Your Hidden Word from God

Carter Conlon. I say it's time that we take that hidden Word of God and bury it deep inside of our hearts. That hidden Word of God, that whisper that nobody but you knows it.

That's Carter Conlon from Times Square Church in New York City. Welcome to A Call to the Nation. You can become the fulfillment of the scripture that says in Psalm 119.11, your word I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you. It's like missing the mark, ending up short of the goal that God has designed for your life. That's why it's so important to know what we should do and to make sure we're taking the steps toward which the Word of God is directing us.

Here's Carter. Your hidden Word from God. Psalm 119 verses 10 and 11. Here's what the psalmist says.

With my whole heart I have sought you. O let me not wander from your commandments. Your word I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you.

This is a phenomenal statement from this particular psalmist. I've loved that one verse of scripture for many, many years where he says your word I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you. Now our concept of sinning against God is lying and stealing and committing adultery and those things are sins against God. But the connotation here goes a little bit deeper than that. When he says that I might not sin against you, he's not just talking about condemnation or uncleanness. He's not talking about just that. When you look at the original definition of the word that is used there, that I've hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you, it also implies living a life that is off the target.

That's an incredible thing isn't it? In other words, it's like an arrow that's shot from the hand of God in a sense. The arrow decides just to veer to the left or veer to the right and actually misses the target for its life. It also speaks of getting lost or coming up short of the goal or a serious breakdown in a personal relationship.

So that now changes, that now expands the meaning of this particular verse of scripture. Your word I've hidden in my heart that I might not end up off target. That I might not get lost. That I might not end up short of the goal that you have for my life. Or that there might not be a serious breakdown in our personal relationship.

The relationship God that you have with me, that you freely gave to me when your son Jesus Christ became Lord and Savior of my life. Lord you have a purpose. You see as well as doing something bad, it also carries the connotation with it of neglecting to do something good. James chapter 4 verse 17 in the New Testament says, therefore to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin. So it takes the definition a little bit, it makes it a little bigger than just doing some bad thing that we know is bad. How about the concept of knowing what to do and yet not moving towards that where the word of God is leading us.

Now I don't show this to condemn anyone, but I want to remind you of something. God considers his promises to you a very serious thing. It's not a light thing with God. You know the scripture says in the book of Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 6, let me just read it to you.

Without faith it is impossible to please him. Now it's the writer of Hebrews which is God, of course we understand that. He talks about the world's being framed by the word of God. He talks about Abel offering to God a more excellent sacrifice. He talks about Enoch being taken away from this earth without seeing death.

He's talking about these incredible things that have happened throughout history then interjects between Enoch and then Noah. He interjects this one verse and says without faith it is impossible to please him. Which means that we can go to church, that's a good thing. We can read our Bibles, that's a great thing.

We can pray for an hour a day, that's a wonderful thing. There's so many good things we can do, but without faith it is impossible to please him. For he who comes to God must believe that he is, in other words God exists, God is concerned about us, God has a divine plan for every life and that he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. In other words if you and I have an honest walk with God, if we are in the word of God and we start to see the promises of God to us, if we don't believe them it's very difficult for us to please God. That's according to what the scripture says. I know we're fully received with God through Jesus Christ, but I want to live a life that is pleasing to God on this earth. I know that you do too as well.

I'm sure of that. But it requires faith because God takes his promises to us as a very serious thing. It's not a light thing. Every life born into the kingdom of God has a hidden promise and purpose. Every life.

Your life does, my life does, things that only God knows. The day you opened your heart and Jesus Christ came into your life and the Holy Spirit became your comforter and your guide, in that day a divine plan was put into motion for your life. And it didn't mean that God was going to take you where you are strong and use your strength for his glory. He was most likely going to take you where you're least qualified. And he himself was going to become the source of your strength. He was going to do what you and I can't do for ourselves. He was going to take us where we could never go. He was going to make us into what we could never hope to be and give us what we could never possess. He was going to put words in our mouths. He was going to give us a new heart, the scripture says, a new mind and a new spirit. He was going to take us from death to life and he was going to raise us up in his power as a living testimony of the reality that he is God.

That he is willing to save and he does have a divine plan for every life. You see, so you're not just a happenstance. You're not just a victim sitting on the sidelines of some divine game that's going on in the universe.

