Our Heavenly Father #8: Growing in Spiritual Maturity by Continually Hearing God

Our Heavenly Father wants children who keep hearing Him, not just people who gather for religion. In this closing message of the series, Dr. William P. Hohman teaches that spiritual maturity is the journey from faith in Jesus to living with the faith of Jesus, and that the path runs through one simple habit: keep hearing what God says, even when it is hard. This message follows Our Heavenly Father #7: From Orphan to Child of God Mentality and brings the series to its finish.

Below you will find the full video, a structured summary, the Scripture behind each point (linked to the NKJV on Bible Gateway), the words he defines, a timestamped outline, and practical steps to keep hearing God this week.

Sermon at a Glance

This is the eighth and final message in the Our Heavenly Father series at NTC Ministries, preached in the Christmas season and posted in December 2025. It runs about 71 minutes and ends with the congregation standing to pray. Pastor Hohman asks what God really intended His church to be.

His answer is a family of sons and daughters who grow up. The message moves from God’s heart for family, to Jesus as the mediator of our inheritance, to the discipline of continually hearing God, and ends with the parable of the talents as a warning about holding a hard, fearful picture of the Father.

A Kingdom, Not a Religious Gathering

Pastor Hohman opens with Matthew 16:18, where Jesus says He will build His church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. God never intended the church to be a place where people gather religiously for a short sermon and leave, or where business people come looking for contacts to build their own kingdom. The church is a people saved by grace through faith, and that faith is itself a gift from God.

Gifts, he says, are meant to be given. Jesus told His disciples, “Freely you have received, freely give” (Matthew 10:8). If you give only to get something back, the thanks you receive is your whole reward. But a free giver is brought by God into a place of true inheritance.

He recalls a Bible college instructor in Dallas who taught that God created Adam because He was lonely. Pastor Hohman disagrees: God is love, and God is not lonely. Our Heavenly Father created man to express His love to, in a family way.

That is why family matters so much. Pastor Hohman says many young pastors get so busy in their calling that their family takes second place, and he admits he went through it himself. Your family is the first place in your life, even when it is easier to be kind to a co-worker than to your spouse. That is where God teaches us to walk in love.

Jesus, the Mediator of Our Inheritance

Growth takes effort, Pastor Hohman says, because Jesus is the vine and we are the branches (John 15:5), and we are told to incline our ear to His sayings (Proverbs 4:20). When results seem slow, God is still working. Our faith is to rest in Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). But He wants us to grow from faith in Him to living with the faith of Him, to the point where what we declare in prayer takes place, as it did when Jesus walked the earth.

The series began with 2 Corinthians 13:14: the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. We have that fellowship because Jesus is the one mediator between God and men (1 Timothy 2:5). A mediator negotiates between two parties, like a company and a union or a husband and wife, helping each one see where the other is.

As mediator, Jesus also went through everything we go through so that He could be a faithful high priest who pleads for mercy. When the priest came out of the tabernacle he always had blessings to pronounce. Israel’s problem was that they focused on the law and not on God’s mercy, which is new every morning (Lamentations 3:22–23).

Hebrews 9:15 says Jesus is the Mediator of the new covenant so that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. Pastor Hohman ties this back to Rome. An apostle was like a Roman general sent to negotiate a truce with a city: join Rome and we will build your roads, libraries, hospitals and schools, and we will defend you. God’s intention in sending Jesus is the same. He is not trying to keep things from us; He wants to give us more.

He illustrates it with a man who walks into heaven’s store, where love, joy, peace and strength cannot be bought, only given. He is handed a small velvet sack of seeds; it is up to him to plant, water and keep giving them out, so they grow bigger and bigger.

Keep Hearing Our Heavenly Father

Jesus came as Emmanuel, God with us, because people had a misconception of the Father. Of the religious leaders, Pastor Hohman notes, only a couple such as Nicodemus and Jairus came to Him. Both the Word and the Spirit are needed: all Word and you dry up, all Spirit and you blow up.

In Ezekiel 36:23 God says He will sanctify His great name, which had been profaned among the nations, and the nations will know that He is the Lord when He is hallowed in us before their eyes. Our part, Pastor Hohman says, is to listen. Sometimes hearing God is hard. You may have a habit, or something you are lusting after, and the Lord says no. If we cover our ears, we cut off our life source.

So keep hearing. It may hurt, and you may be sure in your heart there is no way you can do it, but what you keep hearing is a seed. We are born again not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever (1 Peter 1:23). One day you will say, “I just don’t do that no more.” As he puts it, “Your strength had nothing to do with it, but your continually hearing did.”

