Keep Asking, Keep Seeking, Keep Knocking

Hi, this is Dave Olson. I'm the senior leader of

Heartland Church located in Ankeny, IA.

I hope the following message challenges, encourages and

ultimately changes you. Thanks for joining us.

I want to pick up where we left off last week.

Turn with me to Ephesians chapter 4.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

Ephesians chapter four. Last week we talked about, boy,

this doesn't sound like a Hallelujah moment, but we talked

about the darkening of the understanding.

I think that's that that's a sobering subject.

And the darkening of the understanding in Scripture is

not an event. It is a process that is

initiated by human decision. We can make decisions that

actually close us off from revelation.

So I want to talk about the opposite of that this morning.

How do we position ourselves for revelation?

There are there are things that you can do.

You can position yourself in your relationship with God.

There is a heart posture that will actually open you up to

inside in Scripture. There's the the darkening of the

Understanding Proverbs 2814. It's one of Solomon's Proverbs.

Solomon was the wisest man that ever lived.

And one of the proverbs that he wrote was chapter 28 and verse

14. It says this He who fears the

Lord. Essentially, it's juxtaposing

the fear of the Lord. Let's look at it.

I I can't. I won't be able to quote it.

Proverbs 2814 Let's read that. Listen to what he says here.

This is sobering. 2814. Blessed is the one who fears the

Lord always. But whoever hardens his heart

will fall into calamity. That that's an interesting

passage when you think of the author.

Solomon was through an encounter made the most wise man that ever

lived. I got with some young guys this

week on Friday and we were discussing some some things

scripture. I call them the young bucks.

So we got together for a theological discussion and one

of them was asking about Solomon and and what matter of fact, my

17 year old son was the one who asked the question.

He said, Dad, last week you said that God will not give you

wisdom that you can't handle. He won't give you understanding

or insight that you're not ready for.

And he said the what do you do with Solomon?

And he just sat there and looked at me and they all.

Kind of looked at me. Now we got him, you know, we got

the old man and and so good question.

What's the deal with Solomon if God will not give us wisdom that

we can't handle? Insight that we can't handle?

Because like we talked last week, one of the primary ways in

which God administrates his Kingdom, one of the primary ways

in which God governs his people, is through revealing and

concealing mysteries and revelation.

We see these themes come up in the New Testament.

So what? What is that all about?

God will actually hide things from us and for us.

He will hide them from us until we're ready to handle them.

And what He wants to do is awaken a hunger in our heart.

And the seeking, the desire, the hunger that he ignites in your

heart, if you will cooperate with that, will actually work to

prepare you. It will qualify you to steward

what you're longing for. But if we're satisfied with not

knowing, you know what you'll get.

You'll just stay this. You'll not know if you are

satisfied to stay ignorant about the things of God, you will stay

ignorant about the things of God.

One of the Revelation requires hunger.

God will release to those who hunger and thirst.

He will give you revelation if you ask for it.

But you've got to ask, and you've got to seek and keep on

seeking. You've got to knock and keep on

knocking. And so we need to understand

that there are things that we can actually do.

Revelation is not, oh some people are, that's their

inheritance. And I'm over here just I'm not

going to be a word person. I'll be a, you know, I'll be a

spirit person. That that is not a category

within God's mind, OK? There's not the non word people.

God wants you to understand the word of God.

He wants to give you wisdom and revelation.

But there are things that we need to do to qualify, and it's

very clear in Scripture. There are several criterion, and

perhaps we'll get into this this morning.

But I'm telling you, hunger is one of them.

There's there's this fascinating dynamic, you see in Jesus

teaching ministry. He teaches you remember the

sermon on the soils of the heart.

And he says there's four types of soil.

There's the the trodden path. The yeah, the trodden path that

the the the seed of the word just skidders across the top.

It can't penetrate because it's been walked on so much.

It's too hard. The word, the seed cannot

penetrate the soil, which and thank God that Jesus interprets

this for us himself. This is Matthew 13 that when the

seed of the word hits the top of your heart, if it doesn't

penetrate your heart, you have no understanding.

And he's not talking about unbelievers.

He's talking about those who sit under the teaching of the word

week in and week out. Now that alone needs to make us

tremble a little bit, that we can actually sit under the word

of God and not understand anything that's being said and

actually be content with that. And that's exactly what happened

in Matthew 13. There was a crowd pressing in on

Jesus. So Jesus rolls out this teaching

on the parable of the soils and he tells him, he said there's

four types of human heart. There's the farmer went out to

sow and he sowed it on the trodden path and he said the the

the seed could not penetrate. Therefore they did not

understand. Then the second type of soil was

that the soil, That it was the Stony ground.

