In this engaging episode, Rick Hughes explores the significance of protocol in the Christian life. From the importance of proper prayer and communion to understanding the unfailing love of God, Rick breaks down complex spiritual concepts into digestible insights. With practical wisdom rooted in scripture, this episode aims to enrich your spiritual journey, deepen your understanding of God, and challenge you to live fully in His grace.
Welcome to the Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now, your host, Rick Hughes.
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Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I am your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, I’d like to invite you to stick around. It won’t be much, just 30 minutes of motivation, some inspiration, some education. But remember that we do this without any type of manipulation. That’s right. We’re not trying to con anybody. We’re not trying to hustle you. We’re not going to ask you to join up, fess up, give up, nothing like that. We’d just like to ask you to listen up as I seek to identify the plan of God for your life. If I can verify and identify that plan, then you have the freedom and the privacy to orient and adjust to the plan. That’s up to you. But this radio show going on 15 years now has been broadcast across this country for quite a while. Currently, we broadcast in 66 major cities this morning as you’re listening to us, and it’s a great opportunity and a great thrill for me to be able to do that. It’s called the FLOT line, F-L-O-T, stands for the Forward Line of Troops, Forward Line of Troops, F-L-O-T, and we’re using a military analogy to show how there are 10 unique problem-solving devices found in the Bible. And if you will learn them and use them, they will act like a main line of resistance in your soul. What does that mean? It means it’ll stop the outside sources of adversity before they ever become the inside source of stress. We all know that adversity is inevitable, but we must understand that stress is optional. Because adversity is unfortunately what circumstances do to you, and stress, well, that’s what we do to ourself. So the Christian life is designed to be stress-free. No worry, no fear, no bitterness, no revenge motivation. That’s not the Christian life. There’s a better way to live, and it’s a way of changing the mind that you think, to change the way that you think. And that’s my objective, to tell you God gave you two ends, one of those ends you sit with and one of those ends you think with. And success in your life is important because if it’s heads you win, it’s tails you lose. You got to learn to think. And that means the Bible says stop thinking in terms of arrogance beyond what you should think. But think in terms of humility as God has given to us a standard of thinking from his word. That’s Romans chapter 12, verse 3. So first of all, let me make some things real clear today as we speak today in this new year of 2021. Is it possible for you to know God but not understand the God that you know? Is that possible? I want to say that again. It’s kind of a tricky word, but listen carefully. Is it possible that you can know God but you don’t understand the God that you know? You know, when we’re talking about spiritual phenomena, there’s only three ways to perceive anything about God. That’s rationalism by rationalizing certain evidence or factors. That’s empiricism. Empiricism is scientific data. So we have rationalism, empiricism, and then we have a Greek word called pisticism. And that’s the word for faith. And the way we come to know God is not by rationalism, It’s not by empirical data, but it’s by pistacism, it’s by faith. So here is the key to understanding God and coming to know God and understand the God you know. First of all, number one, it is through Jesus Christ that we’re given access to God. there’s just simply no other way to come to god you know people say i go to god and sit in the trees and smell the miasmas of the swamp you’re not going to get to god that way and i don’t care how many rocket ships go to mars and how many rocket ships go to the moon you’re not going to get to god that way the only way you can come to god is through faith and it’s through faith in the lord jesus christ he made that plane as he was here on this earth to his disciples And when he said in John 14, 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father but by means of me. So if you would like to know God, if you would like to understand the God you know, the first thing you must come to realize is it’s impossible to know God and understand God apart from knowing Christ as your personal Savior. The disciples were a bit taken back by all of this when Jesus said, I’m the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me. And they questioned Christ, and he said these words. If you had known me, you should have known my Father. And that’s in John 14, 7. And then in John 14, 9, he that has seen me has seen the Father. And John 14, 11, I am in the Father and the Father in me. What the disciples did not realize and had to come to learn and understand later on is that Jesus Christ is God. Jesus Christ is God. He’s God the Father is different than God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. That’s the Trinity. But they’re all co-equal. Jesus Christ is God. And they had to come to understand that. They had to come to realize that. When they’ve seen him, they’ve seen the Father. Listen again, John 14, 9. He that has seen me has seen the Father. That’s what he said. He that has seen me has seen the Father. I am in the Father, and the Father is in me. So coming to know God starts with coming to know Christ because he is, in effect, God. He’s undiminished deity, and he’s true humanity together in one body forever. What do I mean by that? He is what we call the God-man. He’s God, and he’s man in one body forever. As God, he never did use any of his deity to sustain himself while he was on this earth. He certainly did miracles. He did unbelievable things as God, which he could do. But as man, he accepted whatever the limits were put on mankind. So he was just like you and I. He lived like us. He experienced the