Times Doesn’t Shout – Part 3
Transcript of FLOT Line Episode 604 aired on April 2, 2017
Good morning and welcome to The FLOT Line. I’m your host Rick Hughes and for the next few
minutes stay with me for a time of motivation, some inspiration, a lot of education, and we do all
of this without any type of manipulation. Our objective is to give you information that will help
you verify and identify God’s plan for your life. If you can do this, fantastic, then you can orient
and adjust to the plan. Here on The FLOT Line we deal with 10 unique problem-solving devices
that God gave us in eternity past that can act as your main line of resistance. How we can
withstand the outside sources of adversity before they become the inside source of stress. That’s
why we say adversity is inevitable, stress is optional. By using these 10 unique problem-solving
devices called the FLOT line, you can stop these outside sources from becoming stress in your
life. Remember problem-solving device #1, rebound. When we sin, how do we deal with this?
We solve it by doing what 1 John 1:9 say,
“If we confess our sin, then God is faithful and just to
forgive us.”
This is our first problem-solving device. The second problem-solving device is how
do we deal with our genetically formed sin nature that we got from Adam. The answer is, we
walk under the power of God the Holy Spirit.
“Walk in the Spirit and you won’t fulfill the lust of
the flesh”
(Galations 5:16) Paul wrote. Then we have the faith-rest drill, problem-solving device
#3, standing on the promises of God. As Moses told the Jews in the Exodus when Pharaoh was
hot on their heels,
“Stand still and watch God deliver you today”
(Exodus 14:13). These first
three are phenomenal problem-solving devices not even counting doctrinal orientation, grace
orientation, having a personal sense of destiny, personal love for God, impersonal love for others,
sharing the happiness of Christ, and occupation with Christ. These are all essential for the
believer if he’s going to grow, if he’s going to glorify God as you go through your time on this sin
infested planet. I started a study two weeks ago with you to highlight some attitudes that you
must have, some things that are critical for you. I wanted to go over them with you and hopefully
review some of them with you today. The Bible talks about our time on earth and it uses two
different words. One word in the Bible translated time is
chronos,
we get chronology from this,
or chronograph. Then we have another word pronounced
kairos
and this is not about a specific
time, not like 6:04 PM, it’s more about time as an event at a certain time. When 2 Corinthians 6:2
says,
“Behold, now is the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation,”
time, the word
kairos,
it’s
not a specific time, it’s not 10:05 PM you’re suppose to accept Christ. As we go through and look
at these things, think about how you use time. The first thing we saw was you have to be
punctual. Punctuality is critical for you. Without punctuality then you’re never going to have
much of an impact in the devil’s world. We did quite a bit of study on this and then we went into
patience. That is where we left you last week, talking about patience, how it’s critical for the
believer in the Lord Jesus Christ to have patience in his life. The reason is because patient people
will wait on God’s timing. Impatient people, they won’t do this. They’ll leap to their own
destruction. I quoted you a verse last week a verse in Numbers 14:42. Here, after the Jews had
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decided they could not take the Promised Land, after the twelve spies had gone in and ten came
out and said, “No way, we can’t do it, there are giants in there,” and then Joshua and Caleb said,
“Oh yes we can,” they were overruled. Once they heard the discipline that would come upon
them because of this, once they heard that they would all die in the wilderness until their children
had grown up and the children would take the land, they decided to rectify things with God. They
decided they would go ahead and enter the land when God said, “No, you’re not going to take it.
You’ve turned away and I’m not going to be with you.” This is what Moses told them. He said in
talking about impatient people,
“Don’t go up there lest you be defeated by your enemies because
the Lord’s not with you. For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, they’ll kill
you by the sword because you turned away from the Lord and as a result of that the Lord will not
go with you.
[Now listen to what it says]
They presumed to go up to the mountain but the ark of
the covenant, nor Moses went with them,”
and they were utterly destroyed
.
(Numbers 14:42-44).
This was right after they rejected the offer to take the land at the right time. God always has a
right time and a wrong time. The right time was when He told them to do it. This is not the right
time. This is them impetuously deciding on their own that they’re going to do it and now it’s the
wrong time. Once this discipline had been pronounced, they had a change of heart. The
discipline was in Numbers 14:29 but the change of heart was a little bit too late. God has perfect
timing for you. There are things in your life that you must fulfill at the right time, doing the right
thing. This is why the protocol plan of God is important. Protocol means a right thing has to be
done in a right way. We learn that faithful people act on time and unfaithful people lose time.
Listen to Psalm 102:3.