And So what happened is there were stones underneath the

surface. There's very good soil on this,

on the the the evidence surface, but underneath it there's

stones, unyielding things that will not allow the root system

to dig down deep. And so it looks real good.

When the seed hits it, the word hits that heart, all of a sudden

it springs up and everybody thinks, Oh my goodness, this

this guy's growing like a weed. This woman's going to be an

evangelist by the end of the week.

This is amazing. Look at this growth.

But then the trials of life come and the sun.

When the sun begins to bake that soil the the the moisture in

that top surface soil is dried up.

And so the root system begins to dig down to get find more

nourishment and it can't penetrate the stones.

So it goes out and all the energy that would have gone down

creating roots goes up, creating appearances and then it dies.

And most of us have seen believers like that man.

They get radically saved, seem like they're going to follow

after Jesus. They're on fire, and then

they're no more because the trials came and exposed the

unyielded places in their heart. Then the third type of soil was

the the weed, the the thorny ground here.

And so it says the seed went in and it grew up, but there were

thorns that grew up with the plant.

So simultaneously, along with this plant are these thorns that

begin to choke out the word. And he defines it like this.

He said it's and you got to take several of the passages

together. There's, I want to say it's Luke

4 or Luke 8 and Mark four. It's Mark 8 and Luke 4 and it's

Matthew 13. I know that one's right.

OK, so check it out for yourself.

The synoptic gosels, you lay them against each other and you

get the full picture. And he says that the the thorns

are the cares of this life. The deceitfulness of riches and

the worries are are are the pleasures of this life.

So there's cares, and then there's the deceitfulness of

riches. The deceitfulness of riches is

that it will actually solve your worries.

And if you've lived any time at all, you realize that ain't

true. More money comes, more concerns

because you buy more stuff and more stuff breaks.

Kathy and I went into our laundry room this morning.

And there's a leak in the ceiling.

I'm like, oh, nuts. You know, I'm going to have to

go look at that. I'm thank God for my home.

But now I got this concerned back.

We worked at Teen Challenge. I would have called you Roger.

Roger was the maintenance guy. Roger fixed my ceiling.

It was awesome. Now I got cares.

And so that's, you know, it's the cares of this life begin to

choke out, though. And then there's the good soil

that brings forth 60 or 3060 and 100 fold.

And again, he's talking about believers here, people who sit

under the word. So we see even in that parable,

there are some who are able to receive and some who are not.

Some people who will receive and they do great until the trial

comes, some people who will pass the test of the trial but will

fail in the blessing stage. There are people that will

endure a trial and fall away in a blessing.

And then there's those who bring forth much fruit.

We need to strive to be that that last company.

Now when Jesus told this parable, he didn't at first tell

him what it meant. And so I've heard people preach

from this passage because you look at Matthew and it he says

to his disciples the knowledge of the secrets of the Kingdom

have been given to you to not to them, and that he tells them

what this means. And they asked him in there.

They said, Jesus, why do you preach in parables?

And he said I do it so that they will hear and not understand.

Now, I don't know about you, but that troubles me about my Jesus.

When I first read that, I was deeply troubled that Jesus would

intentionally teach in such a way that his audience would not

understand. But you know why he did it?

Because what he was teaching was too valuable to be given to

those who wouldn't treasure it. So some people read Matthew 13

and they say, well, see. There there are those who are

appointed for Revelation and those who aren't the disciples.

They were chosen and so therefore they were appointed to

Revelation. But that's not the whole

picture. You got to look at the other

gospels and you find out they were just as clueless as the

rest because they and the other Gospels, they say to Jesus, we

don't understand what you're talking about.

What is this stuff about soil and and hearts and all that?

And Jesus then begins to unpack to them what he was talking

about. So you need to understand the

knowledge of the secrets of the Kingdom weren't just sovereignly

given to some who are the elected some and then withheld

from the others. No, nobody understood what he

said. He taught that way

intentionally. He awakened their hunger by

teaching something they didn't fully understand and the the

understanding of it was only given to those who stuck around

after the meeting and said, Jesus, don't leave us hanging,

we've got to understand what this means.

We want to understand the Kingdom, and Jesus looks at him

and said the knowledge of the secrets of the Kingdom have been

given to you. And then he explained it.

He was about to give them the knowledge of the secrets.

And we need to understand that happens every Sunday morning all

over the world. The teaching of the word goes

out and it lands on different types of soil and you get to

choose what kind of soil you are.

You get to choose if you're going to be a Stony ground here.