same things we experienced in his humanity. But in his deity, he is God. You remember that song that said he could have called 10,000 angels to destroy the world and set him free forever? but he died alone for you and me. As God, he could have walked off the cross. As God, he could have stopped all of that, but he allowed it to happen. So please come to understand what Jesus said in John 10, 9. I am the door. and it is by me if any man enters in he will be saved and he should go in and out and find pasture if you wish to have eternal life and you wish to have any relationship with god in the future you must have a relationship with christ now it starts now so in john 10 27 he said my sheep those are believers in the lord jesus christ my sheep hear my voice and i know them and they follow me. And I give unto them eternal life, and they will never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father who gave them to me is greater than all, and no man can pluck them out of my Father’s hand. So first of all, I give unto them eternal life. Only God can give eternal life, and Jesus Christ is God. So he said, I give unto them eternal life. And here’s a guarantee for you and me. They will never perish. and neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. So as the shepherd of the sheep, no one can take you out of the hand of Jesus Christ. But he goes on to say, and my Father who gave you to me, he’s greater than all, and no man’s able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. So you have a double guarantee. Once you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and receive him as your Savior, no man can take that away from you. You will fail. You will sin. You will do horrible things sometimes, even as a believer. But you will always be in the hand of Christ or in the hand of God. No one can take your eternal security away. That’s always a big question. People think, well, I get saved, and I know I’m going to heaven, but I did something bad, and maybe I’m not saved anymore. That’s not true. I don’t know what you may have done, but let me say this to you clearly today. If you have trusted Christ as your savior, if you have put your faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross, if you’re trusting what he did for you, not what you do for yourself, what he did for you, then you have eternal life. Because the Bible says these things are written, he that has the son has life. and he that has not the Son of God has not life. If you have trusted Christ as your Savior, you have eternal life, and you will never lose it. No one will ever take it away from you, I promise you. He said, I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. So here’s where knowing God starts. We must start by knowing Christ. Because we cannot ever know the Father until we know the Son. Please understand that. It’s critical that you do that. You cannot know the Father until, first of all, you know the Son. Now, it’s true that God desires you to understand him. And it’s true that God has a plan for the human race. Listen to what was written in Jeremiah 3, verse 15, concerning your very own pastor in your local church. Here’s what he said. I will give you pastors according to my heart. which will feed you with knowledge and understanding. Did you get that? Feed you with knowledge and understanding. The job of the pastor is not to be the director of the cruise ship to make sure that everybody in the congregation has a wonderful time when they come to church. That’s not the job of the pastor. It’s not the job of the pastor to provide a Lonely Hearts Club for those single members of the congregation. It’s the job of the pastor to teach knowledge and give understanding. However, here’s where the problem enters in. You can have a pastor that’s wonderful teaching knowledge, wonderful teaching you the Bible, but you may not apply what he teaches. Knowledge is the Greek word gnosis, G-N-O-S-I-S, gnosis. And knowledge is information that is understood. But there is another Greek word that goes with it called epinosis, E-P-I-G-N-O-S-I-S. And that word means full knowledge, epi, full, gnosis, knowledge. So what your pastor is doing is trying to give you knowledge of the word of God so that you will believe it and apply it into your life. And if you will do that, it becomes understanding or wisdom. Wisdom is understanding and insight into life. And you cannot live the Christian life without understanding. This is what God desires of you, that you understand him and you know him. Most people who know God don’t understand the God they know. So the first thing that I’m trying to get you to understand is you cannot get to God without going through Jesus Christ, his anointed son. That’s the first thing. If you want to have a relationship with God, it starts with knowing Christ Jesus as your savior. Secondly, we must understand that he is a God of protocol. which means that our God expects a right thing to be done in a right way. Most people don’t like protocol. They don’t like to follow protocol, especially in the age of social media. For example, if the president walked into the room, whoever the president might be, You wouldn’t say, hey, Donald, or hey, Joe. You would say, Mr. President. That’s protocol. You’d follow protocol. Protocol means the right thing has to be done in the right way. Well, the Christian life requires protocol. You cannot make up the rules as you go along, and this is what happens when you get too emotional about it. If you get emotional, you think that you are pleasing God because you get misled into thinking since you got high that God is near and God must have touched you because you felt something. That’s not what we’re talking about. Understanding protocol means this. When you take communion, for example, I know you’ve taken communion in your local church. The Bible very clearly says if we take communion out of fellowship, we’re drinking and eating judgment upon ourself. The Bible, Paul teaches that in 1 Corinthians chapter 11. You cannot afford to take communion with unconfessed sin in your life. So any pastor worth his salt when he gives communion would warn the congregation before we take this communion, let’s have a moment