“My days vanish like the smoke and my bones burn like glowing embers.”
This is reviewing. In Psalm 102:23,
“In the course of my life He broke my strength and He cut
short my days.”
In Psalm 89:45,
“You’ve cut short the days of his youth and You’ve covered him
with a mantle of shame.”
Then in Proverbs 3:1-2,
“My son, do not forget my teaching but let
your heart keep my mandates; for length of days, and a long life, and peace they will add to
you.”
The principle is you can shorten your life by getting out of the plan of God, getting
out of the will of God, going down the My Way Highway, and doing something impetuously
stupid.
You may have done this already. But if you’re alive, if the dust clears, the smoke settles,
and you’re still alive, God still has a plan for your life. He hasn’t thrown you under the bus. But
you may be under some divine discipline and you may have to wait out this discipline until you
get where you can exercise God’s plan for your life. God has a plan for you and this plan
revolves around the right time, doing the right thing, and you being patient. Now, another trait
that mature believers must have is priority. This means that they’re willing to fulfill God’s plan
for their life and it requires the right priority if you’re going to do this. If you want to fulfill God’s
plan for your life, you must prioritize things like, “Did you look at your watch this morning?” I
mean, you looked at your cell phone, you got your priorities right. Maybe, if you’re going to
church later today, someone’s going to demand that you be there on time and meet them at the
restaurant after, whatever. We all have priorities, everybody, and we give a little small segment of
our time to our Lord, most of us on Sunday mornings, to learn about Him, to grow, to understand
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His plan. I want you to know that it takes more than just on Sunday morning. Just Sunday
morning worship, you’re never going to grow to be a spiritually mature believer if this is all you
do. This is like eating one meal a week, you’re going to starve to death.
1 Peter 3:18 tells us
here’s the first priority you must have, “
Grow in the grace and the knowledge of your Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ.”
The reason I say it’s a priority is because the Greek verb grow is an
imperative mood verb. This means this is a command from God. This is not a request. You are
commanded by God to grow as a Christian. You cannot grow going to church just on Sunday
morning. Most of the time you are going to go through the mechanics of the worship service, the
songs, the announcements, the yada yada yada yada, and if the preacher really gets to teach the
Bible, if he gets to do 30 minutes he’s lucky. Most of the churches I’ve spoken in on Sunday
morning, I don’t even get 30 minutes because of all the other rituals on the program. If you want
to grow, it’s going to take more than 30 minutes a week. You say, “Well, I go on Sunday night
too.” So you get an hour a week. If you went to the first grade and you went for an hour a week,
would you ever get out the first grade? The answer is no. Another thing to prioritize is 2 Timothy
2:15,
“Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed,
rightly dividing the Word of truth.”
Study is another imperative verb, not a request, a mandate.
We’ve had two, grow and study. You can’t grow if you don’t study. What do you study? You
study what the pastor teaches you. You should have a well-qualified pastor that can teach you
God’s Word and you listen, you learn, and you apply. You learn what he teaches you. You write
the notes down. You go over your notes and you apply it into your life. You’re not going to do
this just on 30 minutes on Sunday morning. I recommend to you that you have a routine of
studying every day. I am not talking about a daily devotion. I’m not talking about a ten minute
devotion in the morning. I’m talking about sitting down under a pastor every day, letting him feed
you, and teach you the Word of God. You say, “Who does this?” A lot of men and if you don’t
know where, contact me. I’ll pass the information on to you where you can order their DVDs or
their MP3s, and you can sit in your home with your Bible, a cup of coffee, study and write notes,
and learn right there and that will be a great supplement. I mean, don’t people take supplements?
They have meals and they take supplements. This is a supplement for you, a way to grow.
Matthew 11:29,
“Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me,”
another mandate. Study, grow, learn,
this is not a request. It’s a mandate from the Lord Jesus Christ. What is the number one priority if
we’re talking about prioritizing things? What’s the number one priority in your life besides your
health? Let me give you some principles.
Trouble will come to any Christian who doesn’t
make God’s Word the number one priority in his life.
I remember my wonderful pastor once
said this, “You’re living on borrowed time every time you are not utilizing, not learning, or not
making the Word of God your number one priority in life.”
Also remember that people
emphasis must never take priority over God emphasis.
In other words, which ones are most
important, God’s Word or what your friends want you to do? You have to make sacrifices. You
have to have a routine. You have to say, “I can’t do that, I’ve got to do this. I can do that later.” If
you don’t set priority, if you don’t set routines, Satan will lure you away from studying the Word
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of God. He won’t let you study the Word of God because he doesn’t want you being dangerous.
