30:09
says, "Take that mountain and surrender it to me so
10 00:30:12
it becomes this big." Now, here's the thing. The mountain's not gone away.
10 00:30:16
It's just become a molehill now. And so here it is,
10 00:30:19
and you've got this mountain in your peripheral,, but you've
10 00:30:23
got Jesus in front of you and He's so much bigger than
10 00:30:26
this, and all of a sudden you start to see
10 00:30:31
things at a different perspective. You start to come in line with the truth.
10 00:30:34
You start to get yourself in line with His precepts and, and what the Lord
10 00:30:38
says, and all of a sudden your response
10 00:30:42
to this mountain shifts, and it changes, and it
10 00:30:46
evolves to line up with the Shepherd
10 00:30:50
Whose voice you're listening to. And so this mountain
10 00:30:54
becomes small. The Word tells us this is what this really means in real time.
10 00:30:57
We don't like— listen, if nothing's going on, we don't care about this verse, but
10 00:31:01
let there be a mountain in front of us. This is the truth
10 00:31:04
of God's Word. Trust in the Lord
10 00:31:08
with some of that problem. Trust in the Lord with a few things.
10 00:31:12
Trust in the Lord with everything else but the mountain. Mountain.
10 00:31:16
No, trust in the Lord with all your heart,
10 00:31:20
and do what? Lean not on your understanding. But
10 00:31:24
God, you don't understand what
10 00:31:27
they, what it, what— No!
10 00:31:31
Lean not on your understanding. Now, I don't know how to get here
10 00:31:37
when I'm facing a mountain, because everything in my understanding wants
10 00:31:40
to pull out the the Lord wants
10 00:31:43
to throw my opinions, my attitude,
10 00:31:47
my emotions, everything within me wants to use what I think I know
10 00:31:51
is
10 00:31:55
right to fix the problem. But things that the Lord is really trying to do
10 00:31:59
in us and heal us from are the reasons why mountains get erected in
10 00:32:03
the first place. I'm doing Celebrate Recovery right now, and one
10 00:32:06
of the things that I'm learning about myself is the biggest struggle that
10 00:32:10
I have in my life, one of the biggest struggles, got a lot of them,
10 00:32:14
is the fear of rejection. And so what happens is, is when I feel
10 00:32:18
like I'm coming up against some rejection, a mountain will
10 00:32:22
be erected in my path. And so all of a sudden, what will happen in
10 00:32:25
my life is I'll begin to make unhealthy
10 00:32:29
decisions, and unhealthy choices, and unhealthy conversations fueled
10 00:32:32
by me wanting to fix the rejection issue. But here's what
10 00:32:37
the Savior says. He says, He says, "Don't you know that I've accepted you, Kevin
10 00:32:40
O'Day? Don't you know that the rejection of your past should not fuel or be
10 00:32:44
a foundation with which you are making decisions on today?" You understand
10 00:32:47
what I'm saying? And as I surrender that to Him,
10 00:32:51
then my mountain becomes a molehill, and I look at it and say, "Wait a
10 00:32:54
minute, God, you are so much greater than this little thing over here." And
10 00:32:57
all of a sudden I'm walking in peace, and I'm walking in grace, and all
10 00:33:00
of a sudden— I don't know what your thing is. Everybody's got I
10 00:33:03
don't know if yours is
10 00:33:07
rejection, but everybody's got stuff. I call them
10 00:33:11
mountain erectors. A mountain comes up. You know that verse over,
10 00:33:14
I think it's in Matthew 17, where Jesus is talking about if
10 00:33:18
you have faith like a mustard seed, right? He says you
10 00:33:22
can tell this mountain to move. Now, He could
10 00:33:26
have been talking about a literal mountain.
10 00:33:29
But the context of that scripture is that the disciples
10 00:33:33
could not cast out the demons, and they come to Him and He says, "You
10 00:33:36
have such little faith. If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can take
10 00:33:39
this mountain and cast it into the sea." I believe it works
10 00:33:43
metaphorically too. I believe it works that you can take that mountain,
10 00:33:47
whatever it is that you're facing today, whatever that
10 00:33:50
mountain is that consumes your thoughts, consumes everything going
10 00:33:54
on, that your text messages are about, and your phone calls about, and your mind
10 00:33:57
is wrestling, you can't sleep at night, whatever that mountain is, Jesus says,
10 00:34:01
"I believe with mustard seed faith you can take that mountain and say,
10 00:34:04
'Get out of my way! Get out of my way!'" Let's look at
10 00:34:08
some examples in scripture, okay? First of all, the shepherd always leads like a shepherd.