Hey, let's let's face it, we've had a lot of traffic on our

heart this week. Are you going to allow your

heart to be hard and not not understand and be content

without understanding? You see, none of them

understood. You could have made the case

that all of them were trodden path hearers initially, but the

disciples took a tiller to their soil and came up to Jesus after

the meeting and said, Lord, we're not content to sit and

listen to you and not understand.

We want to know. So one of the primary criteria

for revelation is that we've got to press in for more.

We've got to ask and keep on asking.

If any man lacks wisdom, let him ask.

There are a lot of people who lack wisdom, but they don't ask.

The Lord spoke to me about probably 12 years ago.

Joel Budd was preaching that morning.

I was sitting on the front row and the Lord began to speak to

me. And he said, many of my children

live. And ignorance of my principles.

And then get frustrated with me about not how how their life is

not working, but rather than press in for insight, they get

offended. We need to press in and say,

God, this thing's not working. And the problems on my end,

there's something I don't understand and if we'll press in

for insight, God will give it to us.

But the first criteria is hunger.

We've got to ask and keep on asking.

And what Solomon gives us here is he gives us a picture of two

types of people. The fact is, every time God

speaks to us, we are at a fork in the road and we have a

decision. We can go this way, which is

called the hardening of the heart, or we can go this way,

which is what the fear of the Lord He juxtaposes these two

dynamics over against each other.

Let me read it again. Blessed is the one who fears the

Lord always. That's the key.

Solomon should have abided by his own preaching.

When my son asked me. And all those young guys leaned

in with a grin on their face when he said, what about

Solomon? What do you do with that one?

This is what I told him, and this is a scary reality.

Solomon broke into supernatural wisdom.

One of the guys was asking about dreams.

This is how we kind of got on this subject.

He was saying what what's the deal with dreams, Pastor?

Is that, you know, he he has a dream.

And this thing, it's like a reality in his life.

What is that? We need to realize that we can

have encounters with God in the night, watch in a dream and wake

up a different person. That's what happened to Solomon.

God can encounter you in a real way.

And there was an impartation that made him a different man.

He woke up the wisest man, whoever lived.

But here's the scary reality, and the answer to that question

that wisdom is not necessarily permanent.

You can step into revelation, but if you don't steward it

well, you can actually lose the insight that you received.

The revelation that once inflamed the passion of your

heart and caused you to fall more in love with Jesus can

become just cynical insight that actually mocks you with its

emptiness. Solomon, the wisest man whoever

lived, wrote his first book, The Song of Songs.

It was a song of a passionate love affair, and it's a picture

of that, that love affair between King Jesus and his

church. It's been preached all down

through church history in that manner, and it's a valid

interpretation. It's about the the heart that is

captured by him. Solomon started out well.

Then he went on to write his much of his books of proverbs

about great wisdom and great insight, including this verse,

telling us that if we will always fear the Lord, we'll be

blessed, but if we harden our heart, we'll be tormented.

And Solomon didn't heed his own words because he hardened his

heart against some dictates that God had given to the kings said,

you're not to amass a bunch of wives.

Solomon had 300 wives, 300 motherinlaws.

I'm sorry. I got outside the text.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. 303 hundred wives and

700 concubines. He said not to amass a lot of

gold and not to amass many horses.

And Solomon hardened his heart on all three of those spots.

And Solomon ended up to drifting away from the Lord.

And he closed his life out writing this depressing book

that many people read and think. I bet people ask me, what is the

deal with the Ecclesiastes? Why did God put that in the

book? You ever wondered that?

If you haven't, you haven't read it yet.

Everything is meaningless under the sun.

You work hard, amass great wealth, and then your kids

squandered at your funeral. I mean, that's pretty much what

it says. It's like, It's like, this is a

bummer book. But the operative phrase, the

key phrase to understanding the book of Ecclesiastes is that

phrase under the sun. It's what philosophers call a

closed system. In other words, you're not going

to look above the sun. You're not going to look outside

of creation for meaning. You're going to try to find

meaning within life itself. And this was written by a man

who had the most beautiful women to be his his partner.

He had more money than any of us can fathom and all the academic

learning that anybody he's was the smartest man that ever

lived. And at the end of his life, he

said everything is meaningless under the sun.

And the revelation that once ministered to his heart

tormented him, because he cut himself off from the life of

God, because he hardened his heart.

Now those of you that weren't here last week, go back and

listen to the podcast from last week.

But let me just I'm going to do about 3 minutes, review

Ephesians Chapter 4. Paul says this in Ephesians

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

chapter four, he says. You must no longer live, as the

Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking.

