#SundayWorshipService
October 8th, 2023
Topic: THE LEARNERS AND THE LISTENERS
Text: Hebrews 5:12–14; 6:1-2; Romans 15:4; Revelation 3:20
Minister: Dr. Daniel Olukoya (G.O. MFM Worldwide)
Anything that has life grows. Consequently, anything that grows must be fed, and the way to feed is to learn and to listen.
In our Christian lives, it is important and critical that we grow spiritually. We must grow. Whatever happens, you must grow. It is either you grow or you die. You must grow. You must grow from one level to another.
So it is a tragedy if a Christian life is stagnant. You are still where you were 2, 3, or 5 years ago. Many come to church, but they do not grow, and because they are not growing, they are not getting the best from the throne of grace.
In our spiritual lives as Christians, it is important, critical, and essential that we must grow. The enemy coming against you must know that it is not the same person they confronted last year that they are confronting this year.
So because of that need to grow, it is important that you are fed the right food and the right nutrients. If you are not eating the right food and nutrients, you cannot grow. And how do you do that? You learn and listen. You do not come to church and switch off your ears.
You do not come to church without a Bible. A phone is not a Bible. A Bible is a Bible. You do not come to church with nothing to write on at all. Those who want to learn and listen do not behave like that.
The problems confronting many people are not going down. The enemies fighting you are also trying to improve themselves. So it is essential that you improve yourself and grow.
What is the destiny of a Christian? The destiny of the Christian:
– Is not to make money.
– Is not to build houses and buy cars.
– Is not to just be promoted.
The destiny of the Christian is to conform to the image of Christ. Beyond all the dreams, aspirations, and ambitions you may have about your life, your greatest objective is to conform to the image of Christ. That is, if you are smaller than that image, you gain enough to fill it. If you are bigger than it, you slim down to fit into it. But you must conform to that image of Christ.
So the important questions we should ask ourselves every day are:
– do I look like Jesus Christ?
– Do people see Christ in me?
– Do people recognise me as a child of God?
– Do I bring Jesus into where I am?
– Do I advertise Jesus?
– Will people look at me and say “Well, I will follow you to your church”?
– Will Jesus have done this thing I want to do? If Jesus cannot do it, let me not do it.
This is what we mean by conforming to His image. God is more interested in making us conform to His image than solving our problems, because once you conform to His image, the majority of the problems you are complaining about are gone. Because He says, “Seek you FIRST the kingdom of God and His righteousness….”
Get that one first. All other things are automatic additions for you. The Psalmist said, “I was young; now I am old; I have never seen the righteous being forsaken or his children begging bread.”
So what we should pursue is that kingdom and His righteousness. If you come to the church all the time with the mentality of “God give me, solve my problem,” heaven looks at you as a baby. If that is the mentality you bring all the time, He will not help you. What He wants is for you to seek that kingdom. Get it. You will not even need to pray for other things; they will just come to you.
Once you conform to His image, certain things cannot come into your life anymore. If they do, they are writing courier letters to instant death.
===> I am praying for somebody here today: the power to conform to that image of Christ, receive it! In the name of Jesus.
In Hebrews 5, look at the lamentations of the scriptures in verse 12.
Hebrews 5:12–14 (KJV): “For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.”
Two kinds of spiritual foods are mentioned here:
One is milk. Milk is for spiritual babies.
– Those who do not study the Bible by themselves.
– They find it difficult to search the scriptures.
– They cannot look at the Bible, read it, meditate on it, and memorise it.
– They behave like babies. A baby fed with milk beyond a particular age cannot grow. It gets to a point where the baby needs solid food. The majority of churchgoers can be classified as babies. In fact, in some situations, some are less than that, and so they keep the pastors busy settling quarrels. They are still doing all those simple primary school things that they have been told not to do. It shows that they are spiritual babies. You are staying with your wife in your house, and for three months you have not talked to each other. You are both babies.
The second type of food mentioned in Hebrews 5 is solid food. This type of food is for mature Christians.
– those who are able to handle the scriptures.
– Those who take the Bible as their stand.
– They are able to read the Bible and gain something from it.
– They are able to discern the word of God.
The reason that there are many false prophets deceiving people is because there are plenty of spiritual babies all around that can be moved here and there. Spiritual babies are only interested in things that can benefit them in this life.
They are not interested in what will make them grow into the image of Christ. That is why, when people begin to talk about miracles, signs, and wonders, and making money, many people are interested.
If you put a banner outside now and it says “come and experience signs and wonders”, and you put a second banner that says “heavenly bound Christians”, where you will find the crowd is where the signs and wonders banner is.
That is telling us that we are mostly babies. In fact, there are certain things in the Bible that the Bible calls “foundational doctrines” that every believer must even know to grow. If you check these foundational doctrines and you find one that is not clear to you, you must go and understand it.
In the same book of Hebrews, verse 1 tells us something.
Hebrews 6:1 (KJV): “Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God,”
Hebrews 6:2 (KJV): “Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.”
It is telling us to get out of primary school and grow higher. ‘The foundation’ is like primary one in the school of Christian growth. They are still preaching repentance to you? You are still in primary school. They are still preaching baptism in water, baptism of the Holy Spirit, or baptism of fire to you? You are still in primary school.
These six foundational doctrines in that scripture must be clear to you as a believer:
1. Repentance from dead works.
2. Faith in God.
3. The doctrine of baptisms
4. Laying on of hands.
5. Resurrection of the dead.
6. Eternal judgement
These are essential things for us, and I want you to understand that we need to grow from being little children to what the Bible calls “young men” and later to what it calls ‘fathers’ (spiritual adults).
Romans 15:4 (KJV) says: “For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.”
