The Unpredictable Pathway of the Spirit — Carter Conlon

John chapter 3, please, if you go there in the New Testament. I want to speak to you about the unpredictable pathway of the Spirit. I've heard it said twice this morning. I heard Greg on the piano say it, and one of the elders came and prayed for me before coming out onto this platform, and he said it as well.

The Longing for Spiritual Breakthrough

And they both said, Oh God, we feel like we're on the edge of a breakthrough, but what is missing? And I think there's some people here this morning that you may feel that in your heart. Oh God, you want to take me to another place, a deeper place than I've ever been before.

And I feel that I'm so close to it. But what is it, Lord, that, what is the next step I have to take? And I do believe that what God's given me this morning will answer that question for you. Father, I thank you, Lord, for the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

Oh God, I praise you with all my heart, Lord, that every word, God, that you give to speak today, Lord, has been prewritten in your word. And God, you have already determined in your heart an outcome in the lives of all of us who are able to hear these words.

I thank you for strength, God, that is so far beyond any natural ability. I thank you, God, for covering me, Lord, with the strength of heaven. I pray, God, you give me a wisdom that is not my own. Strength that I don't possess.

God, vision that can't come from my natural eyes. Words, Lord, that don't come from a natural mind. God Almighty, I pray, Lord, that you overshadow the frailty of this human vessel. And come with great glory and power.

And let your kingdom come here. And let your will be done here on earth as it is in heaven. Father, we pray, God, that we be moved greatly forward towards your will and plan for each of our lives. Give us the grace to hear these words.

The strength to respond. The heart to hear. The eyes to see, Lord, what cannot be revealed in the natural. And we thank you for this, God, with all our hearts today. In Jesus' mighty name. John chapter 3, beginning at verse 1, the unpredictable pathway of the spirit.

The New Birth and the Unpredictable Work of the Spirit

There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The same came to Jesus by night and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God. For no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.

Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born?

Jesus answered, Verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit.

Marvel not that I said unto thee, You must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth. And so is every one that is born of the spirit.

Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel? And knowest not these things? Now Christ is saying to Nicodemus, I've just shown you, I've just clearly declared to you the need of all men.

And Nicodemus, how is it possible that you've been teaching the people of God, and you have arrived at such a bankrupt conclusion of Scripture? How is it possible that from Genesis to the books of Malachi, texts that he would have had at his disposal at that time, that you've read Ezekiel, you've read Isaiah, you've seen Ezekiel 37 where the breath of God had to come and give life to a decaying and fallen army called the people of God.

These things are clearly evidenced. You've read the prophet Joel, you've seen where he said that in the latter days the spirit of God will come and overshadow, as it is, the weakness of fallen humanity, and bring us to a level that we can only ever hope to attain in God.

Nicodemus, how is it possible that you have read these Scriptures, you've taught of these Scriptures, and you have arrived at such a bankrupt conclusion? When Christ spoke plainly to him about what the Scriptures were clearly speaking about, that mankind had fallen, that there was no other way back to God but through God Himself.

There was no other way to regather and regain what was lost than God in His mercy had to come and give it to us. I thank God for that knowledge this morning, and I hope you do too as well. But Nicodemus was teaching the people, but he was a natural man.

The Natural Man and the Loss of Spiritual Understanding

Now a natural man, by definition, is a person who's still very much in control of their own lives. They're in control in the reading of the Scriptures, they have to reason everything, they have to know everything, everything has to be within their grasp, they have to be able to figure out.

In measure, of course, it's that fallenness that came into the hearts of men in the Garden of Eden when sin came into Adam and Eve and to all their offspring, of which, of course, we are. And that nature, that fallen nature came into man, whereas we want to be as God.

We want to be able to say, this is good, this is where I should go, this is what my life should be, and here's how I should achieve these results, and of course, I will need God to achieve them. That's the natural man.