He also uses that phrase in Romans 1, The Futile Thinking.

Both of those passages Ephesians 4 is talking about the

digression and the hardening of the heart and an individual

scale. Romans One is talking about it

on a corporate or national scale, the darkening of the

understanding. And we need to understand we are

living in an hour where the darkening of the understanding

is, is rapidly increasing in our nation where people cannot

connect the moral dots. And the first defense against

that is to make sure it doesn't happen in our own heart as an

individual. So, and Paul says you must no

longer live as the Gentiles doing the futility of their

thinking. Paul wouldn't warn us about

that. He wouldn't tell us we must not

do something that wasn't a possibility of us doing so.

We need to realize this is a possibility for the believer to

slide into this lifestyle, he said.

You must no longer live in the futility of the thinking.

And then he he reverse engineers as he talks about the end result

of this mindset and works his way to the root, the fruit down

to the root, he said. They are darkened in their

understanding and separated from the life of God because of or

the cause of which is the hardening of their heart do or

or the ignorance that is in them because of the ignorance that is

in them due. To the hardening of their heart.

And so the root of this thing is the hardening of the heart that

Solomon talks about, that we harden our heart and we put our

hand up and say God. I don't want to hear that

uncomfortable truth because it will cost me something.

And what we need to realize is ignoring the voice of God will

cost us much more because we can't compartmentalize that

process when we harden our heart in one area.

There is a process that sets in and we not only lose the one

truth we were ignoring ignorant sets in and we begin to lose

touch with the truths we once. And then finally, we're darkened

in our understanding. We lose the faculty, the moral

faculty to receive more revelation.

We can't receive instruction from the Lord.

It's like we're closed off and people can preach.

And it's like, it doesn't make sense to us.

We can't connect the dots and Paul's warning us.

It's exactly what Solomon is talking about here.

So what is the opposite? The fear of the Lord.

The fear of the Lord is when we hear something from the Lord,

even though it's costly, we understand that God is weighing.

God is the judge of all the earth.

Remember when Abraham prayed for Sodom and he said will not the

judge of all the earth do justly?

It was a rhetorical question. What Abraham was insinuating is

God is intimately involved in the human affairs, and he's

evaluating our lives and we there is a reaping and a sewing.

The law of the harvest is enforced by the God of the

harvest, and that is the basis of the fear of the Lord.

We realize that God is intimately involved, and there

is. It's impossible to please God

without faith, and faith means that you believe he is the

rewarder of those who diligently seek him.

There are rewards in the Kingdom that will motivate you.

And if we don't have that concept, I'm telling you this

thing. Let me get a little little

rabbit trail here, OK? The grace message, the grace of

God that gives us salvation is a very real thing.

But that same grace teaches us to say no to ungodliness.

And if your revelation, your vision, your understanding of

grace is simply that God allows you to skate by and make it into

the Kingdom, then your revelation of grace is

insufficient. That is, there's an element of

grace. Part of the definition of grace

is that God invites you. He makes provision for you to

come in, that you don't earn your salvation.

But that same grace is to teach us to say no to ungodliness.

And when we lose this idea that there are that God is balancing

the scales, there is discipline from the Lord and there are

rewards from the Lord. And some people, when you talk

to them, they have no frame of reference for this kind of

thing. Rewards Boy, you that sounds

like works. It's right there in the word.

The parables of Jesus are very clear.

The master called his servants. He gave them talents.

Then he went off on a long journey.

They put it to work. One buried it.

He comes back and he wants to settle accounts.

This is not merely talking about the end of the age.

This is talking about a dynamic in the Kingdom that is

continually happening. Jesus would not have told a

parable that was irrelevant to his hearers.

He's talking about this is how God operates.

God will impart to you in a very real sense.

He'll impart and depart. He'll give you something in His

presence. He'll withdraw, and then he'll

see what you're going to do with it and what you do with in His

absence. What He gave you in His presence

will qualify you or disqualify you for the next wave.

And so God will come. And when we invest what He gives

us and steward it well, we get more.

God will give us more revelation.

God will give us more the the resources of the Kingdom.

But if we bury those things and we don't treasure them and we

have this mindset, well it's all by grace, then at best we stay

immature. And God wants to grow us up in

the things of Him. He wants us to understand that

there are rewards in the Kingdom.

That's why Hebrews 11, when it defines faith, it says we need,

we must understand He is the rewarder of those who diligently

seek Him. Is that a part of your frame of

reference when you think of him, that there is a reward at the

end of this seeking? If it's not if your idea as

well, that's kind of arbitrary. God gives blessing to some and

not to others, and that's a sovereign choice.

