Priscilla Shirer | Discerning God’s Voice

to be in a Highlands college chapel [Music] service man this is a highlight of my week getting to see all of you in the same room together um we love you guys the Pettis family loves you I had two of my kids wake up super early this morning to go to a Bible study at their school that you guys lead come on and I'm grateful um the school is changing because of you I also want you to know um that we had a guest in here in Chapel on Tuesday who used to oversee the seu services um their Chapel Services and he said Jill what you guys have here is really special and I said I know but can you tell me what you see he said your students are leaned in they're hungry they come expectant and so thank you thank you for showing up thank you for leaning in we love you guys um I know it's already been done but I want to welcome the discovery day guest it is so great to have you with [Applause] [Music] us we are so grateful that you took time to come and check out Highlands college and we've been praying for you that if this is where you're supposed to be that God would speak to you and you would be able to hear him and we just appreciate appreciate all of you so much we've got some other guests in the room we've got some impact guests with us [Music] today yes Highlands college would not be what it is without each of you we've got um alumni Russ Daly is in the room today uh graduated in 2013 is now a campus pastor at Red Rocks Church so glad to have you joining us and we also anybody ready for the Women's Conference this weekend not anybody just the girls just the girls let me make that clear but we have Pastor Julie Mullin that's with us today as well it's an honor to have you with [Music] us all right I need to know is anybody ready to dig into God's word that's right that's right well I get the honor and privilege of introducing our speaker today she says that she is first a wife and a mom of three incredible boys now you know why I love her so much I'm like tell me all the wisdom um and not only is she an author she's an actor and an incredible speaker but I want y'all to grab a hold of how much she loves and dives into the word of God today you know one one of our learn student learning objectives for you guys is that you would have the authority of scripture I want y'all to pick up on that today from Miss Priscilla's life in the way that she communicates and I'm so excited y'all get your notes ready we're all going to leave knowing god better today because of how she communicates the word so y'all stand on your feet and help me welcome Miss Priscilla sh appreciate you thank you well good morning it's so great to be with you Family you may take your seats I'm so thrilled about the privilege to be able to talk to my young brothers and sisters about the things of God I believe in the power of the word of God to transform Our Lives to change us I recognize now in Hind sight I'm going to tell you this and I'm going to pray in hindsight I recognize that some of the most trajectory shifting things that the Lord did was when I was exactly your age you don't know it in the moment you're just going through the rhythm of what it is that the Lord has assigned to you and the people that you're interacting with in the routine of going to the class or studying or preparing or doing whatever it is that you're doing and you don't know until hindsight that this is it right here so I'm telling you if I could go back I would be milking every moment of this season for everything God has for you nothing is chance nothing is happen stance all of this is setting you up for what God has for you in the future Lord Jesus I thank you that this moment in time has been ordained before the foundation of the world that there is not one person under the sound of my voice who you did not intend to speak to today so I pray that you would Shake all of our hearts awake from any spiritual Slumber that they may B in and that you would open up our spiritual ears to hear your voice Lord don't let any of us leave this place without knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that we have heard the voice of God Speak Lord we're your sons and daughters and we're listening in Jesus name I pray everybody say Amen am amen thank you y'all I have three siblings my oldest uh sibling is my sister Crystal Crystal was the first grandchild on both sides of the family so for my dad's parents mom's parents this first grandbaby was and I hear from people that have grandchildren they love them all but it's that first one that does something for them so you know she was born and they named her Crystal because she was the light of everybody's eyes and all that stuff so Crystal's the older sister my grandparents on my dad's side they lived not in the same city as us so they didn't get to see us all the time from Baltimore Maryland to where we were in Dallas Texas they would send cards to us and little gifts to us in the mail and I remember around Christmas time every single year a big old box would come in the mail it would have Crystal's name on it and I remember that we together would stand there with mom as we opened up the box and we would pull out all this stuff that two mama and two daddy that's what we called them two mama and two daddy sent really for us but it was for Crystal I knew what they were thinking they were thinking that if they sent it in cryst Crystal size that all other grandkids could just roll into those clothes eventually so they would send a box of all the stuff little girls used to wear back in the day I'm not talking about Baby Gap Old Navy stuff mm this was hoop skirts with lace on the bottom of the skirts and fold over socks and patent leather shoes and that sort of stuff and we would pull