He studies the Scripture, and Peter says he twists the Scripture to his own destruction. He's ever learning, but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Never brought into the life of God, never brought into the power of God, and ironically, ends up with some fairly foolish conclusions, even from the study of the Holy Text of the Word of God.

The ways of the natural man are predictable. In John chapter 21, after Jesus was risen from the dead, and in verse 18, this is a natural man. He said, Verily I say to you, and he's talking to Peter, he said, When you were young, you girded yourself, and walkest whither thou wouldest.

In other words, when you were young, that's the person who's born of water. Remember, he said, unless you're born of water and of the Spirit. Now, there are two schools of thought in this. The first school of thought is, the born of water is born of the Word of God and of the Spirit of God, and of course, that is true.

But the deeper thought in this is, unless you experience, of course, a natural birth, you have to be born into this world, but then you have to be born again by the Spirit of God. In verse 6, he says, That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Christ is saying to Peter, When you were young, when you were only living in the power of that first birth, you girded yourself, you went where you want to go, you formed your own plans. You got up in the morning, you put on your clothing, you put on your shoes, and you said, This is who I am, this is where I'm going, this is what my life is about, and this is how I'm going to get to my intended goals.

You dressed yourself, in other words. You went the way that you wanted to go. And what person here, who didn't know God, can honestly say, That was not my life. Now, you were constantly looking for some new scheme or mechanism to get where you felt you should go.

And if you were truly blessed of God, you probably became aware over time that you weren't able to achieve anything deeper. That perhaps you felt that maybe there was a purpose for your life that was deeper than what you were trying to get to in your natural strength.

Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 and verse 14, The natural man cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God. They're foolishness to him. And neither can he know them, because they're spiritually discerned, or that means spiritually understood.

Now, there's two ways of seeing this. First of all, the natural man, that's the man without the Spirit of God. He sees spiritual things as undesirable, most likely because they're out of his control. And many strong men, in particular, strong-willed women, will not really fully surrender to God, because they know instinctively a full surrender means I'm losing control.

I'm letting go of the reins. I'm giving my life over to another. And so, not really desiring to do that, not really willing to let go of an image of oneself, or a sense of where my life is leading me, or what kind of a conclusion my life should come to.

We make the tragic error of more or less coming into the house of God, calling out to God, but still very much holding the reins and saying, Lord, now I'm in charge of this journey of my life, and I'm asking you now to bless me.

I'm asking you to give me strength in my hands. We pray all these prayers, but realistically the reins are very much in our hands. We have a sense of where we're going to go. We have a sense of what we should be.

And then there's a second type of person who just sees the things of the Spirit as unattainable, out of reach. God, I have a marginal understanding at least of where you'd like to take my life, but oh God, I don't know, I can't see how I'm ever going to get there.

And so he more or less shrugs it off and walks away from it. I remember as a young Christian, there were whisperings of God that came into my heart. God began to speak to me one day. I remember I was standing in the lobby of a hotel, and I looked out the window and an airplane went by.

And I remember the Holy Spirit saying, much of your life is going to be like that. You're going to be traveling into many places, and you're going to be speaking about me to many people in many different nations.

And I remember thinking, well, God, if that's going to happen, it's going to have to be you, because I wasn't even preaching at this time. I didn't have any ability to preach at this time, but yet God is whispering about the future.

Now, folks, I could have shrugged it off. I could have just said, well, that's not attainable. That can't happen. That's not what my life could be. And I thank God to this day I did not shrug off the whisperings of God.

And, folks, that's got to be... If you are truly a child of God, if the Spirit of God is truly in you, the Holy Spirit is whispering to you all the time about something that God has for your life. Something He wants to do, but don't put it away because you feel that it's out of your control.

Don't put it away because you feel it's out of your reach. John chapter 3 and verse 8. He's talking about the life of the Spirit now. He says in verse 7, Don't marvel that I said to you, you must be born again.

The wind blows where it listeth, and you can hear the sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it's going. And so is everyone who is born of the Spirit. In other words, the pattern of the wind is something ordained and preset in its course by God.