And we're just down here and life happens to us.

No, there's an engagement of the human heart that we cooperate

with him, that we can posture ourselves for blessing, for

breakthrough, and for wisdom and revelation.

And God is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him, and

those who don't are left without the breakthrough they could have

had. Because God, there's an effort

that is expressed that actually changes us.

God, God uses that to grow us up.

And we need to understand that this is not a lack of grace.

That is actually great cooperating with grace.

Grace working in us, creating a hunger and teaching us to seek

Him. And when we do that, we begin to

grow with Him, and so this thing of revelation it.

Starts with the fear of the Lord.

We we yield to His dealings. The fear of the Lord is it.

It lives. It makes decisions today based

on the consequences tomorrow. We weigh everything in light of

the consequences of our decision.

The opposite of the fear of the Lord is the hardening of the

heart. But the the the the mindset is

foolishness. The fool.

He says in his heart, tomorrow we made, you know, eat, drink

and be merry, for tomorrow we die.

Don't worry about how your irresponsible behavior affects

you, because you might not even be alive tomorrow to reap the

consequence. Just live it up for the moment.

Whereas wisdom looks at the long term and it says I'm going to

make the right decisions now, I'm going to make my decisions

now based on the long term results and people who live like

that. There is a slow accrument of

blessing. That begins to snowball in their

life in every area, including your finances.

I used to, I used to be in the drug culture and as I got saved,

some of my friends, they came out of that.

And I remember one guy saying it's just amazing.

Now that I'm not doing drugs, I don't know what to do with my

money. I actually have more money to

spare. The guy had a great job, made

really good money, but he blew it all on drugs and alcohol.

When he got sober, all of a sudden he had money.

He wasn't even living for the Lord, but he was living wiser

than before, and he was reaping the benefits of that.

God invites us into those things.

So, okay, here's how we posture our heart for revelation,

because revelation is a very real thing.

Not everybody has the same insight into the Word.

Do you? Recognize that?

And that's not some sovereign thing.

Well, well, they're graced for it.

It's an invitation to you. Ask, seek, and knock.

If any man lacks wisdom, let him ask.

Search for wisdom. Cry aloud for understanding.

Search for it as hidden treasure.

Why? Because it is because with

wisdom comes all the other things you long for.

And so God invites us into it. So what do we need to do #1?

We need to have hunger. We need to ask.

If you are content to not have wisdom, you'll live in your

present state. But if we begin to ask, God will

begin to give it to us. The other thing is the purity of

heart. It's interesting when you look

at Solomon, he has this encounter with the Lord in a

dream. And the Lord said ask of me

anything you want. What an opportunity.

What an amazing thing to be told by God.

He's in this dream And the Lord said ask of me anything you

want. And Solomon says, Lord, your

your favor was on my dad and I've inherited his position and

I don't have what it takes. I I'm like a child.

I don't need to know. I don't know how to go in and go

out. I need wisdom to lead your

people. And the Lord was pleased, and he

said, Solomon, because you did not ask for wisdom or fame, or

the death of your enemies. I'm going to give you wisdom.

You will be the wisest man that ever lived.

None, none will be like you in the on earth or in to come.

And then he went on to say, and I will also give you riches and

fame. I'm going to give you what you

didn't ask for. You know, it's interesting.

Later on, Solomon would write with the fear of the Lord, the

fear of the. Lord is the beginning of wisdom

and with it comes riches and honor.

That wasn't an anomaly. It wasn't a one time thing that

that God tells Solomon well, because you feared the Lord and

because you made the right decision, because your heart was

pure and you didn't ask for things for yourself.

You were really thinking of my Kingdom, that I'm going to do a

special. Thing I'm not doing for anybody

else, I'm going to give you wisdom and honor and riches.

Solomon later on realizes that the very way he answered that

question was a Kingdom principle open to all of us.

That with wisdom comes rich is an honor, and the secret of

wisdom is the purity of heart. If you go to the book of James,

the book of James is one of the primary books of wisdom.

We don't think of it as a wisdom book, but it most definitely is,

he says in chapter one. If any man lacks wisdom, let him

ask. But if he's going to spend it on

himself, he shouldn't expect to receive anything from God.

You see how? Solomon postured himself to pass

that test through his answer later on in the book we see in

chapter 4 It's like verse 1314. He says the wisdom that comes

from heaven is first of all pure, then peace.

Loving, sincere, he goes to this list.