it out of the box and I would stand there knowing it was too big for me it was crystal size but I would stand there completely mesmerized and excited because I knew that my sister would soon be growing out of all that stuff and it would all be mine but I do remember there was one year I don't know if it was because I was just a little bit older or something where that box came in the mail it had Crystal's name on it and I remember that particular year standing there watching The Box be opened like we did every year but that year I had an attitude problem because I remember on that particular you're watching this stuff come out of the box in Crystal size and thinking you know what I think I'm about done with this this secondhand situation I think I actually want a box to come in the mail that has my name on it one that has been handpicked just for me there's nothing wrong with hand me- downs but there should come a time in our life where we grow up just enough where we appreciate the handmd downs but we would prefer something personal I want to make sure you know that it would be an injustice to you to spend the entirety or me to spend the entirety of our Christian lives being spoonfed hand me- down Revelation that it is a joy and it is a privilege to have pastors and leaders and Shepherds and teachers who write to us and who teach us and who help us to rightly divide the word of truth but we will always be handicapped in our faith if we are constantly waiting on regurgitated truth from somebody else there has to be a time where you must mature enough where you appreciate it but it actually causes a little bit of dissatisfaction because there's got to be a point where you decide the same God who spoke to them is the same God I'm hungry to speak to me and you can know that God does speak that he speaks to each and every one of us that he knows us he knows where you are he knows where I am and it would be the work of the enemy in your heart and in mine to try to convince us that we have to be somebody else other than who we are to actually hear the voice of God that if we don't have that degree that if we haven't gone to that church that if we aren't in that denomination that have if we haven't walked this particular path and if we don't have this particular background that we also can't have the joy and privilege of hearing the voice of God because then we'll be handicapped at Best in our relationship with him in our walk with him constantly waiting to be spoonfed hand me down Revelation so I want to encourage you brothers and sisters around the idea that you can hear the voice of God and the reason why I was sitting in the back y'all and I was thinking about what it was that I wanted to speak to you about today and the reason why I landed on this topic is because I was thinking about how you have been in particular called to rise up in this generation with the spirit of Elijah to be the prophetic Voice of Truth piercing through all the Li in our culture that that people who fear for the folks who are your age growing up in such a Godless time where y'all the moral decline is at a rapid Pace right now I don't know if you've noticed but to really serve God to really stand up for truth to really decide you ain't playing no games that you're going to believe that there is still one true God and his name is Jesus Christ and that he actually has a standard of truth that doesn't adjust to Plate people's emotions if you decide you're going to be that kind of person you're you're going to stick up like stick out like a sore thumb you going to have to have backbone for that that's what Elijah had Elijah heard the word of God and then in the midst of a Godless culture he came and said let me tell you what the one true and living God says he didn't care whether it was politically correct he didn't care whether people stood with him while he said it he knew that he was the mouthpiece of God and in order to speak for God you got to be able to hear from God so I want to encourage you about hearing and Discerning the voice of God if there is one spiritual discipline that I wished I had honed a little bit more seriously earlier in my life it would have been the privilege and the practice of hearing and Discerning God it's a lifetime Pursuit you'll never be perfect at it it's something that we grow at from day to day season to season year to year one of the clear place in scripture where Jesus himself speaks about this privilege that you and I have to hear the voice of the one true and living God is in John chapter 10 in John chapter 10 I'm going to read to you verse 1-5 real quick and then I'm just going to jump to verse 27 and sit there for just a few moments with you John chapter 10 Jesus says truly truly I say to you that he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep but climbs up some other way he's a thief and a robber but he who enters by the door is The Shepherd of the sheep to him the doorkeeper opens the sheep hear his voice he calls his own Sheep by name and he leads them out sounds like freedom to me when he puts forth all his own he goes before them and the Sheep follow him because oh listen to this they know his voice The Stranger they simply will not follow they'll flee from him because they don't know the voice of The Stranger verse 27 here's the oneliner that if you still actually use a Bible with paper Pages y'all this right here deserves to be underlined verse 27 my sheep hear my voice I know them and they follow me in this one liner Jesus packs in this principle this privilege this discipline of discerning and hearing the voice of God my sheep what they do is they hear my voice I know them and they follow me come with me for just a few moments and let's take a little journey because you