You're not just a pylon in somebody else's game. You have a divine purpose in your life that God gave to you. And he begins to whisper that purpose into your heart. In the very early days of your salvation, he whispers that purpose into your heart. And the problem we face as human beings in our humanness is that because if it's outside of the realm of what we see as possible through our strength or experience or influence or whatever else we have or don't have, we sometimes gravitate or receive those things as we think from God that we are capable of doing.

But we push away those things that we feel we could never accomplish, we could never do. Jeremiah chapter 32, we heard about it on Sunday morning where the prophet Jeremiah was told, he was given a word. Jeremiah always says, the word of the Lord came to me. The word of the Lord came to me.

The word of the Lord came to me. And God told him to buy land in an area of a city that was under siege. It was about, and he already knew that. Jeremiah already knew. He was already prophesying. He was already encouraging people to surrender.

He knew that Babylon was going to conquer the promised land as it was at that time for a season, going to take all of the people of God into captivity. But in the midst of all of this, in the midst of what would look to be a siege, and I'm talking to people who are under siege. You're being bombarded from every side. It looks hopeless. Your chest is heavy from crying. You're tired of being depressed. You feel like you have no way forward. You don't know what you're going to do with life. You don't know what's going to happen to your family.

Your marriage is falling apart. You're a city that's under siege. And it looks like you're going to be destroyed. And in the midst of it all, the word of the Lord comes to you. As the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, and he says, I want you, I'm going to speak a word to you, and I want you to take that word, and I want you to put it in an earthen vessel, and I want you to bury it for a season. For a season it will look dark, but the word that I give you will come to pass.

Absolutely amazing. We are the earthen vessel now. We are the, we bear the treasure of this incredible life of Christ in earthen vessels. That's what the Apostle Paul says. Now God says, I'm giving you a word. Now it may take a season for it to come to pass.

You understand? It doesn't mean because God gives you a word that he's duty bound to fulfill it tomorrow. It may take a season. It may take a few years. It may take some experience. You may have to go through some of the things that some of the people of God throughout history have had to go through. But if you bury that word, it means you embrace that word, and you lodge that word in this earthen vessel, now you become a fulfillment of the scripture that says, your word I have hidden in my heart.

Why? That I might not miss the mark. As we said earlier, that I might not end up getting lost, or come up short of the goal that you have for my life, or have a serious breakdown in our personal relationship.

It will come to pass. Seek him now. Ask him to speak into your situation. Open the word of God. And God will speak to you because this word is alive.

It's not just dead letter in a book. This is, this is breathed onto these pages by the breath of God. And this word lives to every soul, every heart, every person, every generation. God said to Jeremiah again, chapter 32, verse 27, again, Jeremiah says, the word of the Lord came to me. And God said to him, behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for me?

Is there anything? Remember, he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he what? Is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. That means with an honest heart. It doesn't mean you're, you're a mountain, a pillar of faith. It just means you have a mustard seed of faith in, in the faithfulness of God. You care about the honor of his name. Just like David, when he came into the camp of Israel, the whole army of Israel couldn't fight this big mouth Goliath at that time.

And it was just a young shepherd boy that came in and said, is there not a cause? He was very concerned about the honor of God. He's very concerned about the mockery of God and the mockery of God's people. And in that seed of faith and trust in God and that word, you know, you remember in the scriptures, as he went down the valley to face that giant, the Spirit of God came on him and he began to prophesy, not just to Goliath, but to the whole Philistine army, that they were going to be destroyed that day.

And there was going to be an incredible route. The Spirit of the Lord came on him because God had planted a word in his heart, and he believed it. And because he believed it, he didn't miss the mark. He didn't, he didn't come short of what God had for him or for the people of God around him.

Oh, thank God for that. Now, let me conclude with this thought in John chapter 16, Jesus talking about the Holy Spirit in verse 13 says, however, when he, the Spirit of truth has come, you see your, your situation will try to tell you that it has the last word, but it doesn't have the last word over you. There would be all kinds of people in Jeremiah's day saying, it's hopeless. We're going to be conquered. We're going to be assimilated into a foreign culture. We're going to lose our heritage. We're going to lose our land.

We're going to lose our purpose in the earth. And Jeremiah would be the one to say, no, I have a word from God. The Spirit of truth has come and he has shown me that we're going to come back here one day in the future and houses and vineyards and cities and are going to be built again.

