July 19th, 2009
About this sermon
In this message, Dean Odle teaches that walking in the Spirit requires surrendering personal preference to Jesus’ lordship and learning to recognize the Holy Spirit’s direction. He connects costly discipleship, repentance, ministry calling, and the book of Acts, showing how God may redirect even a biblically valid plan through dreams, visions, spiritual gifts, and providential guidance.
Chronological teaching outline
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Odle resumes teaching on the contrast between self-directed living and decisions governed by the Holy Spirit. Questions about vocation, church, residence, and service make the contrast concrete: the Spirit’s leadership reaches ordinary decisions.
Jesus’ hard sayings about family, possessions, and the cross are presented as a demand that love for Christ outrank every competing loyalty. Luke 14 is explained as comparative loyalty rather than malice toward family, and confession and forsaking of sin remain possible because of the cross.
Odle explains that obedience often passes through repeated difficulty before promised fruit appears, so believers must not abandon a genuine calling. Mark 10’s promise of multiplied return comes after leaving and suffering, so he cautions against judging God’s direction before the test is complete.
Paul’s missionary journey in Acts illustrates that a general command to preach does not eliminate the need for specific guidance about timing and place. Acts 16 shows Paul forbidden to preach in some regions before the Macedonian vision directs him to the appointed field.
The sermon distinguishes open and closed visions and surveys gifts through which the Holy Spirit equips and directs the church. He also classifies gifts that reveal, speak, or act, stressing that each operation begins with the Spirit rather than human technique.
Personal examples show that healing, faith, and inspired speech are intended to help people and testify about Jesus, not to exalt the minister. A grocery-store encounter illustrates how a simple conversation about Jesus can become the setting for supernatural help and witness.
Odle recounts ministry setbacks and uses Paul’s testimony to encourage perseverance when visible results or relationships change. Paul’s remembrance as a pattern of mercy anchors hope in Christ’s patience rather than in an uninterrupted record of visible success.
He prays for believers to be filled with the Spirit and expresses confidence that long faithfulness will bear fruit in God’s timing. The counsel is practical: do not make an impulsive escape when obedience becomes hard, because difficulty alone does not prove a direction was wrong.
The congregation prays for individuals, cleansing, healing, calling, and a deeper work of the Holy Spirit. Specific prayers address cleansing by Jesus’ blood, healing, family burdens, and fresh anointing for those who come forward.
The service closes by urging persistent, unashamed hunger for the baptism and gifts of the Holy Spirit. One testimony about seeking prayer for years reinforces the final point that some gifts of God are received through continued hunger rather than casual interest.
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Lightly edited for readability while preserving the speaker’s meaning and substantive statements.
- 0:00:00
We don't want to be like the rest of this world law. We want our minds purifying our hearts purifying Now we want to be real Christians Lord not some halfway hypocrites law. We want to be real God we want to be able to walk in love and in firmness and We want to be able to have compassion on those who need compassion and other savings fear pulling them out of the fire Whatever it takes Lord. We want to have the word in due season We want to have a a life Lord that they see Your glory and your power and your presence they see the peace in the midst of a terrible storm They see faith when it seems like you're far away Lord when They need to see that there's power to drive out the the demonic powers They need to see that there's healing for those that have been abused and hurt That you haven't changed Jesus you came to heal the brokenhearted Set at Liberty those that are bruised you came Lord preach deliverance to the captives Recovering of sight to the blind you came to save people out of darkness from the power of Satan to the power of Jesus Lord we just ask you Lord Wear your body on this earth where your hands your feet your eyes your mouth Your heart down here Lord We just want to do what you want us to do help us get free from The junk in the world. It's only temporary anyway in ourselves to you father. We pray this this morning Help us open our eyes to selfishness and pride When we do what we want to do instead of what you want to show us rebellion show us where we fear man We fear what people think instead of doing the right thing Would help us get free from ourselves, and I just can't hardly stop praying this man
- 0:03:17
Let's just pray another minute. Thank you Jesus We yield to you Lord we yield to the Holy Spirit Lord if you want to speak the Lord we receive that word right there that That prophecy that you you want us to surrender and you will To the surrendered heart to the surrendered life you will show yourself strong You will do great things Through the life that is surrendered to you through the life that hates sin like you hate it Through the life that's willing to lay down Its own will to do your will You will do great things Thank you Jesus. Thank you Jesus Thank you Jesus. Well. This is one of those mornings that The Lord would not release me to the message to what he wanted me to preach or teach until we got here matter of fact I felt like He wouldn't release me on it until we got through praise and worship For some reason sometimes he does that sometimes I know days in advance sometimes. I know the night before sometimes I know the morning of and sometimes I don't even know when I step up here, but Today, I think the Lord's made it very clear, and it does kind of fall in line with what we are What we've been discussing about being led by the Spirit, but I want you to turn to Luke chapter 14 Because I need to talk about something this morning that I when it comes to being led by the Holy Spirit that You know I think we covered the attitude of sin last week didn't we the attitude you should have towards sin and what God thinks About I think we covered that pretty thoroughly But there's another sin you know there's the overt sins you know that we talked about last week like fornication or adultery or witchcraft or drunkenness and we talked about and we went through Ephesians 5 and Galatians 5 and Talked about what it means to walk in the in the flesh or versus walking in the spirit and that somebody that's Walking in the spirits going to be led by the spirit, and they're going to mortify or kill the deeds of the body they're going to get the body under control and It's not that they'll ever be a Sinless Christian, but as I've said many times in the past sin should be the exception in the life of a Christian and not the rule if something's ruling you then you need to get freedom over it and