He likes you being a nobody where you don’t know anything and you can’t have an impact. If he
can keep you like this, that’s what he wants. When you start studying God’s Word under a well-
qualified pastor and you start growing to spiritual maturity, he is going to take note of this and
you’re going to become dangerous because you can begin to replicate the life of Christ. You can
begin to re-present Jesus Christ, that’s the last thing the devil wants. Making the Word of God
priority in your life says nothing comes before learning and applying the Word of God in your
life. You see, you learn by education and you learn by experience. You hear it, you believe it, you
use it, and then it’s part of you, it becomes that way. The Word of God you learn, the Word of
God you understand, is the Word of God you experience when you’re in pressure. The experience
is as much a learning part as the hearing is.
No one can have a personal sense of destiny in
their life if they don’t have the priorities right.
God wants you to have a sense of destiny.
That’s your problem-solving device #6, a personal sense of destiny. If you don’t have your
priorities right, you’re never going to get this right. People ruin their lives. This is another good
principle I want you to hear. Ruined lives are the results of wrong priorities. Satan will
manufacture distractions to eliminate you being an effective witness in the angelic conflict. If
you don’t think he will, you wait until you start wanting to grow. You wait until you start trying
study. You wait until you make it a principle that you say, “All right, I’m going to sit down every
day. I’m going to get the tapes, I’m going to get the DVDs, I’m going to listen, I’m going to
learn, I’m going to apply it,” you watch what happens. You won’t believe the attack you come
under. Everything will be designed to shut you down and not let you ever become a spiritually
mature believer. You have to. Like what Paul said in 2 Timothy 4:7, you must be able to say this
when your time is up on this earth. He said,
“I fought an honorable fight,
[I advanced to spiritual
maturity is what he’s saying]
I’ve completed my course,
[in other words I executed God’s
protocol plan in my life]
I have guarded the doctrine,”
this is his number one priority. Not to let
it be twisted, not to let it be convoluted, not to let it be distorted but to teach the simple truth of
faith alone in Christ alone and not salvation by works, not spirituality by works, salvation by
grace, spirituality by grace. How are you saved? Through faith alone in Christ alone. How do
you live the Christian life? By allowing God’s Holy Spirit to control your life and manifest His
presence in your life with what’s called the fruit of the Spirit and you grow, you understand, and
you replicate Christ. Here are some principles in regard to priority one.
It takes time to learn
God’s Word.
There is no such thing as an overnight, weekend sensation. If you don’t set aside
time for the Word of God in your life, you will never fulfill the destiny He has for you. All this
birdseed, garbage stuff about living your dreams, you can do it, and work hard and succeed at
your dreams and you’ll be happy, that is a lie from the devil himself. Listen, you could not even
imagine what God has for you. What He has for you is so much higher than what you would
have for yourself. What He would like to give you is much greater than what you would want to
get for yourself.
Don’t follow your dreams, follow God’s dreams.
Jeremiah talks about it,
“
If
you want to brag about something you brag you understand Me and you know Me”
(Jeremiah
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9:24).
He didn’t send those people to talk about getting their dreams. God sent men, prophets,
pastors, evangelist to talk about His Word not about you following some dream. Yeah, you want
to be an actor. Yeah, you want to be a celebrity. Yeah, you want to be a pro athlete and you get it.
You earn your way there and you’re miserable, you’re not happy. Oh, but you’re making a lot of
money and you’re just distraught, you’re destroying your life. You followed your dream okay but
it wasn’t what you thought.
Listen, God’s plan for you with His personal sense of destiny is
much greater than any dream you would ever have but if you don’t learn His Word, if you
don’t make an effort, you will never get it, you’ll never understand it.
I mean come on, think
about this. If you don’t have time for God, why would you expect God has time for you? Oh, I
know, you want Him to do your bidding at the time you desire, maybe not the time He
designates. “Let me have it now God.” I can tell you this.
God won’t give where there’s no
capacity and if you don’t have spiritual capacity to handle something, He’s not going to
pour it out on you.
The key for you and me to operate under God’s timetable is found in one key
passage of Scripture. If we don’t do this, we will never figure it out.
1 Peter 5:6-7,
“Humble
yourselves under the mighty hand of God so that He may exalt you in due time,
casting all
your cares on Him because He cares for you.”
Well, humble is the Greek word
tapeinoo
.