of silent prayer. And if there’s sin in your life, then do what 1 John 1 says, confess the sin to God. and he will be faithful and just to forgive you. Because taking communion out of fellowship is a violation of the protocol plan of God. And Paul said in that passage in 1 Corinthians 11, it’s because of this that many are weak, many are sick, and many are dead. You must understand, you cannot misrepresent God in communion. And when you put that piece of bread in your mouth, that’s the body of Christ that you’re putting in your mouth. You’re representing the body of Christ, his hypostatic union, his impeccability, his virgin birth, his undiminished deity. And when you take that cup and sip that cup, then you’re remembering his work on the cross, his redemption, his reconciliation, his propitiation. You’re remembering these critical doctrines that your pastor must teach you so that it doesn’t become just a ritual with no reality to it. The communion requires protocol. Giving requires protocol. Prayer requires protocol. You know, some people say, well, I’m praying for you. Well, good. I hope you know how to pray the right way. Because if you’re not praying in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and praying to the Father and praying under the power and the influence of the Holy Spirit, your prayers are not going to go any higher than the ceiling. that’s right the bible says if i regard iniquity in my heart the lord will not hear me so if you have unconfessed sin in your life and you’re trying to pray it’s not going to go anywhere i’ll give you a perfect illustration that i’ve used many times but if you hate somebody you hate them you can’t stand them and you can’t forgive them every time you see them your feathers get ruffled and the hair on the back of your neck stands up and you hate them and then all of a sudden, here you go to church and you’re giving some money and you’re singing in the choir and you see that person sitting in the audience and your mind is bitter and antagonistic and you’re not doing any good. You’re not glorifying God because you have unconfessed sin in your life. You haven’t been able to forgive and this is what the Lord taught in John chapter 13. If I forgive you, you need to forgive one another. And so people don’t understand that the Christian life requires protocol. I didn’t understand it. It took me a long time to learn it. It took me a long time and a well-qualified pastor to teach it to me that there must be protocol. So when I pray, I must be filled with the Holy Spirit if I expect answers. And the Bible says in Ephesians 5.18, be filled with the Spirit. That’s a mandate from God. If I give, I need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. When I give, if I expect that gift to be credited to my account. When you can do the right thing in the wrong way, it’s still wrong. It doesn’t glorify God just because you did it. What glorifies God is if you do the right thing in the right way. And that’s important. So if you need to understand this about God, you may know him, but you might not understand that he’s a God of protocol and he requires you to do the right thing in the right way. Please. So if you’re going to pray, first of all, ask God to cleanse you of any known sin in your life. 1 John 1, 9 is the rebound technique, and that is the wonderful first problem-solving device that we have, rebound, problem-solving device number one. If we confess our sin, he’s faithful and just to forgive us. That’s protocol in prayer, and the same thing in communion, and the same thing in worship. If you go into church and you expect God to speak to you through the ministry of the pastor, you must make sure you’re in fellowship. If you’re sitting in the congregation with a Bible in your lap and you’re full of mental attitude sins, you’re not going to get anything. You may hear what he says, but you’re not going to be able to apply it. It’s not going to become spiritual phenomena in your life because you’ve quenched and grieved the Holy Spirit. When you’ve been warned in the Bible, do not grieve the Holy Spirit. You’ve been warned in the Bible, don’t quench the Holy Spirit. Mandates from the Word of God. But yet, you did it anyhow because you committed sin and didn’t deal with the sin. If you want to worship God, if you want to serve God, if you want to know God, you must deal with your sin. Yes, Christ paid for your sins on the cross, but your sins in time will separate you from fellowship with God. When you sin, it doesn’t mean you’re gonna, if you died and you sin, it doesn’t mean you’re gonna go to hell. I’m not saying that. What I’m telling you is when you sin, you quench the Holy Spirit’s ministry. When you sin, you grieve the Holy Spirit. Without the ministry of the Holy Spirit, as the Lord Jesus Christ taught the disciples in John 14, you can’t worship God. And so you have to be filled with the Holy Spirit. The only way to do that is to make sure that you rebound when you know you’ve sinned. That’s protocol. The third thing we need to understand if we want to understand God is that his love is unfailing. God’s love is unfailing and it’s demonstrated by his abundant grace provisions. This is seen in Jeremiah 9, 23, the unfailing love of God. God will never turn his back on you. You may turn your back on God, but God will love you from behind. Maybe you walked away from a relationship with God because you got mad about something. You got angry about the way somebody in that church treated you. Someone said something about you and you didn’t like it. And rather than just hitting them in the mouth, you decided to leave. And now you’re bitter. That’s terrible. That’s a horrible sin in your life. And God hadn’t abandoned you. He hasn’t turned his back on you because you walked away from him. He still loves you. He gave you eternal life. He’s not going to take it back. And he’s waiting to give you abundant freedom and abundant happiness in your life because if you would just simply learn his plan. I can’t tell you how many frustrated people I meet in my life, people that are angry, people that are frustrated, people that are bitter, that will not learn the plan of God. They won’t take time. They’re so wrapped