- 0:06:19
There is freedom in Jesus Amen That's the good thing you don't have to be bound in something that you have to do all the time that you know is Is evil or wrong you can be set free from it? But there's another sin that Christians commit Left and right when it comes to being led by the Spirit and that is It's not just Getting the sins of the flesh out of your life that you've got to deal with But the next thing you've got to deal with is you've got to find the will of God for your life And there's so many Christians that think that it stops with maybe just becoming moral But no God has a plan for your life He has a plan for me and there's nowhere that it's written in the Bible You know Dean go to Auburn, Alabama and start a church right that's not written in there So how did I have how did I find out that that was God's will and direction for my life? And over the years many different things that God has spoken and that's what we're going to talk about a little bit about finding The will of God, but I'm going to show you something Finding the will of God for you for your own life Is not optional. I mean, it's not something you get to do or not do God expects you to seek him enough to get close to him enough until you hear from him and learn to hear from him and Know what he wants that you to do in given situations Whether it be the the calling ministry calling or how God wants you to serve in church or even where you should go to church What you should do with your money if you should go to school if you shouldn't go to school I mean if you should move if you shouldn't move God has a he has a big plan and then he has the little steps along The way to get you there and guess what the grace of God and the mercy of God is that he's calculated in sometimes Knowing ahead of time where you would blow it and he's even calculated in sometimes where that you can actually blow it But then he can get you back on course and you cannot miss your destiny But there are times and seasons that if God is wanting you to do something and you miss it right then It's gone forever. I mean, this is a serious thing about finding the will of God This is why I'm we're gonna read some Scriptures on this about you know They're gonna be people who say Lord when they stand before Jesus on judgment day And they're gonna say Lord we prophesied in your name and in your name We cast out demons and we did many wonderful works and he says he will say depart from me You workers of iniquity or lawlessness I never knew you and then he says in that and that's this is in Matthew 7 But then he says that many will say to me Lord and that they haven't you know We haven't we done these things he says not all those who called me Lord Lord is going to enter the kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of my father Now I want to say last week. We covered the will of God that's written if you won't do it's already written in the book
- 0:09:22
You can forget hearing about your calling your destiny the direction in your life. You can forget about it God wants people who will first put the word of God first the written word first if God says don't live in fornication Then guess what that's the will of God for you if God says don't be a drunkard That's the will of God for you So we I think we established that pretty clearly but then there's the things of you know Like I said about who you're gonna marry About where you're gonna live about where you're gonna go to church about what am I called to do in the kingdom of God? Besides the normal things of having a prayer life and going to church, but what am I gonna do? What is my calling and gift? How did I figure out that God had called me to be a pastor and a church planner or in the prophetic ministry? How did I know those things and I want to say this is that you can know you can find out I found out Very early on I found out at 19 years old It's not a matter of how old you are how young you are. It's how surrendered you are It's how much you're willing to say God. I don't want my will anymore. I'll give up my whole life To find out what you want me to do and I'll do whatever it is That's true Christianity and until you make that great exchange You may believe in Jesus, but you have not become a follower of Jesus There's a big difference You have to be willing to leave the sins of the flesh and the lust of the world But you also have to be willing to die to your flesh to die to yourself and do the will of God For your life and that this is so serious. So I told you to turn to Luke and once I want you to see this So you'll see that it's not optional Luke and I didn't turn there I guess everybody turned there, but I didn't turn there yet. I get to talking I guess that's what preachers do we get to talking don't we Luke 14 and I'm doing this by memory. So I hope we I hope I'm turning to the right place Yes, here we go This this is not preached in churches too often right here Verse 25 and there went great multitudes with him and he turned and said unto them if any man come to me and Hate not his father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters yay in his own life Also, he cannot be my disciple Now, of course, Jesus is not talking about hatred in the sense of wanting ill will but he's talking about if you don't love me So much more than even you love your family your wife your children your own life You cannot be his disciple. Did I make that up? See this this we don't like to talk about Jesus said you got to give up your own life your own plans your own destiny Find out what I want for you guess what sometimes they might be the same thing
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