Sermon Study Guides

Print Preview

Good news! You don’t have to face the future alone. God wants to be your personal guidance counsellor through the Holy Spirit. Receiving His guidance requires that you lean into Him daily by faith and keep your heart and life open to Him and His direction. If your relationship with God is distant or lukewarm, you will miss God's very best for you.

Your thoughts, leadings, or promptings come from one of three sources:

(1) Directly from God, or from God through other people (as God spoke through Peter in Matt. 16:16-17).
(2) Directly from Satan, or from Satan through other people (as Satan spoke through Peter in Matt. 16:22-23).
(3) From your own thoughts and desires.

How do you test whether a leading or prompting is from God the Spirit?

1. Does it align with the clear teaching of Scripture? Any leading or prompting that encourages you to violate the clear teaching of the Bible, or to compromise your integrity or morality, or to distort or water down the truth is not God’s voice. He won’t contradict Himself. Satan will tempt you to justify sin, to rationalize, to water down or ignore truth, to take shortcuts, and to question God’s Word.

The key to recognizing the lies and deceptions of Satan is to be reading, meditating and studying the Scriptures on a daily basis by YOURSELF and WITH OTHERS and regularly listening to the teaching of God's Word in worship services. Read and reflect on what God clearly says in HIs written WORD. Be humble enough to repent and align your life with the truth of God's Word through the power of the Holy Spirit. Daily reading and meditating on Scripture is the primary way we listen to God.

2. Does it align with the SPIRIT of Christ? Is this something Jesus would do or encourage you to do? Ask the Holy Spirit to examine your heart to see whether you reflect the Spirit of Christ. If your heart is not in the right place with Christ, you risk being a voice-piece of Satan rather than of God. If your heart motivation is fueled by selfish ambition, then your leading will not be from God because God won’t lead you when your heart is filled with pride, envy and selfish ambition.

3. Does it align with the way God made you? The Spirit generally leads you in the direction of your gifts, talents, and even financial resources.

4. Does it require you to dishonour basic vital commitments to your church, your family or your job? A leading or whisper from God may create some unrest and confusion for a time while you are sorting out the implications, but it will always leave you with the peace of God. If anxiety and confusion persist, then something isn’t right either with the decision you made or with your willingness to surrender to what God has called you to do.

Don’t turn a deaf ear to the Holy Spirit. Don’t fear the Holy Spirit. Don’t try to keep the Holy Spirit at a safe, comfortable distance. He is your friend, your counsellor, your guide and your source of strength and power. He has your best interest at heart.

Live each day with a deep conviction that Holy Spirit is at work in the lives of those around you and that He wants to impact these lives for Christ through you if you will just BE ALERT to Him and His voice and available to be used by Him throughout your day when He prompts you to do so.

Study Questions

IN - PURSUE RELATIONSHIP

Tell of a time when you were lost. How did it feel? How did you get unlost?
Share a time when the Holy Spirit guided you. What steps did you take to hear and discern His voice?

UP - PURSUE GOD

Read Matt 16:13-23. Identify the sources of the three voices used in Peter’s responses, and the consequences of listening to each (then and now). How may Isaiah 55:8-9, 1 John 4:1 and 2 Tim 3:16-17 help us in discerning which voice is speaking to us?
Read 2 Tim 3:16-17, John 10:10, 1 Cor 14:33a and James 3:14-17. Why is it important that leadings align with the Scriptures and with the heart of Christ?

OUT - PURSUE MISSION

Consider the three voices that you may hear. Which of these do you find yourself listening to? Why is it sometimes hard to hear God’s voice and discern His leading? Where may you be quenching the Spirit?
Spend 5 minutes in silence asking God, "What are you leading us to do as a group this year? Whom do you want us to reach and bless?" Share with the group and test what you heard. Do the same, this time asking God where He is leading you this year.

Personal Reflection

Slowly read Colossians 3:12-17. Pray, asking that God would speak to you through these verses. Wait for God to speak. What did He say? Filter that through the four tests you have learned. If you still believe that God spoke, what are you going to do about it?

The Word (NIV)

Matthew 16:13–23 - When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”

¹⁴ They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

¹⁵ “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

¹⁶ Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

¹⁷ Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. ¹⁸ And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. ¹⁹ I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” ²⁰ Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

²¹ From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

²² Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”

²³ Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

John 10:10 - The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

Isaiah 55:8–9 - “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. ⁹ “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

1 John 4:1 - Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

2 Timothy 3:16–17 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, ¹⁷ so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

James 3:14–17 But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. ¹⁵ Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. ¹⁶ For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. ¹⁷ But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.

1 Corinthians 14:33a - For God is not a God of disorder but of peace.

This Week's Writers: Elsa Henderson, David McMillin, Jorel Quemuel, Bruce McKay, Karen and Gene Gibbs