10 00:34:12
Let's see how that happens here. Here we go.
10 00:34:16
Moses at the Red Sea. Moses at the Red Sea.
10 00:34:19
The people were saying, "God, Moses, God, do you not see this
10 00:34:23
army behind us?" If you go back and read that the messenger.
10 00:34:27
God does not address the army. "Look at this army back here!"
10 00:34:30
You know what He does? He says, "Trust in my—" You know, in fact, Moses
10 00:34:33
is crying out to Him, and you know what God says to Moses? "Why are
10 00:34:37
you crying out to me? You have everything inside you
10 00:34:41
that you need to move forward." And I'm telling
10 00:34:45
you today, you have everything inside you,
10 00:34:49
you need to move forward. We make the issue the
10 00:34:53
army. He's get the pathway forward. What's next? Feeding of the
10 00:34:56
5,000. The disciples come to Jesus and say, "Hey, we don't have
10 00:35:00
enough. This is an impossible situation. We don't have enough food for all
10 00:35:03
these people." You know what Jesus' response was? "Oh no, what
10 00:35:07
are we going to do?" No. Jesus looks
10 00:35:11
right at them and says, "Kirk, you feed them."
10 00:35:15
Isn't that what He says? "Susie, you feed
10 00:35:20
them. Scotty, you feed them." "With what,
10 00:35:24
Lord?" "You have little faith. Don't you know that the Creator
10 00:35:28
of the universe is literally talking to you in front of
10 00:35:31
you? Have you not seen anything?" Gosh, we
10 00:35:35
make it so much about things that it's not really about. Okay,
10 00:35:39
Peter walking on the water. News flash,
10 00:35:44
the problem wasn't the water. Jesus didn't go,
10 00:35:49
"Now, water, get it together!" The problem was, "You took your
10 00:35:54
focus off of me, Peter. That's
10 00:35:59
why you can't walk anymore." And lastly, "Lord, won't
10 00:36:03
you tell my sister to
10 00:36:06
get up and help me?" "Arthas, you are
10 00:36:10
worried about so many things. The best thing right now is," what? "Come
10 00:36:13
on, what?
10 00:36:17
To spend time with me." Guys, that mountain,
10 00:36:22
that mountain can be deceptive. It can mess you up. It
10 00:36:25
can cause you to make decisions in
10 00:36:30
your life that are wrong. Dangerous.
10 00:36:34
Here's the thing, the shepherd's voice
10 00:36:37
always will lead toward
10 00:36:41
life, and Restoration and righteousness. Am I listening to the Shepherd's voice? Is it leading
10 00:36:46
you to places of life? Is His voice leading you to
10 00:36:50
places where you're being restored? Relationships
10 00:36:54
being restored? Is it leading you to places
10 00:36:57
of righteousness? Of right standing? Meaning
10 00:37:02
you can't continue to sin. He's leading you out of sin. He's
10 00:37:07
leading you out of destruction. Restoration. That's where His voice leads you. He woos you
10 00:37:10
to life. He woos you to restoration.
10 00:37:15
He woos you to righteousness.
10 00:37:19
Anybody ever been to Buc-ee's? I don't struggle with anxiety. That's just not a
10 00:37:23
struggle that I've had to contend with. Closest I ever came was the
10 00:37:26
first time I went to Buc-ee's.
10 00:37:30
I walked into that store and everyone was screaming. Everyone
10 00:37:33
was running. There was no semblance of traffic I
10 00:37:37
walked in there, I hyperventilated for a
10 00:37:44
minute. It was a moment. Guys, here's the
10 00:37:47
honest truth here in 2026. 2026,
10 00:37:51
our lives look like Buc-ee's. I was up here a few months ago talking about
10 00:37:55
that red ball. You know what I'm talking about? Truth of the matter is
10 00:37:59
there's 52 red balls happening every day at all times, everywhere across the way. It's
10 00:38:03
just all the time, is it not? Am I telling the truth? Amen? Isn't that
10 00:38:06
the truth? The distractions are enormous,
10 00:38:10
and it is so vital, believers in this
10 00:38:14
room, that we know the voice of our Savior.
