The Call To Go Deeper (Pursuing God With All Your Heart)

For a couple of years and having a four thousand

dollars a month overhead taking care of my family. I

have a rich history of God bringing breakthrough in my

life where I never told a soul about my finances

and I kept a private and just prayed about it.

So he's good.

Now my bride is going to bring the words, so

nice she's got. Okay, do you need cleanexes?

Okay, I'm not crying today.

You gotta turn your mic on. She said, she's not

crying today.

Am I on? I didn't think I would cry earlier.

All right, If y'all would extend your hands towards Lisa

real quick, Lord, I just asked that you would once

again speak through her, Lord, everything on your heart, your mind,

or that you would speak it through her. And I

thank you for your word.

Lord. I thank you for my wife.

I thank you that the gift she is to me

and my boys, and I thank you that I can

share her with the church in Jesus name.

Amen. Amen. Wow, Okay, good morning. It's so good to

see you all here. And I'd be lying to say

I was super excited to be up here teaching because

I still struggle with wanting to be up here. Oh

and honestly, the first service I didn't even get through

half of the teaching, which made me really nervous because

I worked really hard on this. I went through I

have scripture in here, and then I got through like

maybe two pages. Yeah, oh goodness, I'm already feeling teary.

It's your fault. So I shared with a morning congregation,

the morning group about you know, I was preparing this

week for teaching, and out of a little insecurity, I

was like, kept on hearing this theme of show me

your glory, and I was like, is that you? Is

that just me? What is this? So I started digging

into Exodus thirty three, and then I got a little

more insecure and I said, Lord, please please confirm this

is you and the direction you want me to go in.

And so I said, hey, justin, what's on the song set?

And I asked, because the Lord tends to use worship

to weave a theme before the message. And I was like, Lord,

would you just speak to me and confirm this in

my heart? And so when the Lord or I mean

when justin, not the Lord? When Justin right off the

song set, I knew that this was the direction that

the Lord wanted me to go in. And so so

here I am this morning, and I just want to

take a moment, and I just want to come before

the Lord, so heavenly Father. Lord, we just thank you,

We thank you that you are a good father, that

you want to be known by us, you want us

to pursue you, you want our hearts. You are after us,

your children. And Lord, I ask that as a body

that we are ready to meet with you, that we

prepare our heart to meet with you. I just thank you, Father,

and I just asked that you feel my heart, my words,

and let me be your mouthpiece in Jesus' name, just

to hear. Okay, I keep on messing this up. My

hair gets in the way. He's jealous. That's a good

dad joke, right, that's a wife joke. So not fair.

You have no idea how many times I cringe when

he jokes. Sometimes I'm like, oh no, no, okay, I

want us to turn to Matthew twenty five. So Matthew

twenty five, the parable of the Ten Virgins at that time,

the Kingdom of Heaven. Now let me back up here,

Matthew twenty four. What is the Lord talking about? Jesus

is talking about his coming. Okay, so now we're in

Matthew twenty five. So Jesus goes through in Matthew twenty

four about him coming the end times. Who in here

thinks we're pretty close to that? Yeah, I do too.

So here we are in twenty five. At that time,

the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who

took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.

Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The

foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any

oil with them. The wise ones, however, took oil in

jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long

time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.

At midnight, the cry rang out, here's the bridegroom come

out to meet him. Then all the virgins woke up

and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise,

give us some of your oil, our lamps are going out. No,

they replied, there may not be enough for both us

and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and

buy some for yourselves. But while they were on their

way to buy oil. The bridegroom arrived, the virgins who

were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet,

and the door was shut. Later the others also came,

Lord Lord. They said, open the door for us, but

he replied, truly, I tell you I do not know you. Therefore,

keep watch, because you do not know the day or

the hour. I want to ask you, are you ready?

Are you ready to meet the King of Kings? You

know we are promised today, We're not promised tomorrow. Today

is the day to be ready. He's gonna come at

an hour that we do not know. We're going to

know the times in the seasons. He shows us in

the word the times in the seasons, but we're not

going to know. So we have to make sure that

we're ready. And that's my heart today. I want to

make sure that every single person in here is ready

to meet the King of Kings. So in being ready

to meet the King of Kings, I am. I like

to do something called a heart check. It's self examination.