He shares how the Holy Spirit dealt with him for a couple of years about one area, gently bringing it up again and again. At first he did not want to hear it. Then he agreed to listen while admitting he had no strength to change, and a voice inside said, “You just listen and I’ll change it.” Months later he realized it was simply no longer part of his life.

Keep hearing applies to marriage, church and work. People leave spouses, churches and jobs unnecessarily, he says, often right before God was ready to give the breakthrough. He tells of staying positive on a job until the company kept paying him for six months with nothing to do, until he phoned them himself to say they should lay him off.

Jesus told the religious elders, “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life” (John 5:39–40). They had the grammar but missed the grace. Jesus said no one comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:6–7), and Paul wrote that the letter kills but the Spirit gives life (2 Corinthians 3:6). That is why the Lord’s Prayer begins, “Hallowed be Your name” (Matthew 6:9–10): let people see how good God is, not how angry they imagine Him to be.

Paul prays in Ephesians 3:14–19 that believers, rooted and grounded in love, would be filled with all the fullness of God. Pastor Hohman explains pleroma through three Roman pictures: a house with every bed full, a cargo ship with every hold full, and a battleship with every station manned. That fullness means all comfort, provision and protection.

From Child to Heir: Abba, Father

In Galatians 4:1–7 Paul says that an heir, as long as he is a child, differs nothing from a slave, though he is master of all. Every born-again believer is an heir of God, Pastor Hohman says, but when you stop listening and run from what God says, you stay a child, and a child cannot hear the intimate things of the family.

In a Hebrew home, family talk stopped when a servant came in. But if the oldest son loved a servant like a brother, he could ask his father to adopt him. Jesus is the oldest Son in our family, and He has asked our Heavenly Father to adopt us.

Because we are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying, “Abba, Father.” Pastor Hohman teaches that Abba is an Aramaic word for one who knows the father’s love intimately and unconditionally. A baby says “daddy” out of need; a mature child finally understands how much the parents loved them all along.

2 Peter 1:1–4 says we have obtained like precious faith with Peter, whose shadow brought healing. Grace and peace are multiplied through the knowledge of God, and His divine power has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness, so that we may escape the corruption that is in the world through lust. Like the friend who remotely cleans Pastor Hohman’s old computer, God does the cleaning, as long as we keep hearing and saying yes.

Maturity also means confidence to ask, rather than looking for someone more righteous to pray for you. Jesus said to ask and receive, that your joy may be full (John 16:24), and God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all we ask or think (Ephesians 3:20).

How You See God Shapes Your Life

1 Peter 2:8–9 describes those who stumble at the word and make Jesus a rock of offense. Some Christians, he says, are offended at God. Verse 9 answers: you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, so that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness. Showing His goodness is how we hallow His name.

Romans 1:18–23 warns about those who knew God but did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, and whose foolish hearts were darkened. Honor, he notes, opens a doorway: when your heart stays soft and thankful, the Lord can take you beyond the one you honored. Romans 2:4–5 adds that it is the goodness of God that leads us to repentance.

He contrasts Christ’s two comings: the first an epiphany to lift us over the corruption of this world, the second a revelation when the coverings come off. How you see God, he says, is who He will be to you.

The table below gathers the words Pastor Hohman defines in this message and what each one adds to the picture of our Heavenly Father.

The Parable of the Talents and the Hard Man

Pastor Hohman closes with Matthew 25:14–30. The kingdom of heaven is like a man who traveled to a far country and called his servants, a divine invitation to share in the blessings of redemption. He gave five talents to one, two to another and one to another. The first two traded and doubled what they had, and each heard, “Well done, good and faithful servant… Enter into the joy of your lord.”

The third servant said, “Lord, I knew you to be a hard man,” and out of fear he hid the talent in the ground. Pastor Hohman stresses that God was not admitting He is hard; He was saying, “This is the way you knew Me.” The servant’s picture of his master shaped everything he did. The talent was taken and given to the one who had ten, and the unprofitable servant was cast into outer darkness.

He tells how, as a young believer, he was afraid to prophesy in case he got it wrong. The Lord told him, “William, you have nothing to be afraid of. It’s a gift from me.” When elders corrected him, he learned that correction is like a teacher marking a test, not something to resent.

The way out of a hard heart, he says, is Romans 12:1–3: present your body a living sacrifice and be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so you prove the good, acceptable and perfect will of God. He shares how his daughter Sarah visited a young woman in hospice who had seen something different in her life. Sarah shared Jesus, they prayed together, and the woman’s fear was gone.