10 00:38:17
That we know the voice of the Creator of the universe.
10 00:38:21
The one who knows your name. That when He says, "Be
10 00:38:25
still," we know that's the voice that's telling me, "Be still." When
10 00:38:29
He says, "Go," that's the voice that's telling me, telling me to
10 00:38:33
go. When He says, "Stop," that's the voice
10 00:38:36
telling me to stop. Do you
10 00:38:40
know the voice of your
10 00:38:43
Creator? Have you measured His voice against the Word,
10 00:38:48
the Holy Spirit, the peace, and godly counsel? Are
10 00:38:52
you contending with a mountain this morning? Or have you contended
10 00:38:55
with a mountain that you haven't settled
10 00:38:59
up He has peace to offer you. There was a guy in
10 00:39:03
the Old Testament who I think had a real good handle on this whole
10 00:39:07
shepherd thing. His name was
10 00:39:11
David, and he wrote this,
10 00:39:15
"The Lord is my shepherd. I
10 00:39:19
lack nothing." Everybody say, "Nothing." When you trust
10 00:39:23
the shepherd, you lack nothing. Listen, the prerequisite of lacking nothing
10 00:39:27
is not what your bank
10 00:39:31
account says. "The Lord is
10 00:39:36
my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me
10 00:39:39
to lie down in green pastures." We do
10 00:39:44
not like that word "makes." He suggests that you might take up a
10 00:39:47
spot on the green pasture here. Maybe this might
10 00:39:51
be a good idea if you just took up some— No, it
10 00:39:55
says He makes. That's what the Word of God says. He makes us to
10 00:39:59
lie down in green pastures. You know what that communicates
10 00:40:02
to Kevin? He says, "Lay down the worry that you're caring
10 00:40:06
about this mountain, and come lay with
10 00:40:10
Me in this pasture. Because the more you worry about this mountain in front
10 00:40:13
of you, the more it consumes you, the less you believe that I
10 00:40:17
am bigger than that that thing, whatever
10 00:40:22
it is. But he continues. He says, I— he says
10 00:40:25
this, he leads me beside
10 00:40:29
rushing waters that are fierce. No, who knows their
10 00:40:33
scripture this morning? He
10 00:40:37
leads me beside quiet waters. And you know what he does in that? You're
10 00:40:40
laying down beside the quiet waters. Robert, what does it say?
10 00:40:44
It says he He refreshes my soul.
10 00:40:48
Has He refreshed your soul? I want to be in a place of refreshing
10 00:40:52
all the time. Here's a pathway.
10 00:40:56
Come lay down. Come stop. You refreshed, April? Come
10 00:40:59
on, are we refreshed this morning? He
10 00:41:03
guides me along the right paths. This shepherd, not for me,
10 00:41:07
not so that Kevin can get glory. So
10 00:41:11
it's for his name's sake. And it says
10 00:41:15
this, even though, even though, which means I can be walking through
10 00:41:18
the midst of a dark valley, even
10 00:41:22
though I walk through the valley of what? The shadow
10 00:41:26
of death, where things are deceased, where things are falling off, where
10 00:41:29
things seem to die, where relationships are dying
10 00:41:33
all around me, where work situations are dying all around around me, where I
10 00:41:37
thought I had purpose and it's dying around me, although these perceptions
10 00:41:40
are all around me, even though
10 00:41:44
I walk through that valley,
10 00:41:49
he, my shepherd, comforts me. I fear no evil because you are with me. It
10 00:41:53
says his rod and
10 00:41:57
his staff. There's a distinction. One of
10 00:42:01
them is used for discipline. One of them is used
10 00:42:05
for protection. Do you welcome the discipline of
10 00:42:08
the Lord in your life? Because the Word says a good— listen,
10 00:42:12
if I did not discipline my 5 daughters, I would not
10 00:42:16
be a good dad. If God Almighty did not discipline you, he
10 00:42:20
would not be a good Father.