Jesus said you can hear it, but you don't know where it's coming from. In spite of the fact that CNN has these wonderful charts that they touch and they blow up and tell you where the wind is, they really don't know because they can only go back so far.

You can't go back to before the creation of the earth. You can't go back to when, by the breath of God, the worlds were created. The universe was put into place. Oh no, you can't go back to the beginning of where that wind actually originated.

Psalm 148 verse 8 tells us that even the stormy wind is fulfilling something that's already been spoken by God. Jeremiah chapter 10 verses 10 to 16 tells us the Lord created and reigns over all things, and even the wind is brought out of His treasury.

Even the wind has a purpose, and the word for wind is ruach in the original Hebrew, which means air that's put into motion by divine breath. God put everything into motion by the word of His mouth. The heavens were created.

The worlds were created. The universe, the galaxies were created by the word of His mouth. All He had to do was say, let it be, and it was. That's all, and everything was put into divine motion. And do you realize today that God, if you really believe, He knows all things.

He knew that you were going to be born. He knew your name. He knew you'd be sitting here today in this sanctuary. Nothing is hidden from the eyes of God. You have to understand today, and I have to understand, that when He spoke the worlds into existence, your name was in His lips, and something was spoken about you.

God set something in motion, and you were part of it. I was part of it. Now, sad to say, but thankfully, because of redemption, we have the only thing in creation that has the ability to resist the word of God.

The stars can't resist. The planets don't resist. The clouds don't resist. God speaks, and everything obeys His voice. Only man has the power of a free will to look at the Holy One who created them and say, no, thank you.

I'd rather choose my own destiny. I'd rather walk my own course. I'd rather do it myself and finish it my way. But what a tragedy to get to the end. And having lived, in many cases, so far short of the glory of God, so far short of what God wanted to do, because we chose to hang on to something that was so deficient in relation to the call of God that was given to each of our lives, only in full surrender do we enter into a pathway preset by God for our lives.

Full Surrender and the Supernatural Christian Life

It's anything but determinable by the natural mind. Only in full surrender. Only when you and I get to the point. See, we're talking today about a breakthrough. We're talking today about God. I feel we're on the edge of something.

But folks, so many people just want an in-house revival. I want to be blessed right where I am. I want the glory of God right where I am. I want to speak in a hundred thousand tongues right where I am.

I want the power of God right where I am. And the Lord says, no, that's not the way it works. It's in full surrender. And I bring you into the power of an endless life. A life that you could never have dreamed of.

A life that will astound you. It will astound everyone that knew you. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1, verses 26 to 28, it's one where people whom no one in the world ever wanted to be like are changed into persons so wonderfully different that former scoffers stand back in awe.

How many here today looked in the mirror at one point in your life and said nobody in their right mind would want to be like me. But you came to Christ. And Christ began to change you by the power of His life within you.

And now people look at your life and say, where did this man get such wisdom? Where did this woman get such virtue? Where, where did that change come into your life? Paul tells us the weak are given strength that's found nowhere in this world.

Let the weak say, I am strong. We are brought from strength to strength, the apostle says. Glory to glory, we are changed into the image of Christ. We are empowered to do what natural men can't do. This is a supernatural life.

I don't know how many times I have to say it until we want to embrace it. Until every man, woman and child in this church and young person says, God, that's got to be my life. That's where I want to go.

I'm not willing to live in mediocrity when the power of heaven is at my disposal. Scripture tells us that the unlearned are given wisdom, which can only come from God. Matthew chapter 13 verse 54. They listened to Jesus teaching in the temple, in the synagogue.

And they said, where does this man get this wisdom from? Is he not the son of Mary and Joseph? Are his brothers and sisters not here with us? And the scripture says they were offended at him. Where does he get this wisdom?

Where did it come from? How did it get into his heart? How did he get such knowledge? We can't answer his questions and he can answer ours. Acts 4 .13 talks about the disciples in the early stage of their journey.

Peter and John, it says, when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled and they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus.