And I love that as a body, we are doing

corporate communion because with communion, and I pray every single

one of you do this, that you search your heart,

you do a self, examining what's in your heart. Tewod

Corinthians thirteen five says, to examine yourselves to see whether

you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Isaiah fifty nine

to two says, but your iniquities have made a separation

between you and God. Your sins have hidden his face

from you, so that he does not hear you. Psalm

sixty six eighteen says that if I had cherished iniquity

in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. Do

you cherish your sin? I know it sounds really rough

and brutal, But do you do you cherish that offense

you have against your brother? You feel justified in the

unforgiveness you have in your heart, the pride, the complacency.

Are you lukewarm? I'm asking you this not as condemnation,

not as shame on you. I'm asking you these questions

because I feel a responsibility that each one of you,

when the time comes, that you can come to Him

with a pure heart and clean hands. I want each

of you to examine what's in your heart. We can't

go before the Father with a hardened heart. He wants

you to pursue him, y'all. I've said this before, and

I will keep on saying it. He is after your heart.

He's not after your religious box checking. He's not after

how many times did you go to church? Did you

do a good deed? Did you pray for ten minutes?

Did you do this? Did you check the boxes? He

knows the difference between your heart pursuing him and you

just doing a good religious thing. It's too easy to

get caught up and doing religious things first Chronicles twenty

eight nine. And you, solom and my son, know the

God of your father, and serve him with a whole

heart and with a willing mind. For the Lord searches

all hearts and understands every plan and thought. If you

seek him, he will be found by you. But if

you forsake, he will cast you off forever. Jeremiah seventeen ten.

I the Lord search the heart and test the mind,

to give every man according to his ways, according to

the fruit of his deeds. Revelation two twenty three. And

all the churches will know that I am he who

searches mind and heart, and I will give to each

of you according to your works, not according to my works,

not according to Justin's works. Your works you're responsible for

your relationship with the Lord. Like I said, some of

you might deal with unforgiveness, judgment, offense, pride, addiction, complacency.

The list goes on and on. What is that cherished

thing that you keep in your heart? I really want

you to take a moment and think about that. One day,

each of us are going to be giving an account

to the Lord. We are going to stand before God Almighty.

And I don't know about you, but I want to

come with a pure heart and clean hands. And y'all,

this is not just a personal call. This is a

call to the body, to the Church. We are His bride.

He is coming for us together. And this is a

year that Cross Kingdom said we're going deeper with the Lord,

and I was sitting there thinking, okay, Lord, what does

that mean? Go deeper? I could give you some action

steps and I actually have him in this teaching, but

I don't know if I'm going to actually get to them,

because I even get halfway through earlier. But y'all, to

go deeper with the Lord, that means you have to

have in your heart the intention to pursue the Father,

to run after Jesus. You can't just say here I am,

I'm a Christian, I'm checking my boxes. I'm good. You're

not gonna go deeper that way. You've got to have

a real burning desire like Moses. That's why I like

justin read out the song set and he got to

the song show me your Face. Let's think about Moses

for a minute. Moses was known to speak to God

face to face. That wasn't enough for him. He wanted more.

He wanted so much more. Y'all. We can't be satisfied

with where we are. We can't get comfortable sitting in

the pews, not participating, not seeking and running after him.

We have to have a desire. He promises that if

we seek him, we will find him Jeremiah twenty nine thirteen. So,

like Moses, he wasn't content where he was. He wanted more.

He cried out, show me your ways that I may

know you, Lord, show me your glory. What a bold request?

How many here when you pray ask the Lord to

show you his glory. I love that song show me

your Glory? And I literally will find myself just soaking

in that thinking about what would that be like to

be face to face with the Lord and you know

what Moses longed for, we actually have in Jesus. Moses

could only get a glimpse of God's glory, but he

sent his son Jesus so we could experience all of

who he is. We don't just know about God. With Jesus,

we see his mercy, his grace, his love, his passion.

I also love King David. He had this kind of

hunger going after the Lord. In Psalm sixty three to one,

he says, Oh God, you are my God. Earnestly I

seek you. My soul thirst for you, My flesh fads

for you as in a dry and weary land where

there is no water. David was desperate for him, And

that's what we need. And that's what I want to

challenge each of you. Two. God is inviting you into

this pursuit to go deeper with him. When God revealed

his character to Moses in Exodus thirty four six through seven,

he declared the Lord, the Lord a god, merciful and gracious,

slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

He wants us to know him. So it's one thing

to desire God, but you can't go deeper with him

without being first in the right standing with God. That's

why I was saying, it is so important to do

what I call a heart check. It's self examination. This

world is curious about who God is. This world is

curious about supernatural things. But it's more than just being curious.