Remember I said it’s an imperative mood in those other verbs, this one is too. This is a command,
this is not a request, it’s a command for you to have a humility profile which means you respond
to authority. You’re not arrogant, you respond, you don’t react. If the Lord tells you to do
something, “Yes sir, I’ll do it.” It’s humility and it’s a wonderful thing to have, not trying to
arrogantly go around authority, not trying to arrogantly defy authority, but obeying the authority
of the police officer, of the principal, of the teacher, of your parents even if you might not like it.
If you want to learn what this is about, join the military. Find out what authority is about and
things you may have to do that you don’t like. There have been a lot of wonderful soldiers, men
and women, who died doing things they didn’t like just so you could be free, to do what you
want to do. Do you want to humble yourself? Develop this humility profile, it starts with
authority orientation. Then this says in verse 7,
“Casting all your cares.”
The Greek word
epiripto
is the active voice verb and it means this. You have to make a decision at some time in
your life. Sometime in your life you must decide, “Am I going to let Him run the show or will I
keep running the show?” Well, how’s this working out for you? How are you doing with it?
Married and divorced a few times? In prison, in jail? Recovering from a lot of horrible mistakes,
not working too good? Listen, are you alive? “Yeah.” It’s not too late.
It’s never too late to
orient and adjust to God’s plan. In spite of any mistake I have made in my life in the past,
His grace has always helped me recover.
His grace has always helped me get back to my feet
and keep moving, not lay down, not feel sorry for myself, not have a pity party, get up and keep
moving. He always forgives. He always restores and He will do it for you if you’ll let Him.
Here’s some first principles in the issue of timing.
You must at some point of time in your life
turn the reins over to Him. You have to trust God to do what He wants to do in your life,
not what you want to do. Listen to what the Lord Jesus Christ said in Luke 22:42,
“Not My will
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but Thy will be done.”
What about you? Could you say this? I’ve seen a lot of people that could
not say this because they didn’t have the attitude of humility. They could not orient to the
authority of God’s Word. They had no meekness of personality. Humility is simply orientation to
the Word of God, not being some weak shouldered, wimpy person. It’s orienting to the authority
of the Word of God. Without this, you’ll never be able to surrender control of your life or your
destiny by using the faith-rest drill. This is the process of surrendering, using the faith-rest drill.
You can’t have God’s plan fulfilled without this. You’ve got one priority every day and this is for
you to grow and this can’t be done if you don’t study. You can’t learn if you don’t study. To grow
you have to study, learn, and apply.
I use LAG to remember it: learn, apply, glorify.
The Word
of God has to be cycled. You have to take it from where it becomes
gnosis
or information, to the
Greek word
epignosis
or full information, full knowledge. Once you take the Word of God you
learned and you apply it into your life, it becomes wisdom. You use it in the experience, but the
priority that’s required for this is self-discipline. Without self-discipline, you will never grow
because you’ll never be able to put this, studying God’s Word, priority number one. We all have
got to have priorities. My priority is getting the information my pastor teaches me and to apply it
in my life every day. What’s your priority? Your pastor can give you the knowledge but only you
and God the Holy Spirit can apply the knowledge.
Application of this means that you are
prioritizing God’s Word as a standard of living in your life.
You want to hear something
really amazing? In the Bible there is something called word. The Lord Jesus Christ is called the
Word.
“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was
God”
(John 1:1). Jesus Christ is the
Logos,
the Word, but there’s another translation for word and
it’s called
rhema
.
The difference in these two is that
rhema
traditionally is the written Word
and the
logos
is the living Word. Here’s the most unique thing you’ll ever hear, God’s desire
is to take the
rhema
inside of you and transform you into the
logos,
to transform you into a
Christ-like replica.
Listen to Galatians 2:20 and see if you can figure this out.
“I have been
crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.
[Do you hear that? The
rhema
has become the
logos
]
The life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who
loved me and gave Himself for me.”
You’ve got one objective in time. Grow up, become a
spiritually mature person, and on top of this, to replicate the life of Christ, to be occupied with
Him. This includes personal love for Him, which is your motivational virtue and impersonal love
for others, which is your functional virtue. If you’re occupied with Christ, thinking like Christ,
responding to the authority of the Word of God, replicating the life of Christ, you’re on your way
to being a winner believer. You’re on your way to having the graduation ceremony. When you get
to heaven you’ll hear Him say,
“Well done My good and My faithful servant”
(Matthew 25:21).
This is all God is looking for, a faithful servant. I hope you’re learning. I enjoy giving it to you.
Until next week, this is your host Rick Hughes saying thank you so much for listening to The
FLOT Line