That's the only thing they could say. Listen, these guys never went to Bible school. We don't recall ever conferring a degree upon them. They didn't graduate from our schools of thought. How come they have such boldness and such knowledge and such ability?

Where did they get the power to lift this lame man up and bring him into the temple and expose, in a sense, the powerlessness of our religion? And they marveled, it said. They stood back with an awe. And the only thing they could say about these men is that they had been with Jesus.

Hallelujah. There was no other certificate they had. There was nothing else. They had been with Jesus. And this knowledge of God had been given to them freely through Christ. The life of the Spirit is a place where emptiness finds substance and meaning.

Being Carried by the Spirit Into God's Calling

In John, again, chapter 21, verse 18, Jesus said to Peter, When you were young, you dressed yourself. You charted your own course. You determined your own destiny. But when you get older, another will gird you and carry you whether you would not.

In other words, another will cover you. Another will clothe you. Another will cover your nakedness. Another will empower you. Another will overshadow you. Another will grip you. Another will be your covering.

Another will be your righteousness. Another will cover you, Peter, and will carry you into places where you can't go or would not go in the natural. Another will cover you. That's why Paul said, Oh God, that this mortality might be swallowed up of immortality.

That this temporal house might be swallowed up of an eternal house. Paul knew this and it so gripped his heart. Oh God, that you would take me from where I am into the depths of the calling of God in Christ Jesus.

That you would give me an empowerment to go where natural men can't go. Natural men can't stand against all of Rome, just one man. But Paul knew that if I would surrender to God, he can do something through my life that cannot be done by any amount of power, any amount of might that can be mustered in the natural man.

And God is able, God is able to raise up a testimony of his own glory if he can find a surrendered vessel. Peter, he said, you're going to be girded by someone else. You're going to be carried into places that you don't want to go and can't go.

I can honestly say, I've been to some places I've not wanted to go. And I've been into a lot of places I can't go. But what a journey it is when you walk through every door that God opens and say, well, Lord, just be glorified in this.

What a journey to go into parts of the world where you have no way of knowing how it's going to be done, but you do know that you have a whisper in your heart that it's going to be done. But to the natural eye, it looks like insanity.

But in the Spirit, it becomes reality. And people look at those that are born of the Spirit and they say, I don't know where they come from, but I felt it as they passed through. And I don't know where they're going.

Remember, Jesus said, as the wind passes by, you don't know where it's come from. You can feel its presence, and you're not quite sure where it's going. Such it is with everyone who's born of the Spirit.

We don't have a plan. We don't sit on our past as it is and just glory in the things that God did yesterday. We don't just dwell in the now and formulate our own plans for the future. But we are carried by the Spirit of God.

We don't have a plan for the future until God speaks it into our heart. And in obedience to Him, we just go through the open door. I thank God. Remember the church of Philadelphia in the book of Revelation?

He said, you have a little strength. You've not denied my name. This is a word for you today in Times Square Church. But I've set before you an open door. No one can close that door. If you decide to go through it, no one can stop you from going through it.

No amount of your past or your ability or lack of ability or education or lack of education or wealth or lack of wealth can stop you from going through the door that I've opened to you. But you have to go through the door.

You have to go through into that place that God Himself has prescribed for your life. You'll be clothed, He said to Peter, from above. You'll be led into places you can't go. Think about Acts chapter 2 on the day of Pentecost.

Pentecost, Bold Witness, and the Empowerment of the Spirit

What happened when the Holy Spirit came down? They were clothed just as Christ had said to Peter. He was clothed from above. Given another garment, given another strength, given an anointing that could only come from God.

And he was thrust into a formerly fearful and unattainable place. This is the same Peter who days before could not even bring himself to say, I know the man. So fearful of a bloodthirsty crowd. So fearful of standing out among men.

So fearful, just filled with fear and doubt and unbelief. But now, on the day of Pentecost, he steps out of the crowd. The people, as far as he knows, are just as angry as they used to be. Just as foreboding as it was in the day when they cried for the life of Christ.