But he is very careful to say the first manifestation of that

wisdom is heart Purity. He says it's first of all pure,

then peace loving. You look in the Beatitudes, it's

in the same order. Blessed is the pure and heart,

for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers.

Same idea, because those two things always come together.

But the wisdom, the the wisdom that comes from heaven is first

of all pure. Blessed are the peacemakers.

They will see God, and you'll see God in every page of the

book. If you can really get your heart

where it's pure before the Lord. That's why James says later on

in that passage, he says purify your hearts.

You doubleminded, weep, mourn and wail, turn your laughter,

mourning and your joy to gloom. And in due season the Lord will

lift you up. What he's talking about is go to

work, really dig down deep and say, God, uproot this stuff in

my life that is keeping you from giving me what I need because

you can't trust me to steward it.

Well, I have a double. There's a double mindedness.

I want your glory. I want you to be glorified, but

I also want some for myself. And so he says, let's go to work

on this. Purify your hearts.

Because the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all

pure. That's what that whole passage

is about. It's about qualifying our heart

for Revelation. John chapter seven.

We see Jesus answer this question.

The Pharisees asked him, John. Or they asked Jesus, Jesus,

Where did you get such insight? Where did you get such wisdom?

And true to form, Jesus answers his question in such a way that

they don't really think he's answering the question.

They said, Where did you get such insight?

He said. I came not to glorify myself,

but the one who sent me, and I guarantee you all the people

that were asking that question are thinking, Jesus, We're not

interested in your motive for learning.

We want to know your source. Where did you get this insight?

And Jesus was giving them the answer.

The secret of my source is my motive.

I'm not here to please myself, but the one who sent me.

That is the essence of heart purity.

If we can get to the place where our heart burns for his glory,

if we can get to the place where we say God, I just want what you

want. There is a dynamic that opens up

that God will begin to give us wisdom and revelation.

But James already warned us in chapter one.

If we ask for wisdom so that we can indulge ourselves, the

heavens are closed over us. But if we can deal with that, if

we can, if we can deal with that impurity of heart, that

doublemindedness, then God will begin to open up to us and give

us revelation. And the foundation of that is

the fear of the Lord. So we can posture ourselves for

wisdom and revelation. We we really need to understand

there there are people who are gifted to teach the word of God

and and I'm grateful for those people that and I've received a

lot from people but John is very clear.

You are not dependent upon teachers.

You don't have he. He actually says you have you

don't have a need of a teacher. You have an anointing that

teaches you. Now we got to balance scripture

with scripture. God gave us teachers so we can

benefit from them and we and it we do well to, you know, avail

ourselves to their their gift. But we're not dependent on that.

It's not like, well, there's a people that are anointed for

insight. None.

There's the rest of us. It's available to all of us.

The invitation is open. Do you want wisdom and

revelation? Do you want to understand the

word of God? Do you want the the dots to

connect Then hunger and thirst after righteousness.

Ask him. If any man lacks wisdom, let him

ask. Begin to ask the Lord, and God

will begin to give to you what you need.

He'll begin to give you that wisdom and that revelation and

some of it. We talked about it last week.

There is asking level and there's seeking level wisdom.

There's some that you're just asking to receive.

There's other, there's the seeking, and it's a process, but

that process will actually build the character in you to qualify

you to steward it. But there's this process that we

enter into this life, this lifelong student.

You know, being studious the rest of our life, saying God, I

want to understand your Kingdom. I don't know what you I I feel

that this morning there is an invitation from God.

Some of you you there are things you're longing to look into.

Let let me see if I can find this document.

I just told you what the Lord spoke to me a number of years

ago. I.

Doubt if I'll be able to find it, but I'm going to try.

Because essentially what he was telling me is that too many of

us live frustrated when actually the frustration from our

circumstances needs to provoke us to press in for greater

answers. If your life ain't working, I

know that's not good grammar, but it's good preaching.

If your life ain't working, it's because you need greater

revelation and God longs to give it to you.

He's not a bad father that's just down there tormenting you

with your frustration. And you'll, you know it'll lift.

When you get to heaven, God is wanting you to press in for

Revelation and ask him for that what you need, and God will give

it to you. But often what He does is He

withholds it from us because we're not yet ready to hear what

He needs to say. And that pursuit there, there is

a there is a hunger and a pursuit of God that will cause

us to begin to throw things overboard.

Okay. I'll get rid of this, and I'll

get rid of that. Lord, I just want more of you.

And that process purifies us so we can qualify that for that

greater revelation. But God is God is too great.

See, someone's crying out back there.

They're already getting the message.

There's there's greater revelation that's available to

us if we will ask for it. But God is too good a steward to

just give it to people. Who won't value it?