There's going to be joy in our streets one more time. God, you see the Spirit of truth. However, when he, the Spirit of truth has come, he will guide you into all truth. He will guide you. He will lead you into that which he has for your life and for your situation. He will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak and he will tell you things to come.

He will tell you things to come. I remember just a flood of memories of the past when I, after I came to Christ and, and he started speaking to me about things to come. Now I had the, I had the option to reject it.

I had the option to push it away. I remember one time we'd just come from, from dinner at a restaurant and, and I was waiting for pastor Teresa and, and I remember I was looking out the window and I saw an airplane go by and this, I wasn't thinking anything. And the sudden whisper of God came into my heart and he said, Carter, you're going to travel all over the world and you're going to tell people about who I am and what I have done for you and what I'm able to do for them. And I remember I just took that word and it wasn't a personal ambition. Trust me, I'd never preached a sermon. I didn't really even like being in crowds at that time in my life, but I took that word and I put it in my heart. And I remember saying, I will go God, but it would have to be you. And if it is you speaking to me, I will go and I will do the things that you've asked me to do. And I thought of the seasons where pastor Teresa and I came into early ministry when we would just pray and God would speak a word into our hearts and, and as he spoke the word, we would believe it and we would move with him towards the fulfillment of it. And I can honestly tell you, he has never failed me one time, never once. That's why I know that even going to Plymouth is going to have a profound effect on the future of this country. I know it in my heart.

He's never failed me. I remember going into a little town called Riceville. We were looking for a church building and we were praying because we were being thrown out of every building in town. They didn't want to, it was very staunchly religious.

They didn't want a Christian testimony in their midst. And I remember there was this abandoned church that had been abandoned for about 30 years and the local children had smashed all the windows out. And I remember crawling in the back window of this building and I stood on the platform and the Holy Spirit came on me and said, they're going to come from a hundred mile radius to this church and there won't be room to seat the people. And I remember the day when I stood there, our farthest away congregant came from a hundred miles every Sunday morning.

People came from generally at anywhere from 10 to 30 mile radius. And I remember having to sit people outside to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, the numbers of people that came to Christ. And God also gave me another promise.

He told me one day I would revisit that church and there would be crowds so thick coming there that they would be outside as far as I could see in the schoolyard through the window. That hasn't happened yet, but that was another whisper that God put into my heart someday, somewhere. See, I'm under no obligation to make it happen, but I am obliged to believe it if God's speaking it. Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against you, that I might not miss the mark of my life, that I might not fall short of how you could glorify yourself through my life. Thy word I've taken, I've hidden it in this clay jar.

And even though for a season it looks like nothing has happened, for a season it might look like the enemy is even winning the battle. I choose to believe you above all things, Oh God. When the spirit of truth has come, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak of his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak and he will tell you things to come. So my question is, what's God telling you about your future? I know what Babylon's trying to tell you.

I know what your fearful family and neighbors are trying to tell you, but that's not the question. What is God telling you? Have you even asked him what your future is? Have you dared to believe the whispers of God into your heart? Because he really is there. The Holy spirit really is alive inside your earth and vessel. He really does speak to you and I as the body of Jesus Christ.

Have you even dared to ask? And has he told you yet about things to come? Verse 14 says, he will glorify me for he will take of what is mine and declare it to you. In other words, he will take the victory that I won for you. He will take your captivity captive and give giftings unto you. And he will declare it to you. Verse 15 he says, all things that the father has are mine, therefore I said that he will take of mine and declare it to you.

Now three times Jesus repeats the same thing in three verses. He will tell you things to come. Next verse, he will declare it to you. Next verse, he will declare it to you. He will declare it to you. Not might or should or maybe just the selector, the electoral hear the voice of God.

No, you. He will declare it to you. If you are a child of God, if the Holy Spirit is in your life, God will declare to you things to come. You think about the day of Pentecost for example, when they come out of the upper room, the scripture says they were speaking the megalith of God.

In the Greek that's what they say. What it really means is they were speaking about the anticipated outcome of the inward, the new inward life of Christ within them. In other words, they were talking about things to come. They were prophesying. They're talking about who God is, what God is able to do and what God is going to do.

The religious crowd took a look at this and they said, wow, whatever kind of a relationship they have with God, all of our pump and our garments and our circumstance and our smoke and our mirror show in the temple is not giving us this kind of a living relationship with a living God. I say it's time that we take that hidden word of God and bury it deep inside of our hearts. That hidden word of God. That whisper that nobody but you knows it. Some of the things that God spoke to me as a young Christian were so preposterous I dare not tell anybody about it, but I kept it in my heart and I'll tell you, God has fulfilled every word of it.