up in human viewpoint and emotion that they never take time to realize there’s a better way to live. They don’t trust it. They don’t trust what’s in the Bible. They don’t even believe the Bible, and that’s a shame. and some of them may in fact actually be a Christian. They may have accepted Christ at one time in their life, and yet over the period of years, they walked away from the church, they walked away from God, they walked away from that relationship, but God still loves them, and God still loves you. His love is unfailing, demonstrated by all of his wonderful grace provisions. He keeps you alive. He gives you oxygen. He gives you food. In Matthew 6, if you read that, you’ll see what all God will provide for you. He’ll make sure that you have what you need to survive. Here’s the fourth concept I want you to remember. As a New Testament Christian, you are now a member of the body of Christ called the church. You’re not part of the Old Testament family. You’re not part of ritual Israel, but you’re part of the New Testament family. And it’s the reality of Jesus Christ living inside of you. As a member of the body of Christ, Christ lives in you. That just amazed me after I accepted Christ as my Savior, that he lives in me. Listen to 1 Corinthians 3.16. Don’t you know that you are the temple of God? and the spirit of God dwells in you. In the Old Testament, that temple is where they went to worship God. And now, the temple is in you. The Shekinah glory that indwelled in the temple was Christ himself. And now Christ indwells you. You are God’s personal representative, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, indwelt by the Lord Jesus Christ, and indwelt even by God the Father. You are the temple of God. Think about that. This is why Satan so actively seeks to prevent you from learning anything. This is why Satan doesn’t want you to understand the God that you know, and he will do anything in his power to keep you from learning it. I run into people all the time that say, I’m hungry to learn the Bible. And so we’ll get them started and get them studying. And next thing I know, they’re off in the toolies. They go down the my way highway because they’re easily distracted. Satan can distract you so easy because it’s quite frankly, it’s a chore to learn God’s word. That’s why the Bible says, study to show yourself approved unto God. A workman at need of not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. You can be ashamed at the judgment seat of Christ, realizing you blew the greatest opportunity the world had ever known to have a wonderful life because you were too stubborn and too arrogant to do what the Bible said. Grow in the grace and the knowledge of your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Study, grow are both verbs. They’re both mandates, and they’re not a request. They’re a commandment. That’s why the Lord Jesus Christ said, take my yoke on you and learn of me. My yoke is easy and my burden is light. Study, grow, learn. These are all mandates for us. And if we don’t do that, then we never come to understand the God that saved us, the God that we may in fact know but not understand his plan and go through life missing out on so much. Fifth, without the power of the Holy Spirit and without the guidance of the living word of God, you and I are incapable of executing God’s plan for our life. The Bible says the word of God is alive and powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword. Without understanding the Bible, God’s playbook for us, God’s plan for us, without being filled with the Holy Spirit, it’s impossible to execute God’s plan. You can’t make up the rules as you go along. You have to follow the rules. So number six, a Christian must learn God’s plan if he ever wants to please him. And God’s plan is, as I told you, grow in the grace and the knowledge of your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of God, the truth of God. This is why you have a pastor. That’s his job, to make sure you get the information. And your job is to make sure you learn it and apply it into your life and follow the protocol plan of God. Number seven, God will be the final judge of our task. Did we or did we not do the job? Or did we just play the game? That’s a question I have to ask you as we wrap it up today. Are you just playing the game of Christian? Yes, you’re a member at your church. Yes, you’re faithful to go. Yes, you give money. Yes, you sing in the choir. Yes, you do this. Yes, you do that. Do you execute the plan of God faithfully? Do you know it? Do you understand it? Or are you just going through the ritual with no reality to it? Listen to what Ezekiel said about people like this. Ezekiel 33, 31. And they come unto thee as the people come, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them. For with their mouth they show much love, but with their heart they go after their own covetousness. Covetousness is the Hebrew word betzah, which means gain or profit. And this means negative volition. They don’t cycle what’s taught to them. They don’t turn gnosis into epinosis. And they don’t turn epinosis into wisdom. And they don’t get the understanding and the insight that God intended. God intends for you to have insight and understanding into what’s going on in this world, into Satan’s plan and policy. And without the wisdom from the word of God, you cannot ever have it. Gee, I hope you’re listening. Gee, I hope you’re learning these things. It’s critical for you to understand this if you’re going to glorify God to the maximum in your life. I hope I’ve challenged you, and I hope you’ll come back next Sunday, same time, same place, same station, and listen to me again. And I hope you’ll check out our podcast anywhere on Apple iPod or Spotify. Just look for The Flotline. We’ve got almost 100,000 listeners now, and I hope you’ll go check it out. Until next week, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flotline.
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Thank you for listening to The Floodline with your host, Rick Hughes. If you’d like to contact Rick, please write to him at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054, or online at www.rickhughesministries.org.