Salvation is essential. Romans ten nights makes it clear. If

you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and

believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,

you will be saved. And that's where intimacy begins. And

if you don't know Jesus as your savior, don't leave

today without knowing. You're promised today, You're not promised tomorrow.

And He's a good father and he wants to know you,

and he wants to be known by you. So now

I'm going to speak to those that actually have known

the Lord, maybe most of your life. What's the condition

of your heart? Are you pursuing the Father he's pursuing you?

Are you stuck on the milk? Is that comfortable? And Lord, y'all,

I don't want you to hear my heart and think

I'm being harsh. I want to challenge you. I was

holding that precious baby during worship. Ben came up to me,

and he said that that's like a sign of who

the Lord has given us in a community. Not everybody's

a baby. That's not what he was saying. But as

I was holding her, and I was looking down at her,

there are many of us that are in our infants

age of relationship with the Lord. And I was holding

her looking at her, going, this is so beautiful. And

she just sat and she laid in my arms, and

during all the chaos of worship and things happening, she

just fell red asleep like Jason Carpenter. Sorry that was

perfect timing, but she did. She literally and so but

I was holding her, this precious infant baby, two months old,

and I was looking at her, thinking of those of

us that just might have come to know the Lord,

and how precious you are to him. You are precious

to him. And guess what you need to be fed?

The bottle. You need the milk because you're not ready

for the meat. So I want you to know that

there's many of you in here that are just knowing

the Lord, and that's beautiful. You have a desire to

know him, and right now you are on the milk,

and that's okay. But those of us me included, who've

known the Lord most of our lives. Are you still

on the milk? Are you comfortable with being fed that bottle?

Are you comfortable with blaming the pastor it's Justin's fault

I am where I am spiritually, or my wife or

my husband. My husband doesn't come with me to church

or this, that and the other, and so you put

your blame off on somebody else. My husband's not going

to stand before the Lord for me. I'm accountable. Well,

you're accountable. No one else can take that place. So

if you've known the Lord for a long time and

you're comfortable on the milk, I'm going to challenge you.

It's time to grow up. It's time to mature. It's

time to be a church and a people who mean

what they say. Some of you might have heard me

every time we say that declaration before we get the offering,

Do you mean it or is it just something to say?

You're accountable for those words? Y'all? This is so heavy

on my heart because Jesus is coming back. You might

meet him tomorrow. I don't know, none of us know.

But are you ready? So we said, as a church

cross Kingdom is going deeper this year. We've got to

prepare our heart. We have to be ready to go

deeper with him. Salvation is key. You have to know

him to go deeper with him. And if you know him,

it's time to get off the milk and go deep

with him and start chewing on the meat. Please don't

be mad at me. I always feel so bad, But y'all,

the other day I was who knows Francis Channing? Here?

He's a pastor. Okay, so have any of you watched

his sermon, so don't be offended, But his sermons you suck.

And he literally has a baby bottle with milk in

it on the stage and he's talking about those of

us that are in the body that are still sucking

the bottle, blaming others, pointing fingers. If you haven't watched it,

watch it. Okay. I got a little offended at first,

but then I was like, oh my gosh, I can

see some of myself in that, y'all. I'm talking to

myself as I'm talking to you. This is not just

pointing the finger like we all of a sudden have arrived.

Our journey is a journey to the very end. Okay.

In fact, I'm gonna share a little bit on uh

my journey learning to abide in Him. So, like I said,

once you have salvation, or you are already saved, it's

time to get off the milk into the meat. So

what comes next? Learning to abide in Jesus, to go

from toil to trust. So John fifteen four or five,

seis abide in me and I in you. As the

branch cannot bear fruit in itself unless it abides in

the vine. Neither can you unless you abide in me.

I am the vine. You are the branches. Whoever abides

in me and I in him, he it is that

bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing.

So let's think about that a vine. Let's pretend my

body is a vine representing Jesus is the lifeline. He's

the vine, He is the body. Here's a vine. This

vine can do nothing apart from him. Connected to him,

I can bear a lot of fruit. Chop this off.