It's absolutely amazing. One summer, for example, I went and I was sitting, I have a bench I like to sit on when I do my Bible reading in the morning in prayer time and it's right on the edge of the ocean and there's a huge, huge bay there and I was sitting in my seat and I was just praying in the morning and I looked out and the water, the sun was coming up and the water was calm and it was glistening. It was like hundreds of thousands of these little glistenings on the water and the Lord out of nowhere just spoke to me and said, you will very shortly be standing before an audience as big as this bay that you see.

It was only just a short time later I was standing in Jos, Nigeria before a crowd of, estimated crowd of almost a half of a million people and it looked as big as the bay I had been looking at that morning. See, these are the whispers of God. We can either embrace it, we can plant it in our heart. Will you let God speak to you? Will you let God be your guide?

Will you take that? Will you put that in an earthen vessel and even though, even though for a season it looks dark, the promise of God has preeminence over everything that this world could ever throw at you. If God says it will happen, it will happen and he will speak to you because that's what Jesus said he will do and as I said earlier he takes very seriously his promises to you and to me. Those are not, they're not just little candy things he throws out and we may or may not embrace them. You see, the whole integrity of his name and his character is tied in with us and our believing him.

That's the way to please him. I simply believe him. I don't doubt him. I know that his ways are not mine and his thoughts are not mine.

I know that his thoughts are higher than mine, as high as the heavens are above the earth and I thank God with all my heart, oh God speak to me. That is my prayer now. God speak to me. Guide me. Lead me.

Don't let me lean on my own understanding. You promised me in the book of Proverbs that if I would acknowledge you that you would direct my paths. Lord Jesus Christ let your name be glorified through my life. That needs to be the prayer of everyone. We have a promise that the people who know their God in our day will be strong and do exploits. It's not that we will do them, God will do them through us.

Yes, we're the vessel that he will use, but he is the source of our strength and it's based on his word that you and I will become everything that God has destined us to be. My prayer today for you is, oh Lord, open the ground of my heart to your promise for my life and let me not consider anything too hard for you. Father in Jesus name, I am reminded again that you loved us so much.

You so wanted a living relationship with your creation. You so came to get us and to bring us home that you would suffer an unspeakable beating and rejection and that you would shed your blood to the last drop so that we might become partakers of not just an eternal life with you, but an abundant life as you promised here on this side of eternity. I ask you Lord Jesus Christ to speak to those who are in physical pain. Speak to those who are suffering mental anguish.

Speak to those who are biting their nails over a lost loved one. Speak my God to every husband, to every wife who's lost hope for the greatest institution on the earth apart from your church, marriage. Speak to us God about our future.

Tell us about the things that you want to do through each of our lives. Help us to put the clutter out of our minds so that we can hear your voice. And when we do, give us the courage as you gave to Jeremiah to invest in your word. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

To not try to save the little that we have for ourselves, but to invest in the future. God help us to put our confidence in you. Help us Lord to put everything we have into that precious promise that you give for each life and to do what we have to do to possess it.

Thank you Lord Jesus that everything you promise is true. Lord Jesus Christ bring home our children. Bring home our families.

Restore our homes. My God do things Lord that only you can do in this generation. And we will give you the glory and the honor and the praise and we will not be silent any longer. And we will not cower in the weeds God when you are calling us to step out and be a victorious army in this generation. We ask you Lord to do the miraculous again and push back the darkness of this present time.

Let your church have to be reckoned with. God almighty let it be said even among your enemies, God has come into the camp. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. We ask you to send a trembling through hell one more time.

One more time throughout history. Let the demons tremble. My God, my God, my God, my God get a hold of your church.

Get a hold of your people. Help us Lord as Jeremiah did. Pull our resources out and invest in your promise. Hallelujah. Glory to God. Glory, glory, glory to the name of Jesus. We praise you and we bless you oh God with all of our heart in Jesus name. Amen and amen. You've been listening to Carter Conlon from Times Square Church in New York City. For more information and resources to help you in your walk in Christ, log on to tsc.nyc. That's tsc.nyc. And be sure to be with us next week for A Call to the Nation with Carter Conlon.