We are supposed to be learners. There are five kinds of learners.
1. Those who are aware: That is, they merely recognise the presence or existence of something. They know it exists. They are not able to recall, interpret, or utilise the information. Someone now may be aware that there is a difference between heaven and hell but has no further information. Many people are aware now. But there are people who see visions. There are people who have revelations from God. There are people who hear from God. They are aware. They do not have experience.
2. Those who can recall. They can recall information, but they lack the ability to understand or interpret the meaning. It was like our primary school in those days. I got to primary six before I could understand the song (H.I.P… Hippopotamus!) they were teaching us in primary one.
3. Those who are at understanding level. At this level, the person is able to develop insight into the use of certain things. The person now begins to know that something can prosper his life. He realises that if he memorises scriptures, some things can happen in his life. He is now beginning to understand.
Jesus was walking with those men on the way to Emmaus, and they were lamenting about how Jesus was killed to Him. And Jesus said, “What are you talking about?” And they said, “Are you a stranger in Israel? You did not know what happened to Jesus and how He was killed?” He then faced them and said, “O slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken; did you read that those things will happen to Him?” Later, their understanding was opened, but by that time, Jesus had disappeared.
4. Those at the conviction level. They are now convinced. They are developing skills and commitment regarding what they have learned. They understand prayer, but at the conviction level, they determine the role prayer plays in their lives. They are now convinced that something can help them.
5. Those at the application level. You now begin to apply what you have learned. You develop skills from what you have learned.
You see, if you see a verse of scriptures,
– At the awareness level, you are aware that the verse exists.
– At the recall level, you learn to tell it in your own words and repeat it.
– At the understanding level, you try to describe and explain it in your own words.
-At the conviction level, you determine that the meaning of that scripture is important to your life.
– At the application level, you act and put the meaning of that passage into practice in your life.
The question is this: are you a learner? Are you learning what you should learn? Are you growing the way you should grow? Oh, you come to church and you hear the word of God: What do you do with it? Because eventually, at the end of the day, one major question everyone will answer when we leave this place is: What did you do with Jesus? What did you do with the Jesus that you received?
Now there are two kinds of listeners (Rev. 3:20).
Revelation 3:20 (KJV): “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”
Not only should you be a learner, you should also be a listener. Jesus said, “If you hear my voice and open to me.”
The two kinds of listeners are:
1. Weak listener
2. Aggressive listener.
Who is a weak listener? A person who does not come to God to hear a decision from God. He comes to church for Bible study, but he never gives a second thought to everything he hears. He is just passive; he is not involved in the learning process. But God wants us to be the second kind of listeners. It is when you get to the level of being an aggressive listener that you begin to become God’s favourite person—Jehovah’s darling.
Who is an aggressive listener? He seeks to diligently hear what God is saying. He comes to church with his Bible open and his pen ready. During Bible study, his mind and ears are inquisitive; he wants to learn more. He is always probing, searching, and comparing what he hears with previous data he has accumulated. He wants to be sensitive to what God is saying. He thinks constantly about how he can apply what he hears to his life. He thinks constantly about how the messages he hears will be beneficial to him. He is one of the Berean Christians (Acts 17) who searched the word of God to see whether what they heard was the same as the Bible.
When we fail to find a way of listening to God, when you are behaving in such a way that if God speaks to you, you will not hear, when He is talking to you and you cannot hear, then He will use different methods to get your attention. He can decide to initiate trouble to get your attention.
I remember my daddy who used to be in the police force. But he was a gifted person spiritually. I kept telling him, “Daddy, leave this police work and go and work for God,” but he would look at me and say, “You are a small boy. If I leave this work, who will send you to school? I cannot go to one place and be depending on tithes and offerings”. So he remained in the police work. God kept talking to him, but he was not listening.
Then something happened one day. My daddy arrested a stolen trailer of stock fish. He was working in Port Harcourt at the time. Some people stole a trailer of stockfish and were driving it to Aba, and he arrested them. They drove the trailer back to the police station, parked it at the front of the police station, and my daddy locked up the suspects. The key to the trailer was with my daddy. But the next morning, when they woke up, the trailer parked at the front of the station had disappeared.
So the DPO said to my daddy “Mr. Man, you are the one with the key; the people you arrested are in the cell; if not for the fact that you preach here in the station, I would have locked you up in the cell.”
My daddy replied, “Well, I need to go and pray.” The man said, “Okay, I give you 3 days to go and do the prayer. If after 3 days it is still not found, you are the suspect”. That is how my daddy started three days of dry fasting that he had not done in a long time. He did day 1 and day 2, and on day 3, the Lord appeared to him and asked, “Do you still want to do police work? Or you want to do what I have asked you to do? If you do not comply, I will create a greater problem.” My father said “I will leave”. By next morning, they found the trailer again. So because he was not listening, something was stopped to make him listen. This is where we are going to stop for today. We continue next time.
PRAYER POINTS.
1. Every incantation speaking against my head, backfire! In the name of Jesus.
2. Sickness unto death; I am not your candidate; die! In the name of Jesus.
3. O God of Esther, destroy satanic judgement assigned against my life, in the name of Jesus.
4. Holy Ghost Fire, paralyse the backbone of my challengers beyond recognition and regrouping! In the name of Jesus.
5. Powers saying ‘NO’ to my shining, you are liars: die! In the name of Jesus.
6. Where is the Lord God of Elijah? Arise, command laughter into my life! In the name of Jesus.
7. Every gathering of witchcraft, cooking my name, scatter by fire! In the name of Jesus.
8. Dark powers, standing between me and my testimonies, die! In the name of Jesus.
(Begin to tell the Lord what you want Him to do for you before the end of the 70 days prayer programme.)
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