But he steps out and you just, if you do a study, you look at the words of Peter all the way through the Gospels. Peter is just constantly putting his foot in his mouth. But now, after he's clothed upon with the Spirit of God, just take time in Acts 2 and look at the eloquence of his message.

When he stands up, he's given an explosive understanding of the Scriptures. He's given a boldness to proclaim Christ. He's given the wisdom to challenge sin in the people. Then he's given the power of God to open the door to mercy and repentance in Jesus Christ.

One of the finest sermons ever preached in the New Testament is given to him right on the spot, right on his feet, with an understanding that you know and I know that he didn't have prior to this moment.

Clothed upon from above, thrust into a fearful and unattainable place. But now, girded by the Spirit of God, carried through life to a place where historians say that he was crucified upside down. Always a bit of an extremist, Peter, even to the end.

But God loves that. He was given the ability to do good and to love in a time where many had become despisers of those whose lives are a display of the goodness of God. And you and I need this today. We need this ability to do good and to love because we have entered into a time in history where there's an ever-increasing despising of those who are good.

You have to be, you have to be, you have to be filled with the Holy Spirit. You and I are not going to make it through these days in the natural. Natural men are going to fall to the wayside now. Natural churches are going to be dissolved.

It's only that which cannot be shaken that's going to remain in the hour that we're living in right now. Whatever you face today, you have to be born and surrendered to and led by the Spirit of God. There is no other way.

You and I must be born of the Spirit of God. But it cannot be just an in-house thing. Pentecost went outside, folks. It's got to be something where the heart of God is released through us to fallen men around us.

Letting God Take the Reins

And God Himself is allowed to take the reins of our lives. God Himself is allowed to guide us. Now, you'll know. Some people get under the burden of saying, Well, if I let the Lord lead me, that means I have to leave church this morning and do a 90 degree turn by Monday.

No, that's not the case. But your hearts must be open to the whisperings of God that you let Him lead you. Because ultimately, He put something in motion concerning you before the world was founded. When you and I begin to realize it, and in that place, God will be glorified.

If you will just simply let Christ be Christ in you. Let go of the reins. The problem of this generation is so many people want to hold on to the reins and want God at the same time. And the end result is natural men leading the church of God, bringing out natural theories about God, natural formulas for increasing the work of the church of God.

When this is a supernatural church, it's never meant to be natural. Ordinary men and women like you and I, God intended that we yield and be touched by the power of the Holy Ghost. Go into this generation and confound those who are strong in themselves.

Confound those who are wise in themselves. Confound those, just confound them because you've been released to the Spirit of God. You've just made the choice to let God be God in your life. Put away all the voices.

Put away all the words that have been spoken over your life in the past. Just put it all away today. And say, God Almighty, my life belongs to you. You take me where you want me to go. You make me what you want to make me into.

And every door you open before me, I will walk through it. In the grace of Almighty God, I'll walk through it. As the wind passes by, so is everyone who's born of the Spirit. It's a time and a season today where we must let people say, as you pass by, where on earth is that person coming from?

And somebody else turns and says, it's certainly no place I've ever been to. How does one get there? Scripture says, when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do?

How do we get to where you are? How do we get out of the powerlessness of our religious practice and into the life of God that you have found? We look upon you, and it's not religion that brought you there.

You have something much deeper than religion, because they were the most religious people in the world at that time. But yet 3 ,000 at least stood there and said, whatever we have, it has never taken us to this place.

These people are moving in a realm we don't know anything about. They're speaking in our languages the wonderful works of God. They are filled with faith. Their hearts are aflame with the Word of God.

They've embraced a pathway that we don't understand. All we know is the overthrow of the Roman Empire. All we know is power and prestige in the temple. All we know is striving, as it is for some kind of accolades among men.

But these people, they don't seem to care. They're just filled with the heart of God. They're standing and loving us in an unpopular time. We don't know where they've come from, but we can feel something.