know Jesus would talk about stuff that often times in our modern day and age we can't really put a picture around and completely understand because we don't deal with you know stuff like wheat and soil and grapes like that so he'll tell stories about stuff that if we don't put oursel back in the first century around the context in which he was speaking these words we can't fully grasp what he was saying so for just a few moments I want you to Journey with me to the Middle Eastern Sheepfold in the first century time frame when Jesus would have spoken these truths he's talking about Shepherds and their sheep in Jesus's time frame when a Shepherd was leading A Flock there could be 100 sheep let's say following behind one Shepherd and during the day when a Shepherd was leading his flock around to Green Pastures and to still refreshing Waters he wouldn't be by himself there would be about nine other Shepherd that would also be leading their flock of 100 with that Shepherd at the same time so you've got 10 Shepherd let's Shepherds let's say and about 1,000 sheep that are in and around the same vicinity all day long Meandering around the different pastures and then in the evening all 10 would take all of their flocks to one Sheepfold for the night the Middle Eastern Sheepfold was a fenced off a huge enclosed area that was a stone fence line that was about waist high and in this huge enclosure there would only be one opening and the opening did not have a door all 10 of the she Shepherds would bring their flock so 1,000 sheep are in the fold nine of the 10 Shepherds would go into the city so that they could sleep for the night but one would stay behind and listen to me he would lay his body across the door of across the opening of the sheep fold and he would become the door for the fold his actual person his body was there to lay across the opening of the sheep fold and protect to make sure there was no stranger no Predator that was coming to take advantage of the sheep inside this fold and in the morning when a Shepherd would come back from the city so that he could retrieve his sheep the porter the door keeper would stand up look into the distance as the shepherd was coming to make sure he recognized this Shepherd as one of the true Shepherds of one of these flocks inside and not until he authenticated that this was a true Shepherd would he remove his body from the opening of the sheep fold and let this Shepherd pass through and then listen the shepherd would come into the sheep fold and he would call his sheep 1,000 would physically hear the call but only 100 would recognize the call as having come from the voice of their Shepherd What mattered was not whether or not they were black sheep or white sheep it didn't matter whether they congregated with a lot of sheep or just a little bit of sheep it didn't matter whe they were on the south side of the sheep fold or the north side of the sheep fold all that mattered was whether or not they belonged to the shepherd Jesus says my sheep are the ones who hear my voice the very first thing he points out in verse 27 is the relationship he says you want to make sure that you can discern my voice throughout your lifetime not just in one season and not just in the next not just in up times not just in down times but throughout the entire trajectory of your relationship with me as your Shepherd you want to make sure that you can discern my leading in your life then you better make sure we have a relationship with each other you better make sure that you are actually mine and so here I am at this Bible College to ask you a question have you made a decision to be in relationship with Jesus because you can study the Bible memorize the Bible you can be born in the church grow up in church they can bring your meals and feed you in the church they can bring you a desk and let you work in the church but if you die in the church and you have not placed personal faith in Jesus Christ you will have not had your own relationship God does not have grandchildren it means that it don't matter what your mama and them did it doesn't matter the faith of your grandmother or your grandfather I'm so grateful for the legacy of faith that the Lord has given me in my own family but I I learned early on that their faith wasn't going to going to supplant the fact that I was going to have to make my own decision to place faith in Jesus Christ to make sure that I had my own thing going on with Jesus so Jesus says would you make sure if you want to hear my voice if you want to know my leading if you want to know what it is to be able to discern the conviction of the Holy Spirit then you need to make sure first of all you have a relationship with him so when I was growing up I grew up with you know the 80s and 90s Christian parents these were the most Christian of all Christian parents which means we didn't watch a whole lot of TV growing up there was a whole lot of you know kind of strict rules and regulations and the only time we really had the freedom to watch watch some TV during the week it was also because you know you got stuff to do during the week when you're growing you got homework and there's dinner dishes and we had stuff to do so they didn't want it to be distracted by TV we didn't have cable or anything like that we didn't have Direct TV none of that because they didn't want us to waste time on all that all that stuff during the week we had things to do except on Thursday at 7 p. m. because on Thursdays at 7 p.

m The Cosby Show came on and then at 7:30 p. m. a different world came on please tell me y'all know about a different world come on if you don't know about it you need to go bless yourself and start at season 1 and just watch the entire thing we would watch from 700 to 8:00 P.