He ends with his own testimony. Years ago, overdosed and alone in an apartment in San Diego, he heard the Lord speak for three days: “You’ll be all right, William. I’m going to use you.” Our Heavenly Father never stopped declaring His goodness, and that, he says, is why we keep hearing Him.

Living It Out This Week

Here are practical steps drawn from this message on our Heavenly Father:

• Keep hearing, especially when it is hard. When God puts His finger on a habit, do not cover your ears. Tell Him you will listen and thank Him that He is changing what you cannot.
• Put your family first. Practice the love, kindness and forgiveness you give co-workers on the spouse and children at home.
• Water your seeds. Give out the love, joy and peace God has planted in you so that they grow.
• Stay where God planted you. Before leaving a marriage, church or job, ask whether you are about to walk away right before the breakthrough.
• Check your picture of God. If you see Him as a hard man, read His goodness in the Word until your image matches the Father Jesus revealed.
• Use your gift without fear. Step out, accept correction like a student, and let the Father be glorified through what He gave you.

Timestamped Outline

• 0:00 Building the kingdom, not religious gatherings
• 1:15 Freely give, and God is not lonely
• 2:18 Family is the first place in your life
• 4:37 From faith in Jesus to the faith of Jesus
• 6:52 One mediator between God and men
• 8:06 The mercy seat and the priest’s blessing
• 10:26 Hebrews 9:15 and the eternal inheritance
• 11:30 The parable of heaven’s store
• 14:39 Word and Spirit, and Ezekiel 36:23
• 15:51 Keep hearing when it is hard
• 18:01 The Roman apostle negotiating a truce
• 22:28 Staying faithful at work
• 24:29 John 5:39: searching the Scriptures
• 28:05 The Lord’s Prayer: hallowed be Your name
• 31:41 Pleroma: the fullness of God
• 34:09 Galatians 4: heirs who stay children
• 37:41 Abba, Father, and 2 Peter 1
• 44:50 1 Peter 2: a rock of offense or a royal priesthood
• 48:07 Romans 1: they did not glorify God
• 52:00 Epiphany and revelation
• 54:20 The parable of the talents
• 57:18 “I knew you to be a hard man”
• 1:04:41 Romans 12 and Sarah’s hospice visit
• 1:09:27 Testimony and closing prayer

Our Heavenly Father Series

This message completes the Our Heavenly Father series. Start from the beginning or review the message before this one:

• First message: Our Heavenly Father #1: An Introduction to the Fatherhood of God
• Previous: Our Heavenly Father #7: From Orphan to Child of God Mentality
• You are here: Our Heavenly Father #8: Growing in Spiritual Maturity by Continually Hearing God

Frequently Asked Questions

Does God’s wrath fall on people who do not know Him?

Pastor Hohman teaches that all the wrath of God was put on Jesus Christ when He died on the cross, every ounce of it. He rejects preaching that God is about to destroy a city or nation, saying people may destroy themselves, but God will not. It is the thief who comes to steal, kill and destroy, while Jesus came to give abundant life (John 10:10). Those who refuse His mercy, he says, will one day know His righteous wrath.

Is God’s will good, acceptable and perfect as three different levels?

No. Pastor Hohman says there are not three wills of God, a good one, an acceptable one and a perfect one. There is only one will, and that one will is good, acceptable and perfect. As we present ourselves to God and renew our minds instead of being conformed to the world’s thinking about Him, we prove that will in our lives, and people around us see His goodness.

What does it mean that believers mediate like Jesus?

Near the end of the message, Pastor Hohman says that as kings and priests we intercede for people going through a tough time. Instead of condemning them, we ask the Father for mercy, that they would not see destruction but know His kindness and goodness. That is how we follow Jesus, the one mediator, in His heart for people.

Scripture References

All passages open in the New King James Version on Bible Gateway:

• Hebrews 9:15 — the Mediator of the eternal inheritance
• 1 Timothy 2:5 — one mediator between God and men
• Galatians 4:1–7 — from child and slave to son and heir
• 2 Peter 1:1–4 — all things for life and godliness
• Ephesians 3:14–19 — filled with all the fullness of God
• John 5:39–40 — the Scriptures testify of Jesus
• 1 Peter 2:8–9 — a royal priesthood
• Romans 1:18–23 — they did not glorify Him as God
• Matthew 25:14–30 — the parable of the talents
• Romans 12:1–3 — transformed by the renewing of your mind

How this summary was made: written with AI assistance from the sermon’s own transcript and checked against the Scriptures listed above.

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