That's why they were moved in their heart. They smote upon their breasts and said, how do we get to where you are? And folks, that really is the Christian life. That's what it's all about. How do we get to where you are?

A Living Testimony That Draws Others to Christ

When I first came to Christ, a lot of people came to the Lord. Before I was a preacher. Just because I loved Him with all my heart. I was moving into something of God that I saw in the scriptures that He had for me.

And I was believing the whispers of God as preposterous as some of them may have seemed to the natural mind. I believed what God was speaking in my heart. And all along the way, I found, you know, police officers are some of the hardest people to share Christ with on the face of the earth.

But I saw a lot of police officers coming to Christ. I never had to preach to any of them. They would ask me, what is it? One man who was in my office and he was sent there actually to die. He had a disease in his body.

I don't want to go into that, but he was going to die. And they sent him into the office to just answer the phone and to bide his time as a favor to him. And one day he just said to me, I see something.

I feel something. What is it that I see and what is it in you? So I shared with him the gospel of Jesus Christ and what He had done in my life. And he looked at me and said, I want that. I want that with all my heart.

So we prayed together in the office. Not only did he get saved, he got completely healed by the power of God. We didn't even talk about healing. It wasn't even in the equation. God just did that all by Himself just for, just healed him.

He didn't ask to be healed. I didn't pray for him to be healed. He just got healed. That's really what our lives are to be. I set before you an open door. Times Square Church, listen to me this morning.

I set before you, thanks. I set before you an open door. And it will be in a time of incredible difficulty. But I set before you an open door. And no one can close it. You and I have the calling to be a living testimony for Christ and incredible soul winners for God.

If we will let go of the reins. There's an old time expression in Pentecost, if you just let go and let God. Just let go. Let go of your rotten self image. Let go of the lies that people spoke over your life.

Let go of your sense of unworthiness. Let go. Just let go and let God begin to lead you. As his spirit covers you, he begin to lead you in places you know you can't go. And when you're done there and he has been glorified, you'll walk out.

And just like the layman in the temple, you'll shout and dance. Nobody will have to tell you to hit a certain note. Worship will be in you. It will be part of your life. I challenge you this morning with everything in me.

The Altar Call: Yielding Every Part of Life to God

This is my altar call this morning for those who just want to let go of the reins of your life. Now, this is serious now. This is not a light altar call. This is not something just to come down so you can get happy for the rest of the day.

You're letting go and you're telling God, I'm letting go. And I'm asking you to guide me. I'm asking you to lead me from this day forward. Now, whatever your situation is, you might find yourself in a terrible battle right now.

Would you just let go and let God lead you? If he leads you, you will always be brought through to something that glorifies his name. Now, Father, thank you, Lord, for this day. Thank you, God, for this word this morning.

It's simple but profound. For the power of God is found in these words. And I ask you, Lord, for great grace for this congregation to respond. I thank you for it with all my heart. In Jesus' name. Now, we're going to worship again for maybe even a half hour or so, 20 minutes.

If the Holy Spirit is speaking to you and you want to let go. Now, this is a hard altar call. Because there's a lot of ambition in this house today. But the Lord says, no, you give that to me. You let me guide you now.

And I'll take you into the miraculous. If that's your heart today. I'd like you to come to this altar when we stand in the annex. You can stand between the screens. Let's take a moment. Glorify God. And don't be surprised if you start speaking in an unknown tongue.

God will touch you. The moment he's got your life, he will touch you. With an empowerment of the Holy Spirit that you've been longing for. That last step to bringing glory to God. Let's stand together, please.

Make your way to this altar if you can. I pray in Christ's name. Lord, that you give us the grace to lay down our plans and ambitions. In every way that we think things should be done. That you guide us into the life of the Spirit.

Lord, we throw off our own covering. Our own agendas, our own image of self. We throw these things off, Lord. We ask you, Almighty God. Cover us, O God, with the covering of heaven. We open our hearts to the anointing of the Holy Spirit.