10 00:42:23
But he doesn't just discipline, he protects. He
10 00:42:27
protects the shepherd dog. He does. And then it says
10 00:42:31
this, "You," I love this, "You prepare a table
10 00:42:35
before me in the presence of my enemies." Anybody ever felt like you
10 00:42:39
got a target on your back? No
10 00:42:45
one, just me. Okay, well, in the presence, it's not, "Hey, come around here, we're
10 00:42:48
going to let your enemies do a thing." He literally
10 00:42:52
brings the table to them and says, I don't care nothing about
10 00:42:56
what y'all trying to say, what you're trying to do. We're going to sit
10 00:42:59
here and eat and watch you lose your minds at the peace
10 00:43:04
that we have right now. Your enemies should be losing their minds
10 00:43:07
that you are at such peace. They should be losing their
10 00:43:11
minds that you're at such peace. This doesn't faze me. You know
10 00:43:15
why? Because it's so small compared to the
10 00:43:19
great, glorious God I serve. He sets this table, and
10 00:43:22
then he says, "In the presence of the enemy." And then guess what? He says,
10 00:43:26
"He anoints your head with
10 00:43:30
oil." He gives you purpose. He said, "I'm gonna give you something to do, and
10 00:43:33
I'm gonna give you the power and the strength to do it right there while
10 00:43:37
your enemies are watching, all under the protection
10 00:43:40
of the shepherd." "My cup overflows," because with
10 00:43:44
the Lord, everything's always
10 00:43:47
more. It's always more. Overflows. Surely
10 00:43:51
your goodness and your love will— what? Will follow me. Who needs
10 00:43:54
his goodness and love to follow them all the days of their life?
10 00:43:58
I need his goodness and love following
10 00:44:02
me. But you can't recognize his goodness and love when
10 00:44:05
you're looking at the mountain. And I will dwell in
10 00:44:10
the house
10 00:44:13
of the Lord forever. Forever. This is our
10 00:44:17
shepherd. This is the one who knows your
10 00:44:21
name, cares about you, created you, sees you,
10 00:44:25
knows you, and guess what? Yes, he sees that mountain
10 00:44:28
too, and he says, "Stop thinking about that mountain and
10 00:44:32
start looking at me. Start listening
10 00:44:36
to my voice. Let me take care
10 00:44:40
of that mountain." for you. The best things that have happened in my life
10 00:44:43
have been when I have relinquished control. When I've
10 00:44:47
backed up and said, "God, you do it." The best things
10 00:44:51
that will happen in your life is when you relinquish control and
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you back up and you say, "God, you do it." Would you
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stand with me this morning? I would like
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to be a church known known for
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people who actually hear the voice of the shepherd. I
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would like Springhouse— when they talk about Springhouse, they're talking
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about a group of people who know his word, who know the
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Holy Spirit, who know what peace looks like,
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and that participate in godly counsel. That the whole package is there
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because we are listening to the shepherd. And so that when people out
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in the world are contending with their very mountains. You
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don't have people guiding them the wrong way because they're listening to their
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own voice, ideas, and opinions, but they are listening to the voice of the shepherd
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by the example of the people around them. If you're going to pray with people,
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would you come forward this morning? In a group this size, there's got to
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be people dealing with some mountains. I just, I just feel that. I just believe
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there's got to be people this morning. You got mountains. It's been consuming your
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week. You've been thinking about it. There's been relational fallout because of it. Of
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it. There's been text messages, all these things. It could be financial, it could be
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a work thing, whatever it is, there's mountains in this room, and I
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believe today that God wants to address those mountains. Now, one of the ways to
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get godly counsel is for me to be able to go to Mel Galeoni over
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here and say, "Mel, I have this issue. Would you agree with me? Because I
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can't see it. All I see is this mountain, and I need you to speak
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truth, because I believe that you have truth inside you to speak over me." You
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can say, "Kevin, the way you're seeing that mountain is Actually not the perspective of
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what's really happening. Let me tell you what God's saying about this. And they speak
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into your life, and they begin to get your frame of
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mind. And it takes humility. It takes such humility. But I
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believe that the Lord wants to help us overcome some mountains
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today. So that's you. Today's the day of salvation. It's the day to do
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business. He's alive and well today. Come, let's worship.