It's lying dead, worthless, useless. You have to be connected

to Jesus. You have to be abiding in him. I

don't know about you, but I sometimes struggle with toiling

not necessarily abiding. We try to do things in our

own strength. Who gets exhausted by that? I'm looking at

Chase Spencer. It's kind of fun calling people out up here.

Only friends and family. Okay, you can take a breath.

So let's go to Luke five one through eight. We

see a perfect example of this of toiling and not abiding.

Let me go back here. Oops, all right, Luke five

one through eight. On one occasion, while the crowd was

pressing in on him to hear the word of God,

he was standing by the lake. I cannot say that,

and he saw two boats by the lake, but the

fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets.

Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, he

asked him to put out a little from the land,

and he sat down and taught the people from the boat.

And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon,

put out into the deep and let down your nets

for a catch. And Simon answered, Master, we toiled all

night and took nothing, but at your word, I'll let

down the nets. And when they had done this, they

enclosed a large number of fish and their nets were breaking.

It's in this moment that Simon recognized the power and

authority of Jesus. He fell onto his knees, saying, depart

from me, for I am a sinful man. O Lord.

But you know what. Jesus responds by calling him into

greater purpose, telling him, do not be afraid. From now

on you will be catching men. This is such a

powerful picture of surrender. Peter had to let go of

his own understanding. He had to trust in the Lord.

Proverbs three five through six reminds us trust in the

Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on

your own understandings in all your ways. Acknowledge him and

he will make straight your paths. Many of us, like Peter,

have been striving, toiling, working tiresly, seeing little fruit. So

I'm gonna share a little bit story about myself that

I realized I still had some things I needed to

purify out of my heart. Justin can attest. It's true.

Let's just get real here. We all do. So. Back

in October, Well, let me back up. So, twenty sixteen

we started Cross Kingdom Church. He's very excited about that.

Twenty seventeen we started Mercygate Ministries. Yes, there you go.

And over these years I have seen the Lord move

in such amazing miraculous ways. I have had great faith

for the Lord to come through for Mercygate and for

Cross Kingdom in ways that I'm like, I'll tell Chay,

what are you stressing about? Why he's stressing about money?

You know, the Lord's gonna shut up. I mean, I'll

just run my mouth, poor Chay, And she's like, I know,

and she does know, and so here I am. I've

got this great faith for church and for Mercygate. But

when it comes to me personally, I struggle. I've worked

myself at times to the boom, just toiling. And this

is not I don't want you to feel sorry for me.

None of that. This has been by my own choice.

There's one time I literally had nine streams of income.

That's not oh good job, that's what the heck are

you doing? Why are you doing that? While I was

doing that because Justin could pay most of the bills,

I would pay the rest and anything extra college, vehicle

for kids, health insurance, anything extra I put on my back.

It's my job. Justin can't do anything else. And that's

not an insult to him. That's not what I'm saying.

I'm saying his focus needs to be the Church. So

I'll do it. So I'm just putting rocks in my backpack.

I'll do it. It's my job. I can do it.

I like to work, and I do like to work.

So I've wake up in the morning working. I'd go

to bed up midnight, sometimes one o'clock in the morning working.

This is outside of working for the church and working

for Mercygate. This is just all the extra so I

could cover things toiling toiling, so I had saved up

this little bit of money. College is coming, expenses, insurance

just went up. All this stuff. We get our tax bill, y'all.

Justin Saulen not so pretty side of me. I was

not happy. It wasn't a ton, but for us it

was a ton. And I was so mad because every

bit of money that I had toiled for and saved

up for now needs to go to the irs. I'm

not very happy about that. Can you imagine? Because Cole's

about to go to college and all this stuff. So

I'm getting a little snappy and the Lord gently taps

me on my shoulder. It's like, what are you doing.

It's not Justin's fault, and I was like, no, it's not.

But you know, that's kind of my go to. Who

do I get mad to? Well, I'll get mad at Justin.

You know, I'm not gonna get mad at any of you,

but maybe Justin, right, poor Justin, he gets picked on.

He's so good. But the Lord tapped me on my

shoulders like huh huh, don't do that, and I was like,

see my flesh wanted to but I said, okay, Lord,

I'm not going to do that. And he said, if

you trust me, watch and see what I can do.

And I said, okay, Lord. So I wrote out that

check the bank account sent it off to the irs

so it could go count chipmunks or squirrels or whatever else.