And in that sense, he will not give it to us.

Before our time, Solomon had qualified for wisdom.

But here's the scary part. You can receive wisdom and not

maintain it. Let's land it with this Solomon

in in Proverbs chapter. I want to say it's six and

seven. He's got that little scenario

where he's talking about. He looked out his window and

there was a a fool, a foolish youth and he went down by the

way of the immoral woman's house and he he went by her house and

she was standing on the street corner and she seduced him in.

And she said my husband is on a long business trip.

He won't be. He won't be around for a a while

here. And what she was doing is she

was attacking the fear of the Lord.

This thing in him, there's going to be consequences.

What if I get caught and she's trying to seduce and we'll get

away with it. She's trying to remove that

barrier of the fear of the Lord, which was a safeguard in his

heart. And here he was seduced and it

said her mouth is the opening to the grave and many are been

destroyed by going in her door. It's a terrifying picture.

And he says he gives that as the picture of foolishness.

Standing in the high point of the city advertising.

It swears there is a seduction to sin that is bold and brazen

and tries to lure a sin. And then he gives this picture

of wisdom being a female. I find it really interesting

that there's these two females. One is foolishness, this is

Solomon, one is foolishness, and one is wisdom, and wisdom is

more. Discreet wisdom is like a lady.

You have to win her. Years ago, when I was single, I

I have the works of Shakespeare. I've never read it, but it

looked good on my shelf and so I pulled it down.

One day I opened it up. I'm a single guy and this is the

one line I know. From Shakespeare, it says she is

beautiful, so she is to be wooed.

She is a woman, so she is to be won.

I put it back and I thought that guy knows women.

It's an amazing quote. There is when, when there is

something about. The feminine that needs to be

pursued even at this the smallest expression the sperm

and the egg. The sperm goes to the egg, not

the other way around. The sperm pursues the egg.

The egg just sits in the waiting room, waiting.

Hi boys. You know she's got her fixing

her hair, you know, looking pretty.

And it's a picture of righteousness.

Righteousness has to be won. Wisdom has to be one.

You have to pursue wisdom, but foolishness will pursue you and

promise you the world and leave you empty and destroyed.

And here's the scary thing. I've been married to this

beautiful woman on the front row for 34 years.

I'm looking for a conga 34 years, 34 years, a week and a

day ago. And you know what?

I still have to pursue her. I didn't just win her 30-4 years

ago. You know, I'm Norwegian and

Norwegians are usually known for not being real expressive.

I heard about this Norwegian or this lady.

She was married for 35 years and she told her husband, She said

you never say you love me. The only time you ever told me

you love me was on our wedding day.

And he said, well, woman, I told you that day and if I ever

change my mind, I'll let you know.

Thought that was okay. That ain't going to work.

Wisdom has to continually be pursued.

Solomon courted wisdom and broke into wisdom.

But he didn't maintain the marriage.

He didn't keep the relationship with wisdom.

Wisdom is precious. It's to be guarded.

Proverbs chapter 2 says search for it as hidden treasure.

Proverbs 2 · chapter mention

If it really is treasure, you will treasure it, You will guard

it. You will continue to pursue

those things and you won't. Let it out of your sight.

The things of God. We can break into wisdom, or we

and but we can harden our heart and actually lose what we once

had. It's called ignorance setting

in, according to Ephesians 4. So we need to pursue wisdom and

we never outgrow the courtship. We still we need to value

wisdom. I was talking to you guys.

Remember Dean Briggs? I was talking to Dean Briggs a

while back and we were talking about this dynamic and I found

it interesting, He said we were talking about how the Lord, it

seems like the Lord will bring you back to a truth.

You ever notice that you'll be studying something and then you

find yourself three years later and you're studying that same

thing, but it's deeper this time.

It's like he's speaking to you, got it again.

Then three years later, it's like, wow, there's more here.

And he was talking. He said, I I think it's like

going up a mountain. You're ascending up the

mountain, You're you're in the same spot, but you got a higher

vantage point. I thought, man, that is so good.

Then this week I was listening to Dutch Sheets and he was

talking about how the Lord recently told him, I I've

brought you full circle. But then in this picture the

Lord gave him, he said full circle.

He's on the same place. But then the Lord gave him the

three, the 3D vision. And he realized, yeah, he'd gone

all the way around the circle, but he'd gone higher.

And that is how the Lord operates.

The Lord will revisit those truths and he will build on the

truths you once had. But you've got to maintain and

guard those truths so you don't have to keep learning the same

old lessons again and again and again.

The writer of Hebrew says, I don't want to have to lay again

the foundation. That's immaturity.

We should be beyond this. He says, let us move on to

maturity. There is so much more the Lord

has for us. Let me land it.

Go ahead and stand. So, you know I'm going to quit.

Let me land it with this, what I felt this morning.

And and I was just really. Groping about, trying to figure

out where to jump into this. But there is such a thing as

individual wisdom and revelation, and there is

deposits of wisdom and revelation that God will give to

a corporate group of people, to a tribe of people, to a local

church, because it fits with their assignment.

And only in stewarding those truths can they move into what

God has for them. And there is more the Lord has

for us as a church. There are things he wants to

teach us, but we've got to have our heart positioned because he

will withhold from us unless we have the hunger enough to really

begin to pull on that. There are there's some of you.

You are so hungry. It's like the Lord has you on a

new track there. It's like there's all kinds of

new things are popping in your head.

There's there's new things you're bumping into, and you're

saying I didn't know this even existed.

And if you will just begin to ask him, then there is so much

more that hunger itself is a sign God's already working.

It is the invitation Jesus said in Matthew 13.

He said when he told the disciples, I hide it from them

so they don't understand. He said because if they see it,

they can have it. Think about that.

As you begin to see certain things, it's because God is

wanting you to step. Into a new reality and you step

into and there's a new reality in the Kingdom.

That was a game changer. But you've got to go after that.

And too often we are satisfied with little crumbs.

God gives us a little truth and we're like, oh man, that's

amazing. And we get distracted by the

thorns of this life and we don't go deeper.

And there's so much more he wants to give us.

And I believe there's things that God wants to roll out to us

as a congregation that become part of the the working fabric

of this church. Because there's things he wants

us to move into, but we're going to have to come up to a higher

level in the knowledge of the secrets of the Kingdom.

So, Father, we just pray right now, God, that you'd awaken our

hearts. God, we ask you to forgive us.

Lord, we confess before your throne.

We are so easily distracted. Like little children, a squirrel

runs by the window, and we're off looking at that.

We're distracted from what you're doing.

Lord, we're asking that you would create in us such a hunger

that the whirlwinds around us cannot take our gaze off of you,

your Kingdom and your word. I just feel it very.

Strongly there's some of you and Elliot.

There there are things that God has begun to deal with you

about. There there's things that you're

it's like lately there you, you begun to realize, man, there's

more in the Kingdom than I realized.

And it's God's doing. And there's an invitation to

you. There's you.

Just go after. I'm telling you, God's going to

open some things up to you. There are questions you have,

and those questions are given to you by the Lord that quest.

There, there's a quest. He's taking you on through the

questions that he's going to begin to fill out some things

that you've longed to know. And that fascination is not a

side issue. It's not you're not getting

distracted by minor things. It is the thing.

Okay. It is the quest in the Kingdom.

And I believe that's for. But I believe there's others of

you in this room. There are things.

There's an awakening in your heart.

There's just this hunger, and sometimes it's like an

excitement. You just want to burst.

You want it. You want more.

I'm telling you that is the invitation from heaven.

Seek for understanding. Cry aloud for Revelation.

I believe that me, that means what it says.

Cry aloud. There's something about the

passionate ignition of your heart saying, God, I've got to

know, sometimes we just need to lose our decorum and just go

after this thing. And the Lord will reward that

because he is the rewarder of those who diligently seek him.

If there's been a a growing hunger this this isn't for

everyone I don't think. But if there's been this growing

hunger of late, just this fascination, this hunger there,

it's like there's things that have been been gripping you,

ideas and concepts and things and you've been asking, Lord,

how does this fit together? And I feel like for some of you

that it's even been this question, man, I don't know am I

getting off. And now I'm telling you that is

how the Kingdom works. God will lead you along through

truth. He takes you on a quest and if

that's you it it's been, there's been this ravenous hunger that's

awakened. I even feel like there's some of

you about six months ago that happened and it began to die

down through the busyness, and the Lord wants to reignite that.

This morning, there's a fresh invitation to you.

If that's you this morning, I'm going to ask you to come up in

the altar. We just want to.

I want to pray over you right now.

If that's you there. You know that there's this

hunger that's been stirring in you.

And I want to tell you that that hunger itself is a gift from

God. It's at.

The fact is that we even want him.

Martin Luther, the great reformer.

He said it takes God to love God.

The fact that we even hunger him and want him at all is an work

of His grace. He is so gracious to make us

hungry. Thanks for listening to our

podcast. If you'd like to help more

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you can do so at Heartland Church, online.com/give.