Sesame Street not very happy about all that. But anyways,

So that was in October, and I said, okay, Lord,

I'm going to trust you in this because we have

things coming up in expenses and we actually have more

debt and I don't know how we're going to ever

get rid of it. So I released it. I laid

it down, and then Chay and I had been invited

to go to a retreat in Nashville for eight days

of hope who came and built our house I know,

And on the way back, a friend reached out to

me and she was asking some kind of personal questions

and I was like, well, this is kind of weird,

but okay, I just share with her and y'all in

a moment, in a moment, what I toiled for, the

Lord gave me five times back like that. When I

surrendered and said I can't do it, Lord, it's got

to be you, he blessed me, he honored me. He said,

just trust me and see what I can do. And

Lord of Lord, and y'all, the Lord wants to do

that for you guys too. That's abiding and hear him.

I went from toiling, working, working, working, to abiding in him,

not knowing where or how we were going to pay

off some of these other debts, but the Lord did.

So to go deeper with the Lord, y'all, you have

to fully trust him. You have to surrender that thing

that you're holding onto. You have to let it go.

So going deeper with God, it doesn't happen by accident.

You can't sit on that pew or that chair and

expect well. If I go to church on Sunday, I

get fed an hour two hours on Sunday, and I

hit play on my Bible app and I just have

the Word playing in the background. That's not how you're

gonna go deeper with the Lord, y'all. You have to

be disciplined, you have to be intentional. You have to

have a hunger and a desire. And if we said,

as a church, we're going deeper with the Lord, then

we're gonna challenge you on that. Do we want to

see this community transformed and changed? We do? Then guess

who gets to do that? The body. It's not just

my job. It's not just Justin's job. It's not just

the elders, it's not the few chosen. It is us.

So as a body, you need to go after the Lord.

You need to be in his word. His word, y'all.

I love this scripture so much. This is not the

Bible at okay, I've got two minutes, no, Hebrews four twelve.

For the Word of God is living and active, sharper

than any two edged sword, piercing to the division of

soul and spirit, of joints andmorrow, and discerning the thoughts

and intentions of the heart. If you're not in the Word,

you're not growing. You want to go deeper, get in

the Word. You want to have a deeper relationship. How's

your prayer life? Do you just rattle off a few things? Lord,

I need this, I need that, Okay, help me with this?

All right? Bye bye? Do you sit and wait with him?

Do you wonder about how good our father is? Y'all?

You've got to have a prayer life. If I didn't

talk to Justin, if I didn't sit and spend time

with him, I don't know if we'd still be married.

It's relationship, it's communication. It's not one sided worship. Worship

ships shifts atmosphere, it changes, It changes your heart posture.

We've got to have a lifestyle of worship. And I

say lifestyle is worship. Isn't just coming on Sunday morning

singing some songs and making yourself feel good. No, that's

one little part of it. Your life needs to be

an active worship. What do I mean by that? Are

you serving in the nursery? That is worship? You're making

a sacrifice. You are worshiping the Lord by doing all

things unto him. And I'm gonna tell you if you're

doing anything unto man, stop it. Oh, I'm going to

do this because maybe it'll make pastor happy. No, that's

not an act of worship. Everything we do is worship,

can be worshiped. So I want to invite you all

to challenge yourselves, to check your hearts. What's your motive?

Why do you do what you do? The Lord's examining

your heart, your mind. He wants to be with you,

He loves you, he wants to be known by you. So,

as a church body who has declared that we're going

deeper this year, I want each of you to challenge

each other. And I know, like talking about some of

us are new to the faith. If you don't have understanding,

partner up with someone that can teach you. Join a

Bible study. If there's not a Bible study, start one,

go to a connect group. Y'all, you are without excuse.

You don't have an excuse. So as I close my prayer, guys,

is that we're like Moses. Let me know your ways,

show me your glory. Let's be like David who thirst

for the Lord. Micah, will you turn on the song?

I want us to take a moment, all of us,

to have a moment of self examination, do a heart check.

But I want to ask you to declare today today

you're going to go deeper with the Lord. And if

you are willing to do that and prayer teams, will

you come forward. If you are willing to go deeper

with the Lord, take a stand, stand up, come for

If you don't know the word, then come meet with

one of the prayer ministers